Traveling Down Life's Road

Chocolate HELL YES BABY!

2012-02-10T14:39:00.000-08:00

Well first things first guess who has been enjoying chocolate again? If you guessed me, then congrats to you. I still can't believe that I lasted all week without chocolate. I'll be honest at first, last Friday, it was really tuff, but then as the days went on it actually got a lot easier. I'm sure that next week when I go without chocolate again will be a lot easier then this first week.

So how much chocolate have I eaten today well let me tell you. This morning for breakfast I had chocolate protein cake w/ pb topping. I swear biting into that first bite this morning was like pure joy. I also had two Oreo cookies and finally I had some cocoa nib mousse at work today. All were truly amazing and so chocolaty goodness.

I've been couponing for about 8 months now give or take a month or two, and lately I've come to realize that the binder method may not really be for me. When I first started couponing I watched many couponing video's on youtube and i fell in love with the binder method, so that was the method I choose to use. One of the main reason's why I wanted to use the binder method was when I put my coupons in the baseball care holders I was able to see all of my coupons at once and I will say that this is a huge plus to using the binder method.

Well if your not an extreme couponer or don't really have a lot of coupons using the binder method can really use a huge waste of space. Because I'm not an extreme couperner I really don't have large amount of coupons, so a lot of my binder is going to waste.

I have decided to stash away my binder and start using the box method. With this method all you do is file your coupons in a box using whatever storing method you choose. When I first decided to start using the method I thought about using several categories and subcategories, but then I decided to store everything by brand name from A - Z. If I have a coupon for Dawn dish washing soap it will get filed under the letter 'D' if I have a coupon for green giant veggies, it was get filed under the letter 'G' and so on. I'm going to set up my new system today after work, and hopefully everything will work out. I'm not going to totally ditch my binder, instead it's going up in my closet. I want to give this box method a try before i really decide what to do with my binder.

Now remember when I said that one of the best benefits of the binder method was being able to see all of my coupons at once. Well since I'm switching to the box method I won't be able to do that anymore, boo! So I'm going to start taking inventory of all my coupons and keeping them online in an open office spreadsheet. This is going to be a little more work for me, especially those P&G weeks LOL, but in the long run it will save time when I have for a coupon.

Finally I'm happy to announce that last night I lost 1 pound at my TOPS meeting. Since last weekend was ruff for me, I really thought I was going to gain this week, so having a loss was awesome.

oh so bad weekend

2012-02-06T13:06:00.000-08:00

After eight (8) long days I'm finally getting my computer back, thank goodness. I have to admit it wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be not having a computer the past week, but I am glad to finally be getting it back.

Since I haven't been able to post let me get you caught up with what's been going on in my life. Well first thing's first I still am getting in my workouts, so that's good. Now my water hasn't been the greatest this past week infact I believe half of it I got in less then 64 oz water a day, yikes!

Now my eating, oh where I do begin this my eating. Well let's just say that my eating this week is a total bust. This past weekend was I really broke the calorie bank. On a plus side I did burn almost 600 calories at the gym on Saturday. I actually burned 582, so that's pretty dam close.

I know this may sound strange or perhaps I'm just using it as an excuse, but i think the reason why I was so off track this weekend is because I have become to dependent upon myfitnesspal.com, and since I didn't have access it to this weekend I just used that as an excuse to eat more. I know it's a poor excuse, but it does worry me.

In 6 months I have a week's vacation planned for San Diego and I'm kind of flipping out wondering if I'm going to be able to handle my eating during that time. I know a lot of what I ate this weekend was totally out of bordem, but I'm still nervous about keeping my calories under control during that time. What I'm thinking about doing is not counting calories while I'm away and just focus on eating the most healthy foods possible. I don't know I guess I have time to think it over. I do know one thing for sure while I'm down in SD I do plan on working out every single day. I figure even if I do over eat and gain a little while I'm away it won't be so much if I workout.

drama, drama, drama oh yeah did I mention drama

2012-02-01T15:26:00.000-08:00

Things have not been going well for me. It started with one thing and everything just piled up on top of that. Because of all the drama that I've been going through the past few days my eating has been totally off track. Okay "take a deep breath Katherine", so now what has been going on.

It all started on Saturday I was working on my computer when all of a sudden it crashed on me. I tried to reset it, but it kept on crashing on me. After I crashed 4 times i realized that there was something wrong. I was able to put my computer in "safe mode" and get all of my personal files off of it. While it was still running in "safe mode" I ran my Norton anti-virus which took a full 6 hours. After running the scan I found two virus on my computer.

My mom suggested that I take my computer in to "Cal-West" to be checked out. Since I don't get off work early enough to get down there my mom was so kind and said that she would drop it off for me.

Well it turns out that my computer had a major virus on it since August. I guess with this virus it's spilling out into several other baby virus kind of like a spider web effect. Anyways there going to have to strip everything off my computer and reupload everything. Tonight I'm going to have to get my disc's for my mom, so she can take them over for me. Hopefully I'll get my computer back by Friday.

Now on to more drama, but this is drams I've created on my own. On Saturday after I got home from the gym I was going to work in my room, well I piled everything on my floor and began working. Then on Sunday I was searching everywhere for my MP3 player. I was looking in all of my drawers, in my closet, the bathroom, my car, etc. Well you get the picture.

I was getting upset and frustrated because for the life of me I couldn't find my MP3. I even looked in the garbage but still couldn't find it. On Sunday night I told myself that when I get to work on Monday I can just order a much better one, but I didn't have to do that. On Monday after I completed my workout while I was in the change room getting ready I found my MP3 player in my side pocket of my gym bag. Funny thing is a couple of days ago when I was cleaning my room up I must have slipped it in there and didn't even realize it.

Ready for some "New Balance" drama! Okay here goes I'm going to have to get new shoes. I've had my sneakers for nearly 3 years now and the soles are starting to tear. I'm waiting until I get my tax refund check's before getting my new shoes. They should hold up until then because they really aren't that bad right now, but I do want to get new shoes before the problem gets worse.

Oh yeah and speaking of tax refund check's, yeah did you think I was done with all of my drama don't think so. Anyways today is the 1st of February and I still have not received my W2 from Adecco. I guess I'm not the only person because I've heard other people talking too, so I'm glad that I'm not the only one. If I don't receive it by Friday I'm going to call over to the main office and say "hey what's going on here"

Finally to wrap up this blog of drama, yeah let's just end on a high note shall we. The headlight on my passenger side of my car is burned out, but that's going to be fixed today.

1/26/2012 - doing the happy dance

2012-01-26T21:39:00.000-08:00

I am super happy tonight, super super happy, but before I tell you why let me first get to my results for today and then my results for the full week.

1/26/2012 Results
Total Calories Ate: 2221
Total Calories Burned: 310
Total Net Calories: 1911
Total Water in oz: 80

1/20/2012 - 1/26/2011 Results
Weekly Food Calories Goal: 11250
actual food calories ate: 13110

Weekly Calories Burned Goal: 1450
actual calories burned: 1590

Weekly Water Oz Goal: 560
actual water oz: 592

Weekly Blog Goal: 7 days
actual blog days: 7

Final thoughts: Well even though I didn't meant all of my goals for the week I still feel like this was a truly wonderful week. I honestly enjoyed ssetting these goals for myself because it forced me to work that much harder, so here are my goals for ths next week.

1) Weekly Net Calories Goal: 11500
2) Blog 7 days
3) Water oz: 630
4) Have a loss of at least 1 pound

So now about why I'm so happy. Well as you now last week I gained 3.6 pounds, crap. Wel this week I'm happy to annouce that I lost 3.4 pounds. Yep I lost almost everything that I gained last week. I was hoping for a 1.4 pound loss but I did way better then that.

Well I need to get to bed soon! Talk to ya later my friends

2012-01-26T09:23:00.000-08:00

Good Morning! Well as promised today I wanted to discuss some topics. As you know right now things are really slow at work, so yesterday to pass the time I was reading a book. A couple of week's ago I ordered a planner from Franklin Covey. I also ordered a book on ways that one person can get the most use out of there planner. I personally don't believe there is any one wrong or right way to use a planner it's all up to the individual person. However I decided to get the book to use as a basic guide. I have to say that it's a great book and I have learned a lot from there tips. I'm already beginning to use some of them in my planner.

My evening last night was truly amazing. I finished folding my laundry and putting it away. I dusted and vacuumed my room. I got my TOPS program for tonight in order. It was a pretty busy evening, but getting all of my planned tasks done sure felt great.

On Monday evening I stepped up on the scale at home I weighed in at 224.8 pounds. I then stepped back up on the scale again last night and I weighed in 224.3 pounds. I have to be honest I was a bit upset when I saw the scale. I mean I was down only 0.5, but then I realized something. I had only been truly on plan for 3 days, so 0.5 pound loss actually was pretty dam good.

Well it's weigh-in tonight and I have a feeling that it's going to be a good one.

- what the number 224.8 to 224.3 mean to me

1/25/2012 - Another great day

2012-01-25T20:53:00.000-08:00

Today's Results:
Total Calories Ate: 1592
Total Calories Burned: 282
Total Net Calories: 1310
Total Oz Water: 80

I'm sorry but this is going to have to be another quick entry because I really need to get to bed. Since were still pretty slow at work right now tomorrow during the day I will take some time to write on the following subjects:

- tips from my day planner guide book
- getting evening tasks completed
- what the number 224.8 to 224.3 mean to me

Plus anything else I may feel like chatting to you about.

1/24/2012 a tiny, ulta tiny slipup

2012-01-24T21:06:00.000-08:00

1/24/2011 Daily Results
Total Calories Ate: 1690
Total Calories Burned: 399
Total Net Calories: 1291
Total Oz Water Drank: 96 OZ

I have to finish this pretty quickly because I need to wash my face, brush my teeth and then go to bed. Anyways I did add in one string cheese today, which I didn't plan to eat orginally. As you can see even an extra 80 calories didn't hurt me at all.

Okay that's it for tonight I'll be back again tomorrow

Taking Measurements vs The Scale

2012-01-24T14:11:00.000-08:00

Surprise i'm writing my entry in early. Don't worry I will write in later on this evening with my results for today. Anyways i’m at work right now and completly bored out of my mind. We literally have nothing to do right now. Sitting here and checking the internet and listening to youtube video’s all day long has really become to take it’s toll on me. Oh well I guess I can look at it this way at least I’m getting paid just to sit here and goof off, so I guess that’s a positive. We had a weekly meeting yesterday and we all were told not to worry about the slow down in production right now because in a couple of weeks things should start to pick up again.

I was just looking over at one of my friends blogs and she is such a huge inspiration to me. I was comparing her measurement charts. Since March of 2009 she has lost a total of 64 inches, yeah totally awesome. So why am i even mentioning this. Well if you notice i never take my measurements not ever. I have it in my head that the only way to tell if your being successful with weight loss is to go by the scale. Well in actuality the scale isn’t really teliing you the whole picture. Sometimes the scale not be going down but if your exercising and toning up the inches could be going down. I’m going to take my measurements once a month, starting this Saturday. It will be really nice to see the changes in my body from where I am now at the beginning of the year to the end of the year.

You know it’s funny when I first began this entry I intitallay decided to write in because I was ready to go and grap some unscheduled snacks. I don’t know maybe being bored out of my mind isn’t really helping me keep my eating under control. Well don’t worry I’m not giving in and eating anything that I shouldn’t be eating. Yes i really do want to grap some oreo cookies but I’m sticking to my game plan. I’m finding it difficult but I can’t except this no unscheduled snacking to be easy after just one day.

Okay well I think I”m rambled on enough for now. I will be back again tonight.

1/23/2012 - Get Ready .........

2012-01-23T20:34:00.000-08:00

Total Calories Ate: 1406
Total Calories Burned: 0
Total Net Calories: 1406
Total Oz Water: 120

Holy Crap! Let's just say it today was totally awesome. I honestly feel awesome. I will be honest it was hard today at work to keep away from the junk food. One of the desserts today they had peanut butter chocolate chip bars and let me tell you they looked amazing. They also had chocolate non-fat frozen yogurt but I just passed it up.

On my drive home today I was smiling from ear to ear because I didn't give in to temptation today and I stuck with my game plan. I kept on telling myself that if I can go a whole day at work and be fine that going home I shouldn't have any issues either, and looking at the amount of calories I ate today it proves that I was right.

I did have to make a couple of unexpected changes to my meals for today. This morning for my morning break I was going to have cottage cheese for 90 calories, but my work was out of the cottage cheese. Instead I enjoyed some chobani nonfat greek yogurt with two splenda packets for a total of 108 calories. The stitch was 18 calories more but I was fine with that because the stitch I made was a healthy one and it was within the same food group as the cottage cheese.

I was going to have baby carrots with my lunch today, but just like the cottage cheese they were also out of them, so instead I added raw bellpepper and broccoli to much lunch, super healthy and super yummy.

1/22/2012 - Time to get serious

2012-01-22T21:18:00.000-08:00

1/22/2012 Results
Total Calories Ate: 2,260
Total Calories Burned: 330
Total Remaining Calories: - 430
Total Oz Water Drank: 64

My alarm was set to go off this morning at 7:00am, but I woke up at 6:40am. I had alread rested for 7.25 hours, so I felt ready to get up. I got into my workout clothes and I begin with one of my tasks for thd day to pick up my room. I spent 30 minutes working in my room.

Shortly after 8:00am I was out the door and heading to the gym. Today my goal was to stitch machines every 50 calories I burned. Well I first went on the bike and after 10 minutes I fnally stitched to the elpitical machine. After about 2 minuttes I hopped on the treadmill. Was I finished with my 50 calories? Nope! My legs were feeling tried on the elipical machine, so I decided to go on the treadmill. I finished the rest of my carido workout on the treadmil. My total carido time was 44 minutes. Afterwards I toned my upper body. Later in the day I went to the grocery store and filled my car up with gas.

Well now let's talk about how I'm doing so far with my weekly goals.

Weekly Net Calories (Total Calories - Calories Burned) 9800
(Total Calories 6201 - Total Calories Burned 599) 5602
My thoughts: Well what can I say I really need to work on this. Since I have eaten so many calories in order for me to make my weekly net calories I am going to have to burn at least 375 calories for three days at the gym and eat 1330 calories a day for the next 4 days. This is going to be a real challenge for me but I know as long as I remain strong and think strongerly about it I can do it. Tonight before I go to bed I'm going to plan out my food for tomorrow and I'm going to stick to it.

I'm sorry I know that I was going to also talk about my water and exercising but I do want to figure out my food for tomorrow before going to bed.

Take Care!

1/21/2011 RESULTS - Not quite there yet but so much better

2012-01-21T22:59:00.000-08:00

1/20/2012 Results
Total Food Calories: 1847
Total Calories Burned: 269
REMAINING CALORIES - 78
Total Water: 72

Since I didn't go to bed last night until 12:30am I slept in until 8:45am this morning. Actually I started waking up around 5:30am but I decided since I went to bed,so late the night before it would be best if I try and sleep a bit more. Well 3 hours later I finally was ready to get up.

After breakfast, doing the dishes, brushing my teeth, and getting dressed I was off to the gym. For the past couple of weeks I have been wanting to find this one gym at my work, so that was my mission today. Well I was I did find the building where the gym was located, but I couldn't figure out exactly where to park I decided to try another gym. I went over to the main gym and had an awesome workout. I completed 35 minutes of carido and burned 269 calories. Afterwards I toned my lower body.

The machines at this gym were great and I loved the fact that the stations had a lot of TV channels to choose from. While I was on the treadmill I started watchig a program and go really involved in it. Totally made my workout fly by. The only huge down fault, actually there are two. The locker room is really gross. There were towels on the floor, used paper towels, bandaids, etc. Another huge downfault was that there were no toliets or I was unable to find them. I mean you would think that in a locker room they would toliets right?

Going to this gym was a nice thing to try but in all honesty I really do prefer my regular gym, so that's what I'm going to stick with. Speaking of the gym tomorrow I have a date to hit the gym. I'm thinking about mixing up my carido tomorrow and using different machines. I don't know I guess I will have to wait until I get there to see how I feel.

I did eat some things today which I know I should't have, so I think being 78 calories over is pretty dam amazing. My water is just slightly under the 80 oz I was hoping for, but I'm not worried.

Well I will be back tomorrow.

1/20/2012 results not good

2012-01-20T23:55:00.000-08:00

1/20/2012 Results
Total Food Calories: 2094
Total Calories Burned: 0
Total Net Calories: 2094
Total Water: 80
Blog Results: 1

Well as you can see today was not good for me, but that's kind of typicall on a Friday. I don't know why I said I was going to workout after work today when I knew it wasn't going to happen. Tomorrow I plan to workout and burn some major calories to make up for today's damage.

Lately I've been thinking that I need to preplan my meal guide. What I mean by that is plan when I'm going to eat carbs, fruits, protein, etc. I think if I have more of a guide line it will help me to keep on track.

tomorrow I'm going to blog about my guide line.

Week of 1/20/2012 goals & other things

2012-01-20T09:40:00.000-08:00

Well once again I'm a dunce when it comes to keeping up with this blog. Anyways since things are slow right now at work, I thought I would spend some time getting you caught up on what's been going on. As you know in my last entry I wrote down my goals for 2012. I'm happy to say that so far I have been doing great. My exercising has been totally on point and I couldn't be prouder. We only had two weigh-in's and both of them I lost 0.8. I have to be honest and say that even though it felt great to loose both those weeks I really was hoping for a 1 pound loss each week, but hey 0.8 is pretty dam good too. I weigh-in tonight and I hate to say but I fear a gain tonight. Even though my exercising has been great my eating is still totally out of control. Last weekend I didn't count my calories and I'm sure i ate close to 3000 each day, yikes. Well i can't go back in time and fix the damage I've done all I can do is move forward.

Speaking of moving forward I've decided to set a time limit for some of my goals. For years I've been wanting to break into the onderland and hit my 100 pound mark, but unless a person has a plan of action then the goals I've set for myself will never become a reality.

My first TOPS meeting of the year was on 1/5/2012 and I began the year at 223.8 pounds, so I think it's only fair to set my plan of action from the 5th of January.
Time Stamped Goals:

Break into onderland date to achieve this goal: 6/21/2012
Reach my 100 pound loss date to achieve this goal: 10/25/2012
With both of these goals my average weight loss per week will be 1 pound and this is a safe amount to loose per week.

Plan of action:
1) Stay within my daily / weekly net calories
2) Workout at least every other day:
3) Drink 80 oz or more of water a day
4) Blog everyday not only on my day but how I'm doing with my goals.
5) look for inspiration from those who have lost weight.
6) Start taking weekly photo's and marking down my current weight.

I attended my TOPS meeting last night, like I do every Thursday, and i had a gain this week of either 3.6 or 3.8, sorry i can't remember right now but I know that I gained at least 3 pounds this week, boo! I had a feeling that I was going to gain this week, but I just was hoping that it wasn't going to be as high as it was.

Well now with this gain it's time to put my plan into action. Here are my goals for the week:

WEEK OF 1/20/2012 GOALS
TOTAL FOOD CALORIES: 11250
TOTAL CALORIES BURN: 1450
TOTAL WATER: 560 oz
BLOG DAILY RESULTS: 7 DAYS

1/20/2012 Goals:
Food Calories: 1650
Calories Burn: 290
Water: 80 oz
Blog: daily results

2012 GOALS

2012-01-08T12:51:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year Plus One Week! Sorry that this a little late, but here are my 2012 goals.

1) Only one day of rest in between workouts.
2) 10 or less gains for the year.
3) Break through into onederland
4) Make my 100 pounds loss

Finally as an extra incenative me and another member from my TOPS chapter are challenging each other for the year to see who can have the fewest gains. The winner is going to receive a $10.00 gift card to the store of there choice. We both wrote down the challene on our goal paper and turned them in.

Have an excellent week! Katherine

One day late, final 2011 blog

2012-01-01T20:37:00.000-08:00

Well before I begin this entry I have some exciting news. For the first time in 3 years, maybe 4, I actually stayed awake to see the New Year. In past years I've either been sick, tried, or cold and the only place that I wanted to be was in bed under the covers asleep, but this year I felt great and staying up was no problem.

I spent New Years Eve coping some files to my external HD and I also rolled up all my loose change. I'm happy to repot that my piggy bank is $95.46 thinner. I'm going to take the money down to my bank this weekend.

The highlight of my New Years Eve was going back to the 1980's. I watched a mathron of shows from the 1980's and had an awesome time. Some of the shows I watched were "Cosby Show", "Mama's Family", "Family Ties", "227", "Gimme A Break", "Amen", "Punky Brewster"

With a new year it brings new beginning, but I wanted to first look back over the past year on how I did.

Weekly Losses: 22
Weekly Gains: 20
Weekly Turtles: 7
Monthly Net Losses: 9
Monthly Net Gains: 3
Yearly Results: Loss of 7.8 pounds
Highest Weight Of 2011: 231.6
Lowest Weight of 2011: 219.8

So there you have it my results for 2011. Tomorrow I'm going to write down what my goals are for 2012.

Unplanned and Planned Eating

2011-12-28T21:26:00.000-08:00

After being off track for, what seems like forever, I decided to work on getting back on track again. First step is to get my eating under control. Last night I planned out all my meals for the day and today I decided to not only keep track of my planned food, but I also wanted to keep track of my unplanned foods. I'm hoping that I can figure out a patten as to why I'm eating so much unplanned food.

Total planned calories: 1456
Total Unplanned calories: 732
Total cancelled planned calories:38

Breakfast Planned: 6:00am
Green Monster Nutty Smoothie
Over Medium Egg
Total Calories: 466

Morning Snack Planned 9:15am
Pistachio nuts 15 grams
Blue Diamond Whole Amonds – 15 grams
Total Calories: 175

Morning Snack Unplanned 10:45am
Quaker Chew Granola Bar Chocolate Chip
Total Calories: 100

Lunch Planned 12:30pm
California Clementine Cuties (2)
Sara Lee Delightful Wheat Bread (2 slices)
Homemade Mock Tuna Salad (1/3 cup)
Total Calories: 305

Afternoon Snack PLanned 2:30
Seasoned Ranch Popcorn
Total Calories: 100

Afternoon Snack Unplanned 3:00pm
String Cheese
2 Oreo Cookies
Total Calories: 180

Dinner Planned 5:30pm
Homemade Spiniach Roll (1 serving)
Green Giant Frozen Veggies (2/3 cup)
Total Calories: 241

Evening Snack Planned but Cancelled
Kiwi (1)
Total Calories (38)

Evening Snack Unplanned 6:30pm
No Sugar Added Applesauce (½ cup)
100% Pure Pumpkin (3 tablespoons)
Total Calories: 80

Evening Planned Dessert Snack 7:15pm
Fake Chocolate Chip Frozen Sandwich (1 serving)
Total Calories: 130

Evening Snack Unplanned 7:45pm
Semi Sweet Chocolate Chips (2.5 tablespoons)
Reduced Fat Shredded Cheddar Cheese (24 grams)
Fiber Selection Crackers (30 gams)
Total Calories: 372

Well one of my biggest downtimes, as far as unplanned eating, is at night time. I tend to do a lot of snacking, as you can see from above. I feel that I need to divide up my planned meals, so that i'm eating more often. Let's take breakfast for example. I could have had the smoothie at 6:00 in the morning and then maybe around 7:30am I could have had the egg and so on. What do you think? If anybody has any advice on how I can control my extra unplanned eating throughout the day.

TOTAL RAMBLING

2011-12-12T13:02:00.000-08:00

Sorry, again, that I haven't been keeping up with these blogs. I know I'm so bad at that. Anyways last week i did extremly well my eating was spot on and I went to the gym and worked out four days. So you would think that when I went to weigh-in on Thursdays i would have a lost, but to my surprise I turtled, again. I swear this year I totally feel like I'm turning into a turtle with how often I've been turtling at TOPS.

After my meeting I looked back over the past week and I realized that I was 355 calories over for the week, so I guess that's the reason why I turtled. This week well I'm hoping for a turtle again. My food this past weekend was not good at all, and to make matters worse I didn't count calories or get any activity in.

I'm back on track again today and have been counting my calories. Tomorrow I'm going to go and hit the gym before work. I really need to figure out a gym schedule where I can go to the gym 5 days during the week, but i will get that figured out.

There are two days during the week which I don't like to workout Sundays and Fridays. Sundays because i like to relax and Fridays because I don't like to get up early on Fridays since I come home so late on Thursday night. Well seeing how I also don't like to workout 4 days in a row I'm going to have to figure out a workout schedule where i go to the gym either on Fridays or Sundays.

Week to Week not day to day

2011-12-01T13:09:00.000-08:00

I first want to apologize my last entry I felt was pretty much all over the place. I know that I said that i really want to work on staying at or under my daily net calories, but I realized there are some days where that just isn't going to happen. Instead I'm going to focus on weekly net calories. You see I look at it this way since I weigh-in only once a week why not also look at my calories for the week over all as a whole.

Here is a ruff stitch on how my 100 Point system is going to go:
* Week's go from Friday to Thursday
* Weekly Net Calories
- At or below: 14 points
- over: (7) points
* Workout Cardio
- 4 or more days per week: 8 points
- less then 4 days per week: (4) points
** Workout bonus: 5 days of working out: 10 points
** Weight Training: add 1 point per day
* Water
- meant current oz per day: 2 points
- didn't meet current oz per day: (1) point

Well this is just a ruff idea. I might change it not sure, but so far i like this. I also have decided not to stress over my weight training. One days when i do weight train then I will give myself 1 points per day. If I don't weight training then that's totally fine. Tonight after my TOPS meeting I'm going to sit down and figure this all out.

My lunch is just about over, so I better say goodbye for now.

totally inspired

2011-11-30T20:24:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow night I'll be facing the music of our TOPS scale. I honestly hate to say this but it looks like I'm going to have a gain. In all honesty this past couple of weeks has not been good for me I feel like my eating is totally out of control. I've only logged my food 4 days this past couple of weeks and only one day I stayed within my daily calories. I also haven't been getting to the gym, blah, blah, blah.....Same old song and dance routine.

Well it's time to play a new song. I'm ready to dance to the beat of a "Different Drummer" I joined TOPS 6.5 years ago with one goal to loss weight. I started off at 282 pounds and now I'm 222 pounds, which totally sucks. Okay I know what your saying "wait hold it Katherine you've lost
60 pounds and that is something you should be proud of" but I can't be proud. I feel ashamed that I'm not at goal already. My goal for 2011 was to loss a total of 60 pounds and I have lost about 7 pounds, give or take.

Today at work I was listening to video's by one of my favorite youtubers, kam9581 and she is so inspiring with her weight loss. She started her weight loss journey on 7/22/2009 and as of 1/10/2011 she lost 102 pounds, can you blame me for being inspired. I think I really needed to listen to her video's today because I feel inspired to get back on track. I'm going to take each day one day at a time and just move forward from here.

2011-11-28T22:07:00.000-08:00

Well after 9.5 years I finally went in for my Physical. A few weeks ago I was talking to my friend TY and she recommanded her doctor, and I have to say I really did enjoy meeting her.

When I got there the first thing the nurse did was take my height and weight. My weight as up a little bit since I last weighed in at TOPS, but I'm not going to worry to much about it because it's not my official weigh-in. Over the years I've thought I was 5'1 but today I found out that I'm 5'0. I have to say that I was a little shocked I mean being that I'm short haven't I suffered enough, lol just kidding.

The nurse next tried giving me my blood pressure, but she was having difficulties with the machine. For some reason the blood pressure machine was going up and down again. My arm was really feeling the pressure and because I was in pain the nurse stopped the test. During my physcial my doctor was able to take my blood pressure using the manual pressure machine. It was hurting me but it had to be done. The rest of my physical went great. She and I also discussed my weight goal and I know finally have a weight goal to turn into TOPS, so it's going to be official.

Just before leaving today the nurse gave me a tetnis shot. I'm such a baby and didn't really want to have it done, but my doctor finally convinced me that I really should get it done. The nurse who gave me the shot was excellent I didn't feel the shot at all. She did say that for the next few days my arm is going to be sore, but that's fine.

This Saturday I'm going in for my lab work which I'm not looking forward to because like I said I'm a huge baby when it comes to needles.

The Case of "Pink Eye"

2011-11-22T13:00:00.000-08:00

My eating plan and exercising the past few days pretty much has gone out the window. What happened? you ask. Well on Friday morning everything was fine and shortly when I was getting ready to leave for work my right eye started bothering me. It wasn't red or anything like that it was just aching me.

A few hours later into the day I was in the washroom and I noticed that my eye was red and quite honestly it looked really gross.

On Saturday when I woke up I called my eye doctor and told them what was going on. Lucky they were open on Saturday, so they were able to fit me into the schedule. My eye doctor when she saw my eye she looked a bit shocked.

After examine me and looking into my eye, she said that I had pink eye. Which I pretty much already knew I had based on my diagonis. I started taking the med's right away and as as quickly as Sunday afternoon my eye was already feeling better and it was clearer.

I went back to the doctor yesterday for a followup and she seemed really pleased with how well my eye was looking "a huge difference from Saturday" She said that my eye was about 80% better, so not 100% quite yet. I still have to take the med's until Monday, so hopefully by then everything should be back to normal.

Since I had "pink eye" I decided not to go to the gym for a few days. Today was my first day back and I have to say it was tuff and rather difficult, but i'm so glad that I went.

Well my lunch time is just about over, so I better get back to work.

Surprise it's me

2011-11-16T20:51:00.000-08:00

Surprise it's me! I know shocking two enteries in one day. I have to say that I'm pretty proud of myself. Today was one of the best days I've had in a real long time. Not only did I go to the gym this morning and burn a total of 327 calories today I ate a total of 1468 calories.

Tonight just before I took my shower I saw that I was down on the scale, but since it's not my TOPS weigh-in it's not official weight.

Well I need to prepare my meals for tomorrow, so I'm going to say goodnight for now.

time to update

2011-11-16T13:40:00.000-08:00

Holy smokes has it really been over two weeks since I last updated? Yup it sure has, I'm sorry about that. I know I keep on saying that I'm going to update more often, but I guess better late then never right?

This morning I woke up at 4:20am to get ready for the gym. It was a bit tuff getting up this morning after not getting up that early since last Friday, but I'm so glad that I did. After getting ready I headed over to the gym and had an awesome workout. Today I completed 45 minutes on the treadmill and burned a total of 327 calories.

I'm a little nervous about my weigh-in this week. I have to confess and say that my eating hasn't been all that great. I'm counting my calories but as usual I'm eating way over them. One of my biggest problems is all the food at work. Once I start eating it it goes all down hill from there. I know what I need to do, but sometimes I jsut don't do it.

Okay well my lunch is about over, so I better go for now.

super busy day

2011-10-30T20:49:00.000-07:00

A full day of being busy and on the go. My day started by hitting the gym. This morning I did 35 minutes of carido and then I weight trained my lower body.

After the gym I went to Nobhill to pick up a bag of Fresh Express Spinach, Pizza Rolls and Onion. Next I drove to CVS to use the Chase ATM machine. While I was there I did scan my card at the magic coupon machine and I scored a $5.00 off facial products, too bad it expires tomorrow. I'm going to check the add tonight to see if there is anything I can use with the $5.00 coupon.

Next I drove and got gas for my car for the week. Finally I stopped at 7-11 and got my newspapers for the week.

When I got home I spend the day washing my clothes, organizing my coupons, cooking, etc. Yep I was pretty busy throughout most of the day. Gosh it's no wonder I'm tried tonight.

An Excepted Gain

2011-10-27T21:06:00.000-07:00

Hello my friends! I'm so sorry that I haven't been keeping up with these enteries, but I did want to get online tonight and get you all caught up with what's been going on in my life.

I'm happy to annouce that I had 7 losses in a row. Yep can you believe it 7 freaking losses. During those 7 weeks I also won the travel bag. Finally after years of trying for it and always losing it I won it. The prizes were all really great mostly notebooks and lotions plus some odds and ends.

This past weekend my mom and I went to San Francisco to celerbrate my birthday. She treated me to lunch at the Rain Forest Cafe. Then we just walked around for a bit.

Well tonight during my weigh-in I did have a gain of 1.8 pounds, boo. I had a feeling that I was going to gain this week because of the extra calories I ate this past week with going to the city and all.

A small gain is not going to discourge me in anyways I'm back on track and next week I will have a loss.

I need some rest

2011-10-04T20:48:00.000-07:00

I'm really hoping to get a good night's sleep tonight. The past couple of nights I haven't really slept. Oh sure I rested, but I don't feel like I really slept. I think I've bee having trouble sleeping because it's bee so cold. Last night I woke up around 12:30am and I had to get up to put a blanket on my bed.

Well despite not really sleeping all that well last night I still wokeup this morning and went to the gym. I was even debating on not going, but i"m so glad that I did. Today I got in 40 minutes of carido and burned 347 calories.

Afterwards I drove to work and got in a productive day. I can't tell you how great it feels to be back at work again. I wake up in the morning with a purpose and it feels wonderful.

Speaking of feeling wonderful today I had a truly amazing day. Everything was totally on point: water, food logging, working out.

490 calories burned baby

2011-10-02T20:45:00.000-07:00

Hello my friends! Another awesome day. I did go over my planned calories, but I was still under my net calories for the day, so I'm happy about that. Anyways after breakfast this morning I got changed and went to the gym.

I don't know what was with me, but today at the gym I honestly didn't want to working out. I worked out on the crossramp burning 300 calories. I then moved to the r.bike and burned 100 calories. Finally I finished up my workout by burning 90 calories on the treadmill. Total calories burned 490 and my total workout time 1 hour 12 minutes and 15 seconds. After my workout I went home and took a much needed shower.

Later in the day I had a few errands to go on. I first went to Target. I was planning to pick up a salad spinner, but they were $30.00 for a mini-spinner which I felt was to much. Instead I picked up a box of Fiber One Cereal.

Next I went to Safeway for my weekly shopping. My last stop was at the gas station to fill up my car.

When I got home I did a few chores: I cleaned the living room and my room.

steller day baby

2011-10-01T22:22:00.000-07:00

Hello my friends,
Today truly was steller and da-bomb. I woke up this morning and after a quick breakfast, cereal and milk, I headed to the gym.

I was planning on burning a total of 300 calories, but I actually ended up burning 350 calores,yeah.

Later in the day I had a few errands to run. I went to the Bank to deposit some money in my account. Then I headed over to Safeway to pick up some ACT Anti-Cavity rinse and banana's. Finally I went to Subway and got my dinner.

The past couple of days I really ate over my calories, so for the rest of the week I'm really keeping tabs on my calories that I eat and I burn at the gym.

Tomorrow I'm hitting the gym and I'm going to burn some calories baby!

FIESTA SALAD - Receipe

2011-09-29T14:00:00.000-07:00

Serving Size: 1 bowl
Number of Servings: 1
Calories Per Serving: 244

Ingredients:
Eating Right Hearts of Romaine Lettuce – 85 grams
S&W Canned Black Beans (drained and rinsed) – 1/3 cup
Lucrene Reduced Fat Shredded Cheddar Cheese – 15 grams
Tostitos Mild Salsa – 2 Tbsp
Lucrene Light Sour Cream – 1 Tbsp
Mission Guacaole – 2 Tbsp

Directions
1)Wash lettuce (if needed) and place in a medium-large size bowl.

2)Add in all all the rest of the ingredients, lightly toss, and enjoy

Digitial Food Scale

2011-09-28T19:31:00.000-07:00

For several years I've been using this food scale to weigh my food and help me to count calories. I will say that this is an excellent basic scale. I got mine from Bed Bath & Beyond for around $7.00. It's small and can easily be stored in a drawer or on the countertop. If your looking for a basic scale then I can suggest this one.

As much as I love my little scale I have decided to update and get a digital one. There are a few reason's why I upgraded, but the main one has to do with being able to see the lines on the dial. You see when I weighed something on the scale in grams I would have to get really close to the scale just to see exactly where the line was. My old scale measures in grams and ounces, but my new scale weighs in kilograms, grams, ounces, pounds.

I received it in the mail today and used it tonight for my dinner. Everything was measured and weighed and I had no issues with seeing how many grams each item was.

Speaking of dinner, tonight I made the most amazing "Fiesta Salad" Receipe and picture will be posted tomorrow.

Drum Roll Please

2011-09-27T22:41:00.000-07:00

On August 2, 2011 I begin my 100 point challenge and I'm happy to annouce that as of September 27,2011 I'm currently at 108 points. Yep you guessed right I not only made my 100 points tonight, but I have 8 points started for my next 100 challenge. I'm going to order the Facts of Life Season 5 DVD set tomorrow. I know I was so excited to order it and now I want to wait, what's up with that?

I'm not sure what my next prize will be. I'm thinking maybe some items from the TOPS web site. I'l think about it and let you know.

Now I would like to take the time to look back at this first 100 point challenge to see how I did over all with each task.

Logging my food:
* 26 Days I didn't log my food
* 31 Days I did log my food

Ate Within my calories:
* 42 days I either ate above my calories, or I didn't log for the day.
* 15 days I ate within my calories

Scheduled Cardio Days (38 days)
* 13 Days I missed a scheduled cardio session
* 25 Days I completed 30 minutes of carido or more

Scheduled Weight Training (14 days
* 7 Days I missed a sheduled weight traiing session
* 7 Days I completed a weight training session

Water Log
* 33 days I did not meet my water goals for the day
* 24 days I did meet my water goals for the day

So those are my status for this first 100 point challenge, and next time around the numbers will be a lot better.

Dark Chocolate Dreams

2011-09-27T22:01:00.000-07:00

If you love peanut butter and if you love chocolate then this is for you. Dark Chocolate dreams is an all natural peanut butter blended with rich dark chocolate.

I've been wanting to try this for over a year, but my regular grocery stores don't sell it, boo shame on them. I finally went to there web site and found some nearby stores that sell it.

Saturday I went over to one of them and picked up a jar. It cost $5.20 which is a lot more then I normally would spend on peanut buter, but I decided to make an exception.

I have tried it right out of the jar with a spoon, and it was pretty good. However this morning for breakfast I made a chocolate protein cake and instead of my usual skippy peanut butter I used some dark chocolate peanut butter, super yum!

If you ever get a chance to pick up a jar I would highly recommend it.

To find out more products this company sells please click here.

Meal Pictures

2011-09-27T21:37:00.000-07:00

My meals for today, all except for lunch.

About Time I Update

2011-09-23T21:46:00.000-07:00

Has it really been nearly a month since I last posted? I can't believe my total lack of blogging, but I want you to know that I'm still here despite my shamless blogging.

Overall things are going really great for me. I got a phone call from my temp agency today and it looks like I'm going back to work, yeah. I'm going to be working the same postion again at Google, to bad it's only a contract postion. I'm just glad to finally be going back to work again. I have been sending out my resume and applying for jobs but things are pretty slim right now.

On 8/30/2011 when I wrote my last entry I was at 20 points for my 100 point challenge. I'll be honest during that I was really scruggling and I honestly wasn't doing as well as I wanted to with this challenge. I'm still not at the 100 points, but I'm happy to report that I'm now 76 points. If all goes well then after this weekend I'll be ordering this lovely DVD:

This has been a great challenge and I'm going to do it again next month too. I really feel that it has helped me in areas which I really still need to work on.

Okay now how have I been doing with my weight. Since I last reported in here are my weight stats:

9/1: gained 1.6 pounds, boo

9/8: lost 0.2, this was right after spending Labor day weekend in Reno so a small
loss was awesome

9/15: lost 0.6, a small loss this week, but at least the scale was moving in the right direction.

9/22: lost 1.6 pounds, holy smokes three a row that hasn't happened since July of 2010. Early this year I had five weeks with three losses and two turtles, but to see 3 losses in a row is amazing.

Well that's it for tonight entry. I'm really going to try and post here my often because I do miss blogging.

much love,
Katherine

Change to my challenge

2011-08-30T19:46:00.000-07:00

I don't know what I was thinking when I made my personal challenge 1000 Points. I realized that would take me over 35 weeks to make the 1000 points. I'm sorry but I find that to be a little discourgaing. I still love the idea I have for this challenge, but I've made some changes.

* 100 Point Challenge - This sounds a lot better doesn't it.
* Full day of green boxes - 1/2 bonus points. One any given day I can earn 6 to 10
gren points. If I have a perfect day then my bonus points would be 3 to 5.
* 5 perfect days in a row = 10 bonus points

this sounds to be a lot more manageable for me. plus knowing that I can earn bonus points will help to encourage me to remain on track. I know that I really shouldn't add in bonus points being that this challenge has already started, but I'm the only one doing this challenge, so really my rules right?

Okay now this week I have been doing a lot better. I mostly have green squares, but there are a few red. Like I said I have been doing a lot better this week. I went over my calories on Sunday and yesterday I didn't even count my calories, so I'm hoping that the next couple of days, plus today, can make up for it. I did step up on the scale tonight and I was up to 228.4. Now granted it was after dinner, so I'm not going to worry about it to much. I remember last week I was up one day and then a couple days later i was back down again.

Well I need to print out somethings for TOPS this Thursday.

Challenge Finally Yes

2011-08-26T12:06:00.000-07:00

After gaining the past two weeks, 3.8 pounds, last night when I stepped up on the scale I was sure that the scale would show another gain, but to my huge surprise it actually showed aloss. I lost 3.2 pounds this week and during the time I was happy to see that I finally hada loss, but I have to be honest with myself and say that I really didn't deserve such a huge loss.

This past week I only worked out two days, carido only. I didn't track my food not once all 7 days. My water intake I only tracked for two days and both those days I barely got in 80oz, so why did the scale show such a huge loss for me. Maybe I ate fewer calories this week then I thought, who know's really. All I know is that I'm looking at this as a postive as a fresh start.

And speaking off fresh starts I've finally came up with a challenge for myself. I wanted to work on a challenge which would help me not only with my calorie intake, but with as many aspects of health as possible. Because when you think about it, it's the whole package you need to work on.

I'm calling this my 1000 Point Challenge. The idea is to earn 1000 points, simple enough right.

Everyday that I complete the following I will get 2 points: Log my food into myfitnesspal.com, Daily net calories at or below calories eaten, carido minutes as specified on my tracking chart, weight training as specified on my tracking chart, water oz as specified on my tracking chart.

Points: earn up to 56 points per week
Penalty: (1) if I don't complete a task.
Week Prep: Every Thursday when I get home from TOPS I'll plan out my next week.
Prize: Facts of Life - season 4 or 5 can't remember which one I need next.

I'm going to track this with my H4H contest. all the green square will be 2 points all the red will be (1) point.

Writing in TOPS journal

2011-08-21T21:38:00.000-07:00

Each week in our TOPS chapter one person is giving our chapter journal to take home for the week. During that week we write down our thoughts. I have the journal this week, which I have been looking forward to getting for months. Tonight before I actually wrote in the journal I typed up what I wanted to write. Here are the words that I typed and then wrote in our TOPS journal tonight:

As I'm sitting here writing down my thoughts I'm reminded of similar times in life. When actually had to get up to change the TV channel. Hand write a letter to a friend and then sent it in the mail. Writing down our most inner desires and complaints in a personal diary. A diary which even though had a lock on it we still felt the need to hide it under our mattresses. A similar time when every morning milk was delivered to our homes by our local friendly milk man. Okay perhaps the last one is a little before my time, but you get the idea on what i”m saying.

Now thanks to an inventor, who in 1956 invented the first practical remote control called the Zenith Space Commandar we now have the luxuary of using this device to change the channel for us. In the beginning the remote control, controller, clicker, remote whatever you choose to refer to it as had a lot of issues to work out. Through the years this little device has had it's ups and down, but since 1956 it's come a long way baby.

Hand written letters which use to take days to reach the other party can now be send an instant. Emails may not be as personal as a hand writtten letter, but at least we don't have to pay for postage. We also have gone away from hand writing in personal diaries and turned to online blogs. These online blogs which we can be shared with anyone, a little strange considering we use to hide our diaries which had locks on them so nobody could ever read them. Now here I am actually writing in our TOPS journal, wow talk about kicking it old school.

The past couple of years I've been struggling with my weight. I'll do really well one week I'll be hitting the gym my eating will be spot on and then when I step on the scale at my TOPS meeting I'll have a loss. Then there are those weeks where I won't be counting my calories or breaking a sweat at the gym and then I end up with a gain. I sometimes wonder why I can't seem to make the connection to keep on track and loss weight. I can make the connection for a week or two, but I can't seem to make the connection stick. I think if I use some super glue that could possibly help the connection to stick, what do you think?

The connection to did stick with me once for an entire year back in 2008. That was truly my year in TOPS. I lost a great deal of weight and I also was a Division Winner for Northern California. Right now I maybe struggling with my weight, but I know that if I made the connection to loose weight back in 2008 I can make that connection again and stay on track to reaching my goal weight.

Joining TOPS back in 2005 was one of the best decisions I've ever made. We all give each other so much encouragement, support, and love. I look forward to the meetings every week and getting to see everyone.

talk about lack of blogging

2011-08-12T20:21:00.000-07:00

I'm sorry that it's been so long since I last posted an update. I've mostly been posting weekly updates over on my youtube chanel. Anyways I felt that it was time that I give you an update.

Well first the biggest news I'm back on the unemployment gang, totally not by choice. The last week in July three of us were told that due to the project taking huge turn we were all being let go on Friday. Our manager really didn't want to see us go but since the project has downsized so much they really didn't need all of us. I know that when you work a contract job this can happen at anytime, but here's the thing that really gets me. The two qcers who were staying one of them his contract is up at the end of September and the other guy he's only been there about 6 weeks. I felt that it was totally unfair that I had to be let go, but there was nothing I can do about it. During my last day while I was checking out our onsite manager did say that if the project was picked up again he would like to see me come back again, well that is if I'm available.

Unfourtnally since I've been out of work I really have taken it out on myself. My eating has been horrible. I haven't been to the gym except for maybe a few times if that at best. Don't even ask me about my food intake because that's been just as bad.

I finally got back to the gym this morning and completed 32 minutes of carido burning 230 calories. I then spent some time doing weight training. I'm slowly but surely getting back into that again.

It was good to be back at the gym today and especially weight training, but my eating well that's a totally different story. I ate a total of 2549, mostly junk food and desserts, brownies, cupcakes, etc. Earlier this week I made a batch of 18 brownies with my intention to only have one per day, well that didn't happen. Today for example I ate 3 of them, well no more huge batch of brownies. From now on I'm only making single brownies. Lucky the calories are exactly the same as in the applesauce low fat brownies.

Last night I weigh-in at my TOPS meeting with a gain of 3 pounds from the week before. I wasn't surprised at all that I had gained because like I said I wasn't doing anything right.

A couple of months ago I was really focusing on my calorie intake well maybe it's time I do that again. This time I'm going to do something slightly different. As soon as I figure out what I will let you know.

On a different note last weekend I won three (3) ebay auctions. Can you guess what I'm going to receive? Well let me just tell you I won three hundred coupons, super excited. I got my first 100 yesterday and briefly looked through them. I'm hoping that most of them I can use, but if not that's okay too.

Tomorrow I have a TOPS workshop to attend up in Newark. Only two of us from my chapter are going. JS and I are heading up to Newark at 7:15 in the morning, so we can be there on time for the walk. I'm really excited about this morning walk because it'sgoing to be a nice way just to start my day. I just hope I can figure out how many calories I burn.

so, so, so happy

2011-07-14T20:36:00.000-07:00

I woke up this morning at 4:50am and my thought was to go back to sleep. I only got about 6 hours maybe 6.5 I can't remember. Anyways since I didn't get enought sleep tonight I almost reset my alarm clock, but instead I got up. I then proceeded to get into my workout clothes and get ready.

At 5:45am I was out the door and on my way to the gym. This morning I had a truly awesome workout. I completed 40 minutes on the crossramp machine and burned a total of 360 calories, yes. Just think at first I didn't want want to go to the gym and I ended up having an amazing workout. Not only was my workout amazing my infact my whole day was a smashing success.

About a month ago I received some SD cards at work with images that I needed to go through. Well I had to put them on hold because we currently have other super high prioprity SD cards to go through. Yesterday we finally got caught up on the prioprity one's, so I was able to work on my old way and finally get partly completed. Tomorrow in the morning I'm going to complete the rest of my back log. We are excepting to receive some more prioprity SD cards tomorrow, but the shipments don't come in until the afternoon, so the morning will be plenty of time for me to get my back log cleared out.

Finally after work I drove to my TOPS meeting. I knew that I was going to have a good weigh-in this week. Well not only did I have a great weigh in I really outshinned tonight. Are you ready for it? okay I lost 5 pounds this week. Yup you read that right 5 pounds.

I have been feeling so good all week. I've been working hard, and tonight it paid off. Oh yeah I almost forgot I also was the best loser of the week in my TOPS chapter.

To Cheat or Not To Cheat

2011-07-13T20:53:00.000-07:00

Okay well now that I've got your attention on this whole cheating issue I have been thinking about something lately, especially this week and tonight I wanted to ask you all a question.

Do you cheat and step up on the scale more then once a week or do you oly weigh yourself once a week? When I first joined TOPS back in 2005 I only weighed myself in once a week during our weekly meetings. I knew that my weight would go up and down, slightly, during the week, and that's why I was so determined to only weigh myself once a week.

Well here I am 6 years later and now I'm finding myself stepping up on the scale at home during the week. I'm actually finding that it does help me to keep on track and stay focused. If I weigh in higher the second day then the first then I know that I need to buckle down and if I weigh-in less then that motivates me to keep on going. I'm only using my at home weigh-in's as a guide during the week. My actual true weigh-in's are with my weekly TOPS meetings.

Finally an update

2011-07-11T19:45:00.000-07:00

Oh my gosh has it really been around two weeks since I last updated? I'm so sorry about that. Well actually I did do an update on my Pasadena Trip,but that's pretty much it.

Anyways I returned to my TOPS meeting last Tbursday, I wasn't able to attend on the 30th of June, and I knew that I was going to have a gain, and I knew that it was going to be quite huge. Well I was nervous all day about stepping on the scale, there was a strange feeling in the pit of my stomach.

After work I drove to my meeting giving myself a pep talk. I told myself that no matter what the scale said I'm going to use it as a fresh start. I walked into my meeting and shortly after walked and stepped on the scale. I gained, wait for it......, 6 pounds! Yup you read that right, 6 pounds gained. I wasn't upset by the gain because first of all this was for two weeks, so really it's more like a 3 poun gain week. Plus I have gained more then 3 pounds in one week in the past.

I also can't be upset by this gain because when I look back over the past couple of weeks before I weighed in on Thursday I knew that I screw up those weeks, I screwed up royally. I wasn't tracking my food, I wasn't exercising, blah, blah, blah. I honestly needed to see a gain on the scal because it actually has helped me. My gain has helped me to get myself refocused and back on track again.

Friday after my meetng I was back on track again. I began loggin my food over on myfitnesspal.com Since Friday I've only had one day where I was off track with my eating.

I don't know why, but yesterday I was in a snacking mood all day. I honestly couldn't stop snacking to save my life. Funny thing is I was measuring out all of my food and logging it all, so as the day was going on I knew how many calories I was putting into my body and I just didn't care. I kept on eating and eating and eating. In the end my total calorie intake for the day was around 3400, super yike! I can't believe that I ate enough food for two full days.

Today I was right back on track again, all my meals were planned so I knew how many calories I was eating. I also drank 9 cups of water, and I went to the gym this morning and burned 290 calories. I was hoping to burn more calorie by using the ellpitical machine but after a couple of minutes I had to stitch to the treadmill. The motion of the ellpitical machine was hurting my legs. The treadmill was fine and I had no issues. During the final 15 minutes of my workut I went on the bike which was awesome.

Well I need to get ready for bed, I'm hitting the gym in the morning.

4th of July Weekend in Pasadena

2011-07-05T16:35:00.000-07:00

Well vacations, even mini one's, come and go so fast. This past weekend I spent the 4th of July down in Pasadena with my mom. It felt great just to get away for a few days, but it's also nice to be home again.

And now without further delay here is the details on my trip.

Saturday ~ 7/2/2011

5:00am - My alarm was set for 5:00am in the morning and my first instinct was to get into my gym clothes. As a matter of fact I even started putting on my sports bra. Then I remembered that I was going away for the weekend. I didn't have a lot to do that morning because pretty much everything was completed the night before.

6:00am - Left the house and began our trip.

6:45am - My mom and I stopped at the Black Bear Diner in Gilroy for breakfast.

7:20am - Back on the road again.

9:00am - I ate my planned snack: slice apple, string cheese, homemade trail mix.

10:0am - We had to stop at a station to get some gas. While we were there I went inside the food mart and got some water, baked chips and tic tacs.

11:00am - It's now shortly after 11 in the morning and we've been stuck in traffic for 45 minutes. We were traveling on I-5 and due to construction going on only one lane of traffic was open, so lucky we were ony stuck for a short while.

1:15pm - Finally in Pasadena! After checking in our hotel my mom and I went to Subway for lunch.

2:45pm - Gamble House Tour: As written on the web site "The Gamble House in Pasadena, California, is an outstanding example of American Arts and Crafts style architecture. The house and furnishings were designed by Charles and Henry Greene in 1908 for David and Mary Gamble of the Procter and Gamble Company. The house, a National Historic Landmark, is owned by the City of Pasadena and operated by the University of Southern California and is open for public tours."

4:15pm - Gamble House Tour was finished, and since I wasn't able to take pictures inside I decided to take pictures outside. Next we headed over to "Pasadena City College" so I could take some images.

5:45pm - We drove to Old Town Pasadena, which bascially is there downtown area, to eat dinner. Our first dinner in Pasadena was at the "Green Earth Vegan Resturant" The food was amazing and all healthy. After dinner we walked around the down town for a while.

8:30pm - Back at the hotel for the evening.

Sunday ~ 7/3/2011

12:00am - I woke up shortly after 12:0am, believe me this wasn't my choice, the alarm clock in our room must have been set from the last guests there and so it went off. After I turned it off I went back to sleep again.

6:00am - I woke up again, feeling extremly well rested. I slept for a full 8 hours, and it was much needed sleep.

7:15am - After getting ready my mom and I went to Coca's for breakfast.

8:30am - Our first stop of the day "Pasadena City Hall" I was only able to take pictures of the outside of the building. Which I thought was prety cool. Right next to the city hall they had the "Jackie and Mack Robinson memorial" This memorial honors the historic accomplishments of brothers Mack and Jackie Robinson with two 9-foot bronze sculptures.

9:3am - Next we drove over to the Fenyes mansion. I was hoping to go on a tour, but they were closed. So once again I only was able to get images of the outside of the building. The one thing that I really liked was right next to the Fenyes mansion was the "Finnish Folk Art Store". I'm part Finnish, so it would have been great to get something from my own Hertiage. Unfourtunally they were closed, so I wasn't able to get anything, boo.

10:45am - My mom and I spent the next three hours at the "Huntington Library, Art Collections, & Botanical Gardens" 'is a research and educational center set amidst 120 acres of breathtaking gardens. Three art galleries and a library showcase magnificent collections of paintings, sculptures, rare books, manuscripts, and decorative arts. The botanical collection features over 14,000 different species of plants.'

I have to say that if you ever go to Pasadena this is a must see. The art galleries were really great, but the gardens were amazing. We spent nearly two hours walking around just taking in all of those sceenery. It was extremly hot that day, but being out in the gardens it was all worth it.

1:45pm - After spending the past three hours at the Galleries and out in the Gardens we both were getting pretty tried and not to mention hot and sweaty, we both were ready to leave.

3:15pm - Some how we ended up in the town of Santa Anita, and while we were there we stopped at the Santa Anita Westfield Shopping Mall. Which is proberly one of the largest shopping mall's I have ever been to. Our shopping mall's here are quite large, but this one in Santa Anita really blew my mind. We walked around the mall for a while just looking around and doing some window shopping. While we were there we had dinner at CPK.

8:00pm - After a long and exhausting day I was glad to be back at the hotel for the evening.

Monday ~ 7/4/2011 (HAPPY 4TH OF JULY)
8:45am - I woke up this morning feeling well rested and ready to start my day. I went to bed the night before at 11:00pm, so the extra sleep was great.

9:45am - Today's outting was something I really was looking forward to. Today we were driving down to Playa Del Rey to see the home of Anissa Jones. Anissa was a childhood actress who played the part of Buffy Davis on Family Affair, which ran from 1968 to 1972. It was such an honor to actually see the outside of her house in person and to walk along the same streets where she walked.

12:15pm - We drove back into town and stopped to have lunch at the Olive Garden. The food was great, but I really over did it on the bread sticks.

2:30pm - Next we drove over to the Rose Bowl to enjoy this wonderful holiday. They had games, rides, drinks, and lots of food for all ages to enjoy. Since they weren't opening up the stadium until 6:00pm we had plenty of time to walk around and explore. Exploring sure would have been a lot easier if it wasn't so hot, so if the truth be known we did a lot more sitting then walking.

6:00pm - They finally opened up the doors to the statium, and my mom and I took our sets. Pretty much everything was open seating, except for handicapped, so we could sit anywhere we wanted too.

7:00pm - The preshow began and what a preshow it was. The preshow was entertaining for all ages, which I thought was really great. My favorite part was Ives Brothers FMX motorcycle stunt's. There also was a band there which I thought was the Beach Boys, but it turned out to be "DCI Phantom Regiment" The reason I thought it was The Beach Boys was because they sang songs by them.

9:00pm - Finally at last the Fire Works show began. This 4th of July Fire Works show is the largest one in Southern California. The show lasted about 30 minutes and I enjoyed every minute of it. If you ever are down in Southern California during 4th of July I highly suggest you go and see this amazing show.

After the show we walked back to the car and lucky I found it right away. Finding my car right away was really awesome cosidering in the past after shows like this we could spent close to an hour just walking around trying to locate our car. This time I got smart and I wrote down some clues as to exacty where I car was. It actually was pretty funny, my mom kept on telling me the car was over in one direction, but I kept on telling her "no mom it's over here" she kept on saying "no Katherine the car is over here" so we were going back and forth, finally my mom said "Fine let's just go the way you think the car is and then you'll see it's not there" Well after walking a short distance my mom spoted the car, so yup I was right. Thank goodness I took really good notes, writing them down, on where the car was parked.

Once we were in the car it took 45 minutes for us just to get out of the parking lot. The freeway was right next to the Rose Bowl and since it was totally backed up my mom and took the back roads to the hotel.

11:45pm - After returning back to the hotel and relaxing for the evening it was time to call it a night.

Tuesday ~ 7/5/2011
6:45am - My final day in Southern California and even though I really did have a wonderful time I was glad to be going home.

8:15am - After quickly getting packed and ready for the day my mom and I were out the door and heading back home for San Jose.

11:00am - Driving for nearly three hour we both needed a short little break, so my mom stopped at a gas station, so we could stretch our legs and fill up the car. I also got a much needed bottle of water and some snacks. Yes I got junk food and I know I shouldn't have, but it was on vacation so I felt it was okay.

1:15pm - Finally we were back in Santa Clara County, yippy! We ate lunch at Applebee's. I ordered a garden salad, yes I was good. Well not really I also got some mozzarella sticks and dipped the in ranch dressing. So I guess you can say I did half well, lol.

2:30pm - At long last we were back in San Jose again which means I'm "Home Baby Home".

I really hope you enjoyed my report on my trip to Pasadena. I do plan on putting up my images on Facebook, but I first need to sort though them.

myfitnesspal.com

2011-06-25T20:17:00.001-07:00

Hello Myfitnesspal.com! So what is this awesome site? Well allow me to explain. Bascially it's a site where you can log your daily food, water, exercising, etc. You also can meet new friends and connect with people who are going through the same struggles as you when it comes to getting healthy.

A few weeks ago one of the ladies from my TOPS chapter briefly told us all about this one site Myfitnesspal.com She made it sound so applealing that I just had to reconnect with this site. I actually signed up for this site, maybe like a year ago, but I never really used it, but I'm giving it another try. So far I really like it.

After yesterday's bomb of a day, I got back on track again today. I have to say that this was one of the best Saturdays I had in proberly literally months. Since I began my June weekly calorie challengs I have been counting my calories on Saturday the past few weeks, I think I missed one, but my calories that I've been eatng on Saturdays were way more then what I should be eating. So with all of that being said let me break down this awesme day.

Work Out: Went to the gym and did a combo of using the treadmill and recrument bike for a total of 30 minutes and I burned 200 calories.

Food Log: Since I'm using myfitnesspal.com now I did log all of my food over there. Calories ate 1520, calories burned 200, net calories 1320

Water: I drank a total of 10 glasses today. Can you say "glug, glug, glug"

Cleaning: Cleaned both the living room and my room today. Naturally after I was doing dusting and vacuuming I had to use my frebreze.

Shopping: Went to the grocery store today and got a few groceries for this next week. I wanted to get some cereal but it cost $5.19 a box, so decided to pass on the cereal. Then later on in the afternoon I had to go to CVS to pick up some items. While there I just happen to walk past the aisle with the cereal and several different kinds were on sale including the kind I wanted to get at the grocery store earlier in the day. I got two boxes of cereal for $6.00 which normally would retail for $13.18, so an awesome deal.

Food wise tomorrow is going to be a challenge for me. I'm going out of town for the day to the Nascar Race. If you've ever been at an event like this or something similar then you know how difficult it can be for someone on a weight loss plan especially for people like me who are vegetarians. Right now I'm cooking some MSF Hickory Riblets to bring with me. I'm also going to pack some fresh fruit and other snacks. I just want to be prepared for tomorrow and have an awesome day at the race.

5 weeks going strong

2011-06-23T22:13:00.000-07:00

Well before I post my menu tonight I just wanted to share somethng special with you. I was looking at my TOPS traker and I haven't gained during the past 5 weeks. I had 3 loss and 2 turtles, but no gains, so I'm really happy about that. Next week when I have another loss, yes don't you love my attidue that will make 6 weeks in a row which will be the longest I've gone without a gain.

Here are my meals:
1 cup milk
1 oz multi grain cheerios
3 oz banana
12 almonds
peach
2 slices bread
mock tuna salad
yogurt
apple
cottage cheese - 90
carrrots - 25 hummus - 50
Noodle
Lil drum cone
Multi grain chips
2 (string cheese)
60 tic tacs

My goals for this past week where:
Daily: Log my food everyday (I logged 6 days)
Weekly: Daily calories 1650 or less
Money Earned: 4.8

Now here are my goals for my final week of calorie challenges:
Daily: Log my food everyday
Weekly 1650 or less

Prizes to Earn:
Daily: $1.00 per per day
Weekly: $5.00
Bonus: Double what I loss (for example if I loose 2 pounds that would be $4.00)

ops my bad, forgot yesterday

2011-06-23T05:18:00.001-07:00

Sorry that I totally forgot to log my food yesterday.

1 cup milk 130
1 oz multi grain cheerios 110
5 oz strawberry's 45
2 slices bread 45
Mock tuna salad 136
See's lolipop
Popcorn 100
Sliced apple 50
Trail mix 226
pop chips 100
String cheese 80
yogurt
7 pizza rolls
1.5 Tbsp ranch

2011-06-21T18:58:00.000-07:00

Green monster
1 egg
Mock tuna salad
2 slices bread
5 oz strawberry's
3 kisses
Msf breaded chik patty
1 Tbsp ketchup
Veggies
1 slice bread
½ Tbsp l.butter
Lil drum vanilla cone
12 almonds
Sliced apple
Yogurt
Gronilla bar
String chese
peach

Total Calories Eaten: 1518

As you can see I decided not to go to the gym this morning. I guess I felt like I needed a small break due to the pain I was having in my back yesterday. Lukcy my back is totally fine now because I really want to get back to the gym tomorrow. Now the only question is will I go to my work gym or the gym in Campbell.

A couple of NSV

2011-06-20T19:41:00.000-07:00

Peach
1 toast
1 Tbsp pb
1 egg
Spinach lasanga
5 oz strawberry's
Chocolate vanilla pudding
Veggie burger
2 brownies
Baked chips
12 almonds
Sliced apple
String cheese
Hummus
Carrots

Total Calories Eaten: 1520
Calories Burned: 290
Net Calories: 1230

Yep I went to the gym this morning and had an awesome workout. Infact my workout was so great that when my co-worker brought in Krispy Kreme's this morning I didn't have any which is a huge for me because I love me some Krispy Kreme's.

Right now i'm debating rather to go to the gym tomororw or not. I really do want to go, but my lower back has been hurting all day. I have a feeling that my stupid monthly visitor is about to arrive, ugh.

I don't know why but on those days when my meals aren't planned out and I just eat on the fly I tend to eat a lot more and not be more aware of what i'm eating. Today yesterday for example. Yesterday I ate over 2000 calories, but none of my meals were planned. Today all of my meals were planned out and I had no problem sticking to my plan.

And speaking of planning out my meals I beter do that now.

2011-06-19T19:29:00.001-07:00

1 cup milk
1 oz multi cheeris
Green monster
3 oz baked chips
2 brownies
Noodles
95 grams apple
5 oz strawberries
String cheese
Gronilla bar
Lil chocolate drum
7 pizza rolls
1 Tbsp ranch
60 tic tacs

Total calories: way over 1650, yikes

2011-06-17T22:35:00.000-07:00

7 pizza rolls
1 Tbsp ranch
Brownie
Ranch popcorn

Subway veggie delight w/ cheese
Packaged apples

Multi grain cheerios
1 cup milk
Fruit cup

Yogurt
12 almonds

Gronilla bar
String cheese

Total Calories: 1516

Time to buckle down

2011-06-16T21:10:00.000-07:00

I don't mind getting up early, I really don't, but waking up 40 minutes before my alarm goes off it just wrong. I started waking up this morning at 3:30am, and after tossing and turning for nearly 25 minutes I finally decided to just go ahead and get up.

This morning I had to go to the gym at my work, because I left the house a little late. Funny right, seeing how I woke up so early, lol. Anyways today I decided to do multiple machines. I worked out on the treadmill, bike, and crosramp burning a total of 290 calories.

My eating today was pretty good, but I know it could have been better. I didn't plan out my meals last night, so I knew my calories would be high today, and they were but I'll talk more about that in a sec.

After work I drove to my TOPS meeting and I only had one thing on my mind. Finally being able to enjoy my multi grain chips and melted cheese. I have been thinking about these since Monday and I couldn't wait for the meeting to be over tonight. Unfournally our meeting ran over tonight, so we didn't get out until after 7:30pm.

Well once the meeting was closed I quickly said goodbye and then I bolted. Then the "EVENT HAPPENED" my car would not start, ugh. I tried everything, but nothing was working. I was getting pretty ticked off because I really, really, really, wanted to get home, but I was stuck.

I calld AAA road side service and I began explaing to the agent what was going on. Shortly after she took down my information she began to ask me some more questions. One question she asked me was "does your stiring wheel turn at all" I tried to turn my wheel and it was locked. It took me a couple of shacks to finally unlcok my wheel. Right after I tried to start my car and it started, YES! I spoke with the agent and told her that everything was fine.

10 minutes later I was home, and I couldn't be happier. My chips and cheese were so worth the wait.

Now for this weeks' weigh-in. Since I had that one day where didn't count my calories I wasn't sure how I was going to do. Anyways I turtled tonight, yeah! I was so happy that I didn't gain a turtle was awesome.

My goals for this past week were:
1) To log my food everyday and count calories
2) Weekly net calores 11025

Results: I logged my food 6 days and my weekly net calories well I have no idea how they were since on Sunday I didn't count them. In conclusion I earned $4.80 this week towards my prize.

Before I tell you my goals for this next week I first need to write down my meals for today.

1 cup milk
1 oz multi cheeris
fruit cup - 100
trail mix
2 slices bread
mock tuna salad
yogurt - 80
pop chips
carrots
hummus
cookie bar
2 fun size pack m & M
Noodles
Lil drum vanilla
2 string cheese
Multi grain chips
Lil drum chocolate

The past few days I've really been thinking about my goals for this upcoming week. During the past couple of weeks one of the goals I set for myself was a certain weekly net calories. Which if you think about it, leave a lot of room for error. That's why I've decided for this next week I'm really going to "Buckle Down" with my calorie intake. I need to start thinking in terms of daily calories and not weekly.

My goals for this next week:
1) Log my food and count calories everyday.
2) Daily calories eaten 1650 or less.

Last Entry....well not really

2011-06-15T20:20:00.001-07:00

One month ago I began a challenge to blog everyday, and I have to say I did awesomely. I will have to look back, but I believe i only missed two days. This past month of blogging has really helped me. I had a couple days, okay maybe more, where I was off track. Well when I wrote about those days the very next day I was back on track again.

I'm really hoping that I have some kind of a loss this week, but to be honest I'm not counting on it. Since I didn't count my calories on Sunday and my calories were exactly high on Friday and Saturday that could effect my weigh-in this week.

I want to thank you for this past month the ride was amazing, but it's not over yet. I stil plan on blogging my food everyday, until the end of the month. After June I will see what to do.

today's eats:
1 cup milk -
1 oz multi cheerios
banana - 75
sahale snacks cashews
mock tuna salad
2 slices bread
yogurt - 80
2 apricots
String cheese
Carrotts
Hummus
Hickory riblets
Green valley veggies
1 piece toast
Lgh butter
Lil chocolate drum
1 oz baked chips

Total Calories: 1586
Total Calories Burned: 250
Net Calories: 1336

ops forgot to post my menu

2011-06-15T05:02:00.000-07:00

Yesterday's Eats:

1 cup milk 130
1 oz multi cheerios 110

Trail mix 226
2 plums 60

Mock tuna salad 136
2 slices bread 90
yogurt - 80 80
2 apricots 55

Gronilla bar 100
String cheese 80

Vegetarian hamburger 267
85 grams – sweet potatoe fries 140
Chocolate vanilla pudding cup 110

Total Calories 1584
Calories Burned 270
Net Calories 1314

I'm so sorry that I forgot to post my menu from yesterday. I was working on something else and it totally slipped my mind. I actually rememembered that I forgot right after I turned my computer off last night.

Back on track again

2011-06-13T20:41:00.000-07:00

Today's Eats:
7 pizza roll
1 Tbsp ranch
1 oz baked chips
Lil vanilla drum

Apple - 45
Mock tuna salad
2 slices bread
yogurt - 80

1 eggs
1 bread
½ Tbsp PB
2 apricots

12 almonds
2 plums

String cheese
Carrots
Hummus

Total Calories: 1355

Today was tuff for me. I kept on thinking about eating multi grain chips and junk food all day. I guess all the food that I ate yesterday didn't help with the way that I'm feeling. I didn't give in to the way I was feeling and I stuck to my eating plan. On Thursday after my TOPS meeting I'm going to eat the chips.

My lunch is made, gym bag is packed, dishes are washed, finally tomorrow's menu's are planned.

total bust

2011-06-12T20:32:00.000-07:00

Well today was a total bust, as far as food goes. I didn't food log at all, so I have no idea how many calories I ate. Unforunally due to the fact that I didn't count my calories today I am not going to be elligiable for my weekly goal. That's totally fine because I can still work towards my daily goals.

I have three more days of my month of journaling. Not sure if you remember but in the middle of last month I set a goal for myself, to journal everyday for one month. I have to say that I really have enjoyed this journal. Anyways I don't want to go into to much details now because on Thursday I'm going to write a recap on past month of journaling.

6/11 food log

2011-06-11T21:42:00.000-07:00

3 eggs
Toast
½ Tbsp PB
Kiwi
Saturn peach
Trail mix
4 oz baked chips
7 pizza rolls
1 Tbsp ranch
4 kisses
2 puddings
Sweet tomatoes Restaurant
Gronilla bar
Lil drum vanilla cone

Total Calories Eaten 2279

10 days in 20 more to go

2011-06-10T19:36:00.000-07:00

Today's Eats:
1 cup milk
pb banana oatmeal
14 cherry's
trail mix
maui sweet onion chips
work
Saturan peach
Spinach lasagna
Multi grain chips
fun pack plain m &m
2 oz baked chips
7 pizza rolls
1 Tbsp ranch
3 kisses
Chocolate vanilla pudding

Total Calories Eaten: 2240
Weekly Net Balance: 8785

My first attempt at spinning

2011-06-10T07:42:00.001-07:00

Happy Friday! Can you believe that i'm actually writing a post at 7:13 in the morning? I know I cant'! I'm at work now, my mom had to drop me off today, and since I still have 45 minutes before my work day actually begins I wanted to write a little bit in details on how mu day went yesterday. Anyways i went to the gym int he morning and got in a decent workout. I honestly can't say that it was awesome because I know that I could have done mroe then I did. I completed 24 minutes on the treadmill and then 6 minutes on the bike for a total of 30 minutes and the calories that I burned were 175. I really was hoping to burn closer to 250 calories, but I didn't quite make it.

After i finished on the bike I had a little time left, so I decided to give the spin bike a try. Right from the beginning I was having difficulties. First the seat was way to high for my height, I'm 5'1. In the back of the back near the seat there was this large type screw. Well I started twisting and twisting this screw thinking that it would come out but nothing was happening. Finally I figured out that in order to lower the seat I had to pull the screw, which I guess is on a springing device, so I finally got the seat lowered. I had to lower the seat all the way but getting on the bike was still a challenge for me. The only way I was able to get on it was to put my foot in the peddle and push myself up. A few seconds after I got on the bike i started thinking to myself "if i had this much trouble getting on the bike, how am I going to get off" I wasn't able to get off the same way that I got on, so I inched myself forward and aimed towards the center of the bike between the handle bars and the seat in order to get off the bike. As as I was getting off I hit my leg on some bar and now I have this huge bruise on my leg, ugh. So that was my experience in a spin bike for the first time. Didn't get in spinning in, but hey I'm giving myself credit for just sitting on the bike. Next time before I even think about getting on a spin bike I'm going to make sure I know how to do everything properly.I know what your thinking "Katherine why didn't you just ask for some assistance" Believe me I would have if someone from the onsite staff was there, but i was there pretty early in the morning and nobody else was there.

Last night after my meeting I came home ate my dinner then i was done eating for the day. Normally on Thursday's I never plan out my dinner or count my calories. I figure that my week basically is starting over again on Friday, so it wouldn't hurt me what I ate. Well this time I had already planned out exactly what I was going to eat and i stuck with it 100%, what really helped me was brushing my teeth right after dinner.

9 days and still going strong

2011-06-09T21:04:00.000-07:00

And now here is my final menu's of the week:

7 pizza rolls
1 Tbsp ranch
Multi grian chips
Chocolate vanilla pudding cup
Subway sandwitch
1 cup milk
Multi grain cheerios
Banana
Trail mix
2 saturn peaches
Apple
Carrots
Hummus

Total calories: 1630
Calories Burned: 175
Net calories: 1455

My goals for the past week were:
1) To Log my food everyday: I logged my food all 7 days
2) Weekly net calories 10500 or less: Total calories I ate this week were 12534. Total calories burned 710, so that makes my weekly net 11824.

Monthly prize money earned: $5.60
Total monthly prize money earned: $7.20

Now for my calorie based goals for this next week.
1) To log my food everyday: prize money to earn ~ 5.6
2) weekly net calories 11025 or less: prize money to earn ~ 6.25

Now for my weekly weigh-in results. I'm happy to announce that I had a loss this week of 1.8 pounds, yeah.

7th of June - report (so far so good)

2011-06-08T19:32:00.000-07:00

In less then 24 hours I'll find out if all of my hard work paid off this week. In all honesty I'm not to worried about my weigh-in. I know that no matter what happens on the scale it's not going to have any influence on how well I've been doing.

today I had just one tiny slip up at work. One of the deserts my work was servng was these peanut butter chocolate chip bars. They were pretty small, so I counted the two I had as 100 calories. I was just they didn't have there chocolate mooose, that desert is off the wall awesome.

Monkey Berry Nutty Smoothie
Egg72
Spring veggie fetta salad
Sweet fries
Veggie hamburger
Chocolate vanilla pudding
7 cherrys
12 Almonds
Sliced kiwi
Gronilla Bar

Total Calories: 1436
Weekly Net Cal Balance: 131

June 7th - Another awesome day

2011-06-07T20:28:00.000-07:00

Another successful day, yep yep yep. I have been feeling so good lately and it's really reflecting on my eating and workouts. Since my calorie intake was extremly high two days I'm afaird that I'm going to surpass my weekly net calories, but hopefully not by much. Know matter what happens on Thursday night I'm not going to let it ruin this feeling I'm having.

Today's Log:
1 cup 1% milk
1 oz multi grain cheerios
Cherrys
Trail mix
Spring veggie fetta salad
Apple
Multi grain chips
Hummus
Veggie riblets
Garden melody veggies
½ Tbsp l. butter
1 slice toast
Chocolate vanilla pudding

Calories Eaten: 1502
Calories Burned: 260
Weekly Net Calories Balance: 1567

June 6th - a totally awesome day

2011-06-06T20:04:00.000-07:00

1 eggs
3 oz banana
½ Tbsp PB
Toast

Spinach lasagna
Apple

Breaded chik patty
Toast
1 Tbsp ketchup

½ Tbsp l.butter
Garden melody veggies
Chocolate vanilla pudding

Saturn peach
15 cherry
12 almonds

Carrots
Hummus
String cheese

1 oz baked chips

Total Calories Eaten: 1388
Total Net Calories: 1388
Weekly Remaining Balance: 2809

Holy smokes I can't believe how awesome I did today. I ate a lot of fruit today, so that did help keep my calories low. As a matter of fact the baked chips were added tonight because my calories were a little low. Tomorrow it's back to the gym for me.

June 4th awesome day and food log

2011-06-05T19:55:00.000-07:00

If I had to sum up my day in one word it would be "AWESOME" Yep that's right I had a truly amazing day. How amazing was it well here is the fully recap.

I woke up this morning around 6:45am, got my workout clothes on. Ate some breakfast, and then I headed over to the gym. I finally went to that "new to me" gym at my work. I have to say that this gym is truly amazing. There are treadmills, recrument bikes, spin bikes, stair masters, weight machines, etc.

This morning I worked out for a total of 48 minutes and burned 275 calories. Funny thing is was going to only workout for 30 minutes. I started watching this one movie and before I knew it I had surpassed my 30 minutes. The only down fault with this gym is the location. Once I got there I had to drive clear in the back parking lot just to get to the building, which really was no big deal. However I did feel getting in and out of the parking lot was kind of going through a maze. So I'm sorry to say that today was proberly my first and last day at this gym.

Then later on I went over to Safeway and got some really good deals. Here are just some of the deals I got Multi Grain Cheerios sells for $4.49 a box. I paid $1.99 a box. Frebreeze sells for $3.49 I paid $2.49. I also got 2.11 pounds of cherry's which normally would sell for $16.86. They were on sale, so I paid $5.84 dollars, wow talk about savings.

Here is my food log for today:
1 cup milk
Multi grain cheerios
Trail mix
Brownie
Egg
2 oz baked chips
Lil drum brownie cone
Subway
2 cookies
7 pizza rolls
1 Tbsp l. ranch
Jello chocolate vanilla pudding

Total Calories Eaten: 1862
Total Calories Burned: 275
Net Calories: 1587
Weekly Calorie Balance: 4197

June 4th food log

2011-06-04T21:33:00.001-07:00

Today we all said a final goodbye to my Auntie (mom's sister) the service was really lovely and i know my Auntie was watching down on us all an smiling. My mom gave a real nice speech during the service. After the service we all had a nice luncheon at church. One of my brother's friends from high school came to the service.

Tomorrow I'm going to go and check out a new gym at my work. Okay it's not really a new gym, but it's new to me because I've never been there. Hopefully the drive up to my work will be worth it, lol.

Anyways here are my calories from today.

peanut buter banana oatmeal
1 cup 1% milk
trail mix - 226
Salad w/ dressing
Garlic bread
Brownies
Cookies
Lil drum
Sweet fries
Veggie burger
Popcorn
3 kisses

Total Calories Eaten: 2039
Total Calories Burned: 0
Net Calories: 2039
Weekly Balance: 5784

Food log day 3 of 30

2011-06-03T20:37:00.000-07:00

Okay well first of all I'm almost ashamed to admit what I ate today, but im keeping it real with you, so here goes.

1 cup milk - 130
1 oz multi grain cheerios - 110
multi grain chips - 210
trail mix - 226
hawaiian maui onion chips - 210
1/2 cup breaded whole wheat mac and cheese - 250
1/2 cup quinoa salad - 140
2 oreo cookies - 100
1/2 cup straus frams organic dutch chocolate fro yo - 165
egg - 72
pop chips - 100
30 grams reese pieces up - 160
7 PIZZA ROLLS - 234
1 TBSP RANCH - 40
LIL DRUM (2) - 240
MULTI CHIPS - 210
STRING CHEESE - 80

Total Calories: 2677
Calories Burned: 0
Net Calories: 2677
Remaining Weekly Balance: 7823

Holy smokes wow I knew that today was going to be bad, but that's okay because I'm learning. Now I just have to hall my ass to the gym to really make up for my poor choices today.

One things for sure I was really proud that I did log all of my food today. Some of the items, that I got from work today I had to look up the calories online, so those were pretty much an estamite guess.

2nd half of last night's entry

2011-06-03T07:36:00.000-07:00

I’m really sorry that last night’s log was so vague. My brother and SIL came over last night to pay there respects to my Uncle and Cousin for the loss of my Aunt. Anyways let me finish you with a recap on my day from yesterday.

Total Calories Eaten: 1584
Total Calories Burned: 215
Total Net Calories: 1369

All in all I would have to say that yesterday was a very successful day.
Since I had have my weigh-in’s on Thursday nights, I have decided to go with my weeks from Friday to Thursday. Each week I’m going to look back at the week and see how I did to see if I need to make any improvements or not. Then on Thursday’s after my meeting I’ll write out my goals for the next week.

So seeing how I was unable to write out my goals last night, here they are now.
1) Log my food everyday (including what I eat here)
2) Weekly net calories 10500 or less

Tonight should be a lot easier for me to log in what I’m eating for today, and I have to warn you my food intake isn’t going to be the healthiest today.

oh wait I'm sorry I forgot to say how I did last night at TOPS Well I'm happy to report that I had a turtle, yeah.

Day 2 of 30

2011-06-02T21:45:00.001-07:00

Hi Everyone,
Here is my food log for today, sorry but I don't have time for a long post.

Vegetarian hamburger 267
Lil drum brownie ice cream 120

Spinach lasagna 204
Apple 65

1 cup milk 130
1 oz multi grain cheerios 110
3 oz banana 75

Trail mix 226
Egg 72

String cheese 80
Carrotts 25
Hummus 35

Irsh chocolate brownie 175

Calories burned 215

Day 1 of 30 stats

2011-06-01T18:54:00.000-07:00

Today's Meals:

1 cup milk, PB banana oatmeal
12 almonds, apple
Spring veggie fetta salad
string cheese, carrotts, hummus
Ranch pasta, 2 pieces toast, Light butter, 1 cup milk, Lil drum cookie dough cone

Total calories: 1499
Calories Burned: 0
Net Calories: 1499

Well I'm off to a good start, yeah for me. I did save 100 calories for tonight to use if I wanted to for a lite snack tonight, but I'm pretty full, so I'm done for tonight.

Oh I have some real good news. Today "Sprinkles Cupcake" company came to our work and handed out free cupcakes. Did I have one? Nope, not at all, can I get a thumbs up! Now it's confession time I did walk out to the van where they were giving them away, but by the time I got up to the van they were out.

same old song just a new tune

2011-06-01T07:54:00.000-07:00

good morning loves!
You know last night when I came up with my challenge for this month, which I still plan on doing, I realized something. Since I haven't been on track with counting my calories I really have no idea on how many calories I should be eating a day in order to loss weight. For all I know the calories that I choose could be to low, then again they could be to high.

Instead of saying that I'm going to eat a certain amount of calories for the entire month. I'm going to take things one week at a time. Each week after my weigh-in I will adjust my calories if needed.

so with that being said here are my updated goals for the month.

1) Log my food and count my calories everyday (including here in my blog)
2) No activity days calories = 1450 or less
3) Activity days calories = 1625 or less

One final note on days when I do exercise I want to burn at least 180 calories, but since this month I'm going to focus on my calories I'm not going to include this with my goals for the month.

Well my work day is about to begin, so I better end this for now.

Oh my prize is still going to be the same.

A month of menus

2011-05-31T22:32:00.000-07:00

Hey Girl! Surprise surprise Im back tonight. Okay so I just planned out my meal for tomorrow and I thought to myself why not share with you my menus and my activity for the entire month of June. I know that earlier tonight I said that I wanted to focus on daily challenges, but I'm now thinking a full month, would be better. Yes I'm jumping around a lot and I do apoglize about that, but then you should know me by now.

So in conculsion here are my goals for the month of June.

1) Count my calories and log my food everyday (including blogging my food eaten)
2) No activity days calories = 1400 or less
3) Activity days calories = 1600 or less

My prize will be determined by the number of days that I stay on track with my mothly challenges. However many days I stay on track with my June goal my prize will be a dollar amount twice the number of days. For example, let's say that I'm on track for 30 days my prize will be $60.0 to spend however I want. If I only stay on track 15 days then my prize will be $30.00 to spend however I want.

rethinking it all

2011-05-31T19:20:00.000-07:00

Sorry that I forgot to blog yesterday. So here is a brief recap. Washed clothes, went grocery shopping, fueled my car, etc. you know just the basics.

I hate to say this, but today was a total bomb, but what else is new. Well I do have one positive point I went to the gym this morning. My workout this morning wasn't the best, but I did burn 160 calories. On another bright side there was this one machine, at the gym nextdoor to my building at work, that I was having trouble with. The first thing I tried to use this machine I had the settings all wrong, and then every time after that I still had difficulties. This morning I decided to tackle it. I'm happy to say that I completed 5 minutes on this machine. On Thursday I'm going back to gym and i'm going to tackle 6 minutes maybe more.

Since June is beginning tomorrow, I really need to kick things into high gear. I feel like I wasted half of the year. I'm challenging myself for the next 30 days to set small daily challenges.

Before I tell you my challenges for tomorrow I also have decided not to my daily point challenge anymore. Let's face it that really wasn't working for me. Instead I'm going to set monthly goals of 5 pounds, so by the end of June my weigt should be 218.2 pounds. My gift will be ???? well that's to be determined.

Okay really fast my goals for tomorrow

1) drink 80 oz water
2) no junk food at work.

Okay well I need to get my room orangized, like I said before what else is new.

2011-05-29T22:14:00.001-07:00

Another failed day, ugh. I really need to get on the ball with this weight loss. I feel ashamed that I can't stay on my health plan. Well I'm not going to beat myself up tomorrow is the start of a new day and I WILL DO BETTER.

Tonight I was planning out a program to do for my TOPS chapter at the end of July. The program I'm going to be doing is several tips from both Jess "trulyjess" and Kim "kam9581" both of these women truly inspire me to loss weight, so I wanted to write down some of there tips and share them with other ladies in my chapter.

Now I say that that these women inspire me to loss weight, but as you know I have been struggling. Well I'm really going to take all of there tips to heart and truly listen to them.

Before I end tonight's entry I"m going to share with you some of my favorite tips from these two amazing ladies.

1) Eat more food. When trying to loss weight it's not about the amount of food your eating, it's about what your eating.

2) 1)This is not a race, so eat slowly! Take a bite of food, put your fork down, drink some water, and then take another bite of food. It takes about 15 to 20 minutes for you stomach to tell your brain that your full, so y eating slower you will eat less.

3) Believe you can do it. If you don't believe you can do it then you won't achieve it. Image yourself at your goal weight, don't think that your big boned, don't think “Oh I'm always going to be this size” No your not you can do this but you have to believe it.

4) If you journal your food and write down what your going to eat typical you write them down in the order that your going to eat them, so you plan your breakfast you eat your breakfast, you plan your lunch you eat your lunch and so on. If you plan your biggest meal of the day first and work your calorie's around that meal your more likely to stay within your calorie range.

The 4th tip is one that I really need to start working on. My big meal of the day is dinner, this is the meal that I usually have the most calories, so I'm going to plan my dinner first for every meal for the rest of the week and see if that helps me on the scale this week.

2011-05-28T23:42:00.000-07:00

Holy smokes I'm sorry that i"m writing in so late tongiht. But thank goodness I still have 15 more minutes before the dayofficial ends. Anyways i'm sorry to say that today was a total bomb.

You know I was just thinking about something. I still want to do my challenge, but I feel that I should put a time deadline on it. This way it will help to push me to reach my goal. It also will help me on days like this,so I won't have any excuse.

My deadline for this first prize is 7/15/2011

Personal chalenge

2011-05-27T22:27:00.000-07:00

After a full day I finally came up with a challenge for myself that I feel is really going to help me to keep and get on track.

It's a very simple challenge where I earn points for my daily activies.

Here is a simple break down.

* Every 5000 points I earn, and receive an award
* Daily Calorie goal (1400)/ 45 pts
* Daily Water goal (96 oz) / 45 pts
* Daily Exercise goal (35 min's) / 45 pts.

So every day that I do all three of the things above I will earn 45 points for each.

Today for example I ate a net cal's of 2154, so I get 0 points for my food. I drink 104 oz of water, so I earn 45 points, and i didn't execise, so that's 0 points. Total points for today 45.

At firt I thought about having negetive numbers, like if I don't exercise a full 35 minutes I would have to take points way. Well the more I thought about it,and I realized that I want to make this a positive experience. I'm also debating rather or not to include points for weight loss. I will decide that within the next day or two.

Double the pleasure

2011-05-26T21:13:00.000-07:00

Today is the final day of my mini challenge, so here are the results from today.

Water: 88 oz
Exercise: 45 minutes
Net calories: ???

Since this challenge ended before my TOPS meeting I have decided not to count my calories today after my meeting as part of my challenge.

Anyways here is the final recap for you:

Water: My goal was to drink 4 pink bottles a day or 96 oz. im sorry that I didn't make that goal once, boo. On the bright side I did drink 88 ounces two of the day, so that's good.

Net Calories: My goal was to have net calories of 1400 or less. I made this goal only once which isn't good, bt I'm not going to look at this as a negetive.

Exercise: My goal was to exercise for 30 miutes (not my orginal, I changed it) for 3 days. I have to say that this one I did pretty dam awesome. I worked out two of the three days.

this challenge really did help me and I feel that I need to keep on challenging myself. I'm going to do the same challenge again this next week only this time I'm going to give myself a point system.

I promise to discuss my challenge tomorrow because I need to workout all of the details, like the points to give myself and shoul I delete points if fall short, should I get bonus points if I'm able

Oh my gosh but before I go I almost forgot this week I lost 0.8, so that's twice of what I gained last week.

180 turn around

2011-05-25T20:13:00.000-07:00

Wekl first of all I'm sorry that I didn't log on last night to report how my day went. I guess it was a good thing that I wrote in yesterday morning. So here is a final recap in one sentence "YESTERDAY TOTALLY BOMBED"

Now today was a complete 180 turn around.

total calories: 1518
calories burned: 175
net calories: 1343
Water: 72 oz

Forgot my shoes

2011-05-24T06:46:00.000-07:00

Good morning my friends! Last night I packed my gym bag's, so I wouldn't have any excuss not to go to the gym this morning. Well unfournatly that didn't quite happen. I woke up at 4:30 this morning and then I reset my alarm for 5:10am. Don't worry I wasn't going to skip the gym, I decided to start using the gym at my work on weekdays.

After I was ready I left for the gym at 5:55am, shortly after I got on the freeway I realized that I left my shoes at home. I was wearing my sneakers and my gym socks, but I didn't have a change of shoes and socks to wear for the day. Which meant I had to drive back home and get changed again into my work clothes. I know that I used this as an excuse, but I'm sorry I just go the entire day with sweaty smelly socks on, GROSS! Yes I know what your thinking I could always go to the gym after work, but I already know that ain't going to happen.

When I first planned out my calories for today I was going to eat 1585 calories,but since I wasn't going to exercise I had to revamp my food for today.

Well I will write in again tonight to give you a recap on my day.

~ Katherine

ps: I decided to change one of my goals for the week. Instead of burning 250 calories I want to workout 35 minutes 3 days.

2011-05-23T20:38:00.000-07:00

Well tonigts entry is going to be short, but I wanted to let you know my status for today.

Water: I drank 88 ounces, so I was 8 ounces short of my goal.
Food: My net calories for the day 1426, so 26 over my goal.
Exercise; none

Well not a bad start I'd have to say.

223.7 ????

2011-05-22T22:04:00.001-07:00

so what does this number mean? It's what I weighed when I stepped on the scale this morning.

I know that your suppose to only weigh yourself once a week, but I feel that weighing myself at home a couple of times during the week will help me to get and stay on track.

How did my day go? Well I'm sure that I ate less calories then yesterday, but I honestly can't say for sure I didn't count my calories.

Well I'm going to give myself a challenge which will go from right now until after my TOPS meeting on Thursday. It's a very simple challenge and one that I know that I can do. Here is my challenge

1) Go to the gym 3 days and burn at least 250 calories a session.
2) Drink 4 pink water bottles a day.
3) Daily net calories 1400 or less

I'm not going to give myself any award for completing this challenge. I just want the satisification of completing it.

Oh yeah and speaking of challenges. I really need to start coming up with chalenges that I can help me with my weight loss. A few years ago for every 100 miles that I exercsed I would give myself a prize. During this time I was doing really awesome with my weight loss, so maybe some challenges will help me.

I"ll talk more about this tomorrow night.

Guess What's Missing

2011-05-21T23:27:00.000-07:00

Sorry that this entry is so late tonight. Today I've been totally obsessed with something, which I will get into in a minute, but first I have a quiz for y'all. Can you guess what is missing from the list below:

Egg
Thing bagel
Cream cheese
Trail mix
Veggie taco
String cheese
Skinny Cow ice crema cone
Honey wheat pretzles
Pizza rolls
Ranch dressing
Baked Chips
Hershey's Kisses
Hickory Riblets
Sweet Tarts
Bread
Light Butter
Maui Onion Chips
Ice Cream

If you said fruits and veggies, then congrats your guessed right. All of the food listed above is everything that I ate today, minus the serving size of each item. So as you can clearly see today I didn't count my calories, so now it's time to finally get the grand total.

Daily Calorie Goal: 1500
Today's Calorie Intake: 2728
Net Calories: + 1228

I was thinking that my calorie intake wouldn't be so high today, but I guess I knew in the back of my mind that wasn't possible. Well I'm not going to beat myself up over this. Tomorrow is a brand new day.

Now what was I so opposed with today? Making my own coupon binder. I recently have gotten into using coupons, and I really wanted to do things right. I drove to Target today and got a binder, folder dividers, baseball cards sleeves. I'm still working on putting it all together I'll take some pic's once it's all together.

30 Days of Blogging

2011-05-20T19:06:00.000-07:00

After being away from TOPS for the past two weeks I finally returned last night with a small gain of 0.4 pounds, boo. In all honesty I'm not surprised that I had a gain. During the past two weeks I only had one day where I was totally 100% on track. I tracked all of my food, drank my water (well most of it, and worked out. Well I can't have one great day out of the past 14 and except to have a loss. I'm sorry that it just does not work that way. My current weight is 224 pounds, so that's a total loss of 58 pounds since I first started TOPS.

Last night during my time meetings we had our monthly discussion on "The Road Success" During the next month we all were challenged to do at least one of the following: food journal, exercise, drink water, or journal. Well I know that I really do need to focus on all of the above, but I decided that blogging is what I really need to right now.

So for the next 30 days I'm going to blog about my day and my feelings. Some of my thoughts will be joyous. Some of them will be angry, but most of all I will be 100% honest.

For the past few years my weight has been up and down, and i need to figure out what exactly is going on. When was it that I lost control and how can I get it back again.

I'm just going to take things one day a time and hopefuly I can turn things around.

2011-05-16T19:58:00.000-07:00

You never going to believe this, but I swear it's 100% true. Guess who went to the gym this morning. "You Katherine" Hey good guess, way to go. Yup I got up early this morning and got ready for the gym. I can't remember the last time I went to the gym, but I felt great. Today I used the treadmill burning 150 calories. I then used the bike and burned 85 calories. Total calories burned 235 total time working out 44 minutes.

My eating has been really good, the past couple of days, I'm back to planning out my meals the night before and totally sticking to it. Okay i'm not 100% perfect, this morning I forgot to pack an apple for my lunch, so instead I ate a cookie from work. I really wanted to get another cookie or two, hehe, but I was good I only ate the one.

My mom is returning home tomorrow. She's been upin Oregon staying with my Uncle and Cousin, helping to get everything ready for my Aunt's service. Her memorial service is going to be on the 4th of June.

Yesterday I went to Target and got myself a shoe bag. I really wanted something that I could put my shoes in and get them off the floor. You want to know something my closet has never looked better and more organized.

2011-05-10T18:37:00.000-07:00

I know this is a little late, but better late then never in my book. Anyways to all of the mom's "Happy Mother's Day" mom's are so special and I love my dearly. This year for mother's day my mom said that she wanted to go out of town for the day. We drove about an hour and half away to Modesto. Yeah when I said my mom wanted to go out of town, I wasn't kidding.

While we were in Modesto my mom and I went to there local shopping center. This year part of my mom's gift included an outfit. She and I went to JCP and looked around for quite a while, but neither of us were able to find anything we liked. I wanted to get a pair of black pants to go with my black and white shirt, but I was unable to find any in my size. My mom wanted to get a dress and she tried on several of them, but she just wasn't feeling it. Instead of getting an outfit, I got my mom a new wallet which she loves. I told my mom that we can go shopping another time and I will get her a outfit then.

After JCP we headed into the mall. I went to Claire's to pick up some earrings. They were having a really good sale, but two packs you get one pack for free. So I made sure that all of my earrings packs were around the same price. Next we drove over to Sizzler and I treated my mom to lunch. Afterwards hoped on the freeway and headed back home.

Even though my mom and I had a wonderful day I truly was glad that we were heading home. My right foot was swollen and killing me. I had a real difficult time walking around at the mall, so I had to sit down alot, but I managed.

Mother's day morning I cooked my mom breakfast. Then later in the day she meant up with my brother and SIL. They took her out for dinner. Later that evening we received some really bad news.

My Aunt, mom's sister, had to be flown by hellicopter from Baker City, Oregon to a Boise, ID hospital. My uncle said that my Aunt was really confused and slipping in of an awake state. She also was suffering from intestial blockage, but because her blood pressure was so low the doctor's were unale to operate.

My Aunt was really weak and the doctor's said that she only had 2 to 3 days to live. My mom my plane reservations to go to Idaho, so she can be with her sister during her final hours. Unfortunally late Monday evening around 11:00pm my Aunt went into Cardiac Arrest and passed away a short time later. This morning my mom flew to be with my Uncle and Cousin.

I was suppose to attend my TOPS SRD this week, but with my Aunt passing my heart just isn't in it. I already have two days off from work, so I'm just going to make a long weekend of it. My mom is flying home on Thursday and I really feel that I need to be with her.

2011 Big Bear 5K Race Report

2011-05-02T23:04:00.000-07:00

After 6 long months the wait is finally over. Yesterday was the 5K race up in Menlo Park. I did a brief video of the race, but I had to cut a lot of it out because the video was way to long. I figured it would be better to go more into details here about getting ready for the race, the race, and how I treated myself after the race. So with all of that said here is the recap:

Yesterday morning after I was up and dressed I prepared my breakfast.
1% milk
Peanut Butter Banana Oatmeal

Recipe for oatmeal:
Ingredients
* 1/3 Cup Quick Oats Oatmeal
* 2/3 Cup Water
* 3 oz Banana (peeled and broken up into chunks)
* 1 Tbsp Natural Peanut Butter

Put quick oats and water in a small bowl.
Cook in microwave 1.5 minutes
In another small bowl place banana. Place in microwave for 40 seconds.
Remove cooked banana from microwave and mash with a fork.
Add mashed banana to oatmeal and mix well.
Finally stir in peanut butter and enjoy!

The night before the race I got everything ready, so I didn't have to scramble around the day of the race searching for items. Here are the items that I had for the race:

Gym Boss
Mp3 player w/ headphones
Cell phone (so I can take pictures)
Waist pack (to carry my phone and Mp3 player
Directions to Menlo-Atherton High School (where the race was being held)
Sunblock
Sunglasses that go over my glasses
Registration papers

My mom at the school around 8:15am. The walk to the gym from the parking was about 5 minutes. Once we got inside the gym the first station we stopped at was the Registration table. At this table we turned our papers in.

Next station was the Bib and T-Shirt station. My bib number was 840 and my mom's was 836. Final station was the timing station. Here is where we got our timing chips which were strapped to our ankles.

Finally the horn went off and the race began. My mom and I were together for a couple of minutes, but then she started walking a head of me. Which I had a feeling that was going to happen because my mom does walk faster then me.

My goal was to do a 4:1 minute split. Therefore walking at a comfortable pace for 4 minutes and then jogging for 1 minute. I started off doing really great, but by the time I got to the 4 th round of jogging I was already getting tried, so instead I just decided to try and walk at a faster pace during that minute instead of doing the jogging rounds.

Shortly after 23 minutes into the race I passed the first mile mark. I wasn't jogging as much now, but that's okay because I was feeling strong, I was feeling good. Rocking to my music was really keeping my pumped. Yes I was on my way only 2 miles to go.

15 minutes later I had a 180 mood change. I was feeling tried, my feet where beginning to ache, and the sound of my music felt like it was pounding in my head. I was coming up on the 2 mile mark and as tried and exhausted as I was something really strange happened. There was a small group of volunteers at the 2 mile mark station and seeing them all gave me a sudden burst of energy. I started jogging and they all were cheering me on, which I loved. One of the volunteers handed me a cup of water.

Right after I passed the two mile mark I went back to walking, so I guess you can say that burst of energy was a bust. Oh yeah I almost forgot I crossed the 2 mile mark at 46 minutes into the race.

Finally I was back on the track, and I jogged across the finish line, at 1:12:11 minutes. I was completely exhausted, tried, felt like I could barley walk, but I still felt good. I completed the race and even though I felt miserable I didn't give up.

My goal was to finish the race in under an hour, but even though it took my longer I was totally fine with that. My thought coming into the race yesterday was that as long as I finish the race then I have already won my goal. Not sure if that makes sense or not.

Ten minutes later my mom and I meant up and were heading back to the car. Here's a good laugh for y'all. My mom told me that during the last part of the race instead of going around the bend to finish up and cross the finishing line, she started following a group of people to the gym. So my mom never cross the finishing line. When she was back at the gym she realized what she had done, so she found one of the volunteers and turned in her time chip.
After the race we both felt like we needed some rest time and some good food. So it was off to to Olive Garden. I wasn't extremely to hungry, so I just had salad and bread sticks.

I also decided that even though I didn't finish the race in the time I wanted to, I still want to give myself a little reward for completion of the race. My mom and I went to Target because I had to exchange something and my mom had to pick up a few items. While I was there I also got some make up.

Ever since I saw Sara's review on the “Physicians Formula Shimmer Strips Custom Eye Enhancing Eye Liner Trio” I had been wanting to try these. Now I personally don't really like to use eye liner, but I figured what the heck. Well at my Target they had plenty for brown eyes, blue eyes, and green eyes none for hazel eyes. Guess which color eyes I have. If you said “hazel” congrats that's correct. Instead I got the following items:

Physicians Formula Plentiful Thicking Mascara
Physicians Formula Eye Definer Automatic Eye Pencil

I also went to CVS to pick up the following items:

Pantene Shampoo for curly hair
Pantene Condioner for curly hair
Febreze in Lavender Vanilla (I love me some Febreze)

If I was purchasing all of these items at full price, meaning no sales were going on or anything like that, then the retail value is $29.86, before tax. Well I paid $11.55 for these items, before tax. The items at CVS were on sales, plus I also had 4 coupons.

Coupons + sales at stores = happier customers

So that was my big race day, and if you haven't had a chance to see the video with the pictures yet. Please go and check it out atmy youtube chanel.

A Funny Story.....

2011-04-22T20:56:00.001-07:00

i hope all are doing well happy good friday to ya. last night when i weighed in at my tops meeting i got a really nice surprise. this week the past few days i really haven't been giving it my all, so i fully was excepting to have a gain for this week

well surprise surprise i actually lost weight 1.2 pounds to be exact, seeing the scale drop like that has just set this spark off inside of me and i'm so ready to reach my goal of lossing 60 pounds by the end of the year.

a goal of 60 pounds to loss by the end of the year it's not that difficult of a goal for me to acheive. this was one of the goals that i set for myself back at the beginning of 2011.

where my weight should be right now as far as me achieving my 60 pound goal this and where my weight actually is in reality i have a 10.2 pounds gap, and that's not a huge gap and i know that i can get caught up again and right where i need to be.

last year at the beginning of june and of my friends from my tops chapter and i we had a little challenge going with each other to be the first one to loss 15 pounds. and that 15 pound loss had to be from that starting weight back in june. well i'm happy to annouce that my friend janece was the winner of our 15 pound challenge and now i have to take her out to dinner. she doesn't make youtube video's but i thought it would be nice to give her some props, because she has been doing so great with her weight loss and i'm so proud that not only are we in the same tops chapter but she also took over job as leader from me.

i have a bt of funny story to tell you guys. yesrterday i arrived at the gym 15 minutes early then i normally do. so wheni was drivng down the street where my gym was i thinking to myself how awesome is this i'm going to have a nice long workout today and burn a heck of a lot of calories.

my gym on weekdays it opens up at 5 in the mornng and i got there at like 517 it was still closed. i saw some people waiting in there cars, so i waited in my car too. while i was waiting i called the number your suppose to call if the gym isn't open up on time and nobody was responding to me. i waited like 20 minutes to see if anybody was going to come and open up the gym, but then just decided to head back home again. i saw people were also leaving too

maybe that wasn't such a funny story, i dont know i just thought it was funny because i get to the gym early but it was closed.

i hope you all have a wonderful week and i will see you again next for another weigh-in video.

2011-04-07T20:30:00.000-07:00

Totally bummed that Courntey is now off of TBL. She has come such a long ways, even before she was on the show. Watching her journey the past 13 or so weeks, has been totally awesome and she has given me so much motivation.

This morning on my way to the gym I decided to got a slightly different way, HUGE MISTAKE. I don't know what happened, but some how I ended up driving on the wrong side of the road. Lucky I realied what I was doing right away and made a quick U-Turn. Let me just tell you that nearly scared the shit out of me.

After my scare this morning didn't scare me away from the gym. I completed 25 minutes of carido today burning 225 calories. My workouts this week were really great, but I really do need to get there earlier because these short works this past few days just aren't cutting it for me.

After gaining 0.8 pound the past three weeks, I really didn't want to have another gain. Heck I would have been happy tonight with a turtle. Well I'm happy, so very happy, to report that tonight I blew it out of the water and lost 4 pounds, whoo hoo. The weight that I gained last week I lost it all tonight. Let me tell you I'm smiling right now.

We had an awesome chapter weigh in tonight. With a total net loss of around 26 pounds, I can't rememer the exact amount, but it was something 26 pounds.

One of ladies in my chapter gave me flowers for my year of service as Leader. Which I thought was really sweet.

2011-04-06T20:35:00.000-07:00

Another awesome day, yup you heard that right. This morning I got to the gym a little late today, so I had to shorten my workout. I was only abe to workout a total of 25 minutes. I wish I could have worked out longr, but I was already five minutes over my usual time.

Eating today was really good. About 30 minutes before lunch I was feeling hungry, so I decided to get myself a tangerine. I have to be honest I really wanted to get some chips and candy, but I was glad I didn't.

TOPS tomorrow night. Can't wait to see how it goes with Janece as the Leader.

I'm Leader Free, thank God

2011-03-31T19:45:00.000-07:00

Three years ago on April 3, 2008 I ran my first meeting for our TOPS chapter. Tonight was my last official night as the leader of our chapter. Going back three years ago and remembering my first meeting as leader I actually really shocked myself that I lasted as long as I did.

My first meeting was a total bomb. I felt extremly over whelmed and scared out of my mind. I left the meeting in tears and unsure if I was even going to return to TOPS. Well that was three years ago, and I'm happy to say that I'm still a member.

Tonight I had to do the Installation Program where I Install the Board Members for the upcoming year. I found a great program on line "Cooking Installation" everyone really enjoyed the program. I also gave thank you gifts to our Board members from last year.

Remember when I said I left my first meeting as leader in tears, well tonight I also left upset too, but for different reason's. To be honest i wasn't even sure if I was going to talk about this, but I feel like I need to get this off my chest.

I didn't except anything, but not one person thanked me for my job as leader. I worked my ass off as leader and you would of thought that at least one person would of said something, but they didn't. I mean it's not like was expecting anything, like I said, just a simple word of thanks would of been nice. The part that really pisses me off is during my program I thanked everyone for all there hard work, the board members, and since I was the Leader someone should have stepped up and thanked me. I'm still a little upset by this, but I'm not going to let this get me down.

Okay now March was not good for me. I ended this month with a net gain. The funny thing I the last three weeks' in a row I had 0.8, strange right? Well now that March is officially over and I'm done with being the Leader, it's time to really get serious about this weight loss. It's time and I'm so ready to go it.

I'm back did you miss me?

2011-03-25T19:56:00.001-07:00

I have to be honest the no sweets thing didn't last, which is no big surprise at all. Every year I always try to give something up for lent and it never last's. Oh well I'm not going to cry about this. I did last 3 days without any sweets, so that's something to be proud of.

The past couple of weeks were not good for me. I didn't food journal or exercise at all. I think I maybe workout once last Friday and that was pretty much it. I thought for sure when I weighed in I would have a huge gain, but I actually lucked out. During the week of 3/17 I weighed in with a 0.8 gain and last night I had another gain of 0.8. So as you can see i really did luck out.

Today was so much better I ate a total of 1589 calories and burned 75 calories today.

During lunch today I went to the gym today workout and the machines there I really don't burn to many calories. Plus I was having difficulties with some of the machines, so that's why I only burned 75 calories. I'm going to try the gym again next Friday and hopefully it will be better.

Ready Set No Sweets

2011-03-08T18:57:00.000-08:00

With Lent beginning tomorrow I have been thinking about what to give up this year. At first I was thinking of all junk food, which in sense would really help me with my weight. I then realized that might be a little to extreme, so instead I'm giving up all sweets.

Yes that's right no sweets for this girl: no chocolate, no candy, no cake, no brownies, no see's candy, no tic tac's, no ice cream, etc, etc, etc. You get the idea. I know that this is going to be a challenge for me especially since I work at Google with sweets on the shelfs for me to walk past everyday, ugh. I also have around 20 mini chocolate loli's and a few Little Drum's in the freezer. If I have any tonight then that's totally fine, but tomorrow there off limits.

Okay now on to other things. Work the past couple of days has been rather stressful. When I got in on Monday morning my computer wouldn't turn on. One of my co-workers tried to fix the problem, but he wasn't able to.

At 9:00am Techstop had finally opened. I went over there to explain what was going on. The women there said that I would have to wait for an hour for somebody to come and take a look at my computer. She was the only one in there during that time, so I did understand why I had to wait. My complaint was why don't they have two people working there in the morning, so people don't have to wait extra time. Oh well nothing I could do about that.

Finally at 10:30am someone came to look at my computer. She was there looking at my computer for about 15 minutes before she finally figured out the problem. My computer was totally dead, ugh. Which meant they had to order me a whole new system.

Which normally I wouldn't care about; however this time was different. on Friday before I left work I went through 33 businesses, just the fisheye's, they were all stitched and ready for me to view. Since my old computer was in a sense dead I had lost all of that work, crap, crap, crap.

Since I was without a computer Techstop had to loan me one. A laptop which was extrremly small and really hurt my eyes. I got my programs I needed down loaded, but my stitching wasn't working. I decided to hold off on stitching any images until I got my new computer system.

I spent all day yesterday and half of today getting images ready to stitch. I have 60+ businesses full ready to stich, and 30+ businesses where I have gone through the POI's, but I still need to go through the fisheye's.

At 1:30pm today my system was finally up and running, yeah. I can't tell you how thrilled I was. Now I cold get back to stitching, only one little problem. I had to put in another ticket for the downloading of my programs. Normally I could download programs myself, but with these you need Adminstrative rights.

Two hours later I started chatting with someone from Techstop. He helped me to install the programs that I needed. It took about an hour, due to some difficulties, but it finally was done.

Since my computer was up and running 30 minutes before I got off work, I decided to wait until tomorrow to begin stitching my businesses. Lucky our ops lead's totally understood, so I won't be dinged for having low numbers the past two days.

I'm pretty freaked about the same thing happening, yet again, I copies all of my files on to SD cards just so I have them for back up. I'm not taking any chances.

Now I could get to my stitching, only one little problem. My stitching wasn't working. So in the meantime I contined with getting businesses ready.

I want to enjoy my workouts again

2011-03-06T09:38:00.000-08:00

This morning while I was jogging on the treadmill, and once again having difficultes with my breathing I came to a conclusion. I've realized that I'm not any kind of a jogger. To be totally honest I was not enjoying working out. On days when I was doing my training I dreaded having to face the treadmill. I'm not enjoying working out, and I want to enjoy my workout again.

That's why I made a decision to stop jogging all together and go back to enjoying my workouts.

Walking on the treadmill at an incline, riding the recrument bike, or using the ellie machine. I fel great about this decision and I know this will make a huge difference in my workouts and my daily mood.

3400+ what does this number mean

2011-03-05T20:39:00.000-08:00

3400+ what does this number mean, well that is approximately the number of calories that I ate today. I didn't count my calories today or measure out my food, so that number could be off, but I don't think it would be by much. Also I'm not sure of everything that I ate today, but I think I got pretty much everything.

Normally on days like today when I'm not on track I honestly don't care how many calories I eat. I don't care that I went over my daily calorie intake. I don't care that I totally blew it, blah, blah, blah. Tonight I really needed to see the full list of food that I ate tonight. I needed to see the number of calories for the day. I needed to realize that my eating is way out of control. You know I could get down on myself right now and go and cry in my own sorrow, but honestly what good is that.

I know that I screwed up today, I realize that. Because I messed up should I be so hard on myself? Should I just give up this whole weight loss journey and go back and gain the weight back that I lost? HELL NO! I'm in this fight till the end. And I will keep on fighting reach my goal weight. I'm not giving up on this fight because I'm in this to the end.

Headboard has been ordered

2011-02-26T20:51:00.000-08:00

This morning I went up to Newark with two other ladies from my TOPS chapter for workshop. I missed the last one, which I believe was in November, due to illness, so I was really looking forward to it.

I have to be honest I got a little upset at a member from another chapter. You see one of the ladies from my chapter was a chapter winner for her weight loss in 2010. Well on Thursday I presented her with the certificate and we all claped and cheered for her. Well JS felt that this was a great way to be honored because this is how we have always done it. Then BC, who is from another chapter, told me that we should have done like a huge celerbration or something like that. I"m not knocking what BC said or anything like that, it's just that our chapter doesn't have to do things the way that your chapter does. I mean isn't that what makes TOPS unique because no two chapters are alike?

After workshop we, EC, JS and I went out to lunch. Yes I counted my calories, but I did eat way more calories then I should have. So much infact that after lunch I only had 100 calories left for the day. You can pretty much guess that I did go over my 1550 calories today.

Am I upset that I went over, actually not at all. Today I ate a total of around 2400 calories, which I know is way more then I should be eating, but I'm not going to over react like I did when I last posted. I mean these things happen, and it's not like I go out to eat everyday, so I felt it was fine.

I'm thinking instead of focusing on monthly net losses I'm going to focus on 10 pounds at a time. For every 10 pounds that I loss, from my 1st weigh-in of the year I'm going to give myself a prize of a value no more then $35.00. I will be able to get my first prize when I get down to 221.6 pound. My current weight is 224.4, so I'm only 2.8 pounds away. I will reach my first 10 pounds before the end of the month.

On to other News! I finally ordered my Headboard for my bed. When I get it and have it set up I will take a picture for you. I went to two different places to look at headboards. The first place I went to they didn't have any at the store, so I looked at there catolog. They did have some nice headboards to chose from but I'm the type of person that actually has to see what I'm getting, for some items, and looking in a catalog just wasn't doing it for me. The second place I went to had plenty of headboards in the store, and after looking at several of them I knew exactly they one that I wanted to get.

I could just kick myself

2011-02-25T22:14:00.000-08:00

All day I was thinking about being just 0.2 away from my goal for the month, and wondering rather or not I should order my prize for the month. I felt that I had worked really had this month and even though I didn't make my goal just never giving up is so worth it, so I was going to order my prize. My prize, which is the same from last month because I didn't make my goal that month either, the 5th season of FOL DVD.

I just added up my total calories for the day and with the calories that I turned at the gym my net calorie intake was about 2300 calories. Holy crap I don't deserve any kind of a prize. I didn't even make it through one day.

This will not get me down! Im back on track and tomorrow I will have stay within my calorie range. Yes I have decided to go back to that again. The reason being I never know how many calories i"m going to be burning at the gym. So having a calorie range is going to really help me.

Okay here is the challene I"m settng for myself. The rest of this week I have to stay within my daily calorie range of 1300 to 1550 calories per day. Now that's just part one for part two of this challenge I have to burn 1000 calories during the remainder of the week. In order to claim my prize I have to complete both tasks. If I go over by just 1 calorie on one day then it's over I loss. I havent even told you what my prize is, okay it's going to be the 5th Season of FOL, I bet you never saw that coming, hehe.

0.2 off this month, so so so close

2011-02-25T07:58:00.000-08:00

All I wanted to loss this week was 1.4 pounds, so I could make my goal of 5 pounds for the month. Did I loss the 1.4 pounds? No! I lost 1.2 pounds I was so close but I didn't make it. Over all I'm still happy that I had a net loss for the month. I'm even happier that this month I came closer to making my 5 pound goal then last month. March is so going to be my month, and I will hit my goal.

This week instead of focusing on staying within my calorie range I'm going work on having a net calorie intake everyday around 1400 calories. If I had planned to eat 1600 calories then I need to make sure that I loss at least 200 calories at the gym. I just feel that trying to stay within a certain range really isn't working for me, so I thought I would give this a try and see how I do.

Today is my last day of freedom. Monday I'm back at work again. I'm really going to focus strongly on not eating any of the food they have there. Which I know won't be easy.

Supposly were getting snow this weekend up in San Francisco. Naturally it's not going to be anything like what people from the East Coast get. I'm sure with the snow were going to get as soon as it hits the ground it's going to melt. I was reading some comments from people last night on this and everyone who's from Northern California felt that this is really great and exciting. Which it totally is and I agree because this is something special. The temp is suppose to drop down to the 20's which I conider to be freezing. Actually anything below 30 degree is freezing to me. I know can you picture me trying to make it through a winter on the East Coast.

Today marks the 4th Anniversary of my Grandma's death. It's funny I keep looking at the clock as if I'm holding my breath until 9:05 am,that's when we received the call about my grandma. I know my grandma is smiling down on me and i"m smiling right back up at her.

It's a green monster affair

2011-02-23T20:51:00.000-08:00

I love starting the mornings with something healthy, and nothing beat a green monster smoothie. I didn't have any last week, so this was one green monster that tasted great.

This week, for some off reason, I've been in an exercise funk. I have been doing to the gym and working out, but I just haven't been enjoying my workouts. I switch from machine to machine hoping that one could satisfie me, but no such luck.

I went to the gym this morning, not really expecting much, but once I began my work out on the treadmill something reall strange happened. The longer I went the more I liked it. I was only going to workout a total of 35 minutes, but I was really enjoying working out so I ended up going 55 minutes.

Not sure if I"m totally out of my workout funk, but at least this is a huge step for me.

After 3 long months the wait is finally over. On Monday I'm going back to Google. I totally can't wait. Sitting at home has been extremely boring. The only thing is I'm going to be faced with many temptations of food there, so it's going to be a challenge for me not to divde into all the junk.

week 1 of 12 walk to jog report

2011-02-23T20:34:00.001-08:00

Last Thursday evening during my TOPS meeting I commited to begin the c25k program. When I got home that evening I came across another 5k training program and this one seemed like it would be more resonable for me to do. So I decided to yield the c25k and begin the new program. One that I could approach with caution. I completed my 1st week today and here is the recap. Oh please excuse all the road sign reference I'm tieing this into our "Road to Success" theme for TOPS.

2/18/2011 I went to the gym and stepped on my human accelerator, so that I could go and complete rounds of 1 minute of jogging at a speed of 3.9 mph and 1 minute of walking at 2.7 mph. I completed 5 total rounds.

2/22/2011 Same program as the previous day, but today I was having difficulties. The jogging went fine I had no problem with that. You see I was having trouble breathing. My left shoulder was sore and I think that could have effect my breathing. Which in sense did have some impact on my jogging because as I was jogging it seemed to drag on forever. Today I had to use the yield sign once again and take it easy during my workout. I used caution and slowed down the speed when I needed to.

2/23/2011 Final day of week 1 and today I did the same program as th first two days. Today the only word I had in mine was "GO, GO, GO" Today's workout was awesome and felt great. I had no issues at all with my breathing, shoulder or jogging.

No more binges

2011-02-22T22:24:00.001-08:00

Just a short note:

I don't know what is wrong with me. Yesterday I did so well during the day and then in the evening I had a small binge. I figured I ate 300 calories, but I can't be 100% sure because I didn't measure out my food.

Today I did the same thing again I had another binge. Only thing that I did differently is today I actually did measure out my food tonight. Why do I allow myself to go on these binges.

Two days until my weigh-in it's time to get my ass in gear.

Sunsweet Mango's If you please

2011-02-21T20:33:00.000-08:00

I have been craving Sunsweet Dried Mango's for weeks, but I have not been able to find them ANYWHERE! I've been to several different store and haven't had any luck. I finally decided to take things into my own hands and purchase some right from the company's website. I order 5 bags, so they will last me a while.

There are other brands of dried mango's at the stores I've been to, but I personally can not stand the taste, so that's why I just had to order these.

Planning is the word of the day

2011-02-21T19:09:00.000-08:00

Today was the type of day where everything had to be planned out, so planned out my entire day is what I did. My planning for today began last night with some food planning and directions.

My grandpa (dad's side) his birthday was on the 24th of this month. Well to honor is birthday and to remember my grandpa every year during this time I head up to Berkeley and El Cerrito to put flowers on my Grandpa's grave sight, go out to lunch, and drive past my grandparent's house. Since I don't head up the East Bay very often last night I had to get directions to all the places I had to go to today. I also found a resturant to go to and I made sure to write down exactly what I wanted to order and the calories.
Before leaving today I packed some food, starting with my morning snack.

small apple, 12 almonds, 1 Tbsp chocolate chips, 1 Tbsp sunflower seeds

When I arrived in El Cerrito I first stopped at the Lucky's supermarket in the El Cerrito Plaza to get the flowers. Next I headed over to the cemetary, but there was a little problem. It had been a year since I last was up here, so I had no clue as to where my Grandpa was buried. I knew the section of the grave, but the actual location I honestly had no clue.

Normally this would not be a problem because I could always go into the office and have somebody assist me. Being that today was a holiay the office was closed. Which meant that I was on my own. I headed out to the section where I needed to go and for the next 35 minutes I was walking up and down the rows searching for my grandpa's grave, but I didn't have any luck. It's possible that I could have been in the wrong section I wasn't entirly sure.

I then went back to the front office and left the flowers at the main office door with a note inside. The note explained that I was unable to locate my grandpa's grave and I asked if somebody could please place the flowers on it for me.

Next I headed back to the El Cerrito Plaza to have lunch at Pasta Pomodoro.

Lunch as a MISTA SALAD: organic baby lettuces, tomatoes, shaved carrots and gorgonzola in a balsamic vinaigrette, and INSALATA DI ASPARAGI: grilled asparagus with pecorino, extra virgin olive oil and arugula in a balsamic vinaigrette (I only ate half of this) bread was placed on the table when I first arrived, and I thougt about having a piece, but since I hadn't planned to eat bread I decided it was best to leave it alone. Hey I guess that's a NSV because I love bread and find it very hard to resist.

Finally I headed over to Berkeley to drive past my Grandparents house. I haven't been inside the house since 1988. My Grandpa died in January of 1989, and I don't remember to much about it. The one thing that I do remember was that the basement was my Grandpa's work shop where he build and made things. One thing he made which I hold very dear to my heart is my Toy Box which has my name on it.

About an hour later I was back in San Jose and before heading home I stopped over at Target to get some items. As I was leaving Target I ate my afternoon snack.

Southwestern Ranch Baked Chips.

I then headed for home, feeling wonderful that I had a great day. I felt great because not only did I get to see my grandparent's house again, and think about my past. I feel great because I had a Game Plan and I stuck with it.

On the right track again with one small detour

2011-02-20T20:11:00.000-08:00

I have to be totally honest after my confession that I wrote the other night, you'd think that would be my breaking point and get me back on track again. Well I have to be totally honest yesterday complete bombed. I ate a total of 2700 calories, yikes. I can't believe that I didn't have any control with what I was eating.

Happy to say that today was so much for me. This morning after I ate breakfast I sat down and planned out all my meals for the day. I did extremly well for the day, except for one slip up. I went to the movies today, and purchased a box of milk duds. I know that I shouldn't have, but I just couldn't resist. My total calorie intake for today was 1723.

This week for the Winter Revival Challenge we are challenged to try a new exercise or do an exercise that we have not done in a long time. I went to the gym today and tried the "G Scale" machine by Fitnessbotics. The best to describe this machine your standing on two steps and with each step you take your whole body is rotating from left to right. I only was on the machine for like 3 minutes. I know that I should have give it more then a 3 minute chance, but like I said I at least gave it a try.

Afterwards I went on the treadmill and burned about 65 calories, so you can proberly guess that I didn't spend to much time on the treadmill today. I then tried using both the ellie machine and the relaxed bike neither one of them was doing it for me today. I don't know I proberly could have been on 100 different carido machines today and none of them would have done it for me today.

Tomorrow I'm going back to the gym, it's a training day for me. After I finish my treadmill workout I'm going to give the Gsycle on more try. Thinking about it and my whole attitude about the gym today I realized that I didn't really give it a fair chance. Who knows this machine might be one that I actually can learn to love.

I went and saw "Just Go With it" today and I love it. At first I wasnt' sure about this movie, but after reading the reviews from people I decided to give it a try. I don't know why I was so doutful, at first, I have already really enjoyed watching movies with Adam Sandler.