I'm Baaaaaack. And Bigger Than Ever!

Trying to lose weight just sucks. I didn’t lose it for my wedding, and I had a whole year to try. But I’ve done it before, and now, at my heaviest weight, I’m going to do it again. This time I’m going to track my progress. And I’m posting this on my blog site. And I’m going to take before pictures. And post them.


I’m a fairly active person, and I enjoy exercising. But I’m about 50 pounds overweight, and I’m unhappy with how my body looks and acts. More than anything, I need to change my eating habits, and I’m starting right now. (At this very moment, I am skipping the monthly office birthday party in order to write this, so I mean that literally.)

I’m going to make a series of small changes that are permanent, adding a new one each week. This week I have banned myself from all candy vending machines. I won’t even look at them. They are dead to me.

My weaknesses are sugar, chocolate, and soda. My strengths are my amount of exercise, a high volume of water drinkage, and a fondness for vegetables.

(Ok, I just had two deviled eggs from the birthday party. I’m so weak. But I did skip the cookies, cake and the cheese ball.) I think that I’m going to have to work on impulsiveness and making food in advance. There was a time when I always carried a protein bar and a couple of ounces of almonds around, just in case. Now I need to get back to exercise, discipline and affection and be a true pack leader. Oh wait, that’s the Dog Whisperer.

The Herb Lady

So, last week I decided that I needed a good multi-vitamin, not just the grocery store One-A-Day or Flintstone Complete, or whatever. Yesterday I went to the Herb Lady. That's the actual name of the store, tee-hee. It's very hippy-dippy. The store smelled like incense, and there was chanting coming from a radio. Anyway, I bought EVE, a multi-vitamin for women and chromimum picolate for sugar cravings.

Today, I took them and was completely bouncing off the wall. And my pee turned fluorescent green. I'm supposed to take the multi 3x a day, but I think that once works pretty well.

So here is the workout log for this week so far...

Monday

• Morning- I went to the gym and did Cardio Coach vol. 1 Revised on the Elliptical. I forgot what a great workout this is. 46 min. with extra warm up and stretching.
• Evening- I did about 30 min. of Tracy Stahle's Sweatfest kickboxing. This was a frustrating session for two reasons. 1) I was at my 2nd job. I get a paid dinner break, but I'm "on-call", and this time my session was interrupted 3 separate times. You have never seen someone scramble to change clothes so quickly! Finally, I just gave up. 2) The drills are good, but they are also very very long and monotonous. Tracy has poor kickboxing form, and by the 32nd jab cross jab, you just don't want to see it any more. Plus, it's hard to figure out if she's doing a side kick or a roundhouse kick, because her form is so bad.

Tuesday

• Afternoon- I took a 50 min. walk. It was very windy, but nice.
• Evening- I kicked some serious butt. I did both sections of Coffey's 30 Minutes to Fitness, and was WIPED out afterwards. 66 minutes.

Wednesday

• Afternoon- Cardio Coach vol. 2 on the Elliptical at the gym. 55 min. with extra warm up and stretching.
• Evening- Kickmax 49 minutes. I did the warm up through the combos, a little of the legwork and the cool down. I was at work again, but this time I had no interruptions. Yay.

This weekend I'm going out of town. My future mother-in-law is getting married. Yes, it sounds weird. Anyway, I'm a little peeved that when I finally get back on the exercise track, it gets derailed by life. Yes, I'm going to try to workout while I'm in St. Louis. No, I'm not going to get in as much as I want to.

It's Been a While

After months and months of not doing the blog, yesterday someone asked me if I had a blog, and of course, I said yes. That means I have to do lots and lots of writing to make it look like I'm not a total slacker (which I am). I have been on and off the wagon so many times, it's frustrating. I have never had so many problems sticking to a diet and exercise program.

But the good news is that I have lots and lots of new doggie pictures, plus new puppy pictures too!

P.S. I never did try the veggie enchiladas...but they look really good. Maybe next week.

Recipe: Veggie Enchiladas

I think I'm going to try this one on Thursday. I think I'm going to sub whole wheat tortillas for the corn ones, and the recipe doesn't say low-fat cheese, so I think I might sub 2% cheese. I also might put in half ground turkey or chicken for half of the spinach (I know, I know, but that's a lot of spinach).

Veggie Enchiladas- makes 4 servings

Ingredients:

• 2 packages (10 oz. each) frozen chopped spinach, thawed
• 1 ½ cups sliced mushrooms
• 1 can (15 oz.) pinto beans, rinsed and drained
• 3 tsp. chili power, divided
• ¼ tsp. red pepper flakes
• 1 can (8oz.) low sodium tomato sauce
• 2 Tbsp. water
• ½ tsp. hot pepper sauce
• 8 (8-inch) corn tortillas
• 1 cup (4oz.) shredded Monterey Jack cheese
• dash of salt

Directions:

1.In a large skillet combine spinach, mushrooms, beans, 2 tsp. chili powder and red pepper flakes over medium heat.

2. Cook 5 minutes, stirring often. Remove from heat.

3. Combine tomato sauce, water, remaining 1 tsp. Chili powder and pepper sauce in a pie pan. Stir.

4. Dip tortillas into tomato sauce mixture and stack on wax paper.

5. Divide spinach filling into 8 portions. Spoon onto centers of tortillas.

6. Roll up and place tortillas in microwavable dish.

7. Spread tomato mixture over enchiladas.

8. Cover dish with vented plastic wrap. Microwave at medium for about 10 minutes.

9. Sprinkle with cheese. Microwave at Medium for about 1 minute or until cheese is melted.

Nutrition per Serving: Calories 385, Total Fat 11g, Cholesterol 25mg, Sodium 741mg, Carbohydrates 55g, Dietary Fiber 2g, Protein 22g.

What Have I Been Doing?

Not too much. My evening job hours changed, and I'm working a lot more...therefore I'm working out a lot less. :( I've also been dealing with some family-related stress that made my diet take a nose-dive straight into the bottom of the sugar bowl. So this is kind of the relapse of the relapse. Or something.

As for my workout and diet log... well, I seem to be working out about 3 to 4 days a week, and eating protein for breakfast (and loads of sugar and calories for the rest of the day). So I'm not quite back at square one, but close enough for disco. Guess this means I'm not going to lose 5 lbs before Thanksgiving. Oh well. The more I tell myself it's not about losing weight, the more weight I don't lose. I think maybe I should just be honest.

Hell yeah, I want to lose 10, uh, 15, uh, 20 pounds!! I want to prance around in my skinny jeans again, and put away the fat clothes. I'd settle for pulling out the medium sized clothes. And yes, I have three wardrobes. And two of them seem to last a damn long time, because they've been in storage for over a year now. My fiancee is skinny. Even my dog is skinny. I want to be a matching set. Ok, I feel better now.

On the good side, I've got new pictures of my puppy. He's about 10 1/2 months old now.

Just Logging In

Slowly but surely, I'm getting back on track. I bumped my eating plan all the way back to Step 1 (protein with breakfast), and am working on a good workout schedule.

Sat: Workout- none, Eating- protein w/breakfast, but lots of calories and sugar.

Sun: Workout- none, Eating- same as Sat.

Mon: Workout- Ch/Ba from the 4 Day Split. 30 min walking dog. Eating- Same as Sun.

Tues: Workout- Bootcamp/Bi/Tri from the 4 Day Split. I actually threw up from all of that up and down movement (a first for me!). I'd say that it was because I was working so hard, but I was doing some serious modifications, and watching my heart rate during Bootcamp. Eating- a little better.

The next week is going to be tough to get my workouts in...I'm pulling extra hours at my part time job to cover for a co-worker.

Sigh. Shake Head. Now Listen to the Sinus Saga

Other than a couple of walks with the dog, I haven't exercised at all this week or part of last week. And the eating, well, it's been horrible. Normally I'd be all disappointed in myself, etc (well, just see my last post!), but here's the deal.

I'm sick. On Monday night I didn't get any sleep because every time I went to lie down, I had stabbing pains in my ear, my jaw, and my teeth. Tuesday I made an appointment with the doctor (since it started as an earache) for Wednesday. Tuesday night I didn't get any sleep, because now, in addition to lying down, I also had pains when sitting down. For what it's worth, I did do a lot of laundry, and I have a clean kitchen. Wednesday morning I cancelled my doctor's appointment and went to the dentist instead. And guess what.

It wasn't a tooth problem. Yippee...no root canal for me. So then I had to make another doctor appointment. Apparently, it's an incredibly packed sinus infection. I can't believe sinus stuff can hurt so much. So I'm on antibiotics and Mucinex, but I'm still in a lot of pain. On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being it hurts so much I want to throw up, then cut out one half of my face so it doesn't hurt any more, I was at an 8/9, and now I'm at a bearable (but not happy) 5 with spikes into 6 and 7. And I've gotten about 4 hours of sleep, so I'm sounding kind of lucid again.

But I think my fall from workout/eating well grace since last Wed (or was it Thursday?) has been because I've been having some sinus issues that have been getting progressively worse. So it's time to regroup. Again. Sigh. Shake head. At least it wasn't a root canal.

Uh oh

I've been bad. Very bad. Baaaaaaaaaaaad. I've been doing so well with my sugar reduction plan, but the past two days have been getting progressively worse. And today was absolutely horrible. I think my teeth are starting to ache from all the sugar I've had. The worst part is that my calories have been within range, so that means that 30-60% of my daily intake has been sugar. I don't even want to write this. Ugh. I guess the good news is that I am not craving anything sugar. I'm kind of grossed out by how much I ate, and how I feel right now (physically and emotionally). So I'm ready to get back on track, but I have a feeling I'm going to be a very cranky person for the next couple of days.

Okay. I'm going to move on, and mend my high fructose corn syrup ways. I promise.