Well, it was a fairly quiet day today.  I did manage to get a big pot of meat sauce (beef/turkey) made, with some of it already in the freezer.  I had to pretty much force myself onto the treadmill, but that’s okay.  I’m amazed how short a time frame it takes for me to feel out of shape on the treadmill.  I think that’s when I’m reminded the most that I still have a long way to go.

Other than that, I just did a little of this and a little of that.  I finished up my statistics online work (due by Sunday), and will probably work on some of the other stuff when it unlocks on Monday.  Tomorrow I’m going to do some lifting, but if today was an example, I wonder how hard I’m going to find it?  I am planning to do some curiosity on things like deadlifts, so I might just make it up as I go along.  The food today was perhaps a little lacking in protein and fat combined.  It could also be from yesterday, but I was pretty hungry all day.  Tomorrow I’ve planned a little more of both, so we’ll see how that goes.

Food for the day:

Total: 2010 (20% fat, 49% carbs, 31% protein)

Breakfast: breakfast bake, 1/2 sandwich thin, orange (368)
AM Snack: zucchini spice cake (228)
Lunch: lentil soup with chicken, 1/2 sandwich thin, apple (420)
PM Snack: hummus, flatbread (164)
Dinner: crockpot - beef barley mushroom stew, salad w/dressing (554)
Late Snack: protein shake, fruit salad (275)

(I wrote this first part on another site, while at school.  However, the second part doesn’t make sense without the mad ramble earlier.)

I’m so bored today. I’ve been fighting it since Tuesday really. I’m hanging around until 12pm for a class that I’m almost positive will be close to empty. You could tell this morning that way too many people are already on break, so to speak. The teachers from today’s classes made a grave mistake the other day in admitting that there’s almost no chance of us getting our exams back. This has led to most people just blowing off the classes today. The one this morning was no big deal as he usually just shows slides (although today he actually added some content). I could probably skip the noon class, but I’m not sure who will be there and who I could get notes from. What I’m concerned about is hanging around, having almost nobody show up, and him telling us to go. I’ll be seriously pissed if that happens.

I’m also supposed to go out for dinner tonight and I’m in a serious ‘fuck the diet’ mood. I don’t know how I can get myself back into the mindset I was in last fall. I know I have to be there, but just can’t seem to get there. I know a don’t care evening will blow any chance of losing anything this week, but honestly, not sure that I care. A couple of people talked about getting together next week and my first thought is that I can’t work an evening out in particularly well, so I should skip it. Then I think that I don’t want to skip it. Then I think I’m just being petty - that too many ‘not skipping it’ events is how I got myself to where I am.

Although, to be honest, except for an occasional evening out, that’s not how I got to where I am. A combination of lack of portion control, late night eating, and some fast food/junk food (not as much as you would think) is how I got here.

Can you tell that I’m just a rambling mess of confusion today? I can’t seem to focus lately, and that does kind of bother me. I think about a year ago and how focused I was, and I can’t summon that energy. Sheesh, what a downer I am today. I should go spread my cheer, and catch up on what everyone else is up to!

- - - -

So, no real surprise that dinner was a complete caloric blow out. Completely by choice really. The restaurant does have their menu online, so I did look at it before I went. I did find something that sounded good that wasn’t horrendously high in calories (680), paired with seasonal veggies (150), and decided to skip the salad and the bread.

“Grilled skinless chicken breast, layered with goat cheese, on a bed of greens, chick peas, roasted grape tomatoes, pomegranate molasses”

It was very tasty actually. As was the pomegranate martini (vodka, triple sec, pomegranate juice…. ?~265 from an online counter). It would have been a reasonable, probably even within calorie day if I’d stopped there.

+ martini #2 ~265 cals
+ 1/2 bottle of very nice Australian wine ~248 cals
.
.
.
.
+ a quite nice piece of chocolate ganache torte ~ 525 cals

It’s probably a good thing that I don’t go out much.

Oh well, tomorrow I will make up for some of it by getting back on the treadmill. The back is good, the knee is fine, the elbow still twinges, but I’m ignoring it. I know I’ll pay for it with this week’s weigh in, but what’s done is done. No more excuses, back on plan until at least the end of the semester.

Now, I’m off to bed before I’m tempted to eat anything else. I won’t break down the rest of the day, but it ended at:

3153 cals (ouch)
(27% fat, 33% carbs, 22% protein, 18% alcohol)

Again, I notice that I’ve slacked on daily postings. So, tomorrow I will post before bed, and try and get back into the daily posting routine. Nothing much to add for today, just school, and a trip to Costco. One more day and then I’m off for the week.

Food for Wednesday:

Total: 1991 (23% fat, 45% carbs, 32% protein)

Breakfast: breakfast bake, 1/2 sandwich thin, orange (378)
AM Snack: chocolate zucchini cake (156)
Lunch: multi-grain tortilla, mustard, eye of round, celery, lettuce, apple (437)
PM Snack: hummus, flatbread (164)
Dinner: stewed beef, potato, cauliflower/broccoli/carrots, salad w/dressing (548)
Late Snack: protein shake, fruit salad (307)

Food for Thursday:

Total: 2000 (25% fat, 43% carbs, 32% protein)

Breakfast: breakfast bake, sandwich thin, orange (473)
AM Snack: none (0)
Lunch: multi-grain tortilla, mustard, eye of round, celery, lettuce, apple (441)
PM Snack: hummus, flatbread (196)
Dinner: baked chicken with tomato/wine sauce and cheese, cauliflower/broccoli/carrots, butter, salad w/dressing (600)
Late Snack: protein shake, fruit salad (291)

So the exam went fairly well today, at least I think it did. We’ll see if he marks it before Friday, although I doubt it. I’m just hoping that we see the math results and the electricity ones before we’re off on our week long break.

I just realised that I forgot to post my food from yesterday, so I’ll do both here tonight. Only three more days and I’m free for a week. Yay!

Food for Monday:

Total: 2001 (25% fat, 43% carbs, 32% protein)

Breakfast: breakfast bake, 1/2 thintini, clementines (336)
AM Snack: chocolate zucchini cake (78)
Lunch: multi-grain tortilla, mustard, sirloin steak, celery, lettuce, apple (458)
PM Snack: hummus, flatbread (164)
Dinner: crockpot chicken (w/corn, kidney beans, salsa), salad w/dressing (734)
Late Snack: protein shake, fruit salad (230)

Food for Tuesday:

Total: 2006 (27% fat, 41% carbs, 32% protein)

Breakfast: breakfast bake, 1/2 thintini, clementines (331)
AM Snack: chocolate zucchini cake (78)
Lunch: multi-grain tortilla, mustard, eye of round, celery, lettuce, apple (433)
PM Snack: hummus, flatbread (164)
Dinner: turkey/beef burgers, sandwich thin, condiments, salad w/dressing (725)
Late Snack: protein shake, fruit salad (275)

So I didn’t do that much today. Last night I burnt my thumb catching a log that I had just tossed onto the fire. I originally thought it was a splinter and tried to dig it out. The skin came off this morning in a small patch, but it is clean and dry at the moment (I tend to heal quite fast). However, it’s kind of sore holding a pen and/or pencil, so I blew off the math homework, and only started the stats sheet. If I put a band-aid on it I can write okay, but I’m trying to leave it uncovered to heal faster. Not a big deal, but annoying all the same.

I did manage to reorganize the freezer this afternoon, which was good. I might take a shot at cleaning up my desk tomorrow. The one good thing is that my typing is not affected, so I actually got around to reading some blogs today.

Food for the day:

Total: 2006 (26% fat, 40% carbs, 34% protein)

Breakfast: breakfast bake, 1/2 thintini, clementines (336)
AM Snack: chocolate zucchini cake (156)
Lunch: beef barley mushroom soup, 1/2 thintini, apple (401)
PM Snack: hummus, flatbread (199)
Dinner: sirloin steak, corn, butter, salad w/dressing (652)
Late Snack: protein shake, fruit salad (262)

This morning’s weigh-in was 241.8, which is 1.6 pounds down from last week. The 9-week loss is 20.6lbs (2.29/week) which is usually the ‘number’ I look at to see how things are going overall. It’s widely skewed from the end of the maintenance week, so there’s no jumping up and down from that number. The other little compulsive number I look at is how many days I’ve been ‘on plan’ primarily with food. I still consider the maintenance week ‘on plan’ since I accomplished what I wanted to. So this is day 17 on plan with food.

I think those that know me probably know that I won’t be entirely happy until the chart finally shows with no off-plan days. So, I need 7 weeks of clean eating before that happens….

Next week’s plan is:

Keep the calories around 2000, and if I’m feeling better start working the exercise back in.

Well, I got the Problem Solving project out of the way, looked at (and didn’t change) my drawing, and the Creative Thinking slide show out of the way yesterday. I’ve made a conscious choice not to do the Electricity until during the week off. Mainly because we’ll have a quiz on Chapter 6 on the 6th of March, so I’ll just have to go through it all again closer to the time. So that leaves me with Math and Statistics for the next two days, which means I’ll have some free time.

Okay, I’ve got plenty of other things to do, so it’s not like I’ll be sitting around doing nothing.

Food from yesterday:

Total: 2014 (27% fat, 39% carbs, 34% protein)

Breakfast: breakfast bake, WW thintini, clementines (337)
AM Snack: protein shake (135)
Lunch: multi-grain tortilla, eye of round, lettuce,celery, salad dressing, apple (458)
PM Snack: hummus, flatbread (164)
Dinner: chicken fajitas, salad w/dressing (690)
Late Snack: protein shake, fruit salad (230)

(weekly update in a few minutes, have to get the chart done)

So, a little catch-up this morning before I go off to do my chores and school work. The school stuff is pretty light this weekend.

1 - I want to take another quick look at my third AutoCAD drawing. I actually submitted it on Friday, but there’s a few quick things I want to check (mainly the dim style). I can swap out the drawing any time before Tuesday night, so it’s no big deal.

2 - Problem Solving - I have to do an operations process chart, which I roughed out on Friday during a break. However, I’d really like to submit it in a typed format, so that will take a little time to get right (in either MS Word, or Visio - which I haven’t used in ages).

3 - Statistics -I need to do a ‘formula sheet’ for my exam on Tuesday. I don’t need to study for it, but I don’t want to be writing it out on Tuesday morning. I also know at least one student plans to send me his to check (suggested by the instructor), so I should do mine today.

4 - Creative Thinking - I’ve a 3-4 min presentation to prepare for Wednesday. I already pretty much know what I’m going to have for the video portion, so it’s just a case of roughing out a few words to add to it.

5 - Math - I think I have homework from Wednesday. I obviously wasn’t going to do it as we had a test on Thursday (on other material), so I should probably do it.

6 - Electricity. Although we haven’t finished chapter 6, it might be nice to get ahead of the game. Having said that, this is the optional one, since we won’t have a quiz on it until after the break.

Okay, that looks like a lot, but I do have three full days to do it. The only other things I want to do this weekend is:

A - clean up my desk. It’s just getting a little bad, and although I could wait until the week off, it’s getting to the ‘it bugs me’ stage.

B - update the list of stuff in the freezer. I’ve been very lax on keeping up my electronic list for the freezer, and I’ve let my mother put stuff away, so it’s probably time to re-organize it. For no other reason than it makes finding stuff easier when I know roughly where they are.

The home stuff items are obviously more ‘if time permits’, as both of them could wait until my week off. We’ll see how it goes. Oh, and on the exercise this week - Monday night I was shifting snow from the side of the house (during the rain/thaw period) and slipped on a patch of ice. Although it’s better now, my back was painful and I cracked my knee. I decided that someone was trying to tell me something, and decided to take it easy for a little bit. My elbow pain still comes and goes, so I kind of feel like a wreck. I’ve been sleeping with the heating pad, although the knee and the back are both much better. I’ll see how it goes this week, and then maybe get back into the exercise routine on my week off. So, this will probably affect my losses over the next couple of weeks, but likely not too badly (as my deficit primarily comes from food, likely only another 1000-1200 from exercise).

What else has been going on this week? One of my fellow students has been going through a rough patch. He’s one of the more dedicated students (okay, a little obsessive like myself). His mother has been in and out of the hospital for the past few weeks, and they transfered her yesterday to the major hospital in Hamilton. That likely means surgery. I’m not sure specifically what’s wrong with her (I don’t like to pry), but it’s something to do with her bowel, so that doesn’t sound great.

Oh, and I had coffee with my Communications teacher from last semester. He’s leaving the college next week, and pretty depressed about it. He’s working on his PhD but has only been employed at the college part time. There’s a huge gap in part time and full time pay hours, and he just can’t afford to keep working. His wife was on maternity leave, and was hoping to be able to stay home, but that’s not going to happen. So he’s off home to become ‘Mr Mom’. I think he’s concerned that leaving mid-term will mean there’s no chance they’ll ever hire him full time. They just can’t afford for her to not go back to work, and they don’t want to put the two children in daycare. I also suspect that it might cost more than he’s taking home (good daycare in Ontario is not cheap). That’s assuming they could even find a spot on short notice. He’d been hoping to get a full time job in the humanities department in January, but it didn’t happen. It’s a shame really, as he made a course that could have been boring, quite interesting.

As for me, nothing really going on. So, I’m off to get a start on some of my homework, really I am.

Food from Friday:

Total: 1999 (19% fat, 49% carbs, 30% protein)

Breakfast: breakfast bake, WW thintini, clementines (340)
AM Snack: chocolate zucchini cake (156)
Lunch: multi-grain tortilla, eye of round, lettuce,celery, salad dressing, apple (454)
PM Snack: hummus, flatbread (164)
Dinner: whole wheat pasta, turkey sausage sauce, salad w/dressing (579)
Late Snack: protein shake, fruit salad (306)

- - - -

(this should have been Thursday’s post)

Kind of another drive-by posting tonight. I’m going to take another read through my electricity notes before tomorrow’s test. The algebra went well this morning, I think. I likely won’t know until next week some time if I’m lucky. We got an assignment that I’ll have to spend some time on this weekend as well from the Problem Solving teacher. I think getting the format just right (it’s a process chart) will just make it fussy, not that hard. I don’t mind as I really don’t think I need to study much for the Statistics test on Tuesday. Others are complaining a bit, and I don’t really blame them.

To everyone’s surprise we got grades for our first two CAD drawings. The teacher has a reputation for marking nothing until the end of the semester. That’s quite change from the guy last semester. He graded things the day they were submitted. I got 100% on both, which I think works out to 10%/10%, but its a start. I’m going to ramble a bit about that class this weekend, but now I need to go look at my electricity notes! I’ll also ramble about the lack of workouts as well.

Food for the day:

Total: 1987 (23% fat, 44% carbs, 33% protein)

Breakfast: breakfast bake, multigrain thintini, clementines (462)
AM Snack: chocolate zucchini cake (156)
Lunch: multigrain thintini, balsamic pork tenderloin, cheese, mustard, lettuce, apple (485)
PM Snack: none (0)
Dinner: brazed beef, potato, carrot/cauliflower/broccoli, salad w/dressing (578)
Late Snack: protein shake, fruit salad (307)

Just heading off to bed, and adding the food for the day. The good thing is that on the weekend I should only have really one exam to study for (and it’s Statistics, the one I probably don’t need to study for). Also, it’s a three-day weekend (family day), so I should be able to catch up a little then.

Food for the day:

Total: 1998 (22% fat, 44% carbs, 34% protein)

Breakfast: breakfast bake, WW thintini, clementines (436)
AM Snack: chocolate zucchini cake (156)
Lunch: multi-grain tortilla, smoked turkey, lettuce,celery, salad dressing, apple (444)
PM Snack: hummus, flatbread (164)
Dinner: balsamic pork tenderloin, cauliflower/broccoli/carrots, butter, salad w/dressing (522)
Late Snack: protein shake, fruit salad (275)

So my day off is over, and I think I got most of what I needed to done. I’ve got projects done for two classes tomorrow, my homework, so I can have the rest of the day to myself. Things should be better by next week. Only one exam next Tuesday and the week after we’re off, which I’m very much looking forward to.

So, off to bed with me.

Food for the day:

Total: 2005 (24% fat, 44% carbs, 32% protein)

Breakfast: breakfast bake, 1/2 multigrain thintini, clementines (341)
AM Snack: chocolate zucchini cake (156)
Lunch: lentil with chicken soup, apple (344)
PM Snack: hummus, flatbread (164)
Dinner: turkey/beef burgers, multigrain thintini, condiments, salad w/dressing (725)
Late Snack: protein shake, fruit salad (275)

(and from yesterday)

Well, done for the day at a reasonably decent hour. I ended up on the phone twice tonight talking about school work. One was an incoming call (which I didn’t mind), but the outgoing one I couldn’t get the guy off the phone. And they call women chatty?

Tomorrow will be… school work, and lots of it. I’ve got some electricity to work on and will finish up the stats homework, as well as do my project for Creative Thinking. I should probably do a little Math as well (or I have to do it Wed afternoon during my long break).

Food for the day:

Total: 1982 (19% fat, 51% carbs, 34% protein)

Breakfast: breakfast bake, WW thintini, clementines (451)
AM Snack: chocolate zucchini cake (156)
Lunch: multi-grain tortilla, eye of round, lettuce,celery, salad dressing, apple (470)
PM Snack: none (0)
Dinner: beef barley stew, salad w/dressing (622)
Late Snack: chocolate zucchini cake, fruit salad (284)