Day 21: Product Testing & Sad Thoughts

I tried out my new goodies today on a morning walk! I am so thrilled too because hubby went with me. He has been sore & tired since our hike Wednesday and hadn't exercised again. He was finally ready. We went for a 3 mile walk this morning and I tried out my new hydration pack and heart rate monitor.

The hydration pack is SO comfortable. Even all full of water it is not a hindrance whatsoever. It was convenient and awesome!!! As far as comfort against the skin, I can't speak for that yet because it was chilly and I was wearing my jacket. I did notice I was the ONLY person wearing any sort of hydration pack. Everyone out walking/running/biking either had a water bottle in their hand or nothing at all. I still have a hard time with anything that people might think is "weird" because I don't like to draw attention to myself lol. But I am trying not to care because I loved it so much!!

 

See how small it is? Very light and comfortable.

Do I look like a weirdo out walking? I hope not lol. But I loved wearing this today and having hands-free hydration!

When I got home I checked out my heart rate monitor's results:

So. My FitBit calculated the walk at 353 calories (but it only counts my # of steps). My iPhone app, which doesnt use my steps but rather my distance and elevation, calculates higher at 390. My heart rate monitor calculated 446... and I really think this would be the most accurate because it's calculating it on how hard **I** am working... not some fake "me" that is figured out from statistics.

I love all my devices for different reasons. But I think having this heart rate monitor is KEY!

Also I thought the chest strap was super comfortable. I did wet it as instructed and since it basically hits where the sports bra band hits, you don't even feel it after a couple of minutes. I could easily see forgetting it was there after a workout and accidentally wearing it all day LOL.  I still haven't delved into setting up my "target zones" or anything just yet.

By this time I was negative 250 calories for the day and I wanted pizza so we grabbed a slice at Marco's. Remember last time I got a much smaller piece? And I wasn't sure if his was bigger than normal or mine was smaller than normal. Well now I know! Mine was smaller. Today they were both huge. I wasn't able to eat the crust of mine because I got full. But it sure was a delicious piece of pizza.

We also ended up going to see a movie - The Hunger Games. I haven't read the books so I am not even clear on if the movie is of just the first book, or all 3. At any rate we liked it and thought it was really interesting. 

Normally going to a theater movie is major snacking time for me but we had just eaten that pizza so I just bought water to have later on in the movie. Ian bought a box of Dots and I had one serving (11 dots) and half the big bottle of water and that's it. And I really didn't feel like I was missing anything.

By the time we got out of the movie, though, it was after 5pm and I hadn't eaten much. I had 1,300 calories or so left to eat!!!

We ended up going to Tokyo Joes which I thought would be sort of a "splurge" since I had so many calories left.

I had a regular size bowl with white chicken, teriyaki sauce, brown rice, carrots, edamame and water chestnuts. I had calculated it online as somewhere around 600 calories before we went.... and even after ALL this time it never even occurred to me that OH YEAH I WON'T EAT ALL THAT..... lol! So I ate all of the chicken but only about 1/3 of everything else in the bowl. Except I calculated full amount of sauce because I thought it was skimpy and I asked for more sauce, so not sure about that one. Anyway.... only 350ish calories in the end. LOL I left there saying to him... well there went that plan.... I still have 1,000 calories left to eat!

In retrospect NOT the best idea considering it was VERY VERY HIGH SODIUM and tomorrow is WEIGH IN! Silly me. But that's alright... it's just a number and it will change.

I ended up having a protein shake a little later because I was running low on protein for the day. My final meal was a bowl of cereal. I am still 380 calories under my goal for the day, but that's the best I can do today. No more food. I'm trying to get down one more glass of water before bed (had about 12 cups so far today) to try and counteract some of the sodium.

All in all it's been a pretty good day.... except my poor husband is really sad tonight :( His mom was texting him how she has been crying more lately and feels Ian's dad isn't going to be here much longer. We all know this but just bringing it up and keeping it in his mind really had him down tonight. Just out of nowhere he said "I just hate this feeling every day, just waiting for my dad to die". I had no idea he was thinking about it tonight. We talked for a while and he ended up just wanting to go to bed early at 9:00 (this is 2-3 hours early for him). I worry about him and being depressed... but very glad at least that he went on that walk with me today.

I can't understand how he's feeling, even though i lost my mom so recently (can't believe we are coming up to 7 months now).... because I had no warning. Of course that has it's own shock and tragedy, but waiting for it like he is must be just absolutely terrible as well. That's what my cousins went through with my uncle for over a year. My husband, his sister and their mom are all just waiting. It's hard now and will be extremely hard when it actually does happen.... and I know it will be hard for a long time. Here I am at almost 7 months since I lost Mom and I cry almost every day. I think about so many little things. Today when we went to the movies a mom and daughter crossed the street heading to the theater and I recalled how she and I used to do that together ALL the time when I was that age and she was still in good enough health to do those things with me. I wish her surgery had worked and she had gotten better so we could do things together again.

Sorry to be a downer just feeling so sad tonight... for my own loss, the things I'll never have with my Mom... and for watching my husband go through all this... and what I have yet to watch him go through. THAT part I know how it feels and I hate that he will have to feel it too. I'm 28, he's 34 and we are both already losing a parent.... and we are not yet parents ourselves. Sometimes it's just too much.

He starts his new job next week and I'm really hoping it will help him to have something to focus on. But when he does, I will be spending Tuesdays with his dad in his place, and I am so nervous as I know it will make me even more sad, but I know it will be a blessing to spend some time with him.

Day 20: Some New Gear!

I can't believe I'm 2/3 of the way through my 30 day commitment. I will say... I don't see myself stopping anytime soon. I am happy tracking my calories and exercise. Probably for the first time in my life!! I don't feel constricted by it. Instead I feel strangely free and in control. It's wonderful. If anything I am becoming more concerned with accurate calorie counts.... not because I want to make sure I don't eat too much... but because I want to make sure I eat enough... and of the right TYPES of foods (really trying to get higher protein again and go for the 40%carb/30%protein/30%fat ratio). It's HARD! I've been really under the protein this week. Need to keep trying. I mean I'm getting like 80-90 grams per day so it's not super low, but it's about half what I "should" get!

This morning I had some protein rich cereal (Kashi Go Lean Crunch Honey Almond Flax)... 9 g protein. Plus some almond milk and canteloupe.

 

Late lunch/early dinner ended up being at Panera Bread because we were out shopping all afternoon. I opted for a 1/2 tuna sandwich with black bean soup. VERY good soup!

I ate the 1/2 sandwich and about 1/3 of the soup. Saved the rest of the soup and my apple and brought them home.

4+ hours later I was finally hungry again (so unusual for me to go that long) so I ate the rest of my soup with a little one-tortilla cheese quesadilla I made. I used a whole wheat tortilla, one slice of havarti cheese and one slice white american cheese.

Let me tell you it was YUMMY! Also, this one is a photo of the one Ian made for himself.... his has some roast beef and some chicken inside of it with his cheese, so he packed a lot of protein into that. (For the record, I could have done that and often do if I'm not pairing it with something. But since I wanted my soup I had to go with something a little less dense). He had some berries and a pickle with his as well as topped it with some salsa.

 

Anyhoo.... enough about my food for the day. Let's talk about WHY I WENT SHOPPING!!! :) Well, yesterday when I ended up going for a 5 mile walk WITHOUT ANY WATER, I realized I probably needed to do something about that. I'm not gonna carry a bottle that whole time. I do have a hydration backpack, but it is large and holds a lot of stuff. It seems silly to carry that for only the water aspect, and would be much hotter to wear also. Ian reminded me that they made smaller ones that are pretty much only for the water.

Did I mention I LOVE the store REI? I am a member there. My $25/yr membership already saved me $300 this year when I traded in my used-for-a-year snowshoes for brand new ones just because I didn't like the straps. Then they sent me my DIVIDENDS.... $75!!! As well as a 20% off one item coupon.

So off to REI we went and I ended up with this AWESOME backpack-type device which they actually call a hydration VEST because of the pockets in the front. Whatever it's called, I LOVE it...

That's the back view. The largest pocket holds the 70oz water bladder (same size that goes in my BIG backpack, wow)... then there is a smaller pocket for personal items. It's big enough for me to carry sunscreen and even a snack or some other small items.. so I could EVEN use this hiking when I don't want to carry the bigger one!

Here's the front view, or what goes on your chest. There's a sternum strap which is VERY comfortable and you clip your "straw" into it. Then on each shoulder strap you have a handy pocket you can reach without having to take the backpack off. The zippered pocket is big enough for my chapstick, a pack of tissues, and probably a couple other small things as well. The bigger drawstring pocket is even big enough for my PHONE, or even on occasion if I want to carry one of those small gatorade bottles for extra hydrtion.

Now you might be wondering about the meshy looking material the straps are made out of. Here's a closeup of mine...

It's sheer, lighweight, breathable, SOFT and extremely confortable. The outer edges are super soft like velvet. I would think even against bare skin wearing a tank top this would be extremely comfortsble. Which is great because in the summer I often walk/hike/bike in a tank top.

I'll have to let you know what i think once I actually USE it.... but right now I am pretty sure I'm in love!

The other things I was after at REI... a heart rate monitor. I think it will be a nice compliment to my FitBit for a more complete view of everything I'm doing. I love the FitBit for many reasons and it does many things a heart rate monitor and regular pedometer can't do. But I wanted the heart rate monitor especially with considering going into more strength training, going biking, and other things the FitBit can't really track.

I went with the Polar FT7 with chest strap.

I set up my basic settings in it tonight and wet the chest strap, tried it on and went for a little jog around the house and up and down the stairs. It seemed pretty accurate and worked well. I still have to figure out the whole fat burning zone/cardio zone thing because I think I accidentally set it myself instead of letting it set it for me and I set it at my resting heart rate LOL! I have some reading to do.

I also found this little bonus goodie at REI:

Isn't that great? I totally need this. My headphones are always a MESS. i try so hard to put them away neatly and yet EVERY time I get them out for a walk or at the gym, it takes me 5 minutes to untangle them. This is great, you can unwind some at both ends, don't even have to take the whole thing off. Should be very convenient.

I LOVE buying these bigger ticket items at REI because of my membership. If I am unhappy with them for any reason, I just take them back ANY TIME and get something else. No receipt, no matter the condition, no questions asked. So even though the backpack or heart rate monitor might be slightly cheaper on Amazon or somewhere else, you can't beat a guarantee like that.

The backpack was $90 and the HR monitor was $109. However I had a 20% off for my HR monitor and my $75 dividend so it ended up being around $100 for BOTH! We got some other goodies too so I spent a bit more. Very happy with my purchases.

By the way, stayed right at my calorie goal today with eating back my extra calories... although I didn't do planned exercise, FitBit said I got about 230 extra calories from all the extra walking I did out shopping at REI, Best Buy and 2 Targets (I didn't buy anything else but Ian needed something at BB and I needed something at Target but they were out). Yay for walking and YAY for my FitBit!!!!

Days 18 & 19

Hi there! So I forgot and/or was too tired to blog again last night. Instead of doing two posts today I just thought I'd combine them :)

YESTERDAY:

Firstly, no exercise yesterday. I was tuckered out from doing Curves AND a big hike the day before, so I took a rest day.

Yesterday was my dad's birthday! He just turned 66. We knew we were going out to dinner for his birthday AND we knew we were supposed to have dessert at my aunt's house afterward. However we still wanted to throw him a little birthday at home on our own.

We went to the bakery that made our wedding cake because you can buy individual (somewhat large) cupcakes... so we figured we would bring home one for my dad (super duper chocolate) and one that Ian and I could split... much better than buying a whole case of cupcakes and eating them for a few days.

We also gave him a card. It says Happy Murf-Day because his nickname is Murf :) Inside the card was his gift from us... a bunch of GLEE albums we purchased for him on iTunes! He's been watching the show with us and just LOVED the music so we picked out 6 albums to get for him.

Later on we went out to dinner... his choice, Famous Dave's! I love that place. I decided on the BBQ pulled chicken sandwich with potato salad as my side:

I only at half the meat from the sandwich (and none of the bun) and half the potato salad, so the calorie count was super reasonable actually.

At dinner we got to talking about how my aunt wanted to get an iPad. She asked us a lot of questions about could she do this, could she do that.... well long story short we ended up going from the restaurant to Best Buy and helping her pick on out. Then we went back to her house for the birthday dessert and spent the whole night there while Ian & I (mostly Ian) helped her get her new iPad all set up!

My iPad in the front (I was browsing some magazines) and Ian with his, my aunt with hers. To the left, kitty whose name is Princess Leia :)

Dessert was Village Inn French Silk pie.... my dad's favorite. It's never been one I really like all that much but when there are just 5 of you and you're all supposed to sit down and have pie... well.... I ate it anyway. And I'm so sorry I did. I felt disgusting, and consumed 580 crappy calories, all for something that isn't even my taste. Poor Ian was sick to his stomach most of the night from it. Luckily I wasn't but I just felt nasty. LESSON LEARNED. Next time, if we do still want to participate we will SPLIT a piece! Less calories and less BLAH.

My aunt is really excited and appreciative of all the time we spent there and how much Ian helped her to get started with her ipad. Plus I'm all super excited about my own again lol and downloaded some new apps and magazines.

We didn't get home until almost 11pm so that's pretty much it for yesterday. I ended up 800 calories over my net calorie goal since I didn't exercise and ate all those extras. However I'm not worried about it at all because of how extremely far under I was the day before, and I've been under every day the whole week!


TODAY:

Friday is supposed to be a Curves day, but last night I started having pain in my left wrist. I felt like I had strained a muscle in that area at Curves Wednesday. So I decided to skip it and planned to go for a walk today instead.

This morning my dad received a lovely gift from our friends & family in Houston... an Edible Arrangement and a Happy Birthday balloon!

 

Yum yum yum! I already helped myself to a chocolate covered strawberry :)

Now for my afternoon walk. I set out feelin' pretty good and wanted to do a 3-4 mile walk. Then I thought... I've never done 5 and it's my only workout for the day so why don't I try for 5 miles?

It was a gorgeous day! Here's a little snapshot along the way:

I went along until I hit 2.5 miles and then turned around. On the way back all the prairie dogs popped out of their holes to cheer me on lol:

I'll admit, at 4 miles I was pretty much exhausted. I had no choice but to finish walking home but I definitely exceeded what I had in me today. I've felt worn out all night ever since. BUT... I did it!

 

622 calories burned! Alright! It helps that there are a lot of hills on my walks around here.

It's only 8:30 so I haven't finished eating for the day, but I have over 1,000 calories left to eat so I won't even come close to that.

Day 17: Curves & Hiking

Hey everybody! I was too tired to post last night so this post is for yesterday, March 21st.

What a BIG day!! First of all I had Curves in the morning. I continue to exceed my previous efforts... I laid it ALL out and burned 672 calories!!! Oh man, let me tell you, I worked HARD. I am already developing so much more muscle definition. This morning I flexed my biceps and I can't believe what has "grown" there LOL.

After Curves, Grandma and I walked to Starbucks. I thought I was going to pass out I was so tired and worn out.I had my banana chocolate protein smoothie. I was EXHAUSTED but by the time I drank that and sat there for a bit, I actually felt pretty much recovered! That's just crazy to me how much more quickly I also recover now.

After returning home I rested for maybe an hour, had 2nd breakfast and then Ian and I packed up our hiking stuff and set out for a hike!!!

We drove quite a ways up into Golden Gate Canyon State Park and took off on a 3.5 mile round trip hike. It was an absolutely BEAUTIFUL day and it felt so good to be out there. A little chilly (50 degrees) but perfect for hiking. I also got to play with my new camera some more!! So here are some pictures :)

 If you're interested you can see the whole album of photos here on Flickr.

The hike was 3.5 miles and to my estimation I burned about 900 calories. This was tricky because we were out there for 2 1/2 hours... but our actual time moving (according to Ian's phone) is an hour 20 minutes, probably because we spent so much time taking photos around the old homestead and along the way too. So what I did was calculate the calories based on the actual hiking time of an hour 20 minutes.... but still had to record it as 2 1/2 hours so it wouldn't confuse our FitBits.

So... between 900 calories burned hiking and 670 calories burned at Curves... I had a MAJOR deficit yesterday. I did my best but I just couldn't eat to my calorie goal.

Calories Eaten: 1,950  Calories Burned Through Exercie: 1,571
NET Calories: 380!
A FAR cry from my goal of 1500. LOL... I did the best I could but I just couldn't eat any more.

I don't have any food photos but in case you're curious...

Meal1 - protein smoothie at sbux
Meal 2 - tuna melt in small whole wheat tortilla
Meal 3 - granola bar w/ protein, apple
Meal 4 - Oh Yeah! Protein shake (32 grams)
Meal 5 - Velveeta chili mac, followed by skinny cow ice cream sandwich a bit later
Meal 6 - Special K & almond milk

The good thing is I got LOTS of protein (133 grams) which I know I needed with all that activity. But didn't eat anywhere near enough calories.

I'm taking today (Thursday) off from exercise and we are going out tonight to celebrate my dad's birthday, so maybe I can make up some calories today :)

Day 16 Calories and More

Firstly I just have to share that I got some really shocking news tonight. A good friend from high school along with his wife and four kids have been living in Mexico for the past several years as missionaries. I found out that last night their house was robbed at gunpoint by 6 armed men who tied up him and his wife, locked their 4 kids in a closet and proceeded to steal everything they own and also shot their two dogs, killing them. Thankfully they didn't harm the family, but what a horrific thing to go through. And now they have nothing left. I am waiting to hear how to send money. If you pray, please pray for this family the Sturms in Mexico.

Alright I'll try to move on to the normal things my blog is about.

I upped my calorie goal today. Not super significantly, but changed my NET calorie goal from 1200 to 1500. 1200 just didn't seem right to me all along considering women much smaller than me go on 1200 calorie diets to lose weight. So this new weight lifting idea is only a small part of the decision, as I think my calories should be higher to begin with. I might even up them more but haven't made that decision yet. I have no idea how I will eat so many calories if I up them even more. Mainly because even today I couldn't make my 1500 calorie net. I ate about 1,919 cals yes, but I burned 630 through exercise leaving me at 1,289 net calories. So I went and left myself around the 1200 calorie range after all! :-P

I started the book New Rules of Lifting for Women. I haven't gotten to the workout part yet but have read a lot of interesting nutrition stuff as well as many things exclaiming the damage done to your body by low calorie diets.

What I did get to was a part that made me cringe.... If you start their exercise program, they want you to eat calories at your MAINTENANCE level for the first month, for evaluation purposes, and then go from there as you continue in the program. How will I ever eat that many calories every day? I am so skeptical.... Plus don't like the idea that I may not lose any weight for a month. But I have to keep in mind the bigger picture, that the whole purpose of this method is to gain strength and muscle which helps you burn more calories all the time and is the key to lifelong weight maintenance without low calorie starvation like diets. Plus I have seen that building muscle helps my pain levels.... So it even makes me think it could be the key to a life of less pain for the long term. A better life than my mother's.

I will need to finish reading the book before I decide anything about what I'm going to do... So I will finish this 30 day challenge with the same things I'm already doing. By then I can finish the book, possible interview a couple personal trainers at my gym and find one I can work with, who knows. I might not even need one, will have to see what the book says. Then maybe I can start a new 30 day adventure following phase 1 of this program with their suggested methods.

 I will say this, they stress HIGH protein, higher even that what I am getting now, which is perfectly in line with my surgery, as is their six meal per day eating plan. So it should be a good fit with what I am already supposed to do.

Alright I'm tired so here's a few meals from today...Trying to eat a bit higher cals.

This morning after curves. 1 egg over medium on 1/2 a whole wheat sandwich thin with 1/3 tablespoon butter. Vegetarian sausage patty for lots of extra protein.

2nd meal. Greek chobani yogurt, raspberry flavor with full 1/4 cup of the bear naked protein granola (was going for the extra cals) and a couple raspberries. Added a Colby cheese stick.

Dinner or meal 5. Hearty sausage n beans recipe. We used hills hire farms chicken sausage. It also has pinto beans, onion, and some ranch dressing mix. We love this chicken sausage not only is it better for you than regular but I think it tastes better and it's so much less greasy. However with so many packaged and canned ingredients it's a high sodium meal. Calories figured out for this is 335 for 1 cup which is what I had.

I tried the Zumba at Curves today but it just wasn't for me. I didn't work nearly as hard as I do just going to curves normally. So I won't be doing that again most likely. In the afternoon I enjoyed an iced caramel macchiato with a friend, a rare treat now. I was thinking I need higher calories today so I went for it. But really it's not the high protein calories I should be having so that was a wrong decision. Anyway then I went for a nice afternoon walk 2.5 miles burning 280 more calories (bye bye Carmel macchiato lol).

Day 15 WOW My Head is Spinning.....

Hey guys! So first of all, I did my weigh in this morning. I lost 1.4 lbs this week and I weigh 210.4 :) Not as bad as I thought it would be, but I imagine it would have been about a 3lb loss week if not for the unexpected period. But hey I'll take it! Almost 6 lbs lost in 2 weeks.

I do have a topic I REALLY want to talk about before I get into the regular daily stuff. I have been doing SO MUCH reading about the benefits of a higher calorie diet with exercise and especially strength training. It is so hard to think about taking that "risk" of a few weeks trying it out... but really what do I have to lose? Right? I would still be doing healthy things for myself and if I didn't lose, I wouldn't be any worse off just pick up where I left off.

I read this thread on MyFitnessPal. It is currently 8 pages long... but if you are interested in this idea like I am it is SO EXTREMELY INTERESTING. I mean I still weigh 210 lbs and many of these women are MUCH MUCH lighter than me and eating MANY more calories and having weight just fall off. it really makes me think.

MyFitnessPal: Before & After Pics NO STARVATION

I do have a couple question marks like if I were to try this, what should my calorie goal be? With everyone being different heights it's hard to say and I'd probably have to play around with it. How much strength training would I have to do to really make this work? I'm thinking Curves probably wouldn't be enough. But I don't know. And lastly..... I would have to eat much higher calorie foods since I can't really eat a lot more VOLUME due to my small stomach. Which isn't bad because I could eat more eggs, more cheese, more beef, more PEANUT BUTTER!!!! lol... etc and I'm sure I wouldn't mind that. But is that... unhealthy? I just don't know. One of the girls in that thread who looks INCREDIBLE starts her day with a 600 calorie breakfast each morning... an omelet, a slice of toast with peanut butter, a banana and a cappuccino. Obviously I could never eat all of that at once. But I eat twice as frequently. So really if I made all 6 meals around 300 cals instead of around 200 cals, that would up me from 1200 cals to 1800 cals so that wouldn't be that hard of a change to make if I wanted to go that route.

Why is it SO SCARY to think about? I keep trying to tell myself... so what if it doesn't work I can always go back to what I'm doing. But something is telling me... something from my GUT... that this might work for me. As long as I do the exercise to go along with it and realize that on days or weeks that I can't exercise like that, I would need to eat less.

A few people mention this book so my first step was to buy it. I'll start reading it tomorrow:

HMMMMMM. All I have to say is HMMMMMMMMMM. THOUGHTS PEOPLE!?!?!?!?


Alright so now that that's out of the way I will continue on with my regular daily stuff. I went to Curves this morning and just did not have the same level of energy that I usually have - probably also due to the unexpected period. BUT that being said I still did pretty darn good. 588 calories burned, less than last time, but more than the time before that, and still went over my target. I just didn't "feel it", the energy wasn't there. But I did it! No second workout today, too cold for a walk and I just never really delt the energy to go back to the gym.

 I tried to take a few more food photos today since I had some new things to try and I haven't been taking that many photos of my food lately.

Firstly, not really food but I wanted to talk about these. Just like everybody else I get sick of or don't feel like plain water all of the time. I had tried Crystal Light since so many people use it but it just tasted so fake to me and I also like to minimize how often I have artificial sweeteners. Not to mention  We do our grocery shopping at Target and we came across these:

 

They had 5 flavors and we chose these 3 to try. I like that it uses Stevia instead of an artificial sweetener, not just for health reasons but it TASTES so much better and doesn't taste fake. Plus I'm getting electrolytes and whatnot... good after working out. I have tried all 3 of these flavors now and I like them ALL!!! Just to note... I don't like things flavored too strongly so I use one packet in my 24oz watercup whereas it's meant for a 16.9oz water bottle. So I dont' know how it tastes with it being stronger like that, but I certainly like this WAY better than Crystal Light.

Today's first meal. Some Quaker Lower Sugar Apples & Cinnamon instant oatmeal (um... YUMMY)... a Morningstar Farms vegetarian sausage patty for protein... a few strawberries. A delightfully satisfying meal after my Curves! This meal 202 calories, 13g protein.

LOL are you guys getting tired of seeing my dad's red dishes? :) By the way these are salad size plates and small 1.5 cup appetizer bowls. Meal #2. I used one low carb small tortilla with one slice havarti cheese and 6 slices turkey breast (1oz) to make a little melt. Paired with 1/2 cup Panera Bread tomato soup (from Target, not from Panera Bread directly). This meal 260 calories, 17g protein.

Meal #3... one serving of Snack Factory Pretzel Crisps (Everything flavor), 2TBS of onion and chive whipped cream cheese, one snack block of cheddar cheese, a snack bag of baby carrots. This meal 265 calories, 10g protein.

Meal #5... Also by Target's Archer Farms brand. A frozen chicken pot pie made for two. Ian and I shared it for dinner. It took FOREVER to cook. It said 20-25 mins but it took like...40. Plus 10 to cool. But I will say it was worth the wait and DELICIOUS. 1/2 of the pie which is what we each had = 270 calories, 14g protein.

Meal #6 was (as USUAL) special K chocolatey delight cereal with almond milk. I followed it with 2 TBS of peanut butter simply because Im TRYING to eat more calories sheesh!

Todays Stats:
Food 1767, Exercise -618, NET 1149. Still not to my 1200 calorie net but I am definitely done eating. I will have to plan higher calories for each meal throughout the day if I decide to go for this because I can only eat so much!!

Day 14, Halfway Through My Challenge

It's been two full weeks! I'm halfway through my 30-day challenge of tracking and giving this my all. Today was the FIRST day I haven't exercised. Still got some decent activity but no real exercise. I felt tired and sluggish today and NEEDED the day off, whereas last Sunday I felt energetic and just HAD to walk. So, I listened to my body both times and I feel great about that.

Tomorrow morning is weigh-in... but I'm not expecting much. Even though I've been REALLY good.... I had  big loss last week AND an unexpected period started today. I can tell I'm all bloated (my rings don't fit) and I'm SURE that will show on the scale tomorrow. But what matters is I KNOW I'm doing everything right and making great choices :) Just have to keep doing that.

Made a yummy dinner tonight. Baked onion chicken. I've made it before but this time the chicken breasts I bought were WAY toooo thick! Ugh! It still tasted good but I would prefer them thinner. I was only able to eat half since it was so thick.

The green beans were steam-in-the-bag frozen and I added a sprinkling of parmesan and garlic salt. Tasty. I ate the bottom half of that chicken breast... barely... probably less than half. But I ate allllll my beans :)

We went grocery shopping today too, so got a bunch more things to try out this week.

I was really worried with taking the day off from exercise, I wouldn't be able to stay in my 1200 calories. All the other days I've eating from say 1400-1700.
Well... it turns out... I had no trouble at all! I guess when you listen to your body, it really can tell you when you need more and when you need less. I wasn't nearly as hungry today because I didn't need the extra fuel! I consumed 1,134 calories today. It was also a very low sodium day... and not because I was trying. Wonder if water retention led me naturally to lower sodium things? I love this whole intuitive eating concept and I love that I am starting to be more tuned into it.

I feel a lot more rested after taking the day off from exercise and I'm ready to tackle more tomorrow!