feelin groovy!

I'm feeling great, the past two days have been so on its not even funny. I'm eating well, I'm feeling good things are great. And according to the scale I'm down 1.4 pounds since I weighed in at the highest number I've ever seen a week ago! Yay!

We travelled to PEI this weekend to visit G's parents and to see our friends Ken and Shaunna and their little girl, our "neice" Jessie.

PEI is generally a real test for me in terms of healthy eating. G's mom owns two freezers, one of which is full to the brim with different kinds of sweets/squares and homemade carrot cakes. Shes also the type of person who feels the need to have desert with every meal, and doesn't have a great concept of portion control. I can't begin to count the number of times we've had this conversation

"Monica, don't you want more of INSERT FOOD HERE"
"no thanks G's mom, I'm pretty full"
"are you sure, you haven't eaten enough to be full"
"yes I'm sure, I'm fine"
"Oh come on, you've barely eaten anything, just have a little more"

And normally the result of this conversation? I give in and eat more. Blah! This weekend went well though. We flew over Saturday morning and back Sunday. The only big Challenge was we had Thanksgiving dinner while there (since we couldn't get back over Thanksgiving), but I took small portions and no seconds. I was pretty proud of myself. Willpower, you will be mine!

Food for today:
B: (5)
1/2 cup oatmeal, 1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce, 2 TBSP brown sugar splenda, cinnamon
cup of coffee, 1/2 lite hot chocolate

L: (9)
2 cups baby spinach, 3 oz roasted chicken, 2 TBSP crumbled feta, 7 rosemary croutons, Renee's lite greek dressing
vanilla Stoneyfield Farms Yogurt

S: (2)
lime coconut shortbread
lemon shortbread

D: (13)
4 small soft tacos, 2 TBSP lite sour cream, 2 TBSP shredded cheese, 1/4 cup refried black beans

29/26 -- 3 flex used

Have a good one everyone, G and I are off to the Gym.

One day down...

many more to go. Today was great though. I was totally in the healthy lifestyle mindset. I say healthy lifestyle and not diet, becuase well, really thats what I'm shooting for right?

Todays menu went like this:
Breakfast: 1 cup corn bran with 1/4 cup frozen blueberries
Lunch:

Last nights BBQ productivity, made for this little bit of lunch fabulousness

Baby spinach, red onion, herbed feta crumbles, BBQ green chicken (3.5 oz), 7 rosemary garlic croutons (for crunch!) and Renee's greek dressing. Plus a Stoneyfield farm organic yogurt and my daily diet coke (must break that habit!)

Snack: apple slices with almond butter and a lite babybell cheese

Dinner: 3/4 cup of beef stew sprinkled with TBSP shredded extra old chedder, and a whole wheat roll

After Dinner: 1 cup frozen red grapes

I went to the gym today and did 20 minutes on the bike and 20 on the Precor, not a lot, but a start. Heres hoping tomorrow goes as well!

random thoughts this morning...

• Our house computer is possessed. The CD tray has been opening and closing all night long on its own. It is currently doing so every few seconds as I type this....creepy!


• My cats are also crazy - evidenced by waking up at 4:45 am this morning to a howling, hissing, yowling ball of yellow and black fur rolling back and forth down the hallway for the next 20 minutes


• I love Corn Bran I could go into all the love I have for this crunchy goodness of low point cereal. However that would take forever and I need to get to work. Lets just say I bought two "Extra Large Trial Packs" for 1.00 each at Superstore last week, and I'm a happy woman.

what's this...two in one day?

Shocking I know.

As I said previously, G is working night shift tonight - which runs from 8:00 pm - 3:00 am, leaving me all by myself. Normally this means one of two things:
1. If my depression is not in check I crawl into bed, lonely and lacking motivation to do anything but eat ice cream and watch crappy tv
2. I am really really productive.

Tonight was a night of productivity. In my attempt to continue down the road of healthy eating I made these:



I marinated chicken in lemon juice, oregano, dill, balsamic vinagar, olive oil, honey and garlic. I kebob'd the chicken and BBQ till done. I'm pretty proud as they look really yummy - and I normally burn everything I BBQ (please pretend you don't see the burn marks on the chicken in the above picture!) I have one kebob packed in my lunch for tomorrow with a large salad. The rest should last until Friday for lunches (provided G doesn't find them first!)

As mentioned, I've packed myself a healthy lunch for tomorrow, full of fruits and veggies goodness! I didnt' realize how long it had been since I'd packed a lunch, until I opened up my lunch box --- EWWWWW! I forgot about a banana that I'd left in there, lets just say it fermented and leave it at that.

I also threw all the ingrediants in the slowcooker for "Stew Good to Be True" to cook tomorrow. All I have to do is turn it on tomorrow morning before leaving and it should be smelling yummy by the time I get home. I love my slow cooker.

The kitchen is clean and I've been so productive, I figured I deserved a small treat:



A small pour of dads homemade strawberry fruit wine (in my MASSIVE wine glasses)!

That being said, I think I'm off to bed with my wine and the last few chapters of my new Faye Kellerman book.

To that end, I leave you with a picture of the handsome man who keeps me company when G is working nights:



hehehe, what did you expect? Please excuse G's sneakers. Sully has a foot and shoe obsession (he is so my cat!)

I'm home!!

Yay! As much as I love the travel I get to do for my job (I enjoy it so much more than sitting at a desk doing administrative tasks...which is what happened all summer when our training schedule slowed down!) I really enjoy coming home as well.

Flew in from Montreal today and landed in Halifax this afternoon. I was supposed to work until 7:00 answering the phones for one of our union vacation bids, however the last bid came in at 6:15 so I was able to leave early. Which was great, because it meant I actually got to see G this evening before he left for work! Yay! He works nights and leaves at 7:00, when I work until 7:00 we never see each other (except when sleeping of course). Today I was home by 6:45 and we got some time together. Only 20 minutes, but it was 20 good minutes ;)

The other great part about coming home was that G was a great boyfriend and had put some stuff in the slowcooker, which meant that supper was ready and waiting for me when I got in the door. What a nice thing to come home to.

He was to cute - I had mentioned a few things he could toss in the slow cooker - chicken, corn, salsa. Thats fine, but he took it upon himself to spice things up a bit. He was so proud of himself.

So dinner tonight:
chicken
salsa
corn
can of black beans
brown and wild rice blend
spiced with lime juice and a 1/2 bottle of Keiths

I sprinkled it with PC Southwestern shredded cheese and a TBSP of lite sour cream. YUMMY! Definitely a make again. Since G doesn't cook much, when he does and it turns out well he gets all puffed up like a peacock about it. I tend to stroke the ego a little bit as well (mainly in the hopes that this keeps him in the kitchen more often!)

I'm a bad blogger!

I guess I haven't quite gotten in the groove of writing every day/every second day. But the fact that I'm still writing I consider an accomplishment. Normally by now my personality flaw of starting things and never finishing them has interjected. But not this time!

Thank you as well, to the loverly ladies that commented on my last post. I was feeling pretty craptacular, and reading your posts upped my mood considerably. Thank you so much. Knowing I have some people reading as well, I think will help keep me accountable.

Its been a bit of a crazy week. 4 day work week always equals not enough time to get everything done, but then I also facilitated all day for Tuesday and Wednesday which means 2 less days to get things done. I'm a little behind on well, everything at work. I'm working on the programming for two new training programs for 2009, however what I want to have done by now and what I actually have done is not even comparable.

I'm teaching a one day course in Calgary tomorrow so I'm currently finishing up some laundry and doing some packing. I leave for YYC at 4:40, teach tomorrow, fly out tomorrow night to Montreal, overnight in Montreal and fly home to Halifax on Tuesday morning. Busy Busy! G is working nights this week to, which means more busy once I'm home.

I tried my best to prepare though, yesterday I spent a crazy day in the kitchen, I made a huge batch of chili and a batch of cauliflower soup to freeze for later. I planned to make squash soup, b ut that will have to be done on Wednesday once I'm home again.

Now the big challenge will be eating well on the road. Most of my weight gain this year has been as a result of lots of room service and eating in restraunts when I travelled. I've checked though, and my hotel has a gym so I'm hoping to at least get some exercise in!

scary comparison...

I had a huge shock today. You know, when you know that your heavy, and that you've gained weight and you know its a lot of weight. But at the same time, you still don't think you look as bad as you do? Yep, a picture a friend posted today kinda sent that whole theory crashing down as fast as the stock market has been...

I went to the wedding of a high school friend on labour day weekend. I bought a new outfit, and although I knew I was looking heavier than I wanted to, I still thought I was looking fabulous....not so much.

This is the picture she posted that caused me to totally go -- "whose that heavy girl....oh wait, thats me" (I am on the far left in the pink and brown flowered shirt)



I saw this picture, and I broke down in tears. I can't believe I've let myself get to this point. Particularly when 1.5 years ago I looked like this....


It was quite the wake up call, and really hit me....hard. I'm hoping this is what it will take so that I can stick with it and get back to where I was....hoping.
I can't believe I just posted that picture either for the world to see. I guess accountability at its finest.

In other news, I hit the gymbo today for the 2nd day in a row. 20 minutes on the bike and 20 minutes on the Precor later and I was feeling good. Not as good as I would have been had I not eaten all the candy I ate at work today. But hey, work in progress right?

I stopped by Chapters on the way home and picked up the second book in the Twlight Series (SOOO ADDICTED!) Is it wrong that I want to curl up in bed and start/finish reading this all tonight? I hope not, because that might be what I end up doing. G is working nights, which means little sleep for moi, and if I have a good book as well....well I just might be screwed in the sleep department tonight! I also picked up "The Beck Diet Solution Weight Loss Workbook". I've heard some really good things about this book on the WW board and other blogs. As I know most of my eating is emotionally driven, I'm hoping it will help to shed some light on why I do the things I do, and help me get some control over things.

Till next time
xo Mon

on a roll

Another day OP. 3 days in and I feel like I'm on a roll

Today went down like this:

Breakfast (5):
1 PC honey and oatmeal bagel
2 TBSP peanut butter and 1 tsp lite bosenberry jam

Snack (2)
2 Tootsie rolls

Lunch (10)
1 whole wheat pita
chicken and black bean taco filling
2 TBSP shredded nacho cheese
1 cup grapes

Dinner (7)
1 cup Melancauli baby soup
3 slices bagette
1/2 cup chocolate chapmans yogurt

Snacks: (7)
1/2 small package of gummi bears
2 girl guide mint cookies
1/2 cup red berry yoptimal yogurt
1/2 cup raspberries

I had a CRAZY sugar craving this afternoon, quite normal for me. What wasn't normal was that instead of going for the cinnamon bun, or the large bag of swedish berries or massive amounts of chocolate, I instead picked up a small bag of gummi bears and shared half with a friend (2 points instead of 4) and calculated the points for the girl guide cookies. I was quite proud of myself.

Tried something new for dinner tonight. Curried cauliflower soup with swiss cheese and whole grain rice in it. It was sooo yummy. I felt kind of bad, as I forgot that G doesn't really like thick and non brothy soups....ops!! as this was pureed and thick! He had a bowl, and ate it (but made a face) but then went back for another bowl, so I was quite proud of him :)

I'm feeling good about being back on track. First weigh in on Saturday and then I'm off to the cottage to see mom and dad for the weekend - that will be a challenge, but I think I'm up to it.