Challenges!

Hello after a lapse in writing! Sorry to all my fans (Hi sister!).

Today’s topic is challenges!

I know I don’t have daily topics – but this has been a big one for me lately! Let me tell you, when I went to the bachelorette party 2 weekends ago that I didn’t care what I ate or drank for the entire weekend. Even worse was when I thought that I needed to get back on track on Sunday but was hungover due to the festivities the night before. That hasn’t happened to me a whole lot recently because I haven’t drank like that in months!

What’s the cure for a hangover? If you said greasy food, you are right! Well I kind of, sort of went to Burger King and got their Chicken Fries – 9 points - (yes, that was what I thought I could actually stomach) and regular French Fries – approx* 5 points – and a Sprite – approx 4 points.

*Please note I was having trouble with the bk website while finding out this nutritional info so that’s why some of these values are just approx

But it doesn’t stop there folks, just a mere 2 hours down the road I decided it would really hit the spot to get some Pizza Hut breadsticks from the Worlds Largest Truckstop and a frosty from Wendy’s.

To my credit, I honestly couldn’t eat all of this and ended up giving some of this food to my carpool buddies.

The challenges didn’t stop there, my bro came to town for St. Patty’s week! I was obviously super excited to see him but this lead to drinking a lot during the week an not counting points… whoops! I won’t go into the details because before you know it I had the St. Patty’s Metra Crawl (awesome) and literally ate everything in sight (and drank it too).

By the end of all this I could have given up, and honestly it was hard to get used to eating carrots for lunch when I have been enjoying fried things for a solid 10 days… but to turn it all around I had to (and still HAVE to) focus on what I really want. And it’s not 100% about weight loss, but also just being healthy! As of this morning I have hit the gym 4 days in a row and plan to take tonight off to spend time with the boyfriend. I’ve been really appreciating the fact that I don’t have a car and that I have “no choice” but to work out for an hour and a half until my boyfriend can come pick me up.

Monday – I did light cardio including 20 minutes on the stair climber, 25 minutes walking at a faster pace (I couldn’t bring myself to run yet), and then about 40 minutes on the recumbent bike. Very light stuff, made very easy by hooking my headphones up to the TV’s which are conveniently located on the cardio equipment. Honestly, with luxuries like this, why is our country still so fat? I can’t get over it.

Tuesday – Resistance training! I did about 9 different types of lifting equipment as I’m still not comfortable working on the free weights yet. I like having the machines show me what to do, otherwise I’m just staring at the free weights thinking “WTF are you for again?”. I’m open to trying new things but I kinda want someone to show me wassup!

Wednesday – More cardio! My memory is getting foggy as this week has been a blur, however I ran for 25 minutes at a 5.0 pace (12 minute miles) which is a pace that I’m comfortable running. I’ve always wanted to be a fast runner but I’m not sure that’s what I’m meant to do. In the past I’ve fell off the wagon several times because I force myself to run at a 6.0 pace (10 minute miles) and I get so winded and discouraged. I then went on the recumbent bike for about 40 minutes and then walked for about 15 minutes on the treadmill.

Please note that I do want to get faster at running and challenge myself, but now isn’t the time, I’ll slowly but surely creep my way up to a faster pace.

Thursday – Light resistance training. I didn’t go all out yesterday as I stopped along the train to check out a potential apartment for me and the boyfriend. I luckily ended the visit at the apartment with just enough time (like within seconds) to get the train to go north 2 stops to my town. Then I went to the gym for probably 30 minutes and just did whatever equipment I found enjoyable, some of my faves are leg workouts such as the leg press and the super slutty leg abductor and adductor – the machines make you open up your legs and either press the weights inward or outward depending on which muscle group you work, leading to the inevitable crotch shot. Please don’t judge me, I just want skinny thighs!

I weighed myself this morning and after 10 days of falling off the wagon and 4 days back on I am about .5 pounds heavier than I was on day one of my “falloff”. I’m calling it a wash though because it could have been a lot worse! The worst case scenario is that I never even update you all on my status because I’m still on a food bender. Luckily I’m back betch! Best get used to it!

Weigh in tomorrow, I’ll let you know the official status then!

Another good day!

Happy Saturday everyone!! I'm sure that you've had just as hard of a week as I have, but I'm sitting here watching Forgetting Sarah Marshall and thinking about all good stuff for myself I've done this week.

On Sunday (Valentines Day) I moved from Chicago to Palatine! It was a big move for me, obviously as I've lived in Chicago for 2.5 years and being a suburbanite wasn't too appealing for me, but I have to say after one week living here it's SO AWESOME! First of all I have a lot more space, and this is in a one bedroom, one bathroom with my boyfriend! I did love my old place though and I'll miss my old roommie!

Another thing is the convenience of having close access to a car most of the time. I haven't purchased a car for myself... yet. I'm trying to put off as long as possible because as we all know, car payments suck! Right now, being a one car household is working well for me. I just went grocery shopping and took my time there looking at the labels of the food I was picking out.

I guess I'm just trying to write some garbage before I tell you that I LOST 2.4 pounds this week, and I have officially lost 12.4 pounds total!!! I went to a different weight watcher meeting today in Buffalo Grove, it was a nice facility and there were a LOT of people there. I've gotta say, it's interesting for someone to try and change their lifestyle and become healthier when they reek of smoke, but I digress. I also switched meeting days from Thursday to Saturdays so you'll probably see some better blog posts than I've been posting recently.

Challenges from this week:
Moving and organizing my crap - I prioritized getting settled in to my new apartment which was a hard task. Although the place is kind of a mess right now, it's that "I'm so comfortable in my new surroundings that it doesn't matter that I haven't tidied up today" mess.

Burger King - Umm did you know that their tendercrisp chicken sandwich is 20 POINTS! I ordered one on valentines day with mi novio when we went on a very special valentines date ;) It was my idea, I was starving and wanted something fast, we were going to go to Portillo's and get hot dogs but on the way there the thought crept into my mind of what exactly hot dogs are made of. So I made a quick decision on getting this 800 calorie sandwich with over 40 grams of fat... In the future, if you want to save yourself 310 calories, get the tendergrill chicken sandwich. Such an easy fix, and honestly the crispiness of the chicken doesn't really make that big of a difference!

Flat Top Grill - I have to say this wasn't so much a challenge as it was a fun outing. Yesterday I went ICE SKATING for the first time with Jen and Brian. Afterwords we were planning on getting some Chicago deep dish pizza from Exchequer but ended up walking past a flat top grill, which is kind of like a HuHot. You select your mixings for a customized stir fry. I selected a bunch of veggies and noodles with chicken and black bean garlic sauce. Of course I didn't have my handy dandy measuring cups so I have no idea how many points this whole thing was but I budgeted for it throughout the day and had 15 points left over for dinner so I figured I was ok.

Anyways, I'm totally excited about my loss this week, I'm feeling awesome!!! I hope you're having a great weekend!