wah wah wee wah

i gotta tell you... i am pooped. on wednesday night my boyfriend and i went to see the musical "spring awakening" - first half good, second half bad. i just listened to "animal farm" on audiobook and the sheep keep saying, "four legs good, two legs baaaaaaaaad" and i can't get it out of my head. those sheep! anyway, the musical was worth seeing but strange. i would want people to make up their own minds.


tonight was book club. i managed to get a swim in beforehand but the timing was tight. still, i wanted to stick to the plan and i did.

so far, eating this week has been pretty good. since i can't use any activity points, i'm down 5 flex which isn't much. fridays are normally pretty tame and then saturday is my tough day.

i am just so happy that tomorrow is friday! seriously, my body is CRAVING a weekend. i want it bad and i want it now. thank you and goodnight. :) ps. tomorrow is my weigh-in day. i know i only started tracking again on monday, but monday weigh-ins are depressing. fridays are were it's at.

day two thank you

day two was another food and exercise success. i ate breakfast at home, had lunch plus two snacks at work, went swimming and had a delicious dinner. on monday night i did have a vitatop brownie, but it's all good. now that i am back to tracking on ww online, i realize how different the site is. i know they changed the plan to the "momentum" plan, but since my points never changed and i already ate the more "healthy" filling foods anyway i didn't really look at it too much.

the new plan gives you a daily points allotment, 35 weekly points, and activity points. BUT you must use all of your daily points AND weekly points before any of your activity points are deducted. AND you can only use your activity points on the same day you earn them. so basically, you don't really get them except for the last day unless you eat all of your weekly points early on in the week, which heaven forbid, i would never do. i think that is how it works. i'm sure somebody will correct me if i'm not. i did a google search on this and apparently people are inconvenienced and outraged by this. i don't care because it's not the end of the world, is it? what is a point anyway but a figment of my imagination? a meaningless obstacle on this road we call weight loss. i'm deep.

my dinner last night was an egg white omelet. i wanted an egg, but i didn't have one. i did have lots of leftover veggies though. i chopped and heated up some red onion, zucchini, red pepper, mushrooms, spinach, tomatoes, avocado, and sun-dried tomato. then i poured 3/4 cup egg whites onto another pan and let it cook into a circle. transfer to a plate, pour the veggies on half, fold it over, sprinkle with chili lime sauce, add 2 slices of ezekiel toast, and you have a delicious, nutritious, filling 5.5 point meal.

in other news, my skin is really breaking out. what is with this mid-life acne! grrrr. i use pro-activ but it's not working. i think it's from stress and womanly business. who can be sure though? taking ground flax has eliminated most of my PMS symptoms (except the extreme snappiness and sensitivity) WHO SAID THAT!@@?@?@!! i'm sorry, come back, i love you.



mmm look at that candy. tonight is date night and i am going to see the musical "spring awakening" with my beau. i am very excited. first we are going to sears so i can buy more nylons for work, second we are going to harveys for dinner (6 point veggie burger OR grilled chicken salad) and third to the really big shoe. i am not swimming tomorrow but may do yoga in the morning. that's a big "may" since i already get up at 6:15 as it is! happy wednesday. one day at a time, right?

eat and sleep and swim

last night i went for a 40-minute swim, and then this morning i went for another 40-minute swim. it's just so easy and painless. by the end of it, i feel like i've worked hard. i am not dead tired, not really that out of breath, but my muscles are sore. i'm mostly just a bit cold and sick of being wet, if that makes sense.

check out this crazy picture i found of a white tiger swimming:

looks just like me. grrrrrr. how would you like to run into that beast in the deep end? yikes!

in other news, tonight for dinner i am making chicken enchiladas. it's date night and i am in a date cooking rut. my boyfriend is easy to please with the stupidest foods. he is polish and grew up with his mom cooking gourmet meals all of the time so he missed out on things like hot dogs and macaroni and cheese and now it's a big novelty for him. i have never made chicken enchiladas before but i'm ready. i'm looked up a few recipes and have the gist of it down: roll up filling, place in tomato saucy pan, cover with more sauce, some cheese, bake. i think i will fill mine with onions, red pepper, chicken, a bit of cheese, and green onions. i'm starting simple with things i know i like and can experiment next time. i'm serving the enchiladas with a side of zatarain's red beans and rice which i have never made before but seems to be pretty popular based on my google image search.

i'm going to try and squeeze in some yoga before my boyfriend comes over. in other news, i downloaded the new lily allen CD, "it's not me, it's you" and it's amazing. loving it! i got the explicit version but it's also available without swearing on iTunes.

workout songs

great workout songs can really make all of the difference. or a great magazine. last night i added two new songs to my playlist:

1) all the single ladies by beyonce, and

2) live your life by ti and rihanna

amazing! nothing like getting your groove on to make working out fun. it will be heaven when no doubt releases a new album. HEAVEN.

last night i did about 36 minutes on the elliptical (burning 300 calories), and then moved to the mat for some stretching, sit-ups, and more bootylicious exercises. my bee-hind is definitely feeling the burn.

i wanted to write a little bit about heart rate monitors. mine has really opened my eyes to three important things:

1) the number of calories i'm actually burning. i find the estimates on the treadmill and the elliptical to be grossly overestimating how many calories i'm burning. i used to walk for an hour and think i burned 600 calories. HA! of course, the number of calories you burn doing any exercise varies based on your own weight, height, and age. i burn a lot less calories than a 200-pound man would doing the exact same exercise.

2) the level of physical exertion i should be aiming for and maintaining. after you input your stats into the monitor, it gives you a range to aim for and maintain during cardio exercise. for example, my resting heart rate is in the upper 50s. this is pretty low. my "cardio" zone is between 125 and 165 beats per minute. when i used to run, my heart rate would stay around 140 beats per minute, unless i was running up hill. on the elliptical, it's about 150 because i'm pushing myself hard. sometimes it goes up to 165, and i know it's time to back off a little.

3) what exercises are good for cardio and not as good for cardio. i'm not saying bad, because any exercise is good. but i now know that even walking on an incline doesn't pump me for maximum burn. and that tony gazelle machine (my parents have)... worthless! unless there is some way to turn up the resistance that i don't know about (there probably is).

my dinner last night was ridiculously low in points. i roasted an entire acorn squash, scooped out the insides (1 point for the whole thing) and covered it in 1/2 cup cottage cheese (1.5 points). since i had leftover points i enjoyed a 50 oz. glass of wine. 50! and now i'm dead. i meant 5 oz. i measured it on my kitchen scale and 5 oz. is a lot. i was underestimating my wine consumption before. not anymore haha.

this morning i thought about swimming but that didn't seem very appealing, so i did two pilates videos instead. the first was a beginner 25-minute "band exercises" workout, and the second was the 20-minute circle workout. my hips are very flexible but my hamstrings are NOT and both these videos stretched them out a bit.