smkenne2’s BodyBlog

As the new year has come upon me, I have been disappointed with my behavior over the last couple of months.  Way too much drinking, partying, and unhealthy eating.  It is the time for change!  I leave for Spain in 18 days and I need to get my life together before I leave! So right now I weigh, 126.0 lbs (Aaah!) and I resolve to lose at least 4.5 lbs before I step on the plane.  I’m back to my calorie counting and strict workouts.  I worry that I will not be strong enough to resist drinking and eating poorly when with friends. But I am unhappy with where I am now, and I resolve to reach my goal in 18 days and be a happier and healthier woman before I leave. I also resolve to complete all 4 lessons of Speak in a Week! and have a better understanding of Spanish and the culture.

So for the past month and a half or so I haven’t been as committed to my workout…disappointing I know.  I’ve just been stressed with taking 6 classes and my new job.  School just ended Thursday for me so I am ready to start training again.  I just hired a personal trainer, and I am going to get a better gym membership so I can dedicate my summer to reaching my goals.  I can’t believe how out of shape I had gotten in that time.  22/18% Body Fat.  So gross!  I also gained a bit of weight, and I think it went straight to my ass because my abs are flatter and it doesn’t seem like anything else changed.  Who knows…I am thankful the semester is over and now I can focus on my training.

So after two months of hating working at Black Angus I decided I needed to get another job that actually paid.  I am so excited!  I got a job at Flemming’s Steakhouse and Wine Bar!!!!!!  I’m going to be gaining now, because of the 50% discount employees get and the free meals at 4:00 everyday.  Just thought I’d share the good news.  I am really excited to start working.  I don’t think I can resist the food though.  As long as it fits into my macros, it’s all good.

I just hiked Camelback Mountain this morning and I thought I would reward myself with a good cheat for doing that and eating clean this entire week. I went to Casino Arizona’s Eagle Buffet prepared to dominate the buffet.  And I did just that.  I thought I’d share with you an amazing cheat.

What I ate in an hour*:
1 blueberry muffin
1 oat muffin
2 slices of banana nut bread
2 pieces of bacon
2 pieces of sausage
1/2 plate of eggs
3 cheese blintzes with strawberry sauce
1 bowl of granola and yogurt
1 piece of french toast topped with strawberry sauce, white chocolate chips, and whipped cream
2 pieces of beef tenderloin with portebello mushrooms
1/4 plate of mashed potatoes
1/4 plate of corn
1/4 plate of rice pilaf
1 crabcake benedict
1/4 scalloped potatoes with cheese
1 piece of honeydew
1 piece of watermelon
1 cup of orange juice
1 slice of key lime pie
1 oatmeal cookie
1 peanut butter cookie
1 strawberry tart
1 bowl of ice cream with butterfinger, oreos, hot fudge sauce, and a fake cherry on top!

I’m dissapointed in myself. I didn’t get to eat any ham. I was so stuffed after. I haven’t eaten cheese in over a year. I haven’t had any form of bread/toast for over a couple months either. Now back to eating clean for the rest of the week.

*Forgot: 1 cinnamon roll

I finally dropped under 113!  This has been a huge accomplishment for me as I have been stuck at 113 for the past couple months.  I have actually wavered between 113 and 116 because I ate a lot when I went back to Cali for winter break, but now I am at 112!!!!!

Bad news though…I am already sick of cottage cheese.   Too salty.

So I’ve never really had cottage cheese before execpt for when I was little and it was only once so I really don’t remember what it tasted like.  The thought has always turned me off, because its little bumps of cheese or milk or something.  But I was at a nutrition store yesterday talking about my diet and unprocessed foods when the guy convinced me that I should really give it a try.  I went over to Fry’s and bought a little pint because I didn’t want to get too crazy if I didn’t like it.  It tasted interesting, it was wierd because it was a little too salty but milky.  I only had a couple of bites in the afternoon just to try it, but at the end of the night I was craving it.  I just wanted to have some with protein powder and a little bit of honey.  That 1/2 cup was a cottage cheese overload for me, but I woke up this morning craving it.  So I am going to try something new, and take the cottage cheese to school with me as a snack over my protein bar.  More protein and less carbs, what’s not to love?

So this weekend I decided that I needed a break because I was feeling burnt out from all of the school, work, and working out.  The time constraints have been getting to me.  I love structure, but at the same time I felt like I couldn’t enjoy things because I had to look at if I could do it between certain times.  I’m still doing that this weekend, but to a lesser extreme.  My fiance was out of town, so I was able to relax and have everything to myself.  I forgot how amazing it was to have the bed all to yourself!  I am happy to have him come back home, but having him gone this weekend helped me out.

Friday:  I did work out, so I didn’t do too bad.  I got to enjoy this day without school and went shopping for pork so I can make it in the slow cooker today.  So excited!!!  I ate really clean the whole day, kept it low on the fats and carbs.  But that was all for my cheat meal.  I went out to dinner to an Irish pub with my best friend who I haven’t seen in months due to work and school.  My meal was amazing, she kind of ruined it with all of her bitching about how what she ordered wasn’t what she wanted.  And even with all the efforts the waiter was making, it wasn’t good enough.  I tried to brush that off, but damn, that really put a damper on my cheat meal.  It was totally worth it in the end.  Eating about two desserts total.  Three if you count splitting a dessert between me and her.  A perfect cheat meal, shrimp cocktail, house salad, Guiness beef in a puff pastry pie, apple cobbler with ice cream, bread pudding, and cherry, peanut butter, and cookies and cream gelato.  Amazing!  I felt like puking the whole walk back to the car, but it felt so good to not think about calories, though I think I did keep it in the fat and carbs limit.  I might have gone a little overboard on the calories.  But it’s a cheat, so who cares?

Saturday: Didn’t work out.   I went shopping at  a fish market, bought what the man tried to tell me was tuna (I know it isn’t), scallops, and alligator meat!!! Again, I kept it clean the whole day.  That was until I was making a fruit salad for today to surprise my fiance in a good way.   I couldn’t help eat half the mango.  But again, still in my macros.

Sunday: Don’t plan on working out.  Need to get all of my homework done before picking up my fiance at the airport and going to work.  No sex before I go to work.   His flight gets in an hour before I have to start work.  But thats what the nights and fruit salad are for.    Eating clean today, so the carbs of the fruit won’t interfere with my diet.

My 9th day into my diet and HIIT and I am lagging here.  I think it is a combination of endless days of school, working out, work, and homework.  Today I feel like giving up on school.  I just don’t have the motivation to do my homework write now or study for tests.  I hope this is something that everybody goes through every once in a while.  I really need a break.  I want a cheat week, where I can just eat whatever I want.  Of course, guilt would never let me do that.
Only a week and a half until spring break, and I am praying that my bosses will give me time off so I can go back to California for a couple of days and try to remember what it is like to be carefree.  I doubt I will even get the time off though, since a lot of people are asking that week off also so they can go to Mexico or Las Vegas and get STDs.
The days can only go by so slow.  I just need it to be the weekend so I can go shopping, for food of course, and treat myself to a nice hike.  If only life was that simple.  Instead it is full of bosses who hate me because they got picked on in middle school by the pretty people, trainers at the gym who tell me I am doing my workout wrong when I didn’t ask for their opinion (the girl didn’t even know what HIIT was, so how would she know it was wrong?), and classes that I can barely stay awake in.  I need to get out of this funk, and soon.  Time for homework.  I will accomplish something school oriented today!

So far I have been keeping my food journal, following my macros, and doing HIIT for 6 days now and I can see the progress.  Writing down everything I eat really helps me to keep track of what I am putting into my body.  I have already dropped 2.5 pounds, but some of it is probably water weight.  I can’t wait to see my abs and go back to my regular caloric intake.
Keeping the food journal also makes me look forward to my cheat days even more than usual.  I did go to asian buffet for my cheat day last week and I kept it pretty clean.  I stuck to the chicken, raw tuna, lots of shrimp, some fruits and veggies, and stayed away from the rice.  I had to finish it off with frozen yogurt and oreo cookies in the bottom.  It tasted amazing and was totally worth it.  I sort of cheated on Sunday with some gelato, but I’m going to act like that never happened.
There was more to write, but I completely forgot.  I’ll add more next time.

So I have been working out for the past year and while I have seen significant changes in my body I am still not completely sastified with my body.  I thought that I had been leading a relatively clean lifestyle and working out effectively, but after doing some in depth research on this website I have decided that I need to switch up my routine.  I am now going to start keeping a food diary and making sure that I meet my caloric intake and what I eat fits into my macros.  I am also going to be starting HIIT tomorrow.  Hopefully this will take care of the few problems I have with my body.  I am hoping that this will lead to an amazing body in a month.  I might be a little too optimistic with that assumption though.  I figured I only need to drop those last 5 pounds to hit my goal.  But to be a little more realistic, I will aim for my dream body by summer.  So I am counting down the days until May 10th (rough estimate) and will be logging my peaks and pitfalls on here.  It is going to be a new day tomorrow, and hopefully with it I will transform my body and reach the goal that I have been trying to achieve for the past year.