Ut Oh...

Christmas is getting very close, and so are all of the sweets!

Things slipped this weekend thanks to fabulous holiday party, sweets and treats from friends, and work holiday 'luncheon' today (I HATE the work luncheon. I think people should only be allowed to use it if the attendants are wearting pinnafores and hats).
Yea, I'm avoiding the scale. Tomorrow will be my reality check.

Too tired to work oooooout. I'm so tired all the time! Last night I made it in the the gym for marathon work out, but only made it through 2 of the regular 3 hours. Tonight I puttered around the house attempting to catch up on dishes, abandoned laundry, etc. So, I spent time with Jackie Warner doing her Power Circuit strength training. Her Abs tracks are brutal!!

A week from now I'll be in MI, cooking up a storm with my mother on our annual "Christmas Baking Day" (this time spent with a little 4 month old!)and reveling in all of the food I don't allow myself to buy. The ground will be crusted over with snow (hopefully) ruling out jogging. Last year I attempted a 1 week trial membership at a relatively close gym that I had heard rave reviews about. However, the promised coupon never arrived in my email and now I just get junk email from them. (Helllooooooo, I indicated on my survey that I live in FL - no joining potential here!). This year's attempt at not going out of control during the holidays is work out DVD's: Jackie Warner, Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred, and Bob's Weight Loss Yoga (the other Biggest Loser dude). Brillian plan!!! However, I just tonight realized that I'll need a Yoga mat and Hand weights...neither of which would be all that easy to pack. So, I'm on the hunt!

Update!

Eeeek! I forgot about this for a couple of days. And to be real honest, I've been tired. Not that I'm not tired tonight, but I'm making myself stay up another couple minutes to throw together some type of update. Which is this:

I've been busy & tired. Meaning, Thursday night I skipped the scheduled workout when a co-worker friend and I decided to get Subway lupper together after work because we weren't able to eat all day. Then frozen custard followed with best friend who had to go anyways for school-related business. The good news is that since I hadn't eaten all day, it all came out ok calorie wise!

Another reason I was ok with missing Thursday's workout was the Friday night Hot Yoga scheduled wtih other friends. Until I got the reminder about the volunteer shift I had signed up for Friday night. Turns out the class was cancelled after all.

Saturday morning was spin class.

And it's all down-hill from there.
Saturday night was a Christmas party. With yummy, yummy food. This morning we proceeded to have the leftover desserts as pre-breakfast before our real breakfast of panckes with nutella. You get the idea.

HOWEVER, tonight was dinner in Morroco. I had the Vegetable Platter - which always thrills me. Olives, Cuscus, Lentils, Hummus, etc. It was to die for.

Did I mention I was sent home with Party Leftovers? Mmmmm Rum Cake....
Tomorrow, we get back on track.

Just another Wednesday.

Down 1 more pound!

After a long day, albeit rather successful day at school, I headed to the gym for my favorite Combat. It's probably one of my favorite classes, but I rarely get to do it. Spending 50 minutes pretending to hit people while burning calories has got to be one of the most cathartic activities.

The evening was followed up at a friends, curled up on the sofa, in front of the fire with hot chocolate and a brownie. And, Robin Hood. All of this makes for one great night. I'm Ok wth said chocolate intake because my food intake the rest of the day was fine. And really, it could have been 2 cups of hot chocolate and 2 brownies. But, it wasn't. Just 1 for me.

Foods, mostly

Down .2 lbs! In two days. Better than nothing. Think I'll weigh myself again tomorrow.

I know this question is burning in everyone's mind: did I handle the chocolate cake with fudge icing??? I had a small piece. More than a taste, but much less than what I really wished to consume.
Tonight was also an important night for a friend, whom I met at local sushi joint for what was originally said to be a Fried Ice Cream night. Instead, I had an amazing crab/avacado roll. Sushi's not that bad for you, right???

While in spin class tonight, I was thinking about my Working-Out. I've got to get more serious about being regularly dedicated. One 3 hour work out a week isn't a cure-all. However, it's hard to fit all that in while having a real life. My real life got in the way of exercizing for half of my last week. It's time to prioritize. Sweat over... well, whatever my other options may be. Tomorrow night will be hard one for me because it's my night to work the after school program at school. It'll take extra oomph to get myself out the door once I get home.

Food:
-Morningstar Farm Sausage Patty & Waffle: very exciting treat. 160 calories!
-Genesis Bread: Nutty wholesome goodness. Totally worth the $5 for the loaf. I toasted a piece into garlic bread last nigth with my soup.
-Oat Bran hot cereal (made stovetop): a new favorite discovery. Consistency of Cream of Wheat but with flavor of oatmeal. With a touch of honey and some Splenda Brown sugar - warm creamy goodness. Plus it has less calories & carbs that old fashioned oats and higher protein & fiber.
-No teacher salad bar tomorrow. Lunch should be interesting....

Did I mention I worked out for 3 hours tonight? I did. And I feel good. And tired. And, I stink.

Settling In...

I'm down 5.1 pounds. That's exciting. But, I'm pretty sure it's going to be a battle from here on out.

I wish I had more time and energy to work out. And energy for that matter. Regardless, I worked out tonight, and that's all that matters right now. I really really wanted to jog the lake and come home to do weight-loss yoga. But it was too stinkin' cold out. There was no way I would have pushed myself out there. So, I saw my friends at the gym.

I need some serious breakfast solutions, especially because I ran out of the at-desk protein bars and the only flavor of instant oatmeal I have left is banana bread. Eeeew. Soooooo, while at Publix post-workout pre-dinner tonight, I happened to buy 4 or so options. Whoopsies. But now, I'm super excited to eat something in the morning. Options are: Hot Oatbran Cereal (i have no idea what to do with this), Kashi 7-grain cereal with fresh soy milk (realistically, I will NOT have time to sit and eat something splashy-splasy out of a bowl at 6am), Morningstart Farm sausage sandwhiched in a lite whole grain organice waffle (Mmmmmmmmmmmm), or a frozen (but then microwaved) Egg/cheese sandwich - organic, whole grain, etc etc (generally much more processed of a food than I'd choose, but I was on food delerium). What will tomorrow be???

OH. TOMORROW. Speaking of which: it's my friend's birthday, and she needs some smile time. So, I put myself in charge of her chocolate-chocolate birthday cake. Out of curiosity, I peeked at the label on the very BOTTOM of the cake: 1/10 of it = 350 calories, and 13g fat. Ouch.
This is me publicly telling the world that I will be strong. I will be strong. I will be strong. I will only have a teen tiny taste.

I need to weigh myself tomorrow. Yuck.

Ho-Hum

It's Sunday.
Instead of my typical afternoon jog, I watched some super cute kids. I considered doing some activity before or after, but the night turned out to be longer than expected. And, I'm just dang tired. I hate starting a new week already tired, but it's so hard to catch up in only 2 days!

Calorie counting went relatively well, although I'm sure I went over the 12-whatever limit that thing set for me. Dangit.

Never did Carb/Protein research. Maybe tomorrow. Too tired to care much right now.

Although, my roommate did say: "Today you look skinny". I'll take it!

Time to go to sleep. Seriously, it's too late for a Sunday night.

Progress

Down 2 more pounds!
Hot Tea is also making me happier by the day.
This morning was Bumpy Pump and just a teeny bit of Spin class at the gym.

I'm currently excited about the new Calorie Counting app on my iTouch - this one is Tap&Track. What I liked the most about this one is that it has a huge data base that you can use to look up food, even when not online. It has you complete a profile regarding your height, weight, activity level at work (sedentary, boo!), and weight loss goal (2lbs per week, please). And then bam! It sets a goal for you. I'll admit I was a little surprised that this is restricting me to 1236 per day. I'll also admit that my Bryers Slow Churned Strawberry Cheesecake icecream probably also put me over my limit tonight. Today is the first I've used this app, so am hoping to refine my skills.

Today was also a very high Carb day. We're talking cereal pre-gym, post-gym, and then crackers with my afternoon hummus. Any ideas for easy food solutions that do not revolve around cereal, oatmeal, toast, or crackers?

It also turns out I was rather wrong about those bags of popcorn I was consuming. I misread the weird label, and they are actually like 200 calories a bag! That's a big misread!

Tomorrow's goals:
-Killer workout in between church and babysitting the counsins' kids.
-Master the calorie counter, or take a couple steps closer at least.
-Figure out my target grams of Protein & Carbs.

Suck.

Well, today didn't go quite as planned.
In fact, I'd write this one off as a flop.
I was stuck at work for an extra three & half hours beyond my contract time. That means that I got home at approximately 7pm. Considering I leave for work at 6:30am, that makes for a very long day. I'll admit, I fantisized just a little of coming home to comfort food. Boo, emotional eating.

The intentions were to head out to Lake Hollingsworth for a jog around 4:30pm. Considering it is exceptionally later than that, it is exceptionally dark out, it's relatively cold out, and I am exceptionally tired, I'll say: It just ain't happening, folks. It makes me mad that work would interfere that much with a personal goal; I guess it comes with the territory of a salaried position. I'm jealous of those people on TV who just get to go to camp and workout all day long.

Grumble, grumble, grumble.

Let's consider what DID go well today, or what today's successes may be:
1. Pre-emptive Waterproof Mascara. Who cares that is has nothing to do with losing 10lbs by Christmas. I just want this list to be as long as possible. And hey, this stuff matters.
2. Back up protein bars in desk drawers for mornings such as today: Forgot to eat breakfast.
3. Kashi Mayan Harvest Bake. Teacher salad bar is shut down on Fridays, forcing us to fend for ourselves, unless we're interested in a baked potato soaked in melted butter, smothered in only what I'm assuming to be full fat sour cream, and then topped with cheese. We all love cheese - our hips, not so much.
4. Smart Pop Popcorn!!! An entire bag for 30 calories. A week ago, I would have busted into emergency student granola bar stash. Plus, I made all my co-workers jealous. Although they were going home, and I was not.
5. Herbal Tea. It's really starting to make me happy. Or at least content that I'm drinking water and not eating something stupid.
6. Fat Free BBQ Pringles greeted me upon my return home. Wasn't quite a Knight in Shining Armor, but at least there was a man on the can.
7. Vegetable vegetable vegetable soup with Black Beans that I whipped up a few days ago is patiently awaiting me for dinner. No cooking for me tonight, and yet I get hot and healthy food.

So, no workout tonight. Suck. I'll consider this my night to rest in order to work out even harder the rest of the weekend. Yea, that sounds like great justification for eating and going to bed.

Sidenote: Must clean the kitchen floor before the roommate comes home! Coffee is everywhere after a spider climbed out of the bag along with my morning brew's 3 scoops. Yea, today was weird.

Christmas Parade

Tonight was the Christmas parade. I had tooooo muuuuch chocolaaaaaate. There were brownie things from Publix bakery (amazing) and a friend brought chocolate chip cookies too! All things considered, I figure it's relative. I turned down free brownie chip cookie thing offered by sweet lunch lady in the cafeteria this morning. And cried at my desk today. It's all relative.

I've decided to already break my every day scale rule and skip tomorrow morning. After the amount of crap & sodium ingested tonight, it'd be just plain depressing.

Plan for tomorrow: Mucho water, Hollingsworth jog, Yoga dvd at home.

This morning: down a half a pound. or, maybe just .4 I need to start writing these down. I'm barely awake when I do this.

Birthday Cake

Yup, not only did I skip the evening workout, I did it in favor of Birthday Cake. With Icecream. This, however, I believe was balanced out by restraint during the day and the bowl & half of Cheerios that became dinner out of lack of motivation or inspiration. And smaller portion of said dessert.

Down 1 pound!

Other success of the day: Tossed out the crunchy peanut butter that resided in my office. This was epic peanut butter purchased with the best intentions to feed a specific child (ok, 19 year old) who sometimes scrapes by food-wise. However, he turned up his nose at my PB, which I delightfully decided would go very well with my afternoon apple. Yes, folks, you CAN have too much of a good thing.

Next up: Looking for a calorie counter for my new iTouch. Plenty exist, picking the best one is key.

Christmas parade tomorrow. This means: No work out & potentially really really bad food. I could be stellar and get up at 4:45 and do a DVD. However, 5:15 isn't even happening these days and it's already significantly past my bedtime. Ho-Hum. There will definitely have to be Friday night exercise.