The Last Supper

Did I really eat my final dinner for January 2011?  Wasn't it just NYE?  January 31, 2011 - My final meal:   Seafood gumbo with whole wheat pasta.  Okra, Tomatoes, Shrimp, Crab.  Gotta love to-go gumbo from my mother. :)

January was an interesting month eating-wise.  I spent the majority detoxing from holiday cookies and Funyuns, only to discover how fun it is to stay in on a Friday night with Netflix endless movie streaming and a box of Duncan Hines yellow cake mix.    End results:   Cupcake Party Binge.  Moist, Delicious and so much more. Did I mention I had a cupcake after I finished my gumbo?  Someone send me to cupcake rehab, please.

During the month of January I baked 48 cupcakes -- 24 yellow cake, 24 Devil's Food.  That's intervention behavior, unless you bake for a living or are preparing for a birthday party.  It's also more cupcakes than I've EVER baked in my lifetime.   The reason for all the cupcakes:  no reason at all.  Not owning a microwave and not having cable is forcing me to explore my inner-cook.  I guess Spokeo is correct that one of my hobbies is "Cooking".  Creepy.

I think I got it out of my systems.    Cupcakes were shared -- at work, at a Bears-Packer football viewing shin dig and with family.  Why cupcakes?  I don't know.   Not only are they fun to eat but they are amazingly fun to bake.  No wonder there are cupcake specialty shops popping up everywhere - and cupcake Groupons monthly.  But why pay the mega bucks at a fancy bakery, when you can make two dozen at home for under $5?  Speaking of, there's a cupcake shop opening TWO BLOCKS from my apt.  Luckily it's not open yet, but opening an establishment in such close proximity of me is like dangling a stuffed toy mouse full of catnip in front of a cat.  I'm bound to cling to it and bite its' face off.

I don't want to know how many of those 48 cupcakes I devoured.  If it were all nice and sunny outside I could go for a post-cupcake stroll, but the downside of living in Chicago during January is that it means I walk less.  The cold gives me an "excuse" to take public transit, even if it's just one stop.  This eliminates my 15ish min roundtrip daily walk from my train stop to work.  The cold also makes me feel like not going outside ever, which means I'm using my gym less and just moving less, in general.

15 mins doesn't sound like a huge deal but when I multiply it by the 5 days each week I miss out it turns into 75 mins of missed walking a week, which turns into around 300 mins/month.  That means by taking the train one stop for the convenience of being let out right in front of my office, I rob myself of 5 hours of calorie-burning activity monthly.   I did the math as I rode down the elevator from my desk to my building's lobby today, and decided to walk one-way to catch my train.  The cold wasn't as harsh as I imagined, but it still wasn't as cozy as the one-stop train ride.  I think my new rule is, unless there's a blizzard a brewing, below zero temps, I'm sick or there's really bad snow or ice, I NEED to face the elements and walk myself at least one way to beef up my weekly moving activity.

Speaking of blizzards, I hear there's an blizzard headed toward Chicago tomm...does that give me a good enough excuse to take the El one stop?

January 2011 eating highlights:

Ok this wasn't all that good of a lunch choice with the fried papas fritas and catsup --
but I want to point out that I only got HALF a sandwich.
Yeah portion control!

Caesar Chicken wrap --- so yummy!

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February goals:

EXERCISE:  250 mins/week -- Flirty Girl Fitness (I have a Groupon!!), Gym treadmill & elliptical, Slim in 6 DVD, Tuesday Balance & Flexibility Class, workday walks to and/or from my office

FOOD:  Water, water, water.   Veggies, Veggies, Veggies.  Fruit, fruit, fruit.  Protein shakes.

SLEEP:  Less late night Netflix, more early zzzzzzzzzzzs

POUNDS:  Lose 5-7.

QUOTE TO EMBRACE:  God gives every bird a worm, but he does not throw it into the nest. - Swedish Proverb




Off to do a Slim in 6 DVD workout...

Black Friday

It's the day after Thanksgiving and I find myself super full from yesterday's yummy dinner of southern cooking:  Collard Greens, Yams, Baked Macaroni and Cheese, Turkey, Ham, Garden Salad, Gravy, Stuffing.  Dessert of chocolate cake, red velvet cake and banana pudding.  It was the works.  A solid five meals worth of food.  Trying to get back on track today with lotsa fiber, fruit and veggies.

Brunch:  Garden salad with Italian dressing, 4 cubes of pepperjack cheese and tomatoes. Butternut Squash soup & a cornbread muffin.

Snack for later: a banana.

True Blood Diet

I love love love True Blood.  It's amazing.  I was there for season one.  I was there for season two.  And now, in season 3, unfortunately I'm a no show because I don't have access to HBO at the moment.  Regardless, I still watch show snippets via Hulu.com, got super excited by news of the True Blood comic book, follow up the actors/actresses lives and cannot wait until Season 3 is on DVD!  Recently, fitness trainer Josh Hillis wrote of Anna Paquin, aka Sookie on True Blood, and her "Bikini ready" diet via his Fat Loss & Fitness Blog. Read it here.  Anna says her diet is simply a, ""Well-what-would-you-eat-if-you-were-being-photographed-in-a-bikini-tomorrow?" diet... I mean, it's not anything wildly specific. I eat a lot of vegetables. I eat a lot fruit. I don't eat fast food ever. I don't eat a lot of dessert. I don't eat a lot of crap." I guess that means she and I don't share a love for M&M McFlurries from McDonald's.

The Summertime Salad at Egg Harbor in Lombard, IL:
Lotsa fruits, greens, avocado and lean chicken salad

How Sookie inspired me
So today, when I went out for my first "going out to a restaurant meal" for September, I decided to try her "diet" and I pretended like I was going to be photographed in a bikini tomorrow (false).  At the restaurant, I looked over the menu and really really wanted the Mexican egg scramble with chorizo and sour cream and chedda.  So not a "bikini ready" meal...unless I wanted to look like Britney Spears circa 2008, or whenever Britney did her infamous performance of "Gimme More" on MTV.  Instead, I opted for a lighter Tomato soup & Summertime Salad combo.  It felt real good to eat that fresh goodness.  It was tasty and would make Anna proud.   Since she has done me good so far today, I will also think of her tonight as I power thru my Turbo Jam one-hour workout at the gym...thinking of her in a non-creepy way, in the same way it's not creepy to be married to a man who plays a vampire on tv...opposite of you.

Other healthy things I've eaten over the past month that would probably make Anna proud:

Breakfast of zuccini & egg scramble, veggie snausage and a little bit of french bread with oj

Baked chicken with a lil bit of BBQ sauce, corn on the cob, green beans and low fat Jimbalaya

Veggie soup from Icosium Kafe in Chicago.

A Veggie Crepe from Icosium Kafe, garnished with fruit and sunflower seeds.

Baked chicken, green beans with tri-colored peppers and corn on the cob
(ok this one is a throw back from July 2010 but was still pretty fresh and healthy)

Fully-cooked & salted Edamame from Trader Joe's.  Super protein/fiber snack!

Blackberries.  The blacker the berry...

More Sookie-licious meals to come this September, fo sho.

Why I don't need an iPod

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Quote of the Day:  Act like a horse. Be dumb. Just run. -Jumbo Elliot, Track and Field Coach

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"The Feel Better Soup & Sandwich Meal That's Cheaper than Panera" 

My throat was feeling itchy on Sunday night so I decided to make a feel better meal.  It must've worked because I woke up Monday morning feeling peachy.  Ingredients: A mix of food from Trader Joe's and Dominick's.  Soup = TJ's Low Sodium Creamy Tomato boxed soup (yum).  Sandwich = toasted TJ's Tuscan Pane bread with munster and American cheese, TJ's Sun-dried Roma tomatoes in olive oil, fresh tomatoes, lettuce, Miracle Whip and TJ's Spicy Mustard.  Drink = Water.  Vitamins = C and D.  Holy heaven in my mouth.

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Why I don't need an iPod
Move over Apple, there's a new fruit in town

I'm obsessed with my Blackberry Curve.  If there was a way I could take a picture of my Curve with my Curve and post the picture on this blog, I'd do it but let's not get too crazy.  I'll just settle for the stock photo.
The Blackberry Curve is truly the best fruit-named phone I've tried, and this morning, while completing a quick run outside, I fell in love all over again when in the Blackberry App World catalogue I discovered the App called iMapMyRun. This tool tracks runs by average speed, mileage, time, current speed and is pretty much like a treadmill electronic display without the incline control.  


Alright.  Calm down you Apple iPhone freaks.  I know your kind also has the same App but personally, I don't like the iPhone.  I find Apple iPhone users snobby.  Clearly, Blackberry users are superior.  After all, the blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice, and I happen to have a black Blackberry.  

So this morning, while I was running with the App on, and my Pussycat Dolls Pandora station, I couldn't help but smile.  Maybe it was because I said "hello" to half a dozen mamas standing with their Catholic-school-uniform-wearing kiddies at the school bus stop while songs like Buttons blared through my headphones and it seemed all too appropriate.  Or maybe it was because Crackberries really do have a crack-like effect on users.

Regardless, I didn't always love the berry.  My first Blackberry was the Pearl and was purchased from eBay, naturally.  It proved to be horrid.  It blocked my incoming text messages.  Sometimes it wouldn't let me pick up calls or show the icon that let me know I had 8 new voicemails waiting to be heard.  Sometimes I'd see a friend, and they'd ask why I didn't return a call.  And I'd say,  "You didn't call."  And they'd say, "Yes I did".  And then I'd tap into my voicemail, and of course I'd have half a dozen new messages from yester year.  And worst of all, the Pearl froze a lot.   The only thing it was good for was Brickbreaker. 


So, when it was time to get a new phone, I swore up and down that I would get anything but another Blackberry.  That was until a Sprint store associate told me if I traded in my Pearl I would get a FREE new & improved Blackberry Curve, no questions asked.  That's when I said sayonara to my Pearl faster than a speeding Toyota, and embraced the new Curve the same way one embraces a new addition to the Taco Bell value menu: I just didn't know if it would be good but I thought I'd give it a chance.

It's been four months, and so far so good.  I use my Curve constantly.  I text.  I play Brickbreaker, Word Scramble and Texas Hold 'Em.  I listen to Pandora radio via my Curve at the gym, in my car and at home.  I watch YouTube videos.  I utilitze the GPS capabilities.  I add reminder memos, events to my calender and update Facebook statuses.  It's the only camera I own.  It's my alarm clock.  And, sometimes I even use the darn thing as a phone.

Salmon to the rescue

Today I didn't have much of an appetite. Maybe because I didn't have to go to work and slept in sorta late. I snacked on some Walnuts before my afternoon class of Turbo Kick and then had a Grilled Salmon Salad for dinner. 

Simple Gilled Salmon Salad recipe: Season 4 oz raw Salmon with seafood seasoning, pepper and salt, throw it on the George Foreman.   Grab a plate and throw on a few handfuls of Ready Made Salad and chopped Cherry Tomatoes.   Add the grilled salmon while it's still hot.  Sprinkle a tablespoon of thousand island dressing over the salad.  Total Calories:  Approx. 335

Shrimp Salad & 120-calorie Patriotic Dessert

120 calorie dessert 
(Ingredients: 1 Shortcake shell, 10 blueberries, two strawberries,
& 2.5 Tablespoons Whipped Topping)

It's Friday!  Hooray for the end of the work week.
The week in review: 

• 3 workouts (soon to be 4)
• 2 meals at Chipotle
• Avoiding Dunkin Donut's 99 cent Happy Hours...how this is possible, I have no idea.
• 1 fabulous job interview
• Vacuuming the inside of my car for the first time in...ever
• 1 trip to McDonalds, but in my defense I ate a chicken sandwich. And french fries.
• 3 protein meal replacement shakes.  

It's been a week of food ups/downs. Yesterday I gave into a meal at McDonald's.  I convinced myself I earned it, after coming from a good job interview.   I also decided that the trip was a one time thing for this week, and not the best use of my money, and probably won't help me lose weight, but I ate it anyways.  I'd already had my fill of one dead cow for the week, took care of that on Monday, so I knew the Big 'N Tasty I was eying was out of the question.    I chose the Chicken Classic meal with a strawberry banana shake.  It cost me close to $9 but was so worth it.   And after I ate it, I told myself I'd get it together for the rest of the day.  I know Th was my "take the day off from working out" day so I needed to eat less fatty/less calorie food for the rest of the day. And that's when my family found a buy-one-get-one coupon for Chipotle. And a Chicken burrito bowl sounded so perfect so I ate half of my "free" bowl, put the other half in the fridge to save for today and I decided that would be the end to my fast food spree for the week.

In my weight loss journey, I've learned how important consistently eating right is for a diet. If you fall off the wagon, even for a second, or in my case a full day, you gotta get back on that wagon before it gets too outta control, speeds away from you down the road and you lose sight of it. Sometimes I recover from my fall within hours.  Sometimes I fail miserably and forget the wagon exists at all.

Luckily today was a successful day. I started off the day with a protein meal replacement shake.  Then that other half of  leftover chicken burrito bowl from Chipotle.  Drank some wheat grass.   Followed up with a shrimp salad complete with fresh green peppers, tomatoes and poppyseed dressing.   Followed by a Patriot Dessert - only 120 cals.

This week has also been a good workout week so far.  I've met my goal of working out a min. of 3 times/week by working out three days in a row on M, Tu, W.  I took Th off and, today, while cleaning/doing laundry/answering emails/getting work done I put on my 10-pound ankle weights for a few hours and I'm doing a Julian Michael's DVD (either the Shred or Yoga) for workout #4 in a lil bit.  Here's to keeping it together on Sat/Sunday.   It's the freakin' weekend, baby.