There's Hope For Me After All, Buddha!

Remember I said I was going to sign up for a Mindful Meditation class? Well I did! I searched for one in Fresno and it just so happens that the 'Center for Mindfulness' in practically right across the street from my house, and they meet on Wednesday evenings. Talk about fate! I went for the first time last night and it was pretty awesome.

I wouldn't consider myself to be one of those new age gurus by any stretch of the imagination, but I figure if half the world is out there meditating on a regular basis, maybe there's something to it. I go in (late, as usual), and there are about 20 people sitting around this room being all still and quiet. the atmosphere is so soothing...dim lights, candles, warm colors....there was even a pleasant but not overpowering scent of incense. I decided then and there that I was going to convert my living room to look just like this because it would make me eternally happy.

So I sit down, close my eyes and start breathing. The lady heading the meditation's voice was calming and she gave tips and tricks on how to get your mind to focus on your breath instead of everything else that's going on in your brain. This was very helpful, because I really suck at meditating. It's so hard to concentrate. But she kept saying not to judge ourselves if we can't stay focused and just try again with the next breath. I guess you're not born with the ability to meditate and you only become good at it after a lot of practice. That makes me feel better.

We did sitting, standing and walking meditations. I have tried meditating before but only while sitting or lying down. The standing was okay but the walking was really challenging. You are supposed to look at the ground, walk ridiculously slow, try not to crash into the person in front of you, hold your hands a certain way, and try not to fall over from being unbalanced. And while you're doing all of this, you're only supposed to be thinking about your steps. Pffft. Much easier said than done.

All in all, it was a very positive experience. The things the leader was saying made me think she was reading my mind. She made me feel better about a lot of the things I've been struggling with lately and it was exactly what I needed. If for no other reason, it was just nice to sit in a calm environment and relax for an hour, not worrying about what was outside the room waiting for me when the hour was over. But it was much more than that. I think this class is a keeper.

Om Shanti Shanti Shanti

Easter Calories

Happy Easter! I have been craving Peeps and Cadbury Eggs and Reeses Peanut Butter Eggs all day, but luckily I didn't have any on hand. I ended up melting some chocolate chips and dipping fresh strawberries into them which was a relatively satisfying alternative. Too bad my choices weren't that great the rest of the weekend....

It started on Friday when I had the bright idea to bring home Chinese food. I went to this new place and ordered fried rice and lemon chicken. I had never had Chinese lemon chicken before and it sounded like it might be healthy. It was not. Deep fried delicious chunks of chicken breast covered in a sweet lemony sauce....one of the best things I've eaten in a long time but definitely not healthy. It still wasn't healthy when I ate leftovers for lunch the next day.

Then, yesterday I was planning on staying home and eating some of the homemade turkey cabbage rolls I made earlier in the week, but my BFF ended up coming over and we went for a power walk. Sounds great, right? Well we armed ourselves with marshmallow vodka mixed with diet coke in Del Taco cups. It was a great walk! But by the time we got back my self control was completely gone and I was hungry. Cabbage rolls were DEFINITELY not happening....Domino's was calling my name. So I called them back and ordered pizza and cheesy bread. Ate quite a bit of it too!

I woke up this morning with a stomach ache, horrible heartburn, and absolutely no energy whatsoever. There's no doubt in my mind that the marshmallow vodka had a little to do with it, but by the time I went to bed last night the massive quantity of pizza I consumed soaked up all the vodka and just left me feeling bloated and sleepy.

I know I've said this before, but I'm really considering cutting out the booze. I can have a sip of wine and I lose all control over food consumption. If I ditched the alcohol, not only would I be saving those calories, I'd also be avoiding the bad food choices. Plus I wouldn't feel like a gigantic piece of poop the next day. It seems like an obvious choice to me.

I'm glad I'm not a pothead. I can't even imagine the crap I would eat if I were one.

Can you believe I'm considering heating up leftover Domino's right now? I need help! LOL

New Way to Rationalize Bad Food Choices!

I was doing so well yesterday....Ate healthy, exercised....even cooked a low fat, healthy meal for dinner. While I was cooking I decided to have a glass of wine (I'd like to take this opportunity to point out that even though I came to the conclusion weeks ago that one glass of wine every day is a health food and I was going to start having one every day, I haven't been living up to that promise. I can't remember to do it most of the time, plus I usually want to spend those calories on something else). So I have the glass of wine and start feeling fantastic. So I had another. This is all on a practically empty stomach so it's basically going right to my head.

Shortly thereafter, my best friend and worst influence says she's going to stop by. I said, we should get some cheeeeesecake. We live about a mile away from the Cheesecake Factory and not a day goes by where I don't think about indulging in a slice or two. Instead of trying to set me straight, she says YES! Let's do it! So I go put some pants on and a few minutes later we are looking at the ever-so-extensive menu.

I figure that since I ate my dinner at home, having just cheesecake won't be so bad. And another glass of wine. Besides, I have PMS and deserve some cheesecake. Kind of like a reward for having to go through that shit every month. If you eat something as a reward, it doesn't have any calories, right?

While we're perusing the menu, they bring us a basket of warm, fresh bread with butter. I polished off most of the loaf of sourdough while trying to figure out what kind of dessert I'm going to have. I'm off to a great start.

I decide on some crazy peanut butter cup, chocolate cake and cheesy goodness concoction with a side of hot fudge. Then aforementioned friend orders the diet plain cheesecake with fresh strawberries on the side. Give me a break, dude. Takes about two bites and boxes up the rest. Whatev.

Meanwhile, I devour about 3/4 of my piece before I start feeling like I'm going to explode. I didn't even take home the rest in a box. I guess that's one little silver lining in this whole big gigantic black cloud I have gotten myself into. Yes, I'm grasping for straws.

I come home and calculate the calories I've consumed on My Fitness Pal and as usually am ashamed of myself. I did learn a lesson, though. No matter how good any of the hundreds of cheesecake choices sound, your best bet is to always go for the original, plain with a side of hot fudge. I've been disappointed each and every time I've strayed. I mean, if you're going to eat a 900 calorie piece of cake, make sure it's something you can't live without.

Vintage Weight Lifting.

Hey Folks....I'm still at it! My New Year's Resolution is still usually the first thing on my mind and I'm trying to make smart choices. I've been going on walks around the block where I work at lunchtime, which has been great lately because the weather is amazing. The surrounding area is industrial and therefore isn't the greatest scenery for sightseeing and sometimes even gets a little creepy, especially when I have to walk back on the main road. I really hate that part. So today I decided to take a different route, which was actually longer than my usual one. Not only does that mean I don't have to deal with the creepy part, but I also burn more calories!

I also stayed up late last night and hard boiled some eggs to make egg salad to bring for lunch. Instead of drowning it in mayo, I only used a little squirt and supplemented the rest with extra mustard and dill pickle relish. And instead of eating it on bread, I used it as a dip for water crackers. It was zesty and tasty and low calorie and somewhat lower fat and full of protein. I had some Greek yogurt and an apple for dessert and I'm stuffed. AND I still have more than 1000 calories to play around with for the day.

I'm planning on taking my mid-afternoon break and heading over to the fitness center to pump some iron. We'll see how that goes.

I Fell Off The Wagon.

"Even if a person is getting the daily-recommended exercise of 30-60 minutes, being inactive the rest the day is still a health risk. The best strategy is to alternate between sitting and standing throughout the day."

I read this lovely little piece of advice in a wellness newsletter that is sent out by my place of employment. Talk about a buzz kill! Even if I was able to get my lazy ass to exercise 30 to 60 minutes EVERY day (right now I'm shooting for ONE day and thought I was doing well), I still wouldn't be healthy? Come on! That's just a mean thing to say.

They are trying to tell me that I should get up and wander around to the printer (whether I printed anything or not, and considering we're all about saving the environment, printing is discouraged which makes this even more ridiculous) every few minutes. Somehow I think that might put a damper on my productivity level and might even be frowned upon if my boss was to catch me walking aimlessly around for no good reason. Well, it is for a good reason but I have a feeling he might not buy it.

But seriously....talk about making people want to give up! Realistically, I can't get 30-60 minutes of exercise AND walk around for half my work hours. So why even bother?

In other news...I was invited to go to Red Robin for dinner. I perused the menu online so I could make sure only to order something with a decent amount of calories in it. I decided on the Avocado Cobb salad, which would have given me about 400 extra calories to have a few fries dipped in ranch. Seriously, if you're not going to eat at least a few of those why bother going to RR?

Once I got there, I had the bright idea to order the California chicken sandwich instead. I figured it was a grilled chicken breast so how bad could it be? Sadly, when it came it was served on grilled butter bun and was dripping with mayo. Had I been paying attention, I would have ordered the whole wheat, non butter bun and no mayo. But I wasn't. And I ate the whole thing, along with more than 400 calories worth of fries and ranch.

So later I did what anyone else would do when feeling guilty about over consuming tons of greasy, fatty food. I agreed to split a Mountain Mudd Pie for dessert. OMG was it good. I felt less guilty about eating this than I did all those fries and buttered buns.

It appears that I may have fallen off the wagon. That's okay...I have all weekend to get myself back on it.

I'ma Steal my Neighbor's Scale

I just realized that I haven't written anything since my sudden burst of mushiness last week. Ugh, what got into me, anyway? That hopefully will be my one and only sappy post this year. Unless it's about my dogs. I don't mind being sappy about them.

So I haven't written because I've been busy, which is a good thing. I'm coming out of a three day weekend and I'm happy to report that I was somewhat productive. Not only that, but I also managed not to completely sabotage my diet and exercise routine. Saturday I actually intentionally got some exercise by Zumba-ing a little and moving furniture around in an attempt to put together a small pottery studio area for myself. I was exhausted when I was done so I had to burn at least a few calories. I also spent the Amazon gift card that my sister gave me for my birthday on a set of Zumba toning sticks, which will make my sporadic workouts even more fun and challenging.

I also knocked out a couple of projects that have been sitting around my house for the last couple of months. They were getting in the way of progress, so now that they are completed I don't have to work around them anymore. Of course, all of the things on my to-do list for the weekend didn't get done, but there's always next weekend.

And the best part of the whole weekend? I weighed myself on my neighbor's bathroom scale and it said I am about 2 pounds lighter than what my usual scale says. Score! I need to get me one of those.

I Am Not Dead Inside!

So far, I've been focusing mostly on things I've been doing that are good for my body, and doing things that are good for my mind and spirit have taken a back seat. Today I want to focus on something that recently transpired that has been really great for my spirit. But first...I need to provide some background history.

Three days after I moved to Arizona about 16 years ago, I met someone who ended up being my boyfriend for the next 3 years or so. Obviously it didn't work out because we're not together anymore, but I have fond memories of our time together. I also have not-so-fond memories of fighting like cats and dogs with him, but that's another story. We were together at an important time in my life. I had just left the comfort of my parents' house in NJ and embarked on my journey to become an adult. I moved 2500 miles away from everything I knew and loved to where I didn't know a soul and all I had with me were my ferrets, my bed, and a couple of frogs. I blindly rented a studio apartment to move into, and after a 8 day long cross country trip in a Budget rent-a-van with a perfect stranger, I ended up on my own in Mesa, Arizona. Luckily I met this person within a few days, and before long we were inseparable. We explored all of Arizona and parts of Mexico, traveled to New York, New Jersey, Utah, New Mexico, California and Florida, got a couple cats, built kitty furniture together, and shared our mutual love for all things weird and scientific. Being that we are both super goofy people, we'd make up songs and strange noises and funky dances and just laugh like idiots. Ahh, those were good times.

We definitely had our share of problems. My mom passed away during this time, which neither of us dealt with very well. He kind of had a dark side and some anger issues, which I got really tired of. He wanted a family and I generally fear children and commitment in general. We were young and thought the grass was greener on the other side so we went our separate ways. With the exception of a handful of conversations through MySpace a few years ago, I really haven't spoken to him or thought too much about him since.

A few weeks ago, I got a random Facebook message from him.We caught up a little and I found out that he still lives in Phoenix, has been married and divorced more times than Ross on Friends and he has an 8 year old daughter. We have been talking via phone and text messaging ever since and I've got to admit...I'm not hating it. It even has me wondering if I had actually met my soul mate 16 years ago and just didn't realize it until now.

Today we live two different lives, 500 miles apart from each other, so we'll never have the chance to find out what might have been. But it sure has been great reconnecting with him and reminiscing about the great memories we have together. The whole experience has made me feel a little less 'dead inside', and more hopeful about the future...what could possibly be better for my soul than that?

Chicken Flavored Popcorn?

OK so it has been a few days since I posted about the plethora of healthy things I have been doing for myself. That's because I really haven't been doing any. This past weekend I had a three day weekend for my birthday, and the time was filled with wine tasting, skinny iced tea drinking, and eating stuff like chocolate, peanut butter and pretzel pie, clam chowder in a bread bowl, and even a burger from In and Out. But calories don't count on weekends and especially on your birthday, right? Plus I have already decided that wine is a health food and I did choose the 'skinny' iced tea over the fattening long island kind. So I didn't completely fall off the wagon.

I started to get back on track yesterday but didn't do anything mind blowing. I came in under my calorie count and managed to do about 3/4 of my stretching video. You can see why I didn't bother posting about it.

Today, though, I have to brag about the great decisions that I have made so far. First of all, we have an all day meeting at work and I go to the meeting room to find mini chocolate bars spread all over the table I had to sit at first thing in the morning. Now, that's just mean. I barely am even awake and I have Twix, Snickers, Kit Kats and Hershey bars staring me in the face. They are all wrapped in beautiful Valentine's Day wrappers which makes them look even more appealing. I feel powerless against their pull. I did eat one mini Twix, but before I downed everything else on the table, I got up and went over to the area where there was a bit of real food. I had a strawberry, half a banana and a handful of raw almonds.

Then, lunch time rolled around. I was offered a meal from Kentucky Fried Chicken for free! My god did it smell good. Free delicious food? Come on... I am so being tested today. But I actually said no. I walked away and came back down to my office with nothing but a memory of how amazing it would have tasted had I chosen to eat it. So now I sit here starving and craving KFC.  Guess I'll go make some popcorn or something. Hope it tastes like chicken!

My Arms Feel Like Wet Noodles.

There just so happens to be a fitness center at my place of employment. I asked for the combination to get into it a few weeks ago and finally dragged myself in to it the other day with the intent to give myself a great workout. Sadly, I got confused and left right away...

I'm not going to pretend that I know my way around a gym, but I'm not completely clueless, either. I've been to the gym many times in the past, but I usually make a beeline to the elliptical machine and maybe try out a weight machine or two. But the equipment in our fitness center is nothing like I have ever seen before. In the middle is a large universal machine that is from 1972. There's a treadmill and a bunch of dumbells...a bench or two...but it's no LA Fitness. That's okay, though. I'm not complaining. The fact that there is this facility about 20 paces away from my desk and it's free to use is fantastic. I just needed someone who has been in there before to show me the ropes.

Today was the day! I went in there with two of my co-workers who go every morning at 10 am and spend 15 minutes a day pumping iron. I can do 15 minutes! That's nothing! Fifteen minutes a day is 75 minutes a week. That's a whole lot better than the 0 minutes a week I usually spend lifting weights. Today I focused on arms and shoulders, and tomorrow I'll switch it up and do legs. I'll be buff in no time!

I am very excited about this. I don't have to spend money on a gym membership that I'll never use because it takes too much effort to get in the car and go to it. I don't have to find an hour or more in the day to spend working out. If I combine this with my lunchtime walk, I'll actually get some decent exercise every day. And that's with barely even trying. This is my kind of regimen.

Today I did about 6 different exercises for my back, shoulders and arms. They now feel like wet noodles. Stay tuned to hear me whine about how much my muscles are aching tomorrow!

Electric Wine Glasses Make Drinking Even More Fun.

It's day number two of my commitment to drink one glass of red wine every day. I was planning on going home and starting to scrub the filth out of my house so I didn't have to spend the entire weekend doing it, but along came a call from my friend Erika wanting to know if I would meet her for happy hour after work. Since I am a sucker for happy hour, and the place we went was right on my way home from work, I agreed. Normally I would have screwed up everything by going out to a restaurant where I don't seem to have control over my calorie consumption, but I was actually good today. The restaurant had the amount of calories in each dish listed on the menu so it was pretty easy to keep track. We opted to share the Thai shrimp lettuce wraps (420 calories divided by two) and a small deep dish pizza with whole wheat crust (150 cals a slice). Of course I had my glass of wine, and even had a pint of berry flavored hard cider. When I got home (by 7pm, mind you) I logged my calories in MFP and saw that I went a mere 15 calories over my daily limit. That's easy enough to fix. I did my stretching video and burned another 243 calories. So technically I can go eat something else right now for 228 calories, but I'm not going to. I'm going to bed early. Nite!

 

No it's not really electric but it sure looked that way.

PS did you know a plate of nachos has something like 2300 calories? Yeesh.

Butt Monkeys and Marathons

Today I weighed myself and realized that by eating healthy and walking a little I was able to lose two of the four pounds I gained when I was in Vegas last weekend. You may have noticed that I didn't post anything for the 3 days I was there...that's because I am ashamed of what I did. I know they say what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, and I'm hoping that is true for the eating habits I adopted while I was there. People were feeding me left and right. And the food was delicious. I should have just strapped one of those horse feeding bag things around my neck. But hopefully that is all behind me and I can go back to concentrating on my resolution. I will say, though, considering that I was in Vegas for work and I had very little free time, I managed to enjoy myself. I got to go to Serendipity 3 the first night we were there (that's where it all started to go downhill), I enjoyed sipping free Bloody Mary's while gambling at the bar (and by free I mean they ended up costing me about $80 with all the money I lost), and spent some quality time with my friend and co-worker Madi.

Now back to today. I was so excited to see that I was down 2 pounds that I resolved to try even harder. I came home and made dinner which consisted of boneless, skinless chicken breast, zucchini, whole wheat pasta, green beans and Provencal simmer sauce from my favorite store, Fresh & Easy. Here's the exciting part....while I was waiting for it to cook, I popped my Zumba Core DVD (which I had been using as a coaster until now) into the Wii and actually did some of it! I say some of it because I didn't do an entire workout. I wasn't in the mood to do anything but pushed myself to give it a shot. I did about 4 songs which is around 15-20 minutes. Not much, but I figure I am more likely to do 4 songs a day than a whole workout several times a week with the level of motivation I've been having lately. So I'll start small and build on it as I start feeling more energetic. I can tell I am having more energy just by eating better. If I keep it up and do my Zumba everyday, I'll be running marathons in no time. And monkeys might fly out of my butt.

Off to a Good Start...Now Don't Blow It.

I may actually be getting into a groove! I ate a healthy breakfast and lunch, logged all my calories into MyFitnessPal for both meals, and took a 15 minute power walk at lunch...all before 2 pm! I'd be happy with myself if that's all I did today that was good for me, but I know there will be more to come later. I know for a fact that dinner is going to be healthy because I am going to eat what was leftover from last night (chicken sausage, onions, peppers and potatoes). There's always the possibility that I will pop in my stretching DVD, but I say that everyday and it rarely happens (I even brought it to Las Vegas with me thinking I might do it in my room, but I was so busy eating, drinking and gambling in my free time that I never even gave it a second thought. Oh well, I'll just have to try harder next time). I may even fit in an art project or two, which is always therapeutic and therefore good for my soul. The possibilities are endless!

I'm Retiring From Being a Human Garbage Can.

According to my calculations, I gained about 4 pounds in the 3 days that I was in Las Vegas. That is disgusting, but I can't say I am surprised. I actually thought it would have been more. The sad thing is that it will probably take me 4 weeks to lose them! That is so not fair! I just added an extra month to my diet and exercise program because of a measly 3 days of making bad choices. Why can't it ever be the other way around? Why can't I eat like that for a month and lose it in only 3 days? This sucks!

Considering there's not much I can do about it, I made sure to bring healthy food with me to work for the week. I brought my leftover soup, Greek yogurt, apples and oranges. I know I pledged to eat nothing but air sandwiches for the next week, but I got hungry.

I was craving sausage and peppers for dinner so I stopped at Fresh and Easy to get some groceries. I love Fresh and Easy. They have great food (tons of healthy and easy to prepare choices) and great prices. They even issue a coupon every few weeks which is even more enticing. I like going here because it's a smaller store and it doesn't take all day like it would if I went to a real supermarket. Plus they have the best hummus in the whole entire world. Unfortunately, their parent company, the UK's Tesco, is probably going to shut them down because they aren't as profitable as they had hoped. I will cry if that happens.

I settled on some mild chicken sausage, bought a container of already chopped up onions and peppers, a package of mushrooms and some little tiny tri colored potatoes, then sauteed them in olive oil. It was really good! I even have enough for 1 or 2 more meals.

After entering all of my caloric intake into MyFitnessPal for the day, I was only at 1266 which is pretty damn good if I do say so myself. I was also still hungry and was craving something sweet. Real shocking, I know. After carefully pondering what I should eat to solve this problem (normally I would do something like eat a plethora of marshmallows or enough chocolate chips and almonds to double the amount of calories I had already eaten), I opted for a bowl of Rice Krispies with organic chocolate soy milk and some fresh blueberries. It totally hit the spot and I was still under my calories for the day. Who needs marshmallows when you have chocolate soy milk? Not me!

Baby Steps and Chocolate.

Today, after eating my rather large half sandwich for lunch, I sat at my desk trying to overcome the overwhelming desire for potato chips and chocolate. I would have settled for anything sweet and/or salty and/or crunchy. I couldn't stop thinking about carbs, which really bothered me because the reason why my half sandwich was rather large was because it was on this super thick, rosemary infused, super fluffy and delicious bread. Give me some of that and a tub of butter and I could eat it all day, every day for the rest of my life (just kidding. Please don't because I really will). Then I remembered reading something a while back about how you should go for a walk when you're craving something unhealthy and by the time you get back the craving will have subsided. Being that it's a nice, cool, sunny day here in Fresno, I really didn't have any excuses not to give this theory a try.

Although I didn't time myself, I think I walked for about 20 minutes. Not great, but not bad considering it was on my lunch break at work where I usually do absolutely nothing but eat lunch. I didn't speed walk, but I walked fast enough to elevate my heart rate slightly, become a tiny bit short of breath, and to create a cramp in my calf that felt like it was being stabbed with a knife. It's all good though because if there's no pain, there's no gain, right? Although I'm not trying to gain, I'm trying to lose. I'm hoping it helps with that, too.

As an added bonus, they say that it's good for you to get a small amount of sun everyday sans sunblock because it's supposed to fight depression and increase vitamin D levels (which, according to my doctor I have unbelievably low levels of). Unfortunately, I haven't been out in the sun in what seems like months. The warmth did feel good on my face. I may even do it again tomorrow.

After my walk I came back to my desk and ate an apple. I can live with that choice.