Gotta get down

I've decided to start updating on Fridays.

Also, I should watch His Girl Friday.

Today I had a regular work day, but I had coffee this morning with Tiffany, who I love love. She's associate director for one of our programs and she's currently job hunting because our school cut funding. Sometimes she is my soul mate. Today she told me she might have Celiac's disease, which I don't have, and which I am sure I would hate.

I also had lunch with my co-worker bff Mallory, who I love. We had chicken gyros. She has the best life. She bought a new car on Friday, and she hooked on on Saturday, so we discussed these both in detail.

This week I went to Canada for a work conference. I basically hung out with librarians for three days, but is was fine. Toronto librarians? The best drinkers. I went to lots of inspiring sessions that made me love and hate my job. Canada is beautiful and full of friendly people\.

Day One.

I just did Day 1 of Body Revolution.

Basically, it's just disc 1 of phase 1, which is a 30 min workout with weights and a little cardio. My arms are already t-i-r-e-d but it was really really really fun! Each workout is its own disc, which I thought would be kind of annoying, but I kind of like it.

More to come!

Sunday check-in

Hey hey

This week my eating habits were ~pretty good~, and I actually feel like I'm back down to my pre-vacation food coma weight. My clothes are feeling better. I lifted weights on Monday. Also, this week Seth and I are moving into a new apartment, and we're been packing, loading, unloading, and unpacking at least once a day, twice on Friday, and twice yesterday. So, I'm going to go ahead and count that as working out. I'm not even going to talk about walking up and down stairs with heavy boxes.

I did get my new Jillian program in the mail! I opened the package and checked out the program and schedule and menu planning, and I am very excited. I was hoping to start tomorrow, but with both our apartments in crazy disarray, I don't know if I have the space to set it up and start.

We're moving for real on Thursday afternoon, and then the cable guy is coming on Friday, so that's it. I'm super duper excited! I love the chance to get a clean start in a fresh place, and to clean out and start over and make the place cute, you know?

Goals for the week: eat sensibly, buy a scale, plan my Jillian program, and not spend any money. :)

This happened.

I just ordered Jillian Michaels Body Revolution.

It looks like P90X, but by Jillian -- the workouts are only 30 mins instead of 90. Each phase has a bunch of workouts that include cardio, weights, and plyometrics (whatever that is), and each phase is hopefully different enough that I won't get bored!

It will probably take a week or two to get here, but when it does, I can keep you updated. By which I mean, hopefully keep myself accountable.

Yay!

Oops

So.
Let's try this again, shall we?

I haven't done a good job of updating because I keep waiting to update with something good, instead of just tracking my fat days.
I spent a few weeks (about 3) on the Women's Health diet, where I was eating super healthy and feeling awesome. I was exercising 3-4 times a week, and although I felt great, I didn't see much progress in terms of my body looking or feeling different. Then, I had sort of a busy week and my diet fell apart.
And then I spent two weeks in Louisiana.

Louisiana food is the best food on the planet. Period. I spent two weeks straight eating my favorite things with my favorite people, and I don't regret any second of it. However, I did not exercise much, and now my body is totally out of whack. Of course, this makes me all realize in retrospect just how well I had been doing before my trip without realizing it.

Since coming back from the trip, I'm working hard to eat healthfully again (lean proteins, fresh fruits and veggies, light versions of everything else). I also had a pretty bad cold this last week, probably due to travel, and had almost no appetite thanks to all the antihistamines I was taking. Now, I'm finally feeling better, and ready to eat normally. I even went jogging in my (very hilly) neighborhood yesterday because the weather was gorgeous.

So, my goal for this week is to work out at least 3 times, and to eat sensibly every day. That's it. I'm read to ease back into a healthy routine. My long term goal is to lose 10lbs in the next three months. Pretty simple.

I also realized two things about my exercise self. One, is that I had exercising, and I need lots of variety to keep doing it. Two, exercise is freaking hard, and NOT FUN. I keep waiting thinking I will be in the mood or excited about getting down to it. But no, the truth is that working out is WORK. It is not fun. It's just a job, like everything else in life. Everyone has to do what they need to do to get themselves where they need to be, and I'm really freaking tired of looking fat in everything I own.

Check-in

My eating habits were super good this week. For the eating plan I'm trying, I decided to go ahead and just eat everything that was recommended exactly like they said. Normally, I would add a few things here and there, or make swaps for things that I thought were close, but obvi that's not the point, and probably why it hasn't worked in the past for me. The foods and dishes I made this week were things like 4oz of chicken breast with salt and pepper, with a spinach salad with tomato, low fat feta, and oil and vinegar. Honestly, everything I've made so far as been DELICIOUS, no joke. Even steamed artichokes WITHOUT dipping the leaves in butter (who knew??) and only using lemon and salt and pepper.

I did cheat a few times, though. The diet wanted me to make shrimp and pasta, but the shrimp was freaking expensive so I didn't buy it during the last shopping trip, so we just ordered pizza. :) But I got a veggie pizza and only ate a few, plus a salad. And I also went to happy hour an had beer, and made a vodka cocktail last night after (healthy) dinner. So...hit and miss I guess.

Every dinner recipe features a different protein so far (this week: beef, salmon, pork, chicken, sausage), so Seth calls it the Meat Carousel diet.

I haven't weighed myself for the week, because I don't own a scale (and I'm nervous). But I took my measurements, and I lost about an inch off my waist, and a half inch off my booty. Yay! I noticed that I also have a TON more energy now. I think it's partly because I was super lazy over the break, and partly because work is CRAZY right now, so I have to keep up.

Anyhoo, here's what's going on now:
1. Work is bananas. School started last week, and students are coming by the office in droves trying to sign up for tutoring. We started taking appointments on Thursday, and the first tutoring sessions start tomorrow morning, bright and early. I have to make sure everyone gets an appointment and starts tutoring in a reasonable amount of time. With our director out on maternity leave, it definitely puts a bit more pressure on everyone else to step it up. In the past, I knew that if something crazy came up, or if something fell through the cracks, she would help us keep it together. With her out, we all have to be extra careful about getting everything done, and we're all helping each other, but it's one less set of eyes and hands. Jesus take the wheel.

2. We're going home!! Thanks to a super generous contribution from Kacie's Mom, Seth and I are heading down to Louisiana next month. SO EXCITED!! I already have a huge list of things I must must see and do and eat, so hopefully we'll get everything in. We're spending about a week in Shreve, then a week in Lake Charles, and eating everything in between. Plus, it's Mardi Gras, which you can't beat, ever.

If one of you is near a Sonic, please go eat a sonic burger with mustard, ched'r peppers, and route 44 cherry limeade for me, please. Thanks.

Fitness

January 2 is the busiest day of the year at the gym.

Instead of making my healthy changes part of a New Years' resolution, I want to use it to start setting mini-goals for myself. Today I'm starting a new meal plan that I found through Women's Health magazine (which I love love love), and a super flexible workout plan that is gym-optional. It's a combo of weight training and cardio, with days built in for additional anything-goes workouts like yoga or spinning or piloxing or whatever I want.

For the record, I really wish my gym had piloxing, because it looks awesome.

So, my first short goal is to do the first week of this program and lose ONE pound. Or, like, half an inch off my belly. My first big goal is to lose at least 6 lbs by the end of this 6-week plan. That's it. I just want to find something stick-to-able, and learn how to apply self-motivation and not-give-up-ed-ness.

Anyway, I'll try not to blog too much with this-is-what-I-ate-today posts, or whining about feeling fat, or embarrassing before and after tummy photos. Oh, no.

But I did make a pinterest fitspo board if you want to know what I'm going for.

Laters!