A new PDR and the chocolate challenge

I smoked the chocolate challenge - that little bar that I wanted to make last 4 days, lasted a whole week! I ate the last two squares last night.


Amy's weekly challenge was to outline our long-term and short-term goals and rewards.

My long-term goal is to reach my goal weight - 165lbs which at 5 ft 9 puts me at the top end of the healthy BMI. My reward then is going to be to spend my Christmas bonus that I've been saving this whole time!

Short-term, I've broken my rewards into 5lb increments. I'm a half pound away from hitting 30lbs down so here's what the next 5 rewards will look like!

Hitting 30lbs lost - The fourth Twilight book
Hitting 35lbs lost - A food processor/blender
Hitting 40lbs lost - New workout outfit
Hitting 45lbs lost - Subscription to a health magazine
Hitting 50lbs lost - Massage and pedicure

Also, today I hit a new personal distance record, running 7 miles. My knees are feeling a little sore, in fact once I stopped the running they felt like they weren't connected to my legs! So I'm going to go to the gym and sit in the sauna, relax in the pool to loosen them up a bit.

I've run a total of 16 miles this week, which I'm really pleased with, plus two days on the bike, and a body balance class. The body balance class was where I really saw the difference in my body since I started back in January. I was really able to see a difference in my arm strength - it was super cool!

-CJ

Chocolate challenge

I wrote a comment on priorfatgirl's blog on her struggle with dealing with the fact that the healthy eating lifestyle is FOREVER and it got me thinking.

I have issues with certain foods, like nut butters, chocolate, icecream - pretty much anything that's bad to eat in massive quantities. My trick so far has been not to buy them, not to keep them in the house but I realised on reading Jen's post that I don't want to never be able to buy almond butter or chocolate ever again.

My chocolate challenge has been to buy a mini chocolate bar - 227 calories of really dark chocolate and to keep it in the house without scoffing the lot.



Last night I ate one row - three squares


Tonight, I'll do the same, and the bar will last (if successful) for four whole days.

And I WILL be successful!

- CJ

Workout Wednesday and the Weekly Challenge

First of all, my weigh-in is on Wednesdays and this week sucked hardcore. I gained two pounds. I was really pissed off at the time but I only have myself to blame since I did eat about 8 cupcakes over the course of Sunday/Monday. Monday's were at least in my daily points budget but Sunday's certainly weren't.

So, another week - onwards and upwards!

First of all, Amy challenged us to eat clean for one whole day

So, breakfast was 2 hardboiled eggs


followed by a little serving of cheese


Recycled photo but my mid-morning snack was pineapple


Lunch was spiralized zuchinni with sundried tomato pesto, chicken, red pepper and corn


For dinner I was planning on cooking up some vegetables, white fish and brown rice but the white fish just didn't want to cook for some reason. I threw in the wok 3 chopped portobella mushrooms, a chopped onion, chopped frozen spinach and cooked through. By this time, the rice was cooked but the fish was looking nowhere near done and I was hungry so I threw the rice in the wok too. It was looking a little grey (stupid mushrooms discolouring everything!) so I threw in a chopped tomato and some chopped up yellow pepper.


The fish became whitefish, sweet potato, corn fishcakes the following night - I wasn't thrilled but they were edible...

THEN, Amy challenged us to 20 minutes running for workout wednesday

Now, I can't take my camera out with me - I already run with my keys in one hand and my water bottle in the other. But you want proof that I ran?



Lovely!!

Last Saturday I announced that I was going to be more accountable. These were my weekly goals

1) 6 mile run on Sunday + 2 runs (tuesday and thursday per my half-marathon programme)
2) track my food and plan my meals so I eat not only healthy foods but stick to my financial budget
3) drink 8 glasses of water each day
4) 2 other workouts/classes at the gym

I managed the running and I did do a spinning class on Monday and my very first power plates class this morning but the food didn't get tracked and I went over my points on quite a few days. Similarly, my water intake wasn't up to par on all 7 days either.

This week I'm having the same goals all over again and I'm going to do them that much better!

-CJ

No food photos tonight - I had another serving of canelloni for dinner with a salad of lettuce and tomato (4).

I also made cupcakes for work and may have ate quite a few...let's just say about three quarters of them are making it to work. Shocking!

Well, I sort of organised, and the cupcakes are made.

I'm all prepped for tomorrow food-wise too.

2 hardboiled eggs, ham and babybel (5)

chicken with sundried tomato pesto, spiralised courgette and carrot (4.5)

mango (1)

toffee yogurt (1.5)

The spiralised courgette/carrot with pesto looks AMAZING. I really had to stop myself just eating it for dinner. Can't wait!

G'night

CJ

What a difference a day makes

So yesterday I slept in until 9:30, today by 9:30 I had already run 6 miles.

The route was as hilly as I'd expected. The route out had just two little hills and one good down-hill and the rest seemed pretty flat. Unfortunately, running it the opposite direction I quickly came to realise that those 2 miles that 'seemed pretty flat' were actually slightly downhill on the way out and now I was looking at 2 miles slightly uphill. Oh boy!

Luckily I had fueled with a little sweet potato (1.5) and a sprinkling of cheese (2) and not only did I survive, I did it in a minute and a half faster than last Sunday!

I refueled with another pineapple pot (1.5) and a ribena really light (0).

Now I'm off to organise, clean, and make cupcakes for work tomorrow.

-CJ

Lazy day

Today turned out to be a rest day in every sense of the word. Despite sleeping in I was exhausted ALL day.

Once I'd done my few hours of work, it was already lunchtime.



Cauldron mushroom burgers(4)
small sweet potato (1.5)
side salad of lettuce and tomato (0)
BBQ sauce (which I'm blaming on one of my favourite blogs, because after a few mentions like this one on Meghann's blog I had to go out and buy my own!

The mushroom burger was delicious. This was my first time trying it and I'll definitely be buying them again!

The afternoon consisted mainly of watching TV, napping, and meal planning.

Dinner was three canelloni tubes stuffed with a spinach and ricotta mix, smothered in tomato sauce and cheese...yum



Canelloni (4)
extra sprinkling of cheese (2.5)
side salad of lettuce with a handful of roasted aubergine and red pepper (0)

Now, although it's only 8:30 I'm going to go and read and try to get an early night. I want to get up early and do my 6 miles on a new route - the one I'd potentially take if I start running home from work. I'm terrified because it seems quite hilly, but hopefully it's not as bad as it looks!

-CJ

Saturday sleep-in

I got up at 9:30 this morning. I've literally slept about 5 or 6 hours every night this week and I was shattered this morning. Not helped by the fact that I wasn't able to fall asleep until midnight last night, so a full 9 hours of sleep got me all caught up hopefully.

I snacked on two babybel light cheeses before I started on some work.


My job is technically only Monday-Friday but every other week or so I also am required to do a couple of weekend hours, and today was one of those days. I went to the supermarket to pick up some newspapers and really craved some fruit. The little Sainsbury's by my flat doesn't stock a lot of fruit, but it did have these pre-packaged options so I went for those.



Pineapple 1.5 points
Melon 1 point

I think it's a combination of living alone, and working really long, stressful hours but I've become really selfish and precious about my weekends. This weekend I've made zero plans to do anything social and I'm thrilled. My entire weekend is going to be spent working out, planning meals, organising my flat, catching up on Celebrity Masterchef and maybe catching a movie - I REALLY want to see My Sister's Keeper.

Anyone seen a good movie recently?

- CJ

Being accountable

I feel like everything is sort of spiralling out of control right now. I've been cheating regularly, skipping workouts and not blogging. All of these go hand in hand with the very slow weight loss I'm experiencing.

Week 1 I stayed the same weight
Week 2 I've lost half a pound

I need to kick this up if I'm going to reach goal in October.

This week, Saturday to Saturday I am going to be completely accountable and focus on some mini-goals for just this one week and see how it goes.

1) 6 mile run on Sunday + 2 runs (tuesday and thursday per my half-marathon programme)
2) track my food and plan my meals so I eat not only healthy foods but stick to my financial budget
3) drink 8 glasses of water each day
4) 2 other workouts/classes at the gym

Not too much to ask?

-CJ