Surviving Lunch at Your Desk

I have to believe that I am not the only one in the world that begins to daydream about Taco Bell, burgers, and a variety of drive thru windows as the clock creeps up to noon. I know I'm not alone here - occasionally I see some of you in the drive thru lane. And let's face it you can only eat SO many sandwiches before it will drive you - well to the nearest drive thru. You see I think part of the reason that I'm in this boat is because there is so much good-bad food that I enjoy - and sometimes good-good food is hard to find, expensive, or hard to have on hand- it requires a lot of though. You have to shop for the good stuff, you have to pack the good stuff, and finally the food has to be good enough that you actually WANT to eat it when lunch time rolls around. So I'm working on building my food vocabulary to include lower cal choices that offer good nutrition.

You already know that I am a trans fat freak! You also know that I'm pretty picky about bread - but short of these criteria, I can't claim to being a nutrition wiz. So I think we should bond together to share our best, low cal, ideas for feeding our bodies well while at work. I'll get us started with a few...

Laughing Cow Cheese - these little cheese wedges come in a light variety. It even comes in some flavors. At 35 calories a serving - it packs a punch! I have tried it on Toasted English Muffins and today I even tried it on a Blueberry Bagel (not the best bread choice - but a weakness). In both cases, it tasted great and I found it more filling than cream cheese. I also think it would be great on a sandwich to replace both cheese and mayo. So it's a small change that has helped me to lower my calorie intake while feeling satisfied.

Bumble Bee Sensations - This tuna kit comes with a seasoned tuna can and crackers. I tried the Sundried Tomato & Basil, yum. At 200 calories - you get the good fish benefits (yes this brand is dolphin safe too) and it was quite filling, quick, and didn't even need a fridge.

Quaker Oatmeal Squares - I'm not a big oatmeal person. I wish I was. It makes me queasy in the tummy -texture issues. But this cereal (that I eat dry for snacks, in self made trail mix, and sometimes even as cereal with milk) is so good. You can eat a full cup - 210 calories, no high fructose syrup, no trans fats, and 5 g of fiber. I use to think this was an expensive cereal choice - but when you break it down by serving, it's really no worse than most of the snack foods that I buy without thinking twice about it.

Of course, fruits and veggies are on the list. But honestly there are very few that I love while sitting at my desk. I do love Kiwi - with the slice it in half and scoop it out method, it's very brown bag friendly. Bananna travel well. And cherub tomatoes are super yummy and so low cal that they almost don't count- another food that requires no fridge. I do try to sneak in some dried fruits as long as I can find them without any of the icky chemicals / ingredients that I consider dealbreakers. I have also found a wonderful dried pomegranite covered in dark chocolate - they are too sweet to overindulge on and since both are considered the best of their respective food groups (yes, I consider chocolate a food group). So I've removed my usual bite sized chocolate candies and replaced them with these little treasures.


So there's a few of the staple items that are helping me to eat better and wiser. I'm sure that if we all share a trick or two - we'll all be loaded up with healthy food choices that will be so satisfying that the drive thru lanes will be empty.

Checking In...plus Plot Your Walk and a Bonus Healthy Choice Coupon!

Okay, time to fess up. I weighed Sunday. I didn't like what it said, so I didn't post it. But, I promised to post triumphs and trials, so here goes. I was back up to 161.4. However, in my defense, I worked all day Saturday and ate crappy stuff and didn't work out. So my plan was to give myself another day and get back on track, then weigh again. Then I woke up not feeling well Monday and Tuesday, and I just never weighed again. So, I guess that's my "official" weigh-in for the week. Let's hope next week is better.

I'm using my sticker chart, (Here's to external motivation! Yay!) and I do truly think it helps me to actually be able to see what I did or didn't do. Seems that
if I'm gonna skip anything, I skip eating my fruit. And unfortunately I've found that on days I don't eat my fruit for breakfast, the rest of the day kind of goes to pot. Seems like that healthy start really does set the tone for the rest of my day. So, must work on getting that fruit in first thing!

Also, it occurred to me that you might be interested to know what Kathy was referring to when she asked if I used "that website" to see how long our walk was. There's a great site here that lets you actually see the streets in your town and plot where exactly you walk. As you plot your various turning points, it calculates how far you've gone. Very cool!

And last, but not least, Healthy Choice is offering a $2 off coupon online. I saw this on Biggest Loser last night. I have mixed feelings about that show, but maybe that's a post for another day!

Yay! Our First Blog Award!

Life (meaning work mostly) has been so crazy lately, not only have I not been posting, but I haven't been reading much either. So, imagine my joy when I sat down today to catch up on all your fabulous blogs and found this:

left for us by Tara at A Perfect Version of Myself. The rules are to list 10 things about myself that my readers don't know. Then I have to tag 10 other blogs I think deserve the award. I'm listing health/weight/fitness related things, just to keep in the theme of the blog. Maybe Regina and E.G. will post their ten soon? (hint hint!)

1. Every time I've lost a significant amount of weight in my life, it sort of just fell off. It wasn't difficult, and I didn't work at it. For whatever reason, it just came off. I wish I knew how to recreate whatever causes this.

2. I was really tall and thin as a child. My mom had to buy me the "slim" jeans. Somehow I stopped getting taller in 4th grade (and 25 years later am short and dumpy).

3. I took gymnastics for a while during junior high.

4. I was an alternate on the dance squad in high school.

5. I used to be a really good water skiier too.

6. I am almost a vegetarian, but when I've tried to officially be vegetarian, I find myself craving meat so much that I "give in" and eat it more often than I would have normally eaten it. So I don't try now.

7. I found out a couple years ago that I have high cholesterol.

8. I have terrible insomnia. Part of me is convinced I'd be thin if only I could actually sleep.

9. One of my favorite treats is eating raw chocolate chip cookie dough. I know this can cause salmonella. I believe it's worth it.

10. Brocolli is my favorite vegetable. When I was a kid, you couldn't have paid me enough to eat brocolli.

Now, the ten nine blogs I tag:

Mary of A Merry Life
Jess of Losing More Than My Mind
Jack of Jack Sh*t Gettin Fit
A Fat [Free] Me
The Chub Fight
Jill at Twenty Something Weight Loss
Lorrie of The Token Fat Girl
Hollie of Hollie's Weight Loss Blog
Tara (again)

Those are all the weight loss blogs we're following so far. If anyone has an awesome weight loss blog we just HAVE to follow, tell us so!

Thank God It's Sunday

At least I'm down this week, even if it's only 0.4 pounds. However, I'm quite happy to see my fat % actually go down this time. So, I'm feeling like, even though I only lost a tiny bit, what I did lose must have actually been FAT! Yay!

I think the push ups and crunches are helping. Plus I went to yoga Thursday, and I actually went to a yoga for kids workshop yesterday also as part of the training I attended. Not like a "real" yoga class, but we did do some poses.

I have literally eaten anything I wanted all week, so to lose any at all is good. I had to work late two nights this week, and then worked Saturday also, so it was a looooong week. When I have times like that, I kind of just have to do whatever I have to do to survive. Caffeine, chocolate, sugar, fat, it's not about making healthy choices. I know it should be, but it's not. It's about staying awake and making it through the day.

I have skipped walking the last two days, and I definitely need to get back into that starting today. Really though, after walking 2-3 miles a day for a whole week, I think I deserved a day or two off from that.

I'm just thrilled to actually have two days off work now (I'm taking Monday off to make up for Saturday). And I don't have much planned. Not like having to be anywhere, no responsibilities, nobody expecting anything of me, that kind of thing. I have a couple projects around the house, some movies I need to watch and take back to Blockbuster, Young and the Restless on the DVR to catch up on. You know, serious business.

But I also plan to walk and do my sit ups and crunches. And maybe actually like cook some food. That'll be neat.

Kathy's Trying to Kill Me

She suggested a new walking route today, and I kid you not, it was over 3 miles and entirely uphill. My 20 minute walking goal has morphed into closer to a full hour this week thanks to Kathy. And boy my legs are feeling it.

I'm also feeling my crunches seriously today. I've now done three days (separated by a day of rest in between). I haven't increased much, but then I changed it up and started doing the crunches on my ball. So, I'm not really comparing the same thing. I'd make a terrible scientist. I get bored and keep changing variables.

Unfortunately work has been crazy stressful, so my eating has suffered. Also, that dreaded PMS/Alien Invasion thing happening. Today I've had two and a half peanut butter cookies, one dark chocolate Reese's, a tiny Milky Way, and a tiny Three Musketeers. And it's barely 3:30. Oh, and they were giving out free Vault energy drinks where I work, so I'm having one of those. So far, not impressed.

I work Saturday, so my weigh-in will be Sunday. Here's hoping it's more positive than the last two weeks have been!

I Enjoy Being a Girl

Except for the two weeks out of the month that I don't.

You'll notice my little ticker is steadily ticking in the wrong direction. I'm blaming it on PMS. Or PMDD. Or the two weeks a month when aliens take over my body, mind, and spirit.

Seriously, it's nothing for me to gain and lose 5 lbs. over the course of a month, and for that reason, I really get a more accurate view of my progress by weighing in at the same time montly. However, for purposes of this project, I felt I would be more motivated to stay on track by weighing in weekly.

So, I'm doing it weekly, and seeing what happens. Well, what happens is this. I started this project a month ago at 162.2. After recording losses for a couple weeks, I started creeping back up, and I'm now at 161.4. So, I feel like that 0.8 lbs. is a legitimate loss. While the scale may creep back down over the next couple weeks, I know it will creep up again a week or two later. But, I figure that if my weight at the same time each month is going down (however slowly) then that's progress.

I mean, I put this weight on at a rate of about 5 lbs. a year. If I can take it off at a rate of about 10 lbs. a year, that's okay. Yeah, I'd prefer 10 lbs. a month. But, with the tiny changes I'm making, changes I can live with for the rest of my life, I'm good with slow and steady.

Anyway, on with the next baby step. Actually, I've made a couple since I last discussed my steps, so I'm just gonna share the rest to catch you up to where I am in my plan.

I know I need more fiber in my diet. And, of course, the best way to get this fiber is through whole grains, fruits, and vegetables. However, I'm just not getting enough that way. Very few of us are. So, I bought a fiber supplement in the form of capsules, and I'm taking them each evening before supper with a glass of water. My thinking is, I need fiber, I need water, so that's good regardless. By taking them both right before supper, I'm hoping it will fill me up somewhat, and I'll eat less supper. I can't tell you if it's working or not, but that's what I'm telling myself. (I also had a theory once that I could eat all the chocolate I wanted as long as I drank enough water afterward, because it would wash all the chocolate out. That didn't prove to be the truth.)

The next thing is, I've decided that I don't like the way that body fat percentage is not going down. At all. In fact, it's going up, which is so not cool. So, it's time to add in some sort of muscle building activity. Now, you know I'm not going to go overboard on this. Plus, I read a great article a while back, one of the many things that helped inspire my baby steps theory, about a woman who made the one tiny change in her life of doing 2 minutes of push ups every morning. That's all she did. Literally changed nothing else about her lifestyle or her diet.

Over the year, she of course improved a lot in how many push ups she could do, how fast, etc... She saw a lot of muscle definition in her upper body. This is to be expected. What she didn't expect is that she lost 5 pounds. From doing nothing else but 2 minutes of push ups.

So, I'm going to one up her by doing push ups and crunches. I know, Janet's gone and lost her damn mind. I'm not doing them every day. I'm shooting for more like every other day, or even every three. And sadly, I cannot do 2 solid minutes of push ups or crunches at this point. So, my plan is to do as many as I can.

Regina and I have been discussing the merits of sticker charts for motivating children (and husbands). This reminded me that a few years ago I had a system where I bought a calendar and hung it where I worked out, then each day that I exercized, I put a sticker on the calendar. (Can you tell I am a teacher?) I found this surprisingly motivating for a full grown adult. Plus, it gave me a concrete record of what I'd been doing. I could look back and see, "Wow, I worked out 22 days this month!" Or, "Hmmm...I only worked out 7 days this month. Maybe that's why my tummy looks like it does?"

I'm not formally counting this as a step, more a way of keeping track of my current steps, but I've created myself a chart. On the chart I listed the date and check boxes for my water, fiber, vitamin, fruit, walking, push ups, and crunches. I need to buy some cute little stickers. I'll let you know how it works out for me.

For the record, today I did 17 push ups (on my knees) and 45 crunches (not full sit ups). I was actually pleasantly surprised at those numbers. I may not be able to move tomorrow.

Most Awesome Song I Heard While Working Out: "I'm Coming Out" by Diana Ross. I realize this is a gay anthem. And I'm not gay (not that there's anything wrong with that). I think it's just so positive and upbeat, and I love it.

One More Thing

This is for you Regina.