Slow Week

Sometimes I think I blog too often, posting when I don't really have anything to say, and worried that people will just roll their eyes when they see my newest post pop up on Facebook.  But then I get really incredible messages from people I would have never guessed read my blog, and I don't really care if others roll their eyes.  Block me from your newsfeed or defriend me, I don't care. (For the record, I have no idea if I actually annoy anyone, just a feeling)

This was definitely a slow week for blogging though.  Just nothing to report about my low carb life.  I didn't try any new recipes, no spectacular work outs that I'm super proud of, just status quo, and that's cool.

I did start taking off the weight I put back on while away for Sakief's surgery.  A half a pound.  I would have liked to see more progress, but considering that I had a bad weekend of eating (oh circus), I can't (and am not) disappointed.  Just glad to see that it's coming back off.

I did get some good news this week, that I'm hoping will spur me to try harder than I have been the past few weeks... My family is officially going to St. Maarten for Christmas!  My parents brought it up LAST December, and we've been waiting for the trip to be able to be booked since then.  Then of course I got a big fat "maybe" when I asked my boss for time off.  I was crushed.  Until she told me earlier this week that my time off is approved.  I can't wait to spend 9 days on a beautiful beach with all of the people I love the most.

I think I mentioned it awhile ago, but Erin and I are determined to be bikini ready before this trip.  I've got an idea in my head of where I will need to be weight wise, in order to look the way I want in a bikini, but who knows?  Which means I just need to kick some serious weight loss butt and do it! 

This was a good week for exercise.  I got in 5 work outs this weeks, only "skipping" Saturday (circus) and Weds (I deserve a break, sheesh!).  Running is still difficult, but I'm determined to finish this C25k program and to start enjoying running.  I'll get there!

Since it's a long weekend, I'm taking off for Pensacola tonight, shocker, haha.  Sakief, I know you'll read this... I'm giving you public permission to yell at me if I want to eat unhealthy foods.  And I will say "thank you" and not argue (but maybe pout).  I really need to break the habit of letting myself eat whatever I want while I'm out of town.  I travel entirely too often to always be in that mind set, and it's going to completely derail my hard work if I don't do something soon.

This week's stats:
Work outs: 5
Current weight: 221
Weight lost: 63.5
To go: 36.5/21.5

Hoping for a Miracle

Yeah, I didn't get one.  I gained weight, there is no way around that one.  I also have no one to blame but myself.  When I sit and think about all the food that I let myself eat because "I'll get back on track when I'm home", I get a little sick (I am back on track by the way). 

I am up to 221.5 this morning, a whole 3.5 lbs, gross.  What makes that even more gross to me is that I've been very strict this week, so how much damage did I actually do in that one week?  Ugh.  Shame on you Sarah.

I also have only worked out one time in about 2 weeks.  What is wrong with me?  I packed clothes to run while I was in Pensacola, but was either "too tired" "too full" (because I stuffed my damn face) or didn't want to be away from Sakief anymore because I had already been away long enough stuffing my face.  Le sigh.

I got back to the gym on Tuesday, and it felt great.  Except that sleeping in a hospital chair tweaked my back, and Wednesday I woke up so sore I could hardly move my neck and left arm.  I finally found my heating pad last night, and feel much better this morning.  I plan to run this afternoon, but have decided to put off any more weight lifting until my muscle is back to normal.

What also saddens me is that I have probably set myself back too far to reach my 90 day goal of being under 200 lbs.  The silver lining there is that no matter what, I will have lost a lot more weight, so I can't complain about that.

And so I continue on, and hope in the weeks to come that I undo the damage, and then some.  Even with the inevitable set back every now and then, I know I will succeed.

Reboot

I spent most of last week in Pensacola, and unfortunately, also spent most of last week not exercising, and not worrying about what I was eating.  It seems as though my other weight loss buddies ran into similar issues... not logging food, etc.  It gets you way off track.  And I will take full responsibility for any damage I may have done.  More than anything, it has just gotten my system out of whack.  I hate that.  So I'm spending this week in reboot/detox mode to get my habits back in check.

The next few days will be some boring meals, but I think it's important to make sure I eat unprocessed foods.  So lots of raw veggies and protein, that's it.  We'll see what the scale has to say on Friday.  I'm shooting for maintaining the 218 from my last weigh in.

Despite the fact that I feel like crap because I haven't exercised in week, and feel bloated because of the food I ate, I did get a lot of validation for the hard work I've put in.  It's been a long time since I had seen many of my Pensacola friends (I'm so glad I got to see so many people this past week, it was awesome!), and they all told me how great I look.  It's really exciting to hear it when it's hard to see the everyday changes in the mirror.  A few people even had to double take when they saw me because they weren't sure it was actually me.  I'm pretty pumped.  And it helps give me the motivation to reboot this week.

I'm not the only person undergoing a significant physical transformation.  Many of you who read my blog know me, Sakief, or both of us well enough to know that he had surgery last week (or you read my million surgery updates on Facebook, so you figured it out).  I think it's also safe to say that many of you know that he was having jaw surgery to correct an under-bite.  He has a lot of healing left to do, but here are some before and after photos that show his amazing transformation!

Just Before Surgery

Just After Surgery

Please excuse the blood in the second photo.  And thank you to everyone who sent love and support on Wednesday (and after).  I was pretty neurotic (shocker!), so it was really nice to hear from everyone, and I think Sakief really appreciated it as well.  Here's to hoping the next 4 weeks go by quickly and smoothly and he continues to heal as well as he has been!

Delicious Dessert!

The past few days have been full of cravings for me, which I suppose I should expect every now and then.  It definitely seems as though when I have allowed myself to indulge (responsibly) that I tend not have a desire to binge.  I haven't really let myself indulge for the past few weeks, which is why I saw a serious slip last Wednesday (damn you tacos) and why, for the first time since I moved to Texas (and months prior), I had a pizza delivered to my house last night.  I am so ashamed.  And honestly, it wasn't worth it.  I have been gassy, bloated, and all around bleh feeling since.

Today I wanted to be very careful about what I ate, because of last night, and because I have no idea how well I'll eat while I'm in Pensacola.  Then the chocolate bug hit.  Thankfully, I keep only healthy sweet snacks in the house, and my chocolate options were limited.  Also thankfully, I'm lazy, so I knew I wouldn't leave the house just to pick up a candy bar, or other horrible for me chocolate deliciousness.  My ready made options at home were cocoa roasted almonds (an absolute favorite) or a chocolate protein shake, neither of which seemed like they'd hit the spot.  Then I remembered seeing a recipe for chocolate frozen yogurt (on Pinterest of course) and knew I had all of the ingredients.

Very simply... 1 cup greek yogurt (fat free, obviously), 2 Tbsp cocoa powder, sweetener of your choice (stevia, agave, or splenda).

You can freeze it or not.  I didn't freeze mine because I was hungry and ready for some chocolate!  Unfrozen it has the consistency of chocolate mousse.  Greek yogurt is already pretty thick, but the cocoa powder "dries" it out a bit and really thickens it up.  I loved it!  Apparently if you want it frozen you should stir it every few minutes so it doesn't get completely hard, but I couldn't tell you what the consistency would be like.  I'd assume closer to that of a traditional frozen yogurt.

Anyway, for this whole cup (it's a lot!) there are only 150 calories, 1 g fat, 15 g carbs, and 25 g protein.  There is also 4 g fiber (who knew cocoa powder is loaded with fiber?).  Lovely.



For another quick recipe update.  I made party chicken a few weeks ago, and slow cooked it in the oven.  I tried it again last week, but wanted to see how it would work in a crock pot.  Seemed as though it wouldn't be a problem.  My biggest concern was if it would change the flavor.  I have noticed that oven vs. crock pot does seem to give a different flavor for some things (like when I tried making the chicken for avocado chicken salad in the crock pot, not good).  Well, the verdict is in, and it was still great!  I didn't notice a difference at all.  I did change up the spices I used, just to play around, but the chicken and bacon are the main flavors and it all seemed the same. 

I am so ready for Tuesday to get here!  I am still being so impatient...

Just What I Needed!

Every week I get nervous to step on the scale, and every week (well, most weeks, I have had a few off weeks), I see success.  So why do I continue to be nervous?  Probably because I've come to expect a lot of myself. 

It's amazing how easily I can convince myself that my week was blown.  I had a slight lapse in will power on Wednesday when I lab rep brought in fajitas from Chuys.  I've been going home for lunch to spend time with Nora since she's still healing, so I politely excused myself and decided I would only eat my own food.  And then I got back to work, there were tons of leftovers and the entire office smelled of fajitas.  I may have had a few... but then was so uncomfortably full that I didn't eat dinner, so maybe some of it balanced out?  Now I know that one meal shouldn't kill a week, but since this was just 36 hours ago, I was worried.

The scale was definitely a surprise this week... I'm down to 218!!  What up new decade?!?! Haha.  That's a 3 lb total loss, so thankfully I'm starting to catch up to where I should be to hit my 90 day goal.  If I'm doing my math correctly I should be about 8 lbs down, and I am now 6.5 lbs down.

Having a great weigh in is just what I needed this week.  It's been a slightly overwhelming week otherwise, and I've been feeling down; this definitely perks up my mood before what is sure to be a long weekend.  I'm very impatiently waiting for Tuesday to arrive so that I can be back in Pensacola with Sakief for his surgery.

I'm hoping to still weigh in next week, however, I won't have my scale in Pensacola (I'm there until Sunday), and I don't like using multiple scales.  Consistency is key.  I'll have to see how close Sakief's scale is to my own.

Stats this week:
Weight lost: 3 lbs
Total weight lost: 66.5 lbs
To go: 18.5/33.5
Work outs: 3

Meatloaf?

All of last week Sakief couldn't stop raving about the incredible meatloaf and mashed potatoes that he bought at Sam's Club.  Yes, Sam's Club.  And he assured me it was the best meatloaf that he had ever had.

To me, being the best meatloaf I've ever had doesn't mean too much to me, because I didn't eat much meatloaf growing up.  It just wasn't on our usual rotation of meals.  But, after spending days hearing about this meatloaf, I decided that I really wanted some dang meatloaf!

Meatloaf poses two problems to my particular diet plan. 
1) It typically is made from high fat meats (pork and beef)
2) Because of the fat content recipes call for bread crumbs as a binder (nothing worse than a crumbly meatloaf!)

The fix is simple... if you use a lean meat, you don't need the bread to bind it.  But that is where the other issues start.  Meatloaf (to me at least) is meant to be a very flavorful, fatty tasting food.  How does one accomplish that with a lean meat?  Well, you don't.  But you try your best.

I scoured the internet for different meatloaf recipes to come up with a new recipe that seemed tasty to me (Googled it and looked at a few, very difficult you know). 

Here is what I came up with....

20 oz Super Lean Ground Turkey (99% fat free)
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 large egg
Thyme, Rosemary, Chili Powder, Garlic and Black Pepper to your liking

1/3 cup tomato ketchup
1 TBS dijon mustard
2 TBS brown sugar
Worcestershire sauce (a few dashes)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Spray loaf pan with cooking spray.  Combine turkey, onion, egg and spices and press into loaf pan.  Combine ketchup, mustard, brown sugar and worcestershire sauce and pour over turkey mixture as glaze.  Bake uncovered for 45 mins.  Yield 5 servings (they seem small, but very filling with all the protein).

Nutrition:
Calories - 188
Fat - 2.4 g
Carbs - 12.2 g
Protein -  27.6 g

I was definitely nervous about using such a low fat meat (I'm often disappointed by taste when I use the super lean ground turkey), but I think the end result was delicious!  Perhaps drier than I would have liked, but between the onion and glaze, the meat was kept from drying out too much in the oven.  The different flavors from the spices was also incredible.  I'm really looking forward to my leftovers!

Over the past few days while I was dreaming of meatloaf, I was also lamenting the fact that potatoes are NEVER on my diet (and to be honest, I don't miss them all that much).  But who doesn't love potatoes with their meatloaf?  If I were still in Pensacola (or if life would just fast forward a few more months and Sakief had already moved here) I would have asked him to make mashed cauliflower for me.  I'm still having difficulty with it, while he is the master, hands down.  It's also super time consuming, and I didn't have the patience.

Pinterest to the rescue!  I saw a pin yesterday that gave me the idea for "Loaded Cauliflower".  Basically just load all of your favorite baked potato toppings onto steamed cauliflower, and voila!  Substitute!  I used fat free cheddar, turkey bacon and Greek yogurt (with a dash of ranch seasoning, yum!)

There is more meatloaf than it appears... I went a little cauliflower crazy.  Also, I suck at serving, and most of the meatloaf glaze ended up on the cauliflower... whoops!  Hope you love it as much as I do!

Just one pound?

I saw this image on Pinterest the other day with the caption "Still mad you 'only' lost 1 lb?"

I'm certainly never mad when I lose weight, no matter how much or how "little" I lose.  But sure, when I expect to have lost more weight, I get disappointed.

Just like last week, I felt great all week (I REALLY love that feeling), so I felt so sure that this would be a big week.  Especially because I ate well the entire week, I got in my work outs, etc, whereas the week prior I had a horrible weekend of eating while Sakief was in town.

So I actually lost more than 1 lb this week, I lost 1.5 lbs.  And no, I'm not mad.  But yes, disappointed.  I had also managed to get it in my head that I would be into the teens this weigh in, so falling short was hard as well.

Since beginning my push to under 200 lbs, I've lost 3.5 lbs, and according my calculations, to be on track I should be down 6 lbs.  So that's a bit disappointing as well.  I keep falling further from my goal.

Ok, I'll stop whining now, because the fact is, I lost 1.5 lbs this week!  And that rocks!  I just need to stare at that pound of fat a little more and remind myself that that disgusting mess is now banished from my body.  That's right, banished, because it is NEVER coming back.

This was a good week, and I know that I will continue to feel as great as I have been, and that the weight is going to continue to fall off.  I just can't wait to have a few great weeks!

This week's stats:
Weight lost: 1.5 lbs
Total weight lost: 63.5 lbs
Current weight: 221 lbs
Pounds to go: 21.5/37.5

Insomnia

I had planned to blog later in the day, but what better time than when you can't sleep?  It's not that I woke up too incredibly early (5:30am, meh, early, but doable), but that it took me forever to fall asleep as well, and then it was a restless sleep.  I'm going to be paying for this later at work, I can tell.  Maybe it's a two cups of coffee kind of day.

I've been having trouble sleeping for awhile.  Tea at bed time seems to help me wind down from the day, but even when I'm exhausted sleep doesn't come easily.  Typically my problem isn't falling asleep, it's staying asleep.  I think I'm going to need to start taking some more drastic measures (and by drastic I mean trying that new ZzzzQuil product, or something like Unisom). 

Most of the time when I don't want to work out, it's because I'm tired.  Well, can I really be that exhausted everyday?  I'm hoping that if I can somehow fix my sleep pattern that the answer will become "no", instead of "yes", because honestly, I could probably convince myself to fall asleep around 6pm every night if I tried.  I'm that tired.

Other than my total lack of sleep last night, this week has gotten off to a great start.  I'm feeling really good otherwise, and am noticing more subtle signs of weight loss.  I can't remember if I mentioned it in a previous post or not, but I have been wearing a heart rate monitor when I exercise to more accurately assess the calories I'm burning (it's super awesome and programmed specifically for me, kinda love it).  The only downside (and honestly I don't even notice it anymore) is that you strap the dang thing to your chest.  What got me excited was that yesterday I had to tighten the strap!

My rings are also getting loose, and I'm starting to see some hint of actual ankles, not just cankles.

I spent the weekend recovering from a 24 hour bug (I guess that defeats the purpose of a 24 hour bug if it takes so much out of you that you stay in bed for the following 48), but I did get back to the gym on Monday to FINALLY finish week 2 of my C25k, and then convinced myself to start week 3 last night.  Week 3 is the first week where I'm really feeling challenged, so I'm hopeful that I'll get to see a real improvement as I continue this week's exercises and move forward.  I have upped the speed at which I run from 5.0 mph to 5.5 mph, and I actually find it easier.  I think 5.0 was too slow for my stride, which made the whole work out just plain uncomfortable.

Tonight is going to be my rest night, and I'll be back at it tomorrow.  Hopefully I can convince myself that I like running if it do it enough...