Tag Archives: Eating

Healthy You Challenge Update

Posted on by

9

My 21 Day Goal is to follow Seattle Runner Girls 21 Days to a new habit challenge, and it is going REALLY well!  I am on day 13, and I haven’t missed a day of my goal of a minimum of 30 minutes of activity per day.  Yesterday I walked 2.6 miles in 37 minutes.  The weather was just perfect yesterday; I just need the pollen to go away.  I haven’t gotten on my treadmill in weeks, I feel sort of bad for that, but the weather is just too nice to not go out and enjoy it.

I’m officially off of Zyrtec (see THIS post) so I am hoping to see the weight from that drop off.  I know it wasn’t ALL Zyrtec, I will take responsibility for my part, but I know that I didn’t gain 7.2 pounds in two weeks via a few bad choices.  It’s SO FRUSTRATING to gain that much in two weeks, knowing that it could easily take me 7 weeks to lose that amount.   Between following a bit of a different plan because of the Fit for the Fourth Challenge that I joined at work and being off the allergy meds, hopefully I’ll see a big drop on the scale this coming Saturday!

Yesterday was my first day on the lower calorie plan, and it came out to 1,368  (range of 1280-1630) calories and 26.5 points (out of my available 33.)  I figured I’d share my food journal from yesterday so you can see how much food I got out of those points!  FYI-I weighed my steak last night (must win the challenge!) and wow was I over estimating what 4 oz of cooked meat looks like!

Breakfast

1 tsp Brummell & Brown Spread, 1 Everything Bagel Thin, 3 Egg Whites, 4 Tbsp Fat Free ½ & ½ in 2 cups of coffee,  1 Cup Grapes (4.5 Points or 276 calories)

Lunch

2 Cups Lettuce/Spinach Mix, 3 oz Chicken Breast, 2 tsp Olive Oil, 1 Tbsp Red Wine Vinegar, 2 Tbsp Bacon Bits, 2 slices of onion, 1 Tbsp Sunflower Seeds, ¼ C corn (8 Points or 331 Calories)

Dinner

4 oz Cooked/Trimmed Filet Mignon, ¼ C Onions Grilled, 1 Medium Baked Potato, 1 Medium Green Pepper Grilled, 1 tsp Olive Oil, 1 Tbsp Brummell & Brown Spread (10 Points or 411 Calories)

Snacks (Throughout the day)

1 Dark Chocolate Vita Brownie, Yoplait Strawberry Shortcake Yogurt, Fiber One 90 Calorie Bar, 1 Cup Carrot Sticks (4 Points or 350 Calories)

I drank 4 Liters of water (I typically drink 3-5 Liters a day)

Tata for now,

Scale Warfare

A Mini-Vacay and No Longer Sick!

Posted on by

3

I’m not even sure where to start.  I didn’t blog during my trip, which was by design.  My Mom doesn’t have wireless internet at her house and I didn’t want to spend a ton of time online and miss out on family time since one of my cousins and her family were visiting from Alaska!  It was such a great and relaxing trip but wowza’s did it every fly by.  I feel like I’m still recovering from the first 8+ hour drive (getting there) that the second 8+ hour drive (getting home) is just a blur. 

I was originally going to try to catch up on the posts that I missed, but that is a bit over whelming, so I figured I’d just start with today, a new day, a fresh clean slate and get back into my regular blogging schedule.  I am finally not sick (it took almost a week to get better!) the snow is almost all gone, the sun is out and it’s finally above freezing!

The things that haven’t happened in the last week:

  1. I missed all RLR Runs last week because I was sick.  It was my first week of 2010 missing them.
  2. I didn’t get a new recipe done.  Between being sick and then being out of town, it just didn’t happen.  I plan on making two new recipes next week to make up for the missed one.
  3. I was up and down with food choices.  I ate fast food on both the trip down AND the trip back up.  I ate several snack packs of Oreo Cookies.  What is it about going home that you immediately revert back into childhood habits?

 The things that did happen in the last week/starting this week:

  1.  The meals that we ate in and ate out during my trip were fairly smart choices.  The night that we ate out I got broiled scallops and shrimp with asparagus and a baked potato.  Seriously, had I not eaten approximately 11 million hushpuppies, I would have considered that meal a win, ha!
  2. I did my first outdoor RLR run on Friday (RLR weeks run Friday-Thursday.)  There will be more about this on Fridays post.  Let’s just say that after a week off, me and the outdoor running are NOT buddy-buddy.
  3. The weather was in the 60’s everyday that we were down there so I got in some fantastic walks with my dog and then also with family members.
  4. I spent a lot of time out in the sun, which did wonders for making my cold go away.
  5. The scale is up by almost 3 pounds L

I feel completely out of whack right now, I need things to be back to their regularly organized ways.  I spent a lot of time last night and this morning working on a plan, trying to figure out what I can do to motivate myself for the next movement to drop some weight.  I am determined to lose more weight; I just need to work on my focus.  So here is the plan:

Scale Warfare’s Next 30 Days (which will temporarily replace my 2-3 weekly goals)

  1. Do the Strength Training 10-15 minute sessions that are created by Sparkpeople.com 3 times per week (I’ve never done these before and I’m really excited to give them a try!
  2. Get back on track with my RLR Running.  By the end of these 30 days, I WILL be up to 2:30 intervals.
  3. Get out 1 day a week for an outdoor walk (besides dog walks).  Hopefully this can be on the weekends, but you never know what the rain will do!
  4. Get back to basics: measure, write it before I bite it, 5 fruits/veggies a day, 2 dairy servings a day, whole grains, multi-vitamin everyday, healthy oil everyday (the Weight Watchers Healthy Guidelines.)
  5. Wear my GoWear Fit regularly (not while sleeping, my arm needs a rest lol)
  6. Get my steps in.  Days 1-7: 6,000 per day; Day 8-14: 6,500 per day; Days 15-21: 7,000 per day; Days 22-30: 7,500 per day
  7. Have a calorie deficit of approximately 7,000 calories per week (which equates to 2 lbs)
  8. 30 Minutes of Cardio 5 days per week.  So in addition to my 3 RLR Runs, I will need to do 2 more days of cardio.

There it is, 30 days of getting my focus back.  I already have my GoWear Fit on, and it’s all charged up.  I no longer walk the dog twice a day due to a change in my work schedule (don’t worry, he still gets walked twice a day, just now once by Fireman) so getting these steps in will be tough, but I am focused on doing it.  It will likely mean lots of walking around the office through out the day.  If I find that the goals are too big or too small (regarding steps) I will modify this list a bit (today will be a test day to see how many steps I’m naturally getting.)

Please know that I am not quitting, but this losing weight thing is a constant battle, it is taking me constant modifications to get to where I want to be.  I sometimes wonder if it is easier for people who are not “professional dieters” to lose weight.  If it is easier when you don’t know the in’s and out’s of what it takes to diet.  Sort of like dancing, if you have been doing it for years you’ve gained bad habits that are hard to correct, but if you are new to dancing you are a fresh slate.  If that makes any sense lol.

Can’t wait to get caught up on everyone’s blogs, I feel like I’m so behind!

Tata for now,

Scale Warfare

PS-I just reset everything in Sparkpeople.com so it’s like I’m starting with a fresh slate.  It’s one of the recommendations that goes along with the Spark book.  It feels so new and clean :)

Weekend Recap and a Change!

Posted on by

5

This weekend has been a doozie!  We were pummled by about 30 inches of snow in the DC Metro area, and we are still digging out.  Guess what?  Another 5-10 inches are coming Tuesday/Wednesday.  As much as I love snow, this is just out of control.  We are 35″ above our annual average, and its only the beginning of February.  This is going to be a long long winter.  Fireman was out with the kids all weekend so I had a lot of alone time, which is both fabulous and not so great all at the same time.

The good news is that I’ve been racking up the activity points with shoveling.  Did you know that 3 hours of shoveling when you weight approximately 275 pounds is 16 activity points?  Yeah that pretty much rocks.  I’ve been keeping up with Rubenesque Ladies Running and am on track to finish up Week 6 on Thursday of this week.  The bad news?  I’ve been making horrendous eating decisions most days.  Being stuck inside has weakened my resolve, I have been tracking, but the scale is up.  I am out of Flex Points and have dipped into my activity points, which I try to not to do.  I havent been making smart choices, I’ve been making really bad choices.  I have earned a record number of activity points this week (47!) but I don’t think thats going to make up for the bad food choices I’ve been making.  I’m a bit worried that the scale is going to be up this week due to my poor choices, because that’s what happens folks.  You eat poorly, you gain weight.

One of the big plusses of having this much snow and being stuck inside are the number of wedding projects that I’ve been able to work on!  I’m about 75% done with our invitation assembly, I spent almost 10 hours cutting tissues paper for the tissue pomanders (ugh, it was a LOT of cutting!)  All of these things were nice to work on!  Puts me a little ahead of schedule, which is nice.

So what is the change?  I can feel myself pulling away from Weight Watchers, which I do whenever I start to get bored and unfocused.  I’ve decided to switch over to Sparkpeople.com for a while to track my calories.  I’m hoping changing how I am tracking will help me to regain my focus.  Between that and starting the Beck Diet book this week, I am making some smart changes.  I will continue to email my journal daily to Bella to help keep me accountable, it will just be in a different format (calories instead of points.) 

I’ve also started a new page, which you can link to over on the right (see the chick eating the apple), called Scale Warfare Eats where I will post my daily food journals.  Feel free to check it out starting on Wednesday February 10th, since that is when I am making my switch to Sparkpeople.com  I will continue tracking my Weight Watchers points until then.

Tata for now,

Scale Warfare

Weekend Recap

Posted on by

2

Wow what a weekend.  I feel like I need a vacation to recover from it!  Saturday was a birthday party luncheon for one of my girlfriends.  Food was pretty much good all day except for the actual lunch itself (damn you chips and salsa!)  Saturday afternoon I was supposed to meet Fireman at the mall, but the traffic was so horrendous around the mall, that I wound up just meeting them back at home.  Sunday was a yucky rainy day, but I had a great time with my girlfriends down in Richmond.  We had brunch.  Food was pretty good all day until dinner.  Chinese food.  My plate consisted of brown things that were fried.  Not a great way to work at NOT gaining any weight through the holidays, that is for sure.  I had an awful headache, the sodium didn’t help get rid of it :(

The weekend was great, the food was ehhh mediocre, but it’s Monday, so it’s back to the normal grind.  I made a huge batch of Taco Soup (which you’ll eventually see on the recipes page once I get through the HUGE task of tagging all of my posts!)  I will be packing my lunch everyday this week, which is easily one of the biggest things that I can do to help keep my weight in check throughout the holidays.  I had planned on getting up at 5:20 to walk on the treadmill, I was all prepared, clothes laid out, shoes ready, water bottle filled; alarm clock set for usual 6:15 wake up time.  Great. So close to getting the walking done before work, but no dice.  I will walk after work today before dinner.  I’ve learned that if I wait until after dinner to walk, I’m just not as likely to do it.

I hope that everyone had a great weekend!  For me, only 6 more working days until vacation time!   My Mom is coming into town, between Christmas and Wedding things, we have a lot to do!

Tata for now,

Scale Warfare

Yet Another Holiday Function

Posted on by

9

First a rant, seriously these things are always called “Holiday Parties” to be politically correct, yet there are Christmas Trees…Christmas Music…Christmas Presents…etc.  Seriously call it what it is, a Christmas Party, that non-Christians participate in.  We are an incredibly culturally diverse company, so I’d imagine a dozen or so religions are represented.  We have parties throughout the year that celebrate a lot of different things.  Example, we celebrate Diwali, the Festival of Lights which is an Indian Festival.  We don’t call that a “Holiday Party” we call it what it is, Diwali. 

So onto my company Holiday Party.  This isn’t a meal, it’s heavy appetizers and an open bar.  Since I have to leave the event at a reasonable hour to drop my car off for regular service, I wont be able to have more than one adult drink OR spend 2-3 hours grazing on appetizers.  All of this makes me feel a bit better about not exercising this morning.  There’s a reason for that.

 Last night we went to see Trans Siberian Orchestra downtown with another couple.  We had dinner reservations at this cute fancy smancy sort of place, and yes it was expensive.  The portions were good aka small (I had roast chicken minus the skin, polenta and broccoli.)  Things were going well until we ordered dessert.  That put me over the limit for the day.  The concert didn’t start until 8:30, and wasn’t over until 11.  By the time we got the car out of the parking garage, said our good byes, got home, took the dog out and got ready for bed it was 1:30 AM.  So it’s pretty understandable that when my alarm went off at 5:20 AM, I wanted to punt it across the room.  I’m going to walk this evening though!  So at least I will make up for it.

Food today has been good so far.  I got an incredibly tasty salad from Pot Belly and this morning I had a bagel with light cream cheese.  I haven’t been snacking as much as usual, trying to curb off any calories that I can with so many events in the pipeline!

Tata for now,

Scale Warfare

PS-I am starting to really love Word Press :)