Smooth Criminal

I can't stop raving about my green smoothies. Seriously. I'm obsessed. The past two weeks, there have only been three days where I have not had a smoothie. They are so easy and I genuinely feel amazing. And, I always thought people might be a little off when they said this about eating more leafy greens, but the whites of my eyes ARE so much whiter. I was shocked, I especially noticed when I threw some makeup on to greet the husband on his return from a work trip this yesterday. Hot Tamale.

I've definitely been taking some creative license with my smoothies, but hey! That's what's so great about the smoothies. My absolute favorite one right now is using lemons and pineapple. However, next week I will be switching it up some and throwing in some fresh berries in there. Woo Hoo.

So confession: I haven't weighed in since Tuesday. On Tuesday, I was thrilled with the numbers on the scale. However, it's been a stressful week, plus I'm home with my parents for Easter and I have eaten so much food today and I know that it will just going to do down from here. But I did go for a walk with my sweet pup twice this week, and trust that I will be doing it every single day this week leading up to the big weigh-in on Thursday. I desperately want to be down by 5 pounds this week. I aim to challenge myself to this each w/i for the next two months....which is how much longer this competition will continue.

More seriousness..... I've decided that I need to kick my ass in gear so I can conceive when it's that time, and all the studies show that women that have a healthy body weight have an easier time conceiving. While I have no reason to be concerned about my fertility, my husband and I have decided to do some genetic counseling because of some crazy mutant chromosomes I'm carrying around and will most likely do a round of IVF later this year. I'm setting up a consultation in a few weeks to talk about it with a medical professional, but I've decided that I'd like to be down 30 lbs if any implantation does happen. So..... there's that. I'm in serious baby mode... crazy, insane, I'malmost30andIdon'thaveababyandIneedonenoworImaydie, baby mode. So this will hopefully serve as a good dose of motivation, even though I've said that like, about everything. So we'll see. But right now, I'm pleased with how things are going. I'm incredibly optimistic. And I am glad to have all of this off my chest. Now.... family time.

Have a wonderfully blessed Easter. Christ the Lord is Risen!

Hiatus Makes the Fat Grow Fatter

Wow. Not only did I take a hiatus from writing in my blog here, I clearly took a hiatus from eating like a smart, rational person. Oh good lord. Well, let's recap the 7 weeks, because I think it's been at least that long, if not longer, that I've given an update on process.

So, one of the fabulous ladies I am doing this whole "Biggest Loser" challenge with went to NYC on vacation a few weeks ago. It happened to fall on one of our weigh-in weeks. Rather than change our calendar, we just decided to skip the one weigh-in. Our rationale was that it would be a whole month that we'd have to work out, eat right, and then come back in and have lost a ton of weight and be really excited and motivated. That sounds good......in theory. In practice, it did not work out the way we envisioned. Three out of the four of us gained weight... the fourth didn't gain, but didn't lose either. I gained 5.5 lbs. I was so upset with myself. I gave myself a stern talking to and resolved to do better.

This happened March 17th. Two weeks later, I lost 2 lbs. Today was our 6th weigh-in.... another 2lbs down. So, I've almost made up for my 5.5 gain, being only 1.5 lbs away from the lowest I've been in the competition. I'm still at a net loss, so that's good. However, my goal is to be 5 lbs down at the next weigh-in.....and I have a secret weapon.

Are you ready?

Green smoothies!!!!! I have been meaning to start making smoothies for a while now, and just haven't gotten off my butt to do it. My breaking point? I was recorded giving a presentation in class and had to watch it to write a 1-pg self critique. I couldn't bear to look at myself. I have learned, in years of being chubby, which angles flatter me in still photos and I have mastered looking good in a picture. However, in the video, that doesn't so

much work. So, I decided that something MUST be done.

I went to Farm Fresh, got some kale, parsley, mixed berries, lemons, grapes, flax seed.....I've been doing research online and printed off some yummy recipes. I have had one each day this week for breakfast. Monday my smoothie consisted of: a little more than a cup of kale, a cup of frozen mixed berries, 1/2 a banana, flax seed, and 1 cup of water. I was SO hungry 2 hours later. The next day, I made a lemon and parsley shake and added a cup of almond milk, and that sustained me a lot longer. I can't wait to come up with new recipes to try next week!

My smoothies haven't been this pretty of a green, but darn close. And so easy to make and drink while I'm getting ready. I have been really pleased and it usually sustains me until lunch. I still struggle with what I eat when I get home, I need to start bringing a healthy snack with me to work and eating it on the way home.

Also, I've recently become addicted to these:

They are chips that are made from brown rice. They are so so so good. They

have tons of flavors, but my absolute favorite is this Sweet Chili flavor. It's so good. I won't allow myself to buy them anymore because I can't control myself... I eat the entire bag. They are so good. They are "heath" food and all, but like I told my friend megacom, nothing is healthy when you eat an entire bag.

So all in all, things are back on track. I took a giant detour, but I'm focused and can see the light again. And I promise not to be neglectful of you, my loyal 3 people that I'm pretty sure read this, again.

Not Witty Enough For This Today

Soooo.... I don't think I'm going to hit my goal of 235 by next Monday. Not that I'm not going to try very hard to hit it. Mainly because any second now Aunt Flow will be knock-knock-knock on my uterus and I am concerned that I'm going to be all bloaty and water-retentiony and it's going to temporarily artificially inflate my weight. Which is sad because I finally picked out what I wanted to get for my prize! I want circus tickets. I really really want to go to the circus this year. Maybe Joe will let me extend my 'deadline' to March 4.... even though I came up with the whole weight deadline thing anyway. I don't want to be easy on myself though, I want to be tough. But we'll see. I'll keep you posted.

Also, on a whim, I took a picture of myself in my bra & panties. WOAH, tmi I know. But I just wanted to see if I look like what I think I look like. And I gotta say, I look pretty dang hot for someone who weights 237.5 pounds. I briefly thought about posting it but all 5 people that read this blog either work with me or used to work with me so I figured that's probably not a good idea.

So yesterday was the fondue-birthday-celebration hosted by my amazingly talented friend Emily (you should read her blog, it is pretty amazing) and I did well. I didn't gorge myself on chocolate and ate a lot of apples and carrots. And drank wine. But that was the best part. =)

This weekend will be a true test of wills. I have two baby showers to attend (one is a dessert party - eek!) and the other is a luncheon. I'm also going up to RVA and my girlfriends there are taking me out and I believe they intend to get me plastered. So I gotta be careful so the 3 lbs I've been so desperate to lose don't come back in just one evening of cavorting. :)

Ahhh, You Better Take Me Home Tonight

..... down beside that red firelight... you gonna let it all hang out... fat bottomed girls you make the rocking world go 'round!!!

This has been my new anthem since Puck sang it to Lauren Zizes last week on Glee. Zizes is also my new personal hero. She's a big, beautiful gal and she's making Puck work for her love and attention. She's not swooning over him, the hottest guy in school, because he is giving her attention. She's making him EARN her affection. Rock on girl. Rock on. I wish I had an ounce of that self-esteem and worth. I mean, I never swooned over guys just because they announced their affect. But I also never thought boys actually liked me because I was not as pretty as my friends so I kind of avoided romantic relationships. It's complicated. ah.

But I'm still down, so I'm very excited. If I'm down 3 more pounds by February 28th, I get a present. I don't know what kind of present, but my husband has promised me some sort of delightful gift if I hit that milestone. Then, on March 1, I must establish a new milestone to reach by March 31 and then I get another present. Oh, the possibilities! :)

This weekend was rough, my husband is a bad influence. We ate fried chicken and ate Chinese food too. I gained a few lbs from that, but dropped back down to 238, which is where I was at my last weigh in. That's such a scary number. I hadn't really been posting my weight, but I decided if would be motivation to post it so I can watch the number get smaller and smaller and smaller.

I also feel like it's an appropriate time to announce my goal. I would like to weigh 170 pounds. That is my gigantic goal. 170 sounds like such a nice number. I haven't been 170 since, oh... like... 8th or 9th grade. Getting to my goal weight of 170 means I will lose 70 pounds. It's totally doable, I just need to be much more careful and aware of what I put in my mouth. I'm getting there. It's more of a change of lifestyle than anything else, and slowly but surely I'm getting there.

But that can be saved for another post.

soy un perdidor, i'm a loser, baby...

I sit here, on my lunch break eating a carrot and doing Bugs Bunny impersonations. (What's up, doc? smack*smack*smack). I'm feeling free-spirited and light hearted and oh-so-happy. Por Qué? Because I'm a LOSER baby! yeaaaaaaaah! Today was weigh-in #3. I am down four pounds from my unfortunately gain two weeks ago; six pounds overall. I have lost 2.26% of my weight. AWESOME! :) I am so happy. I'm close to dancing in the street.

I've been oh-so-good recently. Calorie counting like a crazy person. Turning down beer to run on the tread mill. RUNNING ON THE TREADMILL!! There's the big one. I've been running on the treadmill for at least 20 minutes 2 nights a week. I am trying to bump it up to 3, then 4, then maybe even 5.

I haven't been drinking water like a good girl though. Did you know that if you leave a plastic cup full of water on your desk over the weekend, mold spores will start to grow? Yeah, me either. So I trashed that cup and just haven't brought another one to the office yet. I'm going to try to get back on the water train tomorrow, making sure to take much better care of my water vessels.

In other news, I really have no other news. I'm lacking in wit and humor today, but I just wanted to share my exciting news. I am splurging on Chinese food with my husband tonight, so I already put that in the calorie counter and it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be, so that's not terrible. I have to be really really really good the next few days because on Wednesday, I will be another year older and one of my fantastic co-worker friends is throwing me a fondue celebration with all the gals at work. So I will be eating lots of cheese and chocolate and fruit and pretzels and marshmallows.......... yum. *drool*

Knee's a' Knockin'

Last Thursday, there was a strange sound reverberating around the office. It echoed off the dormer windows and clattered around between the cubes. It lasted for a good solid two hours...... up until the point it was time to weigh-in. Yep, it was the sounds of my knees knocking together, terrified of what would happen when I stepped on that evil white tile.

It had been a bad seven days leading up to weigh-in. I was PMS-eating like a crazed person and had one of those months where you just can't be satisfied when you eat, no matter what it is. Coupled with an exhaustion I'm not really used to, I was lazy and ate like crap. I was terrified of what this week's weigh-in would be like.

Rightly so, it turns out. I gained two pounds. I was very disappointed, because when I had weighed-in at home that morning, I was down 1.5, and I didn't eat all day up until the weigh-in (not on purpose, I just had a busy morning and forgot about breakfast). I was the only one who gained weight and I dutifully put my $2 in the pot. I blame a lot of factors, but the one I blame the most is not drinking water. I always feel better when I drink water and it is my opinion that if I drink water like a good girl, I will be down again next week.

I also wasn't diligent about my lunch last week. I went out a few times and fell off of the lean-cuisine wagon. Well, I'm back on it today. Yesterday I had a cup of soup for lunch and a SmartOnes for dinner, topped off by a bowl of Chocolate Cheerios for desert. In a moment of weakness, I ate some chips too, and paid for it this morning. I felt bloaty and sick when I woke up and I was up 2 lbs when I weighed in at home. Thirty-two ounces of water I feel better, and I'm determined to drink another 32 oz of water before I leave here today. Today I had my SmartOne and a yogurt... yum.

Also, I'm working on accountability. My darling husband got me a DROID X for Valentine's Day. Yay! So I downloaded the My Fitness Pal app and have been trying to record everything I eat. When I get to work in the morning, I add my oatmeal AND my microwave lunch/yogurt so I feel like my fate is already written. Also, when I went to a super bowl party, I loaded up on fruits and veggies and a calico bean chili instead of all the crazy other stuff. I did eat two cookies and some amazing nacho cheesey dip, but I didn't pig out on bad food. So I was proud.

I'm still not pleased with myself on my exercise. I wanted to get up this morning but I fell back to sleep.... good thing my body naturally wakes up at 7:15 or I would've been super late for work. Tonight I'm going to make a very concerted effort to run on the treadmill when I get home. Fingers crossed that I'm successful!!!

I Choose My Choice

You know what they say. Life is all about choices. And losing weight is really all about choices. Well der. Of course you're going to lose more weight if you eat veggies, fruit, and complex carbs instead of cheesy bacon ranch fries (mmmmmmm). So, this is a posting about choices. Because over the past two weeks, I've made some choices I'm extrememly proud of .... here are two of them.

Let's start off with the ones I'm proud of. Might as well revel in my shining moments first. Let's see... first there was January 19th. I got up on time, got dressed, and was out the door to work on time (a victory in itself)! I drove by McDonalds and was craaaaaaving a McChicken biscuit and diet Coke..... but the line was long and I had oatmeal in my pocketbook and decided not to make myself late to work getting a biscuit. I got on the interstate and starting thinking..... I have a Starbucks giftcard. I could go to the one by the office. I could call by boss & see if she wants a coffee too (she's an addict!) and then I could justfy my being late. Well, I talked myself out of that, too. I hadn't been on time for work in months. I was going to take this small victory, eat my oatmeal, and bathe in my success of the day. And I am so proud a I did. I was on time for work and saved myself several hundred calories for breakfast. WooHoo!

Next success to talk about: January 28th - Moe's: Moe's very well be the happiest place on Earth. Well, that's a stretch. But it's delicious. I haven't had Moe's in probably... oh... 9 months, maybe longer. I love Moe's. This particular day, I was craving chicken nachos from Moe's. I could almost taste the cheese. My mouth was watering. I was torn... be good, be bad.... be good, be bad. I called my husband, and of course his answer was "good, always good". The girl in the cube beside me suggested to be good for lunch, and then splurge on dinner. I finally resigned myself to be good. I ate my Healthy Choice cafe steamers lunch... the Mediterranean Veggies one. It was tasty - nothing compared to Moe's but still not bad. I paired it with a creamy cup of Yoplait peach yogurt. Yeah boy, am I glad I did that. I just looked up the nutritional information on calorieking.com. The calorie count for the Billy Barou with ckn at Moe's is a whopping 1,495 calories. Holy Moly, that is all you need in a day. Meanwhile, I sat at my desk writing this blog, hoping to get back into this, and consumed a mere 395 - 175 from my yogurt and 220 from my healthy choice. I am feeling a little cocky. And slim.

I still have days I make horrible choices. My choice today of having a chicken philly with waffle fries may not have been super, but I balanced it with a grilled chicken ceaser for dinner. I had a Cherry Coke Zero with dinner, but I had two glasses of water with lunch. Moderation and balance. Moderation and balance. This shall be my mantra.

Next hurdle to tackle: adding excercise in.

BL Week 1 & 2

So, our very own Biggest Loser competition got off to a great start. On January 6th, 2011, we all scampered into the bathroom, scale and change of clothes in hand. We agreed before Christmas break that we would each wear leggings and a university t-shirt to be "even". We were praying no one from the other office suites would come into the bathroom. So, armed with a clip board and a excel spreadsheet I made, we dutifully wrote down what each weighed. To my surprise, only 34 lbs separated the heaviest from the lightest - I thought it would be a much larger spread (I seriously under-estimated what one friend weighed, she looks so tiny!). We set up a bi-weekly weigh in schedule, so we all set off determined to see less weight on the scales in two weeks.

The Monday (which happened to be MLK, Jr. day) before the impending Thursday weigh-in, we had a last chance workout, just like they do on the NBC tv show. We met up on campus with one of the cops who we're friends with. He is a personal trainer and agreed to work with us, so we were thrilled. He worked us! We did cardio and weight training, and I left feeling pretty good, especially considering I had to wake up and drive to campus by 9 am on my day off!!

On Thursday, we all delayed weighing-in as long as we could. Talk about anxiety. We made sure the halls were clear and scampered back down to the bathroom, changed clothes, and had a staring contest until someone finally (graciously) volunteered to go first. The scale flashed while it was calculating (OoOoOoOo).... DOWN THREE POUNDS!! Cheers were shouted, congratulations all around. Our first victim contestant succeeded... would we all?

One by one, the rest of us climbed on the small, white, potential harbinger of bad news. One by one we were greeted with happy news! The first three of us who climbed aboard the small white tile of doom lost THREE POUNDS! We're awesome. Finally, it was the final turn. The results: SIX POUNDS! Way to go! Our first w-i, and we were tremendously successful. We happily changed back into work attire and giddily went back to the office. Week 1: Major Success.

So, here are my stats for week one:

Weight lost: 3 lbs

% lost: 1.23%

BMI: down .5

Hoping this momentum continues!

What the what?

Wow. I haven't written since 2009. I'm either a bad blogger or a bad dieter. I'm going to go with both. I never did do that fad diet that I said I was going to do, although I did make the soup..... which is still in my freezer. I guess that means it's been in the freezer for 16 months. I should probably throw that away. Hm....

I'm still struggling with losing weight. I start something & I'm really good at it for a week and then kerplat. I'm back to binge eating and eating a ridiculous amount of calories a week. Since 9/09, my weight crept up about 10 lbs. SERIOUSLY?! Ugh. For a while, J and I weighed ourselves religiously each morning and wrote it down on a sheet of paper taped to the bathroom wall. This was both encouraging and depressing. On the days that my weight went down I was ecstatic.... however, it made me terrified to ever eat out, thanks to the 5 lbs that Olive Garden was guaranteed to pack on. But we got lazy and that hasn't happened in a long time.

I also joined a fitness thing at work, but I was traveling a lot for work and once I forgot my sneakers so I couldn't log my runs, and blah blah blah, I dropped the ball and didn't work out the prescribed number of times that month and was kicked out of the program. LAME.

Well, I've determined 2011 will be my year. And I won't be alone. I have an amazing support team. I have joined ranks with three other fabulous ladies in my office who want to lose weight in 2011. And, my loyal reader, money is on the LINE! We created our own Biggest Loser contest. We are weighing in twice a month and it's $10 a weigh-in. The person that loses the highest percentage of weight at the end wins the pot. We are encouraging each other, making sure we stay on the straight and narrow, and we're in it for the long haul. Round one started in January and will go through May. We may do another one from May-December; we'll see how the first one goes! Wish us luck!