The Great Dog Debacle

Alright so, I know this isn't fitness-related, but I have been meaning to incorporate more of my every day life stuff, so this applies. If you don't like it, get to steppin'. I'm kidding, one follower, Please don't go!

ANYWAY,  My husband and I have been discussing arguing about not getting a dog. My husband desperately wants a dog, but my husband is home about 3% of the time, leaving moi to take care of the little beast.

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE dogs. Probably too much. I get too attached and to sensitive and never want to board it up to go on vacation. I hate that. But boy do I love vacation. The funny thing is, my husband doesn't want children for atleast five years because of the "cost and maintence". Hello fool, a dog costs money and takes maintenence! Yes, not nearly as much as a child, but that's my argument. I just don't want to be tied down to a pet right now when I know we won't just be able to get up and go somewhere for the weekend. Call me selfish, that's just how I feel.

See, dear husband likes to think of all the perks of every situation, which is great sometimes. This is what he is picturing, I'm sure of it:

 

 

I'm a realist though, and this is what I expect:

 

Now on the other hand, if I could ensure we'd have an awesome, hilarious, well-behaved dog that could use the toilet AND flush, we'd have ten by now. Or just this one:

 

Hurricane Isaac and the time I almost inhaled a bag of stale chocolate chips

What's up my peeps! Okay, yeah I'm a little energized this morning. I got in a quick workout and have Starbucks in my system so I'm ready to kick Friday's ass!

I had the last two days off of work due to Hurricane Isaac. First let me say, we are so extremely lucky here to not have had any damage or lost any homes. My mom's home, about 20 minutes away has been flooded twice (both times while I was still living at home), and while we didn't totally lose our home like alot of people, we were displaced for several months. It's not a fun thing, but I feel even worse for people who lose all their belongings and their homes. I pray for those people every night because I just can't even imagine.

Thankfully, we never even lost electricity. The place I work was closed for two days because of the road conditions. While it wasn't hurricane-like here, it was still pretty dangerous to be on the roads. My husband also stayed home an extra day because he flies to work on a helicopter (that's right, I'm married to James Bond). While it was nice to have him home and safe, we were about ready to strangle each other by last night. That's love, yall.

I wanted very badly to stock up on junk food for the day (or more) I thought we'd be stuck at home. I didn't though. I bought a bag of shell-on peanuts, low sodium beef jerky and THIS AMAZINGNESS:

 

Leigh Ann, you would LOVE this. It's a bit higher than your regular popcorn, but the flavor is AMAZING. 2 1/2 cups is 130 calories. I think I am addicted.

 

Tuesday afternoon, we got sent home from work at 2, so I stopped by the grocery store to stock up. No junk though. I got in a last minute work out and headed home to cook. I made stuffed chicken breasts for dinner and my husband and I sat on the patio enjoying the pre-hurricane breeze. It was really nice. The calm before the storm, literally! Our neighbors heard us talking and walked over to invite us to patio drink with them. We love our neighbors! We even love their dog. Before I knew it, I was 2 bottles of wine down and it was 3am. We decided to call it a night and my husband woke up with a hangover on Wednesday. I felt fine and went on with normal business. Made egg whites and turkey bacon, caught up on my reality shows and enjoyed the lazy time. Finally my husband drug himself out of bed and ate leftover Papa John's pizza. I had tuna on a flatout wrap and was not even a little jealous of his junk food. That pizza was not work the calories. For dinner he made rice and gravy (a southern thing) but we used brown rice to make it a little bit healthier.

 

I did great all that day. Then came Thursday. Isaac was long gone, in fact, the sun was out! I was itching to get out of the house, but we had to wait till noon to get word if S had to go back to work that afternoon or  this morning. As soon as they said this morning, we were out the door. My lovely Aunt Flo has paid a visit so I was craving junk. Normally, this doesn't happen, but for some reason, all I wanted was deep fried anything. We went to Buffalo Wild Wings and pretty much went all out. Wings and fries. It was heaven and honestly, worth every calorie. Stupid me calculated what I ate AFTER I ate it and was quite horrified. Got my fix though. We then went sofa shopping and came home again. I still did not want to be home and that's when the scavenging began. I wanted chocolate, and I wanted it right then and there. I was thisclose to going to the grocery store to buy brownie mix or ice cream.

 

I didn't though. Instead, I settled for a hand full of stale mini chocolate chips. Yeah, that's how desperate I was. It sorta did the trick and it was over. I had a salad for dinner with a Morning Star chicken patty cut up on top. Those things are so good. You'd swear they are made of real chicken.

 

 

I'm determined to get in another work out tonight, and then another before tailgating on Saturday. Saturday will be a test. I've never tailgated on a diet! Wish me luck and I'll be back soon. Holla for a dolla honey boo boo!





Carb Fest 2012

Well here we are at Monday again. Why do weekends fly by so fast? Brace yourself. It's a long post. Not necessarily a super interesting read, just want you all to be aware how easy it is to stray from your diet but how easy it is to bounce back!

A little re-cap: First off, I ate pizza twice this weekend. Only one time was really bad, the other time, I’d say I did a good job of keeping it under control. Let me explain.

Friday night, my husband and I went to dinner with his dad and stepmom. I intended to do very well. We went to the gym at 5:30 that morning and I have to say, I was in a great mood all day, surely because of that awesome workout. I admit to hoarding my calories all day to save for dinner. I was never hungry or anything, and still had my meals and snacks, I just chose lower calorie items. I feel like when dining out, there are always way more calories than you calculate, because you can’t truly know what goes into a dish unless you prepare it yourself. We went to a seafood restaurant. While the old Kassie would’ve ordered fried shrimp and fries, the new me ordered a veggie bowl with grilled shrimp. I also saw on the menu that you have the option of having them grill your dish in Pam instead of oil. Bingo! I requested they do that, and felt good about my choice. It came with a salad so that was filling to start. I get my dish and it looks great, till I start digging in. After a few bites I realize at the bottom of my bowl is a puddle of grease. It was disgusting. Although I probably should’ve sent it back at that point, I just HATE doing that. I feel like such a brat. I know, I know, my health is more important. I just really never send anything back unless it’s the wrong thing. I pretty much ate the top layer off my bowl and left the bottom of the veggies floating in its grease alone. With my workout and my calorie saving, I had A LOT of calories left for the day, so I didn’t feel quite as bad about it. Hey, I could’ve ordered fried shrimp alfredo or a fried seafood platter like I’ve done in the past. Pick yo battles, people. I managed to sneak a pic:

 

Saturday was extremely productive for me. S went to work at his mom's so I had the day to fill up. I went to the gym and burned 800 calories (woop woop!!) then headed to Drug Emporium. It’s not what you think. Basically it’s like a grocery store with extra health food. I love it there, and have been going since college. They have a huge array of protein bars and other healthy stuff, so I get all my Luna Bars there. My husband also just started having a protein bar for breakfast (he used to skip breakfast till I nagged him enough about it) so I picked some up for him too. I came home with this pile of goodness:

 

 

I also picked up some more PB2, which I use in protein shakes. This is so far, the only place I can find it locally. After my protein bar run, I headed home to have lunch and shower. Did that, then swung by the mall (on a Saturday, yes, I’m nuts) to pick up a gift for my godchild, who turned 11 this weekend. Being the great nanny I am, I got him a pair of LiveStrong Nike shorts, Livestrong shirt and gift card from Finish Line. (That sh*t ain't cheap, yall) Of course I realized, when he opened it, that I bought him an adult medium in both instead of youth! Great job girlfriend. We got a good laugh about it, but I felt so stupid! Here is my adorable godchild, Parker (left), my cousin Oliver and I for my wedding in April. Aren't they some cuties?

After the mall, I got my eyebrows waxed, which I love, due to being a freak of nature. Then I did some grocery shopping for the week and got ingredients for this week’s dinners. Crock pot Broccoli and Beef and Jalepeno Popper Chicken will be on this week’s menu. Probably won’t happen if the electricity goes out due to the looming hurricane, but if not, that’s the plan. After grocery shopping, I came home to get ready to go to dinner and ice skating with husband, aunt, uncle, godchild and his friends. He chose a pizza buffet. With my extra 800 calories burned, and about 500 calories left for the day, I felt safe. I did better than expected, though. Ate a huge salad to start and had two pieces of pizza and a bite of my husband’s mac n cheese. Not so bad.

The next day we went to lunch at my aunt’s and again, I did really well. All the dishes were high in calories and fat but I just had a tiny bit of each. It was dinner that got me.

While my husband was in the military, he lived in a dorm for a while. He always tells me about how twice a week they’d order Papa John’s and it was soooo good. I have never eaten there, and really didn’t care to try, but he everytime we pass by, he rants and raves. This time, I gave in. Don’t ask me why, I just said “ok, sure”. He ordered wings, a hot wing flavored pizza (I know, right? Trouble..) and a meat lovers pizza. Check it out:

 

I will admit I had no plans to try and be “good”. I was hungry and ready. I had a piece of the buffalo chicken pizza and two pieces of the meat lovers. To be honest, it so wasn't worth the cheat. Pizza Hut is a million times better, but I couldn't resist.  The Buffalo chicken pizza had tons of tiny little cut up onions on it, which I hate. I don't know why I can eat a huge sliced onion but the minute you dice them suckers up, I want to gag. (weirdo..) I'm glad I got it out of my system though, and it's in the past. I was only up .7 pounds this morning, which I was totally okay with. I figured with sodium alone I'd be up 3+ pounds. I was back at the gym this morning and counting my calories as soon as I woke up. I will bounce back from this weekend!

 

Of course, though, God has a way of joking with us and the first thing my boss tells me this morning is, "I was thinking we could just order a pizza today and work through lunch.." Hell nah! I couldn't believe it but I got a good laugh. I explained to her my weekend and she understood. Went home and had a Morningstar Veggie Chicken patty cut up on a salad and a Lean Cuisine Mac N Cheese. Not the greatest, but still better than the three slices of pizza each that my coworkers had! I can see how much of a vicious cycle this can be, so I refuse to get sucked in.

 

Husband is making sausage and peppers tonight, one of my least favorites. He loves it though, so I try to be a trooper. He uses super lean pork sausage and maybe a tsp of oil, so it isn't bad. I hope you all have a great week, and to my fellow Louisiana peeps, I hope Isaac doesn't getcha! I hope the electricity doesn't go off preventing me from getting into the gym :)

The weekend has finally arrived!

TGI freakin F everybody! Like I said in my last post, super stoked it’s the weekend.

Anywho, I wanted to talk about my most recent purchase. This bad boy:

I am in love already. I love it so much I think I want to name it. I purchased my very first heart rate monitor a few days ago, from Academy. It ran me about $93 dollars with tax. It wasn’t the cheapest one, or the most expensive, but I had been doing TONS of research, and the brand Polar seemed to have the best reviews. I didn’t need the top of the line, because I knew I’d only use it to track my calories burned. I ended up with the woman’s bronze Polar Ft4 model. They had a red one and a hot pink one(which is what I usually go for) but it was kind of obnoxious, so I went neutral. It also comes with the chest strap, which is so comfortable you forget it's there almost immediatly. For my fellow big boobed friends, it fits under a sports bra easily.

 

I’ve hit a rut with no weight loss lately, even though I’ve been working out hard and eating right. I figured there was something off somewhere. After browsing the My Fitness Pal message boards, I realized how exaggerated their idea of calories burned is. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE MFP for calorie counting, I just don’t trust their estimate of calories burned. You also have to realize everyone is different, so these figures are purely guesses. Plus, if it wasn't hard enough to lose weight--after meeting with a nutritionist and running tests in May, I found out my body burns calories slower than the average person. WONDERFUL.  Anyway, I eat back usually a little less than half of my calories burned, if not more depending on if we go out to dinner or something. So let’s just say I burned 400 calories doing cardio, according to My Fitness Pal. In the past, I might have eaten back 300 of those calories. So what if according to a much more accurate figure from heart rate monitor, I really only burned 250 calories. If I ate back 300, that’s 50 calories over my goal for the day, which may be a HUGE factor in me not losing weight. I don’t always eat back calories, but if I have an intense workout and burn A LOT, I’m not gonna just eat 1200. My body just can’t do it. So I figured since I do eat some of them back, I needed the most accurate account of what I’m burning. I broke down and bought the monitor and was immediately excited to use it. So excited, in fact, that the first few times I used it, I completely forgot to track it in MFP to compare. This morning, though, I remembered.

Bless my husband’s heart…I told him I was bummed I wouldn’t have time to work out today. Side note, I get to work at 9:30 on Monday and Wednesday, 10am on Tuesdays and 8 on both Thursdays and Fridays. This means I work out before work Mon-Wed, but sorry, I just can’t drag my butt outta bed at 5:30 every day. Well thanks to ol’ hubby, we were up at 5:30 (in a surprisingly good mood I might add) and off to the gym. His annoying alarm is what did it, but thankfully he set it in the first place. I sure as hell wasn't going to. I did 45 minutes of cardio because that’s all I had time for. I walked/ran for 15 minutes and was on the elliptical the rest of the time. I calculated this exact workout in myfitnesspal and came up with this:

 

That's 539 calories burned

 

In real life, thanks to my handy dandy heart rate monitor, I now know I burned this:

 

Not a HUGE difference, but for someone who is trying to pull out all the stops to lose some ell bee’s, 100 calories sure help.

Last night, we grabbed dinner at one of our favorite hole in the wall spots. I got a grilled chicken plate with veggies and asked that they grill it in Pam instead of oil. I love this place for doing that! This gave me dinner last night and lunch for today.

 I gave S the bread, even though I wanted to shove it in my mouth whole.

 

Of course my husband ordered a burrito that was the size of the plate it came on, covered in cheesy goodness, ate the whole thing, and was down a pound this morning. I feel ya on this, Elle Noel.

Tonight, we are going to dinner yet again, because my in-laws asked if we’d go with them. No worries though, we are going to a local seafood restaurant, which is super easy to eat healthy at. I’ll probably get grilled shrimp or fish and veggies. Here are a couple of my latest eats:

breakfast quesadilla made with egg whites, low fat cheese, low carb tortilla and turkey bacon

This is my new favorite! I will make it on weekends when I have time for intense workouts in the morning because it's a little steep in calories, but SO delicious. I used to hate oatmeal, but this is like dessert. Old fashioned oats cooked with water, mixed in 1/4 scoop vanilla protein powder, 2 tbsp PB2, half a banana (or whole if you're starvin' like Marvin) and a tiny bit of sugar free chocolate syrup. It's so pretty before you mix it up, but I wanted to taste it all in every bite. So good!

Chicken and jalepeno pizza made on a Flat Out wrap. A little too thin for my liking but pretty calorie friendly. Next time I'll use these to make quesadillas as they are about half the calories of a regular tortilla!
 Hope everyone has a great weekend and I'll catch you all on Monday!

 

TGI Almost F

One more day till Friday! I can’t wait for the weekend. Not because I have tons of super fun plans or anything, but because I will finally get some “me” time, as well as “hubby and me” time. I feel like with my work schedule I just can’t take a breath. It’ll be nice to have the two days off.

Tonight I’m thinking of picking up some salmon or tilapia from Fresh Market and attempting to make it delicious. I’ve had salmon before, just haven’t cooked it myself, so we’ll see. I just want something different. Lately it’s been chicken or ground turkey every single day. Well, last night I did have this ugly looking, but delicious, tuna wrap.

I bought Flat Outs to make pizzas with but they are just too thin to make pizzas, I'm sorry. I will try them as wraps and quesadillas instead. They are only 45 calories too! I also attempted to make cheesy broccoli with a wedge of laughing cow cheese. I got the idea on one of the message boards on My Fitness Pal. The idea was great, the flavor not so much. Won’t be trying that one again.

 

This week’s rotation will feature skinny enchiladas, a Vietnamese veggie and beef dish and hopefully, salmon.  We normally eat out once or twice when my husband is home, so I’m sure that will be happening too. I’m determined though. I will get that scale moving! It’s been VERY frustrating for me lately. I’ve been working out like a crazy person, counting every calorie, and still not seeing the scale move. Plus, I haven’t eaten fast food once (big deal for me people).  I started going home for lunch instead of bringing my lunch to work. I realized that I have time, and I’d rather eat at home than the slimy, nasty lunch room. I also bought a heart rate monitor (post on that tomorrow) and got some great advice from a friend with the same goals as me!

 

During the week I tried this potato/green bean/chicken bake thing.

 

 

 I read Elle Noel's blog about it, and knew I had pinned it a while back, so I figured this would be something good to make with lots of left overs. Super easy too. The consensus: it was good, but not spicy enough for me. The seasoning it called for was Italian Dressing mix. I bought three packets because I know I can use them for different things. I also like to keep ranch dressing packets on hand too (it's GREAT on potatoes--cut them up, toss in a tbsp of olive oil then mix with ranch seasoning and bake!) I ended up adding garlic powder, onion powder, and salt free Cajun seasoning after I tasted it. I also used about half of the amount of butter it called for and felt it still had too much. I’ll definitely make this again, just tweak it a little. It didn’t help that I started it after getting home at 7, and it takes about an hour and a half to prep and cook. Hungry Kassie ain’t a happy Kassie, yall.

 

The only thing we have planned this weekend is my godchild Parker’s birthday lunch. Nothing too fancy, just family going to my aunt’s house. Yes, the same aunt who makes the best fattening but oh so yummy everything. My husband will be working at his mom’s all day so I’ve already decided I’ll eat a light breakfast, work it out in the gym and watch my portions for lunch. Everything in moderation people! We usually try to brainstorm things to do on the weekends, long before they come. My husband and I have been laying very low lately though. We usually just go to dinner and a movie or try to find something to do during the day. I really really want us to meet and hang out with other couples because we are SO bored when we have free time. The problem is, the friends we do have, have either one or two small children and can’t just drop everything to hang out. That is totally understandable and we still love our friends (and their adorable chitlins), but we are literally the only couple in the group that is not with-child. We’ve even tried making plans WAY in advance. I’m talking a month before, and something always gets in the way. We need more friends. I mean, we are pretty awesome so this shouldn’t be too hard. My only friend without a baby (or baby on the way) lives about 40 minutes away and has an amazing family who goes HARD on the weekends lol..I’m talking, they throw down.  I don’t blame her for not wanting to venture out to boring-town.

 

Sorry for such a long-winded post about nothing, but tomorrow’s will be better, I promise. I just bought the best invention ever, a heart rate monitor, so tomorrow’s post will feature info about that and tons of YUMMY food pictures. Ciao!

Another Manic Monday

Happy Monday yall! This weekend was fairly busy for me, meaning it went by way too fast. I did get a lot done though. Here’s a little run through.

Friday was The. Longest. Work. Day. Ever.  At 5, I dashed over to TJ Maxx (one of my absolute favorite bargain shopping spots) and bought an outfit to wear that night. I feel like I always wear the same things, plus it was pay day so I decided I deserved a new outfit!

I went home, changed, freshened up my makeup and went to meet three friends for sushi. We get there around 7:00 and, this place is pretty popular anyway, but at 7pm on a Friday, it’s outrageous. I figured there would be a little bit of a wait but it was TWO and a half hours. I thought my friends would decide to go somewhere else, but nope, they wanted to wait and drink it up till the table was ready. I should let yall know, Friday morning, I was not leaving my bed two hours early to work out, so I planned my day accordingly and kept my calories down as much as possible. I had this yummy lunch at McCalisters though.

 I took off half of the cheese, didn't eat the croutons, and added half a packet of light butter to my potato.

So by 7, I was so hungry. Sushi has always been hard for me to calculate, even back in my Weight Watchers days, so I like to leave a lot of room. Plus I know that rice and the amazing sauce they drizzle over it is all is not so calorie light. I didn’t drink because I’d rather eat my calories, duh. This amazingness happened finally around 9.

Of course that’s not all for me. I ordered the cucumber wrap (bonus: no rice) and split another roll with one of the girls. I was so happy to eat! I got home around 11 and couldn’t fall asleep till 1:00. Of course, the next day, on a day I don’t have to wake up early, I am up at 5:30am rarin’ to go. I ate egg whites and turkey bacon, did some laundry and dishes and headed to the gym. Remember when I talked about completing my longest run ever in my last post? Guess what, this beast BEAT her longest run ever, the very next day. Oh yeah, oh yeah! I was pumped. It gave me such a burst of energy, I did 30 minutes on the elliptical, more walking on the treadmill and did a great arm workout. I burned some serious calories but was also being conservative with my calorie intake on Saturday because of a wedding I had that night. When I work a wedding (i.e. assist another wedding planner with a wedding), I never know when or what I’ll have for dinner, so I save a lot of calories. We all know wedding food ain’t healthy. Especially in the south where it’s buffet style.  I ended up heading to the reception venue at 6, with about 700 calories left for the day. I had a small plate of food that couldn’t have been more than 400 calories. I figured I could always eat something once I got home if I was hungry. I got home around 11:30 and had half of a Luna bar I ate before the wedding.

Sunday, I had another great gym session. I can honestly say that the gym was the last place I wanted to be yesterday. At first I was all like:

But then after working out, I was like:

See what a difference a work out makes! I’d call this one successful. Yeah, it’s gross, but to me it means it’s working!

What’s a girl with 236 calories left for the day at 2:18pm to do?

First, an inspiration picture. This is a ridiculously embarrasing montage of me at my lowest adult weight (around 155). Keep in mind, these were my college years, and the bunny ears were for my best friend's bachelorette party, so don't ask. I just want to remind myself that I once looked like this, and thought I was huge, but how much I'd love to be this weight again, and even lower!

Moving on...
So every now and then, I get too lazy to “plan” and end up finding myself with 236 calories left for the day…and it’s only 2:00. Today is one of those days, and I can’t help but feel like a moron for not planning better. Tuesdays are rough for me because I don’t get home from work till 7:15. Unless something is cooked and can be re-heated, I end up making dinner and eating at 8:30. I haaaate doing this. Last night, my husband was exhausted, so I texted his parked-in-the-recliner-butt and told him what I wanted. Don’t get any bright ideas people, in involves feeding my face.

Haha, see how I get my way. Anyway, we decided to try this new restaurant in our town called Cheddar’s that I’ve heard is delicious. It also just opened, and I live in a relatively small city, so for the first few monthsm, you couldn’t even find a space to park. It’s been a little bit though, so we figured a Tuesday night would be ideal to try it out. I know they have a pretty good selection of healthy dishes, so I was pumped and motivated. I get there first, and go to reserve a table. 45 minute wait. EH EH. This girl is not waiting forty five minutes. I call hubby and try to come up with a new plan. He picks a Mexican restaurant. I find it pretty difficult to be good at a Mexican restaurant. Yeah, there’s fish, but who wants that when they’re stuff covered in queso? I did decent and ordered chicken fajitas with corn tortillas instead of flour. This wouldn’t have been SUCH a bad choice if not drenched in butter or grease, whatever they’re using these days. While this wasn’t the best choice, it couldn’t be worse. I could’ve ordered what my husband did, and had a deep fried burrito covered in cheese. Okay, it was called something fancier than that, but that’s basically what it was. I would’ve taken a picture to post, but didn’t want to torture you all. Anyway, we got home around 8:45 and I had to wash my hair, leaving me in no mood to cook or get something ready to bring for lunch today. Womp womp.

I figured I would get Subway today for lunch, easy and cheap. Well there went half my calories. I had a protein shake for breakfast. Seen here:

It was extremely filling, but I doubled the recipe since that was all I was having. I ate quickly for lunch because I had to go to Target to pick up some treats for my man. Side note: Like I mentioned before, he has been working so hard lately, I wanted to do something nice for him. The man doesn’t get told thank you near enough, and he is pretty much Superman. See, this was AFTER he got stuck waiting an hour and a half just to have my oil changed for me while I was at the gym.

I got him this:

And some beef jerky, a pack of redbulls and will stop again on my way home to pick up some tiramisu gelato I discovered at Tarjay’. I’m a girl that loves my husband, yall. And you can bet your bottom dolla I won’t waste my 4 calories left for the day on that frozen goodness. I just hope he eats it all so it isn’t staring at me all week while he’s gone.

Anywho, since I didn’t bring any snacks today either (I am a girl who needs snacks, okay? Otherwise I feel like jumping face first into a bucket of nacho cheese), I decided to pick up a few things at Target to stock my desk with. I found this adorable little pack, for a whopping 130 calories.

 It was $2.39, but I’ll definitely make little snack packs like this at home to save money. It was the perfect combo of sweet and salty. There was another pack with pretzals instead of grapes, too. A lot of times lately, I find myself eating kids snacks, but who cares, they are filling and low in calories.

 I tried this on Monday: for only 100 calories but threw it away. Not my cup o’ tea. It was basically just bitter applesauce.

I also bought a 100 calorie pack of carrots and ranch dressing just to hold me over if I need it. I work till 6:30 this afternoon due to a speech I have to give about my department. Am I the only freak of nature who loves public speaking?

Tonight for dinner we are having chicken breasts, leftover corn and mashed cauliflower. I’ll measure out my chicken breasts and if I go over, may just have to bribe my dear husband to go for a walk with me. I never go to the gym after 8:30 on week nights because then I’m wired till 11.

Tomorrow I only work 8am-5pm so I will probably get in a run in the morning and do some weights after work. My husband is heading back to work at the buttcrack of dawn, which I find makes my schedule a lot more manageable…mainly because I don’t have much going on when he’s home, and only have myself to worry about for dinner.

This weekend will be a busy one though—sushi with friends on Friday night, a wedding to assist with on Saturday night and Sunday I am meeting with a potential new bride. I will attempt to get in 4 workouts this weekend—wish me luck! See ya on FridayJ

Manic Monday

Happy Monday, readers! I’m in a surprisingly good mood considering the weekend is over, probably because this weekend was one of the best we’ve had in a while. We had our husband-wife time Friday night, time with my family Saturday and time with my husband’s family Sunday, including some of his family we haven’t seen in a year. It was so nice spending quality time with everyone.

Family time in South Louisiana (and probably everywhere) means lotsa food. I knew I would eat some things I usually don’t eat, so we worked out twice as hard and just kept our portions in check. Here’s a breakdown of our fabulous weekend.

Friday, I got home from work around 5:15pm to be greeted by my dressed-and-ready to go husband. He was “starving”, so I freshened up and we were out the door. We went to a place called Walk-On’s which is pretty much a fried food heaven. Oh and it’s a sports bar too. I was determined to eat a burger since that’s what I was craving, so I ordered a turkey burger with no cheese, no mayo, add lettuce, tomato, onion and a little mustard. It was amazeballs. My husband got a steak and I tried not to fight him for his twice baked potato. We then went to the movies to watch “The Campaign”. I have to say, as much as I don’t care for Will Ferrell, that movie was hilarious. We rarely pick good movies so we were pumped.

Saturday morning started with a gym session. We both ran on the treadmill then I hopped on the elliptical and my husband did some arm work. I got my hair cut while he did some work at his mom’s. I then had lunch at Subway (I always get the same thing: ham on wheat with lettuce, spinach, onions, one tomato—don’t ask, and spicy mustard). Did a little grocery shopping for my Saturday afternoon project and to refill my work snack stash.

Saturday night my super fun aunt and uncle invited us over for dinner. She didn’t say what she was cooking, so I wasn’t sure where to keep my calories at, but I did know it would be something delicious. She asked me to bring dessert, so I decided to be ambitious and use a springform pan we got for our wedding to make homemade cheesecake. I know, I’m nuts. I found a Pinterest recipe for Salted Caramel cheesecake with a chocolate crust. I know, to die for. I knew I’d have a piece but it would be small. Gotta indulge sometimes, folks. Good thing I didn’t dwell on it because the recipe called for a whopping two pounds of cream cheese (that’s four packs), two cups of sugar, a cup of sour cream, chocolate cookie crumbs, etc. I did swap out low fat cream cheese and light sour cream, but It couldn’t have helped that much. It was a pain in the a** to make, but surprisingly I didn’t ruin it! In fact it was delicious! It wasn’t pretty, but here’s a picture I was able to snap.

Luckily, we were able to bring the un-eaten half to my inlaws Sunday so it was not left for my grubby little hands to sneak into at our house. I’d make it again only for big holidays.

My aunt made corn grits, a sinfully delicious pasta and salad. I had a little bit of everything, and of course a small slice of cheesecake.

Sunday morning I had another run, in which I was EXTREMELY proud of. Let me start by saying that for most runners, ten minutes non-stop is nothing. But for me, who started off practically flying ninja style off the treadmill after one minute of consecutive running, it’s a big deal, ok? I’ve done about half of the couch to 5k program but never could get past 5 minutes of running. Ashamed to say it, but I gave up because I never thought I could go farther than that. Well, I don’t know what hit me Sunday but I just kept going. And going. 10 minutes later I was still running. I started with a ten minute brisk walk, ran for ten minutes, walked for five, ran for three, walked for five, ran for three, and cooled down for 10. I was so proud. Now I see why people who run half and whole marathons get this overwhelming since of pride and emotion when they finish their race. It’s such an amazing feeling doing something you didn’t think you could do. I can’t wait to get to thirty minutes and an hour and maybe even three. My goal is to just keep going and see how far I can push my body. It’s an exciting feeling, yall! Here's a picture of me, soaking wet and beet red but feeling amazing!

(not sure why I am not allowed to rotate this picture, tell your neck I'm sorry!)

The last few minutes of the running sucked, but these songs got me through it. Odd mix, but hey, whatever works!

Here is a new healthy snack I've discovered. For those of you former fatties who used to love potato chips, myself included, this is a great alternative. You can have 38 of these for about 110 calories. I got the ranch flavor and they grew on me. Now I love em!

Hope everyone has a great week!

TGIF

It’s Friday! Holla for a dolla! (That was a Honey Boo Boo Child Reference for those of you who lack enough class to watch it….like me)

So a little backstory,  I up and quit my full time job in January and began working from home on a business I started last year. Here I am, 8 months later, deciding that I’d much rather a steady paycheck and a little bit more of a steady schedule, so I started yet another full time job, still doing my business on the side. I thought working from home would be so great for my weight loss because I could go to the gym twice a day, cook my meals and just have freedom all around. The cooking part was nice, but a lot of times I found myself raiding the pantry between work. I also failed to do that twice a day gym thing I mentioned, aside from about 10 or 12 times in 8 months. I surprisingly have found that it’s easier for me to stick to eating healthy when I have an office job. Now, I just prepare two (or three if my husband’s home) servings of whatever I make for dinner, and pack it up that night for lunch the next day. If I bring my lunch, I don’t feel tempted to go pick up fast food because I already have something. Great calorie AND money saver! Also, snacking is cut down big time because I choose two snacks in the morning and sometimes I only eat one if I’m not hungry.  No pantry to raid here. 

 

 A typical work day looks like this, food-wise:

Breakfast- usually egg whites and 2 slices turkey bacon. If I’m really hungry I’ll add a cup of fruit, but normally I just chug my water and I’m full. If I’m running late, I grab a Luna Bar or make a protein shake (see last post’s recipe) and on weekends I might splurge on a little higher calorie breakfast of Banana bread protein pancakes, which I’ll post the recipe of soon!

Snack-I have been going to lunch early lately so no mid-morning snack. If I have anything, it’s fresh pineapple, a banana or an orange

Lunch-Leftovers from the night before or a salad. Leftovers always consist of a protein, atleast one veggie and sometimes a starch  (I pick up lunch from time to time. If so, I get Subway or something pretty healthy from another local restaurant.)

Afternoon snack- either a Luna bar (my favorites are Peppermint Stick and Chocolate Dipped Coconut), a fruit, or greek yogurt. I work till 7pm one night a week so I’ll usually do two snacks on those days.

Dinner-a salad with grilled chicken or a protein(chicken breasts, roasted bone-in, turkey burger or fish) and two veggies

SOMETIMES I find myself hungry by 8 or so if I eat dinner early. I’ll snack on a couple of almonds or carrots and hummus if so.

Here are a few (not so beautiful) pictures of some of the food I’ve eaten lately. I promise to improve on my presentation and photog skills one of these days!

Today's breakfast on a fancy paperplate? You are more than welcome to come do my dishes if you want to:)

Those scrumdidlyumptious protein pancakes I told you about

Some of my go-to snacks..and my bff coffee (I put a Splenda and unsweet vanilla almond milk in mine)

Lunch and a Cosmo:) Love me some Cosmo! That's grilled chicken, wheat pasta with a tiny bit Light Alfredo sauce by Bertolli and of course broccoli. I saved the yogurt for later that afternoon.

Some dinners. (Top) Grilled chicken breast, cauliflower and a few roasted potatoes seasoned with Ranch Dressing powder. Excuse the sweet shadow from my hand and iPhone. (Bottom) Grilled Jenny O Turkey burger, green beans, quinoa and Walden Farms BBQ sauce. I discovered Walden Farms during the most horrifyingly depressing months of my life the time I did Ideal Protein. Basically they are zero cal, zero sugar, zero fat and zero carb dressings and sauces. Yeah, I wonder what the hell is in there too, but anyway, I think they're all disgusting but the BBQ sauce is tolerable. I like to dip chicken in something, so this is usually it.

We have no plans this weekend so far, but my husband is home so I'm sure there will be something going on. I will update on Monday with a post about you're favorite topic, WORKING OUT (not!) Have a good weekend yall.