Catching Up

I wish I could say I haven't been slacking, but the truth is I have.  Not intentionally, but some of it I have been completely aware of and done nothing to fix it.

Yesterday I hit a low.  After a night of drinking too much (I may or may not have expelled everything Sunday morning) and not eating healthy at all for 2 days I was really down on myself.  I didn't get to run Monday or Tuesday because the baby was up to eat once again at my run time.  But now all of a sudden it was taking 45 minutes to get her back to sleep.

I don't know why I drink.  I mean yeah I have fun when I'm doing it, but I always feel like crap about it and tend to get depressed for a few days after.  Yesterday when the hubby asked what was wrong I told him I just need a run, some sort of exercise.  There is more that could fix my mood, but it wouldn't be as quick as a good run or workout.

Well I got my run in this morning!  And the baby slept the whole time!  I think it's the longest run I've had in a while!

 I was very happy to see that even with not running for 4 days my pace wasn't effected and neither was my endurance.  I think I actually had more endurance today than last week.  Maybe it was just all the steam I was letting off?

I'm so happy to see that I'm averaging a 10:30 mile (the first mile had a 3 minute walk warm up).  I'm just happy to be able to run a 5k now.  Makes me wonder how I would actually do on pavement.  Maybe one of these weekends I'll try and find some where to run.  My house isn't exactly located in a friendly running area.

Today I'm feeling good.  I hope I get to run again tomorrow!

Weekly Weigh In

Well, let's get right to it...

I'm not all that pleased with this number.  I mean really, I couldn't lose another .1 to see that 179.9?  Oh well, it's going to be a good day anyway!

I had a great run this morning...

This is a pace I feel comfortable with and it would actually be better I didn't do a warm up and cool down.  I have to that early in the morning though.  This morning I was wishing I could run outside.  To feel like I'm going somewhere.  To really have my thoughts to myself and concentrate on just running, but it is what it is and for now this is what I have.  

Plus last night I had my highest consistent bowling scores.  I've been pretty steady at the 370 series scores.  Not stellar by any means, people aren't lining up to have me on their team, but when I started 2 years ago I could barely make a 300 series.  Well last night I had my first 400 series!  It was a 453 and my scores were consistent! 151, 161, 141.  Consistency it a big problem for me.  And I thought it was pretty neat they were all a difference of 10.

Now why am I really excited?   It's Sister's Weekend!  What is Sister's Weekend you ask?  It's a weekend where my MIL, her sister and SIL and her daughter and a family friend all go up to a cabin sit around in our pajamas, drinking beer, eating junk and watching movies.  It's every mom's dream!  I'm really gonna have to work my ass off next week.  The planned food: chicken wing dip, macaroni and cheese, ribs, cake balls, pumpkin truffles, breakfast casserole, spiced (rum) cider.  Part of me says take some healthy food, the other part says why bother?  We'll see...

Hope everyone has as good a weekend planned as I do!

Japanese Choclate

First off it's soooo yummy!

It really is smooth!

Individually wrapped

I really don't know which I like better!

And this is how close they leave it to my desk!

 I've done good, in the 5 days it's been here I've only had 6 pieces!

Go Me!

Yes I am proud of this picture. 6 months ago I would have eaten the whole damn thing and thought nothing of it.  But this is where I stopped this time! 

PS - about half a cup of rice went to my daughter and not in my mouth too!

Weekly Weigh In

I was right, today's weigh in sucked and it's my own damn fault.

185.0

I'm really disappointed with myself.  I could have done it this week and I should have!  If I had showed just a little self control on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week I would have had a decent loss of a pound I'm sure.  I really wanted to be out of the 180's by the end of this month, but it's not going to happen :-(  

I could probably come up with a million excuses, but I'm not going to because the simple truth is: If I had more self control on my food I wouldn't have had a problem.

I really need to work on not letting other's influence my eating.  And portion CONTROL!  I need to stop eating because it tastes good.  I need to only eat because I'm hungry.

This is one of those times where I would normally eat my disappointment, which would lead me to being depressed cause I did that, and the depression would lead to more eating which leads to less exercise and then I'd give up.

NOT THIS TIME.  I CAN'T.  I WON'T!  I'm only 10lbs away from what I was on my wedding day and I WANT IT!  I WILL HAVE IT!

I CAN DO THIS!

Have I convinced you yet?  I'm really trying to psych myself up here. 

Eat Healthy, Get Fit, Sleep, Repeat

Dread

Yes, I'm dreading tomorrow's weigh in.  I shot this week's work all to hell yesterday.  And yes I'm right back on the wagon today, but after the sodium and carb infested day on Wed and my inability to eat normal portions of food yesterday, I'm not expecting the scale to move at all tomorrow!

Especially since I didn't get a work out in this morning (I'm really not happy about this and it wasn't my fault) and not being able to squeeze it in tonight since B is out of town and it's bowling night.  It's gonna be a get home, pray I can get dinner made and the kids fed before I have to leave for bowling.  Oh yeah and me fed too so that I'm not eating crap at the bowling alley!

Wish me luck.

Pushing, Underwear, Sodium & Carbs

Like the title?  It's really just some random stuff that was running through my mind this morning as I was working out.  Pick your chin up off the ground, it's not that amazing that I did a full work out!

Pushing...
For some reason this week I've decided I want to push myself with my runs.  The interval running I've been pushing myself with the interval running I've been doing since 6mph is FAST for me.  But I didn't feel like I was pushing enough.  So yesterday instead of intervals I wanted to see if I could run at 5mph for an extended time.  I did it!  12 minutes at 5mph.  I'm pretty sure I was only going 4.5 last time ran for any extended amount of time.  Then this morning I decided to go for 5.5mph.  Yeah that was a little fast, but I did it for 5 minutes! and then I continued on with my normal interval and felt better when I was done.  And also my pace was under 12 minutes!!!  My goal is to have an average pace of around 11 so since I plan on sticking with just a 20 minute run for a while I'm going to keep working on my pace.

Underwear...
I'm having issues.  Seems my ass is shrinking!  Sounds great, but it means my underwear is getting lose in the ass, which means that when I run it moves around, scrunches up and whatever else I can't quite find the words to explain.  Now, I have underwear that still fit, but I get dressed for the day after my shower, which is after my morning workout.  Like most people (I'm making an assumption here) I wear the same underwear until I get in the shower again the next morning.  So I end up with issues.  Just had to vent about that...

Sodium & Carbs...
SUCK!  I ate so good yesterday!  I had over 1000 calories left for dinner and all I had was a seasoned pork chop and some stuffing.  OK, it was probably 2 servings of stuffing, but either way, I had 1000 cals left (not counting my exercise cals).  Plus I drank almost 100oz of water.  What did I wake up to this morning, a gain on the scale...  Then I remembered telling my mom the chops were a little salty tasting.  So yeah, I have a love hate relationship with sodium and carbs right now.

Now that you've read all my rambling, get off your ass and do something!

In My Head

So apparently the post I wrote yesterday was only in my head... For some reason I honestly thought I posted yesterday.  The post was something like this....

Back at it... I picked up right where I left off.  As tired and miserable as I am, right now my exercise and eating is the only thing I have control over, so I'm going to own that bitch!

Today, well I'm still owning her, just not as forcefully as yesterday.  Baby girl was up up from around 10 (I think) til almost 1 this morning.  I got up at 4:30 and still did my run.  Rather than doing the interval training I have been doing with Workout 1, I decided to just do the warm up, run the 12 minutes at 5mph and the cool down.  I had to push myself through my exhaustion, but in the end I did it and probably could have gone farther if I had the time.  I was also happy to see that I had my fastest 1K ever this morning according to Nike+.

It's amazing what a little work out and watching what you eat can do in just a day.  I was down 1.6lb in just a day! *Don't give me shit for weighing myself daily, right now it gives me motivation*

Now stop reading about my small successes and go have your own!

This and That.

This post is going to be a little random. I'm exhausted and my mind just isn't putting things together.

First I want to start with a big "hey y'all" to my new followers!  Hope I don't bore you too much and maybe even inspire you a little (probably not with this suck ass post though).

If I'm honest I could have eaten better this weekend. Wing dip, pizza and peach cobbler doesn't add up to pounds lost :-(

Neither does my lack of exercise.  Although, my arm and ab muscles are still a little sore from having to sleep sitting up with a 16.5lb baby in them for 2 nights and 2 days earth of naps.

Which led to yesterday's lack if exercise because I was so exhausted. 5 hours of sleep in 2 days just isn't enough.

And now the hubster has a man cold. Ok its a cold and he really feels like shit so he's sleeping in the couch so he doesn't get anyone else sick, but really I can do without the moaning every 30 seconds. Anyway, this led me to not working out this morning too because I work out in the livingroom where he was sleeping.  Not that I was disappointed since baby girl had me up 2 hours past my bed time.

So there you have, this girl needs a swift kick in the ass!

Week 19 Weigh In

A little recap of this week…

Sunday I ate like a pig, shoveling greasy, cheesy, hot sausage dip yumminess into my mouth uncontrollably.  I even sat across the room from it and it was beckoning me… really, it was saying “Brandi, eat me… eat me… just one more bite…”  Yeah not my finest moment, but damn it was good!

Monday was a hectic day and besides having a second burger (no buns) I didn’t do too bad with my eating.

Tuesday was a shitastic day and although I brought a nice healthy lunch to work, I let my mom treat me to Mexican, it was so yummy and I ate too much, but damn, we hadn’t gone out for Mexican in forever!  Then it was pork chops and potatoes for dinner with some really yummy sautéed veggies.

Wednesday I was a good girl, but

Thursday, well Thursdays are tough.  I drank 7, yes that s-e-v-e-n 24oz glasses of water!  

I use a dry erase marker to mark every time I finish a glass.

 And then I followed it up with at least a pitcher of beer at bowling last night.  Oh and did I mention we had spaghetti for dinner too?

What did I do right this week you ask, well I got my ass out of bed and did Workout 1 EVERY DAY!  Including today even though when I woke up my brain said “you are tired, go back to bed, your head hurts, go back to bed.”  I refused!  When I did my run, the little devil on my shoulder said “if you can’t run the 2 minutes at 6, it’s ok, you’re a little off this morning.” But that sweatband, spandex wearing (think 80’s workout clothes all hot pink and neon yellow) said “Bitch run!  That was last night and this is today!”  and guess what, she was right!  I did my entire workout to the max and man can my muscles feel it!  That’s right, I have muscles, muscles you can see!

Yes I know they still need work...

So anyway, my hard work paid off…

Down another 1.4!  It dawned on me today that I’ve over half way to my goal now!  And only 3lbs away from a number I haven’t seen in almost 5 years! 

Feeling good about myself this week.
My "feeling skinny"outfit (in yellow)
is now my "feeling fat" outfit!

Slacker?

Yes and no...

Yes I've been slacking with blogging...
Yes I've slacked on my eating...
No I haven't slacked on my exercise...

I'm down, not really weight related, but I do think it's being effected.  Maybe I should have titled this blog "Eating my Moods and Emotions..."  Today I am regretting how relaxed I was with my eating on Sunday, the last two days wouldn't seem so bad if I hadn't been so bad Sunday.  Anyway, I can't dwell on it because I've already consumed the yummy ass fattening food.  I still have a chance at maintaining this week.

I've created my own routine though and it seems to be working pretty well.  I've been a little sore most days.  For Reference purposes I've going to call it Workout One, cause well, it's the first workout I've come up with on my own.

Itty Bits of Balance

I started by using this Running Workout.  Then I realized that I run at a snails pace so I had to modify it for myself.

Workout One
20 Minute as follows: Holy crap does this get my heart going!

Strength:

Bicep Curls in the squat position - I get in the squat position as low as I can. Feet hip width apart making sure the knees never go over the toes.
Holding this position I do 12 bicep curls.  Arms down at sides, palms facing forward, raise palms to shoulders, lower.


Raised Bicep Curls in the Sumo squat position - "sumo squat" is shown to the left, then I raise my arms parallel with the floor, palms up and bring weights to my shoulders and back to the starting position, repeat 12 times.



Butterfly with a held pelvic curl (butt lift) - Lay on the floor, knees bent, feet flat on the floor.  Raise your butt up in the air and hold.  Tighten the glutes and abs.  Hold arms out to the sides, palm up.  In a steady motion bring weights together over your chest and then back to starting position.  Repeat 12 times.

Bench Press with help pelvic curl (butt lift) - Stay on the floor in the pelvic curl position.  Keeps arms out to the sides, bent 90 degrees at elbows, palms facing your feet.  Push weights straight up and return to starting position.  Repeat 12 times.

Bicycle Crunch - 30 total (15 each side)

Repeat Strength 3 times.

Pinspired Dinner

The Pin

Buffalo Chicken Casserole

My Creation

I made this meal a 6 serving dish and each serving only had 314 calories and plenty of flavor!

You can find the full recipe here

I liked that the chicken isn't pre-cooked and prep was minimal besides grating the potatoes.

The only thing I might change next time is using noodles instead of potatoes, or maybe pre-cooking the potatoes some.

If you'd like to follow my me on Pinterest, you can find me here.

Parfaits

Seems all my blogging is about food today!

I might be just a little a lot obsessed.

It all started one day when I forgot to bring a snack to work.  I went down to the cafeteria and there was the greatest looking strawberry and yogurt parfait, with the granola in a separate container on the top!  It was D-Lish-US!

So I had them several days and then realized they were most likely using regular yogurt, not non-fat and I had no idea how many calories the granola had.  Then I remember I had some granola I bought a while back and decided to make my own.  O.M.G.

1 cup Strawberries, sliced
3/4 Cup Fit & Active Vanilla Yogurt
1/4 Cup Bear Naked Vanilla Almond Granola

278 calories!  And so filling!

I ran out of granola and went to buy more and guess what!  There are a million kinds out there.  I got the Peanut Butter and the Pumpkin kinds because my new favorite parfait is banana!

The banana with the peanut better is A-MAZE-ING!

Maybe this weekend I can get out the ingredient to that one and give the calories and such. (see I've been bad about logging them)  I'm pretty sure it's right around 300 though, the perfect breakfast!  It's also helping me get my dairy in without so much cheese, I <3 cheese.

Tomorrow is weigh in day...

Well, Almost

Dinner:

I had two plates of salad that looked like this (only 1.5 bread sticks) and I caved and had a piece of pizza, it was a small pie so I'm estimating the slice was maybe 300 calories.  Since before dinner I had only consumed about 800 calories I don't feel all that bad about the pizza.

Post Workout:

I can't even tell you how many times I had already wiped my face.  I don't know if I pushed myself hard enough with in the arms, but my quads are feeling it and my back.  I hate that it's other parts of my body that give out before the abs do in the abs parts.  Like the leg crosses kill my quads, not my abs.

And here I am looking all good today.  Ok, not one of my favorite outfits, but I'm happy to say that the pants are a size 16 and start falling down when I walk!!! (I started this journey in a rather tight size 20!

PS I love long skinny mirrors!  But I'm starting to not hate my big wide mirror in the bathroom so much. (who puts a huge wide mirror right on the wall next to the shower so you can look at your gross naked body EVERY time you get in?  I certainly didn't put it there, but I did leave it.)

Fighting Back!

This morning I was going to write about my emotional eating, how I hate it and how I’ve been spiraling out of control.  But then I read this Post on Spoken Dreams of a Realist and decided I want to talk more about fighting back.

If I am honest and think about all the times I gave up before I can probably pin point one stressful thing that caused me to eat horrible, and then I got down on myself for eating horrible, then the scale showed it and then I gave up.

I refuse to give up this time.  Right now I’m very frustrated.  I’m mad at myself for making excuses this weekend not to work out.  I’m mad at myself for not getting my ass outta bed yesterday to do it.  And I’m mad at myself because I feel like I had a major lack of effort when I did work out this morning.

Let’s not even talk about the train wreck that was my eating yesterday.  I had a big juicy mushroom burger for lunch and then pizza and wings for dinner.  I don’t even want to say how many pieces of pizza I ate!

I know what triggered my eating yesterday and when I ordered my lunch I even said to my sister “I should be getting the salad, but I really want this…” and when B suggested picking up dinner I said “how about pizza, I feel like eating my emotions tonight.”

Now that I know I try to eat my emotions away, I get more upset at myself for not fighting the urge.  I obviously knew very well last night that I was totally stressed and overwhelmed and eating horribly because of it and I did it anyway.  The healthy girl inside really wants to punch myself in the stomach and say “This does less harm to your body than that shit you stuffing your face with!”

I am going to fight back!  I’m going to let the healthy girl inside punch me!  I’m going to listen to her!  I'm going to feel excited about having the chance to lose this week and fight the urge to say "well what's the point, I already ruined this week."  You know what, every time you eat, it's a new start, not just every morning or every Monday!

Since my MIL just informed me she is ordering pizza for dinner tonight (gee thanks) I’m going to ask her to get me a salad.  I am NOT going to eat pizza!  I am going to take a picture of my salad and post it!  I am not going to give in!!!  I CAN do this!

I am also going to bust my ass tomorrow morning!  I’m going to work for the 30DS results I want!

3 Days

Regrettably that is how long it has been since I've worked out.  Friday night we left for my mom's camp.  I was so excited because I was able to fit my workout mat and weights!

Friday night when it came time for Lillian to lay down and watch her movie we found that daddy only packed the car plug for the DVD player, not the house plug.  So I made her watch TV.  To my disappointment Saturday I put my workout clothes on only to find that apparently there was no charge to the DVD player at all.  I actually considered using the DVD player in my mom's room (it's the only one there) until I remembered there is jumping and I really didn't want to be waking the girls, they were sleeping in there.

So no work out.  Although we did go for a few walks in the sweltering sun and I sweat so much that Lillian was nice enough to wipe her hand across my forehead and say "What's this mom?"  Gross!!!

It wasn't until I was complaining to my mom later that she said "why didn't you just take my computer and do it outside (which was my original plan with the portable DVD player we brought).  DUH!  why didn't I think of that?  By then it was after 7, I had consumed a few drinks and working out just wasn't what I wanted to do, especially with all the people around!

Yesterday I just wasn't comfortable doing it.  I couldn't get the computer without waking my mom and by the time she got up a bunch of other people were up and again, I'm not into a bunch of people I barely know watching me do a DVD that I can barely do.

This morning was a complete fail!  Last night Laney couldn't sleep.  She didn't wake up to eat until 3, so when my alarm went off at 3:30 I hit snooze and apparently did so for almost an hour and a half!  It was time to shower by the time I got my ass out of bed!  Hopefully I can get it in tonight when I get home.

On the plus side, even though I ate fast food twice, yes twice this weekend, I'm still at 188.  Let me just say that fast food was enough to last me 6 months.  I can't believe I used to eat that shit all the time!  I thought I was going to be sick for an hour about 2 hours after I actually ate it.

Hope everyone else is doing better than me!  Get off your butt and move!

Failure and Success

Lunch was a complete fail yesterday!  All the way there I was thinking how I was going to be good, I was going to be able report back that I did it, I got the wrap and be happy with myself.  Well then I got there and the noticed the special on the sign said Mushroom Guada Burger.  I said "Nope" to myself and walked in.  Then my boss hands me the list of specials and I for some reason read the burger one.  It had all my favorites on it!  Bacon, mushrooms, cheese.  It was also cheaper than the wrap and right now $ is tight, cheaper is better.  I caved... to the tune of about 2000 calories once you get the home made chips in there :-(  It was good though, just don't really think it was worth it.

On the success side, I finished Level 2 of 30 Day Shred today!  I'm not sure I'm totally ready to move on since I still have a little trouble keeping up, but I'm going to give it a shot, it's how we push ourselves right.
According to my measurements this morning Level 2 got rid of 4.75 inches! For a total of 7.25 inches. I'm not so sure how accurate those numbers are though for 2 reasons.

1. My beginning and Level 1 measurements were taken in the evening and after noon, not first thing in the morning.  (I may possibly be more bloated adding inches in the evening?)
2. My 3 year old has hidden my measuring tape on me and I had to use ribbon and metal measuring tape for measurements this morning.

Either way, I know I've lost something and I'm still feeling good about it.  I think I've decided to try a Couch to 10k program.  

Feeling Good

I’m feeling good about myself today.  I’m not really sure why, but I have a positive attitude this morning.  I’m obviously not focusing it towards my work like I should be, but eh.

I was exhausted when I got up this morning and really had to push myself to work out, but I did it and I feel better.  I can’t believe today was Day 9 of Level 2!  I’m a little nervous about moving on to Level 3 because at time I still can’t keep pace with Level 2.  I do all the exercises, but not at the same pace.  I almost thought about moving up in weights this morning because with the hammer kicks and some of the rows I don’t feel like I’m getting much resistance on those muscles, but damn do my shoulders still throb by the time she says it’s time for the last minute of abs!

This is one of my favorite outfits right now (minus the shoes, we have a closed toe policy at work).  Unfortunately after only 2 hours of wear, the pants are starting to fall off!  Basically when I put them on they just rest on my hips so by the time I bend and sit a little, they are stretched too much to stay up.  Not that I’m complaining, but part of what I was talking about yesterday, they just started fitting me 3 weeks ago, max!

I’m a little nervous about this week’s weigh in.  While I’m back to wear I was Friday after a Sunday of practically no water, I have a work lunch today.  My plan is to order the Chicken Bella.  It’s a wrap with chicken, baby portabella mushrooms, onions, lettuce, tomato and balsamic dressing.  It comes with a side of home made chips (my favorite!)  What I really want is all one of the following, mild garlic chicken wings, chicken quesadilla, big mouth burger smothered in cheese and bacon, garlic cheese bread.

Please give me the strength to only order the wrap!!!

A Good Start

Nope, not really.

Sunday was supposed to be my first day of Level 2 on 30DS.  Well I had a little too much fun Saturday night.  I honestly can't remember the last time I drank like that.  I'm pretty sure I was still drunk Sunday morning when we got up and went to breakfast.  We got the girls from my MIL's and then we spent half the afternoon in my room watching Shrek over and over (yay 3 year olds).  Then we went and picked up stuff for spaghetti and had a wonderful dinner with my sister.  After getting home after 8pm I was not about to do day one of level 2 and then get up at 4am and do it again.

So 4am Monday morning rolls around and guess who wakes up, the baby.  I tried, I fed her, I put her in her swing and I started, she let me get through circuit 1 before she had had enough.  I tried to figure something out, but she just wasn't having it.  Before I knew it I had to get in the shower and there went my work out.

I tried to be good eating cause I was pretty sure that I wasn't getting work out in.  Thank god I ate well at work cause dinner was a 3 Meat Pizza and bread sticks.  And since I felt like I'd been starving all day (and I resisted the urge to stuff my face), I had 3 *gasp* slices of pizza and 2 of the smallest bread sticks.  Yeah, holy face stuffing at dinner.  At 6 though I had convinced my 3 year old to sit in the over sized rocking chair with her sister and watch me work out.  I even put my work out clothes on!  The second I set the baby down she started screaming and for the next hour I had to walk her around the house to keep her quiet.  I'm still not sure if it was gas or teeth, but hey the walking got me sweating a little so I guess its better than nothing.

On the plus side, I logged all my food and I was just within my calorie goal!

Today Jillian kicked my ass on Day 1 of Level 2, but in the next 10 days I will own that shit!

7 Days Down

I've now done 7 days straight of the 30DS and I'm proud.  The first 2 days left me very sore!  The next 2 not as sore so I bumped up the weights.  I've been sick and feeling like crap, but I am pushing through, I HAVE to, mostly because I know I can and because I want to push myself.  I even feel like I'm not pushing myself during some of the video so I try harder.

I can do girl push-ups!  And I can do several of them!  I am ashamed to say that a few months ago I could do one and not be able to get up from the next one.

I'm kind of nervous about moving to level 2 in a few days.

I want to bitch slap JM every time she says "just a couple more" and then we do like 10 more.  And when she says "don't stop, we're right there with you."  I want to punch her and say "Bitch those girls might be with me, but the only thing you've been moving is you lips!"

Now I just need to get my eating back on track.  I've really been wanting to eat my emotions away, but I'm resisting!  It's HARD.  I haven't been tracking the best and that normally means I'm not eating the best.  I need to get myself in check!