Tuesday & Wednesday Round Up

The last couple days have been extra crazy. I had a training class on Access database at an extension campus about a half an hour from my house (double my normal drive time), the chickens woke me up at 6:00 a.m. (an hour early) and my class was so boring or I was so tired I kept falling asleep! On the upside, since I was up at the literal crack of dawn, I had tons of time to pack a good lunch and I even ate breakfast sitting at a table vs. in my car or at my desk. Teeny Victory #2! For lunch yesterday, I had a roast beef lettuce wrap, homemade garlic hummus and red pepper strips plus a sugar-free pudding cup. Mmmm, pudding.

Today's lunch was not as good, not enough "stuff", but for a bonus, I got to hang out with a friend I've known since I was 14 (24 years!) and her two beautiful kids. I got to nibble on baby toes and he kept sticking his adorable little feet in my face so I would do it again and again. :)

Dinner last night was eggplant pizza. It's all the normal toppings you like, but instead of crust it's sliced eggplant. Super easy and much healthier. All you have to do is brush the slices with olive oil, put them in a 400 degree oven for 20 minutes on a cookie sheet, flip, put your toppings on then bake for 10 more minutes or until the cheese is browned and bubbly. We had a little bit of tomato sauce, onions, mushrooms, tiny pepperoni, and a sprinkle of low-fat cheese. So dang good.

After dinner I hit the gym in my sparkly new tennis shoes. A while back I went to the New Balance store and got my feet measured. To my surprise, I learned I was wearing my shoes a size to small. Whoopsie. So these are the correct size, 11 wide (yes, really), and are so much more comfy! 

They are so bright white though, I feel a little dorky, but at least my feet don't hurt. I wasn't feeling particularly enthusiastic about working out yesterday, but I did it anyway (VICTORY!). I did 3 miles on the bicycle and 1 mile on the treadmill. I broke a sweat, so mission accomplished! I did do one thing that I totally regret -- I weighed myself on the scale at the gym, which says I'm 20 pounds heavier than my scale at home. Now granted it was the end of the day, I was in shoes, and all my clothes, but still... It got my head reeling and I had to fight off the negative internal chatter all day today as a result -- all those icky thoughts that there's no point, you're going to fail anyway, blah, blah, blah. Oh and I obsessively weighed myself when I got home last night sans all the extra clothes and again this morning to see if it matched. My scale still shows I'm down about 20 pounds from where I started. I guess that's all that really matters and I know better to switch scales. Not to mention, I'm making significant changes for the better and that's what is most important, not the number. Anyway, as a result, I decided that I'm only going to weigh myself once a week on Mondays. I'll report the good, the bad, and the ugly here. Hopefully mostly I'll be reporting losses! 

This afternoon I got super hungry after lunch because I packed way too light, lack of preparation got me this time. So after training I made a mad dash for some quick protein. I was headed out to see some friends, so I stopped at Lion's Choice and got the meat only from a regular roast beef sandwich and veggie sticks. They gave me the meat in a cup, which was weird and went down super fast -- without bread it was only a five or six bites! I really, really, really wanted fries, badly. I knew it would only make me feel bad, so I reminded myself that eating good makes me feel good. That felt like a huge victory. I love potatoes and I especially love fried potatoes. A friend of mine who has struggled and lost significant weight said to me about those kinds of foods that she's "not going to pop her cherry on just any old thing" which cracked me up and totally hammered home the idea that if I'm going to veer off the path, I'm not wasting calories on fast food fries. They aren't THAT good. I'm going to save "it" for something really fantastic.  

Tonight was really fun, I got to hang out with my bestie, and some fellow crafty folks in the work area of a shop that's an artist's collective. I worked on some stuff for a show I'm doing this weekend. There was much giggling and chatting, it was nice to kick back and relax after a grueling couple of days in training. Dinner tonight was veggies and beef from the stir fry place at the mall. The menu says it was a "healthy" option, but who really knows with those places, it was the best option available though and I was able to say no thanks to the white and fried rice (YAY!). I did feel a moment of embarrassment though when I was ordering, I'm allergic to broccoli and I had to ask for that to be omitted, and the worker seemed very confused when I didn't want rice. Actually, I felt a little funny at Lion's Choice earlier today, too.  I felt very high maintenance because of all my extra requests. I realize that this is silly, I am being nice about it, and it's not like I'm making absurd requests. Not to mention I am paying for it. I suppose there's some part of me that feels a little uncomfortable about anything related to weight or food that puts me in the spotlight. Hopefully, this will get easier to navigate over time, I'm looking out for my health, being bashful about it is just silly. Practice, I suppose, will make it easier. 

Tomorrow I'm doing a little demo thing on a local tv show. I'm wishing I was feeling a little more confident right now, but I know it will be fine. I've done this same sort of thing before and even though I dread seeing myself on camera, people always seem to think I do okay and are able to follow along, that's the more important thing since it's supposed to be educational. I should probably get some sleep though so I don't fall asleep mid sentence!

Nite y'all!