That is what my eating has been the last two days.
We have some family up by our house visiting and we've eaten out twice. And I've stuffed my face entirely too much. It has tasted so damn good though. I struggle with how much I enjoy eating out and eating my favorite foods. I find it much easier to skip going places versus limiting portions or ordering something not as bad from the menu if I go somewhere.
Why the hell would I want to not order potato skins or fettuccine alfredo?? I sure as hell don't want to *not* order those items. I want to eat every single bite of that "3x what a normal portion size should be" plate of food. And then I want to scoop up every single crumb that is still left on the plate. And maybe drink the glaze in the ramekin.
Can you tell I'm struggling right now?
I know this struggle was bound to happen.
The constraints of being good at all times are bound to be tested. Indulgences are made. Trainwrecks happen. Getting the train back on the track is the key though. I'm aware of this and I know I will do it.
Not that it's an excuse but I am 95% sure I'm in extreme PMS mode. As in I want to eat everything in the house and am craving sweets and I'm also breaking out. The crazy thing is - and I don't always go into a ton of detail over on this blog about it versus my other blog - if I do in fact get AF this week, that will make for a random "normal" cycle for me. I have PCOS, am anovulatory, and have a serious lack of regular (if any) periods. So while it's great that maybe I'm on schedule for once, I want to just lock all food out of this house before I eat it all. I know I'm really bloaty right now too. Knowing that, I really need to concentrate on cleaning up the wreckage so that when this is over, I can get back to losing weight instead of retaining it. Lord help me if I have to re-lose more than 5 pounds.
Side note - up until today, I've noticed a remarkable clearing of my acne trouble spots. I'm sure the water and cleaner eating is the only reason for the change and love seeing those positive results. But dammit if I didn't wake up yesterday to a giant honker on my chin/mouth area.
The positive thing that I can report from today is that our lunch today was down at Miller Park, home of the Milwaukee Brewers, and I took a picture with my buddy Mickey Mouse and posted it on Facebook. I received quite a few very nice comments about how I am looking. :-) I don't mean to sound flippant or vain but it really does help to hear the kind words and the praise. I'm still struggling with seeing a difference right now. I also feel afraid to continue to say that last sentence because I don't want to be seen as someone just fishing for compliments. That is not my intention. I really and truly struggle to feel like I've lost 30 pounds. I just wish my brain and eyes would see it.
I think the theme of this blog post can be that mentally I am struggling. I'm in this for the long haul and I keep reminding myself that these phases are normal. I just have to keep on going and find a new groove to propel me into the next 30 pound loss.
Anyway, I will share that photo here as well just to further my attention whoring. The jeans I'm wearing are still the same damn size as always for me - however - the Mickey zip up hoodie (can you tell it's Mickey in the pink now that I've pointed it out?) is one of the few clothing items that I feel the difference in the fit. It used to be super tight. It was on the roomy side
Ahhh, today's little post shall be quite fun to write. Let it be a lesson to others to double check your calorie database carefully.
Monday-Thursday I work in one town about 30 miles away. On Fridays I work in the area that I live in. On those days I treat myself to my Friday morning breakfast indulgence of a cheddar bacon bagel.Now, I fully know that it's not the most healthy combination. But it's delicious. And I adjust my calories for the rest of the day accordingly. I always put it into MFP too. I wasn't able to find the cheddar bacon exactly but I chose the asiago cheese one and then figured out the additional bacon calories and created my own "recipe" for it. Today I happened to be working out of the in-town location so I decided that I would have my splurge today since tomorrow is Valentine's Day and my in-laws are coming up and I'm sure we'll be going out to dinner.
Well, today for the first time I decided I going to finally change it up and make it into an egg sandwich. I've never had it before. It was fabulous. So I went back to MFP to add it to my food diary. I found the sandwich on there but with a plain bagel. So I thought, "Hmm, ok I'll use that sandwich, look up the plain bagel stats on the company website, and then add the difference in the calories manually to my breakfast section." Except something wasn't working out in my head and I went back to the company's website to double check myself. When my eyes hit upon the smoking gun, my stomach dropped.
Their serving size was for half of the bagel. Half. MFP had the base for my bagel listed as a whole bagel for the serving size. I've been eating this for months. And now that means that every Friday my counts have been way off. My bagle-wich was half of my daily allotted calories. I'm not even joking. I wish I was.
So I rethought my entire meal plan, cutting out a bunch of my snacks I packed, in hopes of not completely blowing the day.
I ended up being over by slightly more than 300 calories before my workout. Knowing I had to bust my ass tonight I did my 2 mile run and then lifted weights for another 45 minutes. My burn was about 642 calories so I did end up with a deficit today...not without sacrifice though. I'm still hungry ;-)
Needless to say, I will NOT be going to get my bagels every Friday. Maybe once every two months as a true "treat."
I'm still dumbfounded.
Portion sizes are a bitch sometimes. Damn them.
You know, I enjoy all things weather related from the science stand point. I had a major highlight about two weeks ago when the Weather Channel rolled up into my small WI town. I normally chat with a lot of the on air meteorologists via twitter or email. So when I heard that they were in town, I contacted the reporter and he told me to come on down and say hi. So I did. Which is awesome - even if it was a bunch of snow that we were experiencing right on the heels of the nasty polar vortex that saw us hitting -25 without windchills (-50 with).
Since then we haven't warmed up at all. There is no letting up in the forecast either. In a couple of days we will be back to struggling to hit -5 as our high.
It's times like this that I can't stop daydreaming about moving south so that my life doesn't feel like it's on hold during these bitter cold months. I hate dealing with the cold and ice and snow. I want to be able to come home and head out for a run. I know that there are some runners out there that are quite fine going for runs in 20-30*F. Yeah, I'm not there. I don't know if I ever will be either. Not to mention that I live a couple miles off of one of the state highways and our little country road doesn't get plowed much. It's hilly, there are open fields and a lake so the drifts get bad and ice forms all the time. I'm basically screwed for a nice running surface until maybe March. Wah wah wah.
So until then I'm stuck running on the track above the basketball courts at the Y. Better than nothing I know.
Yeah, there was no real need or point for this post except to bitch about the weather. Unless you care to share how you are able to run outside in the winter...even if you are in Florida and you think cold is 50.
