Kari’s Blog

Big Congratulations going out to the Blue Violets this week for their win!  Great work ladies, you did a wonderful job and deserve all the credit in the world for dropping those pounds like a bad habit! :-)  Way to go!

As for my weigh-in, after my sluggish week last time, this week I saw a 2lb loss, so I am feeling great!!

I missed blogging yesterday because DF was on the computer all day looking for jobs.  He still has his job at the firm, but has been a bit discontented lately, so he’s starting to test the waters and see what else is out there.  I’m glad he is looking around, I want him to find something that will make him happiest, so I didn’t mind giving him use of the computer for the day!

I took yesterday off.  Completely.  I rested after my long, hilly run on Saturday, and I did not count calories at all.  I still ate healthfully, and in moderation - I just decided that Sundays will be my “break” day, so that I don’t feel like I am constantly in diet mode.   It’s actually a really great feeling to be at a point where I know I can take a day off and not go out of control.  I wasn’t even tempted to go “oooh, it’s my off day, I’m going to eat a pint of ben & jerry’s!!”.  I still want to be eating well, so I feel well and stay on track to my goal, but I just want to take my mind off every little calorie.  I felt in control and yet freed from my stringent plan that I stick to every other day of the week.  It was great!

Today I am going to take the dog for a run after work - it’s supposed to be sunny & beautiful, and I am SO thrilled that DST is here, so that it’s light enough in the evenings that I can do it and not be running in the dark.  Then I’m meeting a friend who’s visiting from out of town for a light dinner, to catch up on girl chat.   It’ll be good to see her, we only get together a couple of times a year since she moved away.

Have a great start to your week, buddies! 

Well buddies, you can see from my last blog that I am having a rough week!  I am lucky to have such smart & supportive friends here though.  You all truly came through with suggestions, ideas, and lots of support that showed me I need to keep going strong!  So I took two days off from exercise, am still drinking my water, and let myself eat a little above my calorie range the past couple of days to ‘confuse’ my body.  Tomorrow I am going on a loooooong run.  Partly to burn as many calories as possible prior to my weigh in on Sunday, and also partly just for a time of reflection.  I need the time with myself, pushing my body physically, to remind me that I take good care of it and that even if I see a gain this week, despite all my hard work, it is not the end of the world!

So thank you VERY much for all of your comments and ideas.  It is truly comforting to have you all on my side, rooting for me through the rough days and the good ones!

Teehee! So today I was standing in the lunchroom at work and a woman (a very skinny tall woman!) who I work with came up to me and said “Kari, every week I see you & you’re tinier then before.  It’s like you’re melting away!”  :D  That was a very nice compliment to receive!  I will note that I am wearing my “skinny” jeans today, and for the first time in a long time, there’s wiggle room in there - they’re definitely not skintight!  Yaaaaaay!  So with that positive reinforcement in mind, I have even more incentive to stay focused and get to my goal.

I tried a new kind of frozen lunch today, Kashi is now making frozen lunch entrees.  I found them in the health food section of my grocery store, near the boca burgers & stuff like that.  I only bought two because they were $4 each, which seemed a little steep, but I figured I would give them a try.  So here’s my review!

I had the “Pesto Pasta Primavera”, which is vegetarian.  It has whole wheat penne pasta, yellow carrots, red peppers & peas in a basil pesto sauce with paremsan cheese.  And it was Yummmmmmmy!  It’s about the same amount of calories as one of my normal Lean Cuisine or Healthy Choice entrees (290), but it’s a bigger portion - 10oz, vs. 8.5 in the Lean Cuisines.  It has 11g of protein & 7g of fiber, too!  I normally don’t care for whole wheat pasta, when I cook it at home it tastes kind of rubbery (I might just be cooking it wrong).  So I was skeptical about this, but it was sooooooooooooooooo delicious!  The pesto was really tasty & the pasta was actually tender & good!  I highly recommend giving the Kashi frozen thingies a try!  I probably won’t buy them for every day, due to the price, but maybe treat myself to one a week.

I have an intense strength training workout planned for tonight, I’m going to use my hand weights in front of the TV while I watch my Tivo’d episodes of “House” and “Lost”.  It’s what I call “active couch potato-ing”. ;-)  Have a great Thursday, buddies!

OK, I guess it wasn’t too much of an incident overall, but it cracked me up.  Here’s the story: 
I had plans to go out to dinner with a bunch of girlfriends last night.  We met at a local beer & burger joint.  I had eaten light breakfast & lunches so that I could order off the menu & be ok calorie wise.  But I still wanted something healthy, so I ordered a bean dip appetizer, which is basically just refried beans, salsa, and tortilla chips.  The chips are high cal, but I had lots of cals to spare so I was going to be alright. EVERYone else at the table ordered cheeseburgers & fries from the happy hour menu.  That didn’t even really sound that great to me…too greasy, ugh.  Anyhow, a little while after we placed our order, I get up to go to the restroom, and when I come back, everyone at the table has their food in front of them, except my place.  As I’m sitting down, one of my friends says “Oh, they came out & said they were out of chips so they couldn’t do the bean dip appetizer, so we just told them to make you a cheeseburger instead!!”  Umm….I probably would have changed my order to a salad or something, but at the point it was too late to change, and I got a greasy cheesy burger in front of me a few minutes later.  I minimized the damage by not eating the fries, and when I entered it into my tracker I was only about 150 calories over my target range.  And the burger wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t….great.   It wasn’t something I wanted to spend that many calories on - but what else could I do?  I was STARVING by that point, having had light meals earlier in the day, and I needed to eat SOMEthing. 

I guess the point of my blog is that no matter how hard we try, sometimes things are just out of our hands - like when your friends place your food order for you while you’re in the toilet!!! LOL    I’m not letting it get me down, it was a fairly minor “calorie overage” and I’ll work out extra minutes on the cardio machine today to burn it off.  It just made me laugh in a ‘comedy of errors’ sort of way - no matter how I tried, that burger was going to find me one way or another!  The Great Cheeseburger Incident of 2007 is now behind me though, and I’ll make sure that my friends know in the future, if they’re going to order for me, they should skip the greasy burger menu!

Today at lunch a co-worker & I decided to sneak out & get manicures at the salon up the street, and just for kicks I chose a bright springy shade of purple. :-)  Now my nail look like they’ve been painted with grape kool-aid!  Teehee!

Manicure hijinks aside, it’s been a good day!  I’m still on track with my calories & workouts.  This weekend will be a real test of my resolve - we’re going out to dinner tomorrow night, and I have weigh-in for my Hottie team on Sunday morning, so I reallllly need to be good and not bloat myself up Saturday night!!  Knowing that someone will actually be checking up on my Sunday weigh-in will keep me in check, though.  I’m also planning a nice long run tomorrow morning.  If it’s not raining, I’ll take the dog up to the trails and we’ll do our run there; otherwise a nice river path loop will do just fine! 

Have a great weekend everyone!

I’m having another great day!  Amazing how simple changes like getting the right foods and just moving the body can have such profound effects on mood & overall well being.  I love it!

Last night I had what I consider another “food victory”.  We went to the bowling alley to watch some friends of ours bowl in their league final, so of course I ate a very healthy & filling dinner before we headed out.  I had accounted for a glass of red wine in my daily calorie tracker, and figured I’d have a glass of the cheap stuff at the alley.  When we got there, someone had brought homemade sugar cookies and was sharing with all the teams.  Well, I might have turned down girl scout cookies yesterday, but homemade?  Worth it. :)  So instead of having a glass of wine, I had one cookie - yep, ONE! And I didn’t even want another one, because I savored the one I had and enjoyed every little crumb of it immensely.  When we got home I updated my food tracker and was still within all of my targets for the day.  I finished at 1350 calories which is right in the middle of my target range. AND I managed to keep my sodium under my target amount for the first time in about a week. 

When we make the right choices it’s so easy to see why we should be doing this.  It feels great!  I know it won’t always be so effortless, but just let me bask in the moment right now while I feel like I could stay on this train forever!  If it were always this easy, we’d be living in world full of size 4 women. :)  But I know what makes it work for me - my buddies who are here through thick & thin!!  So THANKS!!

I did it!  I got up this morning, leashed up the dog, and headed out into the cold rain for a 4.5 mile run.  It was pretty funny, the two friends who I met for the run also brought their dogs, so we were quite the little pack running along the waterfront trails!  Don’t mess with us, our dogs will lick you to death!

Yesterday was a VERY successful day - it is absolutely amazing how much difference it makes to have that Red Hottie weigh-in motivating me!  I stayed at the low end of my calorie range (about 1250), got in my 5 fruits & vegs, AND drank all my water!

But the biggest victory of all was this:  DF brough Girl Scout cookies home from the office with him and was so excited to share them. I was a little hungry late in the evening, and I thought about having a couple.  I looked a the nutrition info on the box (it was the peanut butter tagalong kind), and it said 150 calories for two cookies.  I thought about it…I could have eaten them and stayed within my calorie range for the day.  But then I actually said out loud, in the kitchen, while DF was standing there:  “150 calories for two little cookies.  Let’s see.  I spent 30 minutes on the elliptical today to burn 300 calories.  Am I willing to give up half of that effort, just to have two of these cookies?  Nope, I don’t think it’s worth it.”  And I put the box down!  Now I will admit, the tagalongs aren’t my absolute favorite GS cookies, so that made it easier.  If it had been a box of samoas I might have decided that it was worth the calories!!  But that’s the great thing about being aware of what’s going into my mouth - *I* decide, and if I’m going to have something that’s not valuable nutritionally, then I’m going to have the tastiest thing I can!! 

All in all, a very successful day.  And I know I will have a week full of days like that - I promised my hotties that I would!

I suppose I’m actually KARI-licious, but this is my theme song for the next week, to motivate my butt to the gym!!

I’m Fergalicious (so delicious)
My body stay vicious
I be up in the gym just working on my fitness

Last week I brought my gym back to the office THREE times, and found ‘reasons’ why I couldn’t go to the gym at lunch, etc.  I never did make it.  Today, however, for my Hotties, I went at lunch and did 30 min on the elliptical, crunches, & arm strengthening.  The “Fergalicious” song played on my iPod while I was on the elliptical and that verse about ‘working on my fitness’ made me laugh, so I am going to make sure I play it every time I work out this week!!

In addition to making it to the gym for the first time in a week (gulp!), I have been tracking my calories all day and I am on track to finish at right around 1200 - the low end of my range!  Booyah!

AND, I really wanted to go for a run tomorrow morning before work, but I knew that I’ve been having trouble motivating to get up and do it.  So I sent an email to a few friends to see if anyone would meet me for a 6:30 run - and TWO people are now meeting me at the waterfront for a run.  Now I have to go - I’m meeting them!  And I KNOW I’ll get up for that.
So what can I say - it’s been a great day, it felt awesome to be back at the gym, and I am well on my way to adding a nice loss to my Red Hotties total for the week!  I am SO Fergalicious it’s just out of control!!

Keep rockin’, my hotties!

There has never been any history in my family of split personalities, to my knowledge, but I’m starting to think that I’m the first one!

During the week I am so good, and it seems so easy! I stay on track, lose the lbs, exercise daily, feel great about how I”m doing.  Then the weekend comes and BAM.  Even if I exercise, my food selections just go to heck in a handbasket.  I rationalized last weekend away for the Superbowl, and this weekend it was our valentine’s getaway - I was horrible!  Sweets, pizza, wine, chocolates…you name it! 

I get into these weird “non-thinking” modes on weekends.  Actually, I admit it, there is a thought process and it goes like this. “Oh, I’ve been so good all week, I’ve already lost a couple of pounds, surely if I have pizza/a milkshake/some candy/(insert whatever I want to put into my mouth here) today, it might put me back a little but it can’t TOTALLY erase all the work I’ve done. 
And true…if I selected ONE of those things, I’m sure I’d be fine.  But the past two weekends I’ve had that mental conversation with myself numerous times, and having TEN treats does much more damage than ONE!

So here are the ups & downs for the weekend.  I’m going to start with the down, and keep it short, then end with the GOOD stuff

Downside of the weekend: I ate VERY poorly.  No need to list it all out, but rest assured, I just picked what I wanted without regard for calories, nutrition, how I would feel later, etc, and by Sunday evening I had a stomachache from all the junk I’d consumed.  I MUST gain control of this, and soon, if I’m going to reach my goals this year.

UPsides:  Well there are two.  First - I have abs!!!  Sure, you thought everyone had abs, but let me tell you - I’ve never been able to SEE mine.  After a year of core work, and melting off a few pounds since December, I can SEE my ab definition!! It’s minor, and it’s not like I”m a bodybuilder or anything, but it’s THERE and dangit, it looks good!  I can’t remember the last time I looked in the mirror and SMILED about my belly.
Second - the weekend that DF & I spent together was absolutely wonderful.  Honestly the best relaxation time we’ve had together in just ages.  We started off with massages on Monday morning, then drove around in Forest Grove to four different wineries for complimentary tastings. The scenery was beautiful, the wine was great, (we bought a couple of cases…teehee), and we had a great time just chatting in the car between places, etc.  It was like being on a date again. :)  When we got back to the lodge, we went to the heated soaking pool and sat there for an hour.  It was raining and it was really neat to be all warm under the water while the cool rain fell on our faces. After a quick shower, we had dinner at the lodge restaurant, then listened to an alt-country-irish-punkish band play for a couple of hours before hitting the sack.  Sunday morning we had breakfast, drove home, and spent the day catching up on our Tivo’d shows.  It was VERY nice!

Tomorrow I will weigh-in and see how my weekend frivolity translates onto the scale.  Accountability, here I come…..*shudder*

Buddies, let me tell you, yesterday was not me at my finest.  It seemed that every phone call I got at work was someone crabbing at me, talking over my explanations, and just being generally rude!  I’m sure it didn’t help that I was PMS’ing and my emotions weren’t entirely in my control, so holding my tongue on all the things I WANTED to say to these people was difficult. 
Because of my busy day, I wasn’t able to sneak away for the 2-hour lunch I had planned to get to the gym.  So I was feeling lame & disappointed about that.  Then after work I was heading to a basketball game with DF & friends, but since I worked later than expected, I had to go straight to the arena and wasn’t able to stop at home to eat the healthy tuna & cheese sandwich I had been looking forward to all day.  So then I was doubly bummed - missed out on my workout AND my good dinner, arrrgh!  By them time I got to the game I was feeling like I should just go home because I wasn’t in the mood to have an evening out.
I knew I needed to eat to keep myself balanced, but even with the day going so poorly, I found that I could not let myself give in and eat greasy game-day food!!  I knew that would just make me feel worse!  So I drug DF all around the arena until we found one single “deli” food stand, ordered a plain pretzel, a turkey wrap, and water, and felt pretty darn proud of myself.  The pretzel was delicious but the turkey wrap was disgusting - it tasted like wet foam wrapped in cardboard.  Ugh.  So I only got down half of it.  Then I was even MORE upset that I had tried so hard to be healthy and wound up with a disgusting, gross sandwich.
At this point, I somehow took a mental assessment of my situation.  I stepped back and realized that *I* was making my evening miserable.  I could either continue to feel like sh*t the rest of the night, or find an attitude adjustment within myself and turn things around.  Up until that point I had really thought that the evening was a total loss.  The realization that the power was within ME to make it different was huge!!  Well after that I flagged down a vendor and bought myself a bag of cotton candy.  Eating sticky fluff with my fingers always makes me feel better. :)  Believe it or not the stuff had “nutrition facts” on the bag and the whole bad was only 100 calories (pure sugar, of course), and I only had half of it, so it wasn’t a huge splurge.  Things were starting to look up.  Sugar puts me in a good mood (let’s not even GO down the reasons for this emotional eating symptom, lol), so I felt better.
At halftime, DF brought me back a glass of cheap red wine, which also happens to put me in a good mood, and soon I was cheering and screaming for the team and had forgotten that I’d even had a negative thought the whole day!  My enthusiasm CLEARLY spurred the team on, because we’d been down by around 2-6 points from the very beginning of the game, but in the 4th quarter we took an early lead and maintained it all the way through - to win the game!!!  Look at the power my positive thinking had!  I personally pushed an NBA team on to victory!! 

Anyway, this is a long blog, but last night was a big eye opener for me.  Even when I was feeling low, I was ingrained enough in my healthy habits to push through and not dismiss my eating plans altogether.  And I discovered the strength to put myself in a good mood - a REAL, authentic one - not just a ‘happy face’ that I put on to get through the evening.  It was an awesome feeling and I wanted to share it with all of you!  I hope I can remember it the next time obstacles are in my path - to push them out of the way & move forward a healthier & happier person!

Oh yeah - and GO BLAZERS!!!