Kari’s Blog

Today I got up early and met a group of friends downtown to run our local St. Patty’s Day tradition, the “Shamrock Run”.  We did the 8k, which is just about 5 miles, and the weather was great for our run.   Overcast & 60 degrees, no rain.  Perfect! 

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The group I ran with were women form our newly formed Portland Metro Girls on the Run chapter.  Girls on the Run is this fantastic program for 4th, 5th, & 6th grade girls that teaches them fitness, nutrition & self-confidence skills through training for a 5k run together.  For 12 weeks we meet twice a week with the girls, have a topic to discuss, and go for a run.  It’s a national program but this is the first chapter in Oregon and we just got approved, so we’re very excited about it!  We talked to a lot of people about it today and there’s a lot of support, so I know we’re going to impact the lives of lots of young ladies!

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My DF is making a chicken pot pie soup in the crock pot today, and it is making our house smell wonderful right now!!  It’s going to be a hearty dinner later.  He used low-fat Cream of Chicken soup, low-sodium chicken broth, and lots of veggies - peas, corn, carrots, potatoes, and onions.    And chicken breasts of course!  I can’t wait for dinner now.

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One final thought - great job this week, Blues Clues - but to my Hotties -

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WAY TO GO!!

This morning I went for an early run and tried a different loop around the city to mix things up.  I didn’t measure it beforehand, but I used g-maps when I got home and it came up a little over 4 miles.  That’s a good distance, and I took it easy because I’m also running our local St. Patty’s Day fun-run tomorrow morning, and that’s a 5 miler.  Don’t worry, my hotties - I will get up early, weigh-in & send my results off before I run, so you’ll be able to count on me towards our HUGE loss that will blow the Blues out of the water!

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We’re heading out of the house in about 10 minutes to go to a birthday celebration, and my promise to myself and to all my buddies is that I will NOT be having any cake at this.  My DF’s family is hilarious at these things - they always buy a huge cake for birthdays, but they’re all really healthy eaters and no one has very much, and they wind up throwing a lot of it out.  I think they should just start buying big fruit & veggie platters to put candles in!

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That’s all for now - enjoy your weekends!

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.

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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!

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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.

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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!

Yes, here it is, another blog title inspired by a song I heard on my ipod while working out.  I’m bringing sexy BACK, baby, booyah!

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Today my office is having a mandatory ‘fun event’ - they’re taking us to a happy hour at a local mexican restaurant.  Luckily for me, I have lots of great, healthy food at home that I am just dying to eat!  So I will skip the chips & salsa, and just wait until I get home to enjoy my boca burger & salsa!

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I went to the gym over lunch today and did 5 miles on the dreadmill.  I did 1.5 miles of it at an incline, so hopefully that brought the calorie burn up a teensy-tiny bit!  Even forced myself to stretch out afterwards (I’ve been really bad about this lately and I can notice it…my flexibility is suffering).  I now have three of my five cardio workouts for the week completed - woohoo!

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Oooh, and I talked to the bridal shop where I ordered my dress, and they said they will have it no later than April 15th!!!  I’ve already made appointments to meet with the woman who is doing my alterations in late April, so I need to get down to my “good weight” before then!  If I can stay on track the way I have been lately, I CAN accomplish it!!

I have to say it - I think I’m on a roll this time!  I haven’t been tempted to cheat myself by choosing bad foods in the evenings, weekends, etc, and I’m truly feeling the difference in my health already.

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In the past it’s been so easy for me to say “Oh, it’s just impossible to eat right and still go out & have fun at restaurants, bars, etc.”  But it’s no impossible, it’s just a challenge that once you face it, you can smack down onto its behind!  It’s amazing the awareness you have of what’s going into your body when you start tracking it in detail and being disciplined about writing down every little thing.  For me, one big difference has been how much I plan ahead.  Like today I’m going into a long meeting that will have a working lunch session, and I found out they’re going to order pizzas & salad for lunch.  So I had a light breakfast, and I’m going to eat an apple before I go into the meeting.  If there’s a relatively good pizza choice (cheese, veggie), I might have a piece, otherwise it’ll just be a plate full o’ salad.  Thinking about that in advance instead of dealing with it on the spot really helps me control things!

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Yesterday was another GORGEOUS one in Portland, and it was light enough when I got home around 4pm so that I could take the dog for a run around the river.  We went about 4 miles, and it was soooo nice & warm!  I can’t wait for summer so I can start doing my early morning runs, and have the sun be out for those!

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I also made the decision this week to save the money I’ve been spending on going to a personal trainer.  Our schedules weren’t working out very well (we had to keep cancelling on each other anyway), and I need every penny I can save for the wedding between now & July, so I think this will be good.  I have a set of dumbell weights at home and I’m going to work them into my strength routines in the evenings.  I made a committment to my hotties to do at least three strength sessions this week, and I have no intention of letting them down, so you KNOW I’ll come through on that promise!

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. 

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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!

The blue team had a fantastic week - THIRTY SEVEN POUNDS lost in one week - WOW!  Congrats Blues Clues for all your hard work and your victory this week!  We Red Hotties are on the prowl now though - we’ll be giving you a run for your money come next week!!! 

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CONGRATS and GREAT JOB, BLUES!

Amazing what a little focus & dedication can get you!  I am down FOUR pounds from last Sunday - whoohoo!  This probably has something to do with TOM coming & going, but also a lot to do with all my hard work & planning!

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I was thinking of taking the dog for another run this morning, but DF decided he wanted to go for a long brisk walk, which sounds like a lot of fun.  So we’re going to head up to the trails and do four or five miles of hiking with the dog instead.  Still a great workout, anad we get to spend some time together in the outdoors while there’s a break in the rain!

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I’m going to make some ginger chicken breasts in the crock pot later and use a few of those for lunches this week - I love my Lean Cuisines but every once in a while I need a break from frozen foods, y’know?  It’s a new recipe I’m trying, so hopefully it will come out tasty & delicious!

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Happy Sunday, everyone!

I don’t want to jinx anything, but I did SO well at our dinner out tonight - I’m actually excited to weigh-in tomorrow morning! 

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Knowing that we’d be going out to dinner tonight, I did a good five mile run this morning, and ate a light breakfast and a light snack in place of lunch.  I was staaarving by the time we were ready to leave for dinner!!

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I did some online research before we left the house to figure out what were the smartest choices at a greek restaurant, and the clear winner was the kabobs - comes with veggies, and nothing fried or drenched in oil on them.  So when we got there, I ordered turkey kabobs with veggies & rice - it was deeeelish!   DF got an appetizer of ’saganaka’ - it’s a plate of cheese that they drench with ouzo, then they light the ouzo on fire and as it burns off it melts the cheese, then you drizzle lemon juice on it and spread it on bread.  Normally DF & I would split a plate of it - this time I had two small pieces of bread with a thin spread of cheese.  DF ate the rest and I think he’s paying for it this evening - he STILL feels full! :-)  I was satisfied when we left the restaurant, but not at all stuffed - just perfect.   I logged all my food into sparkpeople based on the nutrition info I’d found online, and altogether - voila!  I was still within my range!! 

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I also focused a lot on getting in all my water today, since the food we were going to have at dinner was salty. 

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Buddies, I did EVERYthing in my power to make this weekend day a success - and I think it was.  Fingers crossed for a SUPER weigh-in tomorrow!!!

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!

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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! 

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Have a great weekend everyone!