Serious Business

I was not joking when I wrote that post last week.  Today it is on!! 

So, as you guys know my scale pooped out about 6-8 weeks ago.  Turns out it was just the battery.  So I got a new battery for it about a week and a half ago.  I have been TERRIFIED to get on the scale.  I have been really active, but not watching what I have been eating as closely as I normally do so I was really worried.  I kept putting off weighing myself, but since shit was getting real today I had to step on and face the music.

5.4 pounds

But...wait for it...it was a LOSS of 5.4 pounds.  Holy smokes.  This kind of boosts my confidence in the fact that I was NOT eating enough calories.  My fitness pal may be telling you 1200 calories, but that simply is not enough.  If you are eating the right kinds of foods and are super active, you need more than that.  I know that MYP is supposed to be accounting for your activity, but I was always thinking things like, "there is no way I burned 600 calories playing doubles tennis for an hour and a half" and I thought I would sabatoge my weight loss if I ate 1800 calories in one day.  That seems like so much to me!  There is, however a method to the madness.  Make sure you are eating enough guys.

That being said take a look at what I am eating for lunch.  I found this recipe on pinterest and it is so so easy and seems like it will be tasty!

It's a black bean quinoa salad.  You can cook quinoa in the rice cooker btw.  I did 1 cup of quinoa to 2 cups of water and it didn't take long.  That much could make me 3-4 lunches for the week!

2/3 cup quinoa
1/2 cup black beans (I used canned (gasp!) but I rinsed them really well)
1/2 an avacado (the recipe called for 1 avacado...that seemed a bit much)
a few cherry tomatos
a squeeze of lime juice

Talk about a protein packed lunch!  It probably has a bit more calories than I would usually eat for lunch, but for the first few weeks of eating clean I don't intend to count calories.  Breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, dinner, snack.  I'm keeping it simple and seeing how that goes for me.  Weigh ins will now be on Monday mornings.  I think that will help me stay on track during the weekends. 

Clean Eating

UGH I hate it.  I hate it so much.  I HEART carbs with all of my being.  I LOVE sugar like it's my child.  Oh skittles, oh 3 musketeers, oh sweet sweet baby kit kats.  I will miss you white potatoes.  Don't be so sad.  Bye bye pasta.  I will miss you most of all my warm french bread.

So, come Monday it's back to clean eating.  This is not because I like to do it at all.  But, it is the only thing that seems to get my body to do anything these days.  Must be that getting older shit.  For the birds I tell ya.  I won't be eating like I was doing on the challenge.  That is not maintainable for me.  On the challenge I was cutting most carbs.  Some days I didn't have any.  I do still plan to have whole grain wraps for lunch sometimes.  Low sodium deli meat will be ok for me too.  I alreday don't eat a TON of dairy.  I don't drink milk, but shit I love me some cheese.  I already keep it to a minimum and go with 2% or fat free when I do have it.  I will be trying to cut it back even a little bit more.  This isn't a "I'm feeling super motivated right now" decision.  I actually made a grocery list and a whole week long eating plan.  Literally listed out Monday...I eat this for breakfast, this for snack, this for lunch...you get it.  I have to do that right now because it isn't a habit yet.  I'm hoping that it eventually becomes a lifestyle and I don't have to do that.  Now, don't get me wrong we are having a party for the Bama game and I plan to drink my worries away, but I will be limiting my alcohol intake other than that.  Shouldn't be hard as I rarely if ever drink now.  Something I am having toruble with...and please comment if you guys have any idea on this, I am so used to counting calories, but I have read and been told that when you are eating clean you should eat 6 small meals a day and watch your portions, but there is no need to count calories.  Anyone eat clean out there?  Do you count calories too?  Does it all just seem to work it's way out in the end? 

So, that is the plan for now!  Why not today?  Well, it's Halloween you fools!!  Halloween means candy!  And since it's supposed to rain today I'm thinking we might have some leftovers from the trick or treaters! 

Have a safe and fun Halloween and eat as much candy as you would like.  I give my full permission.  Just get your ass back in gear come Monday morning :)

I wore heels to work today

So I've been MIA.  It's been a crazy month!  October has been fun, and full, and exhausting!  That is why eating healthy has to be a lifestyle change people.  Because if it isn't and things start to get fun, and full, and exhausting it gets tough to keep up a "diet".  Lucky for me, part of being so busy has been picking up a doubles tennis league on Monday and a singles tennis league on Wednesday.  Jon is playing on Thursdays, so we have been jam packed!  Not to mention football season and us each being in a wedding.  A super fun bachelorette party weekend in Biloxi!  Oh yea and a concert at the house of blues.  Did I mention Im trying to keep up my running schedule too?!  Jon bought a car and we are trying to adopt a doggy.  Oh and we ran a 5k together and we both work full time.  WOOOO it's been crazy.  Thank goodness for being so active, because cooking healthy dinners this month has taken a backseat.  I'm pretty sure I have not gained or lost anything this month.  I wouldn't really know though because the crazy, wonky dog we own broke the scale a few weeks ago.  She spazzed out while I was taking a bath and tripped over it or something and now it won't work.

But today...I wore heels to work.  I'm sure you are wondering why this is relevant.  I never wear heels to work.  I don't really see many people.  I work by myself most of the time and it gets tough to look my best at work when no one really sees me.  But I wore heels today and heels make me feel sassy.  And when I feel sassy I start to feel passionate about my goals.  So I'm going to buy another scale today, keep my sassy pants on, and start trying to work a little harder!  I usually call no gain/no loss a win, but I want more for myself.  We are going to the Dominican Republic in March 2014 and I am DETERMINED to look my hottest in my swimsuit.  So back to blogging and weekly weigh ins because they keep me motivated.  If I can stay as active as I have been AND eat as healthy as I know how, I'll be a hottie in no time.  Maybe I will start to wear heels more often to work :)

Tips and Tricks

So obviously the blogging everyday for the challenge thing did not work out for me.  I became unmotivated to blog and was trying to concentrate on ME for a little while.  I'm still, for some reason, just not in the mood to talk about me too much right now, so I decided to go ahead and share some tips and tricks.  Posting these kind of things are helpful to remind myself what I need to be doing and they keep me motivated.

Before I do that I just want to say (since I never blogged about it), I have been using )02 Gold before my runs the past week and a half and OMG I HAVE BEEN ROCKING THEM!!  I swear they have been some of my best runs EVER.  I have always gotten out of breath before my legs didn't work anymore and now it's the complete opposite.  When my legs start to get tired I am still breathing exactly like I was when I started.  If you aren't a runner, you may not know what I mean by this.  But if you are, you need to go get this stuff immediately.  I am uber impressed with it.  The next thing I want to try is Arginine.  A friend of mine who is a marathon runner swears by taking 02 Gold an hour before you run and mixing Arginine with spark 30 minutes before.  I can't wait to see how far I can push myself!!  Moving on...


1.  If you are not eating boiled egg whites, you're doing it wrong.  I have three boiled egg whites for breakfast.  Boiled eggs for are the perfect snack.  I top my salads off with egg whites.  Three boiled egg whites have only 51 calories, but a whopping 10.8 grams of protein!  They fill me up and keep me full and they are freakin delicious.  ONE whole boiled egg is 70 calories and 6 grams of protein.  I feel I am getting more bang for my buck with just the whites.

2.  A mistake a lot of us probably make (myself included) is overeating healthy foods.  I sometimes get in the mindset of oh it's avacado or olive oil or bananas and just eat that stuff until I want to die!  A whole avacado has 200 calories so watch it.  That delicious dressing recipe I posted is clean and has wonderful ingredients, but two tablespoons of that stuff is about 120 calories so don't just dump it all over your salads.  Measurements and portion control people!!  Common myth:  Fruits have no calories.  I'm kidding, that's not a common myth, but sometimes I eat fruit like they have no calories.  A medium banana has 100 calories.  Not bad at all, but if you eat three of them in one day you have eaten a whole meal in bananas.

3.  Another mistake I am SOO guilting of is eating while standing up.  I will catch myself at the fridge sometimes eating out of a tupperware (some of my favorite foods are 100 times better when they are cold-yea I'm one of those people).  Measure your food...put it on a plate...sit down.  You can do it.  I promise.

4.  I copied this from an article "A salad is one of the healthiest meals you can have, but when you top it with bacon bits, goat cheese, nuts, dried fruits, and ranch dressing, you can double the calorie amount in a flash."  Exactly.  When you go to a restaurant and order the large salad with grilled chicken on it and it has shredded cheddar cheese, croutons, and bacon bits all over it.  Not to mention 10 tablespoons of creamy ranch made with heavy whipping cream, you probably should have just ordered a salad with a cheeseburger on top of it because it would have been a better choice.

 

5.  Eat often.  Eat snacks.  Don't starve yourself.  I know it seems like common sense, but it's not.  It was sooo hard for me to realize I needed to eat.  What I used to do was skip breakfast (because I could have more calories for lunch that way) and then eat a small lunch (because I really wanted a candy bar AFTER dinner! Hellooo!).  It doesn't work out well this way.  It just doesn't trust me.  You end up overeating anyway because you are so hungry and it also slows your metabolism down to a crawl.

 

6.  Another good tip, and something I just did recently, is to make a playlist!  When you aren't feeling motivated to work out the best thing you can do is make a new playlist.  It always motivates me to get out there, because let's face it, I'm FABULOUS at making playlists so of course I want to have a listen.  My playlist rule is I only get to listen to the new awesome one when I am working out.  Never any other time!

 

7.  Something I am HORRIBLE at is that I go home and workout and cook dinner and eat etc. and when it's TV time (because yes I may be into my health, but I also LOVE tv), I sit my ass on the couch and watch and when there is a commercial we fast forward.  And if we are live I play on my phone.  Something I would like to try to start doing whether we are live or not is get a few excercises in while the commercials are on.  I KNOW Jon would be down for this because that boy has unlimited energy so all I need to do is suggest it.  (Jo, if you're reading this hold me to it!)

 

Anywho, that's it for today.  Hope it helped out some.  Also, shout out to MP because he SAYS he reads my blog when I post...but we'll see!

Day 3

Day 3 had a hiccup.  I ate a hershey kiss.  Yep.  Sue me.  Well, back on track.  It was mindless really.  They are at the store across the street and I was there.  Unwrapped it and ate it, then went SHIT I'm doing a challenge.  Now that is eating something for no damn reason right there. 

Other than that day three is going great.  Got on the scale this morning and down another 1.4lbs.  That's 2.8lbs in 2 days. I will take it!  I choked down my fiber drink this morning and then looked and realized I don't have to drink it again until Monday!!  Yippee!!  Then I only have three more fiber drinks to go.  I wish someone could video tape my while I drank this thing.  Maybe I will do that.  I mean I have to talk myself into it.  Once I do I try to hurry and get it over with.  I make the noises and faces I made back in the day when I would take a large shot of Jaiger.  When it's all over with I shake my head and try to forget it happened.  What I have eaten so far today...
Beans
3 egg whites
salad
3oz chicken breast
2Tbls hummus
some cherry tomatoes
green beans
apple

So now to talk about my fitbit one because OMG IT'S AWESOME!!!  It counts your steps and the goal is 10k a day.  I had always read that was kind of where you should be if you are active, but if you don't have a pedometer you need to get one, because let me tell you 10k steps are A  LOT.  The first day I wore it was Saturday.  We were tailgating so I figured we would walk 10k steps no problem at all.  False.  When I went to crawl into bed...8500 steps.  So now I know I have to actively TRY to get 10k steps.  I haven't hit it yet, but today is the day.  Desk jobs are the pits, but Im working on it.  It also tracks your flights of stairs.  The goal is 10 a day.  I read what consists of a "flight of stairs" and it seems it is when you go up 10ft.  I have stairs at work and when I am not TRYING to get 10 flights I get 6-7.  I am making an effort to get all 10 and I have done so every day this week.  It tells you about the calories you are burning.  You also wear it while you sleep and it charts your sleep patterns.  Not so sure how this is going to benefit me, but it is pretty cool!

Today Jon and I plan to go on a run.  We are both going to be taking Advocare O2 Gold before the run which every runner on advocare has sworn by.  They call it their 3rd lung.  This is what it's supposed to do:

• Helps facilitate the body’s use of oxygen
• Helps restore vitality and liveliness
• Helps the body adapt to stress
• Increases oxygenation to cells
• Helps increase and maintain energy levels
• Supports muscle building and recovery
• Provides antioxidant activity to counter the effects of free radicals
• Supports the body’s immune system
• Contains easily digestible whey protein

I don't know why I am skeptical.  Every single time I go to try an Advocare product I am skeptical.  And every single time I am proven wrong.  I will let you guys know how it goes!!!

Day 2

I had an extremely busy day, but I promised a post a day so here it is...

I want to give out as much information about the challenge as I can. Good and bad. I have decided since I'm blogging everyday, I will also be weighing myself daily. This is not something I recommend, as your weight fluctuates yada yada. You all know this, but I'd rather be giving you too much info than not enough info. This morning when I weighed myself I was down 1.4 lbs.  This is great, however, I ate like shit all weekend so I'm sure that was the water weight drop you'd mostly see when that's the case is the reason for the 1.4. I would say from this point on that the lbs I lose are the real lbs :)

So now for some bad...I AM EXHAUSTED. I remember this happening last time but thought it might be me. Nope. Luckily this only lasts the first three or four days. I am assuming this has something to do with cleaning out all the gunk that's in your system. Getting that processed food out is no joke. You have to think if you feel this bad getting it out, it must be dong horror to our bodies.  

This makes it difficult to work out everyday. I am, however committed, and getting it in. Not as intensely as I would like, but its happening. 

I leave you with this...the reason I am cutting the post short. She has been watching me the whole time wondering why I'm not playing with her. 

24 DAY CHALLENGE!! Day 1...

Today is the first day of my second 24 day challenge.  In preperation for it I made sure to take my measurements last night, as well as before pictures.  I also weighed myself this morning to get my starting weight.  I figured if I blogged every day of the challenge, people could really get a feel for what it is all about.  I will be posting more pictures and weight loss/measurements after the first 10 days of the chellenge as well as at the end.  I cannot wait to share my success with all of you!!! 

Today is day 1 and I honestly forgot just how much I HATE the fiber drink.  YUCK!!  I took a picture so you guys could see what it looks like.  It's hard to tell here, but there is actually quite a bit of that in the cup.  I couldn't take a picture of it with the water mixed in because you have to drink it FAST.  Otherwise, it starts to clump and thicken.  Although I HATE the way this stuff tastes and feels going down, it makes you sooo full and I know it is just scrubbing away at all the gunky stuff that has built up in my intestines. 

Around 9:30 I had my fiber drink followed by breakfast:  Three egg whites and 1/4 cup of low sodium pinto beans rinsed and drained.

For a snack I had some green beans. For lunch I had this...

It's a salad with lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, and avacado. It was supposed to have grilled chicken on it as well. Unfortunately, I went home on my lunch break and left my whole purse there which was my means to buying grilled chicken. Womp womp. I'm also one of those people who just has to have dressing. So I made my own and I have to say OMG it's the best dressing I have ever had!!  Here is the recipe for y'all...

Homeade Italian Dressing

2/3 cup extra virgin olive oil

2Tbs spicy brown mustard

1/2 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice

3 cloves of garlic (I put 5.  I love garlic)

2 tsp oregano

1/2 tsp crushed red pepper flakes

1/2 tsp fresh cracked pepper

1 tsp salt

So fresh and so clean clean.  Yes, the recipe tastes fresh.  It's clean and natural.  And it's delicious!!

This is how I anticipate the rest of my day to go.  I plan on having a snack around 3.  Probably an apple because to be honest I'm not hungry at all after the fiber drink.  I'm going to go home and cut the grass.  We have a kickball game at 7:20 which actually kind of stinks because that means I'm going to want dinner before AND after haha.  So, the plan is grilled chicken with sauteed spinach and homemade salsa tonight.  Some kind of veggie on the side.  Not sure on this yet.  I have plums at home so if I am about to die of hunger after kickball I will throw that down.  Before bed I will be taking the herbal cleanse caplets:

As per the manual the Herbal Cleanse packets are:  "a unique blend of vitamins, minerals, and herbs.  The cleansing caplets help to safely and gently mobilize and remoce wastes."

I know it seems like I'm being a bit detailed here, but if you are interested in the challenge it will be helpful to know exactly what you will  be doing and when you will be doing it!

Along with the 24 day challenge I am setting a few other goals.  One of them is to make sure I am being extremely active every single day.  I am going to be running or hitting the gym or playing a sport every single day for at least the next 24 days.  Unfortunately, yesterday we had a softball double header and I developed a humongous blister on the back of my right foot.  I'm hoping tape will do the trip and I will be able to run today.  If I don't get a run in, I do have a kickball game so I'll definitely be getting that activity in either way. 

I am so excited to be starting my second challenge and to show everyone the amazing results I KNOW I will have.  Yall keep reading everyday if you have any interest in the challenge.  I would love to keep you updated on how I am feeling, looking, what I am eating etc. 

Stay tuned tomorrow to hear about day 2 and also my FITBIT ONE!!!  Shoutout to the hubs.  He got me one!

Message me if you have any question!

www.advocare.com/130555505

Another helpful link...
http://www.choosethechallenge.com/trim.html