Fired up!!!

The last few days have been amazing. I've been within my goals and my workouts have been so much fun. I've really been enjoying the Push Circuits for CLX and I'm getting better and better at Fire 30 each time. I really brought the intensity to Saturday's workout. My 4 year old son danced around and even tried some of the moves while I was doing the exercise. He's been really interested in "mommy's exercises" and he wanted to exercise with me. He ended up hanging onto me for some of the combo routines, which made it more challenging, which I was okay with so I allowed it. We actually made it into sort of a game. He was fascinated by the Fire Drills, and was disappointed when the next day I did the Stretch 10 and there weren't any. He also encourages me to do another exercise (sort of like he's my little personal trainer) and the time with him is great. We're still working on the when he goes off to play with his toys, to respect mommy's exercise space. But it's a great experience all the same. I tell him how much I love it when he exercises with me, and he gets so excited when it's a move he can do. I wish I would have been able to get it on video.

I did the TurboFire: 45EZ. It was my first time doing it, so that's always a bit awkward, but I still got a good workout in which always feels really good. I've just had so much energy lately, and I've really enjoyed being in closer contact with my friends. My best friend and MOH, Sarah is one of my new accountability buddies, she's been doing the Tubo Jam videos, which I will be trying myself here in the near future. My friend Ben just started P90X today, so I checked in with him to see how his workout went. I always get really excited when my friends and I are working to better health and we keep in touch and support each other. I also have my accountability buddy on myfitnesspal.com, who has also just become a beach body coach. She has been just awesome with the support and also sharing about her eating and exercise. She is also doing Turbo Jam.

My eating was pretty good. I'm really excited about dinner. We had cucumber and egg sandwiches with were fantastic. I made a dressing to spread a little on the bread and to use for the cucumber and grape tomatoes on the side. It turned out pretty awesome, although I think I'm going to go with maybe juice from only half a lime instead of a whole, and then use either red wine or balsamic vinegar instead of apple cider vinegar. Perhaps also had a bit of fresh ground black pepper. But here's the recipe:

4 Tbs kraft reduced fat mayo with olive oil
juice from 1/2 lime or 2 Tbs lime juice (or to preference)
1 Tbs red wine or balsamic vinegar, or whatever you prefer
1 to 2 Tbs cilantro, chopped
habanero sauce to taste, non vinegar based (I used Melinda's Chipotle & XXXtra hot), you could also use chili sauce like Sriracha.

Mix in a small ramekin or mug or small prep bowl until smooth.

Makes 2 servings.

I took a little of it and spread it onto two Orowheat sandwich thins, with one egg over medium and thinly sliced cucumber.

I then served on the side about 1 half sliced cucumber (per plate) and some grape tomatoes. The remaining dressing was divided among the two plates and drizzled on top of the veggies. It was such a satisfying meal, and really versatile. Also it only took me about 10 to 20 mins to make, was super easy and looked like it was more complicated than it really was. Ah, I love that.

Sick day

Ended up staying home sick from work today. The lack on concentration issues were so bad that I called in and stayed home. I was able to talk to my doctor today, and he said that it is a very rare side effect of the medication and that with the alterations that we made, I should notice a big difference as soon as tomorrow. So that is a relief. It has been really frustrating trying to get through the last week. My home is safe, so i don't have the added burden of anxiety that I would get outside in the world. Of course, even here in my sanctuary I had trouble being able to even read more than a couple sentences at a time while surfing the internet.

My eating was a success for today. Feels like I stuffed myself at dinner, but I really didn't when it came down to the actual calories. I made tzatziki and served it with pita pocket bread that was quartered and divided to make it seem like more to my beloved and son (hee. hee. sneaky me). I also tried a new recipe, which was actually something completely new for me to make. Samosas. They were curried and were served with a Mint-cilantro chutney.

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I was so excited with this culinary endeavor that I made it special by serving the tzatziki on a piece of my grandmother's wedding china. Probably should have done it the other way around for presentation to not have the white-on-white with the dip, but documenting it with photographs was sort of a last minute decision.

Anyway, it was a very satisfying dinner, and the samosas will be a great item to experiment with and to make ahead and freeze. I'm looking forward to my lunch tomorrow.

I have hope for tomorrow. I'm also over halfway to my goal for fitness minutes for the month. This is significant since whenever I set a goal of say 500 fitness minutes for a month always fall short, usually by a lot.I am also very much looking forward to feeling better with my concentration going back to normal and my muscles not feeling weak. It wasn't a lot of weakness, but even a little is not pleasant.

Day 24

Weekend Update 2: Getting caught up.....

I may have gotten behind on posting my food diary reports, but I actually only have one day or so where I ended up failing to track. This is a pretty good track record for me. I may have missed a day or two since mid July, but I've been consistent, more so than ever before.

The weekend was good. I went to a bridal shower on Saturday and then in the evening, I had some screwdrivers at home with my fiance. We don't drink much, but every once and a while we'll get a bottle of something. On Saturday it was a bottle of Absolut APEACH Vodka.

The bottle is so pretty.

So suffice to say, I went over on calories on Saturday, but it wasn't by too horribly much, and did torch a good 400 to 500calories during my exercise, and another 700+ on Sunday, which I was well within range to where it'll make it up. The next major days coming up are if I go to the Lane County Fair in late August, and then my co-worker's (who's bridal shower I went to on Saturday) wedding on the 26th. I started using my Blackberry again last week, and began scheduling all my workouts for "TurboLean".

It has been invaluable scheduling them in way ahead of time, for instance, my colleague's wedding day, the 26th, is a Friday, so I have work until 2pm and then I'll need to get ready for the wedding which is out of town at 4:30. I'm not really going to have time to get my workout in, so i rescheduled my rest day from Thursday to Friday and will do Friday's workout on Thursday. It feels really good to be scheduling this way so I can plan ahead and see how I will accomplish my goals and not just take the "I'll get it in somewhere if i can..... eh, I don't really have time" philosophy. Speaking of which, In addition to getting caught up on blogging and updates, I still need to to my exercise for today, which isn't terribly long, but I need to get onto it. So here are my Food Diary entries for the 27th thru the 31st, minus the one day that I missed tracking:

Day 10

Day 11

12

Day 13

Weekend Update 1: here's to the first of many.

...and then this was dessert!

Friday night's dinner

It's always a challenge to keep track on the weekends. I didn't keep track on Saturday, which was a caloric bust, but I alright today and Friday was very good. I totally "vegged out". We ate a lot but it was fruits and vegetables. It was so good! We devoured the vegetables, and I got the smaller tray since it had the smaller amount of dip. Carson is way too in love with ranch, so we stopped buying it ages ago. If we had gotten the tray with the larger container, we would have eaten all the dip, so this was definitely the better option. I want to get into making my own hummus and dips that are lower calories and will be good with vegetables...especially when we end up going to raw foods in a few months.

Also on Friday I did ChaLean extreme, and then 10 mins walking. I was supposed to do 30, but I decided instead to work on my kitchen, which I got a lot done and burned even more calories. I'm really kicking ass on getting my kitchen in order.

On August 1st, we'll making a change to our eating plan. We are going to go vegetarian, for at least a few months. Carson has been considering it for a permanent life change, but we'll see how that goes after the wedding. So we'll be vegetarian in August and September, and then we'll go Vegan in October and Raw foods in November. Course, thanksgiving will be a challenge. I was afraid to do this at first, but now I'm excited. It feels like a fresh start. We both have had troubles learning to be healthy Omnivores, so starting over with being an Herbivor for awhile at least will help up prepare our bodies and minds for whatever way we go with our food journey in December.

For the next week I will be creating a plan for the grocery list, especially our evening meals and how we will prepare the foods to make it easier to put together the meals. The change will be hardest on Miles, so I'm not sure how to address that. I may just keep meat around for him so  he can get the fats and proteins that he needs. I'll have to do more research into it as far as kids go.

All and all I am happy with the last week and weekend. I didn't get all the workouts done that I had scheduled, but I got over 300 exercise minutes, burned over 2000 calories and was under on my calories nearly everyday of this week. I have to take it one day at a time and one week at a time.

Here are the results for Friday and today, as I said, I didn't track on Saturday.

Day5

Day 7

It was all about the food....

Today, I had my usual oatmeal breakfast, and for lunch the other half of the sandwich I got yesterday from Safeway. I didn't do well on my fruit and veggie intake as I would have liked, but I am really proud of myself today for several choices that I made, since they were different than what I would have done normally.

First, it was payday, so I took Carson out to Jack in the Box for dinner. I planned out to get the pita, which is one of the best choices on the menu. I had it all planned out ahead of time, and I stuck with it. normally, I would have gotten a burger or something that was a lot higher in calories. The only mistake was that I forgot to order it without the grilled onions. They're cooked in butter, and there's no control over how much would be used. I used to work there so it does make it easier to understand these minor details.

I also gave a ride to my son's aunt Missy. She had a class to go to and it was right across the street from dutch bros. ....And anyone will tell you, I LOVE Dutch Bros. sooooo very much. My mouth was watering over the idea of a blended black and white mocha. It sounded so sweet, and cold and icy. The dark chocolate syrup they have.....ooooohhh so fabulous. I was thinking about it the entire drive, especially with the warm weather. I also got my exercise clothes on before I left to pick Missy up so that I could do my workout as soon as I got back home.

Normally I would have gone to dutch bros gotten the drink and come home and may or may not have worked out. Instead I had a 1/2 cup of raspberry sorbet with 2 Tbs of sugar free chocolate syrup. It was so good, and a decision I was really proud of. This time feels different. I even started purging my cookbooks. I'm really trying to focus on food, and also trying to learn to not be afraid to do the heavy lifting for my workouts. I've also been working on the connection between the two. It was a good day. It wasn't an easy one, but there was nothing horribly hard. Here's to it being easier as I have more and more days behind me.

Day 3

Day 1: It all starts now! :)

So today is my official "day 1". I was going to last week but it ended up not working out with the vacation and everything. I made an effort to eat more mindfully. I've been getting focused and excited about this whole project. It was sort of strange telling people about it. I mainly only told my family thus far, as I am skiddish when it comes to these sorts of things, so it takes awhile to get comfortable with something new, even if sometimes it never actually does arrive.

Due to my lower back flaring up like it does from time to time, and the massive amounts of fatigue from our trip, I decided have it be a "rest day" and tomorrow I will do ChaLean extreme burn circuit 1 and walk for 25 mins. I have an appointment with my Psychiatrist tomorrow at around 11am, so I'm planning on doing one workout in the morning and one in the evening when I get home from work. It would eventually be nice to get to where I can at least get some of my exercise done in the morning. It can help me get a good start to my day and it's less I have to do later.

Despite not getting my exercise plan started, I did keep within my calorie range. I did fairly well. I do want to get in more fruit. I'm on a real pineapple kick. I also tried black grapes, they were okay, but I think I'll stick to red. If the green grapes in the fridge are still good, I'll give those another try.

Below is my food diary for the day:

Day 1

I have already began to find my first 5k...well, technically 2nd, but I hope to be running most of it this time. :) This is really scary. It's scary in a good way, sort of like anticipating the big drop on a roller coaster. I also feel like there is no turning back, and if I don't do this now, I probably never will. It gets less and less likely it seems with every failure. There's just been some stuff that's been really hard to understand or conceptualize. There's a lot of vulnerability issues and feelings of safety I guess. I hope that I will not be criticized, we all have our demons, and reasons why we struggle with what we struggle.

I have discovered there is a lot more to this than I ever imagined, and it will make it really hard. But I know that the end result will be more than worth it, even if it doesn't seem like it sometimes. 

Goals: July

Fitness & Weight loss

• Begin Burn Phase of Chalean Extreme. (about 45mins 5x's a week)

• Begin 16wk C25K program (30mins 3x's a week)

Home

• Organize kitchen cabinets
• Go through kitchen tools and appliances to figure out what to keep and what to send to Carson's parents' garage sale or to Goodwill
• Begin planning new floor plan for 'dining area' and 'computer areas'

Nutrition

• Eat at least two servings of fruit and/or vegetables a day
• Try one or two new recipes or ideas a week
• Stay within calorie ranges and get in water

Chinese

• Complete two to three sessions a week
• Review vocabulary and dialogues for speaking practice
• Continue learning Characters for Fluenz vocabulary and for Chineseclass101.com vocab.