My Path to Outer Skinniness

I'm sitting here trying to figure out the calories in the food on the happy hour menu at McCormicks because we have plans to go there in a couple hours. I'm kind of debating if it might not be a terrible idea to just scratch this meal from my records and eat what I want. I'm not missing food really. I'm not craving ribs and cheeseburgers. But I kind of don't want to burn out on tracking all of this stuff (and it is starting to get a bit old) and I feel like I deserve a reward that I don't have to put on my spreadsheet. One of the meals at McCormicks. Doesn't it look healthy and delicious?! On the other hand I know I'm going to be worried about it. I've been doing so great at keeping this up and writing down everything I eat with as much accuracy as I can muster. I've also done really good at staying in my limits. It's hard to get enough protein every day without going too crazy on the fat. I just don't want to mess up a good thing. ...

Well, I have reason to celebrate - I think. I really need to get a better scale. Mine is a dial kind so it's really hard to tell if it's accurate or not. Anyway, I weighed myself this morning and then again when I got home from work just to be sure, but it looks like I'm down about 4 pounds. I'm thrilled! I went to pick up my wedding ring from the jeweler today after I got off work but it wasn't there yet. So I wandered around the mall while I was waiting. I stopped into my favorite store of all time, The Limited, and tried on a couple things just because it was nice to have their clothes fit nicely. I have longer to go so I didn't buy anything, but they have some super cute pink and purple stuff right now! I also ate a chocolate truffle from Godiva which ended up being far less terrible than I expected when I finally got home to count up my calories so far. I am really looking forward to having another week of success. I'm anticipating there being more o...

Today marks 1 week! I feel good that I'm going strong. I've never been able to track my progress this successfully. It's good stuff. Today I packed extra food in my lunch so that my lunch would be a bigger meal than my dinner. Strangely, I wasn't as hungry today and I ended up not eating the extra 200 calories I brought with me. It's amazing how much easier it is for me to tell if I'm actually hungry when I haven't really had any refined sugar or high fructose corn syrup. For anyone who doesn't know, hfcs is a sweetener substitute often used in foods instead of sugar. The reason it sucks is that it doesn't satisfy our craving for sweetness naturally and you end up eating more than would normally satisfy you. Normally when you consume food, hormones release and tell your brain that your stomach is full (before you feel like you need a wheelbarrow to carry your stomach around in). Hfcs blocks this hormone so that you can't tell when you're ful...

Today went okay. I think I needed to pack more food in my lunch because I felt hungry all afternoon and ended up eating half my lunch before lunch even happened. I ended up low on my calories by the end of the day and had to figure out more stuff to eat that was healthy and wouldn't put me too high. I haven't managed to lose any weight yet sadly. I'm hoping it's just the weather that's making me retain water. I'm pretty happy that I've been doing this nearly a week and have yet to do poorly. Not only that, I haven't been obsessed about food which I think is the key to doing well when you cut back. Yay.

Okay, I never thought this would happen. I'm sitting here right now not wanting to really eat anything else and I haven't even had 1000 calories today. I'm going to make myself a chicken breast since I am seriously lacking protein, but how on earth can I not want to eat everything in sight!? Today was apparently easy. Excel spreadsheet FTW! By the way, if you didn't already know, baked sweet potatoes feel like cheating when you're on a diet and a small one is only 160 calories. And they don't need anything added because they're so flipping good by themselves! * amendment* So, upon further research, I realized after I posted this that I forgot to count some corn salad I had eaten and my morning coffee. Which, after the chicken breast, put me up to about 1300 calories, which has been my daily average. It helps to remember what you ate! So now I'm tracking my food before I eat it!

So far so good. The last two days have been a bit of a challenge, but nothing that I couldn't handle with some determination. I actually have managed to work pizza, onion rings, and beer into my meals! The trick is portion control and anticipation. I knew that we'd be eating out last night so I ate basically just vegetables until then and looked up what I could eat ahead of time so that I wasn't going too far overboard. Today I paddled and I figured that with a two hour practice (that I felt by the end!) I needed some serious recovery food so I allowed myself to eat eggs and potatoes with a piece of toast afterwards. I talked to my coach about possibly doing some one-on-one paddling so I can get better with the technique and feel more confident on the water. He had corrected me on something today that I didn't even realize what he meant for a good amount of time and I would rather fix those kinds of things without slowing the whole boat down while he explains it to me...

Woo! Well, I half expected this day to suck. The reason being that I went to a barbeque. I decided to try to eat beforehand so that all I would do was graze. Taco bell's fresco menu rocks! The calories are right on the drive-thru menu so you can order accordingly. I got a crunchy fresco taco for 150 calories and a fresco chicken soft taco for 135 calories which both were filling enough that I wasn't really hungry by the time I got to Greshem. Best part is that it's CHEAP! I decided to get a case of low calorie beer (MGD 64). It wasn't as terrible as I'd expected it to be but went right through me so I had to pee every ten minutes. That part sucked. But it was nice to be able to drink socially. I managed to get away with small bites of a couple of foods people had brought and I ate mostly melon which is surprisingly very low calorie. All-in-all I actually managed to eat fewer calories yesterday than the day before! I think what I find cool about doing this is that...

Well, today makes 1 day of counting calories and I am now left to drink water the rest of the night. My tracker says I went about 100 calories over my goal of 1500, but I was right within my goals for fat, carbs, and protein. Today was pretty easy to stay within my goals because I have the necessary groceries. I guess tomorrow I'll have to replenish a couple of items to stay on target, but hopefully it will be an easy day too.

So, I contemplated moving my blog to livejournal, but I've decided that I've already spent hours configuring this journal and finally have it looking exactly how I want. So I'm sticking with this. I think I'm going to set a new goal for food. I'm going to count my calories for 2 weeks starting today. I think if I do I'll lose 10 pounds - or close to it. I can tell that I'm getting some tone from the few things I have been doing to exercise, I just want to keep some forward momentum. I've actually been eating fairly healthy for the most part. I found these really delicious chicken sausages that are only 90 calories at costco that I've been eating for lunches. I think if I can just watch that I don't eat too much of what I'm eating I'll be in a good place. Tuesday I paddled dragon boat practice without my inhaler. I felt like I was going to hyperventilate a few times, but I survived. It's amazing the mental conversation I had with m...

This is a video that kind of shows you what aqua jogging is like. Basically you wear a belt that helps you float so you can run. I went to the community pool today and tried it out. I jogged for about 45 minutes and could have gone longer but there were a bunch of old ladies doing aerobics at the other end of the pool and I wanted to avoid them in the locker room. Anyway, I thought it was a pretty easy workout that got my heart-rate up and I could feel my muscles getting tired (especially when I got out of the pool). So when I got home I researched and found out I could buy the waistband at Sports Authority for about $25. Which means, for $25, I can go aqua jogging the pool at my apartment complex for the rest of the summer. Sounds like a good deal to me! I also rode several miles on my bike. I think I'm done exercising today.

Today was the first day that I have attempted to get back on track for C25K. I know I posted awhile ago that I was going to do so, but I managed to injure my foot in a mad dash through a parking lot. I must give credit to my awesome husband who chased me with his hands covered in wet polyurethane. At any rate, I wasn't wearing good shoes and I wasn't wearing my orthotics and I don't know what I did exactly but the top of my foot hurt for about 3 weeks after. Well, now it feels better. So I decided to gear up and get my ass back outside. I bought some running shorts, which I've never owned before, and I really like them! They actually have room in them for people to have some junk in the trunk! New stuff always helps push me to do something with it. I can't be dressed in fancy new running clothes and not go running! Anyway, I decided to just walk today to get back in the habit. I figured if I had a destination I would walk further (which was true) so I took off d...

This video is from our second race in Salem. I'm in the green vest in the very last row. During practice Sunday I started thinking about Malcolm Gladwell's book Blink. The book talks about how when people reach an expert level at something they approach it differently when approached with a problem. It's because they know what information to discard, what's relevant and what's not. I think once you've reached an expert level at something (for me it's singing), you start to really understand how to analyze new things that you try and how to latch on to what you already know. That said I've been trying to find parallels in the technicality and physicality of boating that relate to what I know already and so far I have a pretty good list going. Here's what I got so far. Dragon Boating Singing Requires controlled breathing Requires controlled breathing Has you engage core strength to rotate and pull the paddle Has you ...