Thursday, June 25, 2009

WHOLE foods.

I am nearing my "TAC" total allowable catch (usually used in fisheries...) for my sweets count. I had ice cream last night which was my last sweet for the week. I am not sure the tally is going to work well for me, but I'm going to keep it up and see how the next few days go. It would have been weird to turn down the ice cream as I was sharing 1 pint with 3 friends, so we were actually only having 1 serving-- go us. Still, I have been eating too much overall. I am going to actively begin to scale back, while eating more healthily in general-- by HEALTH I don't mean low fat, low cal, low this and that. I mean WHOLE foods. For example, last night's dinner was delish! I made pasta with a shrimp, tomato, spinach, garlic topping. I had one serving and really felt full! It was just about having the right amount of something GOOD to eat, not just getting by because I can get away with eating THIS much of that low-cal thing. So here is to whole foods at the right serving size. Teacher, Powderhouse and another friend and I played Apples to Apples and had a great time!

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Power Yoga ROCKS

Wow, what a great workout. Power Yoga is a Vinyasa (flow) yoga taught in a 90+ degree room. It is like Bikram, only the poses change and you keep moving all the time!! An assistant walks around to help tweak poses, too, so you get a much better sense of how you should be posed (in Bikram the teacher just tells you... loudly). I am so sore this morning but not my hip, more my abs:) (I think it burns about 600 cals/class!)

My dinner ended up being 1/2 ww wrap pizza with:
4 Tbs Lime and Habanero Salsa
3 Tbs Fat Free Cheddar
1/2 Jalapeno
1.5 oz. grilled chicken
1/4 c. broccoli.

It was so satisfying! Now I have to come up with a dinner for tonight! Powerderhouse, Teacher and another friend are coming over for dinner, wine and Apples to Apples!

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Clean Eating

Going to try to do this a little more regularly. It's about eating whole foods and not processed crap that doesn't fill you up. I am not planning to follow this plan rigidly by any means, but I am going to pay attention to it for ideas. I have a habit of eating things that are "supposed" to be good for me but they're not actually tasty enough to be filling, so I overeat. I think eating real, whole foods will be helpful for feeling really satisfied when I eat.

What a day...

So, I'm definitely having a harder time at the moment. The hip is rather sore, so I haven't run in 2 days and don't plan to today either. I am, however, going to do some power yoga! I'll have to report back later. Today, foodwise, has not been terrible:
Breakfast = Kashi Chocolate Coconut bar, 3 oz. fat free vanilla yogurt
Lunch = Asparagus, Chicken, 3-4oz. of pasta. Yummy, but I am very full from the higher fat content than I'm used to in the middle of the workday. Definitely slows me down...

Dinner will be: delish spicy black bean burger, fat free cheddar, on whole wheat toast post-yoga. I am really looking forward to it! I find that helps a lot-- if I plan something to eat that I am genuinely excited about, I will be able to hold off on the useless snacks before the meal. In general, part of my plan to lose these 10 lbs is to cut down on my snacks. I know snacks are generally a good thing, but I have been really overdoing it lately, so I am making my meals a little more substantial and the snacks less often.

Here's to a good hip stretch at yoga and delish dinner!

Monday, June 22, 2009

Monday's Goals

I like setting goals on Monday for the obvious reason that it's the beginning of a new week. This week brings interesting challenges especially at work. We have a pizza lunch today and a catered lunch tomorrow, as well. In general, I have a tough time avoiding sweets at catered lunches and pizza is certainly no good for my summer goal of losing these last 10 pounds. So... I'll have to get creative.
Goals:
1. Try to avoid pizza-- have salad, soup, diet coke and avoid the cookies/brownies! Have pudding if sugar is needed.
2. Finish edits on work spreadsheet and complete 2 other projects.
3. Run 8 with Liz
4. Hang out and be confident!! with Frisbee. (Cut down the fat talk, seriously!)

Monday Mantra: Would a fit me eat that?

Report:
Semi-fail, semi win.
Did not totally avoid pizza, but not bad.
Had some cake, 1 point! 2 desserts left this week. I CAN DO THIS.
Not going to run 8, hip is too sore. I am off to the gym for some abs and push ups!

By the way, Prevention published a good article for helpful, healthy eating tips today. My few favorites are:
3. Resolve never to supersize your food portions--unless you want to supersize your clothes.
6. Make sure your plate is half veggies and/or fruit at both lunch and dinner.
16. Follow the Chinese saying: "Eat until you are eight-tenths full."
39. "It's more stressful to continue being chubby than to stop overeating."
41. Don't "graze" yourself fat. You can easily munch 600 calories of pretzels or cereal without realizing it.

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Delish Dinnah!

I made a big pot of soup tonight in honor of the chilly Boston air! Here's what's in my
Chicken Jalapeno Sweet Potato Soup!
Chicken broth
Ground chicken
2 jalapenos
2 sweet potatoes
onion
garlic
carrots

So good! For dessert, I had chocolate milk:) Yum.

No run today and a huge brunch... So, this week has to be extra good. We'll see!

(By the way, Frisbee is a rockstar: coming to hang out with me tomorrow night!)

Official Sugar Challenge

Pescatarian is doing a beer challenge-- only 9 beers per week. That is much harder than it might seem. In this conversation, I mentioned that I have been eating much too much sugar and he challenged me to keep sugar treats to a weekly maximum of 4.

Here is the tallied food list:
Ice Cream
Cookies
Brownies
Pudding
Peanut Butter
Hot Chocolate
Candy
Candy Bar
Chocolate Chex Mix (per serving!)
Anything fried (different kind of treat)
Chocolate Chips (per serving)

Suggestions welcome, of course. But so far, I had pudding today so: 1 down, only 3 left! Hopefully this will guide me in the right direction!

Saturday, June 20, 2009

Sugar, and its evilness.

So, the more we learn about sugar, the more it comes out that it should basically just be a special addition to a diet, very sparingly and certainly FAR from a staple. A recent Princeton Study has revealed even more about the serious nature of sugar's addictive qualities. Hoebel, one of the principal investigators has shown that rats eating large amounts of sugar when hungry, a phenomenon he describes as sugar-bingeing, undergo neurochemical changes in the brain that appear to mimic those produced by substances of abuse, including cocaine, morphine and nicotine. Sugar induces behavioral changes, too. "In certain models, sugar-bingeing causes long-lasting effects in the brain and increases the inclination to take other drugs of abuse, such as alcohol," Hoebel said.
Wow. So, if sugar just tastes and feels good, maybe the science behind its damage will be helpful in slowing down my intake. I think reading this article helps!

So, today my goals (with my general summer goals in mind!) are:
1. LESS sugar. No, not NO sugar, but certainly less. Eggwhite omelet lunch, for example, not the "light cake"(see below) I made last night.
2. Long run. My hip is feeling better, so it's back to running! Just a nice one around the Charles.
3. Laundry! Need to do it, and I actually enjoy getting my laundry done.
4. While laundry is going, finish cleaning my room.
5. Read Kite Runner, it's so good just need to make time for it!

Had a very nice evening last night, some of the details are as follows:
1. One glass of a new red wine: a purple labeled Shiraz which I won't get again...
2. One piece of "light cake":
1 mix Angel Food Cake (baked in 2 cake pans)
Icing:
1 container Cool Whip Free (sugar/fat free)
1 box chocolate pudding (sugar/far free)

Bake cakes, apply icing! Add fresh strawberries or bananas, if inclined. Totally delicious, but enough sweetness to make you want a little too much.
3. Ate too much in general, and felt it falling asleep and waking up... I need to work on this.

So, here's to a better day (eating wise!)!

*Afternoon update:
Half ww wrap with
2 oz. chicken
1 oz. fat free cheddar
Habanero salsa
1 small piece of cake :)

Nice run! About 5 miles total, with a little walking in the middle through Life is Good Fair, which was very fun. I went on the run with Nice Guy... (see cast of characters...). It was a good tempo and he's actually looking to do some races similar to mine, so we might be running buddies of sorts. I have been looking for a weekender and he might be it! He's a little faster than I am, so that's good. Luckily he knows Frisbee and lots of my other friends, so it's a good running match, I think. Drinking a glass of wine and preparing to shower and go out.

Goal Report:
1. Much less sugar! W00t!
2. Finished alll laundry!
3. Cleaned room a bit (more to do tomorrow)
4. Ran!
5. Might read to fall asleep tonight... we'll see how I'm faring then... having a glass of wine now :)

Friday, June 19, 2009

Training Schedule


(Click to actually read...)
This is mostly to keep me on track, at the very minimum, but this is my training schedule for this summer up until Race day.


Workout: 40 minutes on the bike, abs, push ups (a few...)
Food: Disaster, as per usual for some reason. Having been up since 3:45am (ugh, bad sleeping patterns for the last few months...), I was rather hungry when I got back from the gym. So I gorged a little on a smoothie, cool whip and chocolate milk. Nothing particularly bad per se, but too much of all of it. I need to remind myself to slooooow down when I eat! Off to work!

**Afternoon update:
Food: Leftovers for lunch! Had a nice mix of whole wheat pasta, homemade spaghetti sauce with tomatoes, beans, broccoli and spices and a healthy dose of cottage cheese for some protein that really tided me over. Off to do laundry and read for the evening with some wine and hopefully a movie with my new DVD player! w00t!

Day 1: So this is new...

I'm embarking on a little journey I'm calling Run, Eat, Love, Play. The goals of which are the following:
1. Prepare for my first half marathon: September 6th! Covered Bridges in NH.
2. Complete (yep, that's all!) my first triathlon August 9th. (Lowell YMCA Tri)
3. Eat in a way that is for a fit person... currently, it's just messy. (I'll explain)
4. Be super appreciative of my truly fantastic boyfriend and friends... (Background to follow)
5. Try to relax on the planning front and enjoy more about TODAY.

Those are the main goals for the summer of 2009. I'm excited to begin this little journey and in order to keep myself honest, I'll be posting on this as a food and exercise journal as well as my random thoughts about friends, love, and life.

Background:
I'm Julia. I live and work in Cambridge, MA. I run a bunch, but this is very very new for me. I've been running for less than a year and while I enjoy it, I have a lot of improvement to make! I am a shortie, but I'm also rather athletic, which makes weight a delicate issue. I'm currently about 10 pounds heavier than I would like to be so my other goal this summer is to lose those extra pesky pounds. Setting my mind to that goal will be helpful, as my diet is a little rough right now. I don't really restrict myself because I have pretty healthy tendencies, but I have unhealthy ones too... so the first thing I need to do is cut down my processed sugar count and buff up my protein, whole grain and healthier parts in my diet.

In other news, I live amongst a number of good friends. Cast of characters:
Midwest: is my roommate, good guy, but cleaning habits can drive me nuts. Luckily he's away on business a lot.
RunJess: is my running buddy who lives closeby. She's been a great addition to my life and keeps me doing more workouts than I ever would have done on my own.
CrazyLady: is actually another running buddy- an older friend at work who *can* be very intense, but is generally just a unique individual who adds to my life, she's also a fast runner and luckily tolerates my slowness.
Frisbee: though he could go by many names, this will be the tag for the boyfriend. He lives on the cape and he rocks my world. He runs, plays frisbee and works for an enviro non-prof.
Teacher: is a friend who just moved to town. Very good college friend/roommate with whom I have weekly dinners. She's honest and tells it like it is, not sure I've ever had a better friend.
Powdergirl: is another college friend with whom I spend a lot of time. She lives over near Powderhouse Blvd, hence the name. Another very good friend I'm lucky to have in the area.
Pescatarian: is a friend of Frisbee, the boyfriend. Pesc and I became friends pretty easily and the fact that we can actually piss each other off through chat conversation makes me think I might mention him on here. Genuinely good guy though...

I think I'll leave it at that. O