Progress thus far

Now that I've been at this for over a month, I should probably take stock of where I'm at.

Perspective.

Goal 1: Lose 15 pounds, without losing too much muscle mass. So far, so good. I started at 154.6 on January 12, and I'm currently at 148.2. And I've got some budding biceps. Success! You'll notice on the progress page that I jumped about 5 pounds down recently - and at least one of those pounds is due to my new scale. The new scale is pretty awesome, mainly because it weighs me a full pound lighter than my other one. Fun! But actually, based on reviews and the like, the new one is supposedly much more accurate than the one I was using. We'll go with it.

Goal 2. Lose said weight without going insane in the membrane. Yes! Dieting and body image have the potential to get dicey but I'm maintaining a good balance all around. Pretty proud of myself, considering I've struggled with this in the past.

Goal 3: Have some semblance of abs. Ehhhh. Not yet. Work in progress. Does feeling them count? Poke. Now that I think of it, "having abs" is not really a goal, it's more like an end result. My goal should be to plank all day, e'er day.

Goal 4: Do 30 minutes of cardio 4 times a week. I'd say for the most part, I've done fairly well at keeping up with this. Sometimes it's 3 days a week, or sometimes it's 4 or 5, but only 20 minutes. In the car today, I realized that going to the gym after work is more normal to me than not going. If I don't go to the gym, it feels a little weird. Cool.

Occasionally, this is my only motivator. Thank you, blog friends.

Goal 5: Track my food intake, minimize my weekend splurges, and cook more. Check, check, check. My Fitness Pal has been super helpful when it comes to tracking, and while I'm still enjoying my weekends, I'm not eating everything in sight.

From January 25: "Currently, I can do 8 pull up reps with the assisted weight set on 85 pounds. I can do more reps after that, but not another whole set of 8. I'm hoping to move down to 75 pounds by the end of January."

If you can't see the gif, you're missing out.

HA! NOPE. If I'm completely honest with myself, I've been slacking with using the assisted pull up machine at my gym. I don't like it and I'm not sure why. That being said - there still has been some minor progress. I can do 4 pulls at a 70 assist, which I don't think I could have done back in January. I do a lot of hangs and flexes on our pull up bar at home. I don't use the pull up bar at home too often because I'm afraid I will tear down our ceiling/door frame and the upstairs' landlord's 2 toddlers will come crashing down on me. They make enough noise as is. But hangs (just hanging for as long as possible) and flexes (hanging but pulling up as much as possible - which for me right now is a few inches give or take) have been helping. I've also been rocking the baby 'shups and planks.

Speaking of planks.... again, from Jan 25: "I'm able to hold a front plank on my elbows for a full minute now, but it's the side planks that kill me. I can't seem to do over 30 seconds on those." Winner winner! My record is a 2 minute hold for the front plank, and a 1 minute hold on the sides. Goal is to up that in the next week or two.

Gotta work that spleen.

Things I could do better:

1. That stupid pull up machine. I don't know why I don't like it, but I don't. I don't feel like I'm getting a good work out from it. I've never been sore after I use it, even if I feel like I'm working hard. My back and arm muscles are more sore after I do a good pushup workout. I dunno. More hangs?

2. Consistent planks. I do them, but I have no set schedule. A year+ ago, I used to do at least 2 minutes of planking every single day. I'm going to work on getting into that routine more.

3. Continued perspective. It's not like I don't have perspective currently, but at some point, the going will get rough, and I will want to eat three Papa John's pizzas in one hour and then sit on my butt for a week. Having a good outlook and big-picture perspective always helps during those moments (and after those moments, should they happen).

However. Overall progress? In the right direction.

Caribbean cruise!

We are back from our cruise, and it was amazing. I didn't get horribly sunburned, we met some adorable dolphins, the cruise boat didn't sink, I did a couple workouts, the weather was incredible, no sharks were sighted, we swam in crystal clear blue water, I won some money at the casino, and overall we had a really great time.

On the first day, getting up at 2:45am for our flight wasn't fun but the flight itself was uneventful, and soon we found ourselves in sunny Florida. Side note: I am seriously questioning why I live where I do now. Researchers say that temperature doesn't actually affect your level of true happiness, but I beg to differ.

The first night on the cruise ship there was a lot of exploring, hanging out by the pool in the sun, dancing, and trying fun drinks. Every night they had a different "signature" drink - I didn't try all of them, but the rum punch was pretty good.

Fun drink is fun

The other days we did a few different excursions, including snorkeling, hanging out with stingrays, and swimming with dolphins. Each day we got to hang out on the beach, swim, frolic, and enjoy life in general.

The stingray excursion was both terrifying and awesome. They were HUGE - like, almost the size of the top of your car huge. I kept telling myself they are just puppies of the sea. Sea puppies. Harmless. Killed Steve Irwin, but otherwise harmless. We fed them these small squid and they went nuts - splashing around and jumping up on us. It was cool and I'm glad we did it, but I don't think I'll do it again.

Swimming with dolphins - by far my most favorite part of the trip.

Pretty lady dolphin!

I've always been a little obsessed with dolphins ever since I read A Ring of Endless Light by Madeleine L'Engle. When I was little I wanted to grow up to be a marine biologist. So this was really, really cool for me. I was fan-girling out like nuts. Our dolphin's name was Fiona and she was adorable.

As for eating and working out - I did a mile along with jogging track on Tuesday, and 2 miles on Thursday. We did a lot of swimming on most days, and I got in some planks on Friday. So, nothing too crazy, but I at least made an effort to get out there and do something. Food-wise, I would say I did so-so. I opted for veggies whenever they were available, but I also nommed on my fair share of fried chicken and french fries at the buffet, ha. And room service at midnight or later definitely happened more nights than not. They had this mozzarella tomato pesto foccacia sandwich thing that was freakin amazing. NOM.

So now we're back in the snowy northeast, and it's back to the grind tomorrow. Weigh-in this morning: 153.2. Not too bad! I'm hoping most of that is retaining salt and water, and that in a week I'll be back down around 149-150. To quote my friend, cruise weight is fake weight. You're up when you get home, but it goes away sooner than later. I hope she's right!

I also just bought a new fancy scale (no, not one that does body fat composition, but fancy nonetheless) because the one we have here flucuates about 2 pounds one way or another. I'll step on it and it'll say 154, and then 152, and then 152.4, and then 153.8, and I'm like, really scale? Tell it to me straight. Don't play me like that. I usually take an average, but I'm sick of the guesswork.

Aaaaand I'm already thinking about our next vacation. Where to next? Suggestions welcome!
 

Brain dump

1. That stupid "cardio challenge" I did on Sunday kicked my butt. I thought it was nothing at the time - I was breathing hard, but took some unapproved water breaks - but all that jumping around has made my calves curl up and die for the past couple days.

2. Guys - I upped my personal bests in planking. Today I held a front forearm plank for two whole minutes, and each side plank for a WHOLE MINUTE each. Remember back in my first post I was like "I hope that at some point in the distant future I might begin to fathom holding side planks for longer than 30 seconds" or something to that effect? Celebration, y'all.

PLAAAAAANKS!!!!!!

3. I made some really good loaded baked potatoes yesterday using this recipe. Cheese, meat, veg, potato. What's not to love. They were yummy enough for a whole post of their own, but I'm not feeling it, so you get the short review: They are great. I recommend them.

Each one is roughly the size and weight of a brick. A delicious, delicious brick.

4. Jay got some girl scout cookies from his family. It's that time of year. Have you ever noticed the spelling on the Caramel Delights?

Definitely should have gone into the advertising business.

"deLites?" EXPLAIN YOURSELF, BOX. A play on words? Why is the "L" capitalized so as to draw attention to the "Lite" part? What are you implying, cookie? Stop tempting me with your sugary goodness and false advertising! (Technically, one cookie is only 70 calories which is actually pretty good, considering level of deliciousness. But once I have one, I will definitely have at least 3 more, and that's on a good day. So I'm staying away.... for now.)

5. I'm posting my workout calendar on the top of the blog here. Feel free to check it out but be warned it's sort of for my own reference. Sometimes I don't put down every single thing I do at the gym, sometimes I write in code, sometimes I add in motivational words here and there. Take it with a grain of salt. Basically my goal is to have 80% of the calendar filled in, with some exclamation points here and there, indicating that good things have sporadically happened on the workout front. Knowing my affinity for data, I probably should have a more detailed, trackable chart or something, but I haven't taken the time yet to figure that out.

6. We leave for our cruise in 6 days! It's starting to feel real. I'm 95% super excited, and 5% terrified that I will be in a plane crash, get eaten by sharks, be stranded at sea, or gain 20 pounds. I've been thinking a bit about how much or how little I want to stick to my diet and exercise routine during those five cruise days.

COLORS

I'm bringing my workout clothes, since there is an outdoor track and a huge fitness room. I know I don't want to be a slave to the treadmill, but I also know I'll feel better about eating lots of good food and drinking fun cocktails (both of which I plan on doing) if I get some sweating in here and there. My goal is at least two small workouts, and to not eat like a crazy person. I'm not going to track a thing, but just because the food is free, doesn't mean it's free of calories. I'd like to enjoy the view, the weather, the dolphins (we are swimming with dolphins!), the company, the food and drinks, and the overall experience. You can see food is in there - just not number one.

Any tips or strategies on how to be healthy (or tips on how to not worry about it??) on a vacation? The last thing I want to do is stress out about food!

On a final note, another foot of snow on Thursday? Oy vey. Stay warm, stay strong, New Englanders.

Weekly recap

My goals this week were to:

1. Make my gym sessions count. Be more efficient with my time and really get my sweat on.
2. Drink more water and tea.
3. Eat more vegetables.

Then I also decided out of the blue to tweet that my fourth goal was to gym it up 5 days in a row, Wednesday through Sunday.

I know there are a lot of people out there who go to the gym every day, and some people who run every day (shout out to Tara, whose blog I just started following) and I totally admire that. For me though, my mental-emotional state of mind just needs a break.

On the other hand, sometimes (often) I need to stop whining and babying myself already and just make a habit of going more often than not.

Monday:
No gym on Monday, because I was whiny and baby-ey. However, I did drink a ton of tea (mango green tea, yum), and also had a dinner chock full of veggies (rice, chicken sausage, with spinach, garlic, broccoli, carrots, and chick peas. It was a hot mess of deliciousness). Plus, I was within my calorie range, which was a welcome change. I felt that Monday a good healthy detox/comeback from the weekend.

Tuesday:
Today was a 12+ hour work day, which impeded any plans of gymming. But I ate some veggies (leftover-broccoli-spinach-rice-smorgasbord was today's lunch), and drank a LOT of water during the day. Check and check.

Wednesday:
Snow day! Made friend rice. Went to the gym and did a solid 40 minutes on the bike, and then 20 minutes on the tread. Didn't drink enough straight water, but bathed my insides with tea pretty much all day. "I'm not drinking liquids, I'm bathing my insides." Kinda cooler?

Thursday:
I ran a 5k on the treadmill without stopping! This is big news!

Thanks Chuck. *brushes shoulders off*

After having not run much at all in about 3 months, I was pleasantly surprised to pull this one out. I was slow (33 minutes slow) but I did it. This makes me feel like I have a good base to build from to get up to an 8-10 mile run pre-tough mudder. I actually felt like I could have run more, too. Not easily, but I could have.

Friday:
40 minutes on the bike. Super sore from yesterday. Still a good workout. Learned that watching videos as opposed to listening to music makes the time go by waaay faster.

Saturday:
I did NOT want to go to the gym today. Procrastinated like a boss, then gave in and booted myself out the door. Walked for an hour on the tread on an incline. Watched a TED talk about the psychology of motivation and happiness, so not only did the time fly by, but now I feel more cultured.

Saturday night, some friends and I went out to this awesome bbq joint and nommed on some pulled pork, mac n cheese, and some drinks, so I was hoping that my Sunday gym session would be legit....

Sunday:
...And it was. Except I didn't go to the gym. I've been dealing with a smidge of a cold that won't go away, and the dry air at the gym isn't helping. That, along with me just being lazy about leaving the apartment, led to an in-home workout, which I based loosely on this:

I have 48 different pins in my "Workouts" Pinterest folder. This is the first one I've actually done.

Separate note: what fresh hell are burpees?? Jesus. Five at a time was rough. On the plus side, jumping jacks were kinda fun. I don't think I've done those since grade school.

I also did some pull up hangs. I can now pull myself up about an inch or two from a hanging position, and hang for a solid 15-20 seconds, whereas before I would just sort of hang for 4 seconds and then promptly die. PROGRESS!

Overall: Goals accomplished!
1. I definitely made my gym sessions count. I was sore this week and did a lot of good work.
2. Drink more water: I'd say an 8 out of 10 on this one.
3. Eat more veggies. I added spinach and brocc whenever I could, so I'll call this a win.

Weigh in this morning: 150.2. Down 1.2 pounds from two weeks ago, and down a lot post-VT weekend. Aiming to be under 150 next week.

Happy kitteh.

Goals for this week:
1. Focus on lifting heavy, doing more push ups and planks, and pull ups. I want sore muscles! (to a point. I would also like to be able to walk and move normally afterwards.)
2. Be in my calorie goal range each day. This is the week before our cruise (!!!), so I'm trying to be a little more strict with myself.

What workouts do you do at home? My buddy Kelsey posted about T25 a couple weeks ago. I've also heard awesome things about Insanity and P90x, etc, so I'm thinking of looking into those. Any other suggestions?

Shrimp Friend Rice

When I typed the title of this post, I accidentally put Shrimp Friend Rice and decided to leave it as is. Friend rice sounds really fantastic. So good-natured and agreeable!

Do it

Today I had a snow day (all hail the north east winter gods!) so cooking up a warm spicy dish to hibernate inside with sounded great to me. I took this recipe from Skinny Taste and decided to try it out with slightly more veggies and my own special spicy twist (spoiler alert: lots of sriracha. All the sriracha.) However, it meant bearing the elements and trekking out to the grocery store (AFTER I went to the gym, might I add. Holla!). Our grocery store parking lot is gigantic and usually I end up with a spot far, far away from the entrance because it's so crowded. Today there were about 4 cars there, total. Score. Got my scallions and shrimp and drove home without incident.

I've been trying to cook more often and try out new recipes recently. Why?

1. Because I like cooking, and I haven't been doing enough of it.
2. I'm not always super confident in my kitchen skills (I'm constantly asking things like, "Is it cooked enough? Did it come out okay? Do you like it? I think I put in too much x and not enough y. Do you hate it? Are you sure you don't hate it?" etc.), and cooking more often helps bolster that confidence a bit.
3. Cooking helps me slow down the process of eating, and lends itself to healthier eating. Fresh ingredients > lean cuisine meals.

How to make friendly shrimp fried rice:

Source

Changes: I used one egg white instead of two, because we only had two eggs left. I left out the fish sauce because that sounds gross to me, and I realized we didn't have sesame oil so I subbed in olive oil. I also threw in some spinach for good measure. And lots of sriracha at the end. I was actually going to put in more but I'm really glad I didn't. *sweat*

Pros: Appears edible! Cons: Fire mouth!

Things I learned:
1. Raw shrimp is kind of disgusting to work with.
2. So long as you measure out the right ratio, you can cook rice right in the water! No boil-in-bag!
3. Sriracha is spicy. (Already knew that. Today served as a solid reminder.)

Overall review: 7/10
This was a pretty decent dish. It's got lots of good protein and veggies, which is a plus in my book. Would I cook it again? Probably! I'd be more likely to if I was working with chicken or beef, though. Usually I'm a fan of shrimp but working with it raw and gray and translucent set me off from the beginning.

I'm going to try and do one recipe post a week, if only to force me to cook more. Any particular recipes you recommend? Let me know and maybe I'll try it out!

Vermont

This weekend, a group of friends and I went up to Vermont for a weekend getaway. Huge ridiculous log-cabin-mansion-place, beautiful country mountain views, a hot tub, and lots of good food and drink.

Our bedroom balcony and mountain view outside

Our dining room with vaulted ceilings and floor to ceiling windows.

Our dining room had a balcony. Not shown: the second, smaller balcony above this balcony. How many balconies does a dining room need to have? The answer is two.

It was awesome to just hang out away from real life for a couple days. And I got to see some old high school friends I hadn't seen in a long time. Win win!

Going into the weekend, I knew that there was going to be a lot of eating going on, and I was fine with that. I've been "on track" so to speak for a solid two+ weeks, so I wasn't too concerned about being a bit more lax for a couple days.

(Side note: I hate the word "cheating" when it comes to eating and diet. It has this weird, negative, secretive vibe to it. Sonya Cole's post from last year says it well: "The connotation is that choosing to eat something that is outside your day-to-day diet (and by diet I mean the food you eat, not a fad) you are doing something ‘bad’ which, no matter how much of a conscious decision you think you made to eat that food, by linking cheat to it will inevitably cause guilt, whether consciously or sub-consciously and that does not create a positive experience or association." Somewhat of a run-on sentence, but it gets the point across.)

I guess my general mantra going into the weekend was: enjoy yourself, don't stress out about it, don't eat like it's your last meal ever.

Cookie Monster Beast Mode activate in 3....2....

How did I do? I'd say pretty good, but not great. I definitely enjoyed myself, I didn't stress out about it, and I ate fairly okay - I put bacon on my grilled burger but didn't add a bun, I ate a few small cookies but stayed away from the gigantic ones, I stayed up and noshed on late-night chips and goldfish the first night, but went to bed somewhat early the next. Could I have been a lot more strict with myself? Sure, but then the first two parts of my mantra would have suffered. It's all in the balance.

When we got home on Sunday, we hosted a super bowl party. I had this short lived fantasy of going to the gym beforehand, steadfastedly refusing snacks, and eating celery or something like that. Yeah, no. Can we say.... pizza dip? Yeah. DELICIOUS. Worth it. Not to mention the guacamole, mac n cheese, pulled pork, and pizza, all home made.

GWERCERMERLER. PERLED PERK. MERC N CHERZZZZ

Weigh-in this morning: 155.0. I know for a fact I haven't gained a legitimate 4 pounds in one weekend, so this number is inflated due to salt/water weight I'm sure. I'm not going to put too much weight into it (ha! pun intended!), and we'll see where the number lies next week. If I can be back down around 152 next week, I'll be pretty pleased, despite that being a bit of a gain from last week.

Goals for this week:

1. Make my gym sessions count. I'm not able to get there tomorrow, which means I'll have had almost a full week off. UNACCEPTABLE! I'm going to up my cardio to 40 minutes, and do more weights, planks, etc. I'm planning on going Wednesday through Sunday. Beast mode.

2. Drink a lot of water and tea. I've been on a tea kick, and while I was in VT I bought some loose tea from this awesome hippy tea store.

3. Eat more vegetables. Something I definitely didn't get enough of this weekend.

Did anyone do anything fun for the weekend? What are your goals for this upcoming week?