Starting over

And i've put all my weight back on... time to start this up again

Lost in a sea of desert

I made a ton of little cakes and chocolate for my presentation. Although I got rid of a lot guess who ate the leftovers... for a while my weight was over 150 which is no good. Between a headache and leg pain I haven't been able to exercise as much. I need to get my act together

Dinner Obligations

I was invited by colleges out to dinner at an Italian bistro type restaurant where I spent $20 on a small pizza.
No where in my diet is a meal with tons of cheese and bread and pasta. I decided to get a pizza because I thought it would be safest for my diet (and budget) instead of the entrees with pasta and cream sauce. My pizza was basically mozzarella cheese, some onions (maybe 10 thin rings) and tomato with seared tuna on top. There were six slices to the pizza each with one thin slice of tuna on it. I ate three slices (half a small pizza), then the remaining pieces of tuna from the rest of the pizza. I was able to not eat the remaining 3 slices of pizza while waiting for at least 10 min for everyone to finish dinner, then another 20min after our plates were cleared for them to bring the check. I don't think I'd ever voluntarily go to this restaurant again. On the way out I ended up giving my leftovers to a friend for him to share with his girlfriend. I hope they enjoy it because for me it was the best option. About an hour after I got home I got a huge craving for a ton of food. I really wanted that pizza and if I had the leftovers with me I would have downed the other half (probably around 500 cal min for each half).

Thankfully in the morning I just had a smoothie (about 300 cal) but it let me stay full from around 11:30 until 17:30 so I'll be eating more of these even though they're a bit cold to have in the morning.

Later in the day I was still a bit hungry so I cooked the chicken from my fridge which I marinated (read left in the fridge in a mix of garlic, ginger, mirin and sake then forgot about it). I am a bit shocked that the 300cal smoothie held my hunger at bay and the 580cal dinner made me super super hungry an hour and a half later. I guess my body knows the difference between food it can use and food it can't.

Let's begin the last push!

I survived the holidays!
But not quite in the way I wanted, I was home all of 3 days before I got massively sick. All I was able to do was sit on the couch and kind of stare into space. I spent all my time trying to sleep, being exhausted and sneezing with a headache and runny nose. I have no idea what I had but I'm just glad I didn't have an asthma attack. I think the entire week I was sick I only ate maybe 3 cans of soup and drank coconut water (thanks to my wonderful wonderful mom).

I was supposed to cook Christmas dinner but of course being as sick as I was there was no way that was happening. So I put on a mask sat in the kitchen and tried to lay out all the plans for my mom. Thankfully on Christmas day I finally felt almost like a human and my appetite returned!
I was able to enjoy the food with my family and the menu was great:
-Turkey with a honey glaze
-cauliflower mashed 'potatoes'
-string beans
-bread-free stuffing
-sugar-free cranberry sauce
-stuffed mushrooms
-cherry pie

It was yummy, I also made a set of plates to have the dinner on which I think my mom enjoyed.
While I was home I wanted to enjoy all my favorite places to eat, but my stomach shrunk, so I was only able to eat about one meal a day. I went to a french restaurant and had a steak sandwich with goat cheese and sweet potato fries, I went to Red robin and hand a burger with fries (I could only eat one basket! I used to be able to eat 3). I had chinese food at the chinese restaurant with my mom, had yummy thai food at two different places. Went to a buffet which wasn't that great but I was able to limit my consumption a bit (but not enough I left feeling well over stuffed). Also had crackers with goat cheese and jam which is one of my favorite things to eat (there was a ton of refined cabs to be had!)
 Even with all of this I not only didn't gain weight... I lost! Granted the net was one pound but still it put me under the 160 mark. I've been back at school for just under 10 days and now I'm shooting for the 150 mark. I weighed myself this morning and it says 153.2! I just want to keep going I don't have to go to class on Fridays so I think I'm going to try and do kung fu every friday. It will hurt but at least I have the weekend to recover. If I can build more muscle then I know I can crush my weight goals.
Once I reach my goal weight of 145 (maybe 140 but I don't think I've ever been that small....) I'm going to loosen up my diet restrictions and see what happens. As long as I still weigh myself every day then I can catch myself if I start gaining like crazy again...

Well 2015 I'm going to make this work!

Holiday eating

So I'm home for the holidays, and my diet hasn't crash landed but for completely unexpected reasons. I get home and see my dad who happens to be sick. Do I want to see him, yes. Did I want to catch his illness, no. I've been sick for the past 3-4 days. All I've been able to eat is soup and coconut water.... approx 2-3 cans of soup and one container of coconut water in 3 days. Needless to say I dropped past the 160 mark (yay) but not in a good way. As soon as I get better I expect to put weight on again. I feel as if I'm loosing muscle mass instead of fat. I want to be 145 or 150 and strong.
I started out the first 3 days of the vacation strong, I worked out with my mom every day and ate reasonable portion sizes of the stuff I don't normally allow myself to have (read bread). I then saw my dad, and went to a party where I had a horrible allergic reaction to the cats. (And yes I did know she had cats, that was stupid on my part). When I got back I thought I could just wash the clothes and get better but it didn't happen that way. I've been on my bum on the couch for several days unable to move around. I can't sleep at night for fear of an asthma attack and I don't want to go to a doctor before I'm truly sick because I don't want to pay for them to say "oh well wait and see if it gets worse". Hot showers have been helping but at this point I just feel horrible at night. I'm taking a decongestant and my nose won't stop running, I'm taking Advil for my horrible headache and body aches. It needs to get better.

I was supposed to cook Christmas dinner, which is always served around lunch time. I didn't have the stamina to cook much less the health so my mom had to take my ideas and do it. She does a good job cooking but I have a vision for it and it just sucks not to be able to execute it.
For dinner the menu was:
Honey glazed turkey
goat cheese stuffed mushrooms
bread free stuffing
cauliflower mashed 'potatoes'
giblet gravy
kale
string beans
cranberry sauce

all with limited amounts of sugar and as healthy as possible.

Chimichanga cheat

Today I decided to treat myself to a cheat day. I was doing well and didn't need one but really wanted one. This leads to me heading to the Mexican restaurant and ordering a chicken chimichanga for takeout. I decided to eat the whole thing in one sitting, 415 g of yummy with 87g of re-fried beans on the side. I really was full half way through but kept going and going and then it was gone. And then I was out like a light. I fell asleep for about 3 hours directly following and now I feel kinda gross. When I fell asleep I thought that I couldn't eat again every... and now that I'm awake.... I'm hungry again :(

Exercise

So before I weigh myself in the morning and be disappointed in the numbers on the scale, I want to take a minute to feel proud of myself for my exercise tonight. I was feeling tired, my quads have been hurting lately but I have been diligently getting on the elliptical every night this week. I had every intention at the beginning of the holiday to exercise twice a day but was only able to do it once. By the time I woke up it was already mid afternoon and I ended up studying or cooking instead (both good things). However, tonight I was going to give myself a pass on the exercise, but then I remembered the cup of ice cream I had earlier in the day.
I went to a place to study that serves vegan ice cream.... yeah like I was going to pass that up. I got a small which was about 5 oz of sea-salt caramel chocolate chip ice cream with vegan cookie dough added to it. I was in heaven for about the 10 min I was able to make it last. My study buddy got a good chuckle from me licking the bowl....

Any way back to the point. I got up around 2:30 put on my exercise clothes and headed to the little gym they have here in my apt complex. I decided I'd go 30 min on the treadmill instead of using the elliptical. (For the past several days I have been doing 50 min on the elliptical while I watch an episode of a Japanese drama :) ) I decided I was going to try for 2 min of running in intervals after a 10 min warmup. By 9 min in I was ready to go and started jogging (this is what I call running for now) but the point is I had the little number on the machine at 4.5mph. I did that for a full 3 min!!! then after a 2 min walk at 3.8mph I did it again only at 4.6mph. Another 3 min! I was able to do 5 min intervals of 3 min jogging and 2 min walking upping the pace of the jog by .1mph at a time. I did this for 20 min and then went up to a 5mph jog for the last minute. After this my cool down was a 2 minutes walking at 4mph then dropping back down to 3.4mph for the last 3 min. I want to take a minute to be proud of myself because I didn't think I could do this. When I first started trying to run I became winded after 40 seconds, and could push for 1 to 1.5 minutes but then I would need 2-3 minutes of walking before I could even try to attempt it again. To be able to switch it around is awesome! On the 4th cycle I was tired and my legs were getting a bit sore but I think I might have been able to push it for a 5th go. Maybe next time ;)