Thursday, February 2, 2012

Food Log Addendum for 2/1

*sigh* Here we go again...

After I completed my food log for yesterday, I had to run by the store. Two M&M cookies from the bakery, and then a third sugar cookie at home. Then I polished off the remainder of the chicken that I brought home from work, and had a handful of corn chips.

The thing is, I'm HUNGRY. Like, legitimately hungry. I'm doing what I can to remedy that throughout the day, healthily. To that end, the GF made me some *bigger* lunches for today.

The OTHER thing is, she gets a little jittery when she sees me updating a food log after everything I eat, which is understandable, considering my slight obsession with my weight. This is just a little reminder for me that this blog is just as much about confronting my own considerable "food issues", along with trying to get fitter. More of that to come (I'm sure)

Less than half a pack a day on the smokes - not what I planned, but I still feel like I'm on track for the eighteenth...



Need to pick this up - good interval training music.

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Food Log 3

Breakfast - Oatmeal w/ raisins, blueberries, flax seed, one packet of cream, and agave nectar. Back to coffee (screw that green tea crap!)

Lunch - TC Power Salad of Destiny! (made in same batch w/ yesterday's)

Snack - 1 cup of yogurt, 1 morning round w/ agave & butter

Dinner - somebody ordered WAY too much Qdoba for a work-meeting today - SCORE. 2 small chicken burritos on whole wheat tortillas, just a tiny bit of mozzerella cheese and an ass-ton of spinach. I don't know if it's psychological - listening to all the paleo peeps talking about the importance of meat over on Nerd Fitness - or if my training routine is really making it happen - but that was the best chicken I've ever had in my LIFE.

Dessert - Two frosted cookies from the grocery store bakery. 160 calories each, 18% of the recommended daily allowance of fat, and positively. F$%king. Delicious. So shut it.

After my workout, I weighed in LESS than I did yesterday, even though I ate great two days ago - and really piled it on last night. And yeah, re-reading that I do recognize that it SOUNDS like it was written by somebody with an eating disorder. Guess I'll be tackling that, too.

On another note, I really need to change up my workout mix.



La Roux's Fascination has been my "victory lap" song for my interval workouts (i.e., the last two minutes at full speed) for the better part of a year. Great song, but it's starting to lose its impact...

Food Log Addendum for 1/31

...post-dinner snack: Two bowls of cereal (w/ no milk). Like, KIDS cereal. Ostensibly the healthier, all natural kind - according to the bag, anyway - but still, not actually especially healthy.

And I topped out at about six cigarettes for the day. (Versus the four I said I was going to do)

So, no excuses, definitely "my bad". As in, very, very bad.

On the other hand, I don't want to beat myself up too much, because my initial reaction is to log in and hit the "delete" button on this blog altogether. But I'm not going to do that. I'm going to continue to use this blog to track my progress, and keep a time-table of my "moments of weakness", to figure out when - and why - they occur when they do, in order to help me conquer them. I've already acknowledged that I need to make myself eat more during the day, which made the GF happy (and I'll probably score some of her awesome homemade power bars out of the deal, so... score!)

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Food Log (day 2)

Breakfast - 1 Morning Round (these things are really addicting. Kinda like when I was all "That's not a doughnut" when I had my first bagel back in '82, only to wind up in a life-long love affair / obsession with the things) w/ butter & agave nectar. Green tea.

Lunch - 1 cup Mayan Goulash; 1 TED CAMPBELL POWER SALAD OF DESTINY!! - sort of a kitchen sink signature dish of mine, with a rotating roster of ingredients. Today's featured spinach, almonds, walnuts, flax and sunflower seeds, carrots, green peppers, quinoa, blueberries, and grilled tofu, with low-fat dressing.

Snack - Morning Round, 2 Cups Vanilla Yogurt and OH DEAR GOD AM I HUNGRY TODAY!!!

Dinner - And then, see, it got sort of difficult. I was crazy-hungry, desperate to eat anything. I couldn't pin the GF down on what she wanted for dinner, so I started munching on the kids' mac 'n' cheese. Pro'lly a serving's worth. Then we finally decided on Garbanzo's. I got a salad, since I had already downed some of the kids' food. It costs about the same as their kick-ass veggie PLATE, which gives you about twice as much food, but the salad tops out at 590 calories according to the menu board, so...

All of this is probably just further proof that I really DO need to be eating MORE during the day, when I'm actually busy and working out and stuff. I hate when stuff I vehemently deny is proven right.

Before...

So... yeah. I struggled with putting these photos up at all. One, because because the whole "before and after" thing just seems so vein. Especially once you get to "after", and not only are you in way better shape and oh my Gawd look how strong I am and I hope that kid Brooke Spindler who used to beat me up in middle school stumbles across this boy will he be sorry - but you're now the kind of person who thinks those things while getting a professional photo taken of yourself sporting a deep fried, golden-orange tan*. And two, because self-portraits in a body length mirror always look a myspace profile pic circa 2005, back when you only kinda knew everyone in your social network, and your spouse or significant other wasn't one of them.



And THREE, because I'm alternately vein and ridiculously self-conscious; because I think that under my draping shirt no one can ever see the tauntaun haunches that are packed on either side of my torso, because after my scoliosis test in the fifth grade, everyone joked that I needed to wear a bra. (Really, I can laugh about it now. No, I swear...)

But I've decided that if I'm really gonna do this, I'm gonna do it all the way. I'm gonna take a long, hard look at myself and be brutally honest about what I need to change, and track the progress on the way.

The trick for me is going be buckling up in the driver's seat, instead of sitting in the back whining "Are we there, yet?"

*though, admittedly, looking at my pictures, I could use some sun. Sheesh.

The Smokes...

As I mentioned before, I quit smoking on New Year's Day - only to start back up again ten days later. So what happened?



 just say no.






Anyone who's ever been stupid enough to put one of those filter-tipped death sticks to the edge of their lips in the first place knows exactly what happened: a stressful day coming at the end of a particularly harried week; a couple drinks on a Friday night to dilute the tension with alcohol, an internal dialog that ironically mirrors the Five Stages of Grief, and next thing you know, your lungs are filled up with the sweet taste of possible cancer and emphysema.

Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

On the other hand, I am smoking quite a bit less - though not as little as I promised myself I would, when I lit up again ("just the one pack and I'm back on the wagon...") - but I was positively smouldering that last week before I "quit".

...which I'm realizing was part of the problem. Once upon a time, I quit for four years - cold turkey - with no real problems. But that was over ten years ago, and I hadn't been smoking for nearly as long, then.

So I've got a plan this time: four cigarettes a day this week, three the next, then two... until I quit (once-and-for-freaking-all) on the 18th.

(And I've been smoking those "all-natural" cigarettes, that take so long to burn down that you almost don't even want to stand there smoking them any more)

Almost.

Monday, January 30, 2012

The (dreaded) Food Log!

Day One (of forever):

Breakfast - 1 (one) Morning Round (from Ozery Bakery Inc.) with butter and agave nectar. (I'm not going to get all technical on the portions for those. Let's just say I don't go crazy)

Lunch - Grilled Salmon Salad w/ spring mix, half portion of salmon, flax seeds / nuts / blueberries, low fat dressing. Half cup of "Mayan Goulash": quinoa, black beans, salsa, green peppers, red pepper, and cilantro. (I'll document my weekly assembly-line lunch making next week. It's a thing of beauty, let me tell you.)

Afternoon Snack -Another Morning (afternoon?) Round, butter, agave, yada yada. A big spoonful of all natural / no sugar added peanut butter.

Dinner - Oh my GAWD, the most sweet-ass vegetarian concoction that the world's greatest girlfriend ever put together. Pure superhero feed. Black 'n' chili 'n' pinto beans, tomato sauce, red peppers, red onions, jalapenos, "Soy Curls" (which is kinda like Purina People Chow. Like Soylent Green, but vegan), celery, topped with avocado, with a whole wheat tortilla on the side. Two big-ass bowls, but nothing completely out of hand. I don't know, like - 20 ounces? I could never do that whole Body for Life six small meals a day thing. I like to fill up for dinner.

*picture credit: the world's greatest girlfriend

Plus, "some" water and green tea. Me, drinking - not coffee - but tea. Yeesh, this really is a brand new day...