day 7

pretty good day today. food looked pretty good with the exception of a pre-workout scone. if i could just figure out how to make it through 7 hours of staring at pastries all day and not want to eat them...hmm. today was a non-workout day, so i just spent about 20 minutes on the rowing machines at the gym. i haven't really done too much rowing before and it's kind of fun unknown territory to explore. i can really feel it working the muscles in my back and i love that it's such a full body workout. looking forward to playing around with it a bit more. yay.

meal 1: 2 eggs, spinach, mushroom, onion, butter
meal 2: .5 grapefruit, .5 lf string cheese, 5 almonds
meal 3: chocolate chip hazelnut scone, 6oz nf latte, .5 lf string cheese, 6 almonds
meal 4: brown rice, cabbage, zucchini, onion, hamburger
meal 5: handful of granola, dark chocolate square, hummus and baby carrots
meal 6: spinach, cucumber, tomato, avocado, capers, mung bean sprouts, olive oil, vinegar

day 6

today was mostly eat stop eat.  a really easy fast and it made for a productive day as well.  i ate right before heading to the gym for an evening yoga class and turbulence training workout. felt really good at the gym and was able to push hard today. meals were in line today and were as follows:

meal 1: brown rice, purple cabbage, zucchini, onion, coconut oil, potatoes, 1 bija dark chocolate omega 3 truffle
meal 2: whey protein, yogurt, .5 banana, berries, greens powder

 

day 5

meal 1: bacon/egg/tomato/onion croissant and small lf latte

meal 2: .5 burrito with spinach, brown rice, black beans, jack cheese, pico de gallo, fresh tomato salsa, tortilla

meal 3: superfood smoothie, peanut butter, handful granola

meal 4: turkey burger, ezekiel bun, spinach, mixed greens, steamed broccoli, 2 glasses red wine, small square dark chocolate

food choices improved progressively throughout the day today, but i certainly have not stuck to my original plan of no wheat, no sugar, whole foods only.  the one major improvement i've made so far this week is that i've had way less sugar than in recent weeks.  still feeling really motivated though and like i can continue to fine-tune things in the weeks to come.  next week my goal will be to increase vegetable consumption and eat less carbs.  tomorrow's an   eat stop eat day, so i get to take a break from thinking about it all...yay!

day 4

today's nutrition was once again something that i'm not so excited to report...it went something like this:

meal 1: 2 eggs, spinach, onions, mushrooms, butter

meal 2: brown rice, zucchini, cabbage, onions, ground turkey, coconut oil

meal 4: small nf latte, 1/4 pumpkin bar

meal 5: .5 grapefruit, whole wheat bread, sunflower seed butter

meal 6: mussels, fennel & pomegranate salad

i way overate on the bread and sunflower seed butter.  i seem to have issues getting carbs under control lately and i know that it's partly because i'm not eating enough fruits and vegetables to keep me full enough to say no.  i need to be way stronger, but i have consumed significantly less sugar this week than in the past few weeks so i suppose it's a starting point.  next week there will definitely have to be more tightening of the diet if i'm going to succeed though.  baby steps...

day 3

came so close to missing yoga last night...my boyfriend is a bad influence on me and i can't help wanting to curl up with him and snuggle instead of getting on my bike and riding in the cold to yoga.  but i stayed strong and in the end i was so glad i did.  i love the guy who teaches thursday nights, his approach is really simple but his classes are wonderful and i felt so good once i got there.  today i hit the gym for my second turbulence training workout of the week...i pushed hard today and had to get in and out quickly, which ramped up the intensity a bit.  although i still don't feel as disciplined as i would like to with my nutrition, i'm back to feeling really excited about my workouts and to pushing myself hard at the gym.  feels really good.  also, my gym has an assisted pull up machine which i love.  it makes it much easier to move seamlessly between exercises in a superset because i don't have to find someone to spot me.  i also feel like it is the key to eventually working up to unassisted pull-ups which has always been a skill that has eluded me in the past.  nutrition today was, once again, a bit off target.  i do know that it's much better this week than it was last week and if i continue to gradually improve, eventually i'll get back to where i was.  it's a different approach because i usually get gung-ho and cut everything out all at once until i feel deprived and try to make up for it all in one meal.  so today i've eaten:

meal 1: 2 eggs, nf milk, spinach, onion, mushroom

meal 2: 4 oz of mocha, .5 wheat-free scone, .5 grapefruit, 3 almonds

meal 3: .5 grapefruit, 10 almonds

meal 4: spinach, mixed greens, cucumber, shrimp, salmon, crabmeat, oil, vinegar, french bread, butter

meal 5: nf milk, whey powder, berries, granola (post workout)

meal 6: green salad, mussels in butter sauce, smoked salmon, 1.5 glass red wine

meal 7: sweet potato fries, sauteed bok choy

meal 8: granola, hemp protein powder, 2% milk, 1 bija omega 3 dark chocolate truffle

day 2

okay, today hasn't gone completely according to plan.  had a bit of a stressful day this morning at work and ended up going off track a bit...but the good news is that it was only a bit and didn't turn into a total disaster.  let it suffice to say that i'm going to have to start over with my coffee-free week. i hate to admit that on day 2, but if i don't admit it then the whole idea of accountability goes out the window and i no longer feel the guilt.  today's nutrition has looked/will look like this:

meal 1: 2 eggs, nf milk, spinach, mushrooms, butter

meal 2: about 6oz of a mocha

meal 3: .5 apple, peanut butter

meal 4: sweet potato souffle (sweet potato, egg, pecans, butter, orange juice)

meal 5: .5 apple, peanut butter

meal 6: sip of pom wonderful, hummus, celery, baby carrots, 2 bija omega 3 dark chocolate truffles, handful of granola

meal 7: spinach, cucumber, purple cabbage, olives, mung bean sprouts, olive oil, chicken breast

today's nutrition has been weird.  it's one of those days where i feel like i haven't eaten very well, but when i look back at what i've eaten it's mostly healthy food.  i find that lately i'm having trouble prepping food and find myself eating a lot of thrown together meals that are more like snacks.  i think i end up eating too much when i do this because i just eat hummus out of the container instead of putting a specific amount on to a plate...plus i find it harder to feel full when it doesn't feel like an actual meal.  so then i find myself reaching for dark chocolate, then my hand finds its way into the granola.  the makeshift meals are the ones that seem to have trouble ending.  funny, there's an easy solution here.  take the time to put the food on a plate and arrange it like a meal.  yes, it really is that easy.  i once again could have done with less carbs and more veggies, but most of todays carbs were at least complex.   i'll be hitting an 8 pm yoga class tonight.    

day 1

starting off steady-ish.  did relatively well today, but ended up having my cheat meal for the week on day one.  i'm re-visiting the orginal turbulence training workout and i had my first one today.  pushed hard and my arms are jello.  nutrition looked something like this:

meal 1:  2 eggs, nf milk, spinach, mushroom, onion, butter

meal 2: .5 apple, peanut butter

meal 3: red snapper in coconut sauce, black beans, brown rice

meal 4: .5 apple, peanut butter, lf string cheese, small piece baked butternut squash

meal 5 (post workout): feed granola, 1% milk, hemp protein powder

meal 6: indian!  chicken tiki masala and lamb saag, white rice + 1 glass red wine

today was a bit too carb heavy and not enough veggies.  however, i also managed to steer clear of sugar and have one coffee-free day down pat.  i wouldn't say it's an A+, but i'd rather have room for improvement after day one than jump in full force and burn out.  i like the idea of building up gradually and making real lifestyle change.  as long as i'm making progress! 

50 days

that's it.  this has been a crazy year of ups, downs, highs and lows.  crazy progress followed by not so impressive performance.  i have learned what it's like to have willpower and be inspired and moving towards where i want to be with my life.  and i have learned what it's like to feel as though i have no willpower, essentially a return to feeling trapped by my emotions, my sugar cravings, my negative patterns involving food.  through it all i still acknowledge that i am the only one who can make my choices.  i am the only one, ultimately, that puts food in my mouth or chooses whether or not to exercise.  although there is still a large degree of chaos in my life right now, i refuse to continue making choices that sacrifice my health and well-being and move me further away from where i want to be.  there are only 50 days left in this year and i'm determined to make them count.  today i got off the fence and officially joined a gym.  i also got back on the scale and got out the old measuring tape.  here's where i'm at...

135.8 lbs

28.2% bf (according to my scale) or 20.8% bf (according to my handheld omron)*

bicep: 11 (unflex)/12(flex)

thigh: 22.25

hip: 35.5

navel: 32

waist: 29.5

chest: 31.5

bust: 36

i want to enter the new year at 125 and see a general downward trend of measurements, meaning i need to lose a very reasonable 1.5 lbs a week.  i want to feel focused on my goal and determined to make every day count over the next 50 days, but i also want to achieve this without resorting to anything super extreme.  i so desperately need a maintainable lifestyle change that i can stay excited about and feel good about.  so, here's the plan to get me there:

1) accountability.  i will be blogging daily and boring you all with the details of what's going in my mouth simply because i know that i'm more compliant if i'm writing out what i'm eating.  my camera's still broken, but i'll find a way to get pictures up soon too.  pictures are key, pictures don't lie.

2) nutrition.  i'll be combining eat stop eat with what i want to call extremely sensible nutrition.  that, for me, is no sugar, no wheat, lots of fruits and veggies, light on the dairy (mainly non-fat yogurt, cottage cheese), meat, fish, eggs, beans, and whole grains (brown rice, quinoa, oats).  i'm feeling really torn on coffee.  i'm tempted to include black coffee in the a-ok list, but working at a coffee shop i'm always cracked out on caffeine and find that i always want to eat something sweet to go with my coffee.  i'm going to exclude it for the first 7 days since it's been a while since i've been off coffee and then i'll see how i'm feeling after that.  as far as fasting, i'm going to start out with one ese day a week and see how i progress.  i find that if i do two days a week i tend to get burnt out or feel deprived, but i like taking the occasional break from eating to give my digestive system a rest and i like creating one big caloric deficit for the week to not have to watch calories quite so closely on the other days.  i think that i'll look forward to my one day break a week.  and if i find that i need to step it up, i might try alternating one fast one week, two the next, etc.  

3) sanity.  being that i'm going for lifestyle change here, i'm going to include one cheat meal per week where i get to forget all about extremely sensible nutrition and just eat what i want.  i'm also including three glasses of red wine a week (spaced out or all in one sitting, but three's the limit).  since tomorrow is day 1, my weeks will be going wednesday to wednesday.  

4) exercise.  turbulence training all the way baby.  we all know it works.  still have to sit down and pick which tt workout i'll do next...but i'm planning on mon/wed/fri being tt days and then picking three additional classes at my gym every week (yoga, spinning, etc).  mix it up, keep it interesting, you know.  

so that's the plan.  i'm so excited to get started again, really get my rhythm down, and get back to making progress.  50 days, here we go.  

don't drink your calories

this is one of the simplest and quickest ways to cut large amounts of calories from your diet, especially if you're used to drinking lots of soda, sugary juices, enormous lattes or large amounts of alcohol.  these can add huge amounts of calories into your diet and current research shows that although you're still consuming calories liquids don't trigger satiety mechanisms the way that eating solid food does.  so you get the calories without any of the fullness factor.  there isn't much room for any of the above drinks in a healthy diet, but there are lots of good alternatives to quench your thirst.  ones that i like:

1)  water.  your body needs it.  your body loves it.  if you don't yet, you should try it.  if you're not a big fan of plain water try to spice it up.  i love to squeeze lemon or lime juice into my water and add a few drops of stevia to sweeten.  you can do this with sparkling water as well and it's almost like a healthy soft drink.

2) tea.  black, green, herbal.  i drink and love them all.  green tea has gotten lots of press lately for it's high antioxidant content and ability to help boost metabolism.  once again i often sweeten with stevia because i like it, it's natural, and it's calorie free.  

3) coffee.  if you don't like it black, try swapping a latte for an americano with a few inches of steamed non-fat or 2% milk.  it obviously won't taste as rich at first but eventually your taste buds will adjust and you might find that you come to prefer it.

4) i try to stay away from juice, but sometimes i like to add a splash of pommegranate juice (an antioxidant super-power) or cranberry juice to sparkling water.  add stevia to sweeten if needed.  

anybody else got any other good drinks they'd like to share?

good lifestyle tips

i ran across an article the other day about lifestyle practices that can help to prevent cancer.  some of these are common sense, but they are in keeping with the theme of finding balance and achieving actual lifestyle change, so i thought i'd share.

an ounce of prevention...some do's and don'ts for helping to avoid and fight cancer (from david servan-schreiber's anticancer)

**your mental state:

• be positive
• resolve stress and past trauma
• accept yourself and your emotions, including the negative ones
• practice meditation, yoga, tai-chi or some other form of relaxation

**your diet:

• these vegetables have great cancer-fighting characteristics: beets, brussel sprouts, cabbage, garlic, kale, leeks, and scallions
• also good: onions, blueberries, raspberries, cherries, red wine, soy
• increase your intake of omega 3's, typically found in fish (herring, trout, sardines, mackerel, halibut) and flax seeds and oil
• avoid sugar, white flour, vegetable oils, white rice, and non-organic animal fat (meat, eggs, milk, cheese)
• filter your tap water

**your activity:

• spend 20-30 minutes a day on a physical activity that you enjoy (tennis, walking, swimming)
• be out in the sun for 20 minutes every day

**and:

• avoid being surrounded by people who smoke
• use cosmetic products without estrogens or placental by-products 
• use cleaning products without synthetic chemicals 
• don't prepare food in a scratched teflon pan
• reduce the influence of cell phones by using a headset consistently

although i was surprised to find no mention of strength training included under "your activity", these are still solid all-around suggestions for improving your health and achieving a balanced lifestyle.