Good day yesterday and off to a good start today!

So, I had a good day yesterday...great workout last night and I ate fairly well throught the day. I felt like I snacked a little way too much yesterday, but I made healthy choices for everything, so I guess that's not so bad. I've decided to increase my calorie intake to about 1400 per day and keep my calorie burn goal at 3200. This should give me an average weight loss of 2-3 pounds per week - I would definitely be happy with that! I know I will be more likely to reach my goal if I am realistic about what I can do forever. Eating less than 1000 calories a day is not something I feel like I could stick to long-term, nor is it very healthy. I've got to remember that this is not a "diet" - it is a complete life change and nothing that I am doing is temporary.

My scale is still telling me the same thing almost everyday...still at -23 lbs...better than going up though! I'm going to attempt to stay off of it for a few days - we'll see how that goes!

I've been terrible...

at blogging lately. After my last post, I had every intention of getting back to blogging everyday and staying on track, but life got in the way and threw me off a little...again. I'm not going to go on and on about it...all I can say is I'm getting back to work today. I've got my BodyBugg on and I'm ready to get this weight loss going again. So, I'm back to where I left off...23 pounds gone! I'm going to Key West easter weekend, so I am setting a mini-goal to lose 15 pounds before I get there. Also, I'm going to get back to listing my food and calories at the end of the day. Ok, so that's the game plan...and I promise it won't be a week before I post again! :)

I'm back!

Well, I have to admit...I been kind of slacking on my plan, my blog, and my exercise lately. My last few posts were about how I was "getting back on track" and getting "back to work." My intentions were good and sincere with every post, but I kept having to "re-start" every couple of days. My motivation didn't go away completely, but, let's just say, it took a mini-vacation. I was out of town every weekend for a month, and just couldn't seem to get completely refocused during the week. Finally, this weekend I was at home, and what did I decide to do on Friday night and Saturday????? I had a date...with my couch...all. day. long.
So sad. I was completely lazy. I stayed in my pajamas and watched movies all day. Every time I would start a new movie, I would tell myself, "after this one, I'm getting dressed and going to the gym..." Lies. All lies.

There is some good news in all of this:

1) After a girls weekend in Austin, two weekends of Mardi Gras in New Orleans, and a St. Patrick's day my weight stayed pretty much the same. I fluctuated a couple of pounds here and there, but for the most part, I stayed the same. Apparently, I'm making better choices and eating less without really realizing it.

2) I'm back on track today (for good this time).

3) In all of the weeks that I felt like I had gotten completely off track, I still made it to the gym at least 2 times...most of the time it was 3 or 4 times.

So, I feel like even though I got off track a little, I really didn't un-do any of my progress. I started with a clean slate today. I woke up this morning, put on the bodybugg, ate healthy and had a good workout at the gym. The only thing I didn't do today was record my food on the bodybugg website. I am going to make sure I get back in that habit tomorrow...when I don't record what I am eating, I've noticed that I am much more likely to cheat a little...like have a few m&m's from my co-worker's evil candy dispenser, or have a cookie that someone put in our break room...I didn't have any of this today - but last week was a different story.

Great Day!

Today was good...it started off good and it ended good! I feel like I'm back on track and ready to starting losing some pounds again. I was pleasantly surprise this morning when I stepped on the scale and I had gained one pound. Normally, gaining any weight at all would be disappointing, but after being in New Orleans for five days, and participating in the Mardi Gras festivities, I expected to see a much larger gain. I guess I am starting to eat less without really realizing it.

I got back on track with my eating today and got back to drinking lots of water (I kinda slacked on that this past weekend). Also, I went to the gym tonight and got a good workout in...it wasn't a super long one, but I worked up a good sweat and burned a little over 400 calories. Tomorrow, I will be headed back to New Orleans after work but I am going to make healthier choices this weekend and try to get a little exercise while I'm there! :)

Getting back on track...

Ugghhh! I have got to get with it! These past few weeks have been really tough...and have really stalled my progress. I knew all the Mardi Gras temptation would be hard to pass up...and it was. I was able to make some good choices here and there, but also made some not so good choices too. I guess life happens sometimes and you just have to find a balance with enjoying life and staying on track. Tomorrow is a new day - back to healthy eating and exercising. I'm headed back to New Orleans this weekend, but it will be a much more relaxed trip. I'm going to make smarter choices and not over-indulge. I'm going to get in some good workouts between now and this weekend, and make sure a get a few good walks in while I'm there. Also, I'm going to blog daily, instead of leaving all of my readers in the cold for the weekend, then, come next week, it's back to some hard workouts and no more slip-ups for awhile! :)

Those smaller victories...

Today I chose to eat a small salad as a snack instead of a delicious bag of cheetos.

Cherice      1
Cheetos     0

Go me!

Late Night Posting...

I'm going to keep it short tonight because I need to be asleep like an hour ago! Anyways...today was a good day. My eating was good and I had a good workout tonight. I tried to keep my calories low during the day because I knew my dinner would be a little higher in cals than normal. My friend, Dana, came over tonight to work on some hats for Mardi Gras, so we picked up some dinner to eat while we worked. I had a sushi roll and some shrimp fried rice...sooo yummy! Hopefully the sodium won't kill me on the scale tomorrow, but I drink a ton of water today so I should be fine.

I promise I will have a much more interesting post tomorrow. Goodnight everyone!

Just a Temporary Change...

in honor of Mardi Gras! Decided to be a little festive on my blog today! Happy Mardi Gras, Y'all!

Overcoming Struggles...

Well, today definitely had it's fair share of struggles... the good news is that it ended much better than I thought it would. I started the morning off HONG-RY!!! Seriously, I felt like I was starving (even though I know that would be impossible with the amount of body fat I'm carrying around...lol)...I just woke up with the empty, rumbling stomach feeling. My normal breakfast did not sound good, so I thought about going to Subway to get one of those new breakfast flatbreads. After some contemplating, I chose to just eat my Michaelina's breakfast muffin (which has about half the calories.) Good choice, right? Wrong. I wasn't satisfied...at all. So, the snacking began. First it was a bag of 100 calorie popcorn, then a few popchips...then a Jell-o mousse / pudding thingy...then finally, it was time for lunch, where I did make the trip to subway. I got a flatbread sandwich with turkey and veggies, but decided to add the cheese...it's only 50 extra calories though, so no biggie -- no biggie if I didn't feel like eating everything in sight!!! After lunch I went back to the Popchips and had about 3/4 of a serving...a little later, I had another mousse thingy...then I had a few mini cookies that have been hanging out in our break room -- they're from Germany, I think...all the info looks like it's in German to me, so who knows what the calorie count was for those...they are really small though (like very small bite-size cookies), and I only had three, so maybe they weren't so bad. Anyways, after that I found some fruit snacks hiding in my desk and finished what was left of those. Ugh....  I know that most of what I ate wasn't necessarily "bad" food, but it's all about quantity, and my quantity of food today was way over what it should be.

It didn't stop there either. When I got home from work, I realized that I needed to go to the grocery store. I hate to grocery shop while hungry (yes, at that point I still felt hungry...) so I decided to have another snack. I heated up some Lean Cuisine spring rolls (200 cals) and then took off to the store to get a few things. For dinner I made some whole grain pasta with chicken breast, sun-dried tomatoes, spinach, goat cheese and onions in a reduced balsamic sauce. It was delicious...so delicious that I had to have TWO servings!!! Aggghhhhhh! What was wrong with me??? Not to mention that I completely forgot to measure out my dry pasta by servings so I could figure out the calorie content.

MY STOMACH WANTED ALL THIS JUNK...

Okay, so after Eat-Fest 2011, I decided to get my butt to the gym. Starting my workout was tough -- I'm sure I have the carb-overload to thank for that. I felt like I could feel all the crap I ate today just bouncing around in my stomach...I felt tired and sluggish and thought I would never get through the hour workout I had planned. I was watching The Biggest Loser and started to really get into it. Before I knew it, 30 minutes had passed and I was feeling good. That crappy feeling had gone away and I got a burst of energy. I finished watching the show and had completed 50 minutes on the elliptical. After that, I did several sets of lunges and squats and also did some upper body strength training. I worked up a good sweat and finished my workout in about an hour and 15 minutes.

Even though my eating was a little out of control today, I am proud of myself for not just giving in completely. I could have easily went even more overboard than I did...those Cheetos in the vending machine were screaming at me today!!! I snacked way too much, but still stuck to my healthy foods when doing so....and, most importantly, I didn't stay on the couch tonight like I wanted to. I made myself get up and go to the gym! I made myself finish my workout and pushed myself to work hard during it! So, all in all, I pretty proud of myself today and I feel like this little bump in the road is only going to make me stronger! :)