Monday Blahs

Monday afternoon bootcamp

So I was a very bad girl this morning and skipped morning bootcamp.  I woke up at 6:00 am and then let the negative side of me come through.  My back was bothering me and the thought of an intense cardio and core circuit just wasn't appealing.  I know we need to keep the numbers up to keep the class from being cancelled, but I had slept poorly and just wanted 2 more hours of sleep.

I ended up getting out of bed at 8:10 am.  *sigh*

I did however go to afternoon bootcamp and burned my 478 calories!  My shins were bothering me like mad so I was happy with the result.  We had the new trainer again and he totally cracks me up ~ he repeats all of his motivational sayings at least twice.  It both annoys me and makes me laugh at the same time:  "Come guys keep it up, keep it up" or "Let's get moving, let's get moving" in a monotone voice.  He is a good trainer I think, just young and inexperienced.  He'll get his trainer legs soon!

I weighed in this morning at 239.4, so I'm still below 240 for the 3rd week in a row which means I can update the very first item on my 101 things to to in 1001 days page to be complete!   I am stoked.  However, it also means I probably would have lost serious weight last week if I could have kept the chocolate and Reese Puff's cereal addition monster under control.  I did well until Saturday night, Sunday morning where I just grazed on everything including way too much chocolate, the semi-baked cake, and 3 massive bowls of cereal.

I'm trying to get back on track with food by planning all my meals and having them all laid out.  I batched cooked the protein / veggie portion for 8 meals (M-Th) and then will allow myself a cheat meal on Friday since I have my personal training session that day.  My husband also arrives back in town Friday night so I'm super excited about that!  I have him for a week before he goes back for his summer class.  We'll probably end up going out for sushi Friday night.  Since I eat mainly the sashimi with a side of edaname, I should be good for food.  Just to control that boredom eating and then I'll be set.

What tricks do people employ to avoid the boredom eating?  I try to keep myself busy at home and if I had more of a social life and more friends I can see myself going out more.  But I seriously heart me some TV and tend to want to graze on food while watching.  I don't buy most of the junk food, but anything can be overeaten ~ including the "healthy" stuff.  Too much fruit isn't a good thing and too many veggies make my tummy unhappy.

I've decided to make myself some goals this week to keep my focus:

Weight Goal: Lose 2 lbs.
Non-Scale Health / Fitness Goal: Burn a total of 3500 calories this week ~ that averages to 500 a day and if I keep my workout schedule I should be able to do this.
Personal Goal: Finish cleaning / organising the house so when the hubby comes home we can enjoy non-housework stuff. 

Question: What are your goals for this week?

As luck will have it...

I'm lucky, I won't deny it, with the support and resources I have available to make my lifestyle change.

I work for an amazing company where there is a free gym in our building.  Not only can we access the gym daily from 6 am to 10 pm, the company also pays for personal trainers to come in and host bootcamp and circuit training classes FREE for the employees.  Yes, free!!

And yet, I'm still fat.  The company gym has been open for 3 1/2 years and I'm the same weight I was when the gym first opened.  However, I don't look a gift horse in the mouth, (what the heck does that even mean?) and my fitness and health are 100 times better.  I can run laps around the gym without stopping to walk, the elliptical no longer makes me want to cry.  I still hate running the stairs, but I can do it.  I have become very intimate with every piece of equipment in that gym and it has been graced with my sweat.  I have taken almost every class available to me and become friends with the trainers.  I look forward to going to the gym on a regular basis.  I laugh more inside that stupid room than I do at my desk!

Yet, I'm still fat.

That is not my company's fault, for they have given me every opportunity to lose weight (wait (haha) until I tell you about the Biggest Loser style competitions!) My weight is my fault.  My food has been hit and miss ~ I've yo-yo dieted so much that I have next to no metabolism.  For me to loose a pound, I have to work twice as hard and eat half as much as my healthier co-workers.

But I'm not giving up.

I've become quiet close with one of the trainers who is also a nutritionist.  Combining the free bootcamps, with personal training sessions (paid by me) every other week with the trainer, I'm getting a handle on what food combinations work for me.   In the middle of January I went on a restricted diet that limited my calorie intake to 1000 - 1200 calories a day after we tried many combinations over the previous year.  My food was boring.  BORING!

Here was my daily menu:

Breakfast 
1/4 cup steel-cut oatmeal
3-4 egg whites
1 serving fruit (generally 2 kiwis or 1 cup berries)


Snack
1 cup grapes


Lunch
2 cups spinach
150 grams chicken breast (baked, stir fried with herbs and seasoning)
1 cup berries (generally the frozen berry mix from Costco so the juices make a dressing)


Snack
1 cup sugar snap peas
1 fibre one brownie


Dinner
1 red pepper - raw, cut in slices
150 grams chicken
1 cup spinach
Small carb serving (generally I used 1 90 calorie 5 g fibre pita bun, or a 100 calorie high fibre wrap)


Evening Snack
*80 calories dark chocolate

* the nutritionist didn't recommend this!
I LOVE chocolate, 50 lbs of my fat is from chocolate alone.  There is no way I could live with the diet for so long if I couldn't have chocolate.

So technically I wasn't supposed to have it, but I did anyway. I figured it was worth it to keep my sanity.  I found these amazing Lindt chocolate balls where I can have 3 of them for only 80 calories.  Since I snacked in the evening like most people, I would play a game with myself so I wouldn't snack.  I would dole out those chocolate eggs at a rate of one per hour.  I got one at 8 pm, 9 pm, and 10pm as a reward for not snacking and for keeping with the diet.

And even with a few bumps here and there, I'm keeping with that restricted food plan.  I'm now allowed 1600 calories a day and generally stay at 1400 unless I go a little nuts with the chocolate.  I'm down almost 20 lbs from where I started 12 weeks ago.  I think if I keep this up, if I eat like this 80% of the time and keep the pizza and cookie dough to 20% of the time, one year from now, all the free stuff I'm lucky enough to have at work, will have paid off and I will be in one-derland!

* As a footnote, please remember I'm not recommending anyone go on this diet, I'm not a doctor and this is my and my nutritionist's diet plan tailored specifically for me.  So please...don't do anything this drastic unless you've talked to a trained professional!  Please!