10 days

I started this blog 10 days ago.  I feel that overall, I'm starting to be more conscious of my choices.  Distractions and all, I would say I get a B-.  The past few days, I have not been feeling well, but I've managed to stay away from my "comfort foods" and am sticking to water, tea, soup and THERAFLU (of course).  And I'm adding Vitamin C to my daily multi-vitamin intake.

this stuff is magic

I've been drinking about 6-7 of these a day!!! 

(They say to weigh yourself, divide the number by 2 and that's the amount of ounces of water you should drink daily.)

 

Not a hundred percent

It started on Saturday night… feeling very tired.  Then Sunday again achy body and feeling a little stuffy… I thought it was aches from helping a friend move on Friday and allergies.  (I always have allergies, so that’s usually the 1^st to be blamed.)  Yesterday, I was stuffy all day- again I’m still sticking to thinking it’s my allergies (although I’ve been taking my allergy medication).  So I stopped at the store last night and picked up some Theraflu (my new favorite cold medicine) and had some last night – just in case.  This morning I made it to the gym.  I had some more Theraflu before leaving to work, was feeling better until about 2:30… it hit me, crazy stuffiness, runny nose, my ears hurt, my eyes burn and I feel like I have fluid in my sinuses.  I feel unbalanced.  Sniff, sniff.

I need to start a better multi vitamin… any suggestions?

Unprepared = Disappointment

I didn’t not prepare well today.  I did well at work and ate healthy overall.  Drank water all day long, I have a new love for water … again.  I came home after work and passed out into a 3 hour nap.  I woke up hungry and ended up warming up one of my grandmother’s empanadas, it seemed like a good idea at first but I was wrong.  I hate to say this but I didn’t think it was good and ended up only eating half of it.  Now I’m feeling disappointed in myself and am swimming in all that guilt that I wrote about last night.  One day at a time, right… one day.

Challenges… keep them coming (or not)

Sometimes I wish I could join The Biggest Loser camp.  Be secluded from the world and all its challenges and temptations.  But reality is that I have to work and live among all other human beings; the humans that are consciously healthy, unconsciously [and consciously aka they don’t really care] unhealthy, and the very few that have great genes and don’t have to be consciously healthy, yet are/look very healthy.

OK so day 2 was a bit of challenge.  Date night, I convinced my date to go to Season 52 for dinner.  Seasons 52 is a very health conscious restaurant, the meals are 475 calories or less and they only have seasonal foods in the menu, so everything is fresh.  I am satisfied with how disciplined I was… I drank ice cold water throughout the whole meal.  My date wanted to order 2 appetizers, so we ordered the flat bread with chicken and roasted peppers and the shrimp stuffed mushrooms…Wow they were absolutely amazing dishes and were portioned perfectly for two people.  For my main entrée I ordered the grilled salmon that was accompanied by asparagus, sweet baby carrots and roasted potatoes- again portioned perfectly.  We did order desserts (tisk, tisk), but they are the ones in shot glasses, better than huge piece of pie.  I was very satisfied with the meal. I did not feel like I could roll out of there like I feel most of the time when I go out to eat.

The difficult thing about going out of eating with another person (or people) is that they may not necessarily be on the same health conscious page that you are on; therefore you are faced with temptations.  So I need to make an effort to surround myself with people who are supportive of me journey to a healthy me. 

Day 3.

 I worked from home, which as actually easy because I was alone most of the day and realized that we don’t really have a lot of unhealthy food here (that is mine, that is) – this made the temptations non-existent for me.  I realized something about myself- I am more of a food grazer if people around me are also grazing.  (I’m a food follower in a sense.)  My younger cousin came home and was going to McDonalds for lunch; she was thoughtful and offered to get me something to which I immediately answer with a “No thank you”.  Snaps for me!  I discovered a new trick while I was home… we have those cute little lemon look alike bottles that have real lemon juice in it… well I put a few drops of that in my water and  I had lemonade without the sugar.  Sweet!  Nice way to jazz up my water. 

After my work day, I met some friends for Happy Hour at RA… my happy hour drink was water with lemon. I didn’t want to drink my calories away ~ I’d rather eat them.  I would say that I didn’t over do it, like I normally could. I did end up having the regular menu items that we all normally have [pineapple cheese wontons, pork gyozas, viva las vegas roll, rainbow roll, and tootsy maki roll], because we share everything.    I really wanted to have some dessert, but I stopped myself from even verbalizing it to my friends.  I would have to say that this it was a challenge for me; I give myself credit because I made the decision to just drink water. Left RA, feeling satisfied not stuffed.

I don’t want to feel guilty anymore for living my life normally, I can’t avoid doing things [like going out to dinner] with my friends; I just have to make better choices.

I FEEL what I eat…

In the past few years I’ve learned the term ‘You are what you eat’ to be very true.  I’m also finding more and more that it’s more like ‘You Feel what you eat’ to be even more true.  The heavier I eat, the heavier I feel.  The healthier I eat, the lighter I feel.

When I think about “comfort” food that I love so much such as Burgers/Fries, NE Clam Chowder in a bread bowl, any kind of pasta dish (especially Lobster Ravioli), ice cream sundaes, cheesecake, anything with sugar or that involves carbohydrates, etc.   Well basically after I eat any of these meals… I feel terribly heavy and groggy.  All I want to do is take a siesta after “comfort” food.

NE Clam Chowder in a bread bowl

Today went great!  I started my day with ice cold water and then a chocolate flavored protein shake.  For lunch I made myself a tuna salad with lots of celery and small amount of mayonnaise, had that with romaine lettuce, a few slices of tomatoes and wheat bread.  I finished off my meal with a few strawberries…sweet, sweet strawberries…YUM.  Then for dinner, I had another chocolate flavored protein shake.  Throughout the day I’ve been drinking lots of ice cold water. 

Thirst Quenching! 

 tuna salad

 



sweet, sweet strawberries

Accomplishments:

®    I went the whole day without Diet Coke (my weakness…big time)

®    I woke up early and made myself a healthy lunch

®    It’s 8:30pm and I already had more than all the water I need for the day

P.S.  Healthy food looks so much prettier… don’t you agree?



Tomorrow is always a new start…

I have lost track of how many times I’ve said that in the last 1 ½ year.  This is my new gadget for motivation.  I want to start a new healthy lifestyle because I want to look good and feel better. 

For the last 7 years I have been struggling with my weight.  Back in 2004, my gradual weight gain began.  Before I knew it, in 2007 I found myself at my heaviest…174lbs [at 5 foot 2 ¾ inches tall].  It was then that I did a natural detoxifying cleanse, I lost 17lbs in my first 30 days… the weight kept shedding as I continued to keep up this lifestyle.  I would do these detoxifying cleanses every once in a while for the next 2 years and I finally got all the way down to 135lbs.  It was great!  I felt great and had so much confidence.  

Then in 2009, I started to slack and relearned all my nasty habits again.  Replacing exercise time with TV time, eating fast food again and just not caring about myself as much.  The price I paid for my slacking… now it’s the 8th month of 2011 and I’m back at 170lbs.   According to the BMI [Body Mass Index] scale I’m at 31.2… yup that’s considered OBESE.  In order for me to be considered HEALTHY [and that is at the higher end of the HEALTHY scale] I would have to be at 130lbs.  That means that I would have to lose 40lbs…I did it before, I can do it again!

I want to thank you all for reading my blog, your support and encouragement. 

Get Ready, Set, Go…