Lazy Days of Summer

Today has been incredibly lazy. I did absolutely nothing productive today except my 20 minute walk on the treadmill. Nothing else. Not even a load of laundry, lol. Well, I did load the dishwasher but that doesn't really count since it has to be done every day.....kind of like breathing. I had originally planned to get up and go to Mom's, borrow the truck, come back, load up, haul it back and unload it into the new house. Didn't happen. I just did NOT want to go out in that heat today. I kept trying to make myself, but to no avail.

So....that left plenty of time to catch up on some people's blogs....go back to where they started and see the difference in where they are now. I enjoyed navigating through their trials and tribulations, finding out what worked for them, and gathering some good advice for my own travels.

I also went back and read the first several posts on my own blog. Wow! What a difference one month makes! Things are still hard...a lot of the days are still a struggle...but not every single day....not every single hour like when I first started. I no longer think of bolting out to a fast food restaurant every 2 hours, like I did on the first day of my post. Yes, they're still a temptation...one of my biggest issues, actually....but things are getting easier. I also noticed that although I ended up at Subway in a couple of bad situations....in the entire month I have not had one single binge. I haven't had a double bacon cheeseburger. I haven't had one single french fry. I haven't had one single chocolate milkshake. I haven't had any fast food past a couple of times at Subway, and one time at Taco Bell. And even those weren't horrendous. Are you believing this??? Yeah, me neither. Simply amazing. I haven't had another single 3-4,000 day since I started. Now that's progress, folks. That's what it looks like when you finally get your mind in the right place...when you finally say "NO MORE"....when you finally start caring about your health and your future and everything you want to do in life. THANK GOD!!

I was reading along through my posts and finally got to the one labeled "Free Day". As we all know, I eliminated this Thursday night as part of my new plan to do better. After reading the post, I remembered why I started it in the first place....all of those parties/celebrations/cookouts/birthdays/holidays/family reunions where you're undoubtedly going to be surrounded by bad food....food that you didn't prepare and you have little to no idea how many calories are in it. Special days that you cannot avoid or "get out of".

As a matter of fact, before I eliminated Free Day, I agreed to meet up with all of my girlfriends and Dwayne for "Friends Night Out"next Saturday night, July 18th. This is where we meet at either Los Reyes or Bailey's Pub and Grille and catch up on everyone's busy lives. Because of everyone's hectic schedules, we haven't had a friend's night out on the town in about 6 months. We are due. I suggested Los Reyes, thinking it would be a little easier to figure out the calories there than it would at Bailey's...a restaurant filled with greasy bar food. Even though it was going to be on Free Day, I still didn't like the thoughts of going completely crazy. I gained 4.4 lbs. last weekend from not caring. I paid for it on the scale this week.

The weekend after that is my birthday. I already knew that Dwayne was going to set something up with our friends for my birthday and it always includes a restaurant with good food and good beer. This year, I told him I want to skip the restaurant. It just wouldn't jive with my lifestyle changes, and could we set something up somewhere to grill out. That way I would have a little more control over making sure there were some healthy options there for me (i.e., grilled chicken, fresh fruit, etc.) Today I realized I've got 2 events coming up 2 weeks in a row and I got rid of Free Day. Hmmmm......now what?

Thanks to being able to take the time to catch up on all of those blogs today, I finally found the solution. After all, EVERYONE has days like this that they can't get out of. Somebody had to have figured it out by now. I found the answer on my new buddy Sean's blog: http://www.losingweighteveryday.blogspot.com/. I started reading his blog from the beginning, and found out that the first cookout he was faced with, he decided to allow himself an extra 1,000 calories that day. He has a 1500 calorie a day limit so that gave him 2500. At first, I was appalled at that amount. How am I ever going to lose weight eating 2500 calories a day, Sean?!?!

I had to really sit and think this through to see if I thought it would work for me. When Sean first started, he weighed 505 lbs. I was thinking he could probably stand to eat a lot more calories than me and still lose gobs of weight. I wasn't sure I could afford it. I surely didn't want to implement something into my plan that was going to cause me to go backwards. So....I went back to before I started losing the weight. I have already established that I was eating around 4,000 calories a day. And that was a normal, ordinary day. On a day that I would splurge, (birthdays, cookouts, and let's not even talk about the family reunion back in May), that was easily 5,000 calories...possibly more.

So, fast forward to now and my 1550 limit per day. Giving myself an extra 1,000 calories and allowing it to climb to 2500 is still WAY less than what I was eating just a month ago. Providing I don't have more than one 2500 calorie, event-filled day in one week, I started thinking this might be okay. Then I broke it down a little further. I was challenged to keep my calories strictly between 1350-1550 a day for this entire week. I've been eating at the 1550 mark for the last 2 days. If I dropped it to 1350, there's an extra 200 calories a day there that was already "ok" to eat....so technically, that extra 1,000 calories can break down to the extra 200 a day over 5 days. Suddenly, the idea of allowing myself the extra calories seemed very doable. And I like the fact that you're making yourself count the calories. If I didn't, and just left it as Free Day, I'm betting an extra 2,000 calories could slip by me without even noticing. Thanks Sean!! (Of course, if I show a gain the next weigh day after I do this...I'm hunting you down, lol).

Goal Stats:

Calories 1550
Carbs 250
Fat 60
Protein 136

Today's Stats:

Calories 1530
Carbs 120
Fat 51
Protein 160

Here's my food intake for the day:

Breakfast casserole
2 c. coffee w/ sugar-free creamer

2 homemade chicken soft tacos on wheat tortilla w/ shredded lettuce

Jambalaya Confetti Casserole ( I made up this recipe tonight and it was AMAZING!...although I did steal the word "Confetti" from Pam's Confetti Chicken recipe :))

2 oz. Boar's Head 42% lower sodium ham
7 crackers w/ 2 tbsp. of roasted red pepper hummus
1 pc. Russell Stover Sugar-free 60% cacoa dark chocolate (I'm really diggin' this stuff)
1 protein water
64 oz. regular water....NO TEA...NO COKE!!

I plan on working my butt off tomorrow moving some boxes. I haven't moved any in 3 days...time to get busy!! Due to this and knowing how worn out I'll be when I get done, I'm going to do the treadmill in the morning before I leave, and I'm also taking Pam's advice and throwing some chicken and veggies in the crockpot before I head out so I don't have to cook when I get home. See there....I do pay attention. :)

Quote For The Day:

"Failures do what is tension relieving, while winners do what is goal achieving." -Dennis Waitley

Hunger vs. Habit

Today has been a great day. I really enjoyed it. I got up this morning and fixed breakfast for the guys. I cooked 3 oz of my homemade turkey sausage for myself and ate it with 2 c. of coffee. I cleaned my kitchen, showered and got ready and ran to the bank to make a deposit. I came back and Dwayne was calling around on cars....he's trying to buy a new (used) car...his current car is a lemon. I had some pork ribs in the freezer that I had originally planned on cooking for dinner for the sole purpose of ridding my freezer of all the pork. The more I thought about it, the more I really didn't want to eat those ribs. I love pork. It is my favorite of all the meats. I would eat pork 7 days a week if I thought I could get away with it and not be dead from heart disease in a year's time. Since I love it so much, it's become too much of a temptation being in my freezer and I wanted it gone. But I didn't want to eat it. And I didn't want to throw it out or give it away. I finally decided to cook it today and feed it to Shane and his girlfriend for dinner tonight. So I cooked them up and threw them in the frig.

Next I baked my Mojo wings and ate those for lunch. Then Dwayne and I went out looking for cars but to no avail. We ran a couple of errands, finally stopping at Harry's Farmer's Market (Whole Foods). I adore that store. It's filled so much interesting stuff....I hate the prices....but I love to look and pick up the occasional item. We strolled through the entire store because Dwayne had never been in there. He drooled over their gigantic meat counter for about 10 minutes. We checked out the seafood counter, the chocolate display...I'm looking to try some different kinds of dark chocolate, but didn't buy any today. The only thing I bought was some red chili paste that Pam told me to get to make her latest version of hummus. Then we hit the bakery....oh my goodness. All of a sudden I wanted a brownie. I wanted a loaf of pumpkin bread. I wanted a pecan pie.......all the while wondering what the heck is wrong with me??? I don't buy sweets.....very rare.....but I was overwhelmed with the desire for something sweet. Then I reminded myself that I was making a lowfat banana pudding that Pam had told me she made. I'd be fine til after dinner. You can find the banana pudding here: http://lobsterandfishsticks.com/ Dwayne bought some rosemary baguette bread, we strolled through the deli and I sampled some jalapeno hummus. I immediately thought of Pam...she loves jalapenos....Pam, you MUST try this....it's awesome. :)

We finally left and headed back home. We lazed around for a while and then I fixed dinner. It was brown rice, baked snapper and sauteed shrimp (for Dwayne and I.......Shane and his girlfriend had the pork ribs later this evening). I realized I hadn't had ANY veggies today at all, so I fixed myself a side salad w/ spinach, tomatoes, cukes & 1 tbsp of lite Italian dressing. I had a very small slice of the rosemary baguette, and after dinner I measured out 1 c. of the banana pudding. When I finally stopped stuffing my face and took a few breaths, I realized I had done it again. Eaten way too much in one sitting. Didn't I just do this yesterday with that sub from Subway? I was miserable again....but why? I planned out my dinner early this morning, so I wasn't stuck out somewhere and in a bad situation. Everything I had was low in fat and in calories. And after dinner and dessert, I was still 241 calories UNDER my limit for the day! I really had to sit and think about how I made myself so miserable AGAIN.

Habit. I ate all of that food out of habit. Yes, it was healthier than what I used to eat for dinner. It was definitely low in fat and calories......WAY better choice than the pork ribs, and I still had a lot of calories to spare. But I didn't stop eating when the hunger was gone, because I'm not in the habit of doing that. I ate all of that food in one sitting because I'm in the habit of doing so. Volumes of food.

I've been eating seafood since birth, and for as far back as I can remember, I cannot remember ever eating just one type of seafood at a time. It's usually at least 2, and often times it was 4. I used to order these huge seafood platters with fish, shrimp, scallops and clam strips. Or shrimp, scallops, deviled crab and a side of crab legs. Recently, in the last couple of years and out to dinner with Dwayne, I'd order at least 2 items. My favorites are shrimp and scallops. But never just ONE. That's not enough seafood, or so I programmed myself to believe.

The truth is, I could of had just one tonight....either the snapper, or the shrimp...a little less brown rice, and although I rarely eat white bread anymore, I could have skipped that too. I could have eaten HALF of what was on my plate and been totally satisfied. Looks like it's time for me to form a new habit. I've already noticed that I can go a little longer inbetween meals before I get hungry. Now, when I'm eating a meal (and especially dinner, since that's always my biggest meal), I've got to really pay attention to my stomach and make sure I stop eating when the hunger's gone. This is a new one for me. I feel like my stomach has started to shrink a little and I surely don't want to stretch it out again. So this is the newest thing I'm working on.

Here are my stats for the day:

Goal Stats:

Calories 1750
Carbs 250
Fat 60
Protein 136

Today's Stats:

Calories 1539
Carbs 135
Fat 32
Protein 161

Here's my food intake for the day:

Turkey sausage (homemade, 3 oz.)
2 c. coffee w/ sugar-free creamer

7 baked Mojo wings

Baked snapper, sauteed shrimp, brown rice, salad, pc. of rosemary bread
1 c. lowfat banana pudding

Lowfat mozzarella cheesestick
7 crackers w/ 2 tbsp roasted pine nut hummus
1 pc. sugar-free 60% cacoa dark chocolate
1 protein water
2 glasses of tea, mixed 2/3 unsweet, 1/3 sweet
Lots of water
NO COKE TODAY! :)

As far as the exercise goes, I plan on walking on the treadmill every other day. I'll feel good if I make it down there 3-4x/wk and do at least a mile each time until I can increase the distance. On the days I don't do the treadmill, I plan on doing something here in the apt. Today wasn't a treadmill day, so instead I did:

100 crunches
25 arm exercises
15 lower ab leg lifts
scissor machine, 50 reps with the arms then changed machine & did 50 reps with the legs

I feel good about today....it was definitely a win in the calorie department. In fact, knowing how many calories I had left over, and how many I didn't have to eat at dinner, I'm considering changing the amounts again. It would be silly to MAKE myself eat 1750 calories just because I made them available. I'm going to wait another day before I decide though. Maybe tomorrow will be a crazy hungry day and I'll decide to leave them where they're at. But I'm considering dropping them by 100 and switching from 1450 to 1650 each week. I'll know what I want to do by the end of the day tomorrow. Until then, I hope everyone enjoys their weekend! :)