08/01/2013 @ 09:37am (PDT)

Sooooooooooooooo…I suck at keeping this blog updated. I’ve been putting most of my thoughts onto MyFitnessPal – I actually like it a lot more than I thought I would.

 

Anyway…Some thoughts from today:

 

Had a doctor’s appointment Tuesday and while I’m still waiting on some blood work results, for only the third time since my asthma onset in October 2010, my BP is at a NORMAL, HEALTHY range!!!

 

I contribute this to a couple of things:

 

1. The fact that I no longer smoke – I had smoked on and off for years and I quit for the last time in October 2010 (about three weeks before my hospital stay). I was starting to get a deep chest cold that would eventually turn into a very bad bout of pneumonia and land me in the hospital for four days. I WILL have a cigar oncein a GREAT while, but I’m talking maybe 3-5 times per year.

 

2. Diet and exercise. Although I have been struggling with exercise and I have been going a bit overboard on cheat days and turning them into cheat “weekends”, I have a feeling what I have done has helped.

 

3. JUICE! During the week I have a juice for breakfast and a juice for lunch. PER DAY, this juice has 5 cups of spinach, 1 cup of kale, 1-2 large cucumbers, 3 large carrots, 2 apples, and a lemon. I’m not a big veggie person and this helps me get my veggies in – Besides…It’s filling and I LIKE it!!!!

 

4. Clean(er) eating. I realize you don’t HAVE to eat clean to lose weight or to be healthy, but for me, it makes me feel better knowing I’m not adding quite as many chemicals into my body. No…We don’t buy everything grass-fed and organic like we’re supposed to in order to be completely clean, but we do a lot better than we used to. I still love my BBQ straws and cheese sticks for snacks, my Lean Cuisine Panini for dinner, but we’re trying harder to stay away from so much processed food.

06/24/2013 @ 06:19pm (PDT)

So much for healthy!

 

One of the guys from work frequently brings in bread and other items from local stores that is about to be past its expiration date.  They have to take it off the shelves and he belongs to one of a few local co-op type groups that collects and donates this food.  After he gets some for his family and the local donation, he brings some for us at work – I haven’t bought bread since I’ve been here thanks to him!

 

Anyway…

 

Today he brings in these awesome looking granola rounds.  They are about the size of a Little Debbie Oatmeal Cream Pie (told you I was fat!) and look good.  They LOOK healthy – Oats, almonds, raisins, things like that.  All the good, healthy things, right?

 

WRONG!

 

For this little “healthy” snack, there are 427 calories, 24 grams of fat, 5 grams dietary fiber, and only 9 grams of protein.

 

Just for a little comparison, an Oatmeal Crème Pie is 430 calories, 21 grams of fat, 1 gram dietary fiber, and 3 grams of protein.

 

So much for healthy!

 

Now, I’m not a big “clean” eater, but I do eat a lot cleanER than I have been. 

 

Every morning I have a juice – I end up drinking half of it for breakfast, half of it for lunch.  I’m not 100% sure how to accurately calculate juice calories, so I just based it on the fruits and veggies.  My juice has JUST over 400 calories in it – If I take all the veggies and fruits and add them up, it comes to 416 calories.  I ESTIMATE just the juice is about 300 calories.

 

What this means:

 

This “snack” is more than I eat for breakfast AND lunch EVERY DAY.  My “snack” is typically 10oz of grapes and later in the day, I have some veggie straws.  Those TOGETHER total 230 – And that’s for TWO snacks. 

 

This is just one snack.

 

People assume because they see “clean”, “protein”, “granola”, etc that it means they are healthy.  Don’t go by what is SUPPOSEDLY healthy – Read the labels and know what they mean.

 

SIDE NOTE: I recently had Subway for dinner and the local chain is now selling “gluten free” brownies.  I, of course, didn’t read the label and decided it must be healthy because it was gluten free.  Nope: 350 calories and 16 grams of fat.  That’s more calories than a 6” Sweet Onion Teryaki sub (without cheese) and less fat than an ENTIRE 12” Sweet Onion Teryaki sub (without cheese).  Needless to say, I’ll be reading my labels.

 

I’m not perfect, but considering I try REALLY hard to stay under 35 grams of fat a day, this “snack” is more of a meal to me, and I guarantee it won’t fill me up.  If I want a higher-calorie, more filling “snack”, I think I’ll stick with my cup of Greek Yogurt with a bit of almond butter in it – It tastes as close to cookie dough as healthy can get and is SUPER filling.

 

Just thought I’d share my findings…

06/22/2013 @ 3:32pm (PDT)

Another note shared on FB:

 

Well...FINALLY got my lazy butt out of bed and did my workout. Still wasn't able to walk at 2.5mph much, but did get over a mile in.

 

Six days of working out, three hours total, over six miles, over 700 calories. Not too shabby!!!

 

Still have a long way to go but DAMN good considering the first time I did this, I could barely walk a 1/2 mile in in a half an hour and I was too sore after two or three days of working out.

 

If i can keep it up another week, I'm going to aim for working out for 40 minutes a day and also aim for walking more at 2.5mph. I'm also STILL determined to work out when I wake up in the morning, but I can't quite get out of bed to do all that yet. I'll get there! :)

 

I'm still in the market for a heart rate monitor to see how much I'm ACTUALLY burning during my workouts - I have a feeling the calorie counter on the treadmill is not completely accurate.

On the diet front, I'm doing AWESOME! Have gone over a bit on calories twice this week - Once by 250, once by only 30 - But considering the limit I have is 1700, I'm not kicking myself TOO hard. With the exception of Subway, we are still NO fast food. With the exception of my BBQ straws and a frozen meal every now and then, we're also eating a LOT cleanER than we have been. The juicing is AWESOME. I'm so glad I decided to do it 7 days a week - It'll help me keep on track on the weekends, which is where I struggle the most.

 

We ARE going to be a bit bad tonight, but that's also why I've pushed myself so far this week. (No no, we're not going CRAZY and having a whole day - Those days are done. Just a cheat "MEAL". There's too many good places to try around here NOT to have one.

 

Still staying of the scale at LEAST until next week. MAY try to convince Jeff to take some measurements so I can see how I'm doing there, but, I can tell from Also when I first started, I would fit into my workout clothes but they were SUPER tight. I put them on today and they are LOOSE. I can SEE progress, even if that stupid scale doesn't tell me what I want to hear.

 

Thank you thank you thank you all for continuing to be my biggest cheerleaders, even when I don't do as good as I should. I am committed to making a LIFESTYLE change, but it's going to take a while and I will fail at times. I'm still REALLY working on learning to like exercise (because I freaking hate it) and REALLY learning that it's okay to have a "treat", but it needs to be SMALL.

 

I'll DEFINITELY get there.

06/19/2013 @ 07:03pm (PDT)

Well…It’s been almost three weeks since my last update but THANKFULLY I have some GOOD NEWS this time!!! 

 

This was a post I made on FB on June 19 at 7:03pm:

 

So...It's taking a bit of bravery to share this because I'm ashamed of where I started, but you're all my friends and super supportive and I'm proud of how far I've come, so I'll share:

 

When I first started working out on the treadmill in April (the first time), I struggled to walk just 20 minutes at 1.5mph. It took me almost 45 minutes (if not more) to walk a mile and I RARELY walked that long - I usually did a half a mile. I NEVER walked faster than 2.0mph and I was "running" at 3.0mph

 

Now, my third time around trying the treadmill workout, I seem to be sticking with it fairly well: Today, I walked 1.12 miles in my half an hour - That's an average of 2.24mph!!!!

 

This is the farthest distance I have walked in the shortest amount of time since starting. To top it all off, I walked at 2.5mph FOR TWENTY MINUTES.

 

Now...Granted...I about died from an asthma attack afterwards, but WHILE I was doing it, I was fine. :)

 

This is my record, but putting it in perspective, ALL week I've been walking at about an average of JUST under 2mph - That's a 1/2 mile

 

I've still got a long way to go and I'm still "slow", but I'm making progress and that is ALL that matters to me.

 

Thank you all for the continued love and support!

05/31/2013 @ 11:44am (PDT)

Alright, alright…I know I said I was going to be better about posting, but really, did you ACTUALLY expect me to stick with that?  :)

 

A lot has happened in the last month, but really?  There’s too much to go into ALL the details, so how about I just go with the highlights:

 

--I’ve started using MyFitnessPal.com to track everything I eat, exercises, water intake, and overall thoughts for the day.  I don’t have many friends on there, but that’s okay.

--05/03/2013: I was down almost 4 pounds from the previous week.

--05/07/2013: I was up almost a pound and a half from the previous week.

--05/13/2013: I was down almost four pounds from the previous week.

--05/20/2013: I was up almost two pounds from the previous week.

--05/27/2013: I was up almost a pound from the previous week.

 

I’ve struggled…Badly.

 

The whole “Power 90” thing did NOT work out – I just can’t get motivated to do it again, not at the moment.  So the week of the 20th I decided I was going to work out on the treadmill again, doing at LEAST a half a mile to start.  I managed to work out two and a half days – I only did a quarter mile on the “half” day.

 

I started to be better, but then Memorial Day weekend happened.

 

We cheated.  We cheated BAD.  We went out to eat three times in four days – NONE of it even resembling healthy: Five Guys, Chinese food, and The Rock Woodfire Pizza.  The one day we didn’t go out to eat, I probably ate my weight in cookie dough.  I’m honestly surprised I was only up a pound when I weighed in on the 27th but since I weighed myself in the morning, it didn’t take into account the “cheat” from later that day.

 

To top it all off, my exercise was non-existent this week.  It won’t be any surprise if I gained more weight this week.

 

My goal (again) is to get my butt on the treadmill this week.  My friends from Chicago will be here in about five weeks and I am NOWHERE near healthy enough to walk around downtown Seattle with them – Not only because they walk fast, but because of allergies and lack of exercise, my asthma has been HORRIBLE lately.  I can’t be outside for too long without using my emergency inhaler several times – I have trouble even going to Walmart it’s been so bad.

 

I think if I stick to a half a mile five times a day for the first week, I’ll see some good improvement.  Even the half mile two and a half days last week I saw improvement.  I just need to do it.

 

This week has also had a lot of experiementation – We FINALLY got our new Omega juicer!  The first juice was NO good – It was barely drinkable and tasted like grass.  It was probably VERY low cal, but we hated it.  The second juice was drinkable but not fantastic – iT was probably too high in calories because of all the fruit.

 

The juice I had yesterday was WONDERFUL.  I ended up drinking it for breakfast AND lunch and it’s a good thing too: There were FIVE apples in that bad boy.  Apples are pretty high in sugar and calories and I estimate that juice was about 500-600 calories.  There was a lot of spinach/kale in it, cucumber, ginger, and lemon, but FAR too many apples. 

 

Today, Jeff managed to tweak the recipe even more – It was essentially the same juice but he took away three of the apples and put an additional cucumber and more spinach in its place.  It wasn’t nearly as good as yesterdays, but it’s really good and refreshing.  Again, I’m drinking it for breakfast and lunch – It’s surprisingly filling.

 

Being the creature of habit that I am, I MAY try to drink it for breakfast and lunch EVERY day and then have a healthy dinner.  I still eat “snacks” – My snack yesterday was grapes, today it was a fat free pudding.  If I get TOO hungry, I also have 100-cal popcorn bags at the office.

 

I think I’m on a really good track overall (especially since my juice is no longer 1/3 of the calories I’m consuming in a day)!  I just need to get on the treadmill and KEEP getting on the treadmill.

 

Our anniversary is in a week and we’ll have a “cheat” weekend then – I NEED to behave until then. 

 

Oooh!  Something I forgot to mention – Our second attempt at quinoa was a SUCCESS!  We are going to try to incorporate that instead of white rice to our dinner from now on.  I’ve also started to look up “clean” eating recipes – I’m not quite ready to take the plunge on that yet considering I LOVE my packaged BBQ straws, pudding, and Lean Cuisines, but eat cleanER?  That might be a possibility.  :)

 

I think that’s about it.  I’ll try to update sometime next week.  :)

04/30/2013 @ 01:34pm (PDT)

Well…I did it. I started Power 90 yesterday.

 

Much as I expected, I did NOT do well.

 

I started with Sweat 1-2 (mainly because I plan on only doing it five days a week and prefer three of cardio and only two of lifting) and it was ROUGH.

 

I had a hard time keeping up, I had a hard time keeping my breathing under control, and just struggled through it.

 

I’ll admit it – I kind of half assed it during the kicks and punches (and probably half of the cardio).

 

I’m really glad I started it back up again and everything and glad I did it yesterday but the side is hard: I remember when I could do the entire program. It just goes to show how far I have fallen and how much more I have to make up.

 

Today will be rough too – I used to be able to do all the lifts with 5-lb weights. Today I imagine I will struggle to do them all.

 

It’s okay – I’m not letting it get me down. Honest. I just have to work at that and work at keeping motivated: I’m not making excuses for last night, but I got home late, had a rough day at work, and was just tired. On top of it all, I REALLY hate exercising. :)

 

I’m not sure if I ever posted it or not, but Jeff and I have switched our bedtimes: We now go to bed about 8pm. Now, we do watch TV on the iPad for about an hour or so, but we are typically in bed by 8pm and sleeping by 9pm.

 

With his work schedule and my job being a bit overwhelming at times, it helps to just have that extra hour of sleep/rest.

 

As for the diet and exercise, I changed a couple of things around about that too:

 

--One cheat MEAL or TWO (not three) on ONE day every two weeks but ONLY if I keep with the diet AND exercise. No more going nuts on the weekends.

--No more trying to do Power Yoga until the next round of Power 90.

--Working out five days per week instead of six (three days of cardio, two days of lifting). I tend to injure myself more with cardio but I want to lose weight and feel this is the best way to do it.

--No more trying to do Ab Ripper until the next round of Power 90 – I was going to try to do this yesterday but the workout kicked my butt. I MAY change this later and try a month from now, but no promises. I think I have enough to handle with the Power 90 program.
--Skipping lunges in Sculpt because they are too hard on my knees.
--Skipping the dips in Sculpt because they are an accident waiting to happen.
--Skipping the lawnmower in Sculpt because that's how I hurt my hips the last time.
--No more trying to do Sculpt 3-4 and Sweat 3-4 until the next round of Power 90. I figure the next time around I’ll follow the ACTUAL schedule and do six days a week, do the ab ripper, Power Yoga, and move up to 3-4 level after a while. Not this round. :)

 

I think that’s about it for me for now!

04/26/2013 @ 9:09am (PDT)

In an effort to continue LONG TERM with this lifestyle change, I am going to be trying some different kinds of things that I might not try otherwise.

 

More than losing weight, I want to be HEALTHY.  So I’m going to try some more veggies and other things that I’ve been afraid to try in the past.

 

Now, that said, one of the things I will NOT be trying is beans – Kidney beans, baked beans, lima beans, even chickpeas.  I want NO part of them.  I don’t care if I’ve never had it the way your grandma makes it or that I don’t like them because I’ve never had them done properly – I’ve heard it all and I dislike them.

 

Regardless of my dislike for them, I DID try edamame this past week.  Jeff made some up with some broccoli for me and made kind of a stir-fry for me.  They weren’t HORRIBLE, but they probably aren’t something that we’ll be eating a ton of.

 

In addition to this, I also hope to try lentils.  I KNOW that I probably won’t like them, but I’m going to give it a shot because I’ve never tried it.

 

Here are some of the other things I hope to try soon:

 

Sweet potatoes

Kale

Squash

Avocado

Lentils

Buckwheat pasta

Quinoa

 

Alright, alright, so we’ve had quinoa before and weren’t big fans of it.

 

The main reason I want to give quinoa another shot is because we eat rice at least three to four times a week with our chicken and veggies.  I realize that white rice is not the healthiest but I also don’t care for brown rice.  I’d like to get down to eating white rice only one day a week (if at all).  So we’re currently looking for more quinoa recipes that we’ll like.  I’ll make sure to let you all know how that goes.  :)

 

Other than that, I’ve decided to give up fast food completely again. 

 

I will be going to McDonalds for my iced coffee but only because Starbucks is MUCH too expensive and McDonalds McCafe’s are pretty comparable in quality.

 

Other than that, Subway is going to the only “fast food” we’re going to eat. 

 

We’re going to try to stick to this even on cheat days. (Don’t tell Jeff, I haven’t told him our plan yet).  :)

 

We will probably still be going out to eat on cheat days but if we do go out, we’re going to go out to a sit down restaurant – There’s still a burger joint north of us that we want to try and I HAVE to have my piroshky eventually from Piroshky Piroshky near Pike Place Market.

 

I think as long as I stick with this, don’t let a bad “day” turn into a bad “week”, and start exercising next week, I think I can do it!