How did everyone's first day go? It feels good to be back on track and in control.
Michi's Ladder. Just a guideline for you. I like the challenge of trying to stay in those top tiers, but I am going to make some exceptions. The food challenges I do on my BeachBody forums use some of these same exceptions. Do what feels right to you:
-Rice cakes (brown rice)
-Dark chocolate. I told you to eat it every day and I'm going to follow my own advice. It makes me happy and makes me feel like I'm indulging.
-Almond milk. Soy milk is in the top tier, but I only eat soy in very limited quantities because supposedly you should avoid it when you have thyroid issues. Sometimes I eat tofu and I still love edamame, but for the most part, I don't eat soy.
-Popcorn. Come on, we're talking about ME here. How could I give up popcorn? That's just whacky nonsense. Popcorn is in the 3rd tier, I think. It saddens me to see it way down there. What's up with that? Anyway, I'm going to have my popcorn on Friday for the next two weeks. If it impedes weight loss, I'll have to drop it (THE HORROR) until my local weight loss challenge ends because I've told Eamonn we are getting that $100 back and I'd better make good on that promise. Heck, that's a customized facial right there, so if that's not motivation, I don't know what is.
Jean and I had a little e-mail exchange about fat free foods. She mentioned concerns over fat free foods and she prefers to eat the full fat versions--just less of them. Overall, I agree with that concept. Fat free cookies (remember the Snackwell craze?) probably have more sugar and chemicals in them in place of the fat. Something has to make up that flavor and texture of the fat. What the heck is it? Animal? Vegetable? Mineral? Hard to tell. I don't dig that.
I typically steer clear of fat free anything because in general, it alarms me. The only exception I make is fat free dairy, which can just be made with skim milk. Although I have to day--fat free cheese? What is the point? I'm liking fat free Greek yogurt these days, but that's pretty much the extent of my dairy consumption, unless we're skiing and then I drink my homemade hot chocolate made with full on straight-from-the-cow milk.
My day was good overall. Another thing I said to Jean was that I'm going to squeeze in some two-a-day workouts when I can to see if I can blast through this annoying little plateau I seem to have taken up residence on. I'm also shooting to cut my calories down to 1400 - 1500. I totally missed that today, dang it. It was the chocolate! So maybe that will have to be a once a week treat.
One curious thing that is happening--I'm definitely losing inches. On Saturday, when we were already late leaving the house for a hockey game (where else would we be going?), I was suddenly compelled to put on these jeans that I bought--no lie--2 1/2 years ago after I came home from 3 weeks in Ohio (where I was eating Donato's and Graeters too often). I bought the jeans thinking, "When I lose weight, I'll wear these. They're cute."
Until Saturday, it has been a no go situation. And yet, I do not return them. When I bought the jeans, I couldn't even pull them all the way up (I discovered this when I got home--they were from Costco. Yes, I buy a large portion of my wardrobe at Costco, as does half the valley so we're all dressed alike most of the time. Anyway, if you're a Costco shopper, you know there are no dressing rooms at Costco). Ultimately, I held out hope. I've been close to getting into the jeans several times, but then Christmas comes...
Anyway, on Saturday, they pulled right up--buttoned and everything. And that's when I discovered they are way low riders. As in I don't even think I own underwear small enough to keep from showing.
This could be interesting.
Today's workouts:
I had time to do two rounds. Round one: HIIT 15, Sculpt 30 (which actually got interrupted about 20 min. in by a child who needed last minute homework assistance). Round two: TurboJam Cardio Party. This used to be my favorite workout--Chalene Johnson, of course. But since I've been doing Chalene's TurboFire, going back to TurboJam was sooooo slow.
But get this, even with two workouts, I don't think I'll hit my goal. My goal is much higher now--2400 calories a day--because I'm grasping at straws to make my goal weight by early April. I'll have a nice deficit today, but not one as big as I want/need.
Food:
Breakfast: Chocolate Shakeology, almond milk, 1/2 banana
Snack: Apple, Brazil nuts
Lunch: Salad w/Romaine, tuna, radishes, tomatoes, olives, celery, olive oil, 1 square dark chocolate.
Snack: FF Greek yogurt
Dinner: Leftovers from Saturday night dinner out. I'm just realizing it had pork in it. Not in top two tiers of Michi. Dang it. 1 square dark chocolate.
Estimated calories eaten: 1745. I think this is high. I'm hungry.
Calories burned: I'm at 2264 with 90 minutes left to go. I don't think I'll squeak out 2400.
Alas.
OK, have a great day tomorrow!
Monday, February 28, 2011
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Michi's Ladder
OK, tomorrow's the day! We're starting a new challege--the prize: you, only healthier. Awesome.
Have I told you guys about Michi's Ladder before? I think I have, but here's a link to it again. Hopefully, it works...
Michi's Ladder
Anyway, I'm a big fan of Michi's Ladder. It really divides food up and shows you even stuff that you think is really good might not be so high in nutrition.
My personal goal for the next month is to eat from the top two tiers. That's really hard, I'm telling you. But I'm going to do it. Hopefully I'll get some decent results and experience some weight loss because I'm in danger of losing my $100! I've been all over the place since our first challenge ended a month ago and my wallet is going to pay the price. DANG IT!
So, the top two tiers--that's me.
See you tomorrow...
Have I told you guys about Michi's Ladder before? I think I have, but here's a link to it again. Hopefully, it works...
Michi's Ladder
Anyway, I'm a big fan of Michi's Ladder. It really divides food up and shows you even stuff that you think is really good might not be so high in nutrition.
My personal goal for the next month is to eat from the top two tiers. That's really hard, I'm telling you. But I'm going to do it. Hopefully I'll get some decent results and experience some weight loss because I'm in danger of losing my $100! I've been all over the place since our first challenge ended a month ago and my wallet is going to pay the price. DANG IT!
So, the top two tiers--that's me.
See you tomorrow...
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Clean Eating Challenge--Starting Monday, Feb. 28
OK, everyone. First, sorry for the absence. Work beckoned. And maybe some hockey tournaments and ski day or two.
I don't know if you saw in the comments, but Erin was talking about how since the Healthy Habits challenge ended, she has had trouble staying on track. Me, too, sister. I feel like I always need that challenge mentality going on to keep myself in check. Sad, but true. I just always need to be working towards some goal, whether it's weight loss, finishing a certain exercise program, eating a certain way (like trying being a raw vegan for awhile) or whatever.
So let's do this. Let's have another challenge. The bummer is, I'm not going to do prizes this time. No, this time, the prize is going to be about a healthier you, which is pretty darn good, if you ask me. So we'll go for a healthier you and bragging rights. The person who hits all of the challenge goals gets bragging rights and public kudos on the blog. For all 3 people who read it...yay, right?
One of the things we're going to focus on is eating a certain number of fruits and vegetables during the day. During the last challenge, I noticed a certain lack of raw, crunchy things :). So that will be part of this challenge.
We're going to start with something fairly simple. I'd like to see you follow the "formula" I learned from my BeachBody forum pals. It has served me well for about two years now. Once I started following it, the first thing that happened was that I stopped gaining weight--and that had just steadily been happening for a long time. Then I realized that I could eat the foods I liked, enjoy them and not feel guilty. Then I started losing weight.
Exercise will be a part of the challenge as well. I will tell you that weight loss is about 80% what you're doing in the kitchen and 20% exercise.
Keep a food journal and track your calories. I cannot emphasize this enough.
My cousin, Jean, just got a BodyBugg. And Joan, I don't know if you're still reading, but I'd be curious as to how it's going with your BodyBugg, too. I'd love for the two of you to report in and tell me what you've learned since wearing it. It was a huge eye opening experience for me and I'm dying to know if other people had them same thing happen to them.
So, the details.
What: Clean Eating Challenge
When: Monday, February 28 - Saturday, March 26--four weeks again, baby!
The formula:
-You eat "clean" 6 days a week.
-You eat at least 1,200 calories a day. Less than that, your body can't function and you'll screw up your metabolism.
-You eat two fruits and three vegetable servings a day.
-You have one designated "cheat" day a week. Some of you have commented that you don't like to have an entire cheat day. That's fine. I've sort of shifted away from that, too, but do what works for you.
-Report in once a day, just like last time. You have a 3 day grace period though.
-Exercise 5x/week for at least 30 minutes. Come on. Quit with the bellyaching excuses and just do it.
Some tips:
-Plan meals. Not planning leads to trouble. Trust me. Trouble is my middle name.
-Track your food. Cannot stress this enough if weight loss is one of your goals. I know it seems tedious and I know you want to fight me on it. Give in. Track. See the benefits. I love tracking. It's like a big science project.
-Look at your schedule for the coming week. Where do you have events that might derail your plan to eat clean? For example, on March 3rd, I'm going out with the moms from Declan's hockey team (we're having a spa night and we can take food and wine). I'll decide ahead of time what I want to do. Do I want to move my traditional cheat day from Friday to Thursday this week? Or do I want to take foods that I trust myself with to eat and stay on track that day? I'm not sure yet, but that will be a part of vision for the week as I plan meals and workouts.
-Exercise. Where will you fit it in? Traveling? What can you do to not miss your workouts. I wrote on my other blog about how I found an empty conference room at the hotel we stayed at for the hockey tournament last weekend. Workers walked in on me 5 minutes before the end of my workout on Sunday. On Monday, the walked in 10 minutes into a 55 minute workout. I debated--should I leave? I asked them if I needed to vacate. They said no and I leapt about while they worked for 45 more minutes. They started asking me questions about the workout, said they were impressed (I'm sure they were just as moritifed as I was by the whole situation and were trying to be nice) and in the end, it came out that one of the guys had done both P90X and Insanity. BeachBody is everywhere. In the end, I was glad I stayed. It boosted my confidence and I got a killer workout because there was no way I was slacking off when those guys could potentially see me.
-Weigh and measure yourself on Day One and again at the end. Eamonn used to say all the time to not focus so much on the number and look at inches lost. He's right.
-Clean out your cupboards. This kind of goes along with plan meals. Get rid of your trigger foods. Life is so much easier when you don't have them around. If I thought I could go through life happy with a hunk of cheese in my fridge, I'd do it, but I can't. I keep some cheese here for the masses, but for the most part, I try to avoid it because once I start eating it, I can't stop.
-Eat dark chocolate every day. That's serious advice, but keep it to an ounce and work it into your calorie total for the day. And if you eat a nice, high quality dark chocolate, you'll be satisfied with a taste. Note: only do this if you can stop at an ounce. If chocolate is a trigger food, get it out.
-Set goals. Be specific. Lose 5 lbs. in 4 weeks. Increase the number of push ups you can do from 10 to 15. Whatever. Decide what your goals are, set them, and achieve them.
So that's pretty much it. Ready, set, --get planning. Feel free to share recipes and ideas. Post problems or questions. Let us know your successes. If you need help determining what amount of calories you should be eating or workout ideas, let me know. I have access to calorie calculators through BeachBody--might as well take advantage of it!
I don't know if you saw in the comments, but Erin was talking about how since the Healthy Habits challenge ended, she has had trouble staying on track. Me, too, sister. I feel like I always need that challenge mentality going on to keep myself in check. Sad, but true. I just always need to be working towards some goal, whether it's weight loss, finishing a certain exercise program, eating a certain way (like trying being a raw vegan for awhile) or whatever.
So let's do this. Let's have another challenge. The bummer is, I'm not going to do prizes this time. No, this time, the prize is going to be about a healthier you, which is pretty darn good, if you ask me. So we'll go for a healthier you and bragging rights. The person who hits all of the challenge goals gets bragging rights and public kudos on the blog. For all 3 people who read it...yay, right?
One of the things we're going to focus on is eating a certain number of fruits and vegetables during the day. During the last challenge, I noticed a certain lack of raw, crunchy things :). So that will be part of this challenge.
We're going to start with something fairly simple. I'd like to see you follow the "formula" I learned from my BeachBody forum pals. It has served me well for about two years now. Once I started following it, the first thing that happened was that I stopped gaining weight--and that had just steadily been happening for a long time. Then I realized that I could eat the foods I liked, enjoy them and not feel guilty. Then I started losing weight.
Exercise will be a part of the challenge as well. I will tell you that weight loss is about 80% what you're doing in the kitchen and 20% exercise.
Keep a food journal and track your calories. I cannot emphasize this enough.
My cousin, Jean, just got a BodyBugg. And Joan, I don't know if you're still reading, but I'd be curious as to how it's going with your BodyBugg, too. I'd love for the two of you to report in and tell me what you've learned since wearing it. It was a huge eye opening experience for me and I'm dying to know if other people had them same thing happen to them.
So, the details.
What: Clean Eating Challenge
When: Monday, February 28 - Saturday, March 26--four weeks again, baby!
The formula:
-You eat "clean" 6 days a week.
-You eat at least 1,200 calories a day. Less than that, your body can't function and you'll screw up your metabolism.
-You eat two fruits and three vegetable servings a day.
-You have one designated "cheat" day a week. Some of you have commented that you don't like to have an entire cheat day. That's fine. I've sort of shifted away from that, too, but do what works for you.
-Report in once a day, just like last time. You have a 3 day grace period though.
-Exercise 5x/week for at least 30 minutes. Come on. Quit with the bellyaching excuses and just do it.
Some tips:
-Plan meals. Not planning leads to trouble. Trust me. Trouble is my middle name.
-Track your food. Cannot stress this enough if weight loss is one of your goals. I know it seems tedious and I know you want to fight me on it. Give in. Track. See the benefits. I love tracking. It's like a big science project.
-Look at your schedule for the coming week. Where do you have events that might derail your plan to eat clean? For example, on March 3rd, I'm going out with the moms from Declan's hockey team (we're having a spa night and we can take food and wine). I'll decide ahead of time what I want to do. Do I want to move my traditional cheat day from Friday to Thursday this week? Or do I want to take foods that I trust myself with to eat and stay on track that day? I'm not sure yet, but that will be a part of vision for the week as I plan meals and workouts.
-Exercise. Where will you fit it in? Traveling? What can you do to not miss your workouts. I wrote on my other blog about how I found an empty conference room at the hotel we stayed at for the hockey tournament last weekend. Workers walked in on me 5 minutes before the end of my workout on Sunday. On Monday, the walked in 10 minutes into a 55 minute workout. I debated--should I leave? I asked them if I needed to vacate. They said no and I leapt about while they worked for 45 more minutes. They started asking me questions about the workout, said they were impressed (I'm sure they were just as moritifed as I was by the whole situation and were trying to be nice) and in the end, it came out that one of the guys had done both P90X and Insanity. BeachBody is everywhere. In the end, I was glad I stayed. It boosted my confidence and I got a killer workout because there was no way I was slacking off when those guys could potentially see me.
-Weigh and measure yourself on Day One and again at the end. Eamonn used to say all the time to not focus so much on the number and look at inches lost. He's right.
-Clean out your cupboards. This kind of goes along with plan meals. Get rid of your trigger foods. Life is so much easier when you don't have them around. If I thought I could go through life happy with a hunk of cheese in my fridge, I'd do it, but I can't. I keep some cheese here for the masses, but for the most part, I try to avoid it because once I start eating it, I can't stop.
-Eat dark chocolate every day. That's serious advice, but keep it to an ounce and work it into your calorie total for the day. And if you eat a nice, high quality dark chocolate, you'll be satisfied with a taste. Note: only do this if you can stop at an ounce. If chocolate is a trigger food, get it out.
-Set goals. Be specific. Lose 5 lbs. in 4 weeks. Increase the number of push ups you can do from 10 to 15. Whatever. Decide what your goals are, set them, and achieve them.
So that's pretty much it. Ready, set, --get planning. Feel free to share recipes and ideas. Post problems or questions. Let us know your successes. If you need help determining what amount of calories you should be eating or workout ideas, let me know. I have access to calorie calculators through BeachBody--might as well take advantage of it!
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Cleansing: Straighten Up and Fly Right
Erin posted in the comments about how she was straying off course since the challenge ended. I'm with you, sister (she is actually my sister)! This is why I have always loved the various challenges I do through the fitness threads I have belonged to over the years on BeachBody. It's like I always need to have that accountability to keep myself on the straight and narrow and only enjoying treats on occasion.
I, too, melted down a little last week. I definitely traced my bad eating behavior to PMS--gets me every time. So when I weighed last Friday, I was up two pounds from the week before. Which isn't wildly out of the realm of possibilities for having PMS and given the fact that the week before I had been down a statistically impossible two pounds. But regardless of why I was up again, I was annoyed and I knew it also had to do with my poor choices.
So Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of this week, I did a short cleanse using my Shakeology shakes as the basis (it's a cleanse that BeachBody designed).
My thoughts on cleansing: I like it. I like it a lot. I definitely feel like it's not a long term weight loss solution, and depending on the type of cleanse you do (I've done short ones like this and then some as long as two weeks--that was hard), you shouldn't be on them for too long. Typically, you're removing all processed products and most meats, really concentrating on fruits, veggies, maybe some broths, and probably shakes or drinks of some kind (there's this one I did two years ago where you drink this stuff that pretty much adheres to your innards and "moves" a lot of stuff out of you. It's pretty cool.). It's about eating well and ridding your body of toxins.
So this cleanse went like this for 3 days:
-Pre-breakfast: green tea
-Breakfast: Shakeology made with ice and water only (usually I use almond milk)
-Late AM: Fruit
-Lunch: Shakeology made with ice and water only, followed by green tea
-Snack: Shakeology made with ice and water only
-Dinner: Salad with 2 cups veggies, 4 oz. white meat, 2 tbls. salad dressing (I used 1 tbls. olive oil instead--I don't dig salad dressing)
I have to say, I didn't find the cleanse hard at all. The only time I struggled was late morning today. The other days, it was pretty effortless, which is nice. There have been others that I thought were really mentally tough.
So what was my goal? To get my head back in the game. I really just needed to reset my brain to remind myself that I don't need to be picking at the kids' leftovers, I don't need to be popping stuff in my mouth at random, and I don't need to have sweets and snacks on a regular basis. It was really just a wake up call.
I worked out during the cleanse, except for today, which was a rest day anyway.
BUT, here is the big bummer. I did so well these three days, and then. AND THEN, I kid you not, I ate onion rings tonight with dinner. With my lovely salad and 4 oz. of white meat, I fricking flipped out and ate onion rings (baked, not fried at least) that I had made for the boys. Dang it. I feel certain that onion rings are not even close to being cleanseworthy.
Such is life. I am happy with the overall result of feeling like I am back to portion control and my cravings are gone. Unless we're talking about onion rings and then apparently I have craving issues.
So what's next? A recent Shape magazine had some great mix and match meal ideas that sound really tasty, so I'm going to cook and plan from that for awhile and see where it gets me. Maybe I'll get nutty and photograph my food for you.
For me, it's all about trying new stuff and seeing what works and what doesn't.
FYI: Onion rings don't work. Just in case you were wondering.
I, too, melted down a little last week. I definitely traced my bad eating behavior to PMS--gets me every time. So when I weighed last Friday, I was up two pounds from the week before. Which isn't wildly out of the realm of possibilities for having PMS and given the fact that the week before I had been down a statistically impossible two pounds. But regardless of why I was up again, I was annoyed and I knew it also had to do with my poor choices.
So Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of this week, I did a short cleanse using my Shakeology shakes as the basis (it's a cleanse that BeachBody designed).
My thoughts on cleansing: I like it. I like it a lot. I definitely feel like it's not a long term weight loss solution, and depending on the type of cleanse you do (I've done short ones like this and then some as long as two weeks--that was hard), you shouldn't be on them for too long. Typically, you're removing all processed products and most meats, really concentrating on fruits, veggies, maybe some broths, and probably shakes or drinks of some kind (there's this one I did two years ago where you drink this stuff that pretty much adheres to your innards and "moves" a lot of stuff out of you. It's pretty cool.). It's about eating well and ridding your body of toxins.
So this cleanse went like this for 3 days:
-Pre-breakfast: green tea
-Breakfast: Shakeology made with ice and water only (usually I use almond milk)
-Late AM: Fruit
-Lunch: Shakeology made with ice and water only, followed by green tea
-Snack: Shakeology made with ice and water only
-Dinner: Salad with 2 cups veggies, 4 oz. white meat, 2 tbls. salad dressing (I used 1 tbls. olive oil instead--I don't dig salad dressing)
I have to say, I didn't find the cleanse hard at all. The only time I struggled was late morning today. The other days, it was pretty effortless, which is nice. There have been others that I thought were really mentally tough.
So what was my goal? To get my head back in the game. I really just needed to reset my brain to remind myself that I don't need to be picking at the kids' leftovers, I don't need to be popping stuff in my mouth at random, and I don't need to have sweets and snacks on a regular basis. It was really just a wake up call.
I worked out during the cleanse, except for today, which was a rest day anyway.
BUT, here is the big bummer. I did so well these three days, and then. AND THEN, I kid you not, I ate onion rings tonight with dinner. With my lovely salad and 4 oz. of white meat, I fricking flipped out and ate onion rings (baked, not fried at least) that I had made for the boys. Dang it. I feel certain that onion rings are not even close to being cleanseworthy.
Such is life. I am happy with the overall result of feeling like I am back to portion control and my cravings are gone. Unless we're talking about onion rings and then apparently I have craving issues.
So what's next? A recent Shape magazine had some great mix and match meal ideas that sound really tasty, so I'm going to cook and plan from that for awhile and see where it gets me. Maybe I'll get nutty and photograph my food for you.
For me, it's all about trying new stuff and seeing what works and what doesn't.
FYI: Onion rings don't work. Just in case you were wondering.
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