I want to blog my feelings today.  I’m not having a good morning so far.  And although most of you will laugh at my reasons why (and I probably will laugh too……down the road), today did just not get off to a good start.  I’m going to break it down nice and easy for you… here’s what happened.

• Didn’t want to get out of bed this morning, therefore putting me 10 min behind schedule
• Realized I forgot ALL of my make-up at work last night (brought it to work yesterday to do a touch up before going out)
• Bangs…. I love them, but hate them at the same time.  They’re too long, and just weren’t working today.  Welcome bobby pin and big forehead
• Wasn’t impressed with my outfit at all, especially when the hem fell out of my pants. Gotta find something new to wear. (now there are clothes everywhere)
• Making breakfast… pour almond breeze into pot with quinoa.  Almond breeze is chunky bad.
• Forgot to pack gym clothes… now running around like a maniac. I hate working out in pants…but guess who didn’t shave her legs today.  Pants it is.
• My shoes hurt
• TTC was special as usual.  have to wait 10-15 minutes before I can sardine myself onto a packed train.  Only to be beside a girl who is carrying about 5 bags, huffing, puffing and whining. Seriously… we all know it’s bad.  No need to cry. Perhaps she was having a bad day too.
• And on top of it all… I feel like a whale today.

So there you have it.  My bad morning so far.  I’m feeling a little better now that I’ve vented!  Now I just need to put a plan in place so this all doesn’t happen again.  I know we’ve all had these days (I’ve had many). What did your bad day look like?

How was everyone’s weekend?  I had a pretty crazy weekend, so much on the go right now. 

On Friday I was so lucky to have my hair coloured and styled at Civello as a birthday gift from my hubby-to-be.  It was long overdue (not the gift, but the hair!).  After that we got some burrito bowls from Chipotle Mexican Grill to take home for dinner.  I wish I took a picture because these things are huge!  They’re filled with rice, fajita peppers and onions, chicken, lettuce, salsa, cheese and sour cream. I ate about half–and it was delicious!

Saturday we went to The Bay to start our wedding gift registry.  Ughhh… it’s not as fun as it seems!  Very tiring.  And I felt bad for picking some things that I thought were too expensive.  I found it really hard not to price shop when picking the items.  It took us two hours, and we’re not even half done yet.  We we’re exhausted at the end!  After that, we met up with one of our friends for lunch at Jack Astor’s (bad). We shared nachos, and each had a soup.

Sunday I had to work at DUNNING from 11-5.  It was my first shift back working there in quite some time. I ate breakfast before I went, and had a few healthy snacks (crackers, luna bar) while there.  I didn’t have lunch though   Partly because I knew Brad was making me a “birthday dinner”.  We had my favourite…pasta and caesar salad.  Again…bad.  It was for my birthday! Come on!  Oh.. and to top it off he made me these for dessert!

That’s right!  I got smores for my dessert!  They were so yummy!  My favourite!  But with all that birthday indulgence, I feel gross.  Time to get back to normal around here.

So today is Monday, and that means it’s weigh-in day!  eeek!  I almost didn’t weigh-in because I was scared.  I knew I had indulged over the weekend, and my only exercise was 90 minutes of Bikram Yoga. (oh.. that’s another story!).  So needless to say, I was expecting a gain.  Last week I was at 179.8 and I was terrified to see 180 on the scale.  It’s also TOM this week, so we all know that never helps!  But….. I stepped on anyway.  No more skipping weigh-ins for this gal!  I ended up being down 0.8 lbs to 179.0.  I’ll take it!  I plugged it in to WW online tracker right away.

So, with that weigh-in I’m feeling pretty good today!  But I’m trying to keep myself from the “ok.. start diet on birthday” mindset.  I’m taking it one day at a time until I meet my goal. No start overs.  Instead I’m going to try to set new and different goals for myself each week to help keep myself motivated.  This week my goals are:

• Activity x4 (hot yoga, attack, combat or weights)
• Stay on plan 100% and track everything! including the weekends!
• Stick to my meal plan as much as possible or make healthy decisions when faced with evil vs. good
• Try a new clean recipe
• Relax!  Stress=weight gain

So that’s it!  I hope everyone had a good weigh-in this week (if Monday is your day). What are your goals for this week?  How do you plan on accomplishing them?

Julie

Lets start with school. I finished up last semester’s two courses just a couple of weeks ago and (insert bragging here) I finished both courses at the top of my class! woot!. That made me feel pretty good. Right after that Brad and I headed out to Vegas for vacation where we joined one of my closest friend and her husband to celebrate her 30th birthday. We had an amazing time, and it felt nice to finally be able to relax! Oh, and one other little minor event that happened since I’ve been away…..

I got ENGAGED! yay!!!

So there you have it. My excuses! I’m back now, with some new motivation, and some new goals. I hope you guys will be able to help me out along the way!

So what could be better motivation to get into shape than getting engaged?  I recently went and tried on some wedding gowns and let me tell you, there is some serious work to do!  We are getting married on May 27, 2011. So I have 263 days to whittle my waist, tone my arms and back, and lose some of that extra junk in my trunk.  Lets consider this Day 1.

My meal plan for today is:

B: 1/3 cup whole grain oats
1/3 cup unsweetened vanilla almond breeze
1/2 cup water
2 tsp natural peanut butter
1/4 frozen blueberries
1/4 cup Yogi Mountain Blueberry Flax Granola Crisps (seriously….so yummy!)

S: 1 medium banana

L: 1 cup turkey chili (made with lean ground turkey, tomatoes, veggies, kidney beans, and chili seasoning)
1 1/2 cups garden salad
1 Tbsp calorie-wise french salad dressing
1 medium tangerine

S: (pre-workout)
1/2 can flaked white tuna, mixed with celery, onion, and 1 Tbsp fat-free Miracle Whip
1/2 whole wheat Weight Watchers pita

Activity: 1 hour Body Attack class (seriously killer!… this class burns between 700-900 calories!)

Had to sneak in a post-activity/pre-dinner snack! I was starving: mixed fruit

D: 1 multi-grain lemon herb crusted tilapia fillet (Yes, I’m trying to do fish again, and as seen above…now eating tuna!)
1 cup cooked carrots
1 cup garden salad
1/2 Tbsp calorie-wise sun-dried tomato and oregano dressing

So with that… Day 1 down, 262 to go!  I’m excited about all of the new things happening in my life.  I really have to make an effort to relax, and not get stressed out about everything that is going on.  I scored a great deal at a local Bikram Yoga studio here in Toronto.  I got 20 classes for $20! A great deal considering each class is usually $22 on its own.  The only catch is that I have to use them within 60 days!  That’s a lot of hot yoga!  I’ve also never done hot yoga before, so I have no idea what to expect.  Everyone I know who’s taken classes have only ever said good things, so I’m looking forward to it.  Does anyone have tips for me?

Hope everyone had a great long weekend!

Julie

Sorry for the lack of updates, so much going on right now, and unfortunately blogging always seems get the back burner. (What is it against the “back burner”?… I use it, I like it).  So what have I been up to?  Well, let me tell you!  First off, I’m back at school part-time.  This is taking up more time and brain power than I thought. It’s been a long time since I’ve done school work.  It’s really interesting stuff, but I’m so tight for time to do anything these days. I had to set up an hourly schedule for each day to map out my time. Now let’s just see if I can stick to it!

Secondly, last week my boyfriend Brad was away on business, so I was on my own. Luckily, being so busy made the week fly by! Usually Brad helps me out when I’m tight for time by making lunches in the morning, prepping dinner if I’m at the gym or going to be home late, and…. he’s the cleanest person I know, so condo chores never fall behind.  So, on top of my hectic week, I had those tasks piled on.  Boo hoo… poor me.  I know.

I did…. lose 1 pound last week!  woot.  Although, I peeked at the scale mid-week, and I was down 3.  Damn weekend of ice cream, and junk food bingeing.  Oh well, I’m moving on, and celebrating my 1 pound loss.

With all that going on, my gym routine has eased off a bit, but I’m still making the best effort to get in a workout whenever I can.  Last Sunday I ran a 10k with my sister in support of the Brain Tumor Foundation (my sister is a brain tumor survivor, and this marked her 1 year tumor free).  It was awesome.  We weren’t concerned with our finish time, and did the whole run, walk, run, walk routine.  I really would have liked to run more than I did, but again….numb feet = gotta stop. It was nice to get out and do this with her and Jodie (my sister’s BFF)!  It was great to see the all the survivors who were participating.  They all wore blue shirts to stand out from the rest of us. This picture is brutal, but I thought I’d show it to you all anyway!  What’s horrible, is that this is the “before” race picture. (p.s. check out the guy in the background….awesome!)

I’ve been sticking to my eating plan for the most part.  I’ll own up to having my share of some Cold Stone Creamery ice cream this past weekend.  It is honestly the best ice cream I’ve had….ever!  I had the cake batter flavour.  Delish.  Oh… and after eating it I felt soooo sick. So, I won’t be having that for a while.  Why is it that even though you know something is going to make you feel sick or bad for eating it, you crave it anyway?  I have this problem with chocolate, pizza, chips, and ice cream.  Ok… pretty much anything that isn’t good for me.

So, I promise to keep updating you this week. I’ve scheduled it in to my hourly/weekly/monthly calendar! I’ll leave you guys with some of my healthier eats.

]]> http://30togo.wordpress.com/2010/05/11/im-alive-but-barely/feed/ 0 babyjewels1 z IMG_0047 IMG_0002 IMG_0058 IMG_0028 IMG_0053 IMG_0062 http://30togo.wordpress.com/2010/04/23/sometimes-youre-just-going-to-be-that-annoying-person/ http://30togo.wordpress.com/2010/04/23/sometimes-youre-just-going-to-be-that-annoying-person/#comments Fri, 23 Apr 2010 14:54:26 +0000 Julie Watson http://30togo.wordpress.com/?p=447 ]]> You know the one.  At the restaurant picking apart the menu, asking for special requests: sauce on the side, grilled only, etc…  But you know what, it’s fine.  Sometimes you have too.  Like tonight I had a dinner meeting at The Keg with a client to discuss possibilities of me doing some freelance work for their company. I absolutely LOVE The Keg, especially the cheesy garlic toast, and the caesar salad – I could live off of those two items.  However tonight those certainly were not an option. You’ll see what I ended up ordering below.

I didn’t end up waking up this morning for the gym like I had planned.  I seriously struggle with getting out of bed. I wasn’t tired when my alarm went off at 5:00, just warm and cozy – and that was enough for me to neglect my workout plan. Tsk Tsk…  I know.  I’ll have to make it up somehow. Maybe I’ll walk home from work tomorrow.

Today’s eats included:

B: 360 Calories
1/4 cup President’s Choice organic oats
1/2 cup unsweetened vanilla Almond Breeze
1 Tbsp natural peanut butter
1/4 cup frozen blueberries
1/4 cup Kashi Go Lean cereal (ok a couple of Shreddies found their way in too)
and of course – my favourite… 1 Tall Extra-hot Skinny Vanilla Latte from Starbucks

L: 320 calories
1/2 whole wheat pita
Egg salad (1 egg, 2 egg whites, 1 Tbsp fat-free Miracle Whip, chopped celery and onion)
lettuce and cucumber slices
1 cup Campbell’s roasted red pepper soup

S: 215 calories
1 apple (looks really brown in the picture)
1 yogurt
1 cup skim milk

D: at The Keg (roughly 685 calories)

Ok… so I ordered the Thai Chicken.  I specifically asked for the Thai sauce to be on the side (which the waiter had no problem with) and for double vegetables instead of garlic mashed potatoes.  When my meal was brought out – as you can see there was soooo much sauce ALL over it!  Not even the regular amount, but more than usual.  I was already getting a lot of slack from my dining mate about being so picky so I didn’t send it back.  So what you see in the picture isn’t exactly what I ate.  Here’s what I did. I cut the chicken in half because it was clearly 2 servings and scraped off as much sauce as possible.  I ate mostly the steamed veggies, and not the sautéed ones.  Just looking at this picture makes me feel sick….

And….. that wasn’t the end of it.  Again, getting a lot of slack for not ordering steak at The Keg, and not “enjoying my food”, dessert was insisted upon…grrrrrr.  Why are some people food pushers?  I really didn’t want to make things awkward so I had a few spoonfuls of ice cream. Probably 400 calories. And I felt so gross after… I kinda failed at this dinner even though I brought my best intentions. 

Total calories for today:  About 1985!  Way over my 1200-1300 allowance.  Looks like I’ll be having a couple dates with “Gym” this weekend.

I ran 7km last night numb feet in all.  It felt great!  I’m starting to get my stride back.  It’s so hard to start-up again after taking time off.  Stupid lazy me….  Anyway, it took me exactly 1 hour.  I ran on the treadmill, and I find that when doing so I actually run slower than I would if I were running outside.  I guess it’s because it’s fixed at a certain speed and when running outside I’m running at a natural pace.

Before running I had a seriously delicious dinner.  I made a yummy pork tenderloin, smashed potatoes, and roasted peppers. I had – to be exact:

100 g pork tenderloin (marinated in a mesquite seasoning)
1 cup of smashed potatoes (potatoes, dill pickle, chives, red onion, skim milk) This was my treat!  It was so good!
1 cup roasted peppers (these cooked in the same pan as the tenderloin)

After my run I did some good stretching while watching The Biggest Loser. I felt so bad for Oneal.  Poor guy hurts himself, gets a 1 pound disadvantage at the weigh-in, and to top it off , loses his brother in the same week.  Ouch.  I’m not usually a big Oneal fan as I find him to be a little dramatic, but how cute was he when he wanted to do the push-ups on the stands like Sam and Koli did!  I wasn’t sad to see Victoria go.  I think she started too late in the game.

Anyone else think Sam is seriously jacked now?  His arms are huge and he’s skinny! Good for him!

When I got in I had some breakfast – a slice of sprouted whole grain toast with natural cinnamon raisin pb… Mmmmm!

I stocked up on so many veggies and fruit at the grocery store today. Including fennel which ive never had, but I wanted to try something new! And….. I bought some more fish! This time tilapia.

For lunch I had an amazing microwaved omelette with:
1 egg
2 egg whites
1 oz cheese
Chopped onions
Chopped chives
2 slices low-fat ham
I sided it with some garden salad and a nice big glass of water with lemon.

Hope you’re all having a great weekend! Don’t stop blogging……I need something to read today!

After reading countless health books, it has pretty much been drilled into my head that fish has loads of health benefits, and for me especially, it’s a great source of lean protein. Which I don’t get nearly enough of. The problem is – I don’t like fish.  I don’t know why because I used to eat it when I was younger all the time however, it was either a fish stick or heavily battered with a side of yummy fries!

In the past, i’ve forced myself to like certain foods that I thought I didn’t like, for example: sweet potatoes, yogurt, spinach, cranberries, whole wheat bread etc… So I can force myself to like fish right?  Well… the truth is I just don’t know if I can do it.  I ate the tiniest piece of haddock seasoned with lemon and dill (see picture below), with sweet potato and tonnes of steamed veg. Any bites of the fish I took were accompanied by something else on my plate to try to mask the taste.  I don’t know why I can’t do fish… it’s all mental. 

Anyway this is how I ate it:

The marinade I created had a bit of fat-free miracle whip, fresh lemon juice and zest, fresh dill.  I guess it wasn’t too bad on the taste buds, but I don’t think I’ll be making a habit of eating it daily, or weekly for that matter.

How do you season your fish?  Anyone else struggle with the delicacies of the ocean?

I’ve been eating good the last few days.  I had a bad binge on the weekend, but happy to be back on track. I’ve been giving up way to easily lately.  I know this weight-loss ordeal is hard, but wow…it’s 10x harder when you’ve already lost weight, put it back on, and now trying to lose it again.

Anyway… just thought I’d share that delight of a picture.  I’m going to post it on my fridge to remind me of my disgust.  ughhh…..

We usually spend Sunday evenings creating our meal planner for the week.  This makes our lives (mostly Brad’s) so much easier during the week, because we’re never stuck wondering “What should we do for dinner”.  Ok, sometimes you forget what you put on the planner, and you just may not be feeling that meal at that moment so from time to time we swap meals. Still… it’s a proven life-saving tool! On this particular version I even had a row to enter my WW points. If I filled this out electronically in excel, it would total up all my points for the day and the week for me.  Alas… I usually filled it out by hand.

Anyway, this whole post stems from my forgetfulness over the last two days.  Yesterday I was just about ready to leave work after changing into my workout gear to head to Body Combat when I realized that I forgot to pack socks!  Ahhhh!  You can’t do Body Combat in bare feet.  So I missed out on that.

And then this morning, I slept in and was running around all morning trying to get stuff together. We didn’t have our meal planner done this week so Brad didn’t know what I needed for breakfast and lunch (yes he’s the best boyfriend ever and makes my lunch for me!). So I told him just to pack me a bunch of snacks like fruit, yogurt, etc..  after all, it’s a short day at work today because of the long weekend. So he packed it all up, and I forgot it!  Ahhh… no breakfast, no snacks, no lunch… now that’s a problem.

I ended up having a bagel from Tim Hortons with my tea.  A lot of calories, I know, but it does keep me full for quite a while. I’ll try to find some healthy eats somewhere for lunch. I could get a salad from Freshii, but it costs like $10!  Outrageous!

So, how do YOU stay organized and prepared for the day ahead?  Does anyone else stick to a firm schedule or do you make decisions as you go? Any tips or tricks would be greatly appreciated

Tonight I’m going to a Leafs game with an old friend, and we’re planning on having dinner first. I’m struggling with where to go, and what to eat.  Of course there will be beer at the game, but at the expensive price tag – I’ll be sure to stick to just one!

Hope everyone has a great, sun-filled Easter weekend