Start of week... 13?

I had a great weekend! One of the best I've had in a while. Partly due to the fact that it was a 3-day weekend and that I had a couple friends in town, but it just felt so good to be happy. Friday I got to go see my favorite artist of all time, Dar Williams. I went with my mom, as we're both huge fans. I've liked her since I was a little kid. We actually ran into her on the street before the show and chatted briefly. I've met her before, but i was still shaking afterwards. 

I also got to see the Hunger Games on Friday during the day when the theaters weren't crazy. (I'll admit it, I love those books. Well, the first one anyway.)  

Yesterday I got to hang out with some friends I haven't seen in a while, and today we went to Devil's Lake and had a picnic (my homemade rosemary chicken salad from Cooking Light, with baguette and carrots and greens and eggplant garlic spread, mmm)  and did a ton of hiking. We meant to go on a a short-ish hike that is fairly challenging but do-able. We ended up getting lost on the way down, however… which meant that our shortish hike turned into a 2.5 hour hike. We got SO lost! I have no idea how many miles we ended up going, but I burned over 1,100 calories according to my heart rate monitor. Crazy! 

Also in a good mood because I weighed in at my lowest weight today for a total of 17.4 total pounds lost. I'm glad those two bad days didn't catch up to me. 

I also got the news that a couple of my friends from Minneapolis are going to come visit me over Memorial Day, and I'm really excited for that even though it's two months away. One of them has visited me here in Madison before but the other hasn't, so I'm excited to see them. I might take them to Devil's Lake to go hiking, we'll see.

I am still having a little trouble with my achilles tendons and whatever is wrong with my left ankle, and I anticipate being fairly sore tomorrow after all that uphill hiking. Some of it was REALLY tough - like climbing up rocks tough. I think it's mostly high-impact stuff like jumping jacks and jump rope that are hurting me. We'll see.

I ended up going over my calories by a couple hundred today, but I'm totally okay with it because I was legitimately hungry - all that hiking made me starving and tired!

I'm pretty exhausted so I'm just going to post my menu/exercise plan. I'm switching back to doing Sundays as the start of the week rather than Saturdays, because that's the way SparkPeople does it and it's easier to keep track of my weekly minutes.  Plus it just makes more sense to start on Sundays.

Sunday

Blackened Tilapia Baja Tacos (Linked the recipe because it's delicious. I'm not a big fan of fish, except in sushi, but I love these tacos!)

Exercise: Hiking (150 minutes)

Monday

Barbecued tofu sandwiches with bell peppers and onions (I normally make these with tempeh but the store didn't have any)

Exercise: Cardio blast, 40 minutes (I may skip this since I already reached my minutes goal for the week, but if I'm not too sore, I'm going to do it)

Tuesday

Leftovers

Exercise: Rest day (if I skip Monday's workout due to soreness, I'll do it Tuesday - I'm eager to try out that new DVD)!

Wednesday

Baked potato with broccoli

Exercise: walk/jog, 40 minutes (the one day this week it's supposed to be nice out!)

Thursday

Pinto Bean Nachos - one of my old staples. I add bell peppers while cooking, and top with tomatoes and avocado.

Exercise: Carido kickbox, 25 mins (if my feet are feeling better by then… this is the workout I first started having major problems with)

Friday

Jimmy John's vegetarian sub

Exercise: rest day (I'll be with my dad)

Saturday

Orange-chipotle glazed tofu with brown rice and whatever veggies I have leftover

Exercise: Step aerobics, 63 minutes

All the recipes I'm making this week are quick and simple. Sometimes I get in moods where I just want to try new things, some complicated, but with the warm weather I just don't have the patience to mess around in the kitchen for too long, plus I don't really feel like eating anything super heavy. So some stuff (the fish tacos, the pinto bean nachos, baked potato) are just my staple meals I go to when I don't feel like doing a whole lot. 

Back to work tomorrow and I'm bummed. Mondays are a good day for me though, which is really nice. I get to sit in my office and not deal with clients (except for on the phone, but even then, not a whole lot) and catch up on all the work I didn't get to the prior week. It makes getting back into the swing of things a little easier.

Starting the new year off right.

I was right, I weigh more today than I ever have in the past. Eek! I'm not yet comfortable sharing my exact weight on this blog, but let's just leave it at the fact that I want to lose 78 pounds (50 in 2012.) I'll be tracking my weight on SparkPeople, and maybe after I've lost some I'll admit my weight on this blog. ;)

The weather outside is terrible and has been this whole weekend, which bums me out since I have a 4-day weekend (on day 3, sadly. I almost miss unemployment.) There's a wind advisory right now and it's snowing, so I'll be spending my day indoors, most likely.

Started the year off with a delicious breakfast - a mini omelette. I've never actually made one before; I just saw the spinach in my fridge and thought I should incorporate it into my breakfast somehow. Just made with one egg, a bunch of baby spinach that i wilted in a spritz of olive oil, and 10g of romano cheese. The toast I served it with is my favorite thing --  7-grain sprouted bread from Trader Joe's with half a tablespoon of whipped Earth Balance (a vegan butter substitute, trans-fat free.) The bread has to be kept refrigerated or, if you're like me and can't burn through a loaf quickly enough, in the freezer. I keep fearing that I'm going to sound like a spokesperson for different companies on this blog, but I promise I'm not compensated :) The bread's ingredients: Sprouted wheat grains, oats, rye, barley, corn, rice, millet, wheat flour, water, honey, vital wheat gluten, yeast, molasses, salt. 5 grams of protein per slice, 60 calories per slice. My mom got a breadmaker over the holidays and I'd love to steal it a couple times to make my own bread, but this stuff is great and it's at least healthier than the HFCS-loaded "wheat' breads I find with other brands. Alongside a couple mugs of black coffee (this is not a habit I plan to change anytime soon - sorry, caffeine nay-sayers!) this is a yummy breakfast.  286 calories, 20g protein, 16g fat, 15g carbs.

Don't worry, I won't be posting every boring thing I eat, but I felt like I should blog on day one. 

I took a picture of my profile this morning and cringed. Even dressed in all black, this is not what a 25-year-old's body should look like - not when it is capable of being way healthier. I should mention right off the bat that I do absolutely believe in the "fat acceptance" movement, but I know that with my body, in particular, when it is healthy, it does not look like this. If I felt healthy, and was eating right, and exercising, and I still looked like this? I could live with it. But I know that at its healthiest, my body does not look anything like this. 

I've lost weight successfully only twice in the past. Once when I was a junior in high school and  "joined" Weight Watchers (meaning, I loosely followed the points system that my mom was using, and borrowed her materials). I lost about 30 pounds then and was almost to a healthy weight. I was also a member of a gym, which I can't afford anymore, sadly. And once in early 2010 when I joined SparkPeople for the first time and lost over 20 pounds. In early 2010 I weighed 40 pounds less than I do now - which means that I've managed to put on 40 pounds in just a year and a half. That is amazing (in a bad way) to me. That's not how someone's body is supposed to work. My sedentary and very stressful job contributed to this - but moreso, the bad choices I made. The job made me so anxious that I found solace in booze and food. That's why I think I really need to make this big change - so much of this is not going to be about my weight but more about how I handle stress. THAT is what needs to change. Because when I avoid alcohol, I eat right. When I exercise, I am less anxious.

2012 is about doing the harder thing - working out, doing yoga, taking a bath, allowing myself to feel pain rather than trying to numb it. It is about avoidance of the easy thing - grabbing a six-pack of beer and eating flavored pretzels until I feel like I'm going to explode and trying to numb my feelings so I don't have to deal with them anymore. That is just not the way to deal with life. It hasn't been working for me, so why would I keep doing it? It doesn't make anything go away in the end, it just makes me unhealthy and unhappy.

I have the knowledge, the power, and the ability to change my life. I know I do. I'm the only one who does.