A Mess

This week has been a flat out mess. I have had week after week of good weight loss and healthy choices with food and exercise. This week started out okay, but I went to the boot camp. But things started to get off because this was the last week of my bookmaking class.

This class is for a grade, not just something that I picked up outside of school. I think with all the projects that I do I always bite off more than I can chew. The final needed to be a book with content and I picked a topic where I had to collect memories from my brother and mother. I also wanted to make them a copy of the book. I was required to make two for the class, so that meant making four over all. The book was a case bound book, which is basically what a hardback novel looks like. Its complicated and has a lot of steps, lots of places where things can go wrong. I made it more complicated by making the cover into something special with a house and a working door. Yeah... It took me a lot longer to make than I thought it would.

the cover of my book(s)

Part of the problem was that I had made the cover to fit the size of the pages, and the size of the page was determined by my longest block of text. Not all the text in the book was this long, a lot of the memories were really short stories or observations. So it had a ton of blank space. I filled it by staining my pages with tea and coffee. There are twenty pages in the book, so I had to stain 80 11x16.5 pieces of paper. It just took an insane amount of time.

The books were due on Thursday and Tuesday I flat out didnt have time to run Tuesday. I was at school late and couldnt get up in time for the boot camp, and I didnt have time for Zumba on Wednesday. I hated that I missed all of my workouts. Wednesday I was up until 4 am working on my book. I woke up yesterday at 7 am to get to school. It has just been such a long/short week. I couldnt fall asleep last night and had to get up to work at 7. I'm exhausted.

all the books i made the past 5 weeks

Yesterday, I didnt have time to cook, and I have been eating subway since Wednesday. Just because I didnt have time to do anything and I didnt want to eat fast food. Yesterday I ate a burger and fries. I'm paying for it today. My stomach is so messed up, I've been back and forth to the bathroom all morning. I havent been drinking enough water. This has been such a shitty week. But today I'm getting back on track. I am going to drink water all day long, even though I have a three hour drive to get to Arkansas. I am going to get up tomorrow morning and run. I'm going to do that on Sunday too.

I honestly dont expect to lose any weight this week, I will just be happy if I dont gain anything.

Wednesday was my 3rd wedding anniversary and I'm going home to Arkansas to celebrate with Corey. It will be good to see him! I just have to continue to make healthy food choices!

my last thursday night of work!

Catch Up

Last week was insane between school, work, social obligations and exercising I have had a total lack of time and sleep. This is my last week of summer school ever as a student (Yay!). I'm trilled that it is coming to a close, but that means I'm busting my ass to get my final book done. I feel guilty writing this because I could be cutting book board. But I can take 30 minutes out of my day to tell you about the last week and a half. 

I am happy to say that in the past two weeks I've lost 5 pounds. That's 30 pounds since I have started doing my fitness pal in the spring/winter and 18 pounds with Weight Watchers. I could just call it 18 pounds, but I'm happy that I've lost 30 since the end of the school year. Thats an accomplishment for sure! I signed up for a boot camp like thing and started that on Wednesday last week. It's called a belly blast class, but I just call it boot camp. They gave us a packet with a meal plan, and extra exercises to do. So far I'm not impressed with the meal plan. The first three days are a "detox" and I just flat out cant starve myself like that. There is no protein, or healthy fats, just fruits and veggies. I guess they want you to get a lot of fiber, but I already do that with how I eat. PLUS the first thing I do when I know I cant have what I want to eat, is binge on the things I cant eat. So its just a bad bad idea. I'm happy with WW and so I'll just keep doing that.

I do like the "green smoothie" that is on their meal plan tho. I have had it for breakfast the past couple of days, and its better than the cereal I've been doing. Its pretty easy, 1 cup water, 2 cups spinach, 1 cup fruit 1 banana and blend. Thats just the one that I follow. I know I could add some almond butter and almond milk if I ever get to the point of needing the extra calories because I dont eat enough at breakfast. So far, its fine. 

Wednesday was the start of the Boot Camp (BC because I'm lazy and dont want to type out 8 letters) at 5:30 am... yeah you read that right. I am still doing my workouts with Zumba and running. Which makes me tired to say the least! I have the toning Zumba class on Wednesdays and I have been using the 2 pound hand weights for it, well I havent felt anything really the past two classes, so I thought that it might be time to jump up at least half a pound, but it was either 2 or 3. So I went with 3. I am still sore from doing that. Stupid idea. I think I might just get my own 2.5 pound hand weights because I'm so not ready for three. Friday through Sunday I could barely move because I was so sore.

Thursday I was able to get off work at the school to go to the Monroe Art Crawl. Its the first Thursday of every other month. I always end up working on Thursday it seems, but I got lucky and was able to get off for it. I didnt have anything in a gallery this time, I just came to support my friends Joli and Jenna, and a couple others! It was a good time, I abstained from the wine and the food. I didnt even go to the pub afterwards for drinks. Mainly because it was hot as hell outside and we would have either been sitting outside in the heat on the patio, or inside with all the smokers. Bleh. 

Jenna and her name on "the wall"

Joli and her art! Beetles all over the wall!

That's how my week has been so far. I'm thrilled that class is almost over, and today my Zumba classes switch to 4:30 pm, I didnt realize it today so I'm going to have to run home real fast and change and then come back to school. Wednesday I'll just bring a change of clothes! This will be nice because I'll get to eat dinner at 6 rather than 7. Yay.

Sporting my new sunglasses

Also, I said that I've been going to the art crawls this year, begging my friends to let me switch hours at work with them so I could go. Every time we take pictures together. And I have this collection of myself through this year, but these three photos stood out to me after someone posted the newest pic on facebook Thursday night. I look like I've lost some weight! Which is cool! I can feel my clothes getting looser, but its hard when you look at yourself every day and feel like you see the exact same thing in the mirror. The pics arent in order so read it right to left and then to the bottom! That's 30 pounds (or about) right there!

5% Progress

The past few posts have been kinda sporadic. Sorry about that! I mentally try to tell myself to blog at least twice a week, but to be honest, I dont have a lot of time! I guess thats a good thing, but I have a hard time sitting down and finding time to write!

The past couple of posts have been picture-less and while not boring not really visually stimulating. So I have finally gotten some pictures to share which I'm very happy about. 

This is a book I made!

One of my friends, who is in the book making class, and she also works up at the school when I'm not working has a second job and she had Saturday night off, and because this rarely ever happens we made plans to go out for dinner and get some drinks. I knew going into this that I was going to gain some weight because of water retention, I knew that I just couldnt drink the margaritas that we were going to have a dinner, and I knew that it was going to be hard and that I didnt want to get drunk because I had to run on Sunday. 

I weighed on Saturday morning and it was at 247 (*squee!!*) my 5% goal weight. But I knew it was subject to change depending on how I handled that night. I was bound and determined to have it back down to 247 by Monday for my weight in. I did good at dinner, I had a beer with my chicken quesadilla and chips. Afterwards I had three more beers... yeah yeah, but they were spread out over a 4 hour period so maybe that makes it not as bad? I also drank a TON of water with my beer. For every beer I made sure to get some water to go with it. I peed a lot, but on Monday morning I was right at 249. But thankfully today I was back to 247. So really it only took me a few days to get back to normal.

That leads me to say that I have lost my first 5%!!! A week early! That gives me one extra week to lose the next 5%, which is 13 pounds. I'm so happy to be out of the 250s. You have no idea. When I was going balls to the wall in school my weight was up to 272, and every time I would try to get back into working out I could NEVER get past the 250s. So goodbye 250 pounds, we shall NEVER meet again! 

Yesterday was a Zumba day and I didnt have the late shift at school (4-9 haha) so I actually had time to do things at home. My mom is coming to visit this weekend (yayaya!) so I need to clean up. Now, I know she would tell me not to worry about it. But I have been living at my house with barely enough time to cook lunch or dinner and no motivation to do anything on the weekends but rest and workout. So I desperately needed to clean up, because it might be barely habitable for me and Axel, but not for a guest. I got home at 4, and proceeded to clean until 6:00 when I left for Zumba, I got back around 7:15 and cleaned till around 9:30-10. I got my kitchen, dinning room, living room all cleaned a vacuumed. A ton of clothes washed, I mopped, but didnt get to vacuum and mop the upstairs where the rooms and my bathroom are. I did get the dog washed too! And myself because I was disgusting after that.

5k baby!!

Sunday (yes, I know I'm skipping around) I did another 5k run, it only took me about 50 minutes. I toned down on how fast I'm going so I can go for longer times. Today I was SO sore because of all that cleaning. I'm too old for this I suppose! Not too old to clean, but too old for marathon cleaning sprees. I'm decently in shape, but apparently not in good cleaning shape. When I went to the gym my favorite treadmill was taken so I had to find another one. I got on and looked at the incline and it said 0, and I was like why does it feel like I'm going up a hill if this incline is at 0? So about 25 minutes into my workout I realize and remember that the other treadmill I used is a -300 incline so I move it down three degrees and it was like I could suddenly move again! I thought it was because I was tired and sore from cleaning, and I'm sure that was part of it, but the other part was that incline! Whew! It makes a difference. I was barely able to run for 5 minutes today, whereas Sunday I was able to run for three stretches of 10 minutes. Maybe Thursday will be better. 

I really badly want to take a nap, but I'm scared that I'll over sleep when I need to be at the school. I want to go in early to get some work done on my book. 

Dont look at the next picture if you dont like blood! I cut my finger with an Xacto knife on Friday and this is the bloody pic of it! I'm a martyr for my art!

Eww!

Run run run

I meant to post this yesterday, but honestly during the week I dont have much time to do anything. So! I'll just post it today! This past weekend I ended up switching how I was going to work out. Originally, my plan was to run Friday and swim on Saturday and Sunday. Friday, I went and swam for an hour doing laps. After that I got a call from a friend asking if I wanted to work out, I knew that if I said no, she probably wouldnt do it, so I said yes and went back to the gym. We did the stationary bike for about 55 minutes and then did weight lifting, concentrating on our arms. So Saturday rolls around and my arms were so damn sore they felt like they were going to fall off, because of this, I had a rest day on Saturday and then instead of running Friday I ran on Sunday and then went swimming.

I'm super excited to say that on Sunday I wasnt feeling it at all, I could barely get through a minute of straight running, but at the end of the workout, I had about 10 minutes left and I moved the pace down a lot and ran for 5 whole minutes!!!!! I felt so good about myself after that! So today was my next run day and I figured if I could run for five minutes once, I could do it again. I ran first for 5 minutes, walked for 1, ran for 6, walked 1, ran 7, walked 1 and ran 8, then I had like 10 minutes left so I walked 2 and ran 3 then finished my last 5 minutes with a cool down! I wish I could have done that all the way through without stopping, but I'll get there. Needless to say this is HUGE news and I'm beyond excited, because in May I could only run for 15 seconds at a time!

Something else that I did this weekend was 1. I stayed on track ALL weekend!!! 2. I went to the farmer's market. I dont have a three, but I think the reason I was able to do so well this weekend, was because I had all this awesome fresh produce to eat. I got okra, blueberries, watermelon, squash, bread and a ton of tomatoes. They sold me a giant bag of almost mushy tomatoes because they were going to go bad, and because its super easy for me to make a soup, freeze it and bring it for dinner when I work at the school, I had planned to use those tomatoes in my chicken tortilla soup, which has a tomato base to it.

I wasnt able to cook it on Sunday night, which had been my plan (I kept running into people during my day and getting side tracked from what I needed to do) so I did it last night on my night off. When I cook this dish, I cook the chicken separate from the soup because I have to grind up the veggies in the blender to make it a smooth soup. So I put the chicken in a pot with water to cook, and everything is going well, my soup smells good and is bubbling along nicely and my chicken looks to be finished cooking. I turn off the boiling water and grab a couple of forks so I can pull the chicken apart to make sure its done in the middle- I did it right over the pot of boiling water, and the chicken fell back into the pot and splashed my left hand with water. Oh how it hurt. I screamed and started running cold water over my hand. After a little while it still hurt insanely, my mom had said that I could put lavender oil on a burn and it would soothe it, so I do that, and nothing happens. So I pull the chicken out of the pot and put them on my cutting board and grab a bag of frozen veggies and a tea towel and sit on the couch to try to take the heat out of my hand.

Usually if I burn myself I would put aloe on it, and it wouldnt hurt at all, but I dont have an aloe plant, so I was SOL. After a while the pain was tolerable and so I go back into the kitchen to pull my chicken and to blend the soup. Its in a huge pot, and so I have to ladle it out into the blender and grind it up. Thats when the next horrible thing happens. I set the lid down to the blender and I'm looking and looking for it, and I'm getting super pissed because the last time someone used the blender lid, it wasnt me, and I thought that my friend had misplaced it. Because I cant find this lid, I get a flat cutting board and put it on top of the blender and turn it on...

yeah

You can imagine what happened next... my kitchen was splattered in tomato soup. By this point I just wanted to scream and eat some bread, but I was really hungry and I had all that chicken that I had just burned my hand to cook, so I found the lid, it was under a dish towel where I had put it and kept blending the soup. It was excellent by the way.

That's what I've been up to lately, tonight I have to work and when I get home I need to do the dishes from last night, I couldnt get my hand in the rubber glove last night because the burn was so bad. Eventually I had the bright idea to check for some sunburn aloe vera in my bathroom. Thank the Lord I had some because after 5 thick coats it finally stopped throbbing. I also took some aspirin :)

Sometimes Things Suck

Genrally I would have to say that I'm a pretty positive person. On a normal day I would call myself an optimist. No one is perfect and so there are some days that just suck no matter how positive or how much of an optimist you are. 

I havent been sleeping much, still trying to get body and head to want to go to bed before 12, I shoot for 11:30, but end up not being able to sleep until at least 12:10. That's late when I have to get up at 6:45. My day got all messed up because we had to have a book for my book making class complete, and because there is such a HIGH quality standard in this class, I feel like if I mess up even a little, I have to redo everything. Because trust me, my professor will point out even little things. But today I made a big mistake about halfway through the book, so I had to redo it, which made me stay longer than I would have wanted at school.

I was going to get out of class and go workout, and then eat lunch (its 2:55 and I still haven't eaten lunch yet...) but because I messed up my book, I had to stay late. 

So that's pretty much all background. Messing up the book didnt make the day suck, just threw my schedule off. What did make it suck was after I worked out. I had time to workout for about 45 minutes, and it was a run day, so I ran into the gym, changed clothes and got on a tread mill. Happily, I can say that I did intervals of 2 min. running 1 walking. Which is pretty darn good. Near the end I ran for about 4 minutes straight! Huzzah! 

I was walking out of the building and there is this long sidewalk you have to walk down to get to the parking lot, and as I stepped off the edge of the parking lot I fell, dunno how, call me grace, I just misstepped and all 255 pounds of me came crashing to the concrete. I wasnt hurt, didnt even skin my knees. But there were people around, and it was just incredibly embarrassing. Generally I dont give a flying fish what people think about me, but I hate to make a fool of myself. I dropped my water bottle and a nice girl picked it up for me and asked if I was fine. I said I was okay and got up, and the guy walking by asked the girl if I was okay.

I was perfectly fine, no a scratch, but as soon as I got in the car I just started sobbing in my 95 degree car. All I could think was that they must have thought "that poor fat girl cant even walk." It was just so embarrassing. I'm not saying that it wouldnt be embarrassing 100 pounds lighter, just that there would be less of me to make a spectacle of. Talk about feeling so down on myself, like total and utter shit. I dont normally feel like this, like I said, I'm a optimist (or at least I think I am) and I like to think positive. I just felt so disguising and fat and huge and icky and I just cried and cried. Finally I was able to stop enough to drive home. 

I dont know how I'm feeling now, mainly hungry. This is especially annoying because I did this earlier in the year too (on my birthday no less) and really hurt my ankle that time. I dont think losing weight will make me more graceful, I just wish that this didnt keep happening to me. Talk about a waste of a good workout high. 

Goals and Plans

So my weekends kinda got wonky because of the 4th of July and because I got sick the weekend before that. Needless to say things were kinda gross for a while there, and my stomach was really messing up. But I'm in my summer class now and even though its only been three days I seem to have a pretty decent plan for working out and having a good schedule for sleep, food, and class work.

My mom has totally inspired me to really think about the goals that I want to achieve. I have been looking at the weight watchers app the past month or so and while I only lost (and kept off) about 5 pounds I looked at the 5% goal that they want me to achieve and realized that there isnt a date cap on it. Its just- eventually we want you to lose 5% so you can move on toward a bigger goal.

I know chopping up goals is a good thing to do because its easy to look at the over all amount of weight you need to lose and think "I'll never get there" so I decided Monday to set a date goal for myself (also inspired by Extreme Weight Loss- Awesome TV show). I need to lose 8 more pounds, so I set a goal of 4 weeks. Two pounds a week is doable. I'm going to move my tracking day to Monday because I think it will help me keep myself accountable on the weekends. If I over eat- my weigh in will be baaad!

I started looking at small goals to set myself until the end of the year, because its not just going to stop with the first 5%. I want to keep this going, and to help keep me accountable I'll post my goals here. When I'm doing good I can lose about 10 pounds a month. These arent hard core- "if you dont lose THAT amount of weight by such and such date- you will die" kinda goals- they are just something to give myself to shoot for. Because I know I work better when I have a date and a goal to shoot for. 5 months isnt bad at all, and if I can lose 10 pounds a month (wow!) that would be awesome.

Starting weight 260

Lose 5% body weight: 247
Goal Date: 7-29-13

Lose 10% (from original weight): 234
Goal Date: 9-2-13

Lose 15% body weight: 221
Goal Date: 10-7-13

Lose 20% body weight: 208
Goal Date: 11-11-13

Lose 25% body weight: 195
Goal Date: 12-31-13

I realize that some of these are more than 2 pounds a week, which is more than 10 pounds a month. I'm going to try to see these first couple of months how this works, and if it needs to be revised... I'll do it!

I have to say that I dont seem to have a problem eating healthy and working out when I'm in Louisiana. Not really sure why. It just is easy here. Or at least it is right now. I think the hard thing will be when I get back full time into school. But you know, I really like what I'm doing now at the gym and I actually look forward to going. Especially on Zumba days. My plan is to do Zumba Monday and Wednesday, because those are the only days that I have off to be able to go, and on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday I'll run. My plan for the weekends, are to do some weight lifting and yoga. The weekends will be DVDs, I really do enjoy doing them, and if I need to change up what I'm doing on the weekend, I can always go swim or just do stretches. I know that doesnt leave a day off, but on the weekends I dont think I'll get much of a workout.

I'm so determined to do this! I saw some pictures of myself from the 4th of July that a family member posted on Facebook, and I hate thinking "Dear Lord! That's me!?!" So its time to kick this fat's ass!!

Weighing In and Operation Weekend: Day 1

Okay so yesterday was my weigh in day. I've been doing WW for almost a month now. This was my fourth week on it and so far I've lost 9 pounds. So I only lost 1 pound this week, but to be fair its that time of the month, and so I am 100% sure that I would have lost more, if it had been a normal week. Not that it really matters, because in a couple of days the bloat will have gone away! I'll be interested to see what next week says, because I know my body pretty well by now and when its this time, I know I will have a hard time not gaining some weight.

I have to say that I'm nervous for this weekend. The past two weekends I havent gone out with my friends for dinner and drinks because I'm scared of being naughty! But then what do I do when I stay at home? I have a beer and order pizza, and then after that I just eat what I want. So I absolutely have to get my weekends under control. I also havent worked out the past couple of weekends. I do Zumba all week, sometimes 3 times (thats three hours, yo!) a day. I was running, but doing both the Zumba and the running was just too much. So I decided that I do want to keep running, but the best time to do it would be Friday, Saturday and Sunday because those are the days that I find myself straying because there arent any classes to take on the weekend.

I figure if I have a plan in place for this weekend, I wont be able to be bad. Honestly, during the week, its not like I deprive myself of anything. I have a skinny cow frozen treat every night after dinner, and that takes care of my sweet tooth and for lunch I have been eating this really good soup with brown rice. Snacks are hit or miss, sometimes I do juice, or sometimes I eat some tuna salad, or just fruit. So I dont feel like I'm missing anything. If I want chips with lunch, I buy a small bag of them, because I cant keep a big bag in the house without eating them all. So maybe I need to just plan out all my meals for the weekend as well, and maybe some treats :D too!

So today I decided that I would go to the gym at 2:00. I eat around 12, so it would give me 2 hours to digest and be between snack times so my stomach doesnt feel like its attacking me during my workout. When I first started running and swimming this summer, I would do it too close to my snack time and by the time I got to the swimming, my stomach would be rumbling like crazy! As I would do each lap, I would tell myself, one more lap closer to a snack!

When I signed up for WW, I decided to try out the ActiveLink, mainly because I'm always curious how much activity I'm really doing. Maybe its the OCD in me, but I always want to know exactly how much I'm moving and burning. Let me say that this thing isnt a Bodybugg by any stretch of the imagination. From what I can tell it's like a fancy pedometer. The really annoying thing is that it calibrates for a week, and it takes away your ability to put in activity points. So for a whole week, you dont know what your activity is. I like it okay. If falls off my pants a lot. I've lost it on walks with the dog twice now. So now I clip it to the elastic of my panties, so at least if it falls of, its not going to fall far!!

On a normal Zumba day by the end of the day, see 8:00 I get 100% activity. This is doing 2-3 hours of Zumba. You can tell how far along you are by taking the ActiveLink off your belt and laying it on a hard surface, and it will light up along the edges. There is a 100% on the left corner and when you get all the bars lit up to the 100% in green, you have hit your goal for the day. There are two more bars and so you can get even more past your 100%, so far at 4:39 today I'm at 113% of my activity level. That was only walking/running for an hour and swimming for 30 minutes. Sad thing is, that it takes me ALL day to get that when I do Zumba! I earned 9 Points Plus for that workout! Not bad I would say!

This is how much activity I've done today

When you hit 100% it gets excited and they all flash

ALSO HOLY COW!!! I have amazing/freaking awesome news!!!!!! I ran/walked 5k today in 40 minutes. Yeah!! I totally rocked it. I set the time for 60 minutes because I REALLY wanted to see how long it would take me to get to 5k. When I first started this about 5 weeks ago I was running for 15 seconds and walking for 45. Now I run for a minute and walk for a minute. I can run for about 5 minutes straight before I start to get really really tired. So I'm not quite ready for straight running yet, and I'm cool with that!

This is my sweaty super excited 5k face!

Next week is going to throw my schedule off, and it would have been thrown off no matter what because after next week, I start my summer class. I shouldnt be nervous about it, but I am. I'm nervous for next week because I'll be at my mom's house. There is nothing wrong with it there (love you mom!) but I wont have my Zumba classes, swimming pool, or my treadmill. So I will for sure have to come up with a plan for next week otherwise, I probably wont workout. I think though, that instead of Zumba I'll do the Turbo Fire workouts at the same time I would be doing Zumba. That way, I'll still have my schedule. Its just when school starts that everything will be thrown out of whack.

My class starts at 8, so I wont be able to go to the aqua Zumba class. There is another class that I was doing at 7 am on Monday and Wednesday and I wont be able to go to that. Technically I could probably swing it, but I would be going to school sweaty and disgusting two days a week. PLUS I have a work study, which I'll be working 20 hours a week. So no matter what, everything will be shaken up and I'm going to have to find new times to workout. Its only for a month, and for that I'm greatful! But I dont want things to change so soon! I feel like I've finally gotten into a groove and I dont want to mess it up (i'll stop whining now!)

Sorry this post is so dang long!!! 

Healthy Eats: Cooking for One (or two) People

In my last post I mentioned that a couple of my girlfriends and I had started working out and eating dinner together in an attempt to keep each other accountable. We are all in school together and so when we can we would try to get together and make a healthy dinner. It was super fun, before everyone got busy again with school, or boyfriends (husbands :D) or commuting. The things I took away from doing those meals were awesome for people who only cook dinner for one or two people and so I'm going to share the tips with you because I dont know about you, but like I have said before, cooking a whole casserole and having to eat it all alone gets SO boring after the 4th lunch/dinner, and you can only freeze so much. So onward to the tips!

1. Buy It Frozen- yes you read that right. I try to buy as much fresh fruit and veggies as I can, but sometimes its hard to eat it all and to me, there is nothing worse than leftover vegetables unless its something that I'm going to eat the very next day with dinner. I have found that buying a bag of frozen broccoli and just pulling out what I need with dinner makes my life so much easier and its always fresh!

2. Buy it Frozen times 2?: Okay so same with frozen meats. I know I just said this about the veggies, but you can buy a couple of pounds of fish (I love salmon) that come individually packaged, pull it out in the morning to defrost (in the fridge) and cook it when you get home and its wonderful. You can do this with frozen chicken too. There are hundreds of dishes you can cook chicken with, but you dont have to buy a whole pound and cook it all at once.

3. Spice it Up: One of my favorite things is to play with spices that you havent tried before. Having people in my kitchen cooking who knows what makes me happy but nervous because I never know what it will taste like, but some of my favorite new dishes have come from the girls cooking with something I wouldnt have ever tried. So find a seasoning that looks good and start playing with it, if you dont like it, at least you tried. Cavenders is GREAT and goes well on everything. 

4. Play With Your Food: I was telling my mom today that the meals that satisfy me the most are the ones that are pretty. Whether that is with different color veggies on your plate, or with how you present it, even if its just you. You look at it and feel like you made something thats worth eating and you feel happier and making the choice to put different veggies on your plate, like summer squash, broccoli, asparagus (those are my three stand bys for right now) bell peppers, zucchini or anything else makes you feel good about what you are eating. Plus, if you have more veggies on your plate than meat or carbs especially with Weight Watchers you are eating a whole lot of good for not many Points Plus.

Ground Turkey!!

5. Ground Turkey and Greek Yogurt: Two of my (brand new, for the greek yogurt) favorite things! I have found recently that its hard for me to make a big dish out of the ground turkey and still want to eat it. Just like the casserole thing. So I saw one of the fitness people I follow on Instagram (follow me I'm ladylizza) and on Facebook makes patties out of her ground turkey and then puts the on whatever she wants. You could freeze them and reheat as needed if you dont think you can eat all of them in a week! Talk about being able to mix up your meats if its just that easy. I do this with my turkey and I LOVE everything I put it in!

Greek yogurt goes well in just about anything that you can use mayo for. I have substituted it for deviled eggs, salmon croquettes, and tuna salad. Imagine the possibilities. Especially if you get the non fat or fat free greek yogurt. It has a gob of protein in it and has a nice tangy flavor, not much sugar and lasts for a long time in the fridge!

With those tips you should be cooking for yourself (and your plus one! or even your family) in no time! 

---

Switching topics! I do want to say one of the things I'm most excited about is my potted plant garden that I started! I have two tomatoes that are growing on two of my 4 plants, and I have a pepper plant that has three little baby peppers on it! I named one of my tomatoes Alfred. He is the big one. I'll feel almost bad when I eat him. I also have two watermelon vines and a basil plant, plus some hanging ferns and two little potted flower plants. They all make me happy when I take the dog out for a walk!

This is my first Tomato

All plants lined in a row

Alfred!!

See how big he is!?

Summa time

I have debated over and over again if I want to keep writing this blog. I feel like every time I sit down to write it, I start, look at what I wrote and stop, erase and keep going with my day.

Me and Corey

This summer has been nice. I have visited my family, gotten to spend time with friends, spent a week alone with my husband and I have been doing my best to work out and eat healthy. I would say every day is a struggle, and some days are, but for the most part, I'm taking this time off (only two weeks or so now before I start summer school) to try to get into as many healthy habits as I possibly can before I have to start school back, that way its not so much a struggle as a necessity.

He LOVES my time off from school!

Generally I try to work out at least two hours a day. I figured because I have so much free time, that it would be silly to not spend as much time as I can in the gym. I have found that the best thing I can do for myself as far as exercise goes is that I have to find things I can enjoy. I've started (slowly) running. I'm at maybe a 17 minute mile, if that. I do Zumba every day of the week, and I even started doing an aqua Zumba class two times a week in the morning. I've decided that I dont get much of a work out, but it helps to work out the kinks I get during everything else I do and I always leave feeling refreshed and ready for the day. I wont be able to do this when my summer class starts, but that's alright.

There is also a cool stationary bike at the gym that I like to use that is like an elliptical where you can move your arms too, so on some days I use that. I've found that I have a really short attention span and unless I am talking to someone while I do a bike or elliptical, I have a hard time staying motivated to keep on the machine.

I have also been really working with how I eat. I flat out dont buy things that I know I will eat in one sitting. I dont know about you, but its a lot easier to eat a bag of chips than a whole bunch of bananas. So I dont binge on fruit and veggies, so they stay in the house all of the time. I always have strawberries, blueberries, watermelon and I go through a lot of bananas. Thank goodness for summer time! I am also enjoying learning to cook one person small meals. The casseroles and stuff are good for the winter, but I find myself getting really bored with them after a few days. So I have been loving the chance to cook fresh vegetables like squash, zucchini, asparagus and broccoli, just to name a few.

Weekends are still really hard for me, there arent any Zumba classes on the weekends, so usually I try to go to the gym to swim laps, because those are my days off. It really helps to mix things up, and doing the laps for an hour in the pool is a huge workout for me.

Lastly, I started Weight Watchers. I did this for a couple of reasons. The first was that with programs like My Fitness Pal, or Lose it I never know how many calories I should be eating. And it just flat out confuses me. I go to a calculator that it supposed to tell me how many calories I should be eating a day to lose 2 pounds a week, and it gives me a vastly different number than MFP or LI. So I just decided to try WW out for three months (thats what I paid for because it was cheaper) and see how it goes. If It doesnt look like I'm going to benefit from this, I'll stop the subscription and work with something else.

So far though, it seems to be going well. I've done it for three weeks now and I've lost 8 pounds. If nothing else I feel healthier, especially when I am eating really well all week. I really enjoy trying to find healthy things at restaurants and especially enjoy cooking now that I have the time.

That's the update for now. I'm just going to keep chugging along and we'll see in a couple of weeks how well I'm able to cope with a new schedule and school and working out.

At the beginning of this a couple of my friends had started eating healthy with me, and working out, but so far I'm the only one that is really into keeping it going. You sure cant make people do something they dont want to do, especially exercise!

Happy Birthday!

Tomorrow I'm turning 27! Very exciting I know... This weekend I went to Arkansas so that Corey and I could celebrate my birthday (along with a birthday dinner on Saturday night with my family).

He took me out to Tazikis, which is a greek restaurant in Little Rock. They eventually got so popular that they now have two, one in west Little Rock and the other in its original spot which is not in North Little Rock (because that's its own city) but in north Little Rock (not to be confusing or anything) on Cantrel. Its amazingly good and they give you a ton of food. We always get the hummus, and then the a greek feast, which is whatever kind of meat you want, with rice or potatoes and a salad. I always get the pork even though I'm not a big pork eater, because it comes with asparagus, and the dipping sauce for the pork is wonderful.

Normally, we would go to the one in west LR, because its closer to the more theatre that we like to go to, but Corey just drove on past it to the original. I asked him why over and over and all he did was get this funny look on his face like he was keeping a secret from me and just wanted to laugh. So we got done there, and he pulls up his phone and I know he is looking at the GPS, and we start to head toward downtown, not to the other side of town with the theatre. By this point (and I had sort of guessed it when we drove past the other Tasikis) I knew he was taking me to Loblolly to get ice cream.

I had tried it last weekend when I came up to visit. Mom and I went there for lunch and then I took Corey to get some of it and it is hands down the best ice cream I have ever had. My favorite, and I've tried a lot of their flavors, all of them good, is by far the salted caramel. It is a mix of sweet, but not salty, it just brings out the flavor. I've tried the avocado (amazing!!), butter milk, strawberry, strawberry lemonade, chocolate and double vanilla. Nothing is bad there. It is wonderful. We actually went back on Saturday to get pints of it so my family could try it at our birthday party.

It's actually in the Green Corner Store, which is this cute little store that sells a lot of arkansas made goods, as well as random things made by artists. It smells good, and is this cute little, as Corey called it "hipster place." While I was there I saw the most awesome shirt with a picture of Arkansas on it and the words "there's no place like home" printed in the middle of it. I had to get it! It was a birthday present to myself. I got the largest size they had, which was an XL, and sometimes I never know how things will fit me. Sometimes XLs are super big, sometimes they are small. This one looked like it should have fit, but when I got home and put it on... big disappointment there! Now I cant even wear it.

So this leads me to say, as you can tell with my ice cream consumption, that I havent exactly been watching what I eat. Most days I feel like I'm doing good just to get out of bed, and its even harder trying to manage my food and working out. Some nights last week I only got 3-4 hours of sleep. Talk about not wanting to do ANYTHING beyond just existing on those days. But I have the majority of the hard stuff out of the way, my two papers are done, I only have one project left, one quiz, one test and a project for my graduate seminar class. Everything else I just have to show up to. Thats it! Sounds like a lot for two weeks, but I promise it isnt.

Because I only have two weeks until class is done, I want to set a goal for myself to lose 4 pounds in the next two weeks. I figure when I start eating right, and drinking my water, that I'm going to lose 3-4 pounds in water weight. Which isnt going to do me any good. When I last checked my weight was at 256 (eek!) so I'm sure it has gone up lately. I want to lose 4 pounds from that so in two weeks I'll be at 252. Thats my goal. Really though, my new goal is to fit into my new shirt! But I think at this point all I can do is take this a day at a time. Two weeks 4 pounds. I can do this. I just have to be careful on the weekends, those are my worst things every. Mostly because I get bored and snack, so maybe next weekend, I just need to have the whole thing planned out.

 

Talk about embarrassing!

18 Days

I dont really have any good news to post. Nothing in the weight loss department at least. Mostly I've been consumed with school. I know that sounds lame, but I was only able to workout twice last week. Gah! I really just need to get it done today, even though I feel like death!

Not feeling bad like death, mainly just tired. I went home to see my husband this weekend. Its been almost a month! So it was wonderful to see him again, but I can say we really didnt eat that well. Not horrible, but not great. Except for the two times I had ice cream. I just feel like I weight 500 million pounds. I'm scared to put my blue jeans on... I've been in stretchy pants all weekend. Sad... yeah I know. Every time I get a routine going, something throws me off. I know this isnt easy, but hey, its not easy!

I only have 18 more days of school left. Thats it, too bad I'm so dang busy! I will try to update more often this week. I'm hoping to get home today and be able to work out. Keep your fingers crossed for me. Thankfully I have my big paper mostly finished, it needs to be reworded in some places and it needs a conclusion and the bibliography (so maybe not THAT finished!). But I've done the hard parts, now just to finish it off. I'm off for now!

Dear Rachel

This week has been so busy, and time has just flown by. I know its only Thursday but it feels like its been such a long time!

I'm just happy that tomorrow is Friday. The only problem is that at 8:00 I have to turn in the rough draft of my paper! I'm not that worried, I have about a third of it done and two more weeks to finish. I'm almost positive that I can get it done next week.

I have noticed that going back to eating healthy (even with frequent slip ups) that I have a lot more energy and stamina through the day. I generally eat the same thing all week, which is boring as hell, but easy on the food budget. Right now I'm on a salad kick. Mainly just a taco salad, but its still good! Maybe next week I'll try another salad out. First they are easy, and now that my stomach is better, they fill me up longer. I'm not getting more sleep, even though I have been trying to get into bed before 12. I have actually been drinking tea in the mornings because I have been dragging so much and instead of letting depression get to me and make me want to nap all day I've just been drowning it in a cup of caffein in the morning. Today I was so tired that I had a cup of coffee and two cups of tea!

I also had longer workouts this week. Today is my rest day, and every time I think about skipping the rest day and going ahead and doing the workout anyway I remind myself that this is how I get burnt out. Going balls to the wall with no break, this is a marathon and I have to pace myself to get to the end. I havent lost any weight this week. I wasnt very good over the weekend (and this one doesnt seem like its going to be much better) but I'm going to try my hardest to be as healthy as I can no matter how busy I get. Its funny I can eat healthy during the week, but when I dont have much structure to my day I panic and eat things that arent good for me.

---

I know many bloggers out there are talking about the Boston Marathon bombing and taking a moment to pause for the runners, and if you're into praying to say a prayer for all of those effected by that tragedy. I didnt know it happened until my Facebook exploded with the news that night. And now the Waco Texas explosion. Please keep everyone involved in these things in your thoughts and if you feel so inclined- prayers. I would also like to say, and my mom reminded me of this, that for all the bad things that are happening, there are good things too. I told her that if I was ever in an emergency like that I hope I would have the wherewithal to be as brave as the people who jumped those barriers at the marathon to help the wounded. Thank you to all those wonderful and brave people who fought their fear and helped-especially not knowing if they were putting themselves in danger.

I saw this on Facebook today and thought I would share it with you. 

Living in a Rain Forest

I have been doing well this week. Monday, I wasnt able to workout, but I did mostly eat right! Yesterday was much better, I was able to work out, and a get a lot of stuff around the house done. Its amazing to me when you have a little kitchen and you cook one meal how you can trash the kitchen in less than half an hour. So I cleaned that up, and did dishes and tidied up my room and somewhere in all that I was able to watch a little bit of Buffy and workout. I did the Fire 45 TurboFire and it was good! I felt really pumped afterwards.

My problem lately is that I'm not drinking enough water. I really have to push myself to do it, and I love water, I can drink tons of it. But its hard to drink a lot of water and be in class, because you have to pee! Nothing is worse than having a 4 hour class and drinking a ton of water before. I got on the scale this morning, and I was up, mainly because I'm bloated. I can tell, I think its almost time for MMV, which on top of the taco meat I made yesterday is probably making it pretty bad right now. I made the taco meat with ground beef and I just dont think that I can use beef anymore, its a ton more calories and it makes me so bloated! Bleh!

This morning I tried on a pair of capris that were a size down from where I am now... needless to say I have a LOT of work left to do. Thats only one size! But I know I can do this. I brought this up, not because of the size of the pants, but because I hate wearing anything but jeans. I dont like to show off my body. I dont like shorts, I feel like I have huge calves and just dont want anyone to see them, capris are better, but not as good and cool as shorts. Right now, I need the shorts because its not spring anymore here in Louisiana... its the beginning of Rain Forest Season, you walk outside and you're smacked in the face with a wave of humidity. I straighten my hair and by the time I walk to work, its partly curly again. Not like crazy normal curls, but the straight is being challenged!

Lunch

Today I had a uniquely interesting lunch. I'm not gunna lie, for the most part, I usually end up going home for lunch. I dont get out of the two buildings I know my way around in, the first floor where I work (cubbie where I work, bathroom, water fountains and the way out!) and the fine arts building. I know the building with our studios, but thats not really considered a building. So I dont eat on campus really, unless its at McAlisters, which I always take back to the fine arts building.

Today, I had parked really far away, and I knew by the time that I walked to the car, drove home and ate I would have to park super far away again and I would be late. I decided to just eat on campus, but I really didnt want Mcalisters again because its expensive! So I it was 12 and I was just going to walk around and try to find the student union (yeah I've been here almost a year and I dont know where that is... sad) and I decided to just follow a bunch of guys, because I figured they would lead me towards food. And I was correct! I wound my way through a building and viola! I found the food court. I got a taco salad (which was really good and very filling by the way!) and found a place to sit outside on a picnic table under the shade.

Not too long into my salad, some girl came up and sat by me and introduced herself as Jaylo or maybe it was Jen-o or something. I'm horrible with names! Anyway it was nice to talk to someone and we sat there and munched on our salads and talked about school and classes. Then the table behind us cleared and another guy sat by himself and we invited him over to sit with us. It was cool, I forget how college is sometimes. Mainly because this wasnt my experience the first time around, and most of the time I have my head shoved so far up whatever project I'm working on, that I cant see anything but what I have to do to get by.

---

Eventually another girl I knew from the art department came up, who knew the Jay-girl and we started talking about art. Jay-girl is a art education major. It was cool, and as I walked back to work it made me realized why I love college so much, and why it rocks. It made me want to stay! Who wants to leave when you can teach here too?

This weekend was so dang busy! I told on friend Joli that I would come and help her set up for her show. Saturday I went up there and helped her put beetles into the ceiling and walls. I was up there for 5-6 hours and finally went home around 7. On Sunday, I worked in the building and helped her a little more, mainly just moral support as I sewed pillows.

I have a project due tomorrow (along with a quiz and a test) and I made a bunch of pillows for it, I had made 56 for my chair, which goes with the project, and I tested it out on a spare recliner at my house, because the real recliner I'm using was in my studio, 56 just didnt seem like enough pillows! So I ended up make 101 (really 100, because I found a pillow case on the floor of my house I guess I dropped when I was leaving) and I had to sew them all yesterday and do the image transfers before I could stuff them and sew them shut. But I finally got that finished!

This week is going to be crazy, besides all the things I have due tomorrow, Friday I have a rough draft and outline due for my first year grad paper, and my family is coming down this weekend to see the quilt in the gallery in Monroe! My house is a wreck. A huge wreck, so I have to clean. I figure if I can clean one room a day for this week, then I'll be able to get everything done before they get here on Friday night. Gaaah! Its only Monday! Haha!

Frozen treats!

 Okay you are going to laugh, after bitching about my stomach hurting for the past few months I finally broke down and went to the doctor. Yes you read that right, I went to the doctor. He thinks the problem is an ulcer. Surprise surprise! I have to say that I like this guy, he is a cool doctor. My other doctor in Benton always seems so distracted, like she cant wait to move on to the next patient. No bedside manner. This guy was good, he asked my about what might be stressing me out, and we talked about it, he seemed genuinely concerned that I had so many things to be stressed out about. And he gave me medicine for my stomach. He said that if its not better by Monday, that I will have to come back in to have blood drawn to see if the stomach acid is messing with my body.

I had this brilliant idea today, because I have just flat out decided that I cant keep anything sweet in the house without inhaling it. Sweets and any type of Doritos or chips. I ALWAYS find myself binging on them, even if I put them out of site. So back to my brilliant idea- which was to make a healthy treat- popsicles! Homemade ones! I bought three pounds of Louisiana strawberries from the grocery store today (and let me tell you the difference in the taste with these and the ones from Mexico is HUGE!) and I found some popsicle holder things at Walmart and proceeded to make some! I checked on them after a couple of hours, which means I fished one up out of the container- but it wasnt ready (big surprise there!) so I just ate it with the butter knife I used to get it out. It was good! I made some with greek yogurt for more of a creamy one and another kind with just juice, which was the kind I checked on, I think that they will be more icy than anything. When I get one out that doesnt look like mush, I'll add a picture to this post!

I'm so glad yesterday was a rest day because I was terribly sore! I was sore all day, and still a little today. But I did eventually get around to working out this afternoon. And I have to say that I felt awesome. It's been a long time since I have felt so energetic after working out. I just want to go and do it again! I was even bouncing around and stuff before I started scaring the dog! I dont know if its getting more sleep, or exercising or eating healthy, but something in this mix is making me feel physically better. Speaking of that- I am so glad I started to workout again this week. I think another few days and my back would have been bad again. But so far, it seems fine!

My new favorite healthy dinner
Salmon, sweet potato and veggies

I've been working on my newest project for class lately, which involves image transfers, and it uses an all natural household cleaner with toner printed pictures. I havent done anything with color yet, but I've done black and white, and the image does better when it has a lot of contrast, and its not just a bunch of one thing, like chips, or fries.

5:00 AM

I have decided that getting up before 6:30 is torture for me. Yes you read that right. I only had a 25 minute workout this morning, but I was going to get up an hour early. I feel asleep when I wanted to (I went to bed early at 12:15!) but I just didnt sleep well. I felt like I tossed and turned all night. The good think about working out is that I'll be able to sleep better. Yet another reason to exercise! Anyhow, I couldnt make myself get out of bed at 5:30, so I reset the alarm for 6:30 and went back to bed. I will have time tonight to workout, I just like to get it out of the way in the mornings.

I guess it was a good thing that I did, because my flat iron broke this morning (yes if you read that you realized that I didnt wash my hair this morning, or take a shower, dont judge! Most days I feel lucky to get up in time for a shower. I know my other grad friends feel the same way, because they make comments about it all the time...) and I would have been able to blow dry it, but not straighten it. For the most part I can make is straight when I blow dry, but its not really straight at the roots! Its hard to kill the curls close to my head! So I guess I'm going to just buy a better (see more expensive) straightener so that my next one doesnt go out in another 6 months. I would rather buy a better one, and have it last years, than to have one that goes out two times a year. I know my mom is reading this and saying two things: "I had to straighten my hair with an iron! I used to put my hair on the ironing board and try to make it straight" OR "I cant believe that you used a straighter enough to kill it."

Yesterday I had a really good dinner of steamed veggies, carrots and broccoli. I think I've said before that I just cook a bunch and put them in little baggies to eat during the week. I also had salmon and half a sweet potato. It was surprisingly filling and I really enjoyed the salmon. I just got a bunch of frozen 4 oz filets and cooked up two, one for last night and one for Thursday night, I'm going to put it in a tortilla with some cream cheese and make one of those roll up things. It'll be easy to take with me to work.

I had cooked some chicken tortilla soup in the crockpot Monday night/ Tuesday morning so it would be ready for lunch on Tuesday. I got up yesterday morning (I was going to talk about this yesterday but my post was super long) and it didnt taste right, because I did it from someone else's recipe and I had to change some things, like I just threw the chicken in there to let it cook rather than cooking it first and then putting it in and left out some spices that I would normally use for Mexican-esque food. So I added the spices and let it cook, but by the time I was ready for lunch, which I ended up eating in a coffee cup on my way to school, it still didnt taste right. I have a regular standby tomato and chicken tortilla soup, that I absolutely love that I would like to try to turn into a crockpot recipe. Its amazingly good, I just wonder if it would transfer well to crockpot mode, especially because everything in it is pureed (except for the chicken and tortilla strips!).

I'm kinda surprised that I have this much to blog about because I updated yesterday. I guess I just need to blog to make up for all the lost time. I am happy to workout tonight. I just need to make sure to keep up with it every day!

I feel pretty

So I really dont feel pretty. I'm so sorry that I havent been blogging lately. I guess we all have times when life catches up to us, and it is overwhelming. Overwhelming- pretty much sums up the past few weeks. I havent regularly worked out in weeks, and I havent been eating well at all. I know for a fact that I've been a very bad girl. I dont feel pretty at all. I feel like my pants are getting tight. I feel tired and kinda depressed.

My stomach is still kinda weird, but I'm just so tired of dealing with this. It hurts sometimes, but not like it did, which makes me think that maybe it was partly stress.  My cure for it is saltine crackers and tums. I dont know if it really helping all that much, but it does feel some what better.

I dont even know where to start to sum up the past few weeks, they have all been a blur and I'm just glad that they are over. Most of the time I feel like I'm barely keeping my head above water when it comes to school. The thing I remember the most is that my sink backed up again. Yeah, you read that right. This time though the sewage contained poop. Needless to say it was the most disgusting thing I have ever had to clean out of a kitchen sink. I have Cloroxed it to death. The plumbers went under the house and said that some pipe line isnt hooked up down there, but that they werent the normal plumbers and that they couldnt do anything because I dont own the house. Two weeks later I'm STILL trying to get the landlords to get this damn thing fixed. I'm terrified that anything I do, like dishes, laundry, flushing the toilet or showering will cause it to back up again. If that happens I'm going to flip my lid and just go insane I think. I REFUSE to clean that shit (literally) up again.

I know now why I'm going to have to keep working out for the rest of my life. It was very apparent to me when I worked out for the first time in weeks today. My back- if I don't work out its just going to hurt forever. I think I was really close to having it mess up again. Thank goodness that I decided to get my ass in gear and workout. I am doing Turbo Fire. I dont have time to do the Zumba classes, as much as I want to. Most of the time I feel lucky if I can even do something in my own house. I know I can do the workouts for TF and when I follow the schedule I have had the most consistent results with it. I want to try to run someday, but I dont know if thats in the cards for me right now. Maybe I can work on it over the summer. It might be my goal to do a training program over the summer. I know I can do TF.

I'm not going to lie, it was hard, especially because I over slept by an hour and it put a lot of pressure on my morning to make sure that I got everything done. I havent been eating well at all lately, I have felt no motivation to cook at all. Maybe this is part of being depressed. I havent felt like this in a while. I know everyone has bouts of depression every person has different reasons. Mine usually happens in the spring, its usually school related. Its not every year or anything, but sometimes it happens. I have no motivation to do anything, all I want to do is sleep, and I dont eat right. I know a lot of it comes from just being overwhelmed. I also know that this can be managed with healthy eating, exercising and a lot of time management. Right now, I swear I could sleep all afternoon.

Speaking of sleeping all afternoon, I'll leave you with something amusing because this hasnt exactly been a super uplifting update. So I'm working on the outline/rough draft of my first year grad seminar paper and I needed another book because one of my books was shipped to my mom's house, which doesnt do me any good three hours away! I went to the library and got the book I needed and a couple more that might have something in them that I can use, and I sat down to read it, and then this girl comes up to a table with a friend, and they start chatting. So I move my stuff out of the archives to the bottom floor because there are librarians there and people arent loud downstairs. I sit down and crack open my book, and I keep getting distracted. Every time I look at my book my eyes start to get heavy and I start to get sleepy. So I moved outside into the sunshine and the stiff breeze so that maybe I wouldn't fall asleep again. And it worked!

Time

Time is one of those things that we never seem to have enough of. And the past two weeks have been entirely too stressful for words. I know it seems like I'm griping all the time, and if you think that, then I apologize. I dont mean to, its just incredibly hard to juggle everything that happens in life with trying to lose weight. Honestly I have to give props to all those women and men who do lose a ton of weight, especially in college. There is nothing worse for weight loss than stress, lack of free time, and stress. Stress means you dont get to sleep much, you hold on to weight, you eat for comfort. Which is all counterproductive to losing weight.

I can go into why I havent been blogging OR on myfitnesspal in one paragraph...

On Tuesday I had a faculty graduate review. This is a part of the year that all art grads go though where they put up all the work worth showing and stand in front of all the faculty in the art program and the other grad students and have their work critiqued. Its stressful. There are a lot of things that lead up to it, like having an artist statement that is worth showing to the faculty, having your work prepared, being able to talk about it, finding time to put it up on the wall. Mine was on Tuesday night. On top of all of this, I had another critique, and a test. Which may not seem like much, but it is. I couldnt sleep Monday night because I was worrying about it and couldnt get my brain to turn off. So I was sleep deprived on top of everything.

Needless to say, I didnt eat healthy. I didnt eat horribly, but its nothing to brag about. I havent worked out in a week and a half, and I'm more than ready to.

The sad thing is that I dont really feel relieved that its over, more... just happy that its done, but I know I have a ton more things to do that are going to take this events place. So here is to a better week next week. I gained two pounds in the past two weeks, but I'm also on my period. So I dont really know where I am weight wise. I know I feel gross. I am going home this weekend, and I think I might make my mom come and work out with me! Even if all we do is just walk.

My first week of challenge was kind of a bust, but I can try again next week.

Also, my sink backed up again today. Talk about disgusting. The plumber hasnt gotten out here yet, I'm just ready to get this shit (literally *gag*) cleaned up. Cant wait to mop... I'm lucky I dont have to work tonight because the school is closing Friday and Monday for the Easter holidays.

I know this isnt a long post, but I just wanted to let the world (mainly the bots that come a troll my blog) where I have been this past week.

Challenges

Life if full of challenges, duh. Sometimes getting out of bed for me is just a challenge in an of itself!

Lately I've been motivated everywhere but in the weight loss department (see all the gummy snacks I ate for an example of that). I can honestly say that this will never get any easier. But I know so often I focus on the big picture, yeah I need to lose more than 100 pounds, but I dont know what that's going to look like. So I need to focus on now. As my mom says, "this is a marathon, not a race." So I was thinking about doing a little challenge for myself.

I have stepped on the scale two weeks in a row only to see it go no where. I know I'm going to have to fight tooth and nail for every pound I want to lose, so I'm just going to give myself a challenge for next week- Eat all my calories, drink at the minimum a liter of water a day, and work out for 45-60 minutes three times during the week. Yes next week is going to be crazy hard to make this happen. I have 18 hour reviews, a test, stress, work and a million other things but I need to do this for me. I keep forgetting that this IS important.

If you want to take this challenge with me I think that would be great! I would love other people to do this with me, there is something to be said for a group of people doing something together and the encouragement that comes from it. I think I might make this into a month long challenge, adding something healthy to do each week.

Week 1: Work Out Challenge!
1. Exercise three times during the week
2. Eat all my calories
3. Drink a min. of 1 liter of water a day

I realize that it is Thursday, but I dont really care. If you want to start your challenge on Monday go for it, I'm going to get a jump start on mine. So think of this as a warning that your challenge (should you choose to accept it) starts on Monday. If you already do these things, well good for you! Do them with us next week and when I add something to the next week's challenge you can do it too!

(When I get a chance tomorrow I plan to have a cool little printable card that you can print and keep, or put up to help keep you motivated)

Good Luck! Please post on the comments below and let us know how you are doing!

Happy Hump Day!

Okay I realize that it's Wednesday and I'm just now getting around to posting. Bad bad Rachel.

I really have been eat, breathing and sleeping my project for my conceptual design class. But sadly tomorrow I'm going to have to go back to reality (which really I did today because I had to work) and go back to class, I didnt have to go Tuesday because it was a work day. The good news? I'm almost done sewing this thing together, which means I'll no longer be stabbed, jabbed, scraped or otherwise mutilated by pins. My house is a wreck of bits of blue jean material everywhere. My dining room has been turned into a sewing room, and the floor of my bedroom upstairs has been turned into a table, because it has the most floor space for me to lay the thing out, but the quilt (made of blue jeans if you didnt catch that) is awesome!

Axel helping the quilt

Yesterday I was feeling like complete and utter poo. Literally because I was sick. Not to mention that I have a bum tooth in my mouth that has kept me up at night aching.  I worked yesterday because I absolutely had to, but last night, I didn't go to the opening reception for our gallery because my face was swollen and I honestly didnt think I needed to be touching food people wanted to eat after having been on the toilet all day. TMI? I dont really care! Ha go read someone else's blog if you dont want to know about my stomach ache!

So I havent felt like doing much at all this week. I cant say I've been eating well, yesterday I ate saltine crackers, but the day before I didnt eat well at all. All I can say is that fast food just isnt good for me and its never as good as I think it will be, with the exception of starbuck's breakfast sandwiches. They are always amazing.

I guess sometimes we all need a few days off. I really think I just need to find a more manageable workout routine. I realize that I cant do Zumba every night of the week. That's my problem I throw myself into something and then am not able to manage it, or I get bored. So I was thinking maybe I need to do Zumba two nights out of the week and then on Friday's and Satruday I should do one of my workout DVDs. I just cant workout 5 times a week. Lately, I've been having a problem with staying up too late. I am in bed by 10:30 but dont go to sleep until 11:30 or 12 because I cant stop reading. Then I want to get up early to workout around 5:30, but I just cant manage to function on 5 hours of sleep. *sigh* this is only the third week of school, so I need to get a handle on my schedule.

I havent lost any weight. I went home this weekend and while I wasnt a horrible eater I sure didnt eat all that well. So that coupled with the no working out and everything I'm just happy I havent gained weight. But the rest of the day is still ahead and I plan on going to Zumba tonight, and getting a healthy meal cooked. I also need to eat every one of my calories. When I made the cabbage casserole I would feel full, but not have eaten many calories, so I need to make sure to eat them all. Because then I feel like I'm starving.

So sorry for the lack of communication the past few days. I will be sure to update again this week, and hopefully over the weekend. I hope that everyone is doing much better than I have lately in regards to eating right and exercising!

He likes to sleep in the crook of my legs

Here is an adorable puppy pic to make up for no posts!