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?