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.

Air Sandwich Recipe

Damn, I ate like crap yesterday. Seriously, I consumed like an extra 1000 calories somehow. I don't feel like I ate that much more than usual but apparently I did. Great, now I have to eat 1000 calories less today to make up for it. Haha, yeah I know...that's pretty funny.

Anyone have a good recipe for air sandwiches?

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!