Holding Steady

First of all, I am happy to say that I am holding steady at 152.8!  That's a good sign, right?


I started the day off on Saturday with a yummy bowl of Oatmeal, topped with Pineapple and Cherries.  If you haven't tried this oatmeal combo yet, you are missing out.  YUM YUM YUM YUM.

I worked out about an hour afterward (burned 200 calories in 28 min!  NICE!), and made myself a MASSIVE salad.

Topped with black beans and avo-  oh sooooo good.  Paired with pineapple and one of Averie's Peanut Butter Protein babies, it was the lunch-o-champions!

After lunch, I ran out and did some errands all over town.  So much for a relaxing Saturday!!  Once returning home, I decided to get a little creative with dinner.  Still having a fridge full of lettuce, and being semi-tired of salads, I created a Quinoa Salad that rocked my face off!!

I cooked the Quinoa according to the package directions, then drained it and tossed in Broccoli, Lettuce, Garlic, and some Brown Mustard.  Stirred it all together and that's what it looked like!  SOOOOO yummy, if you like Mustard.  Brenton wasn't a fan-  he doesn't like Mustard, so the next time I make it, I'll leave the sauce off.

I also had an Orange and an Oatie....





























mmmmmmm Oatie...

By about 8pm, I was hungry again.  This is what working out does to you, I swear!!  So, I had a piece of Sprouted Whole Grain toast with Peanut Butter and an Apple topped with Cinnamon.

I feel like I'm eating a TON!  But, the combo of low calorie foods and exercise will do that to you I guess.  I am happy to say, though, that today (Sunday), I weighed in at.... are you ready for it???....


151.6!  (whoooo hoooooo dance dance dance spinnnnnnn jump jump)

So Far So Good

Happy Friday to you all!  What a short week it has been (which is fine with me)!!  Any big plans this weekend?  We don't have too much going on-  couple of grad parties, laundry, cleaning...the norm.  OH!!!  My CSA is supposed to start today or tomorrow.  I'm SO excited!  If you don't know what a CSA is, it's "Community Supported Agriculture", where you pay a certain amount and get veggies delivered to your house by a local farmer.  Ours is organic (YAY) and local Ohio produce (also YAY).  The hard part is that you don't really get to pick what you get-  you're delivered whatever is in season and ready each week, so our menus will be getting interesting!  I'm up for the challenge!!  If you're interested, you can check out Local Harvest for information.

So on to yesterday!  I weighed in at 153 and felt pretty good!!  I started the day off with some chocolate oatmeal topped with blueberries.




















MMMMMmmm...

Chocolate Oatmeal

1/2 c Oats, cooked in 1 c of Water
1 Scoop Chocolate Amazing Grass Powder
1 T Chia Seeds
Dash of Vanilla and Cinnamon
1/2 c Frozen Blueberries

Mix it all together!  YUM.


Lunch was a good variety, and completely (unplanned) made with what we happened to have in the house.

Apple with a small handful of Almonds (snack)
Whole Wheat TJ's Tortilla with 1/2 an Avocado, handful of Arugula, and a drizzle of Salsa (YUM)
Celery with Almond Butter (snack)

This kept me going until about 3pm, where I needed to pull out my trusty Larabar

This kept me content until dinner.  God Bless Larabars.

Dinner was another HUGE salad like the night before, REQUESTED BY BRENTON.  What?!?!!  He wants to eat salad?!??!?!  I was just as surprised as anyone!!

Yum.  This salad was loaded with Arugula, Spinach, Avocado, Celery, and Tomatoes, topped with my home-made Mustard Dressing.  I did a little bit of work and then made my own version of Averie's No Bake Peanut Butter (High Protein) Cookies.

In a bowl I mixed together:

1/2 c Peanut Butter
1/2 scoop of Protein Powder
1 T Cocoa Powder
1 t Vanilla Extract

Once mixed, I plopped little dollops onto a plate, and put them in the freezer to harden.

I could have rolled them, but you know, you do what you gotta do.  Once hard, I ate one with an orange.

(YUMYUMYUMYUMYUM!!!)  I can't believe how GOOD these little beauties are!!!

So I did a little more work and then did 20 min on the bike, complete with hills and all.  I was totally huffing and puffing.


I finished the day with another protein ball (YUM) and an apple topped with Apple Pie Spice.

I feel like I ate a LOT, but I hit right at my BMR of 1520.  Exercise burned 170 calories, leaving me at a deficit of 322 for the day.  Not too bad!


Have a lovely day everybody!  (oh... I weighed in at 152.8 this morning (dance dance dance dance))

The Diet.... Day 1

Happy almost Friday to you all!!!  If you haven't already done so, I'm now on Facebook and would LOVE for you to be my friend!  Click over there (and down a little bit) to follow -------->

I want to thank you for your kind comments so far!  The last post was a lot of ramblings, which I hope will get me where I want to be, and inspire you to come along, too!  Sorry for the delay in update- I was going to post last night, but then there were tornados and power outages that set me back a little bit (GEEZ!).   

Soooooo..... yesterday, I weighed in at 154.2.  We all have to start somewhere, right?


Breakfast was a Breakfast Cookie (THANK YOU GINA!) that I added some Chia Seeds to.  It seriously tasted as good as it looks.  I'll be adding chia for the rest of my Breakfast Cookie days!!

Lunch was all packed up and ready to go-  an Apple, some Almonds, and a huge jar of Rice/Lentil salad, leftover from the night before.

Rice/Lentil Salad (serves 1):

1/4 c of Lentils (dry)

1/2 c of Quick Cook Brown Rice (dry)

1/2 c Frozen Peas

1/2 c Frozen Spinach

2 T Organic Soy Sauce

In a pan, boil water and cook lentils for 10 min.

Add the rice and cook 5 more minutes.

Remove from heat, and stir in frozen peas and spinach.  Let sit a couple of minutes to thaw the veggies.

Strain the water from the mixture and stir in soy sauce.

HOLY YUM, BATMAN.  I love this quick meal!

....needless to say, though, I was STAR-VING by the time I got home.  Must... bring.... snack...

Dinner was a BIG SALAD with Arugula, Spinach, Tomatoes, Celery, and Avocado.  I also made up a dressing to pour on top!  I also chopped up a mango that I forgot to take a picture of.  Doggone it!

Mustard Dressing

2 T Brown Mustard (I used Trader Joe's)

1 T White Vinegar

1 T Water

Mix, pour.  YUM.

After doing a few errands, before the storms (EEK) came, I did Jillian's 30 Day Shred level 1.  I finished just in time because on my final stretch I heard this 'thump thump thump thump' (that's Brenton running down the stairs) "Aaron just called, let's go down in the basement.  The storm is coming quickly and it's pretty strong".  Oh good...  So I grabbed two huge glasses of water, a Larabar (that I didn't end up eating), my purse, computer, and phone, and headed downstairs.  Sure enough, the tornado sirens started going off.  As soon as I sat down on the basement floor, the lights went out.  For 3 hours.  Joy.  After about an hour, the sirens stopped and we went back upstairs.  I fixed myself a piece of bread with a little bit of peanut butter and had a few bites of the BEST cereal in the world- Barbara's Shredded Spoonfuls.  But my brain wasn't working to take a picture since I couldn't really see what I was doing to begin with. 

All in all, I ate 1420 calories; 100 calories less than my BMR (whoo!), and exercised off at least 157 calories according to my HRM.  This left me with a deficit of 409 calories for the day, factoring in that my Active Metabolic Rate is 1672.  Not bad!

Oh.... and I weighed in this morning and was 153 on the nose!

Happy almost Friday everybody!

Confessions

Good day, everyone!  I wanted to share with you my journey to health- where it has been and where it is going.




It all started back in elementary school. Boy, that's sad. I remember waaaay back in first grade, we started learning about healthy snacks. We were taught that any snack that had 5g of fat or less was a good choice. For whatever reason, one day we were all sitting in our 'tables' (group of 4 kids together), talking about how much we weighed. I was the only girl, with 3 boys. One of the boys was tall, one was short, and one was really skinny. It turned out that I weighed more than each of the 3 boys. Being the only girl at the table (mind you, I was only 6 years old thinking these thoughts!... stupid hormones in the meat and milk), I wanted to begin to diet to lose weight.  This is where it all began.



In my family, it was just myself and my sister and of course, I was the... larger... of the two of us. Granted, I was never ''BIG'', but I wasn't small, either. Vacation pictures were the worst- us in our little bathing suits, her legs stretching from here to high heavens, and then there's my sausage-legged self... ugh.  To this day, she has the build of a dancer, I have the build of a German log thrower.



Throughout middle school and high school I 'dieted' (what I thought was dieting?), but by the time I was a senior in high school, I had ballooned up to my highest weight ever- 168 lbs. I was eating fast food every day at lunch time because we could go out and I didn't know any better (as most high school kids do, right?). Boy, if I had known then what I know now... 



When college started, I had a really hard time adjusting. Call it 'home sickness', 'separation anxiety', 'PTSD', whatever you want. I was LITERALLY sick with a cold the ENTIRE first semester (I'm not kidding...), and would only eat canned pears for breakfast and a small salad for lunch and dinner because that's all I could gag down. Needless to say, I lost a lot of weight. 30 lbs to be exact. That was a dark 3 months. Lots of crying. Lots of acne. Lots of OTC cold medicine.



The following semester I began to make friends and settle in some. Over the next 3 years, I gradually gained weight back, and by the time I graduated, I was back up to my heaviest weight of 168 (again...sigh). I had to lose weight, however, because I was engaged to be married and needed to fit into my wedding dress!! Enter crash diet #1. Eating a piece of 'cake' for breakfast, protein bar and fruit for snack, 'cake' for lunch, protein bar and fruit for snack, and 'sensible' dinner. ...o...m...g.  It did work; I went down to 160 or so, but then shot right back up within a couple of years again.



Then I got the scare from the doctor.



I went in for a physical after the wedding because of a doctor switch. They did blood work and it all looked good, except for my sugar level. I was borderline Diabetic. The doctor told me that I had to lose about 30 lbs. before I even THOUGHT about having a baby or I would get Diabetes. WHAT?!?!



Now, I am a very competitive person, and decided that enough was enough. Enter diet #2- Weight Watchers. I competed in a 'Biggest Loser' competition at my work and paid $10 to try to win $100 if I lost the most % of body fat out of everyone that competed. I did the Weight Watchers thing of counting points, fat is the devil, sugar free is king, chemicals chemicals chemicals, and the weight started to come off. I looked GRAY and yucky, but doggone it, that scale was going down! Unfortunately, I didn't win the competition- I lost to 'Paul from Finance' by %0.2. SERIOUSLY?! I was sooooooo close. I made it down to 145 lbs. (which was really 148 lbs.- the last 3 were all water), and felt (and looked) weak and crappy.  Not glowing like I look now-  I looked sick, like something was wrong with me.



Thank goodness for my sister and brother-in-law. They helped me see the light that chemicals were bad, whole food was good, and fat (plant based) is NOT the devil! Enter diet #3- Whole Foods. (sigh of relief)



Brenton and I have been veggies for almost a year now, and I have been able to maintain a weight of 152-154 without any work, for almost 3 years. I would LOVE to be in the 140's again, though. 148 is my ideal weight. According to the BMI calculator, 154 lbs. at 5' 6" is the high end of the normal weight, so ideally I would want to be in the 140's somewhere. I can do it, I can do it. Will you help motivate me?



It's all a mathematical equation. 3500 calories is a pound. If I want to lose a pound a week, I need to have a 500 calorie deficit per day. My BMR, before my regular daily activity, is 1520, and after activity it's 1670. I'm aiming to eat at 1520 and have my deficit be made by my activity (150) and exercise (380).  Calorie King and my heart rate monitor will be my best friends over the next few weeks!!



A pound a week... can I do it??  We'll see.  I haven't tried to lose weight since being veggie, so we'll see how this goes!!!  I'll keep you in the loop, and hopefully this will help those that want to do the same.

Yet ANOTHER recall...

Well, it's happened again. ANOTHER beef recall. If you want to read about it, go to www.usda.gov. I'm not going to talk about it here because I'm SO TIRED of these stupid recalls!!! Is ANY commercially prepared food safe anymore? I swear... from the pesticides on produce, to the chemicals that preserve foods, to hormones and antibiotics in meat... you have to be SO careful about what you eat. And unfortunately, I'm going to be bold and say that some 95% of Americans (at least 95% of the people I know, so that's a good estimate) DON'T HAVE A CLUE about any of this. WAKE UP!

So many people go out and buy raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, apples, lettuce, etc., and think that they're eating food that is good for them. Well it CAN be good for them- IF THEY BUY ORGANIC. For those of you who don't buy organic produce, you might as well be drinking weed killer, because THAT'S WHAT YOU'RE DOING!!! Why do people not get this?!

When you buy milk, you go to the grocery and buy the 2% (or whatever) that's on sale, in the gallon jugs, right? Do you understand that you're drinking EVERYTHING THAT THE COW INGESTED? Including anti-biotics, hormones, more corn than they know what to do with and in turn, more anti-biotics. Buy ORGANIC MILK, or drink ALMOND MILK.

The moral of the story is that you HAVE to eat clean. All of that crap that is not good, wholesome FOOD builds up, and causes things like cancer, weight gain, tumors, birth defects- the list goes on and on.

So, until next time, spend the $$ on ORGANIC food. It's better to spend the money now, than have to pay even more for treatment later. Namaste.

Operation 'Lose 9 Pounds'

Good morning bloggies!! Today marks day 1 of 170 of "Operation 'Lose 9 Pounds' ". Let me tell you a story-

Last year, I competed in our office 'Biggest Loser' competition. At the very end of the competition, thanks to some water manipulation and other factors, I lost 22 lbs. Of course, since most of it at the end was water weight (around 5 lbs...), I knew I wasn't going to be able to keep it off. And since I knew that going in, I was ok with it. Today, a year from when I first started the competition, I am still 15 lbs. lighter. (YAY!). Since I've been able to maintain weight for this long, I have decided that I want to drop one more dress/pants size. I'm going to lay it all out here- I want to be a size 6. I haven't been a size 6 (consistently- not including the brief pilgrimage to that size when I had an anxiety disorder my first year of college) since I was probably in middle school.

So why 170 days? We're going on vacation to Miami in October!!!! WHOOO HOO!!!! So, since this will be the first time in a bathing suit in a LONG TIME, and I'm not in a 'lose as much weight as fast as you can' type of competition, 9 pounds over 170 days should be MORE THAN MANAGEABLE!!

I know that your anticipation is rising, so here is my plan--

My BMR is 1521. I'm going to eat at my BMR, and exercise 180 to 200 calories off every day (or, eat 200 calories less on my off days). This will make a deficit, by the end of my 170 days, of around 34,000 calories. Crazy!! This is about 10 lbs... give or take.

As far as exercise goes, here's what we're going to be doing-

Day 1- Jillian Michaels 30 day Shred

Day 2- Run for 30 min

Day 3- 30 min of Weights

Day 4- Billy Blanks Bootcamp (an hour long)

Day 5- Run for 30 min

Day 6- Denise Austin Yoga

Day 7- REST!!, then repeat the next week

As far as eating goes, here's what today's food plan is-

Breakfast: 1/2 cup of Oat Groats (soaked overnight) with Mashed Banana, 1 T Almond Butter, and 1/3 cup thawed Blueberries and Raspberries. ...and a cup of hot tea.

For a snack, I'm going with my trusty Larabar- in Cherry Pie. YUM!

Lunch today is a cup of Bean Soup that I made yesterday (thank you Trader Joe's Bean Soup Mix!), Celery and Tomatoes, an oz of Low Fat Cheese, a Small Apple, and a square of Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate. YUM!

Dinner tonight will be Chicken on top of a salad made of Spinach, Tomatoes, Onion, Celery, with a spritz of Lemon for dressing. It's not made yet... but my Chicken is cooking in Trader Joe's Chicken Broth in the Crock Pot as we speak!

This time around, losing weight should be pretty easy. We only eat quality foods anyway- not that crap that diet plans endorse (you know, the fat free, chemical laced death "food"...). It's all about the math, people!

Until next time, count your calories and get up and move. Namaste.

Something to look forward to....

Well my bloggie friends, I'm home sick today. The cold that I thought I had gotten rid of returned. This weekend, after the 5k, I started feeling my cold symptoms again. Not severely, but more nagging than anything. So, I took a half day at work to come home and take care of myself. After almost a 2 hour nap, I'm feeling better. I'm sitting here watching Oprah, eating organic yogurt, and on her show is an American Idol of sorts. A young Chinese girl name Jane Zhang just performed with a BEAUTIFUL voice. She said that she got her motivation to be a performer one day by walking into a music store and hearing "There's a hero, if you look inside your heart. You don't have to be afraid, of what you are" (you know, that Mariah Carey song from way back when). That got me thinking- what motivates people to do (or not do) what they do? What motivates me? Here are some examples:

-My husband used to be the opposite of adventurous when it came to eating. Once he encountered the tv show 'No Reservations', starring Anthony Bourdain, and followed him in his eating adventures, my husband now will try new food items at restaurants, try my raw foods and my new recipes at home. His interest in Anthony Bourdain and his travels have inspired him beyond words. Now, instead of eating burgers... mac and cheese... and well, lets face it- CRAP, he'll eat more wholesome and healthy food-- even veggi sushi!

-A year ago this month, I weighed 168 lbs. The motivation to lose the weight started with a work 'Biggest Loser' competition. I had the desire and drive to win, because I am a very competitive person. I got 2nd place, but in my mind, I won in the long run because I have kept the weight off (now, 153 lbs-- that's 15 lbs for those of you not counting) and have a whole new outlook on food and exercise. In turn, I created this wellness blog that you're reading now...

Just to give some perspective, and to toot my own horn- toot toot- here are some pictures...
Here's a before picture (that's me on the right):



And here's an after picture:



Yeah, I'm pretty proud of that. Oh by the way, those jeans that I'm wearing in the first picture are tucked away-- far far away, for use at a much later date... aka- for baby time--- at a much later date... hehe.

What motivates you? I'm motivated by many factors, depending on the outcome that I want. And more and more, the limits I put on myself are becoming less and less. The mantra ''why not me?'' runs through my head now, more than ever. Why not me to be rich? Why not me to be healthy? Why not me to be happy? Why not me to do what I want to do in life? Why not me to try new things?

So, why not you, too?

Until next time, Namaste.