Derailed

Well, my whole workout situation just totally FLOPPED in February, when I injured my hip during BodyBack bootcamp. Between that and my carpal tunnel acting up whenever I tried to do push ups, it was just like a huge flashing sign that said YOUR BODY ISN'T READY!!! That was a hard message for me to take, with the baby being 4 months old. He's now almost 7 months old (!) and I still feel very apprehensive about working out. I feel like my joints are fragile and things are just not "normal" right now. I am trying to get back into pilates, but even that is hard on my wrists and hips sometimes.

Diet wise I am trying something new - a new fad started by a good friend of mine ha! It's just eating 300 calories every 4 hours. That's it. I am not stressing out too much with WHAT I am eating, though obviously, I am trying to make sure I get enough protein and my calories are generally healthy. We just don't have junk food at our house and so very rarely eat out (and never fast food) so it's not hard to keep it sane. But not stressing out about only eating certain things or making sure I NEVER have certain other things - nice.

For breakfast this morning I had a blueberry minimuffin and piece of banana bread - because it was Muffins with Mom day at my 1st grader's school. Can't pass that up!! But for lunch I made a salad at our salad bar at work with lettuce, spinach, grated carrots, broccoli, cherry tomatoes, oil and vinegar, and then I added half a boiled egg and 3 ounces of canned salmon. 315 calories. And I'm FULL.

We'll see how it goes. I am that point I get to whenever I have a 6 month old I am breastfeeding, pretty much no matter what I do, I can't lose weight. We are going to the beach in July, and I would SO love to lose a BUNCH of weight before then, but I have to come to terms with the fact that it probably will not happen. My body just clings on those last 20-30lbs until I wean. Ugh.

Food and Game On!

Okay, so... I know I was all gung-ho about the Game On Diet a while back, and I have a little different perspective on it now. I did love it the first time I played in November/December, I managed to actually lose weight over the holidays, and overall I still think it's a great program. I have lost 40 lbs since October, and I think G.O. got me those last probably 8 lbs or so. What happened this last time that I played (actually two games in a row with two different sets of friends) was that I got totally burned out on thinking about food NON-STOP. Because you have to eat five meals, and each meal has to be planned out to contain everything that's required, and you can't put anything else in your mouth, and you have to keep track of it all, this really results in you thinking about food constantly. Not only food - but keeping track of water, good/bad habit points, etc. - I was thinking about Game On stuff at least a couple of times every hour.

Last month, in addition to my full-time job and four little kids, I started serving on the Vestry of my church, was teaching German once a week, taught a college class, moderated a panel at the law school, became the Chair of the Grants Committee of the Arkansas Breastfeeding Coalition, agreed to help with a very time-consuming project for my kids' school auction, and then decided to get our house ready to sell and try to find a new house (with all the loan paperwork, etc. that goes with that). Thinking about food constantly while also trying to keep all that straight (oh and in addition to my 2 year old's birthday party, 4 month old's baptism, older daughter's brain MRI, three other children's well child visits, etc.) just pushed me over the edge - I HATED GAME ON! I sucked at it and I really resented it and just did a bad job at the end. I pretty much didn't work out all either. I hate finishing weak, so the whole thing just left a bad taste in my mouth - I'm disappointed in myself, and I feel guilty about letting my team mates down. You know how that goes - when you get in that feeling bad/guilty cycle, it's so hard to pull out of it!

Additionally, something happened that has NEVER happened to me before - I completely stopped wanting to cook. Now, I have loved cooking since I was a kid, and have made home-cooked meals pretty much every single night for the past eleven years (we eat out or get take out/pizza MAYBE twice a month). But the past two weeks, I was so sick of thinking about food, I couldn't motivate myself to cook. Not only that, I was just resentful of everything about food - I didn't even go grocery shopping! We've been living off milk from the gas station (when I normally buy organic only!) for two weeks. (Before you call Social Services on me, I did spend two hours - and pretty much my whole paycheck - at Whole Foods and Kroger last night getting re-stocked!)

SO, the upshot is (1) don't play Game On! if you have a ton of other things going on in your life; (2) Game On! is still a great way to establish better habits (eating, exercising, and general health-wise) and fun when you are in the right frame of mind; and (3) I am taking a break from thinking about food.

Now, when I say I'm taking a break from thinking about food, I mean that I am not going to journal my food intake (at least for a few weeks) and I am not going to think so hard about the things that I eat. BUT that doesn't mean I'll be having donuts for breakfast - I just generally prefer healthy foods, we don't really keep processed foods at our house, and I am confident that even without thinking about it constantly I can maintain a good diet and make wise food choices.

SO here is my last food journaling for a while :) I started something new - Mama Wants Her Body Back that I am VERY excited about and will be blogging about soon! (Blogging is another thing that has gone by the wayside a little these past couple of months)

This was Tuesday breakfast and lunch (before I freaked out and decided to step away from the food journal!) - my first day of Body Back (I had a protein bar before the work out and then yogurt after with a banana, chia, and honey). I had lunch with some friends at The Root Cafe - wow it was yummy! You'll notice that I had a hamburger, which might seem like an unhealthy choice, but really if you leave off the mayo, it is not an awful choice - just have a salad on the side, light on the dressing, instead of fries!

OH! And other exciting news I realized this week - I have 32 lbs to lose now :)

Whoopsie!

I let myself go too long without posting to this blog again! Things are not so great in the stress department right now - work is very, very busy right now, there is some sad (extended) family drama going on in my life, and we've all been sick all last week. But it's been a very restful weekend and I am ready to tackle a new week!

I finally got enough sleep this weekend, spent some time just playing with my kids (best relaxation ever!) and even worked out after taking a break for several days.

And I ate - yumminess! For breakfast, a breakfast burrito made with scrambled tofu (looks like egg? Pretty cool, it's turmeric!) I have nothing against eggs, I just felt like tofu instead today :)

and for lunch I threw together a salad that ended up being one of my favorite salads in a long time: mixed greens, yellow bell pepper, chopped baby carrots, avocado, a tomato basil veggie burger patty, and dressing made with EVO, balsamic vinegar, dijon mustard, honey, and s+p.

Looks good, huh? It was!

Shred!

Funny, I googled "lucky 32" and discovered a very yummy looking restaurant with items like Bourbon Pecan Bars with Homeland Creamery Pumpkin Pie ice cream.

No bourbon pecan bars for me!

So for my Game On! exercise requirement, I have been doing the 30 Day Shred. In case you're one of the few who haven't heard of the Shred (it seems like everyone's been talking about it!) it's an exercise video (DVD ha!) by Jillian Michaels, who is a trainer on, I guess, Biggest Loser? I'm not sure, because I haven't watched it. Anyway, it's a GOOD work out! I did it last Friday for the first time and I more or less couldn't get out of bed the next morning. That's always a good sign, right?

What was amazing to me, was how quickly I noticed a change in my endurance (sadly no change in my appearance yet!) From Day 1 to Day 4, I could tell I was able to do more push ups and go deeper into the push ups and into the lunges. It's amazing and wonderful how quickly our bodies can change! I also love that as soon as I start working out every day, I become totally hooked on it and feel irritable and "off" on days that I don't work out.

Sadly, I'm having to take a little break from Jillian right now, because the past two days I have been having bad carpal tunnel pain (something I had previously only dealt with while pregnant), and I'm afraid it's from the push ups. I'm going give my wrists a rest and see if it helps. I might try some variations, like doing them on my fists, to see if that helps. Even though there is an ab workout at the end of every circuit in the Shred, I also don't feel like I'm getting a very good ab workout, so I am going to pilates for a while and then hopefully go back and alternate Shred and pilates.

I just completed Week 1 of Game On, and our team lost - but not by much, and next week we're going to win ;) Since writing my last post, I also have three more friends who want to play, so I'll have another game going on the side starting next week - extra motivation!! It's not food or exercise that's killing me right now, it's sleep and water. Need to work on that!

Salad

I made that tuna/edamame salad out of desperation yesterday, because I was out of food. Today while cleaning out the fridge I found half a red cabbage - so much better than grocery shopping :)

So I shredded it and added it to my salad. Isn't it lovely?


I also got around to putting it into FitDay.com and here are the stats using 3/4 Tbsp olive oil, 1 Tbsp sesame oil, 1/2 Tbsp vinegar, 1/2 Tbsp maple syrup, and 1 Tbsp sesame seeds for the dressing:
507 Calories
26 Grams fat
25 Grams carbs
46 Grams protein

And check out the nutrients!

Game ON!

So I've mentioned it a couple of times... I am doing a diet called the Game On Diet with some friends. I played with my friend Julie before Christmas and lost 6 lbs (over Thanksgiving no less!) and now I'm playing again with two teams of three people.

You can click here to learn all about it, and then go buy the book, if you are interested. This is probably the only way I can really diet and stick with it. Basically, you compete with your friends on a point system. You get points for following the diet, for exercise, for drinking 3 liters (!) a day of water, etc. You also lose points for snacking, etc. In the end the losers buy a prize for the winners (or take them out to dinner or something) - GREAT extra motivation!

There are a few of things that I think make this better than any other form of diet I've done before. First of all, the food is completely reasonable. I am not starving, I am not eliminating some whole food group (other than sugar, which I really prefer to be without anyway), and overall I find myself eating very healthy meals on this diet. I am firmly against any no-carb, no-fat, etc. diets. I just don't think it's healthy, and feeling deprived is a great way to set yourself up for failure.

Second, the diet allows for one day a week "off" when you get full points without having to work out, or even eat right. Additionally, you get one meal "off" when you can have forbidden things like alcohol and sugar. This means that you can still go to parties or out to dinner and enjoy yourself, without feeling like you've fallen off the wagon. I don't know about you, but if I diet and I feel like I've "blown it" it's hard to feel motivated to keep going. With Game On, you have permission to enjoy yourself. You also get 100 "free" calories a day, so you can even have a little treat every day. Totally do-able!

Finally, the game is all about overall healthiness. So in addition to the food, exercise, and water, you also pick one bad habit you want to break and one new one you want to adopt. You get points for that. So, I get points every day that I floss (good habit) and that I don't use my phone in the car (bad habit).

The first few days are SO hard, because you are CONSTANTLY having to think about everything you do, to keep yourself from lapsing into your bad habit, to keep yourself drinking enough water, to stop yourself from grabbing a mindless snack. BUT that's how you break habits and make new ones - by being very mindful. After a week or so, I find myself eating right, chugging water, and sticking with my good/bad habits without having to think about it.

I love it! You also get "communication" points for staying in contact with your fellow players, which is great motivation. This time we set up a private Facebook group and spend all day cheering each other on :)

I wanted to share a little salad I whipped up for lunch today that was SO yummy!

It's just a can of tuna, about a cup of edamame, and then a dressing that I made from EVO, rice wine vinegar, a little sesame oil, a little maple syrup, and a bunch of sesame seeds. I really need to go shopping, so this was a desperate pantry meal that ended up being very good!

One of the "no no" foods on the diet is white flours. I don't really eat white flour normally anyway, except in pasta. I generally don't like whole wheat pasta. The other night I made this crock pot chicken cacciatore (except I only use 1 Tbsp oil!) I served it over noodles for the rest of my family, but for me I stirred it together with some leftover brown rice and fresh, wilted spinach - it was SO yummy!

Make Ahead Meals for the Week

I'm starting the Game On Diet again this week with four friends, so I'll blog more about that - we're starting Wednesday. I haven't been great about journaling my foods this past week, but I lost a couple of pounds. I didn't have to work today, and I was thinking about how awesome it would be to have an extra weekend day every week, right? Today gave me that extra day to get prepared for the week - something I'm not always great about doing on weekends (but wish I were!)

So, my make-ahead things for this week were

Whole Wheat Blueberry Muffins

You have to try these! They are yummy. I've never baked with olive oil before, but it worked. I didn't make the topping, and they were plenty sweet enough from the maple syrup and the blueberries. With whole wheat flour and flax, these are just downright healthy. Healthy + yummy + all ready to grab for breakfast = winner!

The only problem with the muffins, is that the kids loved them too. So I'm not sure how far into the week they will last me!

For snacks, I made these Roasted Chickpeas - I made one batch, realized how yummy they were (and my husband liked them too) so I quickly made a second batch. I'll keep one at home and one at work.

And finally, as my grab and go lunch for this week, I made the following salad. It's SO good! I changed several ingredients based on what I had on hand and what I thought would taste good - there are TONS of ways you can change this up.

Protein Power Salad
Adapted from Oh She Glows

1/2 cup uncooked pearl barley
1 cup uncooked buckwheat groats
3 cups vegetable broth
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
2 tsp extra virgin olive oil
2 large garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1 red onion, chopped
1 yellow bell pepper, chopped
1 red bell pepper, chopped
3/4 cup raisins
1/2 cup pumpkin seeds

Dressing
1/2 cup fresh lemon juice
1 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
3 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp ground cumin
freshly ground black pepper

1. Bring 1 cup vegetable broth to boil in a small saucepan, add the barley and cook on low for 45 minutes. Bring 2 cups vegetable broth to boil in a medium saucepan, add the buckwheat groats, cover and reduce heat to low and cook for 30 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, in a large skillet over low heat, cook the garlic in 2 tsp of olive oil, stirring. Add in the chopped onion and cook for another 6-8 minutes until translucent.

3. Add in the chopped peppers, raisins, and pumpkin seeds and cook for another 5 minutes on medium heat. Stir as needed. Meanwhile, whisk together the Dressing ingredients in a small bowl. Pour all the dressing into the skillet and stir well.

4. Pour the veggie and dressing mixture into the bowl with the beans and grains. Stir well and serve.

This made enough for 3 lunch portions plus a small bowl for me to try tonight.