Patience Is A Lost Virtue

While getting my daily AM dose of Facebook time in, I came across a note written by my crazy fitness friend Nicole (love ya!). She made a statement that really hit home and I loved it so much that I had to copy and paste it: "I try to remember one meal at a time, one day at a time. Sounds cliche I'm sure but for anyone who has ever tried to lose weight/change their body composition, patience is very often a lost virtue."

Amen to this! I've never realized it, but I think in a whole day format. If I have one meal that is unplanned (like last night I had a subway 6 inch turkey breast on 9-Grain bread instead of their salad because I just wanted the carbs damnit lol), my mentality is always, "Well I blew this DAY. May as well eat off plan the rest of the day." I always, always, always think in DAY format. Nic's note made me realize that it's not the whole day that counts, it's every little meal you have that adds up to that whole day. Ya, your calories may be over for the day, but by just letting that one meal be unplanned instead of meals 4, 5, and 6, you're doing yourself a favor mentally and physcially.

Mentally because, I know that at least for me, when I get done with my meals for the whole day and if I've been off plan for 3 of the 6, I beat myself up over it. I know that I could have stopped and had planned meals for 5 and 6 but didn't because I said, "This day is shot! May as well keep it up." I then procede to ask myself over and over, why did I do this? I didn't really want those food choices. Physcially because, well the obvious: calorie deficiet for the day is a goner.

And I've begun to notice that processed foods are really affecting my gut. After I ate that sandwich last night I blew up like a balloon! Sorry if this is a little TMI, but I got gas too! I came home and figured out the nutrition facts, and while they weren't that bad at all, the processed shit in that bread was enough to make your stomach turn! High-fructose corn syrup, caramel color, and it's not even whole wheat! Tricky, tricky Subway! I don't even want to know what is really in their turkey meat and how much sodium I sucked down.

And on that note, I'm proud to say that today has been an excellent day...despite awful back pain and TOM cramps. I rested today because it's been about two weeks since my last rest day and my body is just exhausted. It's been sore from workouts almost every day for the past two weeks and this rest day felt great! I think just about all my soreness is gone and just in time for my upper and lower body training tomorrow to make it sore all over again! haha I'm debating on resting Sunday which is my usual rest day because I get up at 6am for church and I'm pooped all day from getting up so early (because I usually can't fall asleep til 1am or later). We'll see how the back is feeling and how antsy I am for some Billy time come Sunday.

Speaking of sleep, I'm highly convinced those 5-HTP pills are God's gift to man! I've been taking roughly 200-300mg before bed for the past two nights and I get nice and relaxed within an hour of taking them and fall asleep quickly. I then sleep like a baby and feel so rested in the morning!

Wrap up for the day:
MEALS: LOW and ON
CARDIO: OFF
TRAINING: OFF

M1: Thomas Light Eng Muffin, EW, ff slice cheese, Bethany Frankel’s LF Fudge Muffin; coffee/stevia/almond milk
M2: 4 choc. espresso beans, Primal Teriyaki strip; instant oats, BSN LD, EW, cashew butter; Sonic diet cherry limeaid (these are another of God's gift to the dieting man!)
M3: Hungry Girl's Chix Low Mein: 1 bag tofu noodles, 4oz chix, 1/4 tsp ginger, 1/2 tsp garlic, 85g snap peas, 2oz carrots, Splenda pkt, 1/8c chix broth, 1TB soy sauce, 3/4 tsp cornstarch
M4: TBD

What Happened This Week!?

So tomorrow is Friday and I realized that 4/5 days of this week have been chalked up as "off" days. Good news is that I didn't do anything stupid like binge eat and say, "To hell with this!", and feed my face like I used to. I had smart choices. And I know I can wish for my transformation from crazy binge eater/no control to cool/calm/collected eater to be instantaneous, but let's face the facts. That won't happen. As Billy says, "You may stumble along the way but then you reach that curve and you start cruising. And when you're cruising, you're moving."

I did set up a 12 week goal for myself which I started on January 18th. So this Sunday I'll be 10 weeks out. I haven't decided how intense I'll take it, but those of you who did the SOS competition diet know how crazy it gets! I'll have you know that to this day I'm scarred for life of eating broccoli or green beans with just chix. My gag reflex kicks in just thinking about it! Luckily I have the time to prepare veggies in main dishes now and I'm getting my whole family to eat them!

I haven't been on the scale in a week and don't want to get on it until next Wednesday (the day I do my normal weekly weigh-ins). I've been PMSing incredibly bad for the past week, week and a half despite the fact that I haven't gotten my cycle! Not like that's news for me. But the fact that I did all this leg work and then don't get it!? That ticks me off! lol I also know I'm holding a good amount of water weight because of the extra food I've eaten the past 4 days.

I have no idea what else I was going to say, I'm actually getting tired (yay!) and forgot. I do know that I have two more days this week to end on a positive note and I'm going to strive to do just that.

Tomorrow is finally a rest day! I haven't had one in almost two weeks! My body is exhausted and constantly sore. I can't wait for the lazy day!

Head In The Clouds

Wow it's early....or it was at 7am! It would have been even earlier if I would have gotten up at 6am like I should have. I planned out my whole day and meals last night, thinking that if I got up at 7am I could workout around 8:15am and be ready to head out of the house by 11:45am. Negative. I ended up realizing at 8:15am that, "Crap!", I have to go workout now so I can shower, eat a post-cardio meal, and get ready to leave by 11:45am! So I had to do a quick 30 minute Tae Bo workout on a full belly--only 15 minutes after finishing breakfast! Yucky! Luckily my pre-cardio meal wasn't too heavy.

Luckily I fell asleep pretty quickly last night and slept great until 3am. Then I woke up wide awake. Like, "Let's get up, it's morning!", awake. Crazy. I was also starving! My tummy was even growling. I was quite tempted to go eat one of those amazing butterscotch cookies but then I thought, do I really want one? I had freakin' 4 of them last night! I could pretty much still remember what it tasted like and it's not like they're going to be gone soon (she made like 30+ of them). Plus, Mom has the recipe and I bet I could clean it up and sub some applesauce for the oil/butter and Splenda Granular for the sugar so it wouldn't be so awful for you. Hmm..I'll have to work on that ;o)

Anyways, so I decided that no, I really didn't want one or need one. I was going to try and just let the hunger pass but it got bad. So I settled for a Balance bar that I had in my room. I keep them in the mini fridge I have in my room (I won it at my Senior All Night Grad. Party--why waste it? lol). So I ate the bar, played some solitaire on my Nintendo DS (it's pink of course!) and then went back to sleep like 30 minutes later. And I slept great until my alarm went off at 7am. I really wanted to turn it off and go back to bed until 10am but figured that sitting 3 1/2 hours at the theater today would make my back hurt so bad that I needed to loosen it up before going.

My BFF and I are going to see Legally Blonde at the Fox this afternoon. I'm really worried about the sitting for 3.5 hours because as I'm sitting here now, my back is already hurting bad! I see my arthroscopic surgeon February 9th but I'm really worried about what she's going to suggest. The pain got really bad last night. I got shooting sharp pains through my left hip and leg any time I moved. It only lasted about 15 minutes but I know when I get that pain or a tingling that nerves are getting involved. The only thing I can do right now is pray and take pills. What a combination haha

Here's a wrap up of the day....at 10am haha:

Cardio: ON- Tae Bo Cardio Bootcamp Live with the black bands (wow did I feel the burn with already sore triceps and hami's from Tuesday's weight workout!)
Training: OFF
Meals: LOW (yesterday was over because of the cookies, but lord they were good!)

Pre-cardio: EW, shredded ff cheese, Thomas Light Eng Muffin, New Hope Mills orange cran. muffin; tea w/ glutamine
CARDIO
Post-Cardio: Essential Nutr whey, stevia, banana, coffee, glutamine
M1: 1/2 Supreme Protein bar
M2: instant oats, BSN LD
M3: Subway turkey breast salad with Kraft FF Italian dressing pkt; Bethany Frankle’s LF Fudge muffin
M4: BSN LD, EW, almonds

I really liked the daily tip on the Tae Bo boards this morning: "Be all that YOU can be, not what you think everyone wants you to be."

Bethany Frankel's Low Fat Fudge Chocolate Chip Muffins

Bethany Frankel’s Low Fat Fudge Chocolate Chip Muffins
(from her website)

Makes 8 muffins
* Preheat oven to 375 degrees and use nonstick spray on regular sized nonstick muffin tin

* Combine the following:

* 1 cup NSA applesauce
* 1/2 cup Splenda Granular (it originally called for sugar)
* 1 tsp vanilla extract
* 1/4 tsp. almond extract
* 2.1oz oat flour
* 1.06oz cocoa powder
* 2 tsp baking powder
* 1/2 tsp baking soda
* 1/2 tsp salt
* 1/2 cup (2oz) Ghirardelli's semi-sweet (vegan-opp) choc chips
* 1 tsp cinnamon (I leave this out but that's just my taste preference)

• Using 3 oz. ice cream scoop, evenly scoop into muffin tins and bake for 20 min to an hour.
• Rotate half way through. Place toothpick in center and when toothpick comes out clean, muffins are done.
• Allow to fully cool then pop out with a spoon


Per Muffin:
89 Calories
3.6g Fat
15.9g Carbs
2g Fiber
2.5g Protein

**I like to keep them in the fridge then nuke them for about 10-14 seconds to make the chocolate chips all gooey and warm--YUMMY!!!!

Good news to report today! I woke up without a sore back or a sore foot! It seems that wearing my wrap, the custom insoles, and my good tennis shoes all day yesterday did the trick! Even when I push on my arch really hard I can't get it to hurt. So, because I'm the crazy I am, I'm going to attempt some Tae Bo today. I don't want anything too intense or with too many kicks because my hamstrings are triceps are incredibly sore from yesterday's weight training! I'd opt for just my "yoga for scoliosis" dvd but my back is getting achy from just sitting around for the past two days due to the ice/snow.

And even more good news: school got canceled today! Yay! That means not having to struggle though 85 minutes of Econ this afternoon and 2 hours and 40 minutes of accounting tonight! Last week those last few hours in accounting really did me in. I kept pushing off taking a pain pill because I was doing so well with no pain for the two weeks prior to starting classes. But even since last Wednesday I've been sore sore sore!

Meals were on yesterday but I did have any extra last meal. I was up late again and got hungry so I settled for the same sandwich/soy crisps as the night before. And despite the past few days being a little higher than planned (and with some higher days last week), my pants are fitting better! I noticed last night when I put on my Juicy terry pants that the hip area was looser! Woo hoo!

Nothing big on today's agenda. Just Tae Bo, yoga, helping mom prepare some games for my brother's Valentine's Day party at school, and cooking dinner for her and I. I've been trying to cook healthy dinners every night since the new year. She's liked everything I've made so far--which is shocking because she lives on processed foods and diet soda so her taste buds are all outta whack. She thinks everything needs 10x more sauce, cheese, flavor,etc. I've also been cooking dinner every Tuesday and Thursday when Jeff comes over. His family never cooks so I like to feed him a home cooked meal every so often ;o)

Here's the recipe I'm making tonight:
24 Hour Fitness Chicken Lo Mein Recipe

Serves 4

9oz boneless, skinless chix breasts
8oz snow peas
4.3oz carrots, cut julienne style
3.5oz uncooked spaghetti noodles (I use Annie Chun's soba noodles)
2 tsp cornstarch
1 tsp sugar
2 tsp water
1/3 cup fat free, reduced sodium chix broth
1 TB soy sauce
4 cloves (4 tsp) garlic
2 tsp fresh ginger

• Cut chix into small strips. Heat a large saucepan filled with water to boiling. Add snow peas, carrots, and pasta. Boil 5-7 minutes or until pasta is al dente.
• Remove from heat and drain.
• Mix cornstarch, sugar, and water. Mix remaining ingredients and stir together with the cornstarch mixture.
• Spray skillet or wok with PAM and heat over medium heat. Add chix and stir-fry about 2 minutes or until chix is white.
• Stir in broth mixture, add veggies and pasta and continue to cook another 2 minutes.

Per Serving:
203.8 Calories
1.5g Fat
29.5g Carbs
18.9g PR

I haven't planned out meals today but I know the format I need to follow for low, cardio days. So far this is what I've had:

Pre-Cardio: Thomas Light Eng Muffin, EW, ff slice Kraft cheese; Bethany Frankle's Low Fat Fudge muffin (I'll have to post this recipe too--they're amazing!); Glutamine
CARDIO, YOGA
Post-Cardio: Essential Nutri. whey, stevia, WF choc. syrup, coffee; banana
M1: EW, ff shredded cheese, corn thins, cinnamon raisin pb
M2: Chix Lo mein, 3 homemade butterscotch cookies my neighbor made for us because my dad helped dig car out of the snow today so she could go to physical therapy for her MS. SO GOOD! This is going to take some serious will power to to hold back from more!
M3: EW, BSN LD, almonds

"Injury" is My Middle Name

I'll start off with last night. I heard from a fitness acquaintance who also has sleeping issues that take some 5-HTP 30 minutes or so before bed helped her sleep. So I bought some at Dierbergs yesterday and loaded up before bed. I felt more relaxed but thought maybe it'd make me feel tired like Melatonin does so I didn't lay down. Bad idea. I was up til 3am wide awake. And given my last meal was sf jell-o pudding with pp at 10pm, I was getting hungry! At this point I was so ticked off about being up so late that I wasn't going to try and surpress my hunger with just a protein shake. So I settled for a sandwich of Healthy Life bread, Hormel natural turkey meat, ff slice of cheese, and some soy crisps. I was proud of myself for not saying, "To hell with it!", and letting myself eat chips, cookies, or whatever I could get my paws on at 3am without make much noise.

I finally fell asleep after much tossing and turning due to my awful back pain and my planter fasciitis bothering me again. I then was awkoen at 8:30am by my father calling my cell phone (on his attmept to work despite the horrible roads), telling me to go get Mom up and have her call him. He didn't want to call the house in fear of waking my little brother---who was already up anyways!!!! I tried to lay down and go back to bed but had no luck. My spine hurt so bad I couldn't lay down and my foot hurt anytime I flexed it. So then and there I decided that Tae Bo was off for the day and I'd settle with weights.

I was diagnosed with planter fasciitis last September and was told to stay away from any cardio besides swimming and the eliptical until I had zero pain. Well I did--but it still came and went up until this point. I had tried Tae Bo with no shoes on last week (which did help improve my balance) but aggravated my foot. Yesterday it became worse than it's been in quite some time so I put the special wrap on that my podiatrist gave me and have been *trying* not to go barefoot around the house. I HATE wearing shoes minus when I'm outside or working out so this is quite a challenge for me. I also had insoles custom made for my shoes this past fall and I was told to put them in every pair of shoes I wear--which I do! That's supposed to help with my foot too. I think someone dropped the ball on that because I wear them religiously and I'm still having pain.

So that leaves me with doing weights today. I was going to double up and do upper and lower body sets but now that I realize I probably won't be doing much, if any, cardio this week, I may as well spread the sets out so I'm not just sitting on my butt all day. So today will be upper body weights so I can do my planned lower body set tomorrow, followed by one more full body set on Friday. Thursday will be my rest day because my BFF and I are going to see Legally Blonde at the Fox.

Meals for the day are as follows:

1/27/09: Training; HIGH
PreWO: Essen. Nutr. Whey/tea/ Glut.; BCAAs; EW, ff slice cheese, Thomas Light Eng Muffin; Bethany Frankle’s LF Fudge Muffin
TRAINING
PWO: Essen. Nutr. Whey, stevia, coffee, Glut.; sweet potato; BCAAs
M1: BSN LD, EW, almonds
M2: (Chix Lettuce Wraps) chix, hoisin sauce, peanuts, romaine lettuce; Nonni’s Turtle Pecan biscotti w/ tea
M3: BSN LD, instant oats, stevia

Plans for the Week

Not much to update this morning, just wanted to post my weekly workout plan and meals for the day. On a positive note, I did stay on track with my meals yesterday! I did have a few nibbles of a double chocolate chip cookie that Mom baked. For the past few weeks I had been continuously nibbling on those cookies all throughout the day and it really added up at the end of the day! One of my goals is to break myself from the nibbling throughout the day. I have to stop and ask myself, do I really want that or am I just eating it because it's a routine I got into and because it's there? And usually I can answer that no, I do not really want it and, yes, I am only eating it because it is there.

I woke up this morning with an extremely painful back. I don't know if the nasty weather coming has anything to do with it or not. I go back to the arthroscopic surgeon in two weeks for a follow-up to the injections I got in October...or maybe it was September? Either way, they didn't work and for the price and how much pain I'm in afterwords, they're not worth it. I'm going to get the name of a chiropractor who works with people in my condition from my massage therapist at Massage Envy. She used to work for a chiropractor and gave me a slight adjustment when I went to see her last month. It really did help ease the pain and loosened me up! I'll try just about anything besides surgery. I'm just too young for it and will continue to need more as I age.

So here's the workout plan for the week:

SUNDAY- Tae Bo
MONDAY- Tae Bo + yoga for Scoliosis dvd
TUESDAY- Tae Bo + yoga
WEDNESDAY- SOS A week 4 (training)
THURSDAY- REST
FRIDAY- SOS B & C week 4 (training)
SATURDAY- Tae Bo

Meal plan for the week:

SUNDAY- Low & ON
MONDAY- Medium
TUESDAY- High
WEDNESDAY- Low
THURSDAY- Medium
FRIDAY- High
SATURDAY- Low or "Date Night" = going out for dinner or making a homemade pizza

Learning Not Just To Talk The Talk, But To Also Walk The Walk

REFLECTION OF THE DAY:

I'm starting to become more and more inspired by others within the fitness industry and those who just love being healthy. I'm also digging deep and finding that inner spark I had/have for a love of being healthy, really caring about what I put into my body, realizing that it's not just how I look on the outside--but also how the food is affecting my insides (for life!), and that, "it's a lifestyle, not a cake walk."

I'm really beginning to feel like "me" again and get back to who I was before Mizzou and the TAM department changed me. During my time there, I began to eat to numb other feelings I was having: guilt, confusion, anxity, saddness, lonliness, and occasionally just wanting to "fit in" and feel like a college student. I also was tyring to figure out who I was and what did I want to do/become? Now that I'm offically home for good, things are looking up. They're unexpected (future job, graduation, wedding plans, living arrangements), but on the up and up! I no longer have to fill that void in my life. Life is good, I have it good, and I have great people in my life that love me for who I am, not what I am.

My pre-cardio meal wasn't exactly what I would have eaten pre-cardio but the workout today was unplanned. I was going to rest today and run errands but then realized it was continuing to snow and didn't want to go out in it. Plus it was freezing out! So I hid out inside my warm house all day doing odds and ends that needed to be done and hanging out with the fam'.

DIET FOR THE DAY: ON; LOW

Pre-cardio: 1oz almond milk; 2 slices Healthy Life bread, ff slice cheese, 90g EW; NHM orange cran. Muffin
CARDIO
Post-cardio: 25g Essential Nutrition whey, 3.4oz banana, WF choc syrup, stevia, coffee
M1: 140g EW, ff slice cheese; Thomas light eng muffin, 14g cashew butter, 15g Welch’s red. sug jelly(PR ST LGI GF)
M2: Bethany’s LF Fudge Muffin(PR ST LGI/NSV)
M3: 3.5oz Morey’s marinated tilapia, 5oz lemon-marinated asparagus(PR LGI/NSV GF)
M4: 20g Beverly Int. pp + water (PR)
M5: 20g BSN LD, 100g EW, Splenda gran.; 28g soy crisps (PR ST)


WORKOUT FOR THE DAY:

Today was an unexpected Tae Bo session. My back was achy, my abs/obliques/glutes/inner thighs were all quite sore from my Tae Bo: Abs session yesterday. How a 35 minutes ab workout can make your butt hurt so bad I don't know! The Amped bar was used for the whole workout, part of which was done lying on the floor using your legs. So that's possibly how my inner thighs and butt got sore.

So anyways, I wanted to keep it short and sweet today....so I opted for Cardio Bootcamp Live with the black bands. I'm already feeling it in my tri's and back! No matter the pain, I'll always push through Tae Bo! The only way I'll ever turn down doing a Tae Bo workout is if I can't haul my butt outta bed because I'm deathly ill or injured.

ETC:

Tomorrow's plans consist of stopping by Jeff's to pick up a book before Econ at 12:30pm. Then after Econ I need to stop by the post office to mail his book. Then home for M2 and a great Tae Bo workout plus some yoga. I got a new yoga for scoliosis dvd yesterday and I'm dying to try it!

Tomorrow night will be accounting homework and new econ homework--blah!