The one where caffeine made her forget what she wrote...

Good morning! I'm not feeling very well today and I'm not entirely sure what it is. I had a chai tea which may have had too much caffeine for me. I'm kinda flying high. Then again, it could be the green monster I had today, or the chia seeds I added to it. Who knows, really.

I've been blogging my foods in another blog. It's been really fun taking pictures and talking about food! I also like keeping this blog here more about weightloss and life in general. I think eventually the two will merge, but I'm not ready for that yet.

I woke up this morning NOT ready for my day. I could have slept until noon. I don't like this feeling. I really need to start heading back to the gym in the morning. I miss the energy I had from it and need to be less sluggish in the a.m.

The wedding is 2 weeks away and the booked weekends are already starting. I have a bridal shower Saturday, then my mom has asked that she get me for the day on Sunday. I have this feeling that it's more for manual labor than fun wedding stuff, but who knows! Next weekend is supposed to be my bachelorette party.. which is looking more like Anthony and I going out to eat and then getting drunk. If we're able to get more people, then YAY! But honestly, if it's just the two of us.. that would be great, too.

Well, I should get to work. I hope everyone has a good weekend!

More veggies than you can shake a stick at!

I'm finding that my cravings for greasy foods has been close to non-existent this week. Now, I'm not claiming that the cravings are gone for good, but it's nice to have had the urge.

Just to give you a quick idea of what I've been eating, I'll show you yesterday's food:
- Green monster (1.5 c spinach, 1/2 banana, berries, almond milk)
- some raisins and some almonds (less than a handful combined)
- peanut butter and banana sandwich on multi-grain bread
- a couple more almonds
- a small slice of cheese
- 2 turkey burgers (small. turkey mixed with mushrooms, so only about 5 oz of turkey)
- 1 bun
- olive/fetta topping
- parsnip fries

Not too bad. I guess the turkey burgers look bad, but I split the bun between the two and I mixed mushrooms with the burgers and made them a little smaller. This turned what would usually be four 1/4lb burgers into 8 who knows what size burgers.

A few months ago, I read something about stretching out meat in burgers and tacos. Since then, we have been adding beans to our turkey for the tacos. This was my first attempt at adding the shrooms to the burgers and I have to say, I love it! We couldn't taste a difference, and we both have left overs for today! I think we shall start making this the normal way we make burgers.

It's amazing the changes in food that start as experiments and end up as regular menu items. For example, tofu! J and I are not vegetarians, but we do like tofu and put it on the menu once or twice a week. Also, we don't each much in the way of red meat. When I was with my ex, we had steak and/or burgers twice a week! Even when I lost the 40 pounds with him, I wasn't eating HEALTHY.. just less.

To be honest, I've never really eaten healthfully. I've never liked vegetables. I always preferred my food salty, fried, and/or covered in cheese. Because of this, I thought the cleaner eating would be an uphill battle, but I guess the change is coming at a time where I'm really ready for it.. or at least willing to experiment.

I just ate my mid-morning snack.. almonds and raisins (a new favorite). I have left overs for lunch.. I'm stoked!

See? Kids can make things better...

Something I find interesting is how I'm consciously changing behaviors. Not only me, but J as well. As our lives are moving on, we are doing things from eating more veggies to flossing daily. These things that we're doing are for our health and life, but we're setting in motions behaviors we want to pass onto our children. We discuss things in a new light. "We need to get used to XYZ so that we don't do it in front our kids!" These things are commonplace for many people. Everyone should eat well. Everyone should floss daily! But we halfheartedly do it for ourselves. There's always tomorrow!

These are not thoughts we want to pass onto our future children. Even though we have no plans to try to have kids any time soon, we'd like to have these habits become second nature to us sooner rather than later.

It's too bad it takes the idea of kids to whip us into shape.. but seriously, if there are no kids involved... farting is REALLY funny...

Green Monster RAWR!!!

I freak out about getting older. Kind of, anyway. I look forward to turning 30, but I also have this fear that life is passing me by and I'll accomplish nothing. I'll wake up tomorrow and be 90 and it'll be too late to have kids, get rich, travel, and sky dive. I'm usually pretty good about talking myself out of these fears.

Yesterday, I got home and checked my mail (as I do whenever I get home and J hasn't beat me to it). There was a lot of stuff addressed to me. You'd be amazed at how much mail you get when you get engaged. Luckily, I love mail. One piece of mail I did not love getting yesterday was my application to AARP. Yes.. THAT AARP.

I remember laughing at/with my mom when she got her AARP stuff before her time, but you know what? SHE WASN'T 28!!!!!!! I have 22 years before I'm eligible for AARP! Not that I wouldn't love the discounts. How did they figure I'd be interested? Do they knock on doors and send it out to anyone that is usually in bed by 8:30 pm? WTF?! (how many old people say that?!)

In other news, this morning I had a Green Monster. I used 2 handfuls of raw spinach (like 3 cups!), almond milk, 1/2 a banana and random fruit.



I'm going to be experimenting with this. I really can't wait to try more things!

The one with just another manic Monday..

Well, I'm day whatever into my drinking a glass of lemon water in the morning.. and I feel pretty good! I can't really put my finger on it- energy, cleanliness, hunger? Who knows? But I think I dig it. J's been doing it, too. He seems to like it as well. I'd recommend it to people.

I ate a lot of veggies this weekend- more than I EVER do. Last night's dinner.. well.. didn't work out as planned. I ended up using pasta with the salmon, but felt really guilty about there not being much in the way of veggies! So I threw some spinach and tomatoes in with the pasta. It was pretty tasty, but I'm really trying to limit my intake of pasta.

Exercising just hasn't been happening lately. I'm so tired in the morning and/or just have so much else to do! Get lunch ready, wash my hair, etc. I'm going to have to start getting back to the gym before I lose all motivation.

I suppose that's about it for now. The weekend was pretty relaxing. I got to hang out with a friend of mine that I haven't seen in a while, and got some wedding stuff done. I also made AND DRANK more iced tea than I should have.. but damn.. it's just so good!

Also, my other friend's husband was in a terrible accident this weekend. He's alive and nothing is broken, but he's going to be in the hospital for a while and their car is busted. It makes me sad to see my friends in such pain.. and it really has made me very clingy to J this weekend (like when I told him this morning that he couldn't go to poker tonight because I wanted to hug him when I got home.. yeah.. I'm insane.. and I was kidding.. mostly)

Well, enough of this. Happy Monday, Friends!

High-Fructose Corn Syrup

Since working on clean eating, I haven't had any HFCS. This is a wonderful side effect of clean eating. I never really cared too much about it, but J keeps an eye on his intake because he used to be allergic to it.. and my trusty side kick hates it so much because it's EVERYWHERE and he loves to be a rebel. I started hating it when I found out it was in my pickles. PICKLES!

Well, today, my stomach has been majorly bothering me. I wanted some seltzer to calm it down, but didn't want to wait until I got home, so I went to the vending machine and grabbed a can of Ginger Ale. Now, I love ginger ale.. so good! The front of the can says "Made with real ginger." SWEET! Now, I knew I was going to end up giving up some nutrition in drinking this, but my tummy is bothering me too much. Then, I read the ingredient list:

water, high-fructose corn syrup, citric acid, sodium benzoate, natural flavors, and caramel coloring.

*blink*

Seriously? "Made with real ginger" is exciting enough to put on the front of the can, but it's not prevalent enough to put on the ingredients list? Is it the CAN that's made out of ginger??? First two ingredients are water and HFCS? I'll be drinking sugar water. I know, but it's still gross to think about.

This frustrates me to no end. I have the key to the vending machine since it's broken. I'm putting that can of evil back.

The one where she confesses...

The good: I ate my cereal again but this time added raisins. It was tasty! I had a Healthy Choice for lunch that has no preservatives and lots of veggies. I avoided ordering out and made a healthy chicken tortilla wrap for dinner.
The bad: I used unmeasured processed cheese in my dinner. We didn't really have any veggies with dinner.. other than salsa.
The ugly: OH THE HUMANITY! I ate so much chocolate yesterday it was pretty terrible. I just couldn't stop. My tummy was bothering me after lunch and it was the only thing that was helping! I can't even admit to you how much junk I ate in a 2 hour period.. I'm too ashamed!
The beautiful: I didn't let the ugly break me! I kept dinner healthy and am starting today with great intentions.

I read an article yesterday about starting the morning with lemon water as an alternative to coffee in the morning. Now, I don't drink coffee, but this woman said that she recommends it to all of her clients unless they have an allergy. So, I figured I'd give it a shot. Nothing special to report today. My stomach is a bit icky.. but it has been for a couple of days now, plus I had ibuprofen on an empty stomach so that was questionable. Actually.. one thing I did notice was that I was hungrier for breakfast earlier. So, yeah.. this will be a fun experiment.

I've decided not to weigh myself until after my wedding. That may seem insane, but I really don't want to worry or think about it. I'll continue to work on cleaning up my eating and drink lots and lots of water, but as long as the dress fits, that's all I'll care about!

Annnndddd I think that's all I have for you today. Today's lunch is PB on a pita, some triscuits, almonds, and craisins. Let's hope this all keeps me away from the vending machine.

HELP!

OMG I can't stop eating crap. Like serious crap. Snickers and other chocolate related items. My belly is icky and it's the only thing I want. It's too late to salvage the day.. but dear god, I have to stop eating NOW!

It's Earth Day!!

The day of clean eating did not kill me. I even kinda liked it! I ended up gorging on some food at the end of the day, but mostly just truscuits and hummus... and chocolate.

Yesterday, I started off much the same. Kashi go lean crunch cereal (super good!), a banana, and I even chose left over chicken and veggies over the Chinese buffet! My day ended up completely stressed and I ended up going out to dinner. I had a long island iced tea and some sliders. So, would I say I ate clean yesterday? No, but I did try and I made some good choices (even choosing the sliders over the mac and cheese!).

Today is another day. I have my cereal that I'm eating now, raisins, and a banana. My lunch is not clean (healthy choice portabella marsala), but there are no preservatives in it and I already had it in my freezer. Tonight's dinner will either be chicken or tofu (depending on if the chicken in thawed, I imagine). Baby steps.

Today is Earth Day! What will you be doing today to help protect the environment? I'm going to look into local farmers markets for my fruits/veggies needs, turning off the light at my desk, and I may buy a reusable cut for my iced teas (I need the straw!)

The why...

When I restarted weight watchers, I vowed to not rely on pasta as my side of choice. This was one of the best decisions I made. J and I make more veggies on the side of our meals and I always use whole wheat wraps/pitas if I'm making tacos (which I started adding beans to and am hooked!)

The other thing I promised myself is to listen to my body. I would eat when hungry, stop when full, rest when needed. Though it sounds like a rule to facilitate excuses, I couldn't be happier with this rule. It keeps me from being deprived, Keeps me from burning out, and (most importantly) keeps me from obsessing over food.

These two goals have brought me to today's attempt at clean eating. I've started to like almonds (I was never a nut girl), beans (kinda), and more vegetables. I was never able to kick my red bull habit, but at 20 calories for a big one, I figured it wasn't that bad.

Last week, however, I had a killer migraine. I attributed it to allergies that had been acting up a lot lately. The next day, I felt fine, but ended the day with a headache. Same thing happened on Wednesday. The only thing that I could think of was that my sugar free red bull may have been to blame! So, on Thursday I had no such red bull. I was fine. Friday? No red bull and no headache. It all clicked. Perhaps the stuff that gives me energy is what's hurting! And that was the end of my red bull addiction.

Sunday night I had been out late playing pub trivia at the British Beer Company and was exhausted yesterday at work. One large iced tea down and I needed more. I decided to have a regular red bull. Guess what? No headache. Then i got it. I understood! It was a side effect of aspartame! I had known that Aspartame converts to formaldahyde at high temperatures (a mere 86 degrees!), but figured I really only ever had it in small doses. This stint of headaches was a slap in the face. A wake up call. These wacky chemicals going into my body are doing more harm than good!

So, today's project of eating clean is my attempt at starting to step away from processed foods. I know I won't be able to change overnight (I'm having cake at my wedding dammit!), but if I can succeed with small changes.. if I can get through ONE day of it... I know I can eventually make this my lifestyle......

Ch-ch-ch-changes...

I'm itchy. My chest has been itching me for since about Thursday of last week. I sincerely believe it's nerves.

I'm kinda lost right now with the whole diet/exercise thing. It all seems so big. I'm torn and conflicted regarding what I want. I'm more concerned with health than appearance, but lately the way I've been eating is the opposite of how to achieve either.

I think I need a revamp. I really don't want to go to any extremes and would like to eat -what- I want -when- I want.. but the goal is to not want to, you know?

I'm going to take it one day at a time. I will start tonight by planning for tomorrow. Tomorrow, I will eat a clean and healthy breakfast, a clean and healthy lunch, and a clean and healthy dinner. After that, I'll try again.

I also need to get back to the blog, so I'll update with my progress and planning as time goes on.

Dusting off the old blog...

It's been what? A week? Two? I've been crazy. We moved the date of the wedding up by, oh, a year. We'll be married a year from yesterday.. and celebrating it a year from today.

Well, nothing has gone smoothly. I have no idea what we're doing.. it's becoming bigger than expected and I'm getting zero help from Jon.

On top of that, I just got word that our JOP is not available on the day we're looking anymore. So now we have to find someone else.

My brain just exploded a little.

I'm pretty much just checking in. I haven't logged food in ages and my exercise plan leaves something to be desired. But at least I haven't gone insane.... yet.

This blog took me 3 days to write..

Turning 30 is a strange thing to think about every day. Though this blog has focused mainly on diet and exercise, it's entire purpose is to experience turning 30. Now, I have the goal to lose this weight by my 30th birthday, so it's really the only eventful thing happening until my 30th birthday.. well, that and the wedding.. but whatever.

But it's amazing how time flies. 3 months done with the year and i'm down 20 pounds. I'd like it to be more, sure, but admittedly, I've dicked around a bit. I -am- very happy about it.. and my progress. I'm terrified that I'll screw up and gain it back plus more and have a harder time in a few months, but I'm also making changes in my life that should be preventing that- like cooking eggs instead of grabbing fast food!

Last night, J and I were talking about the wedding. We got to the point where we almost decided to scrap all the plans and elope or have a small party this summer. I'm very conflicted on this. That is what I've always wanted, but with the little planning I've done, I've discovered we could have tons of fun with all of our friends and family there- and it is very important to me that my brother and his family come. On a more selfish note, I also want to lose more weight before we stand up in front of everyone.

I'm torn on the issue. I'd love to get it over with and just be married. I'm a no frills kind of gal and would love a no frills kind of day. However, nothing in our relationship has been "normal".. and it might be nice to have a "normal" wedding. I don't know. Just don't be surprised if you look here one day and the words "yeah, we decided to just get hitched.. so that happened" show up on this blog.

In other news, it's gorgeous out today! It's been nothing but rain and floods for a month week and the sun is finally coming out! This weekend is supposed to be rockstar gorgeous which excites me to no end!

Well, time to get myself back to work....
M