I guess I run now

I guess this week is just going to be a series of challenges to my new lifestyle, and I’m determined to come out feeling stronger for them.

Today’s challenge is a meeting with colleagues who drive me totally nuts. These are the stress people, the ones who make me think “cigarette” or “chocolate” or “beer” over and over again whenever we get together (which is a lot, unfortunately). If I were keeping a life journal, I suspect I’d find everything in my life and lifestyle was just swimmy until some encounter with these folks turns my calm blue ocean into a tidy-bowl maelstrom.

And a few hours after this meeting, I’m meeting a colleague from the library at the local brew pub for a drink…during the cheap appetizer hours. So I’m going to have to fight not to over-indulge in the food or let the beer I’m planning to have as my afternoon snack turn into a weakened resolve & a pack of smokes.

Okay, today’s goals, aside from writing various things for my meetings today and surviving the one terrible meeting, are to run the C25K program, eat healthy, and fight the stress. And last night I saw a program on Discovery about “the Truth about Food,” and I want to incorporate more protein into my diet cause apparently it keeps you satiated longer. This program was followed up by a couple of those Dr. Oz shows that illustrate people getting fit, healthy, and thin by eating healthy, exercising, and finding ways to avoid the stress (what an interesting approach to weightloss…when do they take the magic pills or drink the special slimming shakes?)

It was a timely show & especially nice to wake up to Feathers’ rant about so-called diet foods and how she’s giving them up!

Breakfast: 1 egg scrambled (70) with 2 slices whole wheat bread (80), 6 grape tomatoes, and 1 tbs lite butter (50) [subtotal: 200]

Lunch: big salad with bleu cheese & low cal. honey mustard dressing

Snack: let’s call snack 2 beers today

Dinner: chicken quesidillia (sp & calories?)

Snack: call this one beer #3

Exercise: C25K program–3.34 miles in 50 mins.

So yesterday wasn’t bad. I could’ve done without the hot chocolate; in fact, I usually do without the afternoon snack altogether, which would’ve saved me 180 calories. Also, doing this forced me to look up how many calories in an ear of corn (small one this time, but usually I get bigger ears)…and that was alarming. I’m thinking back to Atkins & the damn thing really is more of a starch than a veggie. But I love corn in the summer, so I’ll just have to make allowances for those calories elsewhere.

Today should be quite a challenge. I have a seminar all morning. One of those seminars where they feed you pastries and fruit first. I’m skipping cereal & going to try to have only fruit, which should be easier to do since I’m blogging what I eat today. Then for lunch I’m meeting a friend at an Indian buffet (eh gads!). That’ll have to be the bulk of my calories for the day. Tonight another friend wanted to meet for drinks…I’m actually sitting here hoping that doesn’t happen because I don’t want the temptation. I need to be social (making friends from scratch is tough), but I wish these people would sugest a nice walk instead. No, I need to suggest a walk. & I need to make sure that this day ends with some quality time on the treadmill and/or a mat work or pilates video.

Breakfast: mixed fruits (200) & sm piece of cranberry bread (150)

Lunch: Indian buffet (about 1 cup misc chix korma & masala, 324; 1/2 cup rice, 320; 1/3 piece Naan, 200; total around 844 calories)

Snack:

Dinner: veggie chips & hummus (220) [subtotal 1410 so far]

Snack:fat/sugar free choc pudding (80) & coolwhip free (45), plus a midnight snack cause the hunger pangs were keeping me awake: 1 slice whole wheat bread toasted (40) and about 1/2 tablespoon of a lower sugar/sodium peanut butter–spreads thinner over warm bread (50)

Total: 1625!

Exercise: 30 minute walk with the dog
Lunch wasn’t too bad. My friend has been following the advice in a book titled Learn, and apparently one of the steps in the book is conscious eating (which it turns out is what I’ve been doing with my rules). We both reached for the smallest plates at the buffet, made a point of taking small spoonfuls of the chicken dishes (like 2-3 tablespoon portions), didn’t finish anything that we didn’t love (in my case, I wasn’t loving the spinach today, too spicy for me), and went back only once for a 1/2 plate refill.

We got to taste our favorites, but without going overboard, and I tend to act like I haven’t seen food in weeks when faced with a buffet situation.Despite our conservative approach to the buffet itself, lunch lasted nearly 2 hours, but the focus was on talking, not eating. We finished our plates, pushed them aside, and forgot all about the crazy food sitting in the steam table in the next room.

I really think that was a good experience for me to have at this point, and before my trip this weekend where I may encounter the dreaded buffet experience again. It was also nice to eat with someone else who shares my food issues and who is also doing something about it; although she and her partner have had a lot more success on their plan than I have so far, so I’m thinking of ordering the book she’s following.

As for drinks…I really appreciated Diamond Girl’s advice on that one, but I’m not happy with how I handled the situation. Instead of being honest with my friend, I made up an excuse to get out of going out. So now I feel like a real weazle. What worried me more than the alcohol was the time of day (close to dinner) & the fact that this friend loves really rich and decadent food to go along with her drinks. A drink with her is an excuse for an expensive and awesome meal that I normally wouldn’t have (especially with this month’s pay day still 1 day away!).

Of course, I’m meeting another friend for drinks tomorrow afternoon, but it’ll be in a brew pub where I know the menu (can afford it too) & where I know I can make good choices (great salads & a hummus platter).

So I finally posted grades & said goodbye to that part of the semester & at the same time said a warm “hello” to my fridge.

Did okay during the day—cheerios & blueberries for breakfast, lunch was a delicious turkey flatbread rollup (thank you K at il mio viaggio for that idea), and dinner was a lean cuisine brick oven pizza & salad.

Then I moved on. My usual snack of chocolate pudding with coolwhip and…a bag of popcorn…one of those 100 calorie deals (kettle corn variety), but I managed to find some lite butter to drizzle on the top as well.

And all this was unconscious eating…not thinking about whether or not I was hungry, not thinking about the bites I was putting into my mouth, not thinking. That’s what worries me more than the calories (because in the end I made better choices than I would’ve in the past)…eating without thinking, and giving myself permission to do that when I’m sitting home alone and bored and tired. That worries me. That’s the thing I’ve been trying to fight with this blog and with the rules I’ve set up for myself.

So…I’m going to try to blog my food for a few days just to get myself back on track. & I figure I’ll use the template tiny2b uses on her blog where I have to fill in the missing information…only I like my snacks later in the day.

In the meantime, I need to get to the Y to see if I can’t do a better job of finishing off week 6 of the c25k program than I did yesterday. Update: this plan got 86’d pretty quickly when our new chair emailed to say he was giving me a new computer (new to me, anyway) & I had to get into the office to switch things around. But I could’ve gone to the Y at 5 & chose not to.

Breakfast: cheerios and blueberries and coffee (220)

Lunch: delicious turkey flatbread wrap with hummus, lettuce, sprouts, & grape tomatoes (300). 1/2 cup tabloui (100). [620]

Snack: hot chocolate(80) (so sue me…the minute I saw the sleet hitting my windshield in the work parking lot, I thought, “gee, I hope I still have a packet of hot cocoa in the office.”) 14 veggie chips (100) [800]

Dinner: corn-on-the-cob (140), big salad (170), 3 oz tilapia (70), green beans (22). [1202]

Snack: fat/sugar free pudding (80), coolwhip free (45) [total consumed: 1325]

Exercise: 30 minute medium speed(3.4) on treadmill

My goals for today are to eat healthy (so far, so good, but breakfast is easy), run the C25K program, post grades, clean house, and take the dog to the dog park. So why am I still sitting here in front of the computer at 10:30? Aaarrgghh!

My goal for this week is to crank it up a knotch to see if I can drop 2 pds before the Denver trip. But so far I’m feeling pretty lazy & bored. This is only my second month & I feel like I’m already losing steam.

I really need to turn this around now, right now, before this gets out of control. So into the workout clothes, a 20-min warm up walk with the dog & I’m off to the gym. After that, I’m ” the girl who can’t be stopped” all week long. I guess I’ll just fake a resolve until mine returns.

is all the damn laundry!

was down .7

I’m satisfied with that. I toyed with the idea of taking SoClose’s advice and not weighing in at all until next week, but in the end, my fridge door won me over…see, every week I post a big sign that says simply “must be below” and whatever my weight was for that week. I figure if I can just lose something every week, eventually I’ll be where I need to be.

I really didn’t want to have to stare at the same number again this week. Sounds silly, but I needed to see some change even if it was a gain & I had to learn from the mistakes of last week.

And there were mistakes.

But I’d rather dwell on the positive. Last week I hit my weight from last summer. I dragged my summer clothes up from the basement & they actually feel looser than before with no muffin top, so maybe I’m losing inches. The cute workout capris I bought about 6 weeks ago that didn’t fit well out of the store (way too tight to exercise in) are fitting beautifully now. I can run for at least 10 minutes…in a row! Okay, sounds silly, but it’s a milestone for me (pun intended).

So .7 isn’t exactly a Biggest Loser-type number (and it’d be nice to see even just a 3pd loss one week), but I’ll take it cause it’s less than the week before.

Don’t know how to punctuate that title yet. I’m hoping to use an exclamation point, but I suspect it’ll be a sad emoticon instead.

I weigh in right before lunch, so I haven’t stepped on the scale yet, but I know it won’t be good: I had two small brownies at the dept meeting on Wednesday & I really haven’t been exercising much at all: just the 5K program (and only 2x this week so far) and walks with the dog & one additional mile on the treadmill.

I’m not sure what happened this week. On the one hand, it’s final’s week so I’m up to my flabby armpits in papers to grade & meetings to attend (5 on Wednesday alone & one of my colleagues wanted to make it an even 6 before we convinced her next week was better).

But on the other hand, I did have time to exercise…hell, I have a treadmill right here & there’s nothing to stop me from stepping outside or putting in a workout video. But I felt sick and tired & that seemed like the perfect excuse to slack off.

As an added bonus <sarcasm>and isn’t it always!</sarcasm>it’s TOM, so I find myself afraid, once again, to step on the scale this week. What I need to do is have such a great week next week that I can’t wait to step on the scale. In fact, I’ll need that motivation quite a bit as I’m going on a very quick business trip to Denver on Friday (getting back late Sunday) & I’ll be sitting on my butt the whole time, probably unable to run because of the altitude, and eating a menu the event planners chose for me.

So it’s settled…next week I crank it up & make the numbers really move on that damn scale. For now, it’s time to run & then grade. I’ll post the dreaded weight this afternoon.

lunch recipes!

No, really, I’m going crazy with lunch-time boredom here…every day the same old salad or a couple of scrambled eggs or a PB&J.

I want something yummy, something to look forward to at mid-day. Lunch now is just one more thing I have to do…help me make it fun again.

So please post your favorite lunch ideas and/or recipes in comments & I’ll try them out over the next couple of weeks.

myself to go to the gym & get my first run of week 6 in. I should’ve gone yesterday, but my stomac was messed up all day & I have a todo list as long as my arm that keeps running through my head like a broken record (hey, I guess that analogy is almost too quaint and old-fashioned to use now). But I got a couple of things knocked off the list yesterday & I’m not getting any more done sitting here, so what’s my problem?

Technically speaking, reading my favorite diet blogs should do the trick, but at what point does reading those blogs become not the source of motivation, but a good reason for additional procrastination? I think I’ve reached that point this morning, so it’s time to MOVE!

Yup, my in-laws were in town today. No jokes, though, I actually really like these people. Oh, how dull.

Anyway, they came up to see where hubby would be working in the fall…he is, of course, still 550 miles away, so I got to entertain them alone. Not that they need entertaining: they are entertaining.

So I took them to the brewhouse for lunch since that’s just about the only restaurant I know in the area that isn’t Indian, Thai, or Middle Eastern–the places I like to get take out from–or super expensive–the places we go when we’re interviewing job candidates. & obviously any other restaurant doesn’t have a built-in excuse for ordering an awesome beer in the middle of the afternoon.

So…a food journal seems appropriate and appropriately confessional at this point since I ended up having 2, count em, 2 lunches today:

<><><>Breakfast: grapefruit with 1/2 tbs sugar (53 + 32 = 85)
Lunch: two eggs scrambled  with 2 slices lite whole wheat bread (140 + 70= 210)
Not Lunch with the in-laws: IPA  +  1/2 cup cheese soup + hummus & 1 pita wedge + 1 piece flatbread chicken appetizer   (186 + 200 +  60 + 100 = 546)
Dinner: 1/2 cup tabouli and 4 oz chicken burger with no bun or condiments and misc pickles, carrots, raddishes, and olives ( 180 + 130 + 60 = 370)Total:  1211

I guess I’m doing okay even with that afternoon indulgence. In fact, there’s room here for a mid-evening snack! Not something I can do every day–and if I hadn’t had lunch a couple of hours before they came up, I’d have been in serious trouble & really gone to town on the appetizers–but this was okay.