I Can't be Held Responsible for what I do in 42 Degree Heat!!! (That's 108F for you American Readers!)

And that pretty much sums up my eating experience yesterday (and may end up summing up that of today). I woke up pretty determined to be relatively good and found myself sucumbing to ice-cream in the midday sun.

Do you have any idea what it's like to be trapped in a home with no A/C in 42 degree heat, while you're trying to work on an assignment, and your lap top sits there humming only contributing to the heat? It's pretty horrible. And I have to say - I don't recommend it! Instead I recommend going to a place with A/C on a day like that or perhaps even taking a dip in your nearest and coldest body of water. Unfortunately, I could do neither. And so I found myself eating ice-cream. Again:

Yesterday's Breakfast

• Crystal Light iced tea
• Two pancakes made from whole wheat mix
• One tablespoon of syrup

Yesterday's Lunch

• Half a Spanish Chorizo satueed in 1 cup of veggies (red and green peppers, onions, and mushrooms)
• Half a cup of Pasta
• Crystal Light iced tea

Yesterdays "Someone save me from this heat!" Snack

• One cup of oreo cookie ice cream - the boy bought it at the grocery store

Yesterday's Dinner

• One ham sandwhich with fat-free cheese made on sprouted grain bread (no flour!)
• One Source fat-free yogurt
• More Crystal Light iced tea

Back to work............

A Loss of Control

On this short vacation I have discovered a couple of things:

It is difficult to control your eating when you don't buy the groceries. Let's face it - if I were in control all of my bread would be whole wheat stone-ground bread, all of my cheese (if any at all) would be goat cheeses or fat-free, and any fruit spread would be artificially sweetened. That's not always the case when someone else does the grocery shopping. Especially boys - boys usually aren't prone to buying things like that. At least there is no junk food around or yummy white bread - I can't be trusted around yummy white bread!

On vacation I tend to want to splurge a little more with my calories - and then I end up regretting it. Take ice cream for example - it's been really hot here this weekend (in the 90s for the Americans reading this, and in the mid-30s for everyone else). The heat has been intense and we've taken quite a few country drives. Along these meandering mountain roads one finds creameries that have the most beautiful freshly made ice-cream. Perfect for hot summer days - sigh.

Because I don't see the boy very often when I do see him, I tend to cook for him the things that spoil him. The kind of things he likes but doesn't really cook on his own. And that stuff is not always the healthy stuff. And of course I end up eating some too. I anticipate, however, that this problem is merely temporary.

And on that note - here is what I ate yesterday:

Yesterday's Breakfast

• Two scrambled eggs
• One piece of whole wheat toast with one teaspoon of huckleberry fruit preserves (it's a local specialty)
• One half of white bread toast plain (I stole it from the boy)
• Crystal light iced tea

Yesterday's Lunch

• Water
• One grilled turkey breast "burger" on a white bun with no mayo and no cheese (only ketchup)
• Side salad with unidentifiable dressing - it came pre-tossed

Yesterday's Afternoon Snack

• Half a praline and cream ice cream cone (shared with the boy then I felt SOOOO guilty!)

Yesterday's Dinner

• Home-made stove top pork short-ribs (only ate a small amount)
• One good sized bowl of mixed greens with 1tbsp of calorie reduced ranch dressing (35 calories, 2.5 grams of fat)
• Crystal light iced tea

Let's see what today brings . . .

Two Days Worth

I presently find myself in a beautiful mountain valley in British Columbia, Canada. I am tired, suffering from a slight degree of heat exhaustion, but over all very happy.

Yesterday was my travel day and it was busy to say the least. It involved waking up to pack, going to my licensing course, running to the gym for quick intervals, running back home to pack up my school stuff, taking a ferry to seattle, taking a taxi to Sea-Tac airport, a plane to Spokane, and finally being picked-up by the boy at 2 minutes before midnight.

Today, we took our sweet time making our way north into Canada. It was a fantastic day but blistering hot! So hot that I ate some stuff designed to cool me down - things that I probably wouldn't have eaten under other circumstances. This is a bit of a vacation after all!

Tomorrow will probably be a bit more of a stable eating day but as those of you who travel know eating on the road, cheaply, and conveniently does not always go hand-in-hand with healthful eating. I still tried though - believe me, I was beyond tempted by the fair in Spokane today!!!

But enough of that, on to my food diary:

Yesterday's Breakfast

• Protein shake made with water

Yesterday's Lunch

• Ham and cheese sandwich on whole grain bread
• One Granny Smith apple
• Water

Yesterday's Dinner (on the ferry - it was the healthiest thing they had and was sold as a combo)

• Thinly shaved turkey on a white bagel (in retrospect I should have only eaten half) with mustard and cheddar cheese
• One lemon lime sparkling water (no calories, no carbohydrates)
• Two Milano Pepperidge Farm cookies
• One unsweetened apple sauce

On the Plane (I was starving again by this time)

• One small bag of low fat, trans-fat-free pretzels
• Water

Things I didn't Eat Yesterday

• The mayo that came with my bagel sandwich on the ferry
• The cheese crackers that came with my dinner combo on the ferry
• The pop that was offered to me on the airplane

Today's Breakfast

• One sushi roll
• Tea

Today's Lunch

• Half an order of spicy BBQ pork with sauteed vegetables - cooked Korean style
• One side order of seaweed salad
• Miso soup
• Tea

Today's Hydration/Caffeine Break

• One small skim milk sugar-free vanilla iced latte

Today's Afternoon Snack

• Half an order of gelato (shared with the boy)

Today's Dinner

• Half a glass of home-made Huckleberry Lemonade
• Two slices of thin-crust wood fire oven pizza with no mozzarella but a small amount of smoked goat cheese, caramelized onions, and a couple of morsels (really almost none at all) of Spanish chorizo
• Half a small cardamom, orange, oatmeal, raisin cookie

Things I didn't Eat Today

• The funnel cake that was calling my name at Spokane's Riverside Park
• The ice cream that was calling my name, also at Spokane's Riverside Park
• The white sticky sushi rice that came with the order of spicy pork at lunch
  

Until tomorrow . . .

Yesterday's Food Journal

Yesterday I was dead tired and slept my evening away. I've been studying like mad (I'm in a licensing course for my profession) so I've had a lot of 3-4 hour sleep days. Not good and it finally caught up with me.

Today, I'm going to go away for the long weekend (Canada Day). I'll be flying to the mountains to go see the boy. I'll also be spending the weekend working on an assessment that I need to complete successfully in order to be called to the bar. In short, my food journal this week will reflect the hectic nature of my life and the fact that I won't be at home and will have to rely on whatever food we find on the road. And let me tell you, in small mountain towns there isn't a lot of healthy stuff to go around.

Anywho . . . to yesterday's food:

Breakfast (post-workout)

• Gatorade (30 calories)
• One slice of whole wheat flax blueberry bread
• Small fruit salad

Lunch

• Water
• Ham and cheese sandwich on brown bread (I don't know that it was whole wheat - it was the healthiest thing they had at the University cafeteria)

Dinner

• Medium home-made turkey chili
• Home-brewed iced tea (no sugar)
• One serving of Fat-free chocolate pudding made with 1% lactaid milk (they don't sell it in skim form)

Today I will also eat mostly out.....Mainly because I can't leave left-overs behind in my fridge as they will be growing things when I get back. Haha!

Until next time.....

Today's Lesson: Eat more

Not at all hours mind you - just for breakfast.

In fact, today I made the mistake of eating very little for breakfast (and an early one at that - 5:30am) so that left me hungry at irregular times and I ate what I shouldn't have. Today's Meals were as follows:

Breakfast

• Three Wasa fibre rye crispbread, each with one teaspoon of raw almond butter and one teaspoon of E.D. Smith no sugar added (sweetened with sucralose) raspberry spread
• Chamomile tea

Midmorning Snack

• Sugar-free jello like snack pack (no carbs, only 5 calories)

Lunch (which I ate at like 10:45 am because I was positively starving)

• One small bowl of home-made turkey chilli
• Water

Snack (eaten when I was visiting the boy's parents - I was starved and they offered)

• 2 home-made cookies

Dinner (eaten at about 5 pm)

• One large bowl of chilli
• Chilled mint green tea (I brewed it myself so no sugar)

Snack (because I was still hungry - at 7 pm)

• Three Wasa fibre rye crispbread, each with one teaspoon of raw almond butter and one teaspoon of E.D. Smith no sugar added (sweetened with sucralose) raspberry spread
• Water

Clearly, I should have had eggs for breakfast. That way I wouldn't have been starving at strange times and resorted to eating stuff I would normally stay away from. I also think I may have to throw away those Wasa crispbread things because I've liked them MUCH too much for my own good! It's like you give me a little bit of carbs and I lose all self-control.

I'll try again tomorrow and see if I can do better. Part of the problem is that lately I don't much want any chicken/pork/or beef. On top of that I wake up so early (5 am) that by the time I get to school at 9 I am starving.

Must find a solution.....

My Online Food Journal

I think I have mentioned it here before but I have a wedding coming up in September. Nope, not my own (yet :oP). It's one of my best friend's wedding and I'm one of her attendants.

For the wedding, my friend purchased a beautiful dress for me to wear as a gift. I love it! But it is a tiny bit small for me. In particular it's riding up a little around the waist area. Which definitely calls for some action, Bulging Bride Style!

And so to that end, my trainer has asked me to document my eating habits in a food journal for the next week. So I will do that here because what better way is there to keep track of your noshing than being publicly accountable to the world!

So after my afternoon workout this is what I ate:

Post-workout snack:

• Two Wasa fibre rye crispbread, each with one teaspoon of raw almond butter and one teaspoon of E.D. Smith no sugar added (sweetened with sucralose) raspberry spread
• Chamomile tea

And for dinner I had:

• One small bowl of home made turkey chilli (with black beans and soy beans)
• Water

Let's see what tomorrow brings!

NOTE: Picture credit goes to http://www.runnersworld.com

I heart my new ab program

After my most recent check-in with my trainer he prepared a new workout program for me. And I am loving it! Most of all I think I'm really pleased with the new aspects of my ab program. So much so that I've decided to share a couple of those exercises here with you.

One of my "new" exercises is a cable crunch. Sure it looks like some kind of medieval torture but you can really feel it working:

1. Take a mat and place it at the base of your cable machine
2. Choose whatever grip is most comfortable for you - I like the ropes
3. While kneeling reach up and grab the grip - pull the cables down so that your forearms are on either side of your head
4. Contract your abs, round your back, *think curl* and pull your elbows down towards your knees
5. Make sure you keep your abs contracted and breathe (exhale when you're going down)
6. Release and bring the cable back up in a controlled manner (inhale)
7. Repeat

Perhaps it would be useful to see a demonstration. I looked up and down and I found a great animation demonstration here.

Trust me, this is an awesome exercise!

Setting New Goals

Yesterday I had an early morning appointment (think 6am in the morning) for a check-in. Think of it as the training equivalent of your regular check-ups with your doctor.

I have been training with Nick for a very long time now. So long that for the most part I train on my own nowadays. I know my way around my programs and most of the exercises. Once in a while, however, we work out together and he checks-up on me to see if we should change my program.

Yesterday, he asked me what my goals were now. I told him I want to do two things:

1) Lose 20lbs

2) Run a half-marathon

The first I figure will only occur through discipline and lots of hard-work. And for the second one to occur I need my body (mainly my knees) to co-operate with me.

And then something happened that I didn't expect. While he was observing me try some new exercises - he kind of laughingly told me that he didn't think I had 20lbs to lose. Cue the confusion! lol I wasn't sure what a statement like that means. Apparently he doesn't think I should lose 20lbs - that it would be too much.

Talk about throwing me for a loop! Honestly, most girls would freak out if they weighed as much as I do. They may even freak out if they weighed 20lbs less. I guess it just goes to show you, different strokes for different folks.