Pizza and Cheesecake? Si Se Puede!

I was bad today and didn't work out. =( BUT I went to Zumba yesterday and I'm going to hit leg day hard tomorrow so I'm not gonna beat myself up about it. I promised y'all recipes today so here we go!

First and easiest is a tortilla pizza. Pretty simple and depending on your ingredients you can cater it to the level of healthy you want. I like the "carb balance" tortillas, they are only 80 calories a piece and high in fiber, which makes you feel more full. Put your oven on 350 and lightly brush one side of the tortillas with olive oil and add any garlic salt or seasonings you want. Put them in for 7-9 minutes depending on how crispy you want them. Pull them out and add your toppings. I used the no sugar added ragu(next time you make pasta, save a little bit of the sauce for pizza the next day or two), boneless skinless chicken breast shreds, one slice of bacon per pizza and reduced fat cheddar. Put those in the oven another 4-6 minutes depending on how many toppings you used. One of my pizzas was 256.7 calories, 15g fat 6g saturated fat and 18.8g protein! The carb balance tortillas are the small ones so I usually eat 2 of them. So for one meal it's just over 500 calories with 30g fat and 37g protein. Not stellar, but definitely better than the rough equivalent of eating 4 slices of chicken bacon pizza from papa johns- 1400 calories, 48g of fat and 20g saturated fat. 60g of protein but look at the cost! So yes, this is a good option if you like pizza but don't want to blow your whole day's worth of calories.

The next one is a new find that I have tried twice. Will found it on a body building forum. I've altered the recipe to fit a 9inch cake pan, because I wasn't going to buy the 6 inch pan that the OP used and I thought it was silly to use ALMOST all the cream cheese but not all of it.


16oz - Fat Free Philadelphia Cream Cheese(2 8oz packages)
13oz - F age 0% Fat Free Greek Yogurt
2/3 Cup egg substitute
1 Cup - Granulated Splenda
1/3 Cup - 1% Milk
1 1/2 Scoop - Trutein Vanilla Protein
1 1/2 tsp - Vanilla Extract
1/4 tsp - Kosher salt

Directions: All ingredients at room temperature.

1. Preheat Oven to 325 - Prepare 9" cake pan with non-stick spray and parchment paper in the bottom.
2. Cream Cheese in bowl - mix on medium until creamy
3. Add splenda - mix on medium until incorporated
4. Add eggs one at a time while on medium.
5. Add the rest of the ingredients - mix on medium for 3 minutes.
6. Pour in pan
7. Bake at 325 for 30 minutes. Turn oven to 200 for 50min - 1 hour. Remove and let cool on the counter. Wrap and refrigerate overnight.

So, I never measured my vanilla or salt...or refrigerated overnight...haha. The original recipe called for eggs but we only had egg substitute which worked out because I had to increase the recipe by a fraction. Now, you can probably omit the protein and this would still be a fabulous cheesecake recipe but it won't have the flavor so if you take the protein out make sure to add something to make it tasty. In the cheesecake that's sitting in Will's fridge we used his "chocolate dipped strawberry" trutein and 4 tablespoons of chocolate PB2. It is SO GOOD! Stats for with the PB2(powdered peanut butter) are for 1/8 of the cheesecake: 133 calories, 0.5g fat and 20.3g protein. The first time I followed this recipe except we used Cinnabun Trutein(which is the bodybuilders choice brand of protein, apparently) 122 calories, 0.2g fat and 19.6g protein. Sooo last night Will and I celebrated our 2nd anniversary at the cheesecake factory and we split a piece of cheesecake. My stats on HALF of a slice? 464 calories, 19.5g fat and it doesn't have the protein for it. So yeah, this is a HUGE improvement, even disregarding the protein. This thread on the protein cheesecake had 51 pages of comments and suggestions on things you could do and pictures of all the cheesecakes people had made. Of course you can add a crust to it and you omit the parchment paper, but it's pretty tasty and I didn't even miss the crust.

So, a low maintenance recipe and a high maintenance one. haha. Hope y'all enjoy those, let me know in the comments if you make them! =) And just so y'all know, I'm still on track with my 2 lbs a week and am down 16 lbs from the beginning of the year and 38 lbs from my starting point! I'm gonna try to get someone to do my measurements soon so I can see exactly where I am. I am feeling stronger than I ever have and am confident that I've lost more fat than the scale shows. I'm starting to be able to see definite fat loss in my calves and to some extent my arms. Progress!

Confessions of a Reformed Food-a-holic

Hey guys! So I have lots of different things I could talk about but I never really know what would be the most helpful, and it's been recommended that I do another food post since it's been about a while since I talked about my struggles with food.

As I've said in past posts, the biggest thing about your attitude towards food is to be realistic and honest while being disciplined. I am realistically always going to want something chocolate. BUT I never need anything fattening. So I have to find smart substitutes and make sure I have them or can make them. Simply getting rid of everything sweet in your house isn't gonna cut it because if you're going to crave something sweet, when you actually get your hands on it you're doing to undo a lot of hard work. Or you're going to raid your pantry and end up putting cocoa mix on your boring healthy cereal or something. [I haven't done that but I was just thinking about things that I could do with whats in my pantry.] This actually happened to me tonight after dinner. After a really good spin class(-724 calories) I came home and ate a really good dinner (Grilled chicken, green beans and whole wheat penne with low fat cheese: 406 calories) and then just really wanted something sweet. This will happen to you especially after work outs, don't give in! Your body is craving food and calories to replenish what you just spent- give it good stuff! So I did actually raid the pantry and came out with some blueberries and cream oatmeal(260 calories).

Not the best thing, but better than the cookies I could've made from the fundraising cookie dough in the freezer and the crunchy peanut butter that was on the counter. This is another good point for all of you looking at eating better: don't be tricked into thinking peanut butter is ok, or even good for you, it's not! I actually let myself have a tablespoon of it- 100 calories and 8 grams of fat! FOR A TABLESPOON! I shudder when I think of all the crunchy peanut butter sandwiches that fat Marissa made with extra pb. To this day I love peanut butter, but I rarely have it anymore. I use the powdered peanut butter in my baking and protein shakes and it's a lot healthier but creamy peanut butter is so unsatisfying to me it's not even worth it most of the time. That is something I've just had to get over. My fat crunchy peanut butter sandwich days ended years ago and I'm a smaller, healthier person because of it.

So yes, KNOW YOURSELF. If you have a sweet tooth, get things that are sweet but healthy (or at least have some redeeming qualities) to snack on. I've mentioned fruit, especially apples, before but my latest discovery is dark chocolate oven roasted almonds. They're not actually like coated in chocolate candy, it's like they were dipped in cocoa powder and then roasted. The best part is a serving size is 24 nuts, which is a pretty decent sized handful, for 160 calories and 5 grams of protein. You get to feel like you're eating a good amount, they're sweet and crunchy(which is always more satisfying to me for some reason). And almonds are one of those foods that health nuts(pardon the pun) are all about. "Power foods" or whatever they want to call them. Whatever, they're awesome. I definitely recommend almonds for snacking purposes, but make sure you look at the serving size and make sure they're not adding a bunch of crap to the seasoning and coating.

When I'm shopping for snacks or food, my eye goes straight to the calories. The second place it goes is the serving size/amount per container. Is this an acceptable amount of calories for this serving size? This is where people get tripped up. You see a small bag of chips, you look at the calories and you think "Oh that's not that bad..." but if you check it's sometimes 2-3 servings per container, not that anyone actually eats only 1/3 of a small-ish bag of chips. Well, maybe chronically skinny people do, I dunno. The point is, not only to check the calories, but to check the serving size. If you are debating getting a snack and you don't think you could limit yourself to only 2 cookies or 7 crackers or whatever, DON'T GET IT! Because then you'll be putting in 3 servings in your calorie counter and be crying that you ever bought a supposedly healthier something. One thing that I really like is these huge bag of veggie straws that we get from Sams. They have on the bag "sensible portions" and you think oh? really? But a "serving" of veggie straws(they look like colored straws and taste like baked salt) is 38 straws, which is a normal sized serving for someone who likes food. You know when you make yourself a sandwich and you get a modest handful of chips to put on your plate and it's just not enough so you get another handful? Yeah, that's about 38 straws. 130 calories, 7 grams of fat. Want some ruffles? 12 measly chips will cost you 160 calories and 10g of fat.

For all of you who like food- It's gonna be ok. You don't have to give up eating! You might have to give up eating specific things that you like as often as you want. I'm not saying you're never gonna be able to have ice cream again, just saying that you might have to limit it to once a month, or change which kind you have. You can get a whole cup(2 servings) of the no sugar added dutch chocolate blue bell (which is still pretty delicious) for 180 calories and 6 grams of fat. This is definitely a better option than the cup(again, "2" servings) of cookies and cream blue bell that is 360 calories and 18 grams of fat. It's all about giving yourself options and not beating yourself up too much. If you just burned hundreds of calories doing a killer work out and you'll still be well under your calorie goal if you have 180 calories of ice cream then tell yourself IT'S OKAY! Here's the way I look at it: Will you get skinnier faster if you don't eat the ice cream? Well, yes. Will you potentially devour a hot fudge sundae from Braums (580 calories and 30 grams of fat) if you don't let yourself eat something sweet and feel completely bummed and crappy about it if you DON'T? Potentially. ...lol Anyone who has ever loved food knows what I'm talking about here. Giving yourself small substituted-for-much-worse treats when you've earned them is going to do you a lot better than trying(and failing) to give up things completely. Because we've all got an inner fat kid we have to keep satisfied somehow.

Run, Gorda, Run!

GUYS! HOLY CRAP! Can I please tell you what just happened? Well other than me accidentally eating a surprisingly fattening sandwich....We'll come back to this. More importantly, tonight I DID 3 MILES in TWENTY THREE MINUTES AND NINE SECONDS. That averages out to 7:43 a mile....I am just blown away. I feel like I need to write an acceptance speech or something because it's like the elliptical has rewarded me for hard work with a time warp or something. One of my friends recently posted she wanted to  average 8:30 for 3 consecutive miles and I thought "Wow, I'm gonna try that next time" and then kinda surprised myself that I had the same time goal as a thin girl who I know goes running in her neighborhood all the time.

I somehow did my first mile in 7:30. I slowed down considerably after that, but I picked it back up because I wanted my next mile to be between 8-8:30. So then as I was getting closer I just kept the pace up and finished in 7:51. I slowed down again and decided if I could do 2 under 8:00 then I could get the 3rd one under 9:00 for sure(even though 2 months ago I was happy with a 10 minute mile). So with the combination of some good music and my boyfriend going twice as fast next to me, I managed to finish the 3rd mile in 7:48. Wow. I am seriously, sitting here like triple checking my math because this is still hard to believe. I dunno what my body figured out on my birthday, but it's continuing to improve on it. Maybe one thing that has helped me get better is that I used to also have to keep an eye on my heart rate. I have a feeling that all that Zumba helps more than I realize because I used to push myself until I had to slow down to get my heart rate down, but I haven't had to do that since I really started up again on the elliptical. That's exciting, I didn't think about that until right now. =)

So ok, let me try to break this down into some helpful advice. When you're on your chosen form of cardio, whether it be the elliptical, treadmill, crossfit, or maybe even on a real track: Pay attention to your time and speed. Sure you'll get good results if you think "I'm just gonna go on here and give it my best and work my butt off". But if you have a specific goal in mind, it will help. So like tonight, I knew that 8 mph would be a 7:30 minute mile so I was shooting to keep my mph as close to 8 whenever possible. Sometimes it dipped down to 6, sometimes it went up to 9, but I tried to keep it in the high 7s, low 8s depending on the resistance I was getting(I have it set to random, which is basically uneven rolling hills). Now if you don't have a mph display on your machine or you're doing your mileage outside, you're gonna have to do math in your head and gauge your pace. "I just did that quarter mile in 3:00 so if I keep this pace I'm set to do a 12 minute mile" or whatever. Again, all about being self aware and knowing what you need to do to get what you want.

Believe it or not, I had already met a goal before I even got upstairs. Today was the first day I ever "Maxed out" on something. Today was a chest day (Have I explained this? Maybe this will be my next post.) and I have recently added bench presses into my routine. Again, last time I was doing them with the bar alone so I would get glances from the free-weight beefcakes varying from amused to offended. Because we didn't have any time constraints, the gym was relatively empty, and we were both working chest: I told Will I wanted to try to max out my bench press. So, I wasn't really sure where to start, so I started with a 25 on each side which is 95lbs total. I actually managed to do 2 of them! So, we agreed that I could safely say I maxed out at 100. haha. I switched up my usual routine of 3 sets of 15 and did 5 sets of 8. Bench press is a lot easier with a spotter who you know can lift you much less the puny-in-comparison bar you're lifting. So I did 5x8 at 75 pounds, which is obviously 30# more than I was willing to do by myself. I have a feeling my chest is going to be very sore tomorrow because I then proceeded to do my normal chest day minus the incline press I usually do.

Ok this is getting longer than I thought so 2 quick things: I need to not get the Tuna sub from subway again unless I do Zumba on Fridays. The footlong Tuna on wheat with cheese is 1,470 calories!!! 93.6 grams of fat!!! I mean, it's also 48 grams of protein but goodness! I was so surprised when I started trying to put it into my calorie counter. So even with a 700+ calorie workout I'm over my calorie goal for today. So, BEWARE! Next Friday I'll have to plan ahead and get some healthy fish or make my own Tuna because damn, that's not gonna work. Second thing is that I'm doing the aqua bootcamp tomorrow with Will! So that will be exciting, I'm sure. Except that I'm 95% sure I can't wear my heart rate monitor in the pool so I won't know exactly how many calories I'm burning. Hmm, guess I'll have to see what MFP can come up with for me. Well, that's all for tonight, guys. Again, thanks so much for all the encouragement and sharing your stories with me! I really appreciate it and enjoy hearing about how hard work pays off for others, too!

Gooooooooooooool [The goal-setting post]

So this post is brought to you by: Progress! When I was using my calorie counter app, It informed me that if every day were like Friday and Saturday, I could lose 22 pounds in 5 weeks. Now, this is about 4.5 pounds a week, which is INCREDIBLE. In all senses of the word, because I didn't really believe it. SO, I apologize in advance if this gets tedious, but y'all stick with me because I think a lot of us need to think about things a little differently.

I'm gonna come out and say it: I want to lose another 100 pounds. This may sound crazy to you skinny people, but all of you fluffy kids out there can imagine where I'm coming from. I'm currently down 30-32 pounds from my "start" weight, which took me 16 months to lose and a year to keep off. I lost my focus and this summer I un-did a big chunk of my hard weight loss. I managed not to undo my muscle gain, which is an important distinction. So weight-wise I'm essentially where I was at this point last year, but I've got my best work out buddy back and we're both focused and ready to keep working.The thing I've got going for me that I didn't last year is that I've felt what 10 more pounds lighter feels like. I know that with just another couple months at this pace I could potentially be down to shopping consistently in regular stores by this summer. Last year that was my goal and I missed it because of lots of things going on with work and family and my boyfriend coming home. But this year I am more focused and determined than I have ever been. And I have a plan, a clear laid out set of goals. If I can stay on this track I'm on, I'll show you what I am capable of.

So here goes the micro-goal setting and meeting that you have to do within the bigger picture to stay on track. I have lost around 10-12 pounds in 5-6 weeks, that is just at my 2 pounds a week which is my goal on the calorie counter. Now the way I went hard this week puts me at 4.5 pounds a week. So let's be realistic and say that If I continue to work hard and eat well, I could potentially lose 15 pounds every 6 weeks, about 2.5 pounds a week. When you break it down into bite-sized pieces, it becomes a lot more conceivable. "I need to lose 100 pounds" well...yeah...but when you say it like that it sounds IMPOSSIBLE. But if I lose 15 pounds every 6 weeks for the rest of the year, I will have lost 115 pounds by 2014. I could even think that if I stayed on pace I wouldn't even have to lose weight during the holidays I would just have to maintain that last 6 weeks of the year. Happy Holidays! You've transformed yourself and now you can take pictures for Christmas cards to re-introduce yourself to all your friends! lol. Did that idea just cross my mind? It absolutely did.

Now, I know as I lose fat the weight will not be quite so "easy" to sluff off. I know this. I know it's going to be hard, even excruciating, the closer I get. But when I lay it out in such clear terms "Marissa, all you have to do is be under your calorie goal and keep working out and eating lean protein" it makes it a lot less stressful. I have to constantly be thinking about why I'm doing this. It's not just to be able to shop at H&M or eventually buy a wedding dress with only 1 digit in the size. It's so that 20, 30, 40 years down the road I won't be worried about checking my blood sugar every day or injecting myself with insulin. About getting out of breath playing with my kids and grandkids. Worried about what the possible side effects of this medication or that medication are, or how they interact, or how much my prescriptions are a month.You have to do what you can with the cards that you're dealt in life. My genetic deck isn't so hot but my cards can for the most part be trumped by diet and exercise. With a low BMI and a healthy diet, science suggests that I can keep everything I'm at increased risk for at a good distance. But you know what else you can keep with a low BMI and a healthy diet? Single-digit-sized clothing. And that's pretty encouraging, too. 

Mexican Standoff-ish

Y'all...The end of the week was INTENSE! Wednesday I tried a new exercise that I have been putting off: The dead-lift. This is the last weighted exercise I've really been avoiding that I've finally tried. I get scared of things that require me to go to the male show-off corner of the gym...aka the free weights area. There's always some sweaty guy who's giving himself the "who's your daddy" face in the mirror while he pumps excessive amounts of weight. And there may or may not be a grunting sound track. And you never want to get too close to him in the off chance that you will impair his view of himself in the mirror and incite his ['roid] rage. ...

Anyway, needless to say the free weight section of the gym is VERY intimidating because most people that frequent this area are like 10% body fat or less. I try not to think "wow, i'm technically 300-400% fatter than you"...because really these thoughts don't help when you're sticking your big Mexican butt out to do the exercise. Because that's what you have to do for dead-lifts. I specifically did the "stiff leg dead-lifts" because they're supposedly the preferred version for women. I watched a video of an extremely cut woman do them with the correct form so you should youtube it if you're interested. Anyway, the stiff leg version works your hamstrings more than the regular ones, but it's almost a whole body workout. So I did 3 sets of 15 with just the 45lb bar. Now, 45 pounds is a lot for the female first attempt at these, but in the free weight section you look STUPID doing anything with just the bar. Everyone else has heavy weights on both ends of a bar doing much more complicated movements than my tiny simple looking stiff leg dead-lift motion. So once again my advice is IGNORE ALL THE SKINNY MUSCLED PEOPLE. Seriously. Your eye is drawn to them because that's what half of them want, but don't do it unless you're looking specifically for correct form(which may also be a mistake in some cases).

So my adventure Wednesday in the free-weight section went surprisingly well. Until I realized Thursday morning that dead-lifts were evil. My hamstrings were so sore and tight I was constantly looking awkward in the downtime at work trying to bend over and stretch them. And my forearm flexors were sore and I was so confused at first until I realized that gripping the bar must've actually been a new and strenuous workout for me. I guess that's the muscle you focus on if you want to be a Ninja Warrior. In any case, Thursday I did 3.31 miles in 30 minutes on the elliptical and a good ab workout. I was debating taking the day off because I was so sore, but I really wanted to go to the bootcamp my gym was having on Saturday and I thought Friday would be the more prudent day to take off. It turned out to be a good choice, all the elliptical kept my hamstrings from getting too stiff and I just did a lot of stretching on Friday.

Saturday came and I was so pumped but nervous for bootcamp. Pumped because I knew that it was gonna be a brutal assault on all the fat in my body and I was going to burn a ton of calories, nervous because...well, the same reasons. lol. Mostly because at the bootcamp last month(which was my first one and I burned 1600ish calories in about 2 hours) I had 2 friends there so I felt a lot more comfortable. This time I was only going to know one of the trainers and maybe some people I recognized from spin classes and stuff. And it's only mildly encouraging that the one person there you're familiar with is the one that's making you want to cry out in pain and anguish. lol Okay it wasn't THAT bad. Overall it was a lot better than the first one. I've come a long way in a month, it seems. The jump squats and step presses and all the "sculpt" stuff was easier than it was last time, although not to say that it was easy in any acceptable sense of the word. The hardest part of the whole 2.5 hours was the compound abs. Now, I'm pretty good at ab stuff for a fat girl, if we're being honest. That is to say that if we're doing a set of 20 of a specific ab group that's moderately difficult I can hang. And if all we're doing is a series of single-target ab sets, I'm your girl. But you throw a compound ab at me and 5 in I'm doing whatever modification you offer to make it possible to complete my set of 20. I don't understand! It's starting to really frustrate me and it's something that I'm just gonna have to work harder on.  Those are times when you have to really come at the exercise head on and say "Okay only one of us is gonna win and it's not gonna be you".

My favorite part of the bootcamp was Zumba(surprise!). If they put anything else at the end I'd be screwed. We'd already been working out for an hour and 45 minutes when we started Zumba. 105 minutes BEFORE starting 30 minutes of straight cardio dancing. My stamina has DEFINITELY gotten better. It's funny because yesterday I was like "GROSS I haven't smelled this bad since my soccer days" but that's probably because I haven't pushed myself that hard for that long since those days of old. I was doing Zumba thinking "God, please don't let these people smell me over themselves". lol. So after I did an extra song with only like 4-5 other crazy people after everyone else had left, I got in the sauna. It felt so good to stretch out and relax all those muscles that I just worked out so hard. According to my heart rate monitor that got stopped for a few minutes somewhere between compound abs and burpees(which I also suck at but it's ok because very few people are good at those) I worked out for 2:34 hours and burned 1817 calories. Oh and the best part was this morning I weighed myself and I've lost 10 pounds in the last 5-6 weeks. =D I'm on track with what I want to do, and most likely my next post will be about goal setting. Next week there is an "Aqua Bootcamp" which I'm interested in so I will definitely keep y'all posted on that. Thanks for all of you reading and all your comments and facebook encouragements and everything. It really means a lot to me! Y'all make it easier for me to write this knowing it is actually helping some of you with your own trials and tribulations. =) Let's do this, people!

Masochist Mindset

So much I want to tell you guys! Today I wanted to talk about the pure change in mindset I've had since this whole..."transformation", I guess, started. I've talked about the different ways you have to trick yourself into doing stuff, especially eating healthier, but I really want to explore this thought process of forcing yourself to go to the gym or work out at all. Now, as I've mentioned before, being successful in changing your way of doing things really depends on how well you know yourself. I KNOW I'm not gonna eat just a salad for lunch, as much as I may want it to work out or as much as I know it will benefit my life, it's just not something I am capable of. It's on my maybe-one-day-when-I'm-skinny list.

I used to tell my boyfriend "I do NOT want to work out on days that I work". This is a big problem for most people I think that work during the day and you're thinking "Jeez, I have to either get up early to go to the gym and then come home and shower and THEN go to work." Or the even more dreaded "I have to go straight to the gym and change there and then work out and then come home and shower and THEN make dinner and eat and go to bed". Well, if you think of it this way it's never going to happen. And this is why for so long I never worked out. My mindset was "I'd rather have that 1-2 hours to practice/do homework/do anything but work out". You really have to kick yourself in the butt. I like to think of this as distinguishing your habits from your capabilities. So, I've really taken the last couple months to focus on this, especially because my work schedule changed slightly at work, and this is what I've figured out. 

I am not capable of working out before work. It's not possible, I start at 7am and work 10 hour days- not happening. It is okay to let yourself off the hook as long as you make yourself do something else. But then we come back to the "I don't want to work out on days that I work". Well, that's a habit that I'd like to have, but it's not letting myself live up to my capabilities. I am capable of working out on days that I work, I've done it before- it just sucks. So, this is where you have to force yourself to do something that you know is going to suck, but will make you better. I made my boyfriend a deal- I will work out on workdays but it has to be a class or something where I don't have to decide what I have to do. For those of you doing your own thing without a trainer, this is more than half the battle. So since the start of the year with my schedule change I've been doing Zumba or another class that doesn't require me to do anything but go with the flow. Because I figured this out about myself, we've been going to the gym pretty much every work day. I'm making things easier for myself in a really masochistic way, so I'm more likely to go along with it. 

Man last week there was a day that I just did NOT want to go to the gym. It wasn't even really that I didn't want to work out, I just physically didn't want to have to get dressed, go to the gym and be there. My boyfriend almost literally had to drag me to the gym. He grabbed my hand and I let him pull me upright from my cozy napping cocoon on the bed and told me to put my workout clothes on because we were going to the gym. So I'm yawning all the way in the car and I get there and I'm just grumpy but I do my workout anyway AND I clock in 2 miles in 17:33. I left feeling completely different than when I walked in. I was energized and in a good mood and felt really good about myself. Those are the times you have to think of when you're laying in your comfortable bed or couch or wherever and don't want to go. You have to remind yourself "You will feel awesome when you walk out of there. You will be so proud of yourself if you go and so disappointed at yourself if you stay here and nap." Because let's be honest- we have all picked a nap over working out. And I'm not saying I'm never going to pick the nap again, I'm just not going to make a habit of it. 

Birthday Breakthrough

Hey guys! I'm gonna see if I can restart this blog. Turns out having a job with daytime hours is not as easy of a schedule as I thought it'd be. Let me catch y'all up briefly. I spent this summer celebrating my boyfriend's return from the Navy by eating ice cream and ignoring my calorie counter app. We were still working out but not so much keeping track of what we were eating. So by fall I was back up 10 pounds and my scrubs were starting to get snug so I kicked myself back into gear.

Here are the newest things in my life: I have officially kicked my Diet DP habit. DONE. No more soda for me at all. I've had like 2 carbonated drinks in 2013, and after the last one my stomach revolted so I'm pretty much done. I've also limited myself to very very small amounts of sweet tea every once in a while. I mean, I'm a southern girl through and through, I will never be done with sweet tea. But I can get away now with maybe one every 2 weeks. If that. It's pretty satisfying to know that you're not drinking your calories and you can eat them instead.

I've officially, consistently, gotten under a 10-minute mile on the elliptical. I dunno how, or why, or WHAT it finally was. It was like my body had an epiphany a couple weeks ago. I went from struggling to get a 9:55 mile to doing a couple miles under 10 minutes each. My biggest breakthrough was on my 26th birthday of all days. I had eaten Cane's for lunch and then a Braum's hot fudge sundae, so I did not have the best fuel to go on. We only had 30 minutes at the gym if we wanted to make it to the movies on time so I decided "well...I need to burn off all that fried food" and went straight upstairs to an elliptical. It was like something in me got out of the way and I stopped fighting myself. I did my first mile in 7:48. That's SEVEN MINUTES and 48 seconds. My second one was in something like 8:30 and my third was in around 9:30. Overall I finished 3 miles in just under 26 minutes and clocked in an unprecedented 3.42 miles in 30 minutes.

Now, this may sound like something I was working towards and worked up to, and in a way it was. I've been doing LOTS of Zumba and still the occasional spin class, and I feel like my endurance is slowly but surely getting better. But I have been avoiding upstairs for a while now. [Side note: If you're not a member of a gym, I will explain. The way most of them are set up there are 2 floors, the first floor is mostly weight equipment and the second is usually exclusively cardio equipment. Aka torture devices known as treadmills, ellipticals, step climbers, stationary bikes and recumbent bikes. Although nobody's ever burned calories efficiently on a recumbent bike, let's be honest.] I'd only been on an elliptical maybe twice since new years. Partially because it's over-crowded with resolution-ers, but also because when I did my times were worse than they were before. So I was discouraged and kept burning my calories in Zumba. But on my birthday I didn't have time for Zumba, and I didn't want to do half a spin class. So I took myself upstairs and proceeded to show myself WHY I can do this if I just put my mind to it. And my legs.

So, in short, I want to get back to this because I miss sharing with you guys my thoughts on all of this. And I need to remind myself that while I'm trying to keep myself on track, there are tons of you out there fighting the same fight to GET HEALTHY! It's not just about fitting into a smaller pair of jeans(although that's definitely a motivator) it's about being around to enjoy the pant size that you have for as long as you can, until they are elastic waist because you've earned it along with your white hair.