In Case You Were Wondering, Yes, I Am Certifiable

Here is an example of the insane things you might do if you try too hard to stick strictly to a prescribed diet plan.

As I mentioned, I'm not really doing Phase 1 at this point, but generally I'm eating Phase 1. I say "generally" because I did sample the cookies I made last night. The majority of the cookies will be eaten at either Jason's party for the undergrads he teaches tonight or by my Young Women on Sunday.

In an effort to stick with the Phase 1 idea I bought some plain Greek yogurt last week and some sugar-free jelly to mix in, at the suggestion of some people on the South Beach board at SparkPeople. The jelly is made by Polaner and sweetened with Splenda.

OK, let's take a step back. First of all, I don't eat sugar-sweetened jelly as it is. I eat Polaner All-Fruit or any other completely fruit preserves that I can find. However, on Phase 1, fruit is forbidden. So I bought the stuff sweetened with Splenda because somewhere in my crazy head was the idea that eating the artificial stuff was somehow better than real fruit. Because it was compliant with Phase 1. Because I am insane.

Yesterday I piled a couple of tablespoons of raspberry Splenda-sweetened jelly into my yogurt. The first couple of bites tasted divine. Then the Splenda aftertaste hit me. I soldiered through most of the yogurt, but finally stopped because it was really starting to gross me out.

Today, in a moment of clarity, I realized how insane I was being. Tomorrow I'll be eating my yogurt with jelly made of fruit and only fruit.

Derailed

Despite my best efforts...

Saturday we had an activity up in Boston with the Young Women (read: teenagers) that I work with at church. We left Providence at 12:30 and finished the activity at 4. Then the bishop took everyone to Bertucci's for dinner and just ordered a bunch of pizzas. So I had pizza. And a Bertucci roll because they're one of my favorite things ever.

Sunday we went to a friend's caroling party. She always has a fantastic spread. Crackers and cookies were consumed. And cheese. Lots of cheese.

I came to a decision that I will do the best I can to stay South Beach-friendly, but will recognize that it's the holidays and events like this will come up. Also, these events won't be happening in January so I should be able to be more consistent. I mean, it's the holidays. I'm not going to be a martyr.

(Excuses, excuses)

This morning I packed a nice Phase 1 breakfast, lunch and snacks, then promptly left it all on the kitchen counter. Sigh. Dunkin Donuts turkey sausage egg white flatbread for breakfast (believe me, that's the best option I can find in downtown Providence). My plan is to get a burrito belly (just the fillings) for lunch with chicken, black beans, lettuce and cheese. At least I can cook a good dinner for myself. Anyway, here's hoping tomorrow I actually remember my food.

Knowing My Limits

Last night the Relief Society* had a Christmas cookie baking party. I admit, I ate half a pizelle (homemade! I didn't even know pizelle makers existed. Add that to my Christmas list) and a tiny Christmas tree cookie. So, you know, not so much South Beach Phase 1.

That said, there were also piles of sugar cookies, oatmeal raisin cookies, and other yummy treats that I didn't have. Also, I realized that if I wasn't focusing on minimizing carbs, I would have probably eaten about 10 cookies. One and a half is better than 10.

Yesterday morning I did a half hour on the elliptical and 20 minutes of strength training. Today my bum is sore from the sumo squats, so that's good. No gym this morning because I am still sore from yesterday and I'm trying to ease into the whole regular workout thing so I don't injure myself and put myself out of capacity like I have so many times before. I'll go tomorrow, then shoot for 4 or 5 days next week.

And, I've already posted this on Facebook, but last night 2 of the Young Women I work with at church told me they thought I was 23! Ha! Granted, they're 12 and 13 so their perspective is not the best, but it still made me feel good.

*Women's group at my church.

Third

Day 3 of South Beach and the headaches are gone. Day 3, you're the best!

Jason's brother is staying with us for the week. They got home from Cambridge last night around 10:30 and rather than toddle off to bed like I should have, I hung out and watched Heroes* with them and got to bed around 1ish. So when the alarm went off at 5:30, I said no to the gym.

I'll be there tomorrow. I'm dedicated, yo.

* Does anyone know why they still watch this show? Because I don't. The first season ROCKED, but ever since then it's been meandering. Now's there's T-Bag from Prison Break with his on-again, off-again Irish accent, and I just can't stop thinking of him as T-Bag and just a yucky human being. Then Hiro is there and the center of the story, then he's gone. I can't really remember what happens from one week to the next. Yet we keep watching.

The Scoop

So I know I said no extremes, but honestly I don't think the South Beach Diet is too extreme. Maybe Phase 1 is, but after that, it's very reasonable.

Anyway, after the Thanksgiving bacchanalia, I decided to just do it already. Today is Day 2 of Phase 1. My hope is maybe by the time we head to Utah for Christmas, I will have dropped a few pounds. I know for a fact my tolerance for sugar will be less by then, so maybe that will help me curb some of my Christmas indulgences

The good news is, my stint into eating less sugar before Thanksgiving made me sensitive to the junk in the food I was eating. For instance, I have always loved pecan pie and made one this year for our holiday dinner. I ate the leftovers, but every time I finished a piece, I felt kind of bleh. Too sweet! Also, we had real whipped cream with the pie. Gah! Too greasy! I didn't finish the whipped cream that I served myself because of the layer of grease it left on the inside of my mouth.

Yesterday, I had a serious migraine. That was either due to Phase 1, or due to working out. Lately I've been getting headachy after a half hour on the elliptical. It happened last Monday too, though not as badly as yesterday. I always have a little snack before I work out because I've learned if I don't I will definitely get a migraine. Maybe it's a hydration issue. I try to drink at least 8 oz of water before the workout, and drink another 16 oz while I'm on the elliptical. Then usually another 8-16 oz while I do my strength training. I'm kind of at a loss as to why I'm getting headaches.

My head is still a bit achey today so no workout this morning. We'll see how I feel after working out tomorrow. I'm hoping it's just a South Beach thing because usually by Day 3 I feel awesome so that gives me hope for tomorrow.

As an aside, I seriously need some new workout music. I'm getting so, SO tired of my current stuff. Any suggestions? I like stuff with a good, driving beat (Fatboy Slim, Black-Eyed Peas, Moby's fast stuff (Lift Me Up), Prodigy, Rihanna (Shut Up and Drive)).

Cut the Fat

In my effort to get motivated back into the gym, I've been listening to my health and fitness podcasts again. Today I was listening to my most recent discovery, Cut the Fat, and they were discussing set point.

Set point is that weight that our bodies are most comfortable at. A lot of times you can lose weight, but then it's very easy to gain it back so that you're at your set point again. I honestly think that my set point has become 190 pounds. Except for when I shot up to 235, 190 is where my body settles when I'm not eating horribly, but not really watching what I eat either, and when I'm not really getting to the gym regularly. I was 190 when I graduated from college. For 3 years I lost weight down to around 180 and then I would always gain back to 190 when I stopped working out. This year, when I haven't been able to lose any weight, I've been bouncing around 188-192.

I've always heard about resetting your set point, but for some reason that concept really clicked for me today when listening to the podcast. Basically, they advise losing 10% of your weight, then doing all you can to stay there for 3-6 months. This is supposed to reset your set point. Then, if you still have more weight to lose, lose 10% of your new weight. It's an arduous process, but is supposed to be more of a permanent solution than the usual diet up and down.

I think part of my problem has been I'll lose, and then I get lazy and just gain back up to my original set point. But losing 10% of my weight and then holding for 3-6 months doesn't sound unreasonable. That would take me to 171, which I would be absolutely thrilled with.

But how do I lose weight? Anyone who has been reading this blog this year knows about my frustrations with not being able to lose at all. So here is my plan, and we'll see how it goes.

1) Cardio AND strength training. Earier this year, I focused on cardio pretty exclusively, and even though my resting heart rate got insanely low, I didn't really see much improvement in my body. Today I did 30 minutes on the elliptical, then 20 minutes of strength training (crunches, squats, push ups, etc.) Also, once I feel more fit, I'll add in some HIIT. Right now, 30 minutes on the elliptical is wearing me out. I get weak so quickly!
2) High protein diet. It's a fact for me that carbs don't keep me full. I get hungrier more quickly, even when I eat complex carbs, which are supposed to digest slower. Most of my diet will be protein, veggies, and fruit, with some carbs here and there. I'll try to stay below 100 net carbs per day.
3) Not get too crazy about it. My goal is to not eat sugar most days, but, for instance, on Thanksgiving I'm making a pecan tart, which I will be eating.

Gym

Just thought you would like to know that I went to the gym this morning.

And I'm going tomorrow too. I'm tired of making excuses.

On another note, has anyone read The Metabolism Miracle? I heard an interview with the author and it sounds very interesting.

Salmon & Broccoli

Last night I had salmon and broccoli for dinner and remembered how much I enjoy eating clean and healthy. It's so very easy to forget.

Apparently Jason had a discussion with his co-workers yesterday in which they asked what I generally cook and he said "Salmon and broccoli." Then he came home and asked me what was for dinner. Why, salmon and broccoli of course. Which is funny since we haven't had salmon for a couple of weeks and in between I've made chicken and turkey and such. I do like me some salmon and broccoli, though. And I've convinced Jason with the magic roasting of the broccoli and then sprinkling it with parmesan and lemon juice that broccoli is awesome, despite his claims that he did not like broccoli one bit. I'm sorry, but if you're married to me and I'm doing the cooking, you have to eat broccoli. I like it too much to only cook occasionally.

While we're on the subject, I think I'm pretty lucky that I actually LIKE healthy foods. Broccoli has always been one of my favorite foods, as have sweet potatoes with just a bit of cinnamon) and cauliflower. And in my mind there's nothing like a nice big salad. I like the way they taste, and I feel good after eating them.

I wish there was some way that I could remember these things when diving headfirst into a sugar binge.

Sugar Detox Number Four Hundred Seventy-Seven

Once again, I am off the sugar. This weekend we went to Cheesecake Factory with a gift card and split a piece of pumpkin cheesecake and it was divine, but now I'm done (until Thanksgiving).

Last week I bought some Halloween candy on sale and proceeded to have a few pieces every day. And Jason made an apple pie last Sunday so we had some of that with ice cream for dessert for a few nights. I walked to work a few days, but haven't been to the gym in too long, especially considering the $46 a month it costs.

Last week I noticed that I felt kind of yucky a lot of the time, in direct proportion to the amount of sugar I had eaten that day. It's time to get this monkey off my back (Yes, it is very similar to heroin in my life).

No sugar today so far, and my head is achey. At least I'm familiar with this process and know that by Wednesday I will feel FANTASTIC. But not today.

I need some motivation. A friend emailed me and asked for this blog address again because she needed some inspiration (Hi, Donna!) and I thought to myself, bwahahahahaha! I mean, when she knew me in Chicago, I weighed about 40 pounds more than I do now, so I suppose that whole aspect might be a little inspiring. But I feel like a giant lazy bones lately, with no desire to go to the gym. Maybe feeling fantastic with no sugar in my system will help with the motivation.

Also, reading articles like this one don't help with the whole desire to go to the gym. More reason to get off the sugar, I suppose.

Fine Then

Yesterday I woke up and my eye was all red.

I finally admitted defeat and went to the doctor. Now I am armed with eye drops and an antibiotic and I'm all set to get well already.

And Still Sick...

So I'm still sick. This cold seems to just bounce back and forth from one nostril to the other with no sign of leaving. My voice sounds so bad that the other day a client who I was talking to on the phone told me I should go home. I don't feel that awful, just not up to my best, I'm tired, and my voice sounds totally thrashed.

I feel so pretty!

My eating has been middling. What that means is I'm having a treat here and there leading up to the whole Halloween thing, but overall I'm eating healthy. I wish I had taken better advantage of those scant few weeks in between the bronchitis and this cold and worked out more. I'm feeling doughy. Bleh.

Once I finally get well, I'll be back in the game. Here's hoping I'm able to kick off November with a bang.

Go Figure

So I've been eating crap, not eating as regularly since I got back to work because I'm so busy, not exercising, and yet my freshly-washed jeans are loose (I'm almost exposing my belly a bit today. Note: need longer shirts.)

Huh.

No gym this morning because I woke up with a pounding sinus headache. One side of my face is feeling a lot of pressure today.

I don't know what is going on with my immune system this year. For the past 10 years or so, I have hardly been sick. Jason has had a couple of severe colds since we met 4 years ago and I've had no problem getting close to him and taking care of him because I never caught anything. When I was younger I was a mess of bronchitis and regular bouts of strep throat (I had strep 7 times one year!). I have just assumed that I got out all my being sick when I was little and now I'm immune to everything.

Only this year that has not been the case. Let us review:

1. In February I got the flu, which not only pulled me out of work for 2 1/2 days (unheard of!), but led to a cough severe enough to crack a rib, putting me out of commission for several weeks.
2. In August I got bronchitis, which derailed my workout momentum and made hiking an absolute misery. Finally recovered enough lung capacity to work out sometime in September.
3. Tuesday morning I woke up with that soreish feeling in the back of my throat that I implicitly know is the precursor to sickness. I've been in denial as I've been blowing my nose for the past few days, and except for the headache and pressure this morning, it hasn't been too bad. I'm hoping the strength of positive thinking will keep this cold from taking hold.

My office building is offering flu shots next week and I think I may get one. Not H1N1, just the regular flu shot. I never get a flu shot, but am thinking maybe I should since my immune system is such crap lately.

Silence

Sorry for the radio silence. I've been out of town. And a slacker. My birthday was Saturday and I had lots of ice cream this weekend.

Unlike prior years, I will be continuing my working out post-birthday. We took the red eye last night, so I think tomorrow I will need to sleep in a bit. But Friday, I'll be at the gym. And if the weather cooperates, I'll walk to work too.

Alanna Asked...

No, I didn't get to the gym this morning.

But here's my excuse. Ready?

A car alarm woke me up at 4:09 (yes, I looked at my clock). There is this car in my neighborhood whose alarm goes off ALL THE TIME. Big truck goes by: alarm. Bee flies by: alarm. It goes off pretty much every night. I've gotten good about sleeping through it, but last night there was an added perk. Along with the alarm, the horn was blaring. A constant, piercing bleat in the night.

It woke Jason and I up, and Tiny woke up and went running around the apartment crazily, virtually begging us to make it stop. I decided that if it went on for 15 minutes, I would call the cops. Someone beat me to it. About 13 minutes in, Jason looked out the window and saw a cop car sitting next to a parking lot across the street and shining its light on an SUV with two guys running around it in boxer shorts. At least it woke the owners up too.

I seriously wish someone would just steal that car already and put us all out of our misery.

Of course, then I was all riled up and couldn't get back to sleep for an hour. So I walked to work. It was a perfect crisp fall morning. Lovely.

Gym Blues

Seriously, I CANNOT wake up lately. Every night I go to bed and set my alarm to go to the gym. Then I wake up and realize I've been hitting snooze for an hour. THEN I fall back asleep and wake up with just barely enough time to catch the last reasonable bus to work.

It may have something to do with not getting to sleep until 11:30 or 12 at night. I'm realizing that I need at least 7 hours of sleep or I feel seriously deprived. When I go to sleep at 12, I don't really want to wake up at 5:45. Call me crazy. It's hard, though, when Jason doesn't get home from work until 8:30 or so and I want to spend a little time with him. I've tried to talk him into going into work a bit earlier (like before 10:30 or 11) and getting home a little earlier, but he will have none of it. I may just need to stick to my guns and figure I won't see very much of my husband during the week.

It may also have something to do with the nights getting cooler and the mornings getting darker and my bed feeling so cozy... But, no! I am not going to fall back into this not working out until January - maybe February - pattern.

I wish I had a gym buddy. Then I would know that I have to get up because someone will be there to meet me. My secretary walks with her mom in the mornings and it's a great motivator because she knows her mom is waiting for her to swing by and pick her up, so she's there, every morning. A girl from Jason's lab just joined my gym, but we have completely different schedules and she likes to work out in the evening. I just have too many things pop up and know that if I planned to work out in the evenings, I would get to the gym MAYBE twice a week. Maybe.

I know the answer, of course. I have to fight the tired one morning and then that night I'll want to go to bed by 10:30 or so and then I'll be able to wake up more easily the next morning and so on. It's that first early morning that's a bear, though. OK, I'm committing here to all of you. That morning is tomorrow! Thursday! It all starts coming together on Thursday.

Daily Exertion

I'm getting back into thinking about ways to fit exercise into my daily routine. Today I walked to work and I plan to walk home (mainly because it's a beautiful day, but also spurred along by the fact that I can't find my bus pass. Maybe it's in my coat I wore on Friday...). After walking home, I planned to get in the car and drive to Whole Foods, just down the hill from our house.

Then it occurred to me (because I'm brilliant) that if I slightly modify my route home, I can just walk to Whole Foods then walk the rest of the way home. This is the way I want to think. I want to be on the lookout for those little ways to increase my activity since I spend most of my day on my bum in an office chair.

Monday September 28
Breakfast: scrambled eggs with 3 egg whites, 1 egg, Jones all natural sausage crumbled up and cheddar. I discovered that crumbling up some sausage into my eggs gives them enough flavor variety that I'm not so tired of them anymore. That should last a couple of weeks. I planned to eat a Chobani yogurt this morning, but for whatever reason I'm not very hungry today.

Lunch: 2 baked skinless chicken thighs; salad with spinach, red leaf lettuce, feta, real bacon bits and a tiny bit of tomato and vidalia onion vinaigrette (tiny not because I'm concerned about the fat and calories, but because this dressing packs a flavor punch).

Snack: rooibos chai tea with 1% milk; 1 oz almonds; maybe the Chobani if I get hungry.

Dinner: French onion soup in the crock-pot with gruyere cheese melted on top in my most adorable soup bowls (NOTE: when we got married, the soup bowls were brown with cream undertones, instead of the other way around. Personally, I like the brown ones better. So great, now I'm scared I might break one). I just put the soup recipe in a recipe calculator and realized it has hardly any calories. Huh. Maybe I'll have some extra cheese. And a protein smoothie.

Hangover

This morning it was so hard to get out of bed. I felt hungover - or at least what I imagine that feels like. And here, my friends, is why I've determined my body does not like carbs. Yesterday, I had a fancy lunch with clients and a fancy dinner up in Boston with our entire department. Lunch wasn't too bad - one piece of French bread was really the only obviously carb-loaded thing. I also had tomato and dill soup and a salad with scallops and shrimp. Yum! But at dinner they served this amazing focaccia bread in little buckets and then I ordered the gnocchi with wild mushrooms. It was all delicious and I have no regrets (although I tasted someone else's braised short ribs, which I was also thinking about getting and it was absolutely amazing. Should have stuck with the protein after all, I guess).

This morning, though, I felt like I had been run over. I wanted to walk to work, but couldn't drag myself out of bed in time. Even taking the bus, I was still late to work. I thought to myself, 'why do I feel so yucky?' and then I remembered all the food I ate yesterday.

So yeah, moderation is key when it comes to me and carbs, apparently. It's kind of amazing to me when I discover these things about myself. I find it fascinating, though I know it's just a bunch of navel-gazing.

Food Food and More Food

I'm continuing with my lowish carb lifestyle - at least during the week. This past weekend we went to Texas Roadhouse on Saturday with a couple of good friends and I had to have a couple of their rolls. Because their key ingredient is crack, basically.

Saturday night I made banana bread for the girls at church and left a couple of pieces for Jason and I to enjoy. I have determined that this is the best way to make baked goods: give most of it away. Then I still get some, but not so much that I wind up with a sugar buzz. Also, I used half whole wheat flour and halved the sugar in the bread recipe and it was perfectly fine. Bananas are sweet, yo.

FYI, with this whole heavy on the protein thing, I'm getting tired of eggs. Does anyone have any good protein-based breakfast ideas that don't involve eggs? I don't think they exist. It's eggs or Lucky Charms - those are our choices in America. I am a big fan of Greek yogurt too, the only problem is, I can't just eat plain yogurt (because I don't like it) and all of the yogurt additions (honey, strawberries), up the carbs. Not that I'm not eating the yogurt with the honey and the strawberries, I'm just making an observation.

The Food Journal
I've blogged almost all of the September weekdays so far and I must say, there isn't much I've been ashamed to put in here. Honestly, I think overall, I eat pretty healthy. Go me.

Monday, September 21
Breakfast: Scrambled eggs with 2 eggs, 2 egg whites and .5 oz feta; non-fat Chobani with honey.
Lunch: 1/2 baked skinless chicken breast; salad with romaine, feta, bacon and lite olive oil vinaigrette.
Snack: 5 bacon-wrapped scallops (went to a work thing at 4 PM at a country club where they had bacon-wrapped scallops, which I ADORE); handful of potato chips.
Dinner: Salmon; roasted broccoli and cauliflower.
Evening snack: Sugar-free chocolate fudge and cheesecake puddings, mixed with a bit of whipped cream to make chocolate cheesecake mousse. Love. I understand pudding is not a whole food. Whatever, it's awesome.

Tuesday, September 22
Pre-Workout Snack: 1 Cabot cheddar low-fat snack pack.
Breakfast: Scrambled eggs with 2 eggs, 2 egg whites and .5 oz feta; smoothie with strawberries, blueberries, almond milk and whey protein.
Lunch: Mexican salad of black beans, chicken, cheddar, sour cream, salsa and lettuce.
Snack: 2 slices colby jack cheese; 1 oz almonds.
Dinner: Pan-fried hamburger patty (left over from Sunday's BBQ); stir fried sweet onion and zucchini.
Evening snack: Sugar-free chocolate fudge and cheesecake puddings, mixed with a bit of whipped cream.
Workout: Swim 72 laps.

Wednesday, September 22
Pre-Workout Snack: 1/2 oz of almonds (I think it's time to throw that bag of almonds away. I'm pretty sure I had a rancid one and my stomach has been a little squiffy ever since)
Breakfast: Scrambled eggs with 2 eggs, 2 egg whites and .5 oz feta (can you see why I'm getting sick of the eggs?); smoothie of strawberries, pineapple, almond milk and whey protein.
Lunch: Baked skinless chicken (2 thighs, 1 leg); salad with romaine, cheddar, tomato and Italian dressing.
Snack: 1 oz almonds (from a different bag); maybe some Madagascar Vanilla Red tea.
Dinner: Probably Boston Market because we have coupons and I feel lazy. I just discovered the brisket has only 280 mg of sodium, which is about a quarter of the sodium content of pretty much everything else at Boston Market. Maybe it was a typo.
Evening snack: Probably the pudding thing again.
Workout: 30 min on elliptical; strength exercises at home (crunches, push-ups, squats, bicep curls, etc.)

Pumpkin Bread and Weight

I posted the pumpkin bread recipe.

In other news, I think I may be losing weight, which is kind of amazing. My weekly weigh-in I was down 2.4 pounds, and it was below the low point of my plateau so I think it might be for real.

Woo hoo!

New Clothes!

Well, I did it. A coupon for a free tote bag plus buy one get one 1/2 off on sweaters lured me into the Dress Barn just around the corner from my office.

I really hate the name "Dress Barn".

Despite the name, I bought 4 sweaters and a dress and came away with my free green croc tote bag. And the saleslady didn't automatically give me 1/2 off the 2 cheapest sweaters, which is what I was expecting. She paired the two cheap sweaters and gave me half off one and then gave me half off one of the more expensive ones. Excellent.

Two of the sweaters are nice enough to wear with a suit or at least layered under a blazer and since they're new, they're not nubby and faded yet like all my other sweaters, which is a bonus.

I almost bought a skirt, but decided in the end that it made my bum look just a little too lumpy. I always have a hard time finding bottoms. Today I tried on 2 skirts, 2 dresses and 5 pairs of pants that all managed to convey the message, "Hi, I have HUGE thighs. Particularly the upper bits. Check those out."

One of the sweaters is my official favorite sweater of Fall. It's brown and warm and cozy and I really hope it's cold enough when we go apple picking in October to wear it.

Food Journal

Thursday, September 17

Dinner: Potluck! I just totaled up my calories on SparkPeople and even though I felt like I was munching a lot last night, calorie-wise, I was way low. I ate 2 eggplant feta rolls, which we brought, a small slice of veggie/tofu lasagna, 3 crackers with brie, a bunch of green salad and a couple of bites of a tiny sliver of pie. I took 2 slivers of 2 different kinds of pie and ate one bite of each because, frankly, they weren't very good. In the past, I might have mindlessly just shoveled them in my mouth, but I really thought about whether I actually wanted to eat them. The answer was no.

Friday, September 18

Breakfast: scrambled eggs with 2 eggs, 2 egg whites and 1/2 oz feta; Chobani nonfat Greek yogurt with honey.

Lunch: crock pot chicken (the chicken that keeps on giving) - 1/2 thigh, 1/2 breast; salad with cheddar and balsamic vinaigrette.

Snack: Almonds

Dinner: salmon; roasted broccoli and cauliflower; collard greens cooked...some way. The Farm Share is winding down a bit with regard to selection and kale and collards seem to be the featured vegetables lately. When I tried to make collards in June, they gave us a bit of gas. I know, TMI. I'm hoping I can cook them longer this time or figure out what it takes to make that not happen, or maybe I should just take some Beano.

Food Journal & Pumpkin

Wednesday, September 16
Snack while walking to work: Cabot 50% reduced fat snack pack.

Breakfast: scrambled eggs with 2 eggs, 2 egg whites and 1/2 oz cheddar; smoothie of 1 C. milk, 1/2 scoop whey protein, ice and vanilla.

Lunch: skinless crock pot chicken - 1/4 breast, 1 leg, 1/2 thigh; salad of spinach, bacon and feta with 1 T. lite Italian dressing.

Snack: 2 T. natural peanut butter.

Dinner: salad with lettuce, tabbouleh, hummus, falafel, gyro meat, tahini and tzatziki.

Thursday, September 17
Breakfast: scrambled eggs with 2 eggs, 2 egg whites and 1/2 oz feta; flax muffin.

Lunch: skinless crock pot chicken - 1/2 thigh and 1/2 breast; salad of spinach, bacon and feta with 1 T. lite Italian dressing.

Snack: 2 T. natural peanut butter.

Dinner: TBA. We're going to a potluck so we'll see what's there.

So last night I made pumpkin muffins for the 12-17 year old girls I work with at church. First of all, none of them had ever had pumpkin muffins before! Or pumpkin bread or anything else made with pumpkin other than pie. We were planning our activities for the rest of the year and the week before Thanksgiving we're going to cook. One girl wanted to cook a turkey and I told her that might be a little involved for the hour to hour and a half we have. I suggested pumpkin pie and one of the girls piped in with, "Can we make these pumpkin muffins?" Absolutely! I told them it was my great-grandma's recipe and they were suitably impressed.

Anyway, I didn't eat any. I made muffins out of half the batter, and then put the other half in the freezer, with the hope that when my birthday rolls around in October, I can make myself some muffins (OK, technically, we'll be in California on my birthday, but maybe I can make some muffins to bring with us). I did lick the beaters because I figured I could have a little treat, but the girls ate all the muffins except for a couple that I left for Jason - which he ate.

And now that I've been talking about the pumpkin muffins, I should probably post the recipe over at Bee's Knees. I'll do that later and let you all know when I do.

Food Journal

Tuesday, September 15

Breakfast: scrambled eggs with 2 eggs, 2 egg whites and 1/2 oz feta; flax muffin (Note: eggs + flax muffin definitely helped me stay more full today. Flax muffin recipe below.)

Lunch: 2 skinless baked drumsticks; 1 stuffed summer squash (I substituted 2 T. flax seed meal for the bread crumbs. Because I'm brilliant.)

Snack: 2 T. natural peanut butter; Madagascar Vanilla Red tea with a splash of 1% milk.

Dinner: I have a work meeting at 7 and I'm pretty sure they're going to have pizza. I brought a chicken breast in no sugar added tomato sauce with some parmesan sprinkled on top, which I will try to eat before I leave work. I may have some edamame when I get home. Mmm, fiber...

Evening Snack: If I'm still hungry after all of that, I might make another smoothie with unflavored whey protein, 1 C. milk, Stevia and vanilla. That turned out GOOD last night. Like a vanilla shake.

Individual Flax Muffin
(for the life of me, I can't remember where I got this recipe last summer, so my apologies to whoever invented it)

2 egg whites
1/2 packet Stevia or Splenda
1.5 t. cinnamon
3 t. plain yogurt
.5 t. baking powder
3 T. flax seed meal

(when not so hot and bothered about carbs, I use 1 t. agave nectar as the sweetener, cut the yogurt to 2 t. and sometimes throw in some raisins or Craisins just for kicks)

Spray a microwave-safe ramekin or small bowl with cooking spray (or use a muffin liner). Mix the egg and sweetener until well combined. Add yogurt and blend well. Mix in the ground flax seed, cinnamon and baking powder until well combined. Pour in ramekin and microwave on high for 1 minute, 30 seconds (note the ramekin should be no more than half full since these do rise a lot, if it is too small they will overflow).

Obsessed!

Jason informs me that I appear to be unhealthily obsessed with food.

In other news, the sky is blue.

Actually, I took affront to his comments initially, but I realize he's probably right to a degree. Granted, if you just read this blog (which is what he was doing at the time), I come off as thinking and talking and living for food and exercise only. I do have another blog. I do have other things I do. For instance, the other night while Jason worked on a paper, I listened to ghost stories on my ipod and crocheted a couple squares for a baby blanket I'm making.

Really, what I'm trying to do here is figure out what works for my body. What makes me feel the best I can. Thus far, I have discovered that eating a lot of sugar/white flour on a regular basis makes me feel like crap. I have discovered that a higher protein diet gives me more energy and keeps me more full (I mean "diet" in the what I eat every day sense, not the restricting calories for weight loss sense).

This blog has been useful recently to vent my frustrations about not losing weight. But also to celebrate my victories - particularly with regard to what I can accomplish physically. OK, not so much since I got bronchitis, but before that I was having a lot of fun doing new things with my work outs.

The thing is, I come by my food issues naturally. Both of my parents have been obese for as long as I can remember. Their weights have been up and down for years. My grandpa was obese. My grandma was obsessed with her weight and always made sure to comment on whether it looked like I had lost weight or not. In addition to food issues, there are also alcohol and drug issues and other signs that maybe my family hasn't quite figured out how to cope with things yet. For me, my issue is food, and I know that. Maybe it would be alcohol, but I don't drink. I find that when I give myself license to just eat whatever, I do exactly that. Having a sugar restriction helps me keep that under control. I try to limit the sugar in our home. I mean, if I was an alcoholic would I buy big bottles of vodka on a regular basis, just to have around, just in case?

Frankly, judging by the rapid disappearance of a giant bag of Red Vines, I don't think Jason is such a paragon of self control. So I think it's best we just don't bring it into the house.

I'm trying to get to a place where I can eat healthy without thinking about it and not be tempted beyond what I can bear by a tray of mini desserts (like, ahem, on Friday night). I think generally I do pretty well with that, but sometimes I go off the wagon in a big way. So for now, maybe this blog will reflect a bit of an obsession. I'm working on it.

OMG

I don't want to jinx anything here, but this morning I weighed in at 186.8. That's the first time I've been below 188 in about 4 or 5 months.

OK, acting calm...

Food Journal

I am not very good with the consistency over the weekends. Oh well. We'll call this the weekday food journal.

Monday, September 14
Pre-Workout Snack: Cabot reduced fat cheddar snack pack.
Breakfast: 2 eggs and 2 egg whites scrambled with feta; 1 C. 1% milk.
Morning Snack: 2 T. natural peanut butter (because the eggs - not enough to hold me until lunch. Need to reassess breakfast); Madagascar Vanilla Red tea with a splash of 1% milk (I forgot how much I LOVE this tea).
Lunch: 2 baked skinless chicken thighs; salad of mesclun mix with mozzarella and a little prosciutto with balsamic vinaigrette.
Snack: Chopped cucumber with a bit of feta, drizzle of olive oil and a splash of balsamic vinegar.
Dinner: Crock pot rotisserie chicken; stuffed summer squash; roasted broccoli.
Evening Snack: smoothie of whey protein, milk, ice, splash of vanilla (honestly, this will probably be my "fixing dinner snack" since Jason probably won't be home until 8 and it's 6 and I'm already hungry).

If you can't tell, I am really working on minimizing the carbs right now. Need more vegetables. And eggs.

When Do I Buy New Clothes?

I am tired of most of my clothes and, frankly, a lot of them are starting to look kind of raggedy. As an attorney, I need to look polished and pulled together, so I've become hyper-aware of how my clothes are faring over time. I have been putting off buying new clothes because the plan was to lose weight. I didn't want to buy new things, only to turn around and bestow them on friends who can use them, sell them on Ebay for way less than I paid or just ship them off to Salvation Army. In the past when I've been losing, that has happened many times and I have bid farewell to super cute items that I only got to wear once or twice. We're in money-saving mode right now so I want the dollars I spend to go as far as possible.

But, of course, this year I'm not losing weight. I've been holding off on having a shopping trip through Spring and Summer. Now we're entering Autumn and I'm pulling out the same raggedy sweaters that I've had for 3, 4, 5 or more years. I call my style "classic" so it's not like I'm concerned about being out of step with trends, but the items are starting to show wear.

I'm hoping that I will actually start losing weight again at some point. I don't want to spend $98 (!!!!) on a pair of nice slacks at Banana Republic, only to have them not fit in a month or two.

(Also, I probably won't be spending $98 on a pair of slacks. Hello, Banana Republic outlet! But it's the principle of buying something that I won't get the full use of.)

What do you think? Should I bite the bullet and go spend a couple hundred dollars so I look nice, knowing that there's a chance I might be doing it all over again before the clothes have worn out?

Food Journal

Wednesday, September 9 (last 1/2)
Dinner: salmon, roasted broccoli with parmesan and a leftover scallion pancake from the Chinese take out we got after driving home from Vermont.
Snack: 4 cinnamon graham crackers and 1 C. milk.

Thursday, September 10
Breakfast: plain Chobani Greek yogurt with 1 T. honey, 1 C. Fiber One with 2/3 C. milk.
Lunch: whole wheat crepe with mushrooms, chicken, spinach and bechamel sauce.
Snack: Apple Pie Larabar.
Dinner: ground beef soft tacos (leftovers from camping).

I JUST discovered that Fiber One has aspartame in it. I glanced through the ingredients to make sure that there was no HFCS without even noticing. I'm bummed because I like Fiber One a lot and wow, does it have a lot of fiber, but I don't really want the extra aspartame.

Friday, September 11
Breakfast: Dunkin Donuts turkey sausage egg white flatbread (apparently, it's the official sandwich of the New England Patriots).
Lunch: leftover salmon. I figure I should have something else - but I'm not sure what. I'm not really feeling food so much today. You know those days where you're just not really interested in eating?
Snack: Chobani Greek strawberry yogurt.
Dinner: unknown. We're going to a work function tonight. Last year at this event they had pasta bars, which would have been ok except for they mixed up all the ingredients in about a cup of oil. This is after I told the chef to go easy on the oil. I tipped my plate sideways to let the oil drain to one side, while I ate the pasta off the other side.

How Do You Eat Healthy For Cheap?

Yesterday, Jason sent me a link to a blog post with the subject line: "this is amazing". The blog is one of his favorite economic bloggers and he happened to be talking about a woman who spends less than $10 a week to feed her family of 6. The section about the "Queen of Coupons" includes some of the receipts and a picture of all of the food she bought.

Only, here's the thing. It's all crap. Well, except for the milk. I don't think she had a coupon for the milk, though.

Here's what I wrote back to Jason:

"What would really impress me is someone who feeds her family for super-cheap without having to buy only processed food. There are never coupons for fresh produce or meat, and very rarely for beans. If you look at those receipts they include fruit juices (which are less healthy than fresh fruit because you get all the sugar with none of the fiber), sugary cereals, sugary jelly, salad dressing, noodles, peanut butter that includes sugar and preservatives, Aunt Jemima ready-made pancakes, etc.

This is why it's hard to eat healthy when you don't have any money."

I had the same reaction when I went to a local store that several people I know had praised to the skies for their cheap prices. I will grant that they have a fair produce section (no organics, of course) and great cheese and meat choices if you want to cook Latin American or Portuguese cuisine. However, most everything else was the boxed processed stuff you find in the middle aisles of your average grocery store. They did have one Kashi cereal and some plain shredded wheat, but all the other stuff was the opposite of healthy. But it was SOOOO cheap. So there were all these moms with their kids hanging off the carts, piling the carts full of processed, sugary crap because that's what they could afford to feed their families.

I'm sure they like the processed food. Heck, I like processed food. However, overall I like it less now that I know how bad it is for me. I have these discussions with my friend Rachel about where the problem lies in all of this. Farm subsidies. Lack of education. Powerful, powerful food lobbies. There are so many pieces at play, but it all adds up to, it's hard to eat healthy on a budget.

Tomorrow

Tomorrow I am going to the gym. Now that I'm feeling well enough (not well enough to climb a mountain apparently, but well enough), I'm starting to feel antsy with the not working out. I think my body is done fighting the illness and now it needs something else to do. I feel sluggish and blah.

Also, there are a couple really unflattering pictures of me from this weekend in Vermont. One in which my jeans are pulled TIGHTLY across my upper thighs.

Also, I saw another picture of me taken in July at a church function that just depressed me. Another one in which I thought I looked pretty cute in my jeans, but I kind of didn't. They look too small.

I think I have a reverse body image problem in which I think I look thinner than I actually do. Those pictures are a harsh dose of reality. I blame the mirror in the guest room. I think it elongates me when I stand in front of it.

When I'm working out, even if I'm not losing weight, at least I feel better overall. I know I've said this before, but I'm having a really hard time believing that I'll ever lose weight again. So I'll just eat healthy and exercise and I know I will feel better, if frustrated by the lack of movement on the scale.

It doesn't help that I was confronted this past weekend with the comments of someone who clearly doesn't understand that you can eat well and work out and still be overweight. His comments were general and not directed at me in any way, but I'm sure he looks at me and thinks, as so many probably do, that I just lack the self-control to lose those 30 pounds. He's a cretin and he's offensive and he's just kind of ignorant about these things (and about reading social cues), but sometimes it's hard to know that those sentiments are out there.

Wow, I do need to get back to the gym to pull myself out of this funk.

Oh, Right...

So I got a bit off-kilter with the food journaling since I was in Vermont for the better part of 4 days. It's a good thing I do the SparkPeople food journal too because I honestly don't remember what I ate yesterday.

Tuesday, September 8
Breakfast: Starbuck's Greek yogurt with honey and some granola-ish stuff. Yummy, but cost way too much considering I have stacks of Greek yogurt in my fridge. Day after vacation = lazy.
Lunch: Au Bon Pain low-fat Southern Black-Eyed Pea Soup (for the record, not as good as my black-eyed peas); little packet of 5 crackers, a bit of cheddar and some grapes.
Snack: Cherry Pie Luna Bar.
Dinner: Sushi (mainly California Rolls) and some seaweed salad.

Wednesday, September 9
Breakfast: Chobani fat-free Greek yogurt with 1 T. honey; 1 C. Fiber one with about 2/3 C. milk.
Lunch: Turkey and Havarti on wheat with cucumbers, spinach and dijon mustard.
Snack: 2 graham crackers with peanut butter (leftover S'mores ingredient that is going to go stale)
Dinner: TBA. I really need to start planning our dinners again. I have to be somewhere at 7:30 so Jason is on his own. I'll probably fix myself some salmon and maybe roast some broccoli.

Vermont

I posted some pictures of our trip.

Hiking - Not So Good, Actually

Well, I made it up one mountain. Kind of.

Saturday morning we hiked up Camel's Hump. Right after we started ascending, I realized breathing was going to be a major problem for me. When I started wheezing, my friend Rachel gave me a puff off of her inhaler. It helped a bit, I think, but it just went downhill from there. Not literally, unfortunately.

The lack of oxygen led to my muscles getting increasingly more and more tired. I'm sure for avid hikers the hike wasn't that technically difficult, but I don't think I've ever had to climb up and over quite so many rocks before. Or maybe it just seemed that way since I was already feeling pretty horrible. Everyone was very kind to me and would wait for me to catch up and encourage me. I kind of wanted them to just go on ahead and let me continue at my own pace by myself. I knew I couldn't turn around at that point, and I felt really bad holding everyone up.

Also, I got a blister. Next time I will apply the moleskin BEFORE starting the hike.

By the time I dragged myself to the top, I just wanted to curl up on a rock and stay. The idea of hiking 3 more miles to the bottom of the mountain seemed insurmountable to me. I ate a sandwich, drank some water, looked at the view, tried not to pass out, then started down the mountain with everyone else.

The sad thing is, the view was really amazing. Sitting on top of that mountain with the wind whipping around us was pretty outstanding. The air was clear and we could see Mount Washington almost 70 miles away. But all I could think was how much I just wanted this hike to be over.

The next day everyone else climbed Mount Mansfield, the tallest peak in Vermont. Listening to them talk about the difficulties of the trail afterward, I'm really glad I didn't go. And I'm sure they were really glad I didn't go. Instead I drove up to the visitor's center, with the intention of meeting them and hiking one more mile to the summit. I made it about halfway but that day it was my blister holding me back more than the lack of oxygen, since the ascent wasn't as bad to just get from the parking lot to the summit.

I did have fun camping and hanging out with everyone and sitting by the fire. I was just really frustrated by my lack of lung capacity. Once it became clear to me that the hike up Camel's Hump was going to be extremely difficult and that Mt. Mansfield was out of the question, I cried a little to Jason during one of the times when he was waiting with me to catch my breath. I had been looking forward to this trip and to accomplishing these hikes. Instead, I got bronchitis four weeks ago and here we are. Also, since I haven't been able to work out at all for much of August and then I did a 5 1/2 mile hike, my thighs are really yelling at me today.

Next time will be better.

Food

We wound up running around last night grocery shopping and getting last-minute camping supplies. So I ate a chicken leg and thigh and that was it for dinner. I actually made some kale chips - or tried to. They turned out pretty horrible. I made them before and they worked so I'm not exactly sure what I did wrong.

Around midnight as I was packing I realized I was hungry again and then I realized I only ate about 1100 calories all day. Whoops. But by that time I had brushed my teeth and knew I would be in bed soon so I let it go.

Here's today:

Friday, September 4, 2009
Breakfast: 1/4 vegetable frittata, strawberry Chobani Greek yogurt.
Lunch: Footlong ham and turkey from Subway. I entered it into SparkPeople and holy cow, that's a lot of sodium. I was craving Subway for some unknown reason. Should have just gotten a salt lick.
Dinner: Unknown. Guessing probably PB&J on whole wheat since that's what we bought tot ake to Vermont.

And we're off!

Food Report

I don't have anything that interesting to say today other than I'm feeling increasingly better and hopeful that I WILL be able to hike Saturday and Sunday.

I am liking this idea of being accountable for my food by reporting it on the blog. Makes me think more about what I'm putting in my mouth and whether I REALLY want to disclose it.

The food:

Wednesday, September 2
Dinner: 2 skinless baked chicken thighs (I'm a dark meat girl. I've never been able to make a chicken breast that wasn't too dry for me. I'm sure I'm doing something wrong, but until someone tells me how to do it right, I'm perfectly happy with the dark meat. It works out well since Jason likes white meat); 1 cup edamame; 1/2 cup Fiber One with 1/2 cup milk.

Thursday, September 3
Breakfast: 1 cup Fiber One with 1/2 cup milk.

Breakfast 2: So I had to be at a meeting at 7 AM this morning, which meant I ate the Fiber One at 6 AM, which meant by the time I got into work at 9ish, I was starving again. (Jason is always annoyed by how I eat a little something and then I'm hungry again a few hours later. It's just the way my stomach works. I can't help it.) So I stopped by Dunkin Donuts and got a Turkey Sausage and Egg Flatbread. Not ideal, but we have very few breakfast options around my office. At least the flatbread has some semblance of grains and the whole shebang is relatively low fat.

Lunch: Mexican salad with black beans, chicken, cheddar, sour cream, lettuce and salsa.

Snack: Strawberry Chobani Greek yogurt.

Dinner: TBA. Again. We're supposed to do some shopping for the camping trip tonight so it may be a forage in the fridge kind of dinner. I pick up the Farm Share after work and I still have some stuff left over from last week so, if nothing else, we'll have vegetables.

Back in the Game

It's September and I'm feeling much better. I got my new hiking boots from LL Bean yesterday (20% off and they have wide widths) and I'm going to give hiking a try this weekend. I may not make it all the way up either mountain, but I can give it a shot. I'll be sure to bring a book in case I reach a point and have to wait for everyone else to go up and back.

The weather has been gorgeous this week and I confess that I'm so out of the looking for any opportunity to exercise mentality that it didn't even occur to me that I should be walking to work until a woman at work yesterday asked me if I had been walking. No, but I should be. I've been known to walk home from work in February when it's unbelievably cold and there are piles of snow in my way. I should really take advantage of this perfect weather.

In an effort to not gain 15 pounds this winter, I'm concentrating on keeping up with my healthy eating. I've gained 15 pounds the last 2 winters, but in fairness, I lost 15 pounds the last 2 summers. This summer, as I have written about obsessively, there has been no weight loss, so I really need to watch my indulgences this year.

Monday marked the beginning of another sugar purge and I was fighting migraines both Monday and Tuesday. At first, I thought it was just because my shoulder is sore from my unergonomic office set up. However, the office has not changed, my shoulder is still sore, but today I have no headache. My body really takes hold of sugar and runs with it. It's like crack for me.

On the camping trip we'll be eating S'mores because that's what you do on camping trips (I'm partial to dark chocolate with cinnamon graham crackers). So that will be my September splurge. (I wish there was some way to cart ice cream up to the mountains of Vermont...). Then in October we have my birthday, November is Thanksgiving, December is Christmas and then voila! we're back in January with limited temptations. I won't lie, I may have a treat now and then, particularly since we have friends who have been known to bestow delicious cookies on us around Christmas time. But my goal is to eat healthy every day of the month except one.

Maybe I should start reporting on my eating here. I log it on SparkPeople, but it's not like anyone's reviewing that on a regular basis. OK, so for the month of September, I'll write my food at the bottom of my posts. If you're not interested, just ignore it.

Tuesday, September 1
Breakfast: 1/4 vegetable frittata, strawberry fat-free Chobani yogurt.
Lunch: Turkey and Havarti on whole wheat with cucumbers, spinach and dijon mustard, 4 squash fritters.
Dinner: Baked skinless chicken (3 thighs, 1 drumstick), roasted broccoli and cauliflower, 1 cup Fiber One cereal with 2/3 cup milk.
(Usually I have a snack somewhere in there, but I got busy yesterday. Thus, my dinner was huge)

Wednesday, September 2
Breakfast: 1/4 vegetable frittata, strawberry fat-free Chobani yogurt.
Lunch: Small Au Bon Pain Southwest Vegetable Soup (low-fat, reduced sodium), ABP multigrain baguette.
Snack: Banana
Dinner: TBA - I have to be somewhere at 7:30 and am not sure when I'll be leaving work. I may just grab some leftover chicken and hope for the best.

Getting Back in the Game

I think my lungs are getting better. I'm coughing less overall at least. This week I want to get back into strength training. I still don't think I can do any real cardio, but I should be able to lift some weights, right?

Only now I've gotten used to staying up an hour later, making it really, really hard to get up and work out before work.

Another thing I'm trying to do this week is wean myself off of the sugar. This past weekend was a sugar extravaganza. No real reason, I just wanted candy. Oh and a blondie brownie yesterday. Lame. Today I finished lunch and immediately craved something sweet. I don't have any fruit here at work, so my body will just have to suck it up.

Yesterday I weighed myself for the first time in a few weeks and bronchitis + no exercising + eating pretty much the same generally healthy way = no change whatsoever. Shocker.

Hill

Last night I had to walk up the hill to Brown to pick up Jason's car. I walked halfway up the hill. Then I stopped and caught my breath for a good 2 minutes.

Then I walked the rest of the way up the hill and gasped my way through the 3 or 4 flat blocks to the car.

It has been a very long time since that hill has winded me like that. Actually, I don't think it ever has. Even in my worst shape, I could make it all the way up without stopping. I feel pitiful.

I've been thinking about Plan B's for myself if I can't hike over Labor Day weekend.

Plan B #1: I have a friend from a long time ago who lives in Vermont and I just emailed her to see if she wants to try to get together if I can't hike.

Plan B #2: Saturday's mountain has a road up to the top so I can at least drive to the top and meet everyone up there with water and snacks and congratulations.

Plan B #3: If it's sunny, find a nearby lake and soak up some sun.

So those plans aren't too bad. I have some good books to bring along as well. Though my fingers are crossed that I will be magically healed in between now and then and will be able to hike up those mountains.

Sabotage

I'm now well into my third week of coughing and I'm sucking on a cough drop as I type this because the cough is still bad enough for that. Lately I'm fine during the day (except for today), but when I get home from work at night, I have several coughing attacks. I think this is probably because at work I'm just sitting on my bum, but when I get home I want to DO stuff. Crazy stuff. Like laundry! And dishes! And cleaning the bathroom!

Last night I changed the sheets on our bed and midway through I was doubled over coughing, with my arms wrapped around my torso lest I crack another rib.

So anyway, I'm feeling kind of frustrated. As I mentioned before, we're going camping and hiking over Labor Day weekend. The plan is to climb 2 (Vermont) mountains. However, I'm having problems just bringing laundry up from the basement to our 2nd floor apartment. I hope that in the week and a half until the trip, my lungs get their act together and start letting me breathe like a normal person again.

I was going to use August to get ready for the hike by climbing the hills in Providence and the hills on the elliptical. Alas... I feel like I'll be lucky to get in a couple of workouts before the trip.

We're Gonna Be Famous!

My friend Rachel and I are kind of mulling over doing a podcast on health, nutrition and wellness issues. In my search for podcasts to listen to while working out and walking to work, I've happened upon several complete duds. A microphone does not make you an entertainer.

That said, I don't know how entertaining Rachel and I will be, though we sure have a good time discussing these issues amongst ourselves. And maybe Jason will pop in now and again to offer his voice of contrariness (He likes to be a devil's advocate. Also, he can be a bit cynical).

Rachel has a background in nutrition and dietetics and is currently working on a Masters in Public Health. Her lofty goals include reforming food policy (starting with farm subsidies) and teaching everyone in the world how to be healthy in their food choices.

I have no official qualifications to speak of. I'm just interested in the subject matter and constantly in pursuit of finding the right balance of healthy living for myself.

We have a couple of ideas, but are there any topics that you would want to listen to us discuss?

So, I Guess I Really Am Sick

I don't really like going to the doctor and figure it's generally an exercise in futility unless, say, a bone is broken. Usually I get a cold and then it goes away and I'm fine all by myself.

Well, I've now been coughing for 2 weeks. Last night I had a really hard time getting to and staying asleep. I also discovered that the only way to not cough all night was to sleep on my left side. If I lay on my back or on my right side, the coughing started up like crazy.

So I called the doctor this morning. I went in and found out I had a temperature. Only 99.2, but considering my normal temperature is around 96.5, that's fairly substantial. The funny thing is, I didn't have a temperature a week ago, so it's like this thing has actually gotten worse. She diagnosed an upper respiratory infection/bronchitis and prescribed an antibiotic and some cough medicine with a narcotic that's supposed to help me sleep tonight. And any other night in the future with whatever's left over, I wager.

On the upside, my blood pressure is 110 over 74. Pleased about that.

Hopefully this cough will finally go away soon now that I'm actually treating it.

I also took the opportunity to discuss the whole no weight loss despite 4-5 months of eating well and working out thing with her and I'm going to get blood drawn for thyroid and other tests on Friday morning. It's a fasting blood draw so I can pretty much guarantee I will be passing out. Getting blood drawn doesn't make me squeamish, but I always nearly pass out. Last time I had blood drawn, I had eaten a hearty oatmeal and fruit breakfast and still, bam! Tunnel vision and clammy skin. Here's hoping I manage not to completely lose it on Friday.

New York Weekend

So I'm still coughing and just really tired of that whole mess. I haven't worked out for over a week now. However, I spent the majority of my weekend in un-air-conditioned parts of a sweltering New York City, walking a lot, so I figure that counts for something, right?

Tonight, in addition to doing 3 or 4 loads of laundry (which means trucking it all up and down 2 flights of stairs), I'm going to do some strength exercises. I may not be able to do any cardio without collapsing into a coughing fit, but I should be able to do some crunches and some bicep curls.

I'm going to post a New York report with pictures on my other blog, so stay tuned.

Cough

How come when I come to work I'm so much more exhausted at the end of the day than if I stayed home? I mean, I'm just sitting on my bum either way.

This cough is getting annoying. It was a little over a week ago that I got a tickle in my throat and started coughing a little. This morning, not being able to breathe for a second while I was asleep resulted in my hacking myself awake. I definitely think I need to sleep on the couch tonight and leave Jason in peace.

In addition to feeling really frustrated about not being able to work out, I'm annoyed about the cough throwing off our upcoming plans. For instance, we're going to New York this weekend and I don't want to cough my way through the trip, and through Jason's choir performances.

We're going hiking and camping in Vermont over Labor Day weekend. I realize that's still a few weeks away, but my goal was to spend August getting stronger so that I don't totally die on the hike. We'll be climbing 2 mountains and while I realize they're Vermont mountains, they still involve climbing. We're going with some people who are crazy fit and it doesn't feel great to be at the back of the pack, wheezing my way up the mountain.

Also, I'm craving carbs like mad. What's that about?

So here's hoping this cough clears itself up by next week. I'm sure you all are sick of hearing about it, and, frankly, I'm sick of experiencing it, so it would be a win-win.

And I'm Still Sick

It's Wednesday and I still feel like poo. Coughing is really exhausting. I stayed home from work yesterday and felt well enough to head up to Boston to have dinner with a friend, as planned. Only when I got home I was pooped and spent some time having some amazing coughing fits while drifting off to sleep.

The second I woke up this morning, I launched right into some coughs. Maybe I should sleep on the couch tonight so I don't bug Jason so much. He hasn't said anything, but I feel bad when I cough and then he rolls around and I know I've woken him up.

I'm at work today, because I feel guilty and extravagant taking sick days and I don't feel THAT bad. I had the flu in February and I felt bad enough to take 2 days off then. But this is just annoying and tiring rather than debilitating.

I'm kind of getting a headache now.

Amy posted her Wednesday Workout today and I read it and thought, "whatever". My body is so not up to exercising right now.

OK, going to take some pills for my head now.

Sick For Real

So I had grand ideas of what I was going to accomplish workout-wise over the last few days. Friday - swim. Saturday - run. This morning - elliptical and weights. Instead I'm coughing like crazy and just dragging myself around the apartment.

I don't know what is up with this cough. It's a deep cough, from my lungs, but there's no accompanying stuffy head and it's not really a productive cough, as the doctor would say. But I woke up yesterday feeling like utter poo and didn't make it to church. Last night I was feeling a bit better, though today I'm still coughing as much as ever. At least I have the day off work. Rhode Island celebrates V-J Day. It's great to have a random day off in August and I was looking forward to Jason and I getting out and maybe going for a hike or to the beach. Oh well.

Yesterday I crocheted and knitted and watched period pieces. Then Jason came home from church and we burned through an entire DVD of season 2 of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Because we're cool like that. We like to Netflix TV shows and run through all the seasons. Neither of us watched Alias when in was actually on, but we watched the entire series last year.*

Today I still feel kind of yucky and the idea of doing much more than taking a shower (which I already did) sounds kind of exhausting. Stupid cough. Stupid cough with no point to it. My main goal is preventing another cracked rib, because, seriously, that was a major drag.

* And marveled at how incredibly crazy it became over the years. I mean, it was always pretty crazy, but it got REALLY crazy.

Just A Little Sick

I thought about going swimming this morning, but instead I slept in. Even though I've only been to the actual for-real gym twice this week, my muscles are very sore and needed a day off. I walked to and from work twice this week, and walked one way yesterday. Then I packed on the strength training in the evenings and my muscles need a break.

Also, I'm getting sick. I've had this annoying tickle in my throat for about 4 days and have had periodic coughing jags. It's kind of annoying because I'm not REALLY sick, but I do feel a bit under the weather and just wish the illness would either take hold and give me an excuse to whine and curl up on the couch, or go away altogether. So far it hasn't affected my working out, although yesterday I noticed I was breathing a lot harder when I walked up the steep hill on my way home from work than on the 2 other days this week that I scaled the same hill.

In case you're wondering, I'm still not losing weight. I made it down to 190.0 a couple of days ago and thought, maybe tomorrow I'll finally be back in the 180's. Alas, the next day I was 191.6. I drink a lot of water and watch my sodium, so I find gains like that kind of inexplicable. Oh well. I've kind of come to the conclusion that I'm not going to lose weight anymore. All I can do is keep eating healthy and exercising so that I can feel the best I can in my body, even if it's 30 pounds heavier than I would like it to be.

Could Exercise Be Making Us Fat?

That's an inflammatory headline right there. But this article is interesting: Why Exercise Won't Make You Thin.

"Could pushing people to exercise more actually be contributing to our obesity problem? In some respects, yes. Because exercise depletes not just the body's muscles but the brain's self-control "muscle" as well, many of us will feel greater entitlement to eat a bag of chips during that lazy time after we get back from the gym. This explains why exercise could make you heavier - or at least why even my wretched four hours of exercise a week aren't eliminating all my fat. It's likely that I am more sedentary during my nonexercise hours than I would be if I didn't exercise with such Puritan fury. If I exercised less, I might feel like walking more instead of hopping into a cab; I might have enough energy to shop for food, cook and then clean instead of ordering a satisfyingly greasy burrito."

Yeah, ok, I can see that. Except for me, personally, when I'm in a regular exercise routine, I want to eat healthy stuff afterward. I feel pumped up and energized from the exercise and I don't want to lose that by eating a bunch of crap. My typical post-workout breakfast is scrambled eggs and a fruit and protein smoothie. The idea of inhaling a Starbucks muffin after a good workout (as the author's wife's friends do) is kind of revolting.

How do you feel after you work out? Do you want a bunch of sugary/salty/greasy food, or do you feel like being healthy?

Thanks to Rachel of The F-Word for the link via her Twitter feed. FYI, she links to some really fascinating stuff @thefwordblog.

Sugar Beast

Not to overshare, but it's amazing how TOM rolls around and like clockwork I want SUGAR!

NOW!!!!

All day I've been thinking about Jordan Almonds and Cheesecake. Maybe Cake Wrecks isn't the best site to be perusing today...

Workout Wednesday & Weekly Challenge

This week I actually did Workout Wednesday on Wednesday. So what do you get when you combine a walk home in pouring rain (I had my umbrella, but was still pretty soaked when I got home), followed by what amounts to a circuit training routine in an apartment that is 81 degrees and 70% humidity? A very sweaty me:
I have to say, I felt very accomplished after that. Also, I did 15 push-ups in a row! Real push-ups! I am definitely getting stronger.
Usually I work out in the morning anyway, so I thought the Weekly Challenge of working out in the morning would be no biggie. Only it's been tough to wake up this week. So far I've worked out once at night and walked to and from work for 2 days. This morning, after hitting snooze a few times, I finally dragged myself out of bed at 6:20.

Then it took me 2 minutes to find the camera and take a picture for posterity.
This morning I did 20 minutes of weights (lower body only since my upper body is still sore from the beating I gave it Tuesday and Wednesday) and 35 minutes on the elliptical.

Excellent news! The TVs are back up at the Y. I ellipticaled to Clean Sweep on TLC, which used to be one of my favorites back when I had cable. I am SO tempted to take some video of our living room and office/guest room and ask for them to come to our house. I'm sure our landlady would be ok with people painting the walls for the sake of a TV show...

I know that I am guilty of some of the clutter, but Jason has so many "treasures" or "just in case" items crammed into those two rooms that it drives me nuts. He's been promising me since we got married almost 2 years ago that he would clean stuff out. The goal has always been for him to clear out enough stuff for me to transfer my desk contents to his desk, and then get rid of my desk. Then to put a small bookshelf where my desk was to hold the books that my desk hutch currently holds. Only none of that has happened and the small bookshelf is just sitting in the living room. And since it had 3 whole empty shelves, Jason usurped it and has been putting stuff randomly on those shelves for months. The bookshelf is not a staging area!

The other night he was chiding me because I have a bunch of clothes on the guest room bed. Seriously? The room is so overtaken with his crap that you can't even open the door all the way and he's begrudging me some clothes on the bed? I do have to give him credit, though. He has stopped acquiring so many things. Which is good since otherwise I think we would be wading through the stuff.

Jillian Lost...And Found

Remember how sad I was about Jillian Michaels's radio show ending? Well, thanks to a long comment stream on Diet Girl's blog, I found out that her radio shows back to 2006 are all at mediafly.com. If you search her name, you have to scroll through a lot of other people's stuff from the same radio station, but I can deal with that. Also, if you have a Mac and realize, as I soon did, that Mediafly's proprietary software doesn't work on Macs, I recommend using the RSS connection with itunes. It works great.

I listened to one of her 2006 shows on my walk to work this morning. It's not the same as having new shows and hoping she'll spill some interesting tidbit about the upcoming season of The Biggest Loser, but since so much of her advice is timeless, I still enjoy it.

And I Really Wanted to Watch Friends Last Night Too

Well now the new TVs on the new cardio equipment have no reception, period. In fact, they've put signs on all the equipment that basically says don't even bother with the TVs and yes, we know they're broken. Those signs make me think they don't anticipate them getting fixed anytime soon. Stay classy, YMCA!

Even without the TV distraction, I did manage to kick my own butt on the elliptical yesterday by listening to some great music with a good beat and trying my best to keep time with the beat. I was sweating like crazy. I also did 20 minutes of the weight machines before ellipticaling. My thighs were still screaming after Saturdays exercises, so I only did upper body weights.

I was supposed to swim this morning, but some family drama* last night had me tossing and turning a bit, then waking up at 4:15 AM and finally getting back to sleep around 5:30, just as my alarm went off. I have noticed on the days I don't get up to go to the gym, I have a really hard time waking up when I need to just to get to work on time and I wind up being late. Today was no exception. I could have caught the bus in, but I was determined that since I didn't swim, I was going to walk to work. Which I did. And walked into the office to pick up a ringing phone from the Boston office making sure I didn't get hit by a bus. (I'm the only one in the Providence office today). Whoops.

Food has been pretty stellar, if I do say so myself. This week, I'm feeling in tune with my body and able to give it what it wants. I made some homemade pudding on Sunday night in wee ramekins and it was a perfect portion of dark chocolate goodness. Since I upped my calories to 2100, I have to really work at eating throughout the day and I never reach the point where I'm starving so much that I gorge at my next meal without really thinking about it. I haven't lost any weight, but I'm holding steady at around 190 and haven't popped up to 193 in about a week.

*Nothing to do with Jason. Though when I'm in a quandary he is an excellent sounding board for these things.

Sunday Night Dinner

As I bragged about yesterday, I was going to make some quinoa as a side dish for our grilling tonight. Well, I got a little overambitious in the kitchen. I wanted to make some bread for the week so I started that going as soon as we got home from church at 1 PM. Then in preparation for having guests for dinner I did the dishes and cleaned the bathroom. And hung new shower curtains because ours were gross*.

Then Jason started grilling the steak tips while I finished up the bread, made stuffed zucchini to throw on the grill and made chocolate pudding. I actually forgot about the quinoa until the last minute.

I thought I had failed Amy's weekly challenge until it occurred to me that the whole wheat flour I made the bread with is also a whole grain. Oh right. I thought I needed to be more creative than that, and usually I would be, but I think this week I'm going to let my whole wheat bread count.

Ta-dah!

PS Amy's inner thigh exercises totally kicked my inner thighs' butt. I didn't really feel it so much while I was doing them, but wow am I feeling it today!

* Antimicrobial shower curtains are no match for Rhode Island humidity. I bought the cheapo vinyl ones this time because what's the point of paying $10 more if it's not going to prevent the mold, but only make you mad because it was SUPPOSED to prevent the mold.

15 Week Challenge: Week 5

This morning I woke up and did Amy's inner thigh exercises. I did 2 sets of the Figure 8's because I wasn't really feeling it in the first set. Since I didn't have a bar to press here at home, for the sumo squats I held a 5-pound dumbbell in each hand and held them up, with my arms bent at 90-degree angles, my elbows level with my shoulders. I could feel it in my arms as well as my legs by the end. I think my favorite exercise was the sumo squat pulses. Ow!

Then Jason and I went for a run together. We're at different level of the Couch to 5K (I'm still at the beginning and he's doing 3 and 5 minute runs now), but we did our 5-minute warm-up walk together and went to the Brown track to do the bulk of the run.

I kind of felt like I was going to die. I think we waited too long to go. I wanted to go around 9 AM, but we finally got down there closer to 10 and the sun was already high in the sky and beating down on us. It took about an hour after the run for my face to not look like a big purple grape anymore. But at least my shins didn't hurt the whole time. They were a bit sore so I think I'm going to run once a week until my body gets accustomed to it. The other days I'll elliptical and strength train or swim.

Today was an amazingly beautiful day and we were planning on grilling. Then a series of events including going to Costco up by Boston and realizing we were starving by the time we got up there* so we went out for dunch/linner instead made us put off grilling till tomorrow. Jason is going to make steak tips. I'm going to make quinoa as a side, to fulfill the Weekly Challenge to cook using whole grains. There seems to be some debate as to whether quinoa is a whole grain or just a seed, but I think enough people designate it as a whole grain that it counts for the challenge. I'm also going to make some version of grilled zucchini boats, and I'll post the recipe at the Bee's Knees Recipes blog.

* Seriously, we have 3 shopping center meccas near us in Attleboro, MA, Seekonk, MA, and Warwick, RI, but no Costco. BJ's and Sam's Club seem to have cornered the market down here. So it's always a big production to get to Costco now. But that's where our membership is and we're Costco loyalists.

Farm Share Week...Um...9

I missed a few weeks there. We've been very busy the past few weekends and since I pick up my farm share on Thursday nights, sometimes it gets lost in the shuffle.

Last week I got zucchini, beets, cucumbers, carrots and pattypan squash. I've been indulging in my new favorite zucchini (and baby bok choy) recipe (you don't have to have bok choy. Apparently the baby bok choy was only a one week thing at the farm share. It was tasty while it lasted!)

I've been collecting beets for the past few weeks and storing them in preparation for making borscht, a Russian beet soup. My brother-in-law lived in Russia for 2 years and has a genuine recipe. I thought my attempt tasted great. Jason told me it was the wrong color. Despite the color issue, he managed to choke down a few bowls. Apparently the tomato paste I put in overwhelmed the bright red beet color. (If you've never worked with beets before, beware the staining red juice.)

A friend told me she just roasts beets in the oven like potatoes, which I'm going to try with this week's batch.

Anyway, on to Week 9. Behold!
3 large zucchini, 3 short but thick cucumbers and a bunch of beets. It doesn't look like much, but one of those zucchinis will make enough for a large side dish for me and Jason for 2 meals. As for the cucumbers, I like to chop one up, drizzle a little balsamic on top, and eat it with my lunch or for an afternoon snack.

Cable TV!

Tuesday night I went to the gym. I seem to have a chronic inability to pull myself out of bed this week so I ran over after work and before some of my friends showed up for our weekly craft night. I blame the mugginess for not being able to get up. I get tired just being.

Anyway, I believe I mentioned that they just put in new cardio equipment. WELL, now they have TVs attached to that cardio equipment. TV with cable! Jason and I made an executive decision to not pay for cable right after we got married almost 2 years ago (really? 2 years?!). I spied the TVs when I was weight lifting on Saturday, but since I swam afterward, I didn't get to do any viewing. I was really looking forward to a TLC or HGTV fix.

So the volume was broken on the first elliptical's TV. Hmmm. I got on another one, looked at the channel guide while warming up, picked my show, and tried to scroll to the channel. Only for some reason, this TV was not hooked up to the cable. I was already about 7 minutes into my workout and thought I would probably look like some TV-obssessed freak if I changed ellipticals again, so I stayed put. All around me I could see logos for HGTV and TLC and Bravo and the History channel. Next time I will check that there is cable first!

However, I must admit that the workout flies when I watch TV, even if I'm only watching bad Seinfeld* reruns. Plus, since I'm so completely distracted, I wind up working harder because I'm not so attuned to how hard I'm huffing and puffing and sweating. Tuesday night on the elliptical's hill program, I climbed 3100 feet.


* Yeah, I don't really get the whole Seinfeld thing. I suppose the show was new and inventive in that it was about nothing. But Jerry Seinfeld was a horrendous actor, the show wasn't really very funny, and every character was kind of a miserable person. Meh.

Jillian

Apparently Jillian Michaels is no longer doing her radio show, which totally bums me out. I think hers was probably my favorite podcast to listen to while I walked to and from work and when I worked out. Alas, no longer. Sad.

So I make the plea: does anyone have any fitness/health podcasts to recommend? Right now I listen to:

• Dr. Fitness and the Fat Guy
• Livin' La Vida Low Carb (not so much because I am low carb, but because I'm low-ish carb and he has interesting guests)
  
• Fitness Rocks (though it looks like he's done now. Well, there are always the archives)
• Underground Wellness (although lately he's been having on these crazy conspiracy theory guests and is kind of losing his street cred in my mind)

I also regularly listen to Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me, This American Life, NPR On Health and a few other NPR podcasts.

Podcasts can be hit or miss. I found this one fitness podcast online and was so excited when I saw each episode was almost 2 hours long. One problem - it was insanely boring. You really have to have some personality to keep a listener engaged and these people did not. Since there were anywhere from 3-5 people hosting each episode, you would think there would be some interesting conversation at some point. Not so much.

Smart People

I can't tell you how much I love having a friend nearby with a background in dietetics who not only helps me figure out what the heck is going on with my body, but can also explain all the information to Jason using scientific terms so that he actually believes her. Because I've been saying the same things to him for years, only I don't know the jargon so he blows me off. Annoying.

Sunday night the three of us spent hours talking about health care reform, the need for farm subsidy reform, and then Rachel helped us figure out what to do to get healthier. I showed her my SparkPeople nutrition and fitness charts and she said, "Hmmm, I still think your calories are too low." Lately I've been shooting for an average of 1800 calories per day, and when we averaged up last week as a model, it turns out I'm eating more like 1700 calories per day. And that's too low?

We then figured out my BMR, with the added factor of my activity level. Result: 2500 calories. Then we figured out Jason's, with HIS activity level. Result: 2500 calories. So basically, all my working out gives me the BMR of a not-skinny, 6 foot tall man. Awesome.

Rachel thinks I should be averaging about 2100 calories per day to keep me at a healthy deficit and get my body losing again. This week I'm giving that a go.

We're starting with baby steps for Jason. Step one: eat breakfast. He never eats breakfast unless I make smoothies for us. He might have a Fiber One granola bar, but Rachel told him to shoot for about 300 calories and the Fiber One bars are only 140 calories. Also, Fiber One bars are not really the breakfast of champions (neither is Jason's other favorite, Lucky Charms). I had a mini discussion with him yesterday morning about how whole foods are best. Fiber One bars are okay on occasion, but when the ingredient list takes up half the packaging, there's a problem.

Stats

Sometimes logging all my information only serves to point out how frustrated I should be.

I ran a fitness report on SparkPeople on Friday. I have been working out for 17 weeks straight with no visible results in either weight or measurements or clothes fitting or anything*. Week before last I worked out 3 times, but the other 16 weeks, I worked out at least 4 times - usually 5 times per week was my average.

Where is the fairness?

Well, it just goes to show I'm not crazy.

I also looked at my nutrition reports and I've had some days where my eating wasn't stellar. But usually that was one meal when either we were on the road, or we went out special (Like, for instance, the past 2 weeks have been Restaurant Week here in Providence, and we went out a couple times because when else are we going to be able to afford to eat at the really posh places? Every time, though, I came away with leftovers from my entree AND my dessert). I honestly think if I printed off the last 4 months of reports and took them to a doctor, the only thing the doctor could say would be something like, "Well, maybe you shouldn't have had that dessert that one time. Maybe you shouldn't have eaten McDonald's on that road trip." These are valid points, however, even when I ate the dessert or ate the McDonald's, I still stayed within my calorie range. (Saturday being the one exception)

I told Jason all this and his response was, "What a downer." Yes. What a downer, indeed.

*Actually, I lie, I have had one (or two) visible results. Yesterday, I measured my thighs and they are both about a half inch smaller. So that's good news. That's the only measurement decrease though.

True Confessions

In the interest of full disclosure, yesterday was not a good day. It started out great. I woke up early and went to the gym for a half hour of weights and an hour swim. Then I came home and ate some scrambled eggs and a smoothie. Then it all went downhill.

Once again, we were on the road yesterday, headed up to Tanglewood to see a friend of ours sing (and, as we later found out, to enjoy the giant mosquitoes). I meant to cook a loaf of bread on Friday night. Then I meant to have that bread ready to make sandwiches to take with us. Then I got some cherries, which Jason LOVES, for us to snack on.

Well, I was busy doing other stuff Friday night and didn't get to the bread. So no sandwiches. I was also running around yesterday morning and forgot to wash the cherries and we were running late so that didn't happen.

We decided to pick up lunch on the way out of town and stopped at Wendy's, where I proceeded to completely sabotage my day by getting the new Asian Sweet and Spicy Wings. Newsflash: they're fried. I don't know what I was expecting exactly, but not the heavy breading. Also in a combo meal. With a small Frosty.

Ugh. I just entered all of that into SparkPeople and for the first time in a very long time I am over my calorie range. Not to mention sodium, carbs and all that other good stuff. Newsflash #2: those wings have 2500 mg of sodium. Insane!

The thing is, about 5 minutes after I finished eating all of that, I told Jason that next time we're going on a roadtrip, he needs to remind me to make sandwiches. I felt HORRIBLE. And then I was drowsy for the rest of our two-hour drive as I tried to seriously fight off the carb/sugar/crappy food crash. Totally not worth it.

Normally I would get the Mandarin Chicken Salad at Wendy's, but I was driving the first leg while Jason tried to figure out via his phone where exactly we were headed. This is a big lesson to me that it really does pay to be prepared.