23.5 mile

I'm almost at Elie, MB. Ok, so this walk around the world is going to take a few hundred miles before it gets really interesting. Unless you're fascinated by Elie, Manitoba.

Didn't start the 100 pushups challenge yet. Will start this coming Monday.

I was doing good with some weight loss, but now I seem to have gone right back up to my start weight, despite eating pretty low calorie wise. It may be that I'm not eating enough on some days, though most days I still struggle to keep below 1800 calories. I think that I have to include some really vigorous exercise at least 2-3 times a week. I was doing a lot of cycling last month, but my work schedule this month really has me booked up bad, and my new job isn't as physically demanding as my old one (by a long-shot, I once walked over 20 miles in one day at the arena.)

I haven't done any yoga at all lately. I think this is a big part of my problem lately. I've been way too busy, and my house is sooo messy cause I'm rarely home to clean up. I've been kicking my ass to make a yoga area to work out in, but it just ain't happening. Must find a different solution to this problem.

Walk around the world

Ok, so I'm not really walking around the world, but after seeing a thread on MDC, I was prompted to start tracking all my walking miles on MapMyWalk and join an online walk around the world club. I've embedded my map on this site, to really push me.

In other news, been keeping up with FitDay, which is unusual for me, usually I get bored with stuff like that quickly, but they have lots of reports and lots of different ways to track progress, so even though the weight isn't falling off, I have improved my nutrition and focused a bit more on bringing my metabolism up, and that at least is giving me a sense of accomplishment.

I've lost 5 lbs in the last 2-3 weeks, which is a fantastic steady loss that is exactly what I'm aiming for. I'm giving the credit entirely to using FitDay, cause I did NOT realize just how much fat I was taking in, yeesh! I've given up snacking on bread and butter at work and that adds up to around 500 calories a day alone. I work in a restaurant (with really, really good food and a French focus, that means butter, butter, cream and buttah!) and I usually gain weight when I start a new job, trying the menu and eating all the high fat stuff available to keep going on 9-12 hour shifts. It's really helping to have a neutral observer, so to speak, that can tell me exactly what I'm taking in. I tend to fudge things a bit if I'm doing the calorie counts on my own.

I've got another crazy week at work coming up, and then should have a bit of a breather, so plan on starting the 100 pushup challenge next Friday or so. Sadly, I could not do even one good form push-up (I've always had really poor upper body strength), so will be starting the program doing girl push-ups on my knees. I plan on going through the 6 weeks doing modified push-ups, then redoing the whole 6 weeks again doing regular pushups and working my way up levels until I'm as strong as an ox!

Back in the saddle

Ok, so I've been derailed with family stuff, a crazy work schedule and the usual total body melt-down into a puddle of cold and flu germs every time I try to push myself to hard.

But I'm back on track again, which is the important thing.

What I'm doing right now is:

made a commitment to doing yoga every day for 30 days
(ok, I've done the commitment, but not the yoga, will start this week!)

made a commitment to do the 100 push-ups program
(again, commitment, but no actual push-ups yet)

Using Fit Day every day--this has been huge for me, I've been using this for 2 weeks and it's really helping me to see where I'm failing in my diet, and helping me to balance out my nutrition. I've been able to pin-point a few really problem areas (like how many calories I was really taking in from nibbling at the bread and butter at work when I'm hungry but can't eat until after meal service.)

Oh my aching butt!

Got my bike tuned up and on the road yesterday. I've cycled a total of about 4 miles since then (not much, really, I use my bike as my main form of transportation.) I'm so happy to be back on my bike, and doing some really vigorous exercise every day, but man, I really hate the transition period that my butt goes through every spring.

O and I are aiming to ride out to Folk Fest this year, a 22 mile ride, with camping equipment. We have a little under 4 months to get ready for this. I'm aiming at a minimum of 2-3 miles every day, and doing a medium length ride (5-6 miles) and a long ride (8-10 miles) once a week, or at least twice a month, to build up stamina.

Every time I think I'm getting somewhere...

Everyone at my office is sick, I mean really, really sick. My boss had pneumonia last week, the GM, AGM, head chef and most of the sous-chefs had bronchitis. I'm valiantly fighting off illness with all the herbs I'm taking, so I should probably be thankful. I'm not brutally sick, not on the couch hacking my lungs out sick.

But I'm just kind of slow, drag out, crappy, kind of sick. I'm waking up feeling crappy, stuffed up, not happy. I have no energy to exercise and a constant low fever.

Oh well, onwards and upwards and all that crap!

184 lbs!

That's a loss of 11 lbs in 3.5 months. Pretty good (better than when I was gaining!) My pants are starting to fit me again and I'm having less trouble getting into triangle pose.

The weather is getting consistently warmer, no more -50 days, though we're probably in for at least 1 more major blizzard. Still, I'm gonna get my bike fixed this week (bought a cheap department store bike last year and the seat needs replaced already) and hopefully be out on my bike daily pretty soon.

I'm still not doing yoga on any regular basis, and this week will probably suck just the same. 4 games in a row, with scheduling and playoffs to deal with, so I'll be working killer hours again. The week after, though, I can basically take the whole week off if I want to (and could afford it), so this week I'm going to focus still on my diet, and next week will be yoga boot camp time!

Baby steps, baby steps

All these little steps I've been taking for months seem to be adding up. I'm not craving sugar non-stop. I'm not bingeing at night anymore. I'm not eating mindlessly. I'm happy with my diet at the moment. Not perfect, but I feel so much more in control of my body and I'm not having uncontrollable cravings constantly.

Nothing has been more important for me, I think, than making sure to eat every 3 hours or so, though. Not having the raging fluctuations in blood sugar is so huge for my body. I think this is probably the single most important thing to controlling all those cravings and bingeing, having stable blood sugar for the first time in years.

I'm doing well going veggie, not trying to push myself too hard. I had a piece of roast and some gravy at Easter dinner last night. It would have been rude to my aunt (who'd cooked for hours and has no idea I've decided to go veg) to have turned down what she had to offer. And I think if I'd tried to hold myself to being vegetarian, I would have gotten a bit resentful of everyone else eating meat around me. So I ate the meat, and didn't really enjoy it and I'm perfectly happy to not eat meat again for a while.

I made baked pasta for dinner, would have liked some beans in it, but O draws the line at beans and pasta (I really gotta introduce him to pasta e fagiole.) For the next month or so, my goal is going to be to eat beans or lentils at least 3 times per week, to cut back on high fat cheeses and eggs for my main protein intake, to eat 1 more serving of fruit and of vegetables every day (I'm pretty good with veggies, but don't really like fruit, I love the taste, but have some sensory issues, mainly with anything juicy, yuck!)

Exercise wise, I've been doing more stretching, 10 modified push-ups every day, some crunches and squats, and way more walking and stair climing. The stair climbing is really killing my knees, though (this is mostly at work when I don't have time to wait for the slowest elevator in the world), and I'm still not doing daily yoga. So my goal for April is to do at least 3-4 sun salutes every morning, and at least a short routine at night, and to do a full yoga routine, either my own or a dvd, at least 2 times per week. I'm also going to get a new seat for my bike this month and get out on the roads as soon as the snow melts (again, we had another blizzard this morning, ggrrrr!)

My weight really hasn't changed at all, but I'm just coming to the end of my period, so I'll wait a few days to weigh myself again and post it.

Veggie veggie veggie

After a disastrous attempt at making roast duck last week, I think I'm going to be going vegetarian for a while. The duck was fine, but apparently, I don't like duck. So much so that just the smell of the meat made he gag. I couldn't even take one taste, I couldn't even touch the meat because of the fatiness. Now I can't seem to tolerate any flesh at all, it's grossing me out so badly. I've been thinking about going veggie for maybe the summer, but now I'm thinking of dong this for a lot longer. Even canned tuna is grossing me so much right now.

O, of course, won't be going vegetarian, but even he's happy about cutting back a bit on his meat consumption. This will mean a lot more meals of grain salads, beans and veggies, something that should help out the weight loss and blood sugar stabilization a lot.

I'm baaaack

So I've been gone for a while, but things are going well here. I've been super busy with lots of events at the arena, but have been really focusing on my herbal routine, and my eating, and I've lost about 7 lbs and my energy is going way up.

After watching Oprah's last Dr. Oz show (I love Dr. Oz sooooo much, his purple gloves, his yoga poses, his habit of bringing gifts of embalmed body parts, what's not to love?), where he said most adults in North America have parasites, I decided to add some parasite cleansing to my herbal routine, picked up some goldenseal after some research, and man, it's working fantastic! I think that's what I really needed to add with the pao d'arco and garlic. I'm also really focusing on taking the psyllium seed and probiotic every night, and I think that's probably the most important part of the routine, I really feel it when I fall asleep before doing my nighttime stuff.

Knowing that I was going to be spending probably 25 days out of 30 at work, at least a few hours of the day, I finally got smart and stocked my office and the restaurant fridge with some healthy snack food, high fiber/high protein cereal, almond butter, whole grain crackers, sliced veggies and hummus, cheese, sliced fruit. I made sure to pick very carefully from the buffet (mostly eating only the soups and salads, and made my own, sugar-free salad dressing.)

I'm contemplating going vegetarian for the summer maybe, too. I'm just not feeling the meat thing right now. Maybe it's because O has been eating so much of it, but I just can't stand to touch another piece of meat. I'm actually craving chick peas and black beans and tofu. When I started to cook a lot more meat to satisfy O, I just kind of lost my zest for cooking. I think I'm really just not interested in meat (it's not you, roast beef, it's me.) I'm way more interested in learning to cook a new bean curry or soup than I am in flesh.

Been busy

Last week was very busy at work, but now I have 5 whole days off of work to relax, and prepare for the Brier. I will be working 10 days straight, and O will be working at least half that, so I'll need to have 2 weeks of menus planned out, and lots of meals prepped and frozen. I will be working the VIP room, where they will be putting out an enormous selection of bad, bad food, so I'll have to be hypervigilant for the duration, too.

Check-in

The walk down the river trail from home to work is 2 miles, and includes scrambling up and down the river bank at the access points. I've done this walk 2 times now this week, a 3.5 mile walk on Sunday, and another 2 mile walk on Saturday. Plus the one mile walk to or from work, that adds up to a heck of a lot of miles this week already, 12.5 so far from Saturday to Wednesday, and I've been doing a lot of walking and stair climbing at work, too. Hope this shows up on the scale this week.

I haven't yet done a full yoga program, but have been stretching and doing some squats, lunges, downwards dog, twists and crunches. I even managed to stay out of the dessert buffet at work tonight, ok, had a couple of little cheesecake bites, but totally not what I would normally have, and didn't have any till after I had salad and some protein. I kept to my eating schedule and I don't feel nearly as wiped after work as I normally do.

Doing Good!

...if I say so myself, hehe.

I've suddenly lost most of my food cravings. I really put a lot of energy last week into food prep, and maintaining my eating and supplement schedule, and it is really paying off this week. I'm not craving sugar at all (ok, maybe not at all, but only for a few minutes, at night, right before bed, not the overwhelming "I must have sugar" zombie-like, can't think of anything else, sugar cravings I used to have.)

I'm keeping up on my food journal and adding in more fruits and veggies, have had beans 4 or 5 times in the last week, and really cut back on the dairy and meat. In fact, I'm finding meat really gross again, the side effect of a veggie/whole grain heavy diet, I think.

It's warming up outside and I've been making a point to go walking on the river trail at least every other day, the slippery, uneven trail and climbing up and down the river bank to get to it has been way more of a physical challenge than it looks. I feel fine when I'm walking, but I'm really feeling it in my legs and abs at night!

It feels great to have finally put together a couple of good weeks where I really stuck to my plan, and to have it pay off. I'm hoping that I will remember how bad I felt when I was off all supplements, not exercising and eating so much sugar! But this is my biggest bad habit. As soon as I start to feel better, I forget how bad I was and start to doubt that I was ever really sick, start thinking I can live and eat like everyone else and not have it rebound on me 100 times over.

Here's hoping this blog will keep me honest and focused. I'm still not 100%, not even 50%, but I'm feeling so much better, I can wake up in the morning, I'm not dragging myself around exhausted and overwhelmed, I'm not too tired to cook, clean, shop or hang out with my kid, or even read a book. I don't want to go back!

I feel so virtuous and good!

I'm really trying to push myself to eat better in order to set a better example for my son (the poutine and milkshake I had yesterday at work notwithstanding.) So I tried really hard today, and I feel like such a good mommy, even if O is grumbling and complaining about having to eat beans.

I made the most wicked dinner tonight, skillet black beans on brown rice with chopped peppers, mango salsa and cheddar cheese. Soooo yummy. O put his in a tortilla and ate the whole things in about 30 seconds, as is usual for his 14-year-old-boy self (man, boys can pack it away!) He didn't much like the idea of beans, as mentioned, and as he mentioned, repeatedly, all day long. But still, he ate it and a whole buttload of veggies to boot.

We went for a nice long walk on the river skate trail today, climbing the river bank in a few places too. I want to start with the exercise program I came up with for O, just a few basic exercises to start with, squats, lunges, crunches and a couple of yoga poses, hopefully I can get him to do 10 minutes or so tonight, and work up to 20 minutes in a few weeks. He's been complaining so much about his back hurting. He's grown so much in the last year, and even if he loses weight, he ain't never going to be svelte, he needs strong back and core muscles to hold his own weight up. So we'll be working on core stabilization and getting a basic fitness level going, for the both of us.

Movie night

I went to see Juno with my niece last night (great movie!!! btw) and B was greatly amused at my standard movie picnic packing. I never eat the crap they sell at movie theaters, the butter-flavoured substance they put on the popcorn makes me violently ill, I don't drink pop, and I refuse to pay 3 bucks for a chocolate bar, so I always pack a nice meal. I figure if I ever get jacked up by ushers, I will just argue that the day they sell fresh vegetables and whole grains is the day I will start buying their food.

I'm so used to packing for a day out with O, that I wound up with waaay too much food for B and I. But O and his buddy finished off the meal when I got home, so no loss.

I packed:
-store-bought cracked pepper hummus
-sliced red and green peppers and baby carrots (B's favorite)
-a quick greek salad (no lettuce, just cherry tomatoes, cuke, red onion and feta)
-a cheese and veggie wrap sliced in half (still too much for the two of us)
-a baggie each of grapes and orange slices
-2 one liter bottles of water
-a bag of Reese's tiny peanut butter cup things (it's a movie, we needed a treat!)

The meal went over great with B, she's always asking me about food and meal suggestions. My sis and bil eat a very standard suburban family diet (lots of frozen stuff, lots of drive-thru), the two youngest are very happy with this (the middle girl has lots of food issues, will only eat a few foods, even though she's almost 18 now will still mostly eat chicken fingers and fries, and the youngest is just highly suspicious of anything new.) So B is craving whole foods in a big way. It's so much fun taking her out to shop and eat, and cooking for her. She gets so excited about simple, good food. I bought her a copy of The Art of Simple Food by Alice Waters for Xmas and she's been so excited by it, calls me to tell me whenever she tries out a new recipe. It's great to have another foodie in the family.

Snackage planning

I ate potato chips today, a whole big bag full. I was so tired by the end of the day today I just wandered through the grocery store and bought junk food, sigh.

It's the last day of my hell week, tho. I can take at least 2 days off work, maybe I'll even take three, if nothing goes really bad.

I finally have a chance to do the grocery shop I've needed to do for weeks, but now it's a stat holiday tomorrow and I don't know if stupid store will be open, gar!

I'm going to put together a care package for work like I did last year, healthy snack foods I can dip into or make a small meal out of in an emergency.

Whole wheat crackers
Whole wheat pitas or tortillas
high fiber cereal (no sugar, obviously)
whole wheat couscous pilaf mix (homemade, I'll post a recipe when I'm happy with it)
canned seasoned tuna
veggie chips
whole grain tortilla chips
canned or tetra pak natural soups

for the fridge:
bean dip (hummous, garlic and white bean, spicy black bean, refried beans)
cheese sticks (natural)
skim milk
fruit (apples, oranges, mango, berries)
avocado
red pepper slices

Obviously the produce portion is too much to keep around at work at any one time, most would go bad, but a small selection of fresh food, and some healthy starches to go with them will make the whole lunch thing much easier.

Post-gala hangover

Oh, I wish, don't be fooled by the title of this post. Last night was our annual charity fund raising gala at the arena, and I'm feeling sick, sore and so very, very tired today. Last night wasn't bad as far as galas have been, it's not like the Grey Cup gala I worked where I did a 60 hour week before the gala, and an 18 hour day during the gala (wearing a full tuxedo, no less) sprinting the length of the arena at least 4 or 5 dozen times, on top of everything else.

This gala was very, very small by comparison, 500 people or so, a tested menu, no real surprises, and we've had enough experience with this stuff that we had everything set up in advance, including water and a meal for staff. So it wasn't nearly as bad as it could be, I didn't even work any overtime, and only had to go around the arena a dozen times or so. I still wound up drinking way too much canned pop, eating pizza and chicken fingers and the most disgusting meat balls in gravy (oh the joys of the staff dinner), a chocolate martini that was a thank you from the boss, several handfuls of candy from the candy cart on the floor and munching down let's just say more than one of the left-over gala desserts (chocolate banana perogies in caramel with a chocolate tulip filled with Amarula cream.)

This past week at work has been a bit... stressful. Between losing half my staff to mid-terms (meaning I had to serve tables while simultaneously supervising the restaurant and two bars), the surprise health inspection, the annual inspection by head office, the fire (a small fire on the buffet table,) at that point I was thinking a plague of locusts would descend next. So while the gala night wasn't very stressful, at least compared to last two, it was pretty the nail in the coffin for my week. I woke up today barely able to stand, shaking, dizzy, dehydrated.

So, I shouldn't be too hard on myself for completely falling off the wagon over the past two days. Crappy food, not nearly enough exercise, more stress than I should probably go through in a year, Doritos for breakfast today. Sigh.

Back on that stupid wagon...

No more daily check-ins

Ok, maybe it was a tad ambitious of me to think that I would have time every day to blog about my eating and exercise, let alone exercise daily. As it is right now I should be doing the laundry, dishes and shopping in the one hour I have before going to work for 10 hours, but I'm playing hooky from my life.

I did manage last week to start doing one of my yoga dvd's, the beginner flow in Shiva Rea's Fluid Power Vinyassa flow. It's an intermediate beginner dvd, which is great because I get bored quickly relearning the positions over and over again, but wow, is it tough! The great thing about yoga is how quickly you can progress in it. Even by the third time I did the flow last week it was getting much easier and went from "Oh my god this is impossible that woman has no spine!" to "I wonder when I'll be ready for the next level?"

My back and neck feel so much better for the yoga, but I probably won't have time this week to do any dvd's. I'm going to try to get in a few sun salutes every morning, and a few shoulder stands and some meditation at night, just to stay loose and sleep well.

My eating goals are going well. O has offered to take over making dinners when I'm at work, I probably won't be eating much that he cooks, but he is taking over the burden of making sure he is fed during the day, a huge time thief for me, spending 2-3 hours a day doing the shopping, prep, cooking and clean-up, and making for a very, very cranky mom. I will take over doing the dishes (which I've been doing the past few months anyway), and he will deal with his own lunches and dinners. The quality of his eating is going down, but he's a 14 year old boy, and is really, really resisting eating vegan grain salads and poached fish, lol. I can deal with the occasional box of Kraft Dinner going into him, if it means that I can eat better, regain my energy and start to work on his diet when I have the strength for the fight.

I'm getting close to eliminating sugar, adding Goldenseal to my herbs has really helped. I'm aiming again for a complete elimination by summer, and to eat sugar, dairy and meat free over the summer. I'll see how I feel in September about my diet and readjust then.

Daily Check In

I did wind up going for the long walk/hike on the river bank. We walked down the walking trail part of the river trail, which was very icy in spots and took a lot to keep balance, and hiked the bank at a few spots, all in all a very active day.

Made a large, fried breakfast, had a sub on white bread for lunch at the Forks (it was soooo disgusting), and made a pretty fatty dinner-steak, mashed potatoes with loads of butter, and broccoli fried in butter. Can't do that again for a while. We'll be having a bit of a pig out on Super Bowl Sunday this week, so I really have to be careful all week. The staff appreciation night is this week too, with chicken fingers and perogies on the buffet (and I'm sure there won't be a salad in sight, all frozen foods, only the best for staff, sigh), so again will be having some poor foods. I'll need to make up for all this with a few days of lots of salads, grains, beans and Super Bowl.

So far today the only exercise I have had is walking to and from work, and all the walking, squatting and moving stuff I have to do during inventory. I'm so tight and sore all the time, and I know I will feel better if I do yoga, it's just a matter of making myself do it.

I'm taking tomorrow off, but a blizzard if forecast (the wind's already started up, bad), so I doubt I'll be going skiing. I'll take the chance to do some much needed housework and a long routine from one of my yoga dvd's. I will try to make a good multi-grain bread tomorrow, at least one chopped salad, and a couple of freezer entrees for when I get really busy again.

Daily Check in

Did ok at work yesterday, hit the dessert buffet a bit hard (had 5 or 6 pieces over the course of the evening.)

I pulled out my X-country skis out of the closet, and I'm aiming to get out on the river trail today. Ironically enough, it's going to be quite warm today and that's causing problems. Living in Winnipeg, you get summer and winter and not much in between. I don't really have clothes to wear for being out in the snow on a warm day. My long-johns and snow pants are way too warm, but sweats wouldn't be enough, and I don't have anything to cover my ankles and keep snow out of my boots (damn low-ankle cross-country boots!)

If O wakes up early enough, I may just drag him out to walk the river trail and go check out the pond hockey tourney at the Forks today, and put off the skiing until tomorrow when I can buy myself some appropriate outdoor clothes. We'll see.

Still planning out meals for the week. I'm actually excited about cooking dinner tonight, when I can make what I want without worrying about prep or clean up time. I have to work tomorrow to do inventory, but that won't take long, and I have 3 days or so to look forward to off work. Maybe I'll try to make some freezer meals tonight and tomorrow for the rest of the week, and I want to try this salad tonight too.

Will also try to do some yoga today, either a sun salute rotation this morning, or do a longer dvd routine before bed.

Starting to see a change

I'm starting to make some of my goals, and feeling so much better for it. I started to take Goldenseal yesterday, don't know if that is making a difference yet, it's pretty early, but I'm feeling very good, better than I have for months, despite the crazy schedule I'm working right now.

Have been walking to and from work again. Even with the cold snap, I really do need that daily walk. No matter how embarrassing it is to walk around in public with snow pants on. At 37. Sigh, vanity is a harsh mistress.

Doing OK with eating at work. I've been making a point of getting myself a veggie sub on my way to work when I didn't get it together to make lunch at home, and that seems to be helping. I'm not walking into the kitchen every day when they're plating up the dessert buffet ravenously hungry. I did have three pieces of carrot cake off the buffet after close last night (tiny, minuscule pieces, microscopic, even, really!) and some toast with honey last night (ok, and this morning too, sigh.) But all in all, my eating habits are really improving. Had a small piece of lasagna and a salad for dinner last night, didn't touch the honey soy chicken, or the bacon potato soup (which looked like papier mache paste by the end of the night), and didn't gorge on bread or any of the muffins, cookies, bagels, danishes, brownies and various pastries laid out for crew. Tonights buffet menu is largely the same, without the lasagna, so I'll have to make sure I buy that sub, and have the soup and salad. Can't remember what the entrees were, but nothing too appetizing.

Won't have much time off work for the next two weeks, so at home we're depending on canned soup, frozen veggies and perogies, and lots of meat for O. I found a nutrition guide for high school football players on NFLhs.com last night, finally a good explanation of the diet needs of your not-so-average teen boy. I've been struggling with doctors and nutritionists being all over the map with O, no one could tell me how much food he actually needs to take in, and what a good, reasonable weight for a kid that big would be (at 14, he's 6'2", 320 lbs, by the book he's at least 100lbs overweight, but his frame is enormous, his hands are twice the size of mine, he wears a size 14EEE shoe, losing 100lbs would leave him sickly and anorexic looking.) According to this formula, though, he needs at least double the amount of protein I do, when he's training or working out moderately, and even more if he gets in to some serious weight training. No wonder he's always searching for meat, meat and more meat. My biggest problem now is providing him with that much protein, without too much fat in his diet, and with trying to afford buying all this lean meat.

Ok, so daily posting is still a goal...

Today I walked to and from work, about a mile each way, not a huge accomplishment, except the wind chill is still so freaking cold that I had to stop in at stores both ways in order to stop feeling my legs-numbness being a good sign after the stabbing shooting pain of near-frostbite.

Ate pretty good, though had sugar on my cereal this am, and a Cadbury's easter cream egg after my roast beef sub at lunch. Easter cream eggs are a huge weakness of mine. I think they are the most perfect of foods. Having the good ones around (not all dried up like they get after Easter, yuk) is going to be a problem.

I'm getting really frustrated at the amount of times that I'm cheating and back tracking. I have one really bad day at work with the dessert buffet, and then I'm struggling for a week again trying to detox. I'm detox today again from the show last night. I have switched to drinking Diet Coke at work, not something I want to keep up for the long run, but it's really helping right now to keep the sugar cravings down. While I did wind up eating 4 or 5 things from the dessert buffet last night, everything is cut into very small portions, and I normally eat 10 or 15 pieces throughout a work night, so that's a small victory in itself.

My boss is leaving tomorrow for almost 3 weeks away to train a catering manager at another one of our facilities, which means 15 days straight of work with no time off at all, and a whole hell of a lot of work after that too. I'm going to have to really discipline myself to keep to any semblance of a diet while at work.

I've been doing a bit of stretching out and yoga with O, and I'm going to try to make sun salutes a daily routine for the both of us. I just feel so much better and more energized when I've done some inversions in the morning.

Americans are wussy

Ok, so maybe not every single American, but every single American football commentator is a total pussy. All day long today they are going on about how cold it in Green Bay. Hours of coverage on the cold.

And it's, like, -20 or so. A beautiful day by Winnipeg standards, but these guys are wearing serious arctic parkas and Russian fur hats and Troy Aikman's teeth are chattering so loudly you can hear them on the mike!

So I can be quite smug that I went out for a walk today. -41 below and you don't hear me complaining (much.) Suck on that, Terry Bradshaw!

Cold, so very, very cold

It's -41 below today, and my only day off work for at least 20 days. I was hoping to hit the gym, but right now, I don't even want to go near my windows!

I am aiming to get some yoga in today, and start the habit of doing sun salutes daily. I feel so much better when I've done even a short 15 minutes run through.

The sugar-free thing is going well. I did have dessert last night, after working a formal dinner, but all the food last night was so fantastic, I couldn't say no. I did eat only one serving of dessert, and the higher end desserts tend to have less sugar in them than the dainty tray, so I refuse to feel any guilt.

Today I'm aiming for no sugar at all, and to keep my fat consumption down. I'll need to carefully plan out my next week of meals, too, since I'll be at work so much. I have gotten in the habit of having a 6" veggie sub at Subway, rather than a bagel and doughnut from Tim's for lunch, and that's a start.

I also aim to start posting here daily as an accountability measure, but with all the stuff I'm doing, I'll be happy if I post three times this week.

And really, despite all my whining about how cold and crappy it is outside, I think I will bundle up well today and go for a walk along the river trail. It should be frozen solid and slick now, and will make for a good walk.

Oh butter, I will miss you...

I feel like I'm about 3/4 of the way there in eliminating sugar out of my diet: most cravings are gone, I'm not buying or eating any commercial sugary products, have nearly eliminated white flour (still depend a bit on eating from Subway, and there are no whole wheat bread or buns here at work, will work on that with the Chef this season.) So now I'm on to the next challenge for me, to wean myself off butter and lots of fat. While I'm certainly never going to eat a very-low fat diet ever in my life, I do have to face up to the fact that I'm eating way too much fat, especially animal fat, with not enough variety in the fatty foods I'm eating. Way too much butter, cheese, cream, ground beef, chicken fat, bacon, and sausage.

So, the next step on this lifestyle change is, once I feel like I've got the sugar/white foods/processed food thing under control, is to cut back on the fatty animal products I eat, and replace it with lean meats, fish, beans and legumes, vegetable fats like avocado and olives, and more fruits and vegetables. That's a whole lot of changes to do, so, again, I'll be taking them in baby steps. Cutting down on dairy, and cutting out butter, at least for the time being, will be my first goal, then fatty meats, while simultaneously increasing my intake of the above foods.

I'm hoping to be well on the way to eating a whole food diet by March 1st, and aim to be completely sugar free, and possibly go vegetarian for a month or two, by June 1st.

I spoke too soon

Somehow, after my period, after a week of careful eating and moderate exercise (moderate for me lately, couch potato for most people, I'll admit), I've somehow managed to gain weight. Who did I step on or shit on in my last life to have this body?