Last night was really really fun. It didn't turn out the way it was supposed to but such is life. Malia called on Friday and said that she and Tyler wouldn't be able to celebrate St. Patty's Day with us because they were going to a friend's birthday/St. Patrick's Day party. She said she'd call on Saturday about seeing "300". She never did so we didn't go see the movie.
That's ok because I got in some good exercise and we ended up going with my parents to the big casino they always go to. I started off with a Tequila Sunrise and an Amaretto Sour. Amaretto Sours are my signature favorites. Then Jen gave me the tip of trying Capn and Diet Coke so I tried that. FELL IN LOVE WITH IT. Thank you Jen!!! It is now my new drink. It's really cheap on the WW points and tastes really good!
We had reservations at Black Angus but the men were too busy drinking beer and talking about Harleys that we ended up canceling and going to the casino buffet. Waited in line for almost an hour just to get in.
I hadn't been to a buffet since high school people!!! I think I handled it ok. I got a decent amount of grapes and corn, a little bit of creole shrimp and one pork potsticker. Dessert hurt me a bit. Had one small piece of cherry pie, a little bit of cherry cobbler, a piece of chocolate cake, soft serve vanilla ice cream and a chocolate brownie. Whoa, writing it down makes it look worse than it felt.
Stepped on the scale this morning and I'm down to 110.6 from a high of 113.6 for the week. Here's my issue with weighing in every day. When I see a number I am really happy with I make that an excuse to go out and eat something really unhealthy. This is something I am going to try hard to learn from and stop doing. Today, for instance, I am going to stay on plan and not binge like I have been doing in past weeks.
We probably won't be looking at condos today because we decided it is too early to get excited about anything. We can't move out of the apartment until August. For now it's just browsing. I don't want to see something I love and then become disappointed that I can't even put in a bid.
Instead we might go with his parents out shopping. Three out of the four of us love to shop and I'm hoping that Mike's mom can give me advice on getting a good coffee maker. Here's what I'm looking for at the moment:
1) Makes 1-4 cups - Since I'm the only one at home who likes coffee and don't want a single-cup maker.
2) Programmable - So it will be ready for me when I finish getting ready for work in the mornings.
3) Permanent filter - The kind that only needs to be replaced every year or two depending on how much you use it.
4) Pause and Serve - So when I'm feeling impatient I can just get one cup's worth while it's still in the middle of brewing.
5) Resonably Priced - Enough said? $40-75 maybe.
Hopefully all of this is possible to find! Next it's finding the right kind of coffee...
The weekend is almost here!!! That makes me so happy. It hasn't been a bad week at work but I'm PMSing like crazy and have been MIA due to my crazy head/hormones/body. This PMS thing has been a recent development over the past few months. I never used to really have any symptoms at all so now, one week a month, I become a crazy stressball over nothing. So this is the kind of pain so many women talk about.
Been OP all week and that is saying a lot. Tomorrow will be a challenge since we are going out to see "300" and then getting trashed at a bar in Tacoma for St. Patty's Day. I still have 25 flex points left for the week, though.
On Sunday Mike and I are going out with his parents to look at condos. I really hope we can find something reasonable!
This weekend was a little odd in a bad way. I went to see the comedian Zach Galifianakis with Mike, my sister Malia and her boyfriend Tyler. The four of us always have good times together so it was really good to see them. We met up at The Blarney Stone Pub in Seattle for dinner and drinks and then headed to the Moore Theatre for the show. The opening guy was ok but talked a lot about race. Zach Galifianakis was not nearly as funny as we've seen on TV. It's like he wasn't even trying. We left early and spent the rest of the evening at the bar. Overall my favorite part was that I didn't have to pay for any of my drinks or food. Sad!
I'm not much of an advocate for waiting until the beginning of the next week to have a fresh start because that usually promotes continuing the bad eating habits for the rest of the week. This week it's different and I am going to view Monday as a fresh start for me. This week I will do better.
Wow it's Thursday. That means tomorrow is Friday!!! We are going to see Zach Galifianakis on Saturday night in Seattle and I am very excited to get out and have some fun!
On the food front, I've had a little too much fun already. I ate a full meal at Wendy's on Monday and then last night the school's parent committee outdid themselves on serving us dinner at parent conferences. Think pizza, BBQ chicken, lots of sweets and a giant chocolate layer cake. They even served us and all of the parents coffee and cookies during the conferences. Talk about spoiled!
Tomorrow I'm celebrating my best friend Kat's birthday so there will be yummy food at her aunt's house. Then on Saturday we are all going out to dinner and the bar before the comedy show. Where? No idea.
Sometimes you just have to make your peace with the fact that you may be eating more than you should and move on. In my case it means being really good on the days without special plans, exercising more, drinking tons of water and knowing that next week will be better. Sure I could choose not to eat all these things but in the end it just hasn't worked out that way.
Today was the most BEAUTIFUL day in the world here in Washington! I woke up this morning in an unnaturally bad mood and was extra tired. I had been dreaming that my boyfriend and I were fighting and it didn't end well! In reality it's the opossite so that dream was odd and unsettling. This weather brings out such good feelings that it's hard to be unhappy.
Thank you all again for your continued support. What a wonderful beginning to the week! Tomorrow is parent conference night so it will be a straight 12 1/2 hour day. Get to school at 7am and leave at 7:30pm. I'm gonna be late for Idol!
Swimkatt, Shelley and I are on the EP homepage! After reading some of your comments on my blog, I went to the homepage to see what you all were talking about with this "poster child" thing. *lol* Whoa did I get a surprise when I saw the picture pop up! It had been planned but still. Kind of strange but cool at the same time.
It's been 2 weeks since the incident with my WW leader and I'm happy to say things are completely resolved between us.
I walked in there and stood in line and when it was my turn I walked up and mentioned that I hadn't seen her in a couple weeks. Then I set both the old and the new "Welcome to Your Meetings" booklets in front of her with the weight range pages bookmarked. I also had a printout from the website stating my healthy weight range. I had all my ammo ready to convince her that I was right and that I am healthy and strong, that I exercise 5 days a week, strength train my arms and eat nearly 30 points a day not to mention the 35 weekly allowance points.
Before I could even say anything she told me that she felt really bad and that she realized she had made a mistake. She told me she wanted to humble herself toward me because it was her fault. Well, I have to say that was nice to hear.
The scale read 110.0 and that also made me happy. I admitted to her that I feel the most comfortable and healthy right around this weight.
Today is Day 1 of the AP Challenge! I'm feeling accomplished today. Got in 3 AP's and also worked on biceps and triceps. I was looking up weight-lifting to see if I could scrounge up any AP's for the 20 minutes I put into it... But alas, I'd be lucky if I burned 50 calories. So I don't get any AP's for that. I just count AP's for the cardio that I do.
I'm feeling better today. The last few days I have been trying to go as long as I can without going grocery shopping for money purposes. I am spending way too much money all the time and need to be more frugal so I can get my credit card fully paid off. I was feeling yucky the past couple days because I ran out of nutritious foods like fruit and yogurt. I was down to light popcorn, light chips, granola bars and frozen meals. Wasn't feeling too great. Now that I've gone grocery shopping and have had my fill of fruit, calcium and fiber, I'm feeling so much better. It could just be a mental thing but it's having a positive physical effect.
During my trip to Fred Meyer I found a couple new items. They aren't too bad:
The first one is Fiber One Chewy Bars, Oats and Chocolate. I heard about them from Hungrygirl.com. They raved about how good they are. I have to say I agree! They are only 2 points, filled with fiber (9 grams in one bar!) and quite tasty. They have those itty bitty chocolate chips in them and are chewy like a Rice Crispies Treat. The large size is nice (1.4 oz/ 40g), too. You've gotta try them if you haven't already.
I also bought these Dannon Light & Fit "Crave Control" yogurts. They are only 4oz. and the flavor is Strawberries and Cereal. What appealed to me is that it had cereal in it and was only 1 point. They are just ok. The flavor is actually a little bitter and lacking in taste. The cereal doesn't add to it and you can hardly tell it's there. You can see the cereal but there's no texture or taste. I won't be buying them again but they aren't as bad as I'm making them sound. Just ok.
Yay for Friday!!! I'm going to relax this weekend. Chose not to exercise today because I let myself have 2 days off every week so I don't go crazy. The only downside to those days is that I don't get to eat as much. 15 points left and I will stick to that!
I have been off-plan for the past 3 weeks at least. Not just a little bit, either. It hasn't affected my weight by more than a couple pounds overall and that is pretty nice. It could become a bad thing if I continue to eat like this every week, though.
American Idol Off-Topic Moment (because I can): I was happy with the American Idol eliminations this week but at the same time so incredibly disappointed. I really really really want Sanjaya and Antonella to leave!!! Sanjaya is from my area but he has the least skills out of all of them and he knows it. No offense. Antonella is "The OC" in human form and her voice is in a different league from the rest. My boyfriend and I actually call her "The OC". People who vote her to stay on the program just want her there so they can look up more nasty pictures online. Ick ick ick.
I was glad to see that Serena is starting a new AP challenge on Sunday. I feel like I've been doing the very minimal, sometimes less. Often I pull off less than 15 AP's a week where WW suggests you aim for 28!
1 Activity Point = approximately 100 calories burned (for those of you who aren't familiar with Weight Watchers).
So that will be fun! Participating in a workout challenge motivates me to do more than usual and I would recommend it for anyone else who needs a little push.
Off-Topic: Anyone watching American Idol? Just curious. I love Blake (the beatboxer), Phil (tall bald guy), Laquisha (sp?) and Malinda Doolittle. Those two girls have seriously powerful voices and are naturals.
My friend PG69 suggested I write down my workout agenda in case anyone is curious. It has served me very well! The only complaint I have is that I'm not being very adventurous and doing different routines. I have done things the same for almost a year and yes, it gets boring. When I live someplace else I will look into DVD's because I'd love to stomp around the apartment with Tae-Bo and The Firm, etc.
Here's the current regimen (for maintenance):
5 days a week - 35 minutes of high-intensity cardio using an elliptical machine. I keep my heart rate around 165-175 most of the time and listen to my i-Pod. When a song is more fast-paced, I up the ante on the machine and work out to the beat. If it's too easy then I increase the resistance until it becomes more challenging. I like to keep myself challenged!
3 days a week - 15 minutes of dumbells for biceps and triceps. I have 3 different exercises that I do for triceps first. I do 12-16 reps of each exercise with 30-second rests in between. Then I do it again. After that I do 3 different exercises for biceps. Same thing. 12-16 reps of each exercise with 30-second rests in between. Then I do it again. That's it! I increase the weights as it gets too easy. The last few reps should become challenging or else it's getting too easy. I started with 3-pound weights but am ready for 9-10 pounds weights at this point.
For weight-loss I upped the cardio to 45 minutes, 6 days a week.
That's about it for me and exercise. Simple and can get boring but I stick with it because it works. I haven't plateaued with it even though I haven't changed the routine. I would like to change things up when the opportunity arises without seriously inconveniencing me. Right now this is what is available, is free at home and can easily be accessed.
I also added some new pics! Mike took them for me yesterday so I appreciate that he took the time and tolerated me while I went and changed outfits/accessories a bunch of times.
I ate a full meal at Wendy's on Monday and then last night the school's parent committee outdid themselves on serving us dinner at parent conferences. Think pizza, BBQ chicken, lots of sweets and a giant chocolate layer cake. They even served us and all of the parents coffee and cookies during the conferences. Talk about spoiled!
