Belmont Stakes time

I haven't been updating. Frankly, I've been bad. Ever since Kentucky, I'm finding it hard to get back on the workout wagon. I really want to start Couch To 5K. I'm at the point where I'm telling myself when the weather improves. I really wanted to start yesterday, but it was freaking cold.

Anyway, I really just wanted to mention this. I bought my dress for the Belmont Stakes (found one, yay!). It's a size smaller than all my dresses since I've had a need to buy dresses since 2007. Woot!

Wow...

I got busy. I stopped updating, didn't weigh in although I was WiiFitting. This morning I weighed in. I am proud to report that for the first time in a long time (sometime in college), I weigh less than 170lbs. This is weird, but I like it! I'm not going to lie, I didn't think I had it in me. But I guess I do! I can do it if I try. I'm just fearing the point where the number stops going down, or takes longer to go down. That's when the real challenge will start.

Bad

I know I haven't updated. But that doesn't mean I've quit the battle. I'm down 10lbs from that nasty weigh-in at the doctor's office. That does make me feel a lot better. It's a little scary when the number was allowed to get that high. I mean, it's bad. I'm only 5'3 plus a bit. There is no reason I should weigh that much other than lack of self control.

The new problem? A holiday coming up. At least it's just Easter. Easter isn't nearly as bad as Thanksgiving or Christmas. But I am going to make a dessert. I think I'm going to try using egg substitute and Splenda. The egg substitute should be fine, I think. It's not like the taste of egg is a part of the dessert. And I don't see why the Splenda should make it any different either. I'm really excited to make this and no diet is going to stop me! It will just slightly alter my course.

Does freaking out burn calories?

If so, I am a calorie burning machine today!

Breakfast was my cereal. I had lunch at home (left work early since racing was canceled) and ate a frozen veggie thing of barley, sugar snap peas and carrots. Delish! I love it. For dinner I had the Lean Cuisine pot stickers. They really are super yummy. I love them. But not as much as I love Zenyatta!

I'm going home for my weekend. Eating there is going to be tough. We'll see how it goes. I might have to allow myself my first "something special" since starting this thing.

New plan of action...

In an attempt to actually update every day, I'm going to start a post in the morning and save it, updating throughout the day, and HOPEFULLY remember to publish it before bed.

Anyway, while I have not been good about updating, I've been just fine about keeping on! Cereal for breakfast, fruit cup and FiberOne bar for lunch, and a Lean Cuisine for dinner. For some reason, I haven't even been having dessert. I think it's because I've been eating dinner so late.

Why do I eat dinner so late? I've been doing my half hour on WiiFit when I get home from work, but I give myself a little downtime before getting to it. By the time all is said and done, I'm usually not getting around to dinner until 7. To tell you the truth, I kinda like this. I think it's good to have my meals spread out. They go about 9-1-7. I'd rather, actually, be taking my lunch at 2. Carmen always starts pestering me to go if I'm not gone by 1. I just use the first race as lunch time now, it works.

It's been a lot of fun playing with WiiFit Plus. What I love the most are the new games and the calories burned counter. The Island Cycle came gets my heart rate up and I really feel the burn in my lower half, which is something I desperately need. It just hurts my feelings a little that I can't find the final flag on the advanced level! I've resorted to doing the basic one a few times, but it goes so quickly it's annoying. But Rhythm Kung Fu? Oh my god! Most fun thing EVER! It's weird, I actually get excited to play it! It really feels more like a game than exercise. If it wasn't bed time and I didn't want to get myself going, I'd go play it now! I feel better now having something I look forward to doing.

Uh oh...

Slacker weekend. I did just a little bit of WiiFit Plus this weekend. Seems I somehow have more motivation during the week when there is less time? At least yesterday I walked around stores a lot and today I did more of that as well as at Belmont. Eating was not good on the weekend. The problem wasn't even eating bad stuff, it was not eating. Most of this was due to the fact that I'd get up late and my first meal wouldn't come until lunch time. I tried a new cereal by Kashi that I loved. Then I went to three stores and can't find anymore of it. Bummer. Lean Cuisine is going to be my new dinner staple, I think.

Starting to feel it

I'm really hungry. Do you ever get used to the hunger when you cut back on quantity? Yogurt, fruit cup, Lean Cuisine pizza. Call me crazy, but I think those things are really good. And I did my time on the WiiFit. I feel like the weather is so lovely I should go for a run, but I am not even close to running yet. This weekend, I need to go grocery shopping. Any suggestions?

Slip

Oops. I didn't exercise today. But I did a hell of a lot more running around at work than usual. That's kinda why I didn't exercise. I didn't get home until 6:30 and by then I was just starving. Honestly, I still am. I had soup and some sliced up cucumber for dinner. Had the usual breakfast and lunch (mixed in some pineapple and cantaloupe with the grapes). My bad. Hopefully tomorrow will be an earlier (MUCH earlier) day. I'm a bit excited to get back to Belmont (okay - busting out of my seams is more appropriate, but I mean "a bit" in regards to the subject of this blog) because I plan on getting up at the same time. I will have way more time. So I can get in some exercise before going to work. That will be good. Yes, I'm excited.

Think I'm going to go have a pudding cup now. My stomach won't let up and it's not like I'll be able to fall asleep if it's all rumbley.

Still on track

I won't lie. I don't think I really expected myself to even make it to day three. But I have. Today was the first time it started getting to me, the first time I felt the pangs of temptation. Somehow I stayed clear. Again I had yogurt for breakfast, the bar and grapes for lunch, and a Healthy Choice (my FAVORITE - the pumpkin ravioli) for dinner. I've been rather hungry today and my stomach is still rumbling, so I think I will have a glass of milk before bed, just to put something there.

Yes, I even remembered to get batteries for the WiiFit board. In addition to that, I bought some more fruit. Today I ran out of grapes, so got more of those and went ahead with some pineapple and cantaloupe. There was a nice little mix at the store of everything I'd have liked...except the damn kiwis. Fruit allergies are an epic pain in the ass, let me tell you.

When I got home I put the batteries in and did a half hour of Wii. It was nice and even told me I was a little less than the doctor (well, nurse) clocked me at. I'm only three pounds up from the last time I weighed myself. Not great, obviously, but not as disastrous as I had thought.

Okay, time for that glass of milk so my stomach shuts up and I can go to sleep!

First real reporting

Yesterday was obviously Day 1. The first few days (or a little longer than that) are going to appear kinda wishy washy on the dieting because I started this mission while I still had other food on hand. Since I am poor, I don't want to see all the food I have go to waste. Fortunately, none of the food I seem to have in the house is very bad for me. Some of it isn't fantastic, but it's usable. I guess it will help tie into Em's "don't suddenly cut everything drastically" thing! Yes, I will look at it that way.

So...yesterday...

Breakfast
I am ashamed to admit, but I bought it before my dress catastrophe. A chocolate cheesecake muffin. There! I said it. But you know what...it wasn't that good. The cheesecake part of it was, but the chocolate part was very dry.

Lunch
FiberOne bar and grapes

Dinner
Healthy Choice dinner

Dessert
Pudding cup

Not too bad, save for the appalling breakfast. My bad. Won't happen again, promise.

Let's move on to today, okay?

Breakfast
Yogurt

Lunch
FiberOne bar and grapes (I think I only have enough grapes for tomorrow left)

Dinner
Leftover meat sauce and WHOLE WHEAT pasta (see, at least it was whole wheat!)

Dessert
I dunno if I'm feeling any tonight. The dinner was feeling. Might skip it. Gasp!

And for exercise I did about thirty minutes of AlysseFit free step. Turns out my balance board batteries died soooo couldn't do it for real. But even though I didn't have a video game keeping track for me, what counts is that I still did it. Since I tend to move faster on my own accord than the free step timer anyway, I'm going to say it was good. I was definitely feeling it!

Tomorrow I will get new batteries. And more grapes, I think. This was a good bunch, though.

Join My Quest

I went to the doctor the other day. The result on the scale wasn't pretty. While at the mall the following day, I tried on a dress. The result got uglier.

March just started. There are three months until the Belmont Stakes. There are four and a half months or so until Saratoga. While it's not going to be enough time to lose as much as I want, I think there is enough to work with that, if I am diligent, I can shed a decent amount before these markers. Let's take a look at some significant dates.

Belmont Stakes - June 5
Saratoga Opening Day - July 23
Travers Stakes - August 28

So there are three months until 1. There is about a month and a half between 1 and 2. There's a month after 2 until 3. Anybody know of realistic goals? Any way I can do 20 pounds by the Belmont stakes? I don't know. My long range goal is currently set at 40. If I can get there, I'll look into doing the final 10. It's time to explore the things that will have to go into this.

Exercise
I have my Wii Fit. At this point I am so out of shape, both mentally and physically, that it will suffice. Mentally, I am unwilling to let people see me physically struggling with exercise. Doing something from the safety of my own home is the way to go. Every day for a half hour sounds good, upping it to an hour when I have more time on the weekends.

In a perfect world, I am also going to pick up riding again. Now that the weather is looking to be on the upswing, it's time to start looking into it more. Too bad it costs money.

Diet
This is the big one. I have to break it down into breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks. I know this isn't good, but I am going to be lenient on the weekends (Monday and Tuesday for me, remember). I think that's the only way to keep me to it during the week, and 5 out of 7 days of being good isn't bad. I'll just make sure I don't really go crazy on the weekends, just a bit more indulgent to satisfy the cravings. Plus, if I do the extra exercise on the weekends, it's okay. Yeah?

Here are some of the foods I am willing to use for my weekday dieting.

Breakfast (this is hard, being that I need it to be grab-and-go friendly to eat at work)
Yogurt (particularly Yoplait's Honey Vanilla Greek Yogurt, it's double protein!)
Cereal

Lunch (also has to be work friendly)
FiberOne (I need the fiber, this is a daily thing) granola with...
Grapes
Turkey
Ham

Dinner (this is a struggle, as I don't cook here, so limited to microwavable)
Soup and veggie
Salad and veggie
Healthy Choice
Lean Cuisine

Snacks (can be used to supplement any meal if I'm still hungry, or just as needed)
Applesauce
Pudding cups
Popsicle

This is all I have for now. If you know me and/or think you know of some other good ideas for my menu, please let me know. Until then, thanks for baring with me! I'll be keeping track here of what I eat and if I exercise. Yell at me if I jump off my eating wagon or don't move my fat ass!