Goals

So I've set up this challenge for myself, which is a means to an end, but I've been thinking more about what I want that end to be. Not that this ever ends, per se, because ideally the steps I take toward healthy living will go on and on.

But there are a few goals in my head:

1) Lose weight. I am uncomfortable with my body right now. I'm uncomfortable in my clothes. I hate it. I put a goal down on SparkPeople to lose 37 pounds (to land on a round number) by my birthday on October 10. This is assuming I'm not pregnant by then. (Jason and I haven't really made it a secret that we're trying.) I'll reassess if a baby comes into the picture.

2) Wear a size 10. I would like to be solidly into normal women's clothes again. I've been teetering on the edge of plus size for awhile, and there are a few styles that I just can't wear in regular clothes. So I don't wear them. But I would like to be able to shop and not think about it. I don't need to be a size 0 or 2 or even a 6. 10 would be lovely.

3) Be able to hike without feeling like I'm going to die. I understand that hiking is hard and that climbing mountains is no small feat. I don't need to run up the mountain (like our crazy friend, the trail runner), but I would like to be able to complete a mountain hike in the book time rather than stop so much, and feel like my heart is going to explode out of my chest every 10 feet. I still have mixed feelings about hiking. However, Jason LOVES it and it would be awesome to hike a mountain with him next summer and not feel like the fattest, most out-of-shape girl on the mountain.

I'm not actually sure if all of the goals are feasible and will work out in the end. The weight and size I'm shooting for are numbers that I haven't seen in a long, long time. I think the hiking goal is doable. I'm mixing up my workouts right now, getting in both strength training and cardio, and I hope that I can change my body composition, increase my metabolism, and finally start losing weight again.

2 Days In and It's All Good

I suppose I technically should have started this whole challenge thing on Sunday, since that's the beginning of the week in most people's minds.

Even though it's the sabbath for Christians, which is the 7th day, when God rested. Right? So really, starting yesterday was right on.

Anyway, last week was not too bad, other than the anadama bread I made over the weekend. And the junk I ate at a hockey game on Friday night. But check out these strides I'm making:

1) I got chicken tenders, fries and a Diet Pepsi at the game. I am not a Diet Pepsi fan, but it was the only diet option, so I figured I would get it. This is after not drinking ANY Diet Coke all week. (Proud of me? I am.) Well, Diet Pepsi is revolting. I've always thought so, but it's even worse when my taste buds aren't used to diet soda in general. So I took 2 sips, then passed it over to Jason. I ate the 3 teeny tiny chicken tenders, but didn't finish my fries. Jason polished those off as well.

2) Speaking of diet soda, I had some Diet Coke with lime on Saturday, which I declared my Diet Coke Day of the Week. Meh. It was better than the Diet Pepsi, but not my favorite. How can my attitude toward Diet Coke have shifted so drastically in just one week? Over the holidays I was planning our excursions around opportunities to stop somewhere and get a Diet Coke.

3) We ran out of cornmeal and I substituted almond meal in the anadama bread. Yum! I think it actually helped the bread bake up much lighter than usual. I'm going to dedicate some time in the coming months to some baking experimentation. My ultimate goal is to come up with something grain-free (or at least gluten-free) that I can make in my bread machine.

This week is off to a good start. I'm keeping the carbs low. We went out for a Restaurant Week meal last night (when else can you go to Ruth's Chris and not pay $45 for a steak?), so I did have dessert (an adorable chocolate mousse in a chocolate cup with berries and cream). Even so, my carbs for the day were still well under 100 grams.

After arguing with myself for about 10 minutes yesterday morning, I managed to pull myself out of bed and get to the strength training class. I think I need to bring my own yoga mat. The Y's mats are pretty foul and I actually abstained from most of the face-down stretching at the end of the hour because I caught a definite odor coming off of the mat I was using.

Then I went to Masters swimming this morning. I am slow. No, let me emphasize, I am SLOOOOOW. When I first got there, I asked the coach which lane I should be in, telling her I hadn't been in the pool since the last time she saw me sometime in November. I got knocked down a lane AND I was totally getting beat by the people in that lane. But one of my swimming buddies said she knows I'll be back up to speed in no time. I appreciate the encouragement.

Also, it was really sweet because everyone was happy to see me. I got a lot of excited greetings this morning and everyone asked where I had been. It's nice to be missed.

Now, I am sore. But it's a good pain.

Someday This Will Begin, I Swear

The best laid plans. Am I right?

Sunday night was...not so fun. I don't know if I had a brief flu bug, or food poisoning, but my body did not want anything in it, thank you very much, including water. By yesterday morning, I was able to drink some ginger ale and eat some Saltines, which Jason went out and got for me, lovely man. Then I had some soup for dinner. Yay soup.

This morning I felt much better, but still not super. My stomach has been a little wonky all day, but better than it was.

So I missed the strength training class yesterday morning and I missed Masters swimming this morning. I'm hoping to get to the strength training class tomorrow morning. But I think I'm going to call this week a wash and start my CHALLENGE! over next week.

That doesn't mean I'm giving myself license to fall apart, though. My eating has been fantastic today. It helps that I don't really want to eat that much. What I have eaten has been low-carb.

CHALLENGE

I am apparently useless without an official challenge. I'm sure there are some New Years challenges I could still jump into, but I'm going to set a challenge for myself. So here we go with:

Kelly's 8-Week Challenge!

(Sound official enough?)

Timeline: January 15, 2012 to March 10, 2012

Diet: Low-carb/Paleo
- No grains. I've realized I have some sort of wheat sensitivity, but have let other grains (mainly corn) creep in more often than I like. Got to cut it out!
- Little bit of dairy. I like cheese and milk, but it's not going to be the staple of my low-carb snacks like it has been in the past.
- Main diet will be protein and non-starchy vegetables, a little bit of fruit, healthy fats.
- One Diet Coke per week. I know I should cut them out altogether, and hopefully by the end of the 8 weeks that won't seem so insurmountable, but right now I am a big-time Diet Coke addict once again. So I'm allowing one per week in the beginning and I'll see how my cravings go.

Exercise: 4 workouts per week in the beginning.
- At least 2 strength training classes per week
- At least 2 cardio workouts per week

There is a bit of a caveat to the 8 weeks, which is that Jason and I are going on a trip at the end of the month that we've been planning for several months and which will probably involve some food splurging. Though the last time we went, we were crazy active the entire time and honestly did not eat too unhealthily, conch fritters aside. Anyway, my plan for that week is to eat as well as I can, but not be obsessive about it. If I go too far off the rails, I'll add another week to the challenge.

I'm going to start my detox on Saturday, the 14th, since it's a long weekend and I don't really want to go through carb/caffeine withdrawal at work.

Jason should enjoy that.

Also, I'm supposed to drive some teenage girls to a dance Saturday night and by then I suspect I'll really be jonesing for a Diet Coke. I predict that will be super fun.

Foiled!

The fact that my alarm keeps not going off is not helping my workout efforts. It happened last Saturday as well.

Either that, or I am an even deeper sleeper than I originally thought and am fully capable of picking up my phone when the alarm goes off and hitting the "Dismiss" button without waking up in the slightest. It's possible.

Anyway, no cardio this morning. Drat. However, Friday morning strength training class tomorrow!

Eating is going well today:

Breakfast: Eggs
Lunch: Leftover chicken soup
Snack: Larabar
Dinner: Crock pot meatballs (I'll post the recipe and the source tomorrow if they turn out well)

I'm trying to be more diligent about cooking again. I got busy and lazy (a great combination!) and stopped cooking as much. I'm making a concerted effort to plan our meals, which includes remembering to get something out to thaw at least 1 day before I actually want to prepare it. Amazing!

Day the Second

Confession 1: I ate some chocolate dipped peanuts last night, which is definitely NOT low-carb. It's not even low-fat. It's just better for me all around if I don't have that stuff in the house. Jason has a whole pile of candies on the coffee table in the family room from Christmas, including the M&Ms I gave him out of my stocking because I didn't want the temptation (I did, however, hold onto the Ghiradelli squares to savor one at a time at some future dates. I'm not that generous).

I'm not really beating myself up about it. Overall, yesterday was a good day, and compared to the weeks leading up to it, it was downright stellar.

Confession 2: I didn't make it to the strength training class this morning. I was tired and it was 10 degrees outside when I woke up. Again, not freaking out. I figure I'm still adjusting to the time change from Utah and I felt tired enough that I knew it would be best to just stay in bed. So I did.

Tomorrow, however, I need to get back into it for reals. Tomorrow I'll do some cardio. Probably elliptical, since the idea of getting in a pool right now isn't super appealing. I need to work back up to this, but my plan is that in a couple of weeks, when I get on the elliptical, it will only be to do HIIT workouts.

Food for today:
Breakfast: Eggs
Lunch: Burrito belly from the Mexican place down the street
Afternoon snack: dry roasted almonds or Larabar (haven't decided yet)
Dinner: Homemade chicken soup experiment (I threw a bunch of stuff into the crock pot and I'm hoping it tastes good. Chicken breasts, Aidell's chicken and apple sausage, onions, garlic, diced tomatoes, tarragon, Kosher salt, chicken broth. In related news, I need to get to the store and buy vegetables, pronto.)

Day 1 (for the Millonth Time)

Here I am back at Day 1 of living healthy. We got into town last night and I ate some crab rangoon as my last hurrah of eating crap for awhile.

And they were gooooood!

Today has been so-so. I had some nice eggs for breakfast, then some dry roasted almonds for a morning snack. Apparently stuffing my face for days on end means that my normal breakfast won't keep me full until lunch. I'll get back to normal eventually.

For lunch I had planned on a salad, but my normal salad place is closed for the holidays until tomorrow. Plus, I ran some lunch errands and it is COLD outside. So I got some soup from Au Bon Pain. I know they have salads, but as I already mentioned, COLD. I recorded it dutifully on SparkPeople and it actually wasn't too bad.

Tonight for dinner I'm planning on making us salmon and roasted brussels sprouts. I started throwing together a chicken avocado soup this morning in the crock pot (since it's supposed to be 9!!! degrees tonight), but I waited too long to use the avocados and they were moldy. I didn't really have a good substitute, so the soup got nixed.

I have put everything into SparkPeople and I'm at 73 net carbs for the day. Not too shabby, considering today's menu wasn't aggressively low carb.

Tomorrow morning I'm hitting my first strength training class of the new year. My fingers are crossed that it won't be too packed to move.