The Dog Ate my Homework – I think she was trying to tell me something

Hola Bloggies:

This weekend was an important one for the me that is striving to be “the whole package.” Saturday I forced myself to re-evaluate my progress in my journey to wellness. You see this past week I received a call telling me my wedding gown had arrived (!!!) several months ahead of schedule.

WOW. Talk about a reality check.

So I’ve decided to clean up my eating. Say buh bye to refined carbs, excess sugars, mindless eating, and fatty stuff. Say hello to photographing my eats in an effort to keep myself accountable.

Cue breaky . . .

1/3 cup of oatmeal, one tablespoon of Chia Goodness, one banana, half a tablespoon of Maranatha Almond Butter, and a dollop of maple butter (it actually contains no butter and is made by cooking maple syrup to a high temperature, cooling it, then raising it again). This dish wasn’t just good – it was ahmazing! Kind of made me wish that every meal was breakfast. So far so good!

Cue lunch . . .

 

One lean Italian sausage sautéed with a cup of mushrooms. Paired with 1/2 a banana and about a cup of strawberries. Not too green huh!? My fridge was admittedly low on veggies and since I was trying to hold out for Sunday’s farmers market I didn’t bother re-stocking. Ideally I would have sautéed a pile more veggies in with the sausage. But no could do. Still doing alright.

 

Cue dinner . . .

Go ahead – say it! “Karen, what were you thinking!? That’s not enough food for dinner!” You’re right . . . you’re so right. I ate 4 1/2 oz. of angus strip loin steak, half of a lean Italian sausage, one orange, and one strawberry. GINORMOUS fail!!! This is where it all fell apart. Sure I felt okay when I finished eating it – maybe even a little stuffed but it just didn’t have the staying power I needed. Soon enough I found myself hungry – which is why I proceeded to eat (un-pictured) two more oranges and 1 1/2 bananas.

Lessons learned from Saturday’s eats? Eat more veggies!!! My body needs something fibrous and slow to digest in order to keep me full between meals. Fruits are delicious and great for summer days but they just don’t have the staying power of veggies. I also learned I need to drink water. A LOT MORE! I need to make sure I keep my absolutely full Nalgene bottle (BPA free) on me at all times. That way I have no excuses. Staying extra hydrated will not only make my skin look baller but it will also help to stave off the hunger.

Let me be clear, I don’t intend on depriving myself but I’m smart enough to realize that revamping cleaning my eating won’t be easy. I expect to crave soft doughy rolls, the sugary treats at the office, or indulgent restaurant food . . . I just need to keep the bigger picture in mind!

 

Sunday I woke up determined to do better food-wise. I also woke up to discover a very sick Fiancé – le pauvre. While he stayed in bed all day I went about my business.

Cue breaky . . .

For breakfast I had pretty much the same 1/3 of a cup of oatmeal, whole banana, one tablespoon of Chia Goodness, and one tablespoon of Maranatha Almond Butter as yesterday. The only difference was that instead of using maple butter I added carob chips. Delish! Clearly this is going to be a staple around these parts.

After breakfast I loaded Daisy into the car and listened to a Joel Osteen podcast (it was my church substitute) as I drove to a local farmer’s market. We had a glorious time walking around the place, meeting the food producers, buying delicious goodies, and finding a new health food store. Around lunch we headed back home, where I proceeded to make myself a delicious meal with my new ingredients.

Cue lunch . . .

In my massive salad bowl (it’s kind of more bucket-like than bowl-like) went two cups of locally grown greens, half a tomato, two soft boiled organic free-range eggs, three slices of oven-roasted turkey breast, a handful of sugar snap peas, a couple of tablespoons of a homemade vinaigrette, and two tablespoons of nutritional yeast. This was my first time using nutritional yeast and all I have to say is – where have you been all my life!?!?!? Seriously delicious!!! It’s almost cheesy or nutty in taste. I’m not really sure how to describe it other than to say that it added a depth of flavour to my salad that had me totally liking the bowl. True story.

After lunch one of my co-workers called and said he wanted to drop off some home-made caramel ice cream as a thank-you for allowing him to use our PO Box. Far be it from me to turn down delicious homemade treats.

Cue the snack . . .

It was such a warm day the poor little ice cream partially melted on the drive over but that in no way lessened it’s out of this world yumminess!!! You see those dark pieces? That would be home-made salted caramel. It tasted like dulce de leche (think Argentinean milk candy). I had about a scoop of this deliciousness and forced myself to leave the rest for the Fiancé.

I spent most of the afternoon doing chores, writing emails (wedding stuff), and taking care of the sick one. Unfortunately, I also had to take a nap in an effort to try to get rid of the excruciating bout of back pain I faced this afternoon. Once upon a time, I suffered a back injury; years later I still have flare-ups. Truth be told I’ve had my fair share of back pain this week. Boo back pain. Thankfully, I woke up feeling all better and incredibly hungry.

Cue Dinner . . .

Dinner featured approx. a cup of those lovely locally grown greens, one strawberry, more vinaigrette (balsamic + olive oil + organic mustard), one tablespoon of nutritional yeast, one lean Italian sausage, and 4 oz. of pork tenderloin (little known fact – pork tenderloin is amongst the leanest cuts of meat you can buy, and I include chicken breast). Okay I’ll confess, I liked the plate some more!

Also eaten but not pictured was a handful of pizza flavoured pretzels. Ugh. And I was doing so well. But the Fiancé got a snack attack in his sick state so I bought him some goodies. I couldn’t take it. The temptation was too much. Clearly, I need to work on that but overall I’m pretty impressed by how today went.

Win. 

 

Operating Bring it! – The Do Over

For a long time now I had been feeling guilty that I started P90X and then stopped doing the workouts on a daily basis. Then, when I re-started the programs I just picked up from where I left off. It just didn’t sit right. It kind of felt like cheating.

Clearly Daisy agreed with me . . .

Those little bits of paper would be my worksheets. The ones where I keep track of how many reps I did and at what weight. The worksheets are key in helping me to know how my progress is coming along and if I need to up or lower my weights. Ideally I want to work to failure on each rep and I heavily depend on those torn pieces of paper.

I don’t know if they tasted like sweat (she likes to lick me right after a workout) but she got into my precious papers and had a ball. But wouldn’t you know it – she barely owned up to the damage.

You see how she wouldn’t even look at me!?!? Ha!

My mangled sheets were just the impetus I needed to do the whole thing over again. For a long time I knew it wasn’t right to pick up where I started off. Looking back on this challenge I wanted to be able to count 12 solid weeks. No breaks in between. In the end I hoped to have an amazing and inspiring story to tell – Janetha style.

I knew what I had to do, Daisy had made it abundantly clear. It was time to start “Operating Bring it!” from scratch. Again

“Operation Bring It!” – The Do Over – Day 1, June 20th, 2010

Ah good old chest and back. And endless repetition of push ups and pull ups. The workout that is notorious for leaving me weak in the arms the next day.

I’ve done this workout before so I knew what to expect. But that doesn’t mean it hurt any less. There is just something about an hour’s work of push ups (intermingled with other moves of course) that makes me want to crawl in a ball. Today was no different.

228 push ups later (all but 36 on my knees) I was done for the night. I started off pretty well but near the end I started to feel nauseous. That’s when I decided to call it quits and leave my ab workout until tomorrow morning.

Overall it was a hard workout but I’m proud of myself for sticking with the DVD. As Tony Horton says “Keep showing up. Keep pressing play.” One day at a time, I’ll get there.