Sunday, December 31, 2006

Happy New Year!!

Just as a reminder to myself this is my goal for 2007 and 5 actions needed to reach that goal. I've already set the VCR to tape this weeks episodes of Denise Austin's Fit and Lite and her Daily Workout. I've pulled out the Bosu. I've added air to the balance ball. I have my stretch bands out. And I have 5 different tapes & DVD's ready to play. I'm ready to go! I hope everyone who reads this (does anyone actually read it? LOL) has a safe and happy New Year's Eve!!!

Here's to 2007!!!

Goal: Enter into Onederland by Oct. 1, 2007

Actions:

  1. Exercise at least 7 hours per week, with at least 2 hours of strength training to ensure muscle growth and to burn more calories.
  2. Add variety to my workout - minimum of 4 different types of exercise per week - to keep my body guessing and to prevent boredom.
  3. Reduce the number of "wasted" calories I currently consume by 50% each week to better round out my nutritional intake.
  4. Limit eating out to twice weekly to avoid temptations and the "unknown" factors that are a result in not knowing exactly what ingredients/quanties are being added to the food that I consume.
  5. Get more sleep to help increase that good 'ol hormonal activity my body needs to help control my appetite.

Saturday, December 23, 2006

Writing down my intake...

I need to get a grip on my food journal! It used to be that I would log in everything I ate as soon (or before) as I ate something. But a couple of weeks ago I found out that my boss is tracking everyone's internet usage at work. So, even though I wasn't abusing it in any way I've stopped going to fitday to log in my foods during my lunch break. And what I'm finding is that I'll be eating something one day and think "Didn't I eat one of these yesterday? Because I don't remember logging it in my journal!" And then sure enough, when I get home and log back into fitday I see that I forgot it. So far it's only messed up my daily calorie goal once - but that once was enough to keep me from my perfect 4 points a day score on the 3FC's thread!! I guess I'm going to have to go back to my index card tracking so that I can continue jotting everything down as I eat it.

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Close call, but I pulled through...

Today one of the girls at work gave us each a little bag of chocolates for Christmas. I pushed it wayyyy back on my desk and there it sat. Until 11:30. And even though I knew I would be eating my healthy lunch in less than an hour, I caved. But it could have been worse. I ate the small candy cane, two of the Hershey's Dark Chocolate's and one of the crunchy MM's. Then I took the rest and dropped a few in everybody's bags to get temptation out of my way. I had to cut back on my calories tonight so that I could meet my daily goal, but it was worth it. Now I'm going to bed early to avoid any more temptation.

Sunday, December 17, 2006

Ahhh, the aromas...

My house smells of wonderful things...chocolate, peppermint, and fresh baked cookies. I managed to keep within my calorie range today, but needless to say they weren't the best of choices! I don't like to take in or serve anything that I haven't at least tried so I tried one of each - oreo ball (not as good as the people over at the WW board advertised but ok), Mint Cookie (probably will be great tomorrow - or once it's cool! They smelled so good that I grabbed one while it was still hot!) and the Peanut Butter Stack (this was my favorite - melted chocolate/peanut butter chips, small amount of peanut butter, rice crispy's, marshmallows and peanuts all mixed together). I had problems with the Peppermint Bark - the semi-sweet chocolate melted perfectly. I let it sit in the fridge for a couple of hours. But then when I went to melt the white chocolate it wouldn't melt! I tried and tried in the double boiler (or whatever it's called) and then gave up and tried to melt it in the microwave. Nothing, nada! It just wouldn't melt!! So I ran up to the grocery store and got some more baking white chocolate. This time it melted perfectly - but I got some water in it so I had to re-do it. So my batch isn't as big as it should be since I only had about half of the needed white chocolate. I haven't tried it yet - but I will in the morning.

Now I'm off to get in 30 more minutes of exercise in tonight.

Saturday, December 16, 2006

I'm Good!

I started out my Saturday by getting up at 5 (which should be against the law!). Rode the bike for 30 minutes and then got ready to go up to Goodyear. I've been putting it off because I'm trying not to spend any money on my car since I'm hoping to get a new one next year sometime. But it had reached the point where I was afraid I would get killed going down the highway at night!! My car was soooo out of alignment that I could barely hold it on the road at 60 miles an hour. And considering that the speed limit is 70 (which means that people are driving 75 - 80) it was suicidal driving at 60 MPH. I was first in line and I was excited because that meant that I'd probably get out of there by 9 or 9:30 at the latest. Unfortunately, part of the problem I was having was that somehow some thingamagig was bent...they had to call another location to get a part sent over which meant that I was stuck there for HOURS!! So I decided to walk to the mall. I walked and walked and walked and then when I got to the mall (by the way I hate malls! LOL) I walked and bought, walked and bought and walked and bought. By the time I finally made it back to Goodyear I was exhausted!

From Goodyear I went to my weekly luncheon at Atlanta Bread Company for a bowl of their french onion soup. Ummm, ummm good! Then I hit the streets in search of some cloth bags for the Christmas ornaments that I bought the girls at work. I'd already gone over my budget so I was looking for something cheap. Finally found 6 at a Dollar General Store. But I needed 9! So I drove to another Dollar General store and found 2 more. Still short one, so I bought two cute little mitten/stockings. Two lucky gals will get the mittens in their goody container.

Then it was back home to start cleaning up the place (my mother is coming for a visit this week). First I had to increase the mess by fixing up all the goody containers for the girls. Once that was out of the way I emptied dish washers, filled dish washer, mopped the kitchen floor (after cleaning it on my hands and knees), did 5 loads of laundry, folded and put up all 5 loads of laundry, cleaned two of the three bathrooms, cleaned the baseboards everywhere except the guest room and bathroom, cleaned out the refrigerator and took the garbage up to the dump.

I am exhausted! But here comes the "I'm good" part! If I didn't get in another 1/2 hour of "official" exercise today I wouldn't get to post 4 points for my December points challenge at 3FC. I wavered back and forth but finally made myself get in 30 more minutes on the bike!!! I'm so proud of myself I could just go to bed!! LOL

Another full day tomorrow...gotta vacuum the whole place, clean up the guest bedroom & bathroom (that shouldn't take but a few minutes though) and make the peppermint bark and oreo balls to take to work on Monday.

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

How evil am I?

You Are 32% Evil

A bit of evil lurks in your heart, but you hide it well.
In some ways, you are the most dangerous kind of evil.

Monday, December 11, 2006

I found this on another website/blog and it was so funny I had to copy and post it! Even if no one ever reads my blog I will always have this in my back posts whenever I need a laugh!


All methods have tricked me with their promises of easy, painless removal - the Epilady, the standard razor, the scissors, the Nair, the EpilStop, and now . . The Wax.

My night began as any other normal weekday night. I came home from work, fixed dinner for my son and we played for a while. I then had the thought that would ring painfully in my mind for the next couple hours: maybe I should use that wax in my medicine cabinet. I set up my boy with a video and head to the site of my demise, um, I mean bathroom.

It was one of those cold wax kits. No melting a clump of hot wax, you just rub the clear strips in your hand, peel them apart, press it on your leg (or wherever) and ignore the frantically rising crescendo of string instruments in the background. No muss, no fuss. How hard can this be?

I mean, I’m not the girly-est of girls but I’m mechanically inclined so maybe I can figure out how this works. You’d think.

So I pull one of the thin strips out. It’s two strips facing each other, stuck together. I’m supposed to rub it in my hand to warm and soften the wax (I’m guessing). I go one better: I pull out the hair dryer and heat the Son of a Gun to ten thousand degrees. Cold wax, yeah right.

(Oh, how that phrase will come back to haunt me.)

I lay the strip across my thigh. I hold the skin around it and pull. OK, so it wasn’t the best feeling in the world, but it wasn’t bad. I can do this!

Hair removal no longer eludes me! I am Sheera, fighter of all wayward body hair and smooth skin extraordinaire! With my next waxstrip, I move north.

I drop my panties and place one foot on the toilet. Using the same procedure, I then apply the wax strip across the right side on my bikini line, covering the right half of my vagina and
stretching up into the inside of my right butt cheek. (Yeah, it was a long strip.)

I inhale deeply. I brace myself. RRRIIIIPPP!!!!
I’m blind! Blind from the pain!
Vision returning.
Oh crap. I’ve managed to pull off half an inch of the strip. Another deep breath. And RIIIP!

Everything is swirly and tie-dyed?
Do I hear crashing drums?
OK, coming back to normal again. I want to see my trophy - my wax covered pelt that caused me so much agony. I want to revel in the glory that is my triumph over body hair. I hold the wax strip like an Olympic gold medallist.

But why is there no hair on it?
Why is the wax mostly gone?
Where could the wax go, if not on the strip?
Slowly, I eased my head down, my foot still perched on the toilet. I see hair - the hair that should be on the strip.

I touch. I feel. I am touching wax. I look to the ceiling and silently shout “nooooooo!!”

I peel my fingers off the softest, most sensitive part of my body that is now covered in cold wax and matted hair, and make the next big mistake - up until this point, you’ll remember, I’ve had my foot on the toilet. I know I need to move, to do something.

So I put my foot down on the floor. And then I hear the slamming of the cell door.

Vagina? Sealed shut.
Rear end? Sealed shut.

A little voice in my head says “I hope you don’t have to do #2 anytime soon. Your head just might pop off.”

I penguin walk around the bathroom trying desperately to figure out what I should do next. Hot water! Hot water melts wax! I’ll run the hottest water I can stand and get in - the wax should melt and I can gently wipe it away, right? Wrong.

I get in the tub - the water is slightly hotter than is used to torture prisoners of war or sterilize surgical equipment. And I sit. Now the only thing worse than having your goodies glued together is having them glued together and then glued to the bottom of a tub. In scalding hot water. Which, by the way, does not melt the cold wax.

So now I’m stuck to the tub.

I call my friend, C, because she once dropped out of beauty school so surely she has some secret knowledge or trick to get wax off skin. It’s never good to start a conversation with “So my a$$ and hoochie are stuck to the tub. She doesn’t have a trick. She does her best to suppress laughter. She wants to know exactly where the wax is on the a$$ - “Are we talking cheek or hole, here?” she asks. She isn’t even trying to hide the giggles now.

I give her the run-down of the entire night. She tells me to call the number on the side of the box, but to have a good cover story for where the wax actually is. “You know that if we were working the help line at XX Wax Co. and somebody called with their entire crack sealed shut we’d just put them on hold then record the conversation for everyone we know. You’re going to end up on a radio show or the internet if you tell them the truth.

While we go through various solutions, I have resorted to scraping the wax off with a razor. Boy, nothing feels better to the girly goodies than covering them in wax, sticking them to a tub in super hot water and THEN dry shaving the sticky wax off!

In the middle of the conversation (which has inexplicably turned to other subjects!) I find the little, beautiful saving grace that is the lotion provided with wax to remove the excess. I rub some in and start screaming “It’s working! It’s working!” I get hearty congratulations from C and we hang up.

I successfully remove all the wax and notice, to my dismay, that the hair is still there. So I shaved the stuff off. Heck, I was numb by that point anyway. And then I put the box of wax back in my medicine cabinet.

Never know, I may want to try it again.

Friday, December 08, 2006

Oh, the weather outside is...

It's COLD! Ok, maybe not cold as it is in other places, but for my little neck of the world it is quite chilly! It dropped down to 19 degrees last night. Tonight I decided that maybe, just maybe I should check the anti-freeze in my car. I'm glad I did because I was almost completely out! I ran up to the local auto parts store and lucked out because an employee immediately asked me if I needed assistance and when I asked him to point me in the direction of the antifreeze he not only pointed, but walked with me - asking me questions that he should have known I wouldn't have answers to like what color is your antifreeze - is it blue or orange? Ummm, it's so low down that I really couldn't tell you. I think he felt sorry for me because he went outside and checked himself, figured out which one I would need and even went back outside (it was 29 degrees at this point) and added it to the car for me. It's nice that there are still people out there that will help out pathetic people like me when we need it. :)

I'm doing good on the food and exercise front. So far I've only seen a small loss (1 lb) this week, but I'm hoping that I lose more before Tuesdays official weigh in. But either way, I'm in it for the long haul.

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Weigh-In

I've got good news and then more good news. For the first time in two weeks I am showing a loss!! 4.8 lbs!!! I was actually hoping for more than that (to help make up for the two indifferent weigh-in's) but I'll take it. And my "more good news" is that I thought I screwed up my count on my calories but when I actually figured up everything I'm still under 1500 calories (by 28!). It's always nice when you error in your favor!!!

While I was out Christmas shopping last weekend I found me a dog. No, it's not a real dog but it's sooooo cute! I live so far out that it wouldn't be fair to have a dog (I live in a townhouse so I couldn't even have a doggie door installed, not to mention that I just don't have the extra time I think dogs deserve). But back to Daisy...she's a small metal dog - her body is about a foot long and she has springs in her tail and her neck so that when you pet her she just pants and wags her tail! I have her sitting at the top of my stairs so that she greet me as I'm coming up and see me off as I'm leaving. If I ever find my digital camera I'll take a photo of her. (Can you imaging how I'd be if she were a real dog??!!)


Saturday, December 02, 2006

Oh My Aching Feet...

Today I did what I avoid doing the rest of the year. I went shopping. I hate mall, avoid them at all costs but if I have to go to a mall I go to my favorite mall of all...The Forum. It's an outdoor mall so I don't get claustrophobic like I do at the regular mall. One of the nice things about outdoor malls is that when the weather is a little nippy (only a little, mind you) it makes you walk faster. I went into every store there and when I was done I walked (not drove) back down to Atlanta Bread Company even though it meant that I would have to make a round trip back to the other end of the mall. (I love their soup!!) And if that wasn't enough I stopped at two different craft fairs on the way home - which meant even more walking.

Lots of walking today, but guess what?? I didn't buy one present!!! I only have to buy for the gals at work, but I refuse to buy yet another ornament, mug, candle or soap and/or soap dish! I'm going to try my favorite store tomorrow to see if there is anything unique there that is within my budget.

Oh, and I'm full!!! I ate a little more protein today than I normally would so I'm stuffed to the gills. I've still got some calories left over so I may give myself a treat (I bought a box of the Cocoa Via almond bars!) later on IF I'm not feeling so full later one.

And more good news. I'm down .2 which isn't much but it's encouraging.

Friday, December 01, 2006

Hunger

I'm hungry! Tonight was our company Christmas party and thinking ahead I ate low calorie food during the day (oatmeal for breakfast, and orange for snack, salad - no dressing for lunch, carrots for a snack in the afternoon). I wanted to leave enough room to have what I wanted for dinner (within reason). We had it at Jillian's. I'd never been there, but I looked over their menu yesterday so that I could plan what I would allow myself. Of course, it never occured to me that the meal was already planned for us! They served shrimp cocktail and and a salad. Our main course consisted of baked chicken, two types of pasta - one with a red sauce and one with a white sauce, 2 mini cheese pizza's and steamed veggies.

Shrimp Cocktail - Didn't even try them. I'm not a big shrimp fan unless it 1) fried or 2) grilled with a piece of bacon wrapped around it.

The Salad - It consisted of lettuce and tomato with a choice of 2 dressings (neither of which I liked, so for the 2nd time in one day - I had salad - with no dressing!).

The Chicken - cooked with skin on it and it consisted of a thigh and a leg. I pulled the skin off and left the leg alone. Of the thigh I ate 2 bites (there wasn't a lot of meat....I really think that the person next to me got part of my chicken! LOL). So at the most - 2 ounces.

The Pasta - I ate one noodle from each type. Both were very bland and not worth wasting calories on.

The Veggies - Squash, broccoli and cauliflower. Ewww, Ewwwwww and Ewwwwwwwwww! Even the folks who like these so called vegetables didn't eat them!

The Mini Cheese Pizzas - They were ok, but I limited myself to one. It was about 1-1/2" around so in my calories I counted it as half a slice of pizza.

The Rolls - Straight from a package, only cut in half to make it go further! Hard as a rock!! Still I did take a bite of one hoping that it would be edible.

So here it is, after 10. My stomach is growling!!! But it's too late to eat anything else so I'm just going to sit back and anticipate a good breakfast in the morning!

I'm going to hit the sack.


P.S. I was up another pound this morning. I'm really starting to get that little tingling feeling that comes right before I have a complete food meltdown!!! I'm sure I'll be better in the morning though. At this point all I can think about is the barbeque chicken breast that I had planned on ordering tonight BEFORE I found out I had no voice in the matter!!!