Monday, August 20, 2012
I owe this blog an update!
Running out the door right now, but I'm posting this promise to come back tonight and update!
THIS GIRL LOOKS AMAZING! Getting Healthy in 2012: Photographic Evidence
Getting Healthy in 2012: Photographic Evidence: In case you want to see PHOTOGRAPHIC EVIDENCE of my weight loss, here ya go. (CLICK TO ENLARGE PHOTOS TO READ DATES) Look how swo...
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Day 5: How it Went
Can I just say right here right now:
This is the day that everything changed!
Now let me tell you why! I woke up late and rushed out to my daily doctors appointment, making it in one minute before they closed. Once I left the doctors I started to head up to Target to get a pair of sneakers so I could go to the gym that day. It was then that I had a thought. I remembered a sign posted in my JC Centre saying that they $199 Body Media armband was now selling for $89. I had one $100 bill in my pocket I was going to use to buy sneakers but I knew if I didn't buy that armband that minute, I wasn't going to have another chance to buy. That one hundred dollar bill in my pocket was a billing mistake the doctors office had made and a refund I had received. It wasn't often I had $100 to do with as I pleased. I knew I couldn't go to the gym until I got sneakers, not just because I didn't want to work out in flip flops but because the gym doesn't allow it, but my mother had offered to buy me a pair so I could get moving. I weighed out my options and decided it was definitely in my best interest to go buy the armband.
I'm very fortunate that my JC Centre is less than a two minute drive from my home its probably only three miles from my house, up the street left at the light and into the shopping center. Not so fortunate is that the JC Centre is directly next door to a Subway. Every time I head in JC I get hit with the smell of all those fresh baked breads and cookies! I'm using this as more motivation to get my butt through the JC door!
I have to say everyone in my Centre is so kind and so sweet. The ladies that were working that day I had not met yet but were so nice and very helpful. I had asked about my account number not working to log into the JC site as a member yet (not even going to get started on that thorn in my side) and they did their best to help me and then I asked about the armband. They raved about it! As has everyone on the site. At this point I really didn't know much about what the band did, but I knew that people had said it totally changed their program, catapulting them in the best way possible.
So I bought the band and headed home, fixing my lunch meal as I began playing with the band. I plugged it in and charged it up, downloaded all the software and kind of figured things out, at least as much as I understood at that point. I was still playing around with it when my mother came home from work. She said to give her a few moments to lay down and then we'd head to the gym - she'd stopped and picked me up sneakers on her way home. How incredible is this woman??? So, I change into my gym clothes, grab my water bottle, phone and ear buds and off we go to the gym!
Did I mention that my gym is located directly beneath my Jenny Craig Center? On the other side of that Subway door is the door leading to the staircase that leads downstairs to my Exercise Nation gym! No excuses for me lol.
So we head into the gym and pick out a couple treadmills and begin our workout. Now a few years back when I was going to the gym three times a day and was bunch lighter I used to hit that gym and knock out three miles on that treadmill like it was nothing. I knew that I wouldn't be able to do that again but I was going to do my best. My best was hard to do however because the shoes my mother had bought me were itching like crazy! I swear they felt like someone had dumped itching powder into them. My mother and I got to laughing as we walked I kept trying to scratch my feet while on the treadmill. My mother headed off to do some weight training and I stayed on the treadmill trying to get an hour in before I'd hop over to the elliptical. My mother however, who no longer needs to lose weight but has lost all the muscle sin her legs from being so ill, needed to leave after about an hour so we did.
I have to say it felt awesome to get back into the gym and I could not wait to sync my arm band and see how I had done. That was the first thing I did when I got home, as well as download the Body Media app onto my phone so I could see whenever I wanted how much work I had done. While we ate dinner I explained to my mother how it worked and what it tracked.
It was after dinner and after desert that I was thinking about my numbers and thinking about what the JC Centre worker had told me when she sold it to me. She said that it was so nice to be able to see your numbers. The night before she did not feel like going on a walk, and wouldn't have, if she hadn't been able to look at her monitor and see that she hadn't reached her goal amount of steps for the day yet, it was because she was able to look and see that she got up and went for a three mile hike.
I had obviously not met my steps for the day as I had just but the band on around 7pm. But still, I felt like I could do more. That and it was so nice outside, in the mid seventies. It was the perfect weather to take a walk. I decided that was exactly what I was going to do. I grabbed my phone and ear buds and water bottle. This time however I wore my flip flops. I knew that the bottoms of my feet would start to hurt walking in these shoes but I'd rather have the bottoms hurt for an hour than get blisters and itchy feet from the too big sneakers I'd worn to the gym. I didn't have a planned route or any idea how long or how far I was going to walk. I had thought about walking away from my house until my phone died, as it was almost dead, then I'd turn around and come back.
Instead, I walked away from house and straight down the road that I live off of. Its a straight shot for a long ways until the road ends at a court. I figured I'd walk until I reached the court, walk the circle in the court and then head back. I had no idea how far it was but I did know it had three really big hills on it that would push me going both ways.
It ended up taking me an hour and forty five minutes to reach the court and turn around and get home. I honestly wasn't sure I was going to make it at one point, but my music was still going on and one of my favorite songs to work out to randomly came out right when I was about to crack. The first lyric in the song being:
This is the day that everything changed!
Now let me tell you why! I woke up late and rushed out to my daily doctors appointment, making it in one minute before they closed. Once I left the doctors I started to head up to Target to get a pair of sneakers so I could go to the gym that day. It was then that I had a thought. I remembered a sign posted in my JC Centre saying that they $199 Body Media armband was now selling for $89. I had one $100 bill in my pocket I was going to use to buy sneakers but I knew if I didn't buy that armband that minute, I wasn't going to have another chance to buy. That one hundred dollar bill in my pocket was a billing mistake the doctors office had made and a refund I had received. It wasn't often I had $100 to do with as I pleased. I knew I couldn't go to the gym until I got sneakers, not just because I didn't want to work out in flip flops but because the gym doesn't allow it, but my mother had offered to buy me a pair so I could get moving. I weighed out my options and decided it was definitely in my best interest to go buy the armband.
I'm very fortunate that my JC Centre is less than a two minute drive from my home its probably only three miles from my house, up the street left at the light and into the shopping center. Not so fortunate is that the JC Centre is directly next door to a Subway. Every time I head in JC I get hit with the smell of all those fresh baked breads and cookies! I'm using this as more motivation to get my butt through the JC door!
I have to say everyone in my Centre is so kind and so sweet. The ladies that were working that day I had not met yet but were so nice and very helpful. I had asked about my account number not working to log into the JC site as a member yet (not even going to get started on that thorn in my side) and they did their best to help me and then I asked about the armband. They raved about it! As has everyone on the site. At this point I really didn't know much about what the band did, but I knew that people had said it totally changed their program, catapulting them in the best way possible.
So I bought the band and headed home, fixing my lunch meal as I began playing with the band. I plugged it in and charged it up, downloaded all the software and kind of figured things out, at least as much as I understood at that point. I was still playing around with it when my mother came home from work. She said to give her a few moments to lay down and then we'd head to the gym - she'd stopped and picked me up sneakers on her way home. How incredible is this woman??? So, I change into my gym clothes, grab my water bottle, phone and ear buds and off we go to the gym!
Did I mention that my gym is located directly beneath my Jenny Craig Center? On the other side of that Subway door is the door leading to the staircase that leads downstairs to my Exercise Nation gym! No excuses for me lol.
So we head into the gym and pick out a couple treadmills and begin our workout. Now a few years back when I was going to the gym three times a day and was bunch lighter I used to hit that gym and knock out three miles on that treadmill like it was nothing. I knew that I wouldn't be able to do that again but I was going to do my best. My best was hard to do however because the shoes my mother had bought me were itching like crazy! I swear they felt like someone had dumped itching powder into them. My mother and I got to laughing as we walked I kept trying to scratch my feet while on the treadmill. My mother headed off to do some weight training and I stayed on the treadmill trying to get an hour in before I'd hop over to the elliptical. My mother however, who no longer needs to lose weight but has lost all the muscle sin her legs from being so ill, needed to leave after about an hour so we did.
I have to say it felt awesome to get back into the gym and I could not wait to sync my arm band and see how I had done. That was the first thing I did when I got home, as well as download the Body Media app onto my phone so I could see whenever I wanted how much work I had done. While we ate dinner I explained to my mother how it worked and what it tracked.
It was after dinner and after desert that I was thinking about my numbers and thinking about what the JC Centre worker had told me when she sold it to me. She said that it was so nice to be able to see your numbers. The night before she did not feel like going on a walk, and wouldn't have, if she hadn't been able to look at her monitor and see that she hadn't reached her goal amount of steps for the day yet, it was because she was able to look and see that she got up and went for a three mile hike.
I had obviously not met my steps for the day as I had just but the band on around 7pm. But still, I felt like I could do more. That and it was so nice outside, in the mid seventies. It was the perfect weather to take a walk. I decided that was exactly what I was going to do. I grabbed my phone and ear buds and water bottle. This time however I wore my flip flops. I knew that the bottoms of my feet would start to hurt walking in these shoes but I'd rather have the bottoms hurt for an hour than get blisters and itchy feet from the too big sneakers I'd worn to the gym. I didn't have a planned route or any idea how long or how far I was going to walk. I had thought about walking away from my house until my phone died, as it was almost dead, then I'd turn around and come back.
Instead, I walked away from house and straight down the road that I live off of. Its a straight shot for a long ways until the road ends at a court. I figured I'd walk until I reached the court, walk the circle in the court and then head back. I had no idea how far it was but I did know it had three really big hills on it that would push me going both ways.
It ended up taking me an hour and forty five minutes to reach the court and turn around and get home. I honestly wasn't sure I was going to make it at one point, but my music was still going on and one of my favorite songs to work out to randomly came out right when I was about to crack. The first lyric in the song being:
So sick, so sick of being tired, and oh so tired of being sick!
It was the perfect thing to hear at that exact moment and motivated me to keep going. I was tired of being sick and sick of being tired and I was changing it. Right then. Right there. I huffed and puffed but I kept going, even when the bottoms of my feet were burning and my ice water was warm. I just kept going because there was nothing else for me to do!
Once I got home I felt so incredible. I felt so accomplished and achieved and rewarded. I synced up my arm band and could not believe the numbers! I had a 3,458 caloric deficit. I had done 2:01 of moderate activity, 31 minutes over my goal for my intended weight loss. I had done 11 minutes of vigorous activity which was four minutes short of my goal. This doesn't disappoint me because I busted my ass and at my current weight, I did the best that I could. I also took 11,063 steps. When I had left the house for this walk I had taken just over 3300. These numbers also weren't totally accurate because I had been walking about a half an hour past midnight and once I hit that hour everything began logging for the following day. So these numbers were actually even better than what I've posted!
I'm really proud of myself for doing so good tonight and I cannot wait to do it all again tomorrow! It feels a million times better to go on a long walk when I'm feeling depressed about my daughter and daughters father than it feels to just go to sleep. Breathing hard and singing really loud along to my ear buds not caring who heard me, felt amazing. Sleeping all day just made me feel sloth like and sick. I cannot wait to do it all over again!
* I drove my car along my walking route to see exactly how far I walked, it was exactly 2 miles in each direction down to the tenth of a mile. Four miles!
* I drove my car along my walking route to see exactly how far I walked, it was exactly 2 miles in each direction down to the tenth of a mile. Four miles!
Day 5: Meals
Breakfast
Oatmeal Breakfast Square
1 Fruit
1 Cup Nonfat Milk
3/4 Cup Low-Fat Cottage Cheese
I woke up Monday morning running very late to my daily doctors appointment. I grabbed my breakfast square and ran out the door and got into the office one minute before closing. I did not have time to eat anything for breakfast other than that bar. That bar was similar to the cheese curls in the sense that the first few bites were not the best but it really grew on me. By the time I finished I was liking it. It was heavy and very oat mealy (go figure!) and filling. I liked it!
Morning Snack
Anytime Bar*
1 Fruit
*I'm going to stop typing the same thing everyday, to see reviews of this bar go back to any other day in week one! :)
I didn't eat my fruit... again.
Lunch
Scheduled:
Salad Kit
Jenny Dressing
Garden Salad
Actually ates
Cheesy Potatoes and Chicken
As I mentioned yesterday I somehow got my lunch meals mixed up for days four and five. So I ate (or rather didn't eat) my salad kit yesterday and so today I ate what I had been scheduled to eat the day before, the cheesy potato and chicken meal. This meal was awesome. It was a bowl, pot pie like, with chicken and cheese and potatoes with peas and corn. It reminded me very much of a dish my mother used to make when I was a child that I called oven salad. I has an actual name but I can't remember what it is. Its a casserole dish with meat and onions on the bottom, peas and mashed potatoes on top. This meal tasted very similar, it was comfort food and though the chicken was fried which I'm not crazy about, it tasted awesome with everything else.
Afternoon Snack
1 Fruit
2 Tbl Almonds
Totally skipped this entire snack. I need to get back on track big time.
Dinner
Thai Style Curry
Vegetables (minimum 2 cups)
1 Healthy Fat
Added:
3 Wheat Crackers
1 Laughing Cow Wedge
I saw someone post on the JC forums that this Thai Curry was the worst of the JC meals. They said it was the last thing in the world they would ever eat again! lol I happen to be a fan of curry. I used to frequent a little Indonesian restaurant in my hometown that had the most amazing curry tofu. I was introduced to it by friends and I think that it is probably an acquired taste. If you don't like curry you aren't going to like this meal at all, as it has a lot of curry flavor in it.
So let me say, for what it is, its good. It taste like your typical Thai curry meal. Not the most seasoned of all things but nothing disappointing about it.
I had this meal with three wheat crackers and a wedge of Laughing Cow Lite Garlic & Herb cheese spread.
Evening Snack
Cake
1 Cup Nonfat Milk
Added:
3 Wheat Crackers
1 Laughing Cow Wedge
I did have my little cakes for desert, the two little chocolate cakes and though they were a bit dry the chocolate taste was incredible and the icing was perfectly sweet. I was definitely happy with this desert. I was also many calories short for the day so I also had another three crackers and another wedge of Laughing Cow cheese.
Oatmeal Breakfast Square
1 Fruit
1 Cup Nonfat Milk
3/4 Cup Low-Fat Cottage Cheese
I woke up Monday morning running very late to my daily doctors appointment. I grabbed my breakfast square and ran out the door and got into the office one minute before closing. I did not have time to eat anything for breakfast other than that bar. That bar was similar to the cheese curls in the sense that the first few bites were not the best but it really grew on me. By the time I finished I was liking it. It was heavy and very oat mealy (go figure!) and filling. I liked it!
Morning Snack
Anytime Bar*
1 Fruit
*I'm going to stop typing the same thing everyday, to see reviews of this bar go back to any other day in week one! :)
I didn't eat my fruit... again.
Lunch
Scheduled:
Salad Kit
Jenny Dressing
Garden Salad
Actually ates
Cheesy Potatoes and Chicken
As I mentioned yesterday I somehow got my lunch meals mixed up for days four and five. So I ate (or rather didn't eat) my salad kit yesterday and so today I ate what I had been scheduled to eat the day before, the cheesy potato and chicken meal. This meal was awesome. It was a bowl, pot pie like, with chicken and cheese and potatoes with peas and corn. It reminded me very much of a dish my mother used to make when I was a child that I called oven salad. I has an actual name but I can't remember what it is. Its a casserole dish with meat and onions on the bottom, peas and mashed potatoes on top. This meal tasted very similar, it was comfort food and though the chicken was fried which I'm not crazy about, it tasted awesome with everything else.
Afternoon Snack
1 Fruit
2 Tbl Almonds
Totally skipped this entire snack. I need to get back on track big time.
Dinner
Thai Style Curry
Vegetables (minimum 2 cups)
1 Healthy Fat
Added:
3 Wheat Crackers
1 Laughing Cow Wedge
I saw someone post on the JC forums that this Thai Curry was the worst of the JC meals. They said it was the last thing in the world they would ever eat again! lol I happen to be a fan of curry. I used to frequent a little Indonesian restaurant in my hometown that had the most amazing curry tofu. I was introduced to it by friends and I think that it is probably an acquired taste. If you don't like curry you aren't going to like this meal at all, as it has a lot of curry flavor in it.
So let me say, for what it is, its good. It taste like your typical Thai curry meal. Not the most seasoned of all things but nothing disappointing about it.
I had this meal with three wheat crackers and a wedge of Laughing Cow Lite Garlic & Herb cheese spread.
Evening Snack
Cake
1 Cup Nonfat Milk
Added:
3 Wheat Crackers
1 Laughing Cow Wedge
I did have my little cakes for desert, the two little chocolate cakes and though they were a bit dry the chocolate taste was incredible and the icing was perfectly sweet. I was definitely happy with this desert. I was also many calories short for the day so I also had another three crackers and another wedge of Laughing Cow cheese.
Day 4: How it Went
Sunday was a slow and sad day for me. I woke up early to drive my daughter to her father's house. The worst days of my week are the days I have to take her to his house for the following four nights. When I don't have my daughter I am a different person. I am fully capable of sleeping for hours on end all day and again all night. I fall into serious depressions when she's gone. Its also because he's gone. This is only the beginning of the second week of her father and I.... I'm not sure if I should say we've broken up. We were really going through a hard time and fighting a lot. We've been together five years and have been through more than I am willing to share on this blog. We are best friends and very much in love and too much alike. Things really got intense for a while and I told him that we needed to take some time apart. Now we've "broken up" in the past but never broken up. Don't get me wrong we aren't one of those couples who breaks up ten times a year, not by any means. However on the one or two occasions we've gotten so mad or so sad or just so tired of stressing certain things, we've said we were breaking up. However we always remained spending every second of every day together, calling each other pet names, texting when we weren't together, until a day or so later and the break up never happened.
This time is different. This is the first time in five years we haven't at the absolute least seen each other every day. In five years there has not been one day, and that is not an exaggeration. Ninety percent of those days we spend ninety percent of together. We even took vacations with each others family's so I really do mean we spent every day together. However since the Sunday before I started JC, we've only seen each other to drop off the baby to each other or that one day he popped in to drop off breakfast.
I'm not used to it. I love him with all of my heart and soul, I do have his name tattooed on my neck and I do know that we are going to be okay. I just really feel like right now, as hard a decision as it is to make, we need to focus on ourselves. When I'm with him I am so taken with him and so focused on him I can never take care of myself. I don't have the time or energy to desire to take care of myself I just want to take care of him. We are both very , very codependent and in the most unhealthy of ways. I just need to get myself together. I need to. For whatever reason, right now, I can't do that and be so involved in his day to day life as I used to be. I don't see us going on like this for a long time, this not seeing each other or talking to each other at all thing. Just right now, in the beginning, this is how it needs to be. I need to get my weight under control. I need to get my health under control. I need to my ass back to school next semester.
Its sad though. I love him more than I can convey with all the words in all the languages, but I love him enough to let him go for the time being, to better ourselves for our daughter, for our family, in the future. I love him enough to love myself. But I miss him like freaking crazy. So on the days that my daughter is with him, when I don't have him and I don't have her, I get pretty down. Its easy to sleep all day and I'm trying really hard to not let myself fall under that funk.
My mother knows how depressed I get when my daughter isn't here so she went ahead and rejoined our old gym on Sunday evening. Once upon a time that was my favorite place to be. I used to go in at least once a day and some days three times a day. It's a 24/7 gym so I would often get up and go first thing in the morning, then once more when my mother got home from work so we could go together and then on nights that I couldn't sleep, I would get up and go spend an hour in the gym. My mother and I became major gym rats. Even heading up to the gym during an incredible blizzard and were shocked and pissed to find out the gum was closed! What the hell?! Its just four feet of snowing and showing no signs of stopping!! This was also during the time that I had lost all that weight in all those unhealthy ways.
I do love the gym, in shape or otherwise, and being able to go to the gym when my daughter is gone is the perfect escape. Instead of falling into major depressions and going to sleep, I can do the opposite and go to the gym and work all that depression right out of my skin.
I would have liked to have gone to the gym Sunday night but I had promised I'd take my mother grocery shopping since I'd gotten paid and she got home so late from work that by the time we got done shopping it was ten at night. I also didn't have sneakers and still had to go and buy some. We decided to skip the gym for the day and get started on Monday.
Not so surprising, I didn't have a hard time falling asleep Sunday night. Heh...
This time is different. This is the first time in five years we haven't at the absolute least seen each other every day. In five years there has not been one day, and that is not an exaggeration. Ninety percent of those days we spend ninety percent of together. We even took vacations with each others family's so I really do mean we spent every day together. However since the Sunday before I started JC, we've only seen each other to drop off the baby to each other or that one day he popped in to drop off breakfast.
I'm not used to it. I love him with all of my heart and soul, I do have his name tattooed on my neck and I do know that we are going to be okay. I just really feel like right now, as hard a decision as it is to make, we need to focus on ourselves. When I'm with him I am so taken with him and so focused on him I can never take care of myself. I don't have the time or energy to desire to take care of myself I just want to take care of him. We are both very , very codependent and in the most unhealthy of ways. I just need to get myself together. I need to. For whatever reason, right now, I can't do that and be so involved in his day to day life as I used to be. I don't see us going on like this for a long time, this not seeing each other or talking to each other at all thing. Just right now, in the beginning, this is how it needs to be. I need to get my weight under control. I need to get my health under control. I need to my ass back to school next semester.
Its sad though. I love him more than I can convey with all the words in all the languages, but I love him enough to let him go for the time being, to better ourselves for our daughter, for our family, in the future. I love him enough to love myself. But I miss him like freaking crazy. So on the days that my daughter is with him, when I don't have him and I don't have her, I get pretty down. Its easy to sleep all day and I'm trying really hard to not let myself fall under that funk.
My mother knows how depressed I get when my daughter isn't here so she went ahead and rejoined our old gym on Sunday evening. Once upon a time that was my favorite place to be. I used to go in at least once a day and some days three times a day. It's a 24/7 gym so I would often get up and go first thing in the morning, then once more when my mother got home from work so we could go together and then on nights that I couldn't sleep, I would get up and go spend an hour in the gym. My mother and I became major gym rats. Even heading up to the gym during an incredible blizzard and were shocked and pissed to find out the gum was closed! What the hell?! Its just four feet of snowing and showing no signs of stopping!! This was also during the time that I had lost all that weight in all those unhealthy ways.
I do love the gym, in shape or otherwise, and being able to go to the gym when my daughter is gone is the perfect escape. Instead of falling into major depressions and going to sleep, I can do the opposite and go to the gym and work all that depression right out of my skin.
I would have liked to have gone to the gym Sunday night but I had promised I'd take my mother grocery shopping since I'd gotten paid and she got home so late from work that by the time we got done shopping it was ten at night. I also didn't have sneakers and still had to go and buy some. We decided to skip the gym for the day and get started on Monday.
Not so surprising, I didn't have a hard time falling asleep Sunday night. Heh...
Day 4: Meals
Breakfast
Cranberry Almond Cereal
1 Fruit
1 cup Nonfat Milk
1/2 Cup Low-fat Cottage Cheese
I am in general a fan of any kind of granola cereal or cereal like the Special K cereals. I was expecting to like this cereal in spite of the almonds which I'm not a fan of. I was right. The cranberries were awesome and again the small packaging was deceiving as I did get a fair amount. I didn't get my fruit or cottage cheese substitute in.
Morning Snack
Anytime Bar
1 Fruit
I was expecting to be getting sick of the chocolate and peanut butter anytime bar by this point but it still taste good and keeps me going until my next meal. Again, no fruit.
Lunch
Scheduled:
Cheesy Potatoes & Chicken
Spinach Salad
Jenny Dressing
Actually ate:
Salad Kit
I'm not quite sure how this happened, I think I was just looking at the wrong day on my menu, but I mistakenly thought that my lunch for this day was written as the Salad Kit, which for me this week was the Tuna Salad kit. Now, I do not eat mayonnaise. I do not like to look at, smell, touch or be anywhere near mayonnaise. I just find it absolutely revolting. However, this is JC tuna salad so I thought that there was a fair chance it wasn't going to have mayo in it ;) and I figured I'd try a bite.
Did not like it - at all. Too sweet and just weird and bad. This of course is not a fair judge on the salad kit because as I am, I don't like tuna salad. Therefore asking me to judge JC's tuna salad is not fair. I was just willing to take a bite and taste it. No good.
So I subbed out a regular can of lite Tuna and ate it on the provided salad kit crackers. Was very delicious. I did not have a salad with this meal. :( I'm not doing so good on my sides today huh?
Afternoon Snack
Cheese Curls
Okay so, these cheese curls - really strange! I recently read someones posts on the JC forums and they had been talking about different JC meals that come with cheese on them. She referred to the cheese as "scary cheese". This term came directly to mind when taking my first taste of the JC cheese curls. They did not taste good. In fact they tasted weird and bad. But here's where it gets weird, I kept eating them because I was already doing so bad on eating my sides that I figured I needed these calories. As I ate them however, they went from tasting nasty to tasting not that bad - not good - but not that bad. I ate some more and they almost tasted kind of okay. By the time I finished the bag I wanted more! They tasted so good!
I don't know if JC is like doping the food or something lol but it was the strangest thing. There was no doubt in my mind that these cheese curls were the nastiest thing on the JC menu when I ate my first one and there was no doubt in my mind as I took my last bite that I could have eaten another three bags they were so good!
I'm really not sure what to make of this...
Dinner
Meat Loaf with BBQ Sauce
Vegetables (minimum 1 1/2 cups)
1 Healthy Fat
I fixed this meat loaf, potatoes and carrots and broccoli in the microwave and then once again popped everything into the toaster oven. I know I keep saying this same thing over and over again, but the toaster oven made all the difference! It made the meat loaf taste more home made and the potatoes crispy and the veggies tasted like they were roasted with the BBQ sauce! Amazing! Totally a different meal than the mush that came out of the microwave. Everything was Delicious! This isn't my favorite JC meal but its up there pretty high on the list. The loaf tasted home made and had a really awesome flavor to it. The potatoes as I said were nice and crispy and the veggies were almost the best thing in the dish after I popped them in the oven. The mixture of BBQ sauce and the toaster oven crisping them made them taste like home made straight from the grill veggies. You can't beat that! Once again, I didn't eat my veggies. :( I fixed them, broccoli and carrots but I just couldn't eat anymore.
Evening Snack
2 Fruits
6 oz Nonfat Yogurt
2 Tbl Almonds
Nada. I had non of it. Really slacking off here. :(
Cranberry Almond Cereal
1 Fruit
1 cup Nonfat Milk
1/2 Cup Low-fat Cottage Cheese
I am in general a fan of any kind of granola cereal or cereal like the Special K cereals. I was expecting to like this cereal in spite of the almonds which I'm not a fan of. I was right. The cranberries were awesome and again the small packaging was deceiving as I did get a fair amount. I didn't get my fruit or cottage cheese substitute in.
Morning Snack
Anytime Bar
1 Fruit
I was expecting to be getting sick of the chocolate and peanut butter anytime bar by this point but it still taste good and keeps me going until my next meal. Again, no fruit.
Lunch
Scheduled:
Cheesy Potatoes & Chicken
Spinach Salad
Jenny Dressing
Actually ate:
Salad Kit
I'm not quite sure how this happened, I think I was just looking at the wrong day on my menu, but I mistakenly thought that my lunch for this day was written as the Salad Kit, which for me this week was the Tuna Salad kit. Now, I do not eat mayonnaise. I do not like to look at, smell, touch or be anywhere near mayonnaise. I just find it absolutely revolting. However, this is JC tuna salad so I thought that there was a fair chance it wasn't going to have mayo in it ;) and I figured I'd try a bite.
Did not like it - at all. Too sweet and just weird and bad. This of course is not a fair judge on the salad kit because as I am, I don't like tuna salad. Therefore asking me to judge JC's tuna salad is not fair. I was just willing to take a bite and taste it. No good.
So I subbed out a regular can of lite Tuna and ate it on the provided salad kit crackers. Was very delicious. I did not have a salad with this meal. :( I'm not doing so good on my sides today huh?
Afternoon Snack
Cheese Curls
Okay so, these cheese curls - really strange! I recently read someones posts on the JC forums and they had been talking about different JC meals that come with cheese on them. She referred to the cheese as "scary cheese". This term came directly to mind when taking my first taste of the JC cheese curls. They did not taste good. In fact they tasted weird and bad. But here's where it gets weird, I kept eating them because I was already doing so bad on eating my sides that I figured I needed these calories. As I ate them however, they went from tasting nasty to tasting not that bad - not good - but not that bad. I ate some more and they almost tasted kind of okay. By the time I finished the bag I wanted more! They tasted so good!
I don't know if JC is like doping the food or something lol but it was the strangest thing. There was no doubt in my mind that these cheese curls were the nastiest thing on the JC menu when I ate my first one and there was no doubt in my mind as I took my last bite that I could have eaten another three bags they were so good!
I'm really not sure what to make of this...
Dinner
Meat Loaf with BBQ Sauce
Vegetables (minimum 1 1/2 cups)
1 Healthy Fat
I fixed this meat loaf, potatoes and carrots and broccoli in the microwave and then once again popped everything into the toaster oven. I know I keep saying this same thing over and over again, but the toaster oven made all the difference! It made the meat loaf taste more home made and the potatoes crispy and the veggies tasted like they were roasted with the BBQ sauce! Amazing! Totally a different meal than the mush that came out of the microwave. Everything was Delicious! This isn't my favorite JC meal but its up there pretty high on the list. The loaf tasted home made and had a really awesome flavor to it. The potatoes as I said were nice and crispy and the veggies were almost the best thing in the dish after I popped them in the oven. The mixture of BBQ sauce and the toaster oven crisping them made them taste like home made straight from the grill veggies. You can't beat that! Once again, I didn't eat my veggies. :( I fixed them, broccoli and carrots but I just couldn't eat anymore.
Evening Snack
2 Fruits
6 oz Nonfat Yogurt
2 Tbl Almonds
Nada. I had non of it. Really slacking off here. :(
Day 3: How it Went
So, my day 3 fell on a Saturday. Not just any Saturday, but the last of my four days with my daughter before she would go to her fathers for four days. Saturday would also be the first of these four days that my mother would not have to work a full day and she wanted to do something more than just sit around the house or go to the local parks or reservoirs. So, she decided that we should go to the zoo. There is a zoo in Baltimore, but its costly to get in and not as nice as the free Washington D.C. zoo. So the plan was to go to the D.C. zoo. My mother worked a few hours early in the morning to knock that out of the way and I got up early and went to my daily doctors appointment and when we all met back up at the house we began to get ready for our trip. I thought about my meals and looked at my menu and it worked out that I didn't have a frozen meal on the menu for that day's lunch. I had the room temperature Rotini on the menu for that day. Perfect! I wasn't sure exactly where I was going to cook it and I imagined worst case scenario I could eat it as is, but I'm weird about food. I needed it cooked or I would imagine that it was raw and I'd think I was sick and it would be a huge dramatic bunch of nonsense! ;) So I packed these meal into a bag and threw some water bottles and bagged veggies into a cooler with ice and myself, my daughter, my mother and stepfather loaded into my mothers 300 and began the trip.
Now let me tell you how this trip is supposed to go. Its about an hours drive from our home in Baltimore to the Washington D.C. zoo, which does have its own parking lot. So the plan was to hop in the car, drive to the zoo, park in the lot which lets you off right in the middle of the zoo and enjoy our day. Simple enough right? I wish.
The drive to the zoo seemed to take
forever. Having to stop at the local mall to pick up my contacts before
we even got on the beltway didn't help. Once on the road my daughter
suddenly began crying hysterically with her fingers in her mouth. Her
doctor told us a day or so before she had four teeth coming in the back
so we knew why she was crying, but we hadn't brought the Children's
Tylenol! I forgot it! So we had to make another stop at a grocery store
and get her some Tylenol. Fortunately, she loves her med med. Although
she's at the age where she doesn't want to call it med med, she wants to
call it medicine cos she's a big girl! It also happened that day was
the day she turned 16 months old!
Here is where things start to go really wrong.
We get into D.C. and we get to the zoo and the freaking parking lot is
closed! CLOSED! How are you going to close the national zoo's parking
lot on a Saturday afternoon in the summer? So, we drove around for a
while looking for a place to park but all the streets around the area
were two hour parking unless you had a residential pass and this part of
D.C. is strict on towing. We considered parking here but just
loading everything up and walking back to the zoo would take more than
twenty minutes. Two hours just was not going to cut it.
Now everyone is cranky, my daughter in
particular as she hasn't had a nap yet. The plan was for her to sleep in
the car on the ride to the zoo but you try to get a 16 month old to
follow a schedule and a plan! So as we're circling around and around I
see the metro stop. I suggest we ride back out into the suburbs of D.C.
which are in Maryland and park at one of the metro stops out there and
ride the subway in. Everyone agrees this is probably going to be the
best idea. So, my stepfather, who lived in the area for years and still
works in the area, headed out to the closest metro stop with parking.
However, once we get there, my daughter is asleep and she's been asleep
for about three minutes. I'm not going to wake her up. Not only has she
not napped yet, and not only is she teething and in pain, she also has a
large red welt on her leg where she got her shots and its sore. My baby
is in a lot of pain and just uncomfortable so there is no way I'm going
to wake her up now that she's finally been able to fall asleep.
Right about now everyone is agitated
and grouchy and I say I have no problem with heading home, but I
remember that this is the only full day my mother is going to have with
my daughter and she wanted to do something with her so we really should
try to make this work. I ask where the next metro stop is and my
stepfather says there is one about twenty minutes out in Bethesda
Maryland. Its headed in the direction of home and it has a large parking
lot. If we ride out there it will give my daughter some time to get a
nap in. That's what we decide to do. However on the way I realize I need
to eat but still don't know where or how I'm going to heat it up. My
mother suggests a 711 but my stepfather has no idea where one is so we
pull up to the first gas station we see. My god send of a mother goes in
and tells the clerk she needs to heat up a meal for her granddaughter
and the guy says its okay so we manage to get the food cooked! This is
about the only thing that goes right!
The ride takes about twenty five
minutes and once we get there we find out the parking is free on the
weekend which starts to put everyone in better moods. We load the
coolers into the stroller and wake up my daughter. She is a different
child at this point. She is rested and the Tylenol has kicked in and
eased if not totally alleviated all her pains. She is the happy smiling
angel she usually is. This of course puts everyone back into their happy
places. That is until we get up to the train platform and see the
gigantic signs posted everywhere:
NO SOUTHBOUND RUNNING TRAINS
FREE SHUTTLE BUSES
Seriously???
As if this should-have-taken-one-hour-but-has-taken-two-hour trip
hasn't already worn all of our patience thin. A man in a bright yellow
vest must see our faces. He asks us where we're going and explains that
they are working on the tracks on the next three stops heading south.
We'll have to take the free shuttle bus which is an express bus to the
next metro stop where we can get on and get to the zoo. We head to the
shuttle bus and climb aboard. First they tell us we have to break the
stroller down but when the driver sees all the coolers and diaper bag
in the back he kindly tells us not to worry about it just climb on.
We are frustrated but its also my
daughters first bus trip and she is loving it! She's sitting on my
mothers lap, well sitting and standing, and her eyes are darting out the
window and then to me and back. She has one of her fingers in her mouth
and a sly smile on her face. We all begin to laugh when we realize what
she must be thinking. She sees the bus is moving and she's not
strapped into her car seat. She thinks she's getting away with
something! She loves the bus ride! She's laughing the entire time and
looking out the window and calling to me to sit on my lap. I take her
and she's so happy she starts dancing for no apparent reason. Everyone
(about ten people) on the bus laughs.
We reach our stop and unload the bus
thanking the driver as we do. Now we're at the metro stop. We
instinctively head towards the escalators, not looking for an elevator
yet though we did find them later thank goodness, and head down. Before we can purchase tickets however I need to
find a bathroom. I've been guzzling water since I woke up and just
cannot wait until we reach the zoo. The metro stop we are at is
connected to an indoor shopping plaza. So we head in for whats supposed
to be a two minute stop. Those two minutes turns into almost twenty when
my mother stops in McDonald's to get the baby some apple slices and a
diet coke for herself. Then we're leaving and I realize I need to buy a
bottle of non frozen water to melt my frozen bottles so we turn around
again.
Finally, we make it to the train. Only after of course, my stepfather doesn't remember how to find your fare and purchase your ticket. Yes he used to live and work in D.C., but he always had a car. I on the other hand used to spend a lot of time in D.C. and still knew how to work the whole system but my stepfather would not accept my help. Men. Once on the train everyone is smiling again as its my daughters first train ride and she loves looking out the windows at the lights flashing by. We're starting to feel better even though its taken another hour to get to where we are. We reach our stop and begin walking towards the zoo, its about a three quarter of a mile walk to the entrance which though I wasn't planning on this exercise, I'm happy to have it thrown in front of me.
Finally we reach the zoo and guess
what? Yup, you guessed it: the parking lot is open! I'm not even going
to address this with a comment because it's going to set me off.
We stopped at the entrance to take pictures of my daughter sitting on top of the gigantic ZOO sign in front of the entrance and head on in excited to see some animals! After taking more than three hours to get there, after planes, trains and automobiles, after everyone being grouchy and aggravated and short tempered, after promising the baby we were getting out of the car in two minutes for an hour straight - we finally get to see some animals! Finally this day is going to get good right? Wrong. We saw almost nothing. Half of the zoo was under construction. The other half of the zoo, none of the animals were in their pens. I don't know if it was feeding time or if because it was after three in the afternoon and so hot they had retreated to indoor environments. I don't know. I know that my mother was upset which made me very upset.
We
saw one leopard who was eighty percent hidden by a bush and too far out
of sight for my daughter see; one small red panda the size of a house
cat; some otters which my daughter really did enjoy; the indoor panda
exhibit; the indoor ape exhibit; and two ponies. Horses are my daughters
favorite animal however and she did not want to leave these two
"horsies". She was amazed and it was adorable.
So the zoo was crowded and hot. It had
taken us three hours to get there. Everything was under construction.
None of the animals were around. We walked all through the zoo for about
an hour. My mother had been so excited for my daughter to see
elephants, tigers, lions, zebras, giraffes and other large animals and
we didn't see any of them. I felt so bad that my mother was so let down
after such a long day. Such a long day and we still had to make the hour
long trip back to the car!
After an hour in the zoo my mother
decides its time to go. I agree with her. We're both exhausted and
upset. My daughter has refused to ride in the stroller the entire day so
one of us has carried her and one of us has pushed the heavy stroller
with two diapers and a diaper bag in it. Yes we're exhausted. And of
course, to leave the zoo we have to hike up an almost ridiculously steep
for being in a zoo hill to the exit. A hill that is a half a mile long.
Halfway up the hill I was tempted to tell my stepfather to go get the
car and I'd sit right at the zoo entrance and wait! That's not a joke. I
really was thinking that was what was going to happen.
But I thought of my JC plan. I thought how the exercise was going to be so good for me. I thought about exactly how much exercise I would end up doing that day and how much water I was drinking and I just pushed myself. We walked back to the metro stop and took the subway to the closed station and got on the shuttle bus and finally after more than hour made it back to the car. I wanted to kiss the car when I saw it
On the ride home my daughter fell
asleep almost instantaneously and I wasn't far behind her. As I drifted
off I thought about how the day had gone. I had done really well. I was
proud of myself. I stuck to my diet with my lunch and didn't get out of
control with subbing out my breakfast meal because lets face it, I can
eat about a ton of that Special K Red Berry cereal. In the zoo when my
family was buying sodas and frozen lemonade sticks I stuck to my bottles
of water. I did however get an order of Dip N Dots which I'm going to
address at the end of this post. Overall, I had a good day. I had gotten
in a ton of walking which wasn't planned and was feeling exhausted in
that good over worked kind of way.
Needless to say the ride home was much
quicker than the trip to the zoo. In fact it seemed to only take ten
minutes since I fell asleep with my daughter. Once home we were all
starving and headed inside to fix our dinners. I was glad to have
something I enjoyed for dinner, the fish and chips and as I mentioned in
my meal review, it tasted good out of the toaster oven. As I also
mentioned in my meal plan, I was scheduled to have cookies for desert
but after that day I just wanted the cheesecake! lol So I went for it.
Let me tell you that cheesecake with those strawberries - oh my god!
Heaven on a spoon!
Overall it was a long day and though
their were some major set backs, it was something we were able to laugh
about once we got home and my mother did get to spend the entire day
with my daughter. We told my baby brother about our day and all got a
good chuckle out of it. By the way, when I saw baby brother, I mean my
22 year old brother. He's always going to be a baby to me! After dinner
we gave the baby a bath and all climbed into my mothers bed to read
bedtime stories. We all fell asleep pretty quickly too, which is why I
wasn't able to blog about this day the day of.
Now
let me address the Dip N Dot incident. I'm not going to lie or avoid
talking about it. I was hot and grumpy and I wanted it. I wouldn't say
that I exactly broke down, because I didn't resist too hard. I know how
hard I've been following my plan and I know how serious I am about
losing weight this time. Its not that everything bad to eat that I see
is calling out to me, in fact none of it is. I'm not having a hard time
with any kind of cravings at all. In fact there are two unopened cases
of regular soda in my bedroom, leftover from before I started the diet.
They don't tempt me at all. They don't make me weak at all. I just don't
want them. I honestly don't. I want to lose this weight. I am ready to
lose this weight.
Where as before when I dieted the bad
food was always calling out to me and I was always hiding from it I
don't feel that way now. On diets of the past once I would have
something bad, like a cup of Dip N Dots, that was the end of my diet. I
would either feel so guilty I'd just stop the diet altogether or I'd say
to myself, well I've ruined this day I'll start again tomorrow. It was
always something. I just don't feel that way now. If I have something
like a cup of Dip N Dots then I have it. I'm not saying its okay to eat
that kind of food all day long because it's not. But if once a week or
once every two weeks I find myself in a situation like I did this day,
where I'm at the zoo and there's a cart, I'm not going to beat myself up
for eating it. Its not like it used to be where that would be the end
of my diet.
Its also because I'm not exactly
looking at this like a diet. This isn't a temporary plan I'm on to dump
this weight and then go back to how I was eating. The word diet for me
implies short term or even if its a long term diet, it just means not
forever. The way I see my JC plan is changing the way I eat and live
forever. I have on intention of never having ice cream or sweets again. I
do intend on having healthy portions and not three times a day.
Is any of this making sense? lol I know
many people are going to say this is wrong and I need to stay on the
plan bite for bite and maybe you're right - for you. I just am not going
to beat myself up for this. I did it, its done, it didn't lead to a
binge or the end of my diet or anything of the sort. It was just right
for me that moment.
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