The Day Before Drinking

In the last 3 weekends I have only gone out once! One time! That is very unlike me. I don't know if it has to do with the cold weather, or the fact that I am aging, but my drinking has slowed down, significantly.

And you want to know the worst part? I have enjoyed my weekends spent at home. I think I am turning into a hermit! Help!

It has just been such a nice change of pace to wake up feeling hydrated, have the energy to go to the gym, and the willpower to avoid eating crap. But that was going to change last weekend. I had a holiday party planned for Saturday and I knew I would be binge drinking.

Since I didn't go out Friday, I woke up on Saturday and I was able to go to the gym for Step class, and Body Pump. Attending two 1 hour classes=Beast Mode.

Starting on Saturday morning I thought that I would do a blog post to show off what I ate throughout the day when preparing to drink most of my calories. The only problem is that I got pretty hammed on Saturday night. Like, holy shit-what happened-dancing machine-kind of drunk. This means that my diet plan didn't really work, and I probably should not serve as an inspiration, to anyone.

However I am still going to post some food ideas for planning a day of drinking that will be kind to your diet. But if you don't want to get completely tanked, then do not follow this diet. Or maybe just don't drink as much. Yeah, that is probably what I should have done.

After the gym I had a protein shake with 1 scoop of chocolate whey protein and a half scoop of soy vanilla protein. I blended it with frozen strawberries, a banana, a splash of orange juice, some ice and a little bit of water to get it moving. It wasn't the tastiest thing, but it did give me a blast of 35 grams of protein and clocked in at around 5 points.

Later when I got hungry again, I had 2 servings (read: 1/2 cup) of egg whites (2 points), with a frozen medley of vegetables (0 points), topped with 1/4 cup reduced fat cheddar cheese (1 point), and sriracha sauce (0 points). And on the side I had 1 slice of low carb bread (1 point) topped with smashed avocado (2 points) and more sriracha sauce. I may or may not be part of the sriracha cult.

And if you are too lazy to do the math, that is a meal for 6 points, 11 points so far for the day. Then I laid around, drinking water, and watching The Minday Project. I also had 1 cup of coffee with a splash of eggnog for 1 point, 12 points for the day. I could have skipped the egg nog, but I love it. A lot. 

A wise woman once told me that eating pancakes before going out is a good idea, because it will soak up all of the booze. So my roommate and I decided to try pancakes for dinner. Two pancakes with a few chocolate chips (6 points) and 2 tbsp of syrup (2 points) and a smear of fake peanut butter (1 point).

 
21 points total for the day, which left me with 10 extra points for drinking. Not to mention my 49 extra weekly points that I am allowed and usually save for the weekend. I also could have avoided putting avocado on my toast, egg nog in my coffee, and chocolate chips and fake peanut butter on my pancakes. This would have shaved off an extra 6 points, which roughly equals one alcoholic drink!

I am sad to report that the pancakes didn't really work. Although I have been told that I should have had more than 2 pancakes, but that would really defeat the purpose of dieting. I really should have just watched the amount of cocktails that I consumed. I am just used to drinking for a fat girl, but since losing weight my tolerance has gone wayyyy down! I am becoming a cheap date.

I woke up on Sunday and I felt like I had swallowed sand, my mouth was so dry, and my stomach was queasy. I am not as resilient as I used to be. That or my body was so used to being hungover that I didn't know what healthy felt like. Yikes!

Holiday Indulging

The holiday season is upon us, which tends to be a nightmare for most dieters, myself included. I feel like I could fall off the healthy eating wagon at any moment. That being said, I made it through Thanksgiving and actually lost 2 whole pounds! Although I am not sure how that happened because I let my inner fat girl take over for the day and eat anything she could get her hands on. But that was kind of my game plan going into the holiday; eat liberally on the actual holiday but then go back to healthy eating the next day.

This is also going to be my plan of attack for the whole holiday season. I am not going to think of Christmas as a month long extravaganza and use it as an excuse to stuff my face all month long and avoid the gym. Although that sounds wonderful.

But I think that is the reason that people tend to gain weight around the holidays. Somehow it gets justified to eat liberally from mid October until January 1st, and that is when the New Years resolutions start.

Today at work we had our holiday party. And I was nervous. There was a whole table dedicated to desserts. And I am happy to report that I successfully navigated the party without indulging (too much), and without binging. 

How did I manage to do this? Well...

1) I started off by placing a bowl on my plate, so that way my plate had less room for food. The bowl had vegetarian chili, and the rest of my plate had salad with non-fat balsamic dressing.

2) The next thing that I did was place myself at the end of a table, in the corner. This way it would be harder for me to get up and navigate my way back to the buffet table for seconds.

3) I chose my dessert selectively. I asked people what their favorite dish was and what was worth the calories. I tried a small bite of cake off of my coworkers plate and then I starred at all of the desserts, debating what would really be worth the calories. This part was hard. I needed to practice self control like no other. Finally I chose to have a brownie with salted caramel drizzled on top. At the end of the day a brownie is my all time favorite dessert and I knew I would not be disappointed. And it was to die for and totally worth it!

4) Lastly I evaluated my hunger level and decided that there was one more thing that I wanted to try, and that was a small dab of homemade macaroni and cheese. Which again, was good and worth it.

So this should be the part of the post that I post pictures of all of the foods that I avoided. However I didn't take any pictures. I didn't want to be that weird girl in front of 60+ people that was snapping pictures of the buffet line. But I will add some photos of me from last year compared to this year, because apparently losing weight and blogging has turned me into a complete narcissist. Enjoy!

Must.Have.Willpower.

Dieting is hard. Fighting food addiction is hard. Fighting food addiction when faced with some of your favorite foods is like a cruel form of Chinese torture. Now, as a fat girl in transition, I have a lot of favorite foods, which makes navigating life very, very difficult. We are faced with food choices all the time. I recently heard that we make around 200 food choices every day, and then found this article discussing the same finding.

200! That is incredible. It explains why I feel like I am always fighting the urge to binge. I always feel like I am minutes away from losing control of my eating. And certain things will trigger me to indulge. Some common emotions that will trigger me are: frustration, anger, stress, and sadness. I do eat when I am bored, but it's usually just nibbling or snacking. But when I am under stress/frustrated, everyone better look out! I simultaneously want nachos, french fries, brownies, cool whip, and Oreos. I am not kidding.

Nachos are a huge danger zone for me. If I am stressed at work, I want to go to a happy hour and stuff my face full of nachos. It's not pretty, and I should probably refrain from ever ordering nachos while on a date.

Recently (read: the last 3 days), Minneapolis has been a complete and utter nightmare for driving. On Sunday we got around a foot of snow, and the streets are haphazardly plowed. This makes my commute to the gym and work a complete shit show.

After being late for work on Monday and Tuesday, I finally thought that I had outsmarted the system and would try taking an earlier bus. Well, that didn't work, and I found myself waiting at a cold bus stop for 20 minutes and boarding the bus that I normally take. When I got to work I was pissed. So when I walked into the staff kitchen and saw Oreos, I was not happy. Especially when the pack of Oreos were ripped open and easily accessible. 

Side note: I am very weird, random, and selective about the sweets that I like and will actually indulge in. I love brownies, but don't like donuts. I love, LOVE Oreos, but I am not crazy about chocolate chip cookies, unless they are freshly baked. Who would really say no to fresh baked anything?

I literally stood in the kitchen, starring at the Oreos for probably a minute. I almost started shaking, I wanted to grab 5 cookies, shove them in my mouth and grab 5 more. It was bad. I felt like a heroin addict that was looking for the next fix. I finally broke eye contact with the container of cookies, stepped away and ran out of the kitchen.

Five minutes later I felt fine. I was glad that I did not binge on the cookies and I felt more in control. It's just so weird how my mind can go to such a dark place. If I would have thought to grab just 1 cookie, I would have grabbed more, and more. But that is what binging, emotions and triggers can do to me. Now, sitting here hours later, I could easily walk into the kitchen and not grab a cookie or even grab just 1 cookie and walk away.

I am in a constant battle with myself and my willpower. I am happy to say that today I won the battle! But tomorrow I might not be so lucky. It's our holiday work party and it will be a small miracle if I don't shove my face full of sugar.

No Excuses

Living in Minnesota is quite the adventure. The weather is always so unpredictable, and this morning was one of those days when it snowed, and snowed, and snowed. I think it is still snowing as I type this. And let me state that I do not enjoy snow. or winter, or cold. I hate it all, and should probably consider moving south.

This is what I woke up to: 

I easily could have allowed myself to stay indoors all day long, lounging in sweats, and watching movies.  I had already been to the gym 5 days this week, so I easily could have justified staying in. However my original plan for the weekend was to go to the gym both Saturday and Sunday. So, that is exactly what I did, I went to the gym. I did not use the weather as an excuse to avoid traveling. I manned up, strapped on my boots and braved the weather. My car slips and slides in this sort of weather, so my roommate volunteered to take her big, boat of a car.

There were more people at the gym then I was expecting to see, but I definitely didn't have to fight anyone to get an elliptical machine. But I did have to fight a few girls to get my hands on this:

Let me tell you, reading a magazine filled with the sexiest men of the year really helps kick up a workout. I was extremely motivated to work up a sweat when starring at hot man candy.

Now, this got me thinking all about excuses, justifications, validations, etc. Part of having that aha moment is giving up excuses and fighting for what you truly want. A justification for behavior is just an excuse in disguise. And if you allow yourself to keep making excuses, change will never happen. If you want it bad enough you will do it, if you don't, you will make an excuse.

I want to keep losing weight, so I was able to motivate myself to go the gym, even when I had to battle my way through the wind, and snow. And like always, I felt great after my workout. I was glad I went, I survived the weather and I made it to the gym 6 days this week (2nd week in a row that I have done that). Did you make it to the gym today? Or did you have an excuse?

This is the tundra that I apparently call home. 

Bye Bye Mayo, Hello Healthy

Today I had an aha moment while making my lunch. I was having a sandwich for lunch, which is not something I eat that often but for some reason today I was in the mood. Before I gave up eating meat I loved snacking on slices of lunch meat, so in order to keep protein in my diet I now snack on fake lunch meat. Tofurky slices, to be exact. Since I had some fake lunch meat on hand, I decided that a sandwich was calling my name.

Prior to my dieting days I would make all of my sandwiches with mayo, and a cheese slice. When I was even younger I thought that the best sandwich was made with white bread, mayo, cheddar cheese, and bologna. That makes me sound a little bit like white trash. Oh well, it's what I liked. Although now, the thought of white bread freaks me out, I can almost feel the bread sticking to the roof of my mouth!

Anyway, I love mayo on a sandwich, even an egg sandwich. I love sauces in general, it's wired in my brain that I need to have sauce on both sides of a sandwich. Back in my fat girl days I would put ranch on one slice of bread and mayo on the other. Go ahead, you can judge me. So today when making my sandwich I was trying to figure out what I could put on my sandwich, since I try to avoid ranch and mayo.

As I was riffling through my fridge I also realized that I did not have a slice of Weight Watchers cheese to put on my sandwich. And that is when I had my aha moment! I did not need cheese or mayo. I always tend to have Laughing Cow Cheese Spread on hand (or in this case Crystal Farms, since it was on sale) so I figured that I could just spread a wedge of the cheese onto one side of my sandwich. Which would take care of the naked side of bread AND solve my cheese problem.

I smeared a fourth of an avocado on the other slice of bread, added the meat, tomato and drizzled mustard all over the top. 

Low Carb Bread: 2 points (1 point per slice)
Tofurky Lunch Meat: 2 points
1/4 of an Avocado: 2 points
1 Cheese Wedge: 1 points
Mustard: 0 points
Sandwich Total: 7 points

I realize that this post may seem like I am taking my sandwich making skills a little too seriously (and I probably am). But that is what dieting and more specifically, that aha moment is all about. It's all about figuring out those little dieting tips that make healthy eating so much easier.

Goals for the Next Year

I recently hit my one year anniversary. For the last year I have been going to the gym religiously, and avoiding  fatty foods. Last year the only goal that I had made for myself was to lose weight and get in shape. And in the last year I have done exactly that. I have lost 55 pounds and I am in the best shape of my life. Do you I still have some weight to lose? Absolutely. Can I get in even better shape? Without a doubt. But that's the beauty of exercise, there is always a new area of fitness to master, and a new part of the body to condition. Recently I explored a new form of fitness that is really foreign to me, I went running. I wrote a post about it here, and while writing that post I realized that I have so many more fitness goals than I did last year.

I think it's good that I make some goals for the next year of my life. I am finding out that I tend to have a lot of weight plateaus, so in an attempt to keep myself motivated, I think it would be smart to have goals that I am working towards, besides just losing weight. So without further ado, here are my goals for the next year:

1) Run a 5k. Or two. Or maybe even three. Okay, three 5k races might be pushing it but maybe not. For now I have a goal to run at least one 5k race and we'll see what happens from there. Here are some that I think I would really enjoy running in:

• Glow Run  

 

• Challenge Obesity 5K
• MN Aids Walk
• The Naked Foot 5K
• Warrior Dash  

 



I think this is more than a 5k, but it would really test my endurance!

2)  Get an ass. I currently have a flat butt. It almost curves in, rather than out. It's sad, and pathetic. What I am lacking in the ass department I make up for in the boob department but I want an ass, no more pancake butt! Sorry if this is crude or inappropriate, but it's real life. My real, sad, assless life.

3) Participate in a triathlon. Not a long course triathlon, or that crazy, unfathomable thing called the Ironman Triathlon. My YWCA hosts an annual women's triathlon. This one seems a little more manageable, it would be a 500 yard swim, then a 15.5 mile bike ride and a 5K run. I could not participate in this sort of triathlon in my current state but if I started training, I really think I could get there by August!

4) Get toned arms. Now that I have started losing my fat girl arms, I yearn for skinny, toned, sleek, beautiful arms. My arm inspiration?

Jennifer Aniston:

 Source

Or Cameron Diaz:

Source

Amazing, right? I cannot wait for the day that my arms has even the slightest bit of definition like these women!

5) Figure out my role in the fitness community. One thing that this past year has taught me is that I want to work in the field of fitness. I want to work with people who understand the benefit of living an active lifestyle or are on the path to living a healthy lifestyle, just like me. I want to help inspire people and equally be inspired by others. Now the hard part is figuring out what path I should take. Should I do personal training? A health/wellness coach? A group fitness instructor? Weight Watchers Leader? Or something else entirely? I am not sure, but I plan to figure it out!

Running? Me? What?

I did something last Thursday night that I never thought I would be able to do or want to do. I went for a run. Yes, you read that right, I went running. By choice. No one was chasing me. I just felt like running would clear my head. And it did. And guess what? I want to go running again. Gasp! Who would have ever thought? Not me, that's for sure. But let me back up a little bit, and explain why the thought of me running is such exciting thing!

I hate running. No, I loathe running. I always get shin splints, my knees crack and parts of my body jiggle that I would really prefer not to jiggle. In high school when we had to run the mile, I would walk. Yeah, I was that kid. I thought it was better to walk and get a slow time than run and still get a slow time. So a year ago, when I began this magical journey to weight loss, I had no false hopes that I would become a runner. Did I wish that I could run? Yes. I so desperately wished that I was one of those people that found running to be therapeutic. But I was not. Running was painful and embarrassing.

I have 2 friends that go to my gym and both of them can run. I always wished I could sign all 3 of us up for a 5k race, the only problem was that I needed to start training. So in attempt to test my running ability I tried to run around the track at the gym. Awful. It was a complete disaster. At the time, my boobs were much larger than they are today, so with every stride my chest would pound down and it felt like the wind was being knocked out of me. Lovely, right? I made it one lap around the track and gave up.

Ever since that failed running attempt I have slowly been trying to run more. My Monday night Circuit class starts out with running laps around the gym, and this used to be the hardest part of the class for me. Actually, I didn't even try going to this class for months because I dreaded having to run, even for 3 minutes. However after months of running laps in class it became a little easier each week. It may have helped that I have since dropped 3 whole cup sizes, so now it doesn't feel like I am going to collapse from air lose. But parts of body still jiggle that I would prefer not to jiggle. Oh well, I must remember to cheer the small victories!

So when last Thursday rolled around I had no intention of going for a run. But I had a pretty bad day at work because I was working on a deadline, and was being tempted with donuts that someone had brought into the office. At the end of the day I left work in a complete funk. I was not in a good mood, I felt so out of it, and going to the gym was the last thing that I wanted to do. But I knew that I needed to do something. If I had sat at home I probably would have binged. It was just one of those kind of moods.

And all of sudden I had an aha moment and I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I wanted to run. People are always talking about going for a run to clear their heads, and that was just what I wanted, clarity. So I strapped on my tennis shoes, secured pepper spray in boobs, and set out to the wealthy part of my neighborhood. I figured that the bad guys would be casing houses, not looking to mug me! And I was right, I didn't get mugged. So they were either casing houses or I was too fast and they couldn't catch me! HA! That's unlikely.

I started out with a fast paced walk, which quickly turned into a jog. I was able to keep up a moderate jogging pace for about 4 blocks. Then I walked for a block. Then I started running again. Then walked. You get the drift. Even though I didn't run the entire time, I ended up running more than I walked. And for an overweight, non runner that is pretty triumphant! As I was running through the neighborhood I passed several other people that were running, and I even got a head nod of approval from a couple that I crossed paths with. I must have fooled them into thinking that I was a legitimate runner! If I can fool other people, maybe I can also fool myself into thinking that I am a runner. One can only hope.

And to avoid those dreaded shin splints that I figured I would get, I spent the rest of the night icing my shins. It worked, I woke up the next morning with minimal pain! Hooray!