Allergies can bite the big one.

There is literally so much snot coming out of my nose I should change my name to Kleenex. I've been taking Kroger's version of Claritin, but I think I need something else. I'm dying and I don't like it. I rarely get sick. It's driving me crazy.

The worst part about these allergies is that they're knocking me on my ass. I haven't been to the gym since Tuesday the 23rd. I've tried to get going, but when I run, my nose kinda chronically drips anyway (does anyone else have this problem?!) and my sinuses have so much pressure building up in them that I can't imagine I would really be comfortable working out for a long period of time. I'm honestly kinda stuck.

I don't feel sick necessarily, just clogged up? Whatever. Either way, I don't like it. Add my stress from work this past week and a half and you have a pretty blah feeling Me...unfortunately, many times that means I don't make the best food or lifestyle choices.

I definitely had (veggie) buffalo chicken nuggets and french fries Monday night for dinner. It was delicious! I definitely recommend them! They're by Morningstar  Farms and, while they're not the greatest things ever to be eating, I mean, at least I baked them right? But I didn't bake the french fries - whups! Oh well, it was good.

However, I do have to say, I noticed that eating the junk food didn't really make me "feel better." Sure, I enjoyed eating the crap I was eating, but I didn't feel the happy "WOO HOO! I ATE FRENCH FRIES!" feeling that I've gotten before. It was more of a "I shouldn't be doing this...but whatever, I 'm mad at the world" feeling. I have to admit, I actually was a little ashamed to add it to my MyFitnessPal diary.

I guess it all boils down to the fact that food doesn't make you feel better, food doesn't help when you're depressed and it's never nice to feel fat because you're eating too much.

I do have happy news though! I've officially lost 8lbs and yesterday I bought a dress in a size 14 because the 16 was too big (we'll ignore the fact that the size 14 pants I tried on were still a touch too tight).  Look how cute I am! (My work bathroom is kinda hot, right?)

I guess tonight I need to take some more topless pics so you can see the dwindling gut after just over a month of eating well and attempting to exercise. It hasn't gotten too much smaller, but hey, maybe we can make a cool flipbook of these things one day and it'll be like "Honey I Shrunk the French Fry Lover!"

Wanna be my friend on My Fitness Pal? I know I have recently been in need of some serious motivation, but I've been bad about reaching out for it. If you're my MFP friend and I see you do something awesome, I promise to tell you so! My My Fitness Pal username is BRenkwell and I'll be your friend. Just tell me who you are somehow and how you found me! 

Oh and another random factoid: I love eating cucumbers. I think they might be my new favorite veggie.

Apparently I suck at updating...

Or at least that what Mandy says. But trust me, there's a good reason for it! What's that reason? Well, I guess there's a few reasons. 1) I'm boring. 2) I've been working out! 3) The scale isn't moving much and it's starting to piss me off.

I guess everyone hits the point where the scale stays put...I just didn't expect it would be this soon. I guess I need to change up my work out routine. I'm trying to talk Brian into letting me get a trainer once a week or something. Just to set me up with a workout plan instead of me going into the gym and saying "Oh I'll do this today!" I mean, I've been doing okay, actually, but still. I think I need to be doing more lunges or something (b/c I will never do them willingly), or maybe more weights or something? I really don't know.

I had a trainer for a while before we got married (BTW - we've been married 10 months! That's so insane to me) and I wasn't doing my part outside of our sessions to really make any strides to make the most of it. I think Brian was annoyed that I was spending so much moolah and I wasn't losing any weight. I'll have to suck up majorly to him to get him to agree to this.

Anyhoo - on to the important shizz going on. I'm doing MUCH better on my diet than I was this weekend. I'm still not doing great, but thanks to the support of friends that I can call at 7:50am and ask what I should get for breakfast from McDonalds because I'm running late, I'm pretty sure I can continue on this track. I just need to stop myself from eating the delicious chips and dip I stupidly bought at Kroger this weekend and I think I'll be okay.

I finished week 1 of "5K Runner" it wasn't SO bad, but week 2 day 1? Yeah, it kicked my ass. Hard. I'm pretty sure it's bruised. I didn't enjoy it. I think I want to do week 1 again and when that gets easy, move on to week 2. I'm really scared of pushing myself to the point where I literally can't do it anymore and then giving up. I can't wait til November when it might actually be cool enough to run outside at night.

Oh and in case you were wondering, my morning workouts that I was planning on doing back in my first post? Yeah, that didn't happen. What can I say? I love sleep.

THERE. I UPDATED. You happy now?!

Falling off the wagon...I did it.

This weekend kicked my ass. Unfortunately, it wasn't in a "I sweat so much at the gym and I feel awesome!" kind of ass kicking. It was a supreme food binge that I still can't believe I went on. Let's start from the beginning, shall we?

Friday - I was doing SO well until lunch time. I had heard great things about the new chicken sandwiches at McDonald's so I went and gave it a shot. McDonald's (around here anyway) still doesn't have a way to swap out fries for another healthier side. Of course, I wasn't all that upset about it. We all know my affinity for french fried potatoes (insert Slingblade "mm hmm" here). Anyway, I mean, that wasn't SO bad, my lunch consisted of just over 700 calories. Then, there was dinner. Brian's friend was in town and bought us sushi. A LOT of sushi. ----->
That was only for 3 people!!!!! Unfortunately, I probably ate 20 pieces...if not more. I love sushi. I also had 5 Mich Ultra's that night. It was the start of being bad for the whole weekend.

Saturday - I was determined to do well! I woke up, had a blueberry waffle with some spray butter and lots of water. I was counting calories and I was going to stick to it. But, of course, then Brian needed me to meet him at work - and he wanted to go out for gyros afterwards. Apparently, Greek food isn't the best in the world for you. Which sucks, because I love me some gyros! However, I tried to make the best of it. I got water to drink, a turkey gyro and no fries (however, I did sneak a few of Brian's - I'm telling you, you can't trust me around fries!) Sadly, those few fries were just the beginning of bad decision day #2.

Saturday - PM - I ended up taking a 5hr nap Saturday afternoon, so we'll consider this part 2 of Saturday. Brian's family and I went Bowling! Fun! Exercise! Right!? Well, I guess, yes, technically. However, I decided to drink some beer. Blue Moon to be exact (out of a Shock Top glass). I got drunk pretty fast because I really haven't been drinking much at all. I've been trying to be good and alcohol seems to make me want to munch...and munch...and munch. We ordered seasoned fries at the bowling alley. I tried to say it was to soak up the alcohol, but no. It was totally because I wanted fries. Frick. After the bowling alley, we went for BBQ! I love BBQ! We had BBQ at our wedding! Again, I tried to make smart decisions. Again - I failed. I got a small pulled pork sandwich, fried pickles (doh!) and coleslaw (doh!). Oh, and I ate some chili/cheese tamales (DOH! DOH! DOH!). I didn't do very well at all. But there was still Sunday!

Yes, Sunday! Today! I was planning on going to the gym, eating healthy and basically just making up for this weekend's messed up eating.

Today I did jack and shit.

I did laundry - yay! I ate a healthy breakfast - yay! I ate tacos for lunch...eh. We had burgers, fries, chips, salad and CAKE for dinner. CAKE. Omg, the LAST thing I needed for this weekend was cake.

I guess this means that I really need to get to the gym and get back on my diet this week. I need to be super tight on what I eat. Can I do it? Sure! Will I do it? Yes I will! Will I fall off the wagon again next weekend? God, I hope not. I feel like CRAP. Eating healthy food really does make an impact on how you feel. Eating junk makes me feel sluggish and poopy.

This week WILL be better...I hope.

Sometimes I even surprise myself...

Ladies and gentlemen (okay, no seriously, there's gotta be ONE guy who's found this by now, right? No? Damn.), I have an announcement to make.

Um...I got this pic from google...but this'll link to her MySpace

Today, lunch ran late because of a conference call, so I ended up needing something FAST - and I went to Sonic. I got a grilled chicken wrap and thought to myself "oooh...tater tots...french fries...onion rings...drool..." but NO. No. Know what I ordered (and paid extra for ::eyeroll::)? APPLE SLICES. ---->

No, that's not me. But that's how excited I was when I got my apple slices instead of tots. Seriously.

I kinda dig her glasses.

Okay, not really, but I was proud of myself, dammit. It wasn't long ago that I was making mid afternoon runs to this SAME Sonic for mozzarella sticks.

Which now makes me want mozzarella sticks. Eff. Deep fried breaded cheese is healthy, right?

In other news, I'm down another 2 pounds! I'm officially down 6.2 lbs. Not a huge accomplishment, I agree, but seeing that scale go down is such a huge confidence boost on a Tuesday morning that I did a little naked dance this morning after I stepped off the scale.

It was a lot like this one from Charlie's Angels - thanks for the inspiration, Cameron!

In OTHER, other news, I finished Day 2 of "5K Runner." It was hell. However, I plan to do it again tomorrow instead of moving on to day 3. I figure it's probably better that I don't feel like I'm dying when I step off of the treadmill after one of these run things.

Death would really bum me out right now - I'm kinda on a roll.

It's the little things...

I'm a big believer in the power of little changes. I've made lots of small modifications to my daily life that, looking back, were seriously no big deal. It's really about making smart choices. When I make a better choice, I get a little feeling of pride and typically text my husband or some of my more motivational friends so I can get a virtual "pat on the back." I'm a total attention whore, but without cheerleaders, I would still be noshing on chips instead of apples and would probably be busting out of my size 16 clothes. Yeah - I've been wearing a size 16. I'm 5'11 - which I guess helps a bit, but seriously. 16 is too big of a number. I haven't been a single digit since like 8th grade, so I'm not too worried about getting into an 8 or anything, but a 12 would be nice. =)

Anyway, back to these little changes and smart choices. When I walked out of the house this afternoon, I was SO tempted to just grab a can of coke and a bag of chips and head out the door with my mother-in-law. My hand was literally moving towards the coke - and I said out loud "No! Just drink some damn water" and I went and made myself a bottle of water. Then, instead of going to the pantry to get chips, I made a ziploc bag of grapes to take as my snack.

IT FELT SO GOOD. I can't even explain how proud of myself I was. I know it sounds stupid, but for someone who is a salty food addict and a slave for convenience...well, making a bottle of ice water and steering clear of the chips and eating fruit instead was a decision that I didn't want to make. BUT I DID IT!

I wish I literally got a gold star every time I make a good choice. Something about shiny things always makes you feel good. I also think Brian should increase the amount of sparkly things I own...preferably white gold however. (Does anyone else appreciate the fact that I just started my Christmas requests in August...and in my blog? I'm a loser)

Anyway, my workouts are coming along nicely. I did my first day of "5K Runner" the free iPhone app for starting out a couch 2 5k program. I didn't die! YAY!

<------ Proof!

I even walked an extra 5 minutes before just because I knew it was a 25 minute workout. I'm not gonna lie, I'm proud of that too. Dammit. I'm proud of me in general. I just need to keep it up!

I haven't really noticed a big weight loss, but I HAVE noticed that some of my clothes are getting bigger. However, when I was trying on clothes today, of course there were still things that I wanted to fit that didn't, but hey! I'm headed in the right direction at least.

Back in the saddle - sorta.

After a nasty cold? case of weird allergies? sinus infection? bout of bronchitis? whatever the eff it was that I was sick with for a week, I finally hit the gym again Tuesday night!

Obviously, I was a little excited.

Unfortunately, I think I may have hit it a bit too hard - my sore-ish throat came back Wednesday and I had a slight fever again. RAWR. My appetite is back in full swing though, but I attribute that to the fact that it's the most wonderful time of the month at my house this week. Yay. :-/

The deal I gave myself for not going to the gym last night is that I didn't get ice cream after dinner and I'm going to start a Couch 2 5K program with my friend Stacye today! She's in Ohio so we won't be running together, per se - but she's been such a huge motivator to keep me going with this whole thing that I can't wait to motivate her too! I really hope to be able to run a 5K by the spring. How cool would that be? ME! Running a 5K! Yeah, we'll see if it happens.

Speaking of that - I've set a few goals for myself. I don't think that starting out on a journey of any substance can be successful without goals. So here goes:

1. Run in the St. Patty's Day 5K in Jackson
2. Get back under 200 by Halloween
3. Get to 190 by 2012
4. Eat fried foods no more than 2x/week
5. Try every veggie in the produce section at Kroger

I hope those are do-able goals. I think they are. Any suggestions?

Making the most out of a crappy situation...

So, I still feel like crap, no surprise there, but I've decided to at least do something healthy with my down time. I've spent the last hour or so coming up with and finding healthy (okay, healthier) meals than the husband and I have currently been eating - while simultaneously trying to use all of the ingredients in our pantry! Let's just say it hasn't been easy.

Our pantry is kind of this black hole of side dishes and sauces - and the occasional can of fruit, veggies, or hey! A George Foreman grill! I've got lots of ideas when it comes to clearing out the bad stuff - like giving the food away to friends and stuff - but most of this is actually decent food that just never got used in recipes or for meals. So my goal is to get it all used and cleaned out and re-stocked with healthy foods.

I mean seriously, folks. I'm sure Brian and I had the best intentions to eat all of this stuff and it hasn't happened yet, so I might as well go to town on creating recipes or finding recipes that use this stuff so I can finally get to cleaning the CRAP out of our pantry before I get 100% hardcore on our diet again.

Oh, hey, did you notice I said OUR diet? Brian has actually been doing a stellar job when it comes to eating well. Of course, I'm sure most of this has to do with the fact that I make his lunches and do most of the grocery shopping, but still. My hunk of man meat is down 15 lbs since his doctor told him to lose weight. While I'm INSANELY jealous, I'm also quite proud. Way to go, Brian!

Of course, he's done this basically by just eating healthier (you're welcome, honey) and using his AMAZING willpower to just stop eating. Yeah, that's right he just stops eating when he's full.

Just stop eating when you're full. Well...duh. You would think that this would be a relatively simple idea. Yeah, not for me. As I've said before, if there's food in front of me, I'm gonna eat it. I don't know what has caused this compulsion to just keep eating - maybe it was college when I was broke and I'd see a free meal and just eat and eat because I wouldn't have money for a meal that didn't consist of ramen noodles for another day or so? Maybe I've still got my mom's voice in my head saying "Clean your plate!"? Speaking of which, I found this picture the other day and holy crap, I wish I had had this on a stick when I was a kid so I could raise it at the table and shut my mom up when she tried to get me to clean my plate.

Thankfully, Brian is pretty good at noticing when I'm just picking at food because it's in front of me and he's started snagging my plate from me instead of just letting me continue to overfeed myself. God, I love this man.

I guess I'll head back to finding some recipes and slowly removing the junk food from our pantry. You kids have a good weekend. I hope to be back at the gym Monday afternoon - we'll see!

                                                             

A shot in the butt didn't do it...

Welp, I don't have strep throat, but my throat feels terrible. I mean, I yawn and squeak because it hurts, I can't stop drinking because it hurts, I don't get it. Oh and my energy level? Zilch. Needless to say, I haven't been working out - and I'm NOT happy about it. I'm also not happy that I put back on 2.2 of the el-beez that I had dropped. CURSES.

Is a Z-Pack supposed to be some magical medical miracle? Or maybe when it's paired with a Decadron shot, it's supposed to have mystical healing powers? Why is it that when I go to the doctor, this is almost always the course of action?

IT DIDN'T WORK, DOC.

 For serious.

I guess I should be happy that I'm staying pretty hydrated. Basically, if I'm not drinking water, juice, whatever, I'm kinda miserable. Of course, when I'm working out, I try to drink water and keep hydrated and yada-yada, but this is just crazy. We saw my water bottle that I keep at work in a previous post, but I'll take another shot of my friend Big Red.

Ah, there she is. 28 oz of my best friend H20. There's a water cooler on the other side of the office that I typically visit twice a day. That's 56 oz of water just at work on average - not too shabby, right? Well, I counted the number of times I went to the water cooler yesterday and today; yesterday - 5 times. Today (and I've only been in the office 1/2 of the day) 5 times.

Now, people who know me well know that I'm about to have to pull out my calculator to figure out what 28 x 5 is...so hold on  a sec, kay? HOLY CRAP - I've had 140 oz of water PER DAY for the past two days. How the eff am I not constantly in the bathroom - and WHY am I still thirsty!? The little mysteries of life, I suppose. Or one that my doctor friends (okay, who am I kidding, I don't have many of those) can answer for me.

Anyhoo - the gist of this entire long winded blog entry is to tell you that I've re-gained some weight (thanks, ice cream) and I still haven't worked out since Monday. But I'm wearing my new "motivation kicks" thanks to my fabulous husband. Wanna see? I kinda love them.

OH YEAH - The REAL reason I wanted to blog today is because I have gotten some amazing feedback from rando-readers and friends. It is astounding to me that this stupid little blog that I don't keep up with nearly as much as I should has been an inspiration to people. That is just overwhelming to me. I'm not a motivational person. I'm not someone that others strive to be. I'm most DEFINITELY not someone who is typically someone who inspires people, so this is new to me, but seriously, I can't thank all of you enough for the support, inspiration and motivation you've given me already. This is unreal.

NOW GET YOUR ASS TO THE GYM!! I'm going to finish another bottle of water and go home and rest up. I've got some gettin' well to do. Later, gators!

Sometimes your body tries to tell you things...

I think my body is trying to tell me some stuff. I'm dead tired. I have a sore throat, runny nose and pretty constant dull headache. I generally just feel extremely tired.

I think I need to blame it on not eating enough. I'm eating a lot of low calorie stuff - my current favorite is cucumbers with salt and pepper - but not much of anything else. I had over 900 leftover calories from MyFitnessPal yesterday. I'm sure my friend Angela who's studying nutrition will kick my butt when she looks at the food diary I just sent to her. I need to eat more, but I just haven't been very hungry!

I've also been sleeping like crap. I wake up a few times each night and wake up super early on week days. I'm not sure whats going on, but I don't like it.

I'm skipping the gym tonight (begrudgingly) because I think I need to fuel up and get some rest. I'm not happy about it, but I can't be productive at work like this and if I'm not productive at work, I won't have a job and if I don't have a job, I'll sit at home and get fat - food makes the sads go away, right? JUST KIDDING.

Either way, somethings gotta give! Maybe I should make Brian pick up a burger or something unhealthy tonight and then we can sit on our butts and watch The Glades or True Blood or something. Or maybe I'll just go home and CRASH. I do that well.

It's August 1st...

So I guess I should weigh in and turn this into a monthly weight assessment? Maybe? Whatever, I don't care. I woke up this morning, peed, got nekkid and weighed myself - just like I've always been told do to. Well...guess what!

I've lost 4.6 pounds!

Please - hold you cheers, musical numbers, gymnastic routines and high fives until the end of this blog post.

This weekend was a million times better than last weekend when it came to food - of course I didn't have a kid's birthday party to go to and Brian didn't schedule for us to grill steak with friends, but hey - a win's a win, people. Oh! And the achievement I'm most proud of for this weekend revolves around my beloved french fries. I was going to Kroger just before lunch and needed a snack. I went to McDonalds and ordered a plain double cheese burger, small order of fries and small diet coke. Of course, not the greatest or most nutritional thing in the world, but at that moment, it was my only choice.

So, I'm sitting in the car after getting my food to-go(thanks to my friend Emily for the idea that I make a rule that if I really want fast food, I have to park and go inside the restaurant)and I literally inhaled the burger and went to move on to the fries. Unfortunately (I can't believe I just used that term in regards to this), McDonalds had supplied me with a medium order of fries instead of my requested small - which was totally done on purpose because I needed to control the portion!

DAMN YOU, MCDONALDS. DAMN YOU FOR BEING AN ENABLER AND KNOWING MY WEAKNESS.

However, I am thrilled to say that not only did I resist eating the medium size portion of fries, but I didn't even a SMALL portion! I had two pinches of french fries and started tossing trash into the bag. If there's trash on top of it, I'm not gonna eat it (duh). It seemed like a good way to keep myself from going after those tempting taters.

I BEAT YOU, TEMPTATION! I WON! I AM THE CHAMPION!

Please commence the cheers, musical numbers, gymnastic routines and high fives. I totally deserve them.