Carb Loading

Not that I needed to carb load…that’s just what we did!  haha.  oooops.  That’s what happens when you wait until it’s 9pm and you are very cranky when you finally decide to go for dinner.

I spent a good part of the afternoon out getting my hair done, so I had to catch up on work in the early evening.  I also really wanted to head to the mall tonight so when we agreed to do that dinner kind of got pushed to the side.

By the time we got to the mall I was cranky and hungry!  I checked the two stores I wanted to check and then we headed straight back out to find some dinner.  For the sake of time and ease we chose Jack Astors.  (I really need to find a better “last minute” choice!…it would help if we didn’t live in suburbia with few non-chain restaurant choices.)

We opted for Astor Blastors to drink.  WooT!  Gotta love some coconutty kids drinks. :)

For dinner we shared two entrees:  the Honey Sesame Chicken Stirfy thingy and the Parmesan Chicken Pasta thingy.  :)

I ate too fast because I was starving and wound up stuffed!!

However, the good news is I have absolutely no desire for a treat in front of the TV tonight!!  haha, silver lining!

The rest of the day was just a mish-mosh of meals thrown together.  Carby carby carby.

Coffee and blueberry scone for breakfast.

 

Strawberry yogurt with thawed frozen blueberries and raspberries for a snack.

Peanut butter and banana sammich for lunch on the run to the hair dresser.  (I ate the other half of the banana after my appointment).

There was a tiny reheated bowl of leftover potatoes when I got home too, but I ate em so fast I didn’t take a picture for you all. nom nom nom.  :)

What a mish-mosh of unhealthy crap.  Geeeeeeze.

Late Night GBU Edition

Good: I had a huge salad for dinner.
Bad: There was cheesecake in our fridge, leftover from our party.
Ugly: There is no longer cheesecake in our fridge, but there is lots in my tummy.


You know what's stupid. I'm not even that big of a cheesecake fan. If that box had been closed and in the freezer I never would have given it a second thought. But because DBF opened it and it was staring me in the face, I just couldn't pass it up.

Boooooo.

And there you have it...

I'm officially at the heaviest I've been in at least 6 months. I just looked back through my calendar and nowhere between now and January have I ever gone over the 156lb mark (usually not over 154 if I can help it).....today I am 156.4...boooooooooooooooooo!! My maintenance is supposed to be under 155...my goal was 150, but my body is generally it's happiest at 152-153. Meh. So at least 3 pounds need to take a hike...like NOW!

We had a fun weekend, with LOTS of tasty eats and far too much wine....but today I am back on the straight and narrow. Most of the extra cheese and treats and such have vacated the building (mainly because we ate it at like 11:00 last night!) so aside from a couple of pieces of pizza there isn't too much left to taunt me. I will fit in one piece of pizza as my lunch...and honestly don't care if the rest goes to the trashcan.

I already hit the gym this morning, so that's a great motivational start! I did a sweaty power-walk with random inclines on the treadmill for 25 minutes, followed by a 10 minute random hill ride on the recumbant bike (with a 3 minute cooldown), and a complete set of my strength training routine. I really pushed myself today and was able to up the weights on two more of the exercises. My exercise was non-existant for the long weekend and I'm determined to make it up this week....shouldn't be a problem. :)

On the way home from the gym, I stopped at the grocery store and picked up some fresh produce, dairy, lean meats, etc so there are no excuses for dinners and snacks for the next few days. My friends the fresh fruits have returned and I am sooooo on them! I'll be keeping them company with lots of water....and laying off the booze until I can rehydrate and knock off at least a pound or two...sun or no sun I can drink Coke Zeros with fresh lemons and limes if I need a bevvie on the deck!

And my final hurrah for today is that I stopped for my Starbucks treat after shopping, and I only got a coffee. No latte. No Doubleshot. No tasteless baked good. Just good old coffee! Yaaieeeee!

Today's healthy, yummy, super-duper menu plan:

- 1 litre water already down
- 1/2 of a Satisfibre Express natural blueberry bar
- coffeeeeeeeeeeeee
- plum
- 1% cottage cheese with pineapple tidbits & chopped orange
- lunch will be one slice of leftover Costco pizza with another full litre of water
- last of the cherries and 1 apricot
- baby carrots if I need another snack
- dinner is chicken breasts marinated Asian style grilled on the BBQ, served with steamed asparagus with sesame oil, and that yummy Asian slaw. oh, and another litre of water.
- evening snack...either a creamsicle or blackberries with vanilla yogurt

Woooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

How it actually went down...

You see that menu in yesterday's post? So did not happen. (This happens often...great plan, not so great execution). First problem was that I forgot my granola bar when I went shopping, so instead of my iced latte I wound up with a triple grande no-fat vanilla latte and a hunk of chocolate chip banana cake thingy (apparently reduced fat, but still about 6 points!). At least the latte was only 1 point more than originally planned...and I don't feel guilty about getting an extra point worth of skim milk. But I really didn't need that banana thing...could have made it home, or could have just bought something better at the grocery store. Stupid impulse eating. (On a bright note, it was freaking tasty and moist so at least it was somewhat worth it...)

So, rather than let the day get out of hand as I normally would, I came home with my new groceries and wrote out a new plan. On paper. In red ink. Right beside me on my desk.

This is what I actually ate:
- the latte (3)
- the evil banana cake (6)
- Liberte Moka yogurt (2), 1/2 banana (1), 1/4 cup All Bran (0)
- 1/2 cup raspberries & blackberries (1)
- baby carrots w/ hummus (2)
- sammich on yummy fresh thin-sliced multigrain bread: 2 oz light cheddar, spinach, tomatoes, mustard, 1 tsp light Miracle Whip (6)
- chopped tomatoes & cukes marinated in 1 tbsp Newman's Own Italian dressing, served over spinach, with 1 oz shredded part-skim mozzarella (2)
- Kashi granola bar (2)
- 1 cup new Kashi Honey Almond Flax Crunchy cereal (4)
- with skim milk (1)

Total = approx 30 points....much better than the runaway train I started out on. With my high intensity trainer session, I'd say I landed right where I should on the menu/points.


As for my workout.... not sure that my mojo has returned, but at least with my trainer there I pushed harder than I might have on my own. Downside is that I was only with her for an hour so we didn't make it through three full sets of my new routine. I probably should have stayed afterwards and finished up on my own, but such is life. At least the new routine seems more fun....likely because I'm just bored with the old routine, but who cares why!

I did get to add 3.9km to my distance challenge and another ladybug sticker to my calendar. :)

Un-freaking-friendly

Don't you hate it when you eat something points unfriendly and it's not even good? That's what happened at lunch. My Grandpa decided he wanted to eat at a local seafood restaurant....thinking this would be a great healthy option, we agreed. Good God, has that place gone dowwwwwwnhill. Everything was battered or fried. I opted for a Seafood Club which was really good, but not particularly good for me since it was laden with dill mayo and had thick strips of bacon. Such is life. But I paired it with their creamy clam chowder, which was completely disappointing. More like flour and potato soup. Boooooo. At least it was the one big meal for today so I'll just chalk it up to the whole day's points and stick with water and tea for the rest of the night. Maybe strawberries as my evening snack.

Good news is that the sun is supposed to come out tomorrow.....so maybe I can get my morning walk in before my train trip back to Victoria.

I just wanted to let you all know...

....that I'm about to go downstairs and eat Decadent chocolate chip cookies and milk...and you can't stop me!

You will all understand... I had a bad night trying to buy new bras. I came home with the knowledge that I've gone down another cup size (why did I have to lose weight in my boobies?!) and my size is hard to come by apparently. I came home empty handed and disappointed.

I need cookies STAT!

Sunday Damage Control

So last night's plan for salad and chicken didn't work out. You all knew it wouldn't. I never order salad in a restaurant...well, hardly ever anyway. We went to The Fife & Drum and their menu was so damn boring. They did offer some sort of lame mixed greens with chicken, but I think I yawned when I read it so I ordered the fish & chips. Not bad, but let's just say I won't eat there again. On the upside, they did have Strongbow cider! Not good on the calorie front, but it's hard to find here for some reason so I had two! I got home and wasn't tired, so those damn Cheetos called my name. Gah.

Anyway, today is the day for re-grouping and getting ready to start our Eight Week Summer Challenge tomorrow. I'm so excited!!! Eight Healthy Guidelines, here I come!

Here's the big plan for today:

- Fruit Solutions Juice
- coffee
- egg salad on WW bagel
- grapes & light cheddar
- Spring Veggie Soup
- mixed green salad w/ lotsa veggies & grilled salmon, olive oil for dressing
- garlic toasted bun
- blackberries & ff Vanilla yogurt

22/22+3AP

Guidelines:

F&V: 7/5
Whole Grains: bagel yes, bun no
Dairy: 2/2
Oil: yes
Protein: 2/2
Sugar/Booze: all good
Vitamins: multi, C, calcium
Water: 3 litres

Activity: Longest walk on the BLT Trail I can manage with the doggie. (3)

Today I noticed...

... that snacking on too many veggies mid-afternoon makes me sooooooo hungry. I need to rethink the order in which I eat my food groups. It was not pleasant.

Recipe Review - Pumpkin Penne

Last night I made Rachel Ray's Penne-Wise Pumpkin Pasta. I had a bunch of leftover canned pumpkin to use up, so I dug out October's magazine and found the recipe I knew I had seen. I checked with DBF to see if he was up for something different, and he agreed so I threw it together.

It's not bad. It's a good idea, but it was pretty bland. We didn't hate it or anything, it tasted fine...just boring. It won't be going into the "must have" file though, that's for sure.

It did make me confident to try other recipes involving pumpkin for a main course though. I noticed on her website that there are a whole slew of other recipes...one involving Italian sausage...so maybe some of them will be more interesting flavor-wise. Next time I open a can of pumpkin for baking, I'll have to give dinner another try.

Weigh In

Boooooooo. Back up to 153.2 lbs. Exactly back to where I was before last week's loss. That seems to be my body's favorite number. It's not a bad number, it's just not the number I wanted to see. I am not surprised by this though, as this week was not stellar on the points frontier. No one's fault but my own. Waaaaaaaaaa!

Me and Myself went on a date

So, last night sucked up any flex points I had left for the week. I enjoyed myself though, so tooooo bad! At first I was slightly annoyed at myself for my choice to use them up because I am supposed to go out for brunch tomorrow...but now that the weather has gone to ass and we are supposed to get a dump of snow I don't feel so bad. I won't be doing brunch over in Dartmouth if the roads are crappy, so I won't need the points. (Of course, if the roads are clear I will be going, so I'll just have to hope there are some decent food choices and plan a hearty salad for supper.)

I took myself out on a date last night. It was very cute! :) I took myself to Linens n Things to shop for new bedding. I followed that with a quick trip to the grocery store, where I bought myself some pretty pink tulips. I then took myself to McD's for a yummy McChicken meal (w/ diet Coke that I didn't even drink). At home, I completed my little date with some Eggies and some Grey's Anatomy.

haha!

Meh

Hmmmm....well, I wouldn't call it a bad day, but it certainly wasn't an OP day. I didn't eat my strawberries or make my salad for dinner. I didn't eat my chocolate chip bread either, but that's because I ended up snacking on SmartPop w/ Becel in the evening instead. Boooo, it wasn't that good (the Becel went all cold and weird) and it was higher points. And this afternoon I snacked on heated Almond Breeze and a chocolate dipped granola bar. Only 4 points for those two things, but that's enough to blow the plan for today.

I was bored. Even with working all day, I get bored sitting here all the time. A girl can only sit and stare at the computer so long...and my book wasn't appealing to me today...and I had no motivation to outside...and, and, and....

Meh, tomorrow will be better.

Dilemna

Well, the good news is that I didn't have that "empty" feeling last night, so didn't feel the need to oversnack.

The bad news is that I didn't get hardly any water in yesterday.

So, I guess the water is definitely the reason for the feeling. Not sure what I should do. I know my water intake doesn't really affect my weight loss/maintenance all that much because I've always fluctuated on how much water I drink...but I am really dehydrated and I can feel it in my skin, etc. Part of that is from the change in climate, but mainly it's from my lack of water. I think maybe my best bet is to introduce it slowly...rather than going from one glass per day to eight, maybe I'll try upping it by one or two glasses at a time to see if that helps to squash that ridiculous hollow feeling.

On another note, I had a revelation last night while watching TV. As long as the show was on I was fine. The minute a commercial came on and I wasn't caught up in the program, my mind immediately turned to food. How nuts is that?! Thankfully I was watching a recorded show, so I quickly forwarded through the commercials and got back to the storyline. Weird though.

Emptiness continues

I had to keep myself busy with vacuuming and talking on the phone last night to avoid that "empty" feeling again. I came up one glass short on the water for the day, but I still had that weird feeling that I hadn't eaten enough...even though I had eaten plenty. Very odd.

I did go over plan by 2 points for a pudding cup, but it was yummy and I felt better after I ate it so I'm not going to beat myself up. I went to bed to read as soon as I got off the phone with my Mom so that the snack attack wouldn't get me....I stayed away from the TV altogether last night and I think that was my saving grace. If I had been staring aimlessly at the tube, that empty feeling would have gotten the best of me I know it.

Waterlogged

The good news is that I got in all my water yesterday....finally, I bet it's been months since I actually had my proper daily intake.

The bad news is that it left me with this nagging, empty, hungry feeling all damn day.

I didn't do any damage, but I did go over my planned menu by 6 points. I was trying to quell the hunger feeling with carby-goodness but it would only last for about 15 minutes. Very weird.

Nothing major...just a Handi-Snack before dinner, a granola bar after dinner, and a handful of crackers before bed. But it was still frustrating (and sort of nauseating) to have that feeling constantly and not be able to make it go away.

Hopefully my stomach gets used to the water intake in a few short days and the empty feeling goes away.

Weigh In

Talk about my body's comfort zone. 153.2 this morning. Down .8 pounds, so no complaints here! I still find it amazing that I lost though because there has been a whole lotta chocolate treats and such in the evenings. Not counted, but maybe fitting within my FPs and probably within maintenance points if I really looked at it.

It's tough to get totally back on track because I see these little losses or at least maintaining of my weight so it doesn't seem like a big deal when I eat off of my plan.

But I can see it and feel it in my body. It's the lack of activity. I was never all firm and buff or anything, but I can see the extra squishy bits sneaking back in and I don't like it.

Someone kick me and give me the motivation to get my ass over to the gym this week.

Shopping Revelation

Some girls go shoe shopping or clothes shopping or hell, even appliance shopping when they are bored. I go grocery shopping. And not necessarily because I have an obsession with food or that I need to find junk, I guess I just like grocery shopping. But what this leads to is an overabundence of food in the fridge/freezer/cupboard....and especially the crisper. I decide that I should make some new recipe but it ends up making like 8 servings and I cram at least half of them in the freezer and forget all about them.

DBF just left for three weeks. I don't need enough produce to feed two people, yet I found it necessary to buy cauliflower AND brocolli AND more bananas AND a tub of arugula just because. Not to mention that I already have 257 breakfast options at home, but then decided I needed to buy english muffins and cottage cheese too. And why did I buy sour cream? I have nothing in mind for it, it's just one of those things I figure I should have on hand. At least I managed to avoid the granola bar aisle...seeings as I already have FOUR open boxes of those.

My point is that for the next couple of weeks I need to design my menus around the piles of stuff I already have on hand and find something other than grocery shopping to occupy me when I'm bored. So my menus may look a bit wierd for a while, but I bet I save at least $50 on groceries.

Weigh In

As expected, I'm up just about a pound (.8) but I can live with that. Considering the lack of exercise and Sunday's greasy food snackerama, I am pretty impressed that it wasn't more.

Today I'm eating...

- coffee
- banana bran muffin
- Source lemon parfait yogurt w/ fresh blackberries
- PC Blue Menu oatmeal bagel w/ light cr. cheese & sliced toms
- baby carrots
- pickles
- apple
- Kashi bar (dark chocolate/cherry)**
- tea
- Mandy's Chicken Stew w/ Bisquick biscuits

22/22

Activity: walk the dog, clean the house, 20 pushups/50 squats/20 crunches

Water: 2 litres


** Note: I am SERIOUSLY disappointed in the Kashi bars. Yesterday's PB one was as dry as sawdust...and almost as flavourless. I'm all for healthy and appreciate that they don't have high fructose corn syrup, but I am unwilling to give up taste for something this yucky. I'm hoping the chocolate/cherry one is better, but I'm not holding my breath. Unfortunately I spent $6 on these so I'll probably eat them just out of principle.

Poof! and the sushi disappears!

Well, I'm not going to whine about it...I'm just going to write about it and move on. The sushi last night turned into a Teen Burger. It's magic I tell ya. Bordome eating strikes again.

Today is a new day.