Week 22

I'm really embarrassed to write this post, even though I know this blog isn't read by more than one person (me). I'm sort of embarrassed to write this to MYSELF. I sort of feel like I'm a parent lecturing a bad kid.

I did horrifically this week. I got a whopping (not) 68 minutes of fitness in. That's it.
I mentioned that I was having two friends come in and I thought I could really do okay with that and stick to my eating plan and maybe not totally knock out fitness altogether.
What I did INSTEAD was really ruin the entire week "because I'm really going to do horribly this weekend anyway." Since about... Wednesday? I think, I have been a total wreck, in regards to food, exercise, alcohol, and mental health.

My visit with my friends was fun, but really different than what I had expected. In 48 hours we consumed an entire bottle of Bailey's (them), two bottles of white wine, the good part of a liter of vodka (mostly me), a pitcher of strawberry-flavored margaritas (which they then followed by a shared 32-oz margarita), drinks here and there at restaurants. They had expected me to take them to the bars at night, and just "whatever's going on downtown" whereas I was thinking more about going to museums and Devil's Lake. We almost made it to a museum but we were in a two-hour parking spot near State St. and wouldn't have had time. But they started their days with Baileys in their coffee, and mojitos on State Street at noon. At night we drank tons, especially me. And I'd bought some healthy food and made a sort of meal plan and figured I'd cook at least a couple times for them, but instead we ended up going out to eat for breakfast/lunch every day (since we never climbed out of bed until 10:00 or 10:30 due to just general alcohol consumption and then by the time we were all showered and ready it was more like noon). On Friday night I had what I assume was a really high-fat wrap and tater tots, Saturday morning it was brunch at the French bakery and I had a sandwich with ham and swiss, steak fajitas for dinner Saturday night, and a burger and fries for lunch on Sunday. They were supposed to leave Monday, but decided early on that they wanted that extra day to recuperate, and I was first sort of disappointed but I'm grateful that it happened because I couldn't live like that for another day. I was getting kind of stressed because I really wanted to be a good hostess and I didn't feel like I was. I still had fun, but I'm left a bit confused about the whole experience. Part of it was also weather issues; when we were wandering State it started to rain, and yesterday was so hot that they didn't want to go to the lake, which really bummed me out. One of them is sort of naturey and I thought she'd really like it, but I was too hungover to hike and it would probably be really busy because of the holiday, but... I don't know, I just felt like a lot of time was wasted drinking.

So how much weight have I gained since last Sunday?
5.6 pounds. And judging by what I just described last week's habits as, I think it will stick.
I've been sort of a nervous wreck about this. It feels like so much work was undone. I was so anxious last night after they left, it was ridiculous.

But there's not much else I can do at this point except MOVE ON! I have bigger plans for June.
Today I'm going to try to get some good, real nutrition in my system... a green smoothie for breakfast, and I'm making a big salad for dinner with grilled chicken. My family doesn't do much for Memorial Day and if they are, they didn't invite me because they thought I'd be spending it with my friends, but I'm ok with that. I need this day to recuperate and clean, and I'm going to do my step aerobics workout.

I'll probably post more about my June plan later, but for now, here's my menu plan for the week. Since I bought all my groceries on Friday, I'm hoping they last...

SUNDAY
Frozen pizza

MONDAY
Blackened chicken salad with avocado and tomato
Step aerobics, 63 minutes

TUESDAY
Vegetable and rice burritos with quesadilla cheese
Cardio kickbox, 25 mins

WEDNESDAY
Crispy glazed tofu
Rest day

THURSDAY
Rosemary chicken salad sandwiches
Backside strength/cardio workout, 50 mins

FRIDAY
Jimmy John's veggie sub
Rest day

SATURDAY
Not sure for dinner... (grocery shopping day!)
Walk/run (if nice out), otherwise step aerobics (55 or 63 mins)

Week 21

Where did my weekend go? Seriously! It's been a good one, though, very productive. I spent it entirely by myself (aside from interacting with cashiers while doing errands), which is pretty rare for me, and got a lot done.

Weight-wise, I weigh a pound less than I was last Sunday. Actually, mid-week I hit my lowest weight for a total of 26.4 lbs lost, and awarded myself my 25-lb lost trophy on SparkPeople... but then managed to gain nearly two pounds so I'm at a total of 24.6 lbs lost. So close to that 25 mark!

I got in 204 fitness minutes this week, which surprised me. Mainly because I skipped one of my workouts so I felt like I was slacking, but then I made up for it by doing a longer one on one of my rest days. The whole week I felt like I wasn't doing well, but hey, a pound lost is a pound lost.

I usually do my longer workouts on each weekend day, but I felt really busy today so I just did my shorter, more intense one and moved my longer one to later in the week. I might do some Wii Yoga later just for fun, but I don't know if I'll get to it!

Yesterday I did tons of errands... went to the grocery store, Target, Walgreens, the craft store (which was closed) and to the fabric store (right next door). The last three were to try to find materials to make these silly "calming jars" which are essentially snow globes. I saw the idea on Pinterest and sort of loved it. Basically, I'm redoing my bedroom and it's sort of silly and whimsical and colorful...I have hanging lanterns and such... I'm trying to make it a real sanctuary, calming place with really nothing in except my mattress and pillows and blankets, but I have this ugly shelving unit that I can't get rid of since I'm renting so I put these snowglobe-like things on it. They're actually really fun... basically just full of water, food coloring, glitter glue, and glitter. Anyway, it was for some reason ridiculously difficult to find clear glue (I never did find it, but did find glitter glue) and I also couldn't find loose glitter at Target which was really annoying, and the craft store was closed already by 6:00, which was too bad because I could have made these nicer if I could find better glitter. The only glitter I found at the fabric store was large gold and silver flakes, but whatever. At any rate, that's one quasi-crafty thing I did this week. I also wrote in my book quite a bit which always feels good, it's pretty therapeutic.

Today I spent most of the day being pretty active. Though my workout was short (as I mentioned), I spent a couple hours trying to deep-clean my kitchen. My two friends are coming to stay with me this coming up weekend, and I couldn't be more excited. However, this means I'm also getting really neurotic about cleaning everything. I scrubbed out my fridge and microwave and stove, cleaned out all my cabinets and re-stocked them, ran cleaning cycles through my coffee maker (vinegar and water with two water rinses), did three loads of laundry, and tidied up the rest of the place. I'll need to do more before they get here, but it's a good start. These two particular friends haven't stayed with me before and they'll be essentially living here for 3 days so I'm getting a little obsessive. If someone's stayed with me before I don't really care much if everything isn't like, deep-cleaned, but... I want to be impressive the first time around. I don't get to be a hostess very often!

Since I'll have guests starting Friday I'm not really certain how I'm going to meal plan for the upcoming weekend. I'll have time to work out on Friday before they get here (I have the day off of work) but I'm not sure what they'll want to do.  One of them is fairly adventurous food-wise, but I don't think my other friend would touch, say, tofu with a ten-foot pole. I don't really know, though. So I don't know if I'll be cooking for them or if we'll just be eating out or what. Madison does have a lot of good restaurants but budget-wise I'm not sure what we'll end up doing. And I'm hoping to take them to Devil's Lake so I'm guessing I'll be able to get some exercise in, and I want to take them on other walks and stuff too so hopefully I won't slack too much on my fitness. And if I do? Well, I'll just hope I have fun and that it's worth it and that I'll do a good job again once they leave! It's Memorial Day weekend so I want to have some fun.

So here's my menu/exercise plan:


SUNDAY
Tinga de Pollo (chicken in tomato-chipotle sauce with pico de gallo and brown rice)
Cardio Kickbox, 25 mins

MONDAY
Teriyaki Tofu and Pineapple Kebabs
Rest Day

TUESDAY
Leftovers
Walk/run, 55 mins

WEDNESDAY
Roasted Vegetable Sandwiches
Frontside circuit training, 40 mins

THURSDAY
Something frozen
Rest day

FRIDAY
Not sure food-wise...
40 mins Gold's Gym

SATURDAY
??

Week 20 begins.

It's been a bit of a rough week. My emotions have sort of been on a roller coaster. I had a sort of tough time at work the second part of the week, and a lot of anger at a lot of people at work. Mostly frustration, but I really had to work to calm myself down. I don't have much of a temper and I never let it show (well, I whine EXTENSIVELY about it to other coworkers, but it's not like I have a temper tantrum.) I also was expecting a friend to come visit this weekend but he ended up not being able to, which really bummed me out. I'm also worried about my financial situation; I've been spending too much money and I just got a really expensive car insurance bill that I wasn't expecting (I didn't realize it was time to pay my 6 months already!!!) Anyway, I ended up not doing great this week. I only managed a total of 132 fitness minutes... I think this is only the 2nd time I haven't met my exercise goal. I skipped my workout on Thursday AND on Saturday... I rarely do that! I normally end up skipping one workout because I schedule myself for well over 175 minutes (my goal) so if something comes up I can miss a workout. But I almost never skip my Saturday workout because my weekends are when I do my longer workouts (Usually an hour walk/jog on one day and my step aerobics on another.) But yesterday I was just really busy and I never got around to it.

Mostly it's due to laziness, not injury. But my right foot... still... is giving me trouble. It doesn't help that while dissembling my bed last week, a large metal piece fell directly onto said foot, and now I have an extremely interesting bruise. I also managed to trip over a computer charger and fall into the direct sharp corner of a bookcase... my back has been hurting for a week now. I have a REALLY nasty bruise/scrape and it hurt so much the first couple days that I couldn't even sleep on my back.  I sure manage to injure myself extremely frequently...

Anyway, I had a really hard time managing myself this week. I drank to excess twice, and there was also a night where I majorly binged.

All of that said, though, I didn't make bad decisions all of the week and I managed to actually lose some weight, about a pound. I weighed in at my lowest since the beginning of the year today, for a total of 23.6 lbs lost. I think some of it was that I was carrying around some water weight last week, because I definitely expected to gain weight.

Had a couple outings where I was even proud of myself, actually. My parents and I went to Olive Garden on Friday (my parents are divorced but still get along so we usually do stuff for each other's birthdays, etc.) I managed to make a decent food choice there, though I really hate Olive Garden so nothing was super tempting! I avoided the wine, too.

Today I had a mother's day cookout with my mom's side of the family. I got up extra early so I could fit in my hour-long step aerobics, which I did. I really didn't want to go, because I haven't spoken to my sister in several months and hadn't really planned to. I initially was going to skip the thing entirely but my mom really wanted me there, and I didn't go to Easter which made her sad, so I sucked it up and went and it was fine. I didn't plan ahead for the brunch because I was told that there were going to be veggies and stuff there and I was planning on just nibbling on some stuff.

 Unfortunately there was really nothing healthy there. The only thing they grilled was steak - no chicken or anything. I had a very small portion of steak (I'm not a huge fan of steak anyway) and then some of the sides. They weren't healthy, but I tracked everything (was pretty generous with it too - I think I tracked more calories than I actually consumed). I had fruit salad (nothing added, just fruit, luckily), a very small portion of pasta salad (about a quarter cup) and potato salad (1/2 cup-ish). I again avoided the alcohol (some of my family can really put back the wine!) and all the appetizers (chips with guacamole, etc.) and avoided dessert. So I managed to stay within calories today, plus I burned 640 calories doing step aerobics this morning, so I'm feeling pretty good about that.

Trying to be more creative and stuff and take care of my mental health since I've been slacking on that lately. I have to remember to focus on it because it can get away from me quickly, especially my anxiety. I wrote in my book for the first time in a couple weeks last night and it felt nice. I've also been re-doing my bedroom which is sort of where I'm finding myself more broke than usual.

I started this grid for May where I track some stuff and I think I'm going to do it again for June but I'm going to alter it. Basically, I have a table in Word where I have one row for each day and I just answer basic questions as to whether I stayed within my calorie range for the day, whether I exercised, my weight, and what I did creatively, if anything. I think for June I will add a column for alcohol use and another for emotions, because I think it will be interesting to see how my emotions coincide with going over my calories. It's probably going to be exactly as I predict, but anyway, it's been a nice visual so far and I like to track my daily fluctuations in weight.

At any rate, here's my menu plan/exercise plan:


SUNDAY
Chipotle Sweet Potato, Black Bean, and Guacamole tacos with tomato
Step Aerobics, 63 minutes

MONDAY
Spring asparagus and pea pasta
Cardio kickbox, 25 minutes

TUESDAY
Baked herbed chicken Parmesan with broccoli
Rest day

WEDNESDAY
Leftovers
Gold's Gym Cardio Workout, 40 minutes

THURSDAY
Pinto bean nachos with bell pepper and veggies
Spark Cardio Blast, 30 minutes

FRIDAY
Jimmy John's veggie sub
Rest day

SATURDAY
Not sure on dinner
Running or step aerobics (depending on weather), 55-65 minutes

Start of week 19

Another week down!
I've done pretty well this week even though I went over my calories twice. I finally decided to adjust my calories on SparkPeople because I was just getting too hungry. And they have it adjusted based on only working out 90 minutes a week. So they had me eating between 1200 and 1450 per day and it just felt too low for me based on my weight and the fact that I'm working out at least 175 minutes/week. I did well on exercise, five sessions total, totaling 223 minutes for the week, 2,076 burned calories.

Weight-wise, I'm almost four pounds down from the beginning of the week, but since I'd gained weight, I'm still .6 pounds above the lowest weight I hit this year. I'm not complaining about that, though!

I took a progress pic yesterday to document 20 pounds lost but I haven't cropped it yet or even gotten it onto the computer and I have a guest for the weekend so I'm not going to post it right now. There isn't much of a difference as far as I can tell, but that's okay.

I'm still having problems with my right foot, and I don't know that it will stop if I keep using it. It was pretty bad while I was doing my step aerobics today. The top of my foot is really hurting. Le sigh.

Well, as mentioned I have a guest so I'm going to just post my menu/workout plan for the week.


SUNDAY
Rosemary chicken salad sandwiches with spinach and baby carrots
Step aerobics, 63 minutes

MONDAY
Baked chicken and avocado egg rolls
Rest day

TUESDAY
Leftovers
Cardio kickbox, 25 minutes

WEDNESDAY
Portobello and bell pepper sandwiches
Gold's Gym Cardio Workout, 45 minutes

THURSDAY
Leftovers or frozen Kashi pizza
Spark Cardio Blast, 35 minutes

FRIDAY
Jimmy John's veg sub
Rest day

SATURDAY
Not sure on dinner
Workout: walk/jog, 55 minutes