Still here

Well, im still here. Jamie was off for a week, so I had to take full advantage of spending time with him since he usually works nights and we don’t get to spend much time together.

Saturday morning me and jamie set out for New Orleans. We hadnt been in almost 2 years and he wanted to do a little shopping and I wanted to do some walking around and looking at the flea market.

After a couple hours we headed to Baton rouge to check into our hotel. It was in the down town area, and in walking distance to the concert we were going to that night. It was a very modern hotel with a gym, bar, and restaurant.
 

After meeting his friends at the bass pro shop for a little shopping, we headed to the concert and waited for the doors to open. The concert was pretty good for being a band  I don’t listen to. Puscifer. Look ‘em up!
Sunday we did quite a bit of shopping at a near by mall. Then headed home.

I didn’t workout like I wanted to over the weekend. But we did lots of walking, so I figured that would make up for some of it. I really havent worked out since friday.. Totally already broke my lent rule.. ugh. But I havent had sweets or alcohol. And im craving sweets more and more everyday. Mainly cookies.

Im doing really well my eating. Ive been tracking my breakfast and lunch and just eat a small portion for dinner and fill up on water the rest of the night. This plan has me 3 lbs down already!! I really need to get motivated to working out again. Only 5 more weeks til I go dress shopping.. gotta step it up!

So far, so good

Well mardi has and gone. Me and Jamie spent most of mardi gras hanging out in a parking lot with friends gettin sunburnt. twas a good time. But now we are officially into lent. No sweets or alcohol for me, and im doing surprisingly well. i dont really drink that often, so it doesnt bother me, im doing it for weightloss reasons. its the sweets that get me :/

Wednesday I did really well, i was craving sweets though. but ive found a new weapon. flavored water :) the main reason i probably eats sweets (or anyone for that matter) is for the taste. if i drink fruit punch flavored water, problem solved. i watched what i ate and worked out on the elliptical and did some weight exercises.


Yesterday I did even better. And i was really surprised how good i did with portion control last night. Jamie has been off this week (he usually works nights) so i think it helped that he ate with me so i wasnt just constantly eating. I also ran yesterday. It was super windy.. which made for a sucky run.

Im hoping this weekend goes well, me and jamie are going out of town for a concert and going do some shopping. We will be eating out alot so hopefully i dont pig out. There is suppose to be a gym at our hotel so i hope to make it there in the morning before we make our way out for some shopping.

hope yall have a great weekend!

Calzones

Saturday I wasn’t really in the mood to cook and didn’t have much to cook either. So I looked in the fridge and realized I had gotten supplies for calzones.

I have my dough defrosting, pizza sauce, pizza cheese, and defrosted leftover turkey from thanksgiving. I got everything ready and got to work!

First I rolled out my dough, then added sauce, turkey, and cheese.

Then folded it up, crimped the edges with a spoon, then brushed it with a mixture of butter and garlic powder.

Popped it in the oven at 400 for 20 mins,cut, and served!

Me and Jamie both agreed that these turned out super good! Ill be making these again.. maybe next time with chicken? or maybe sausage.. hmmm.. possibilities are endless right?

I felt like I was flying..

This morning i decided it would be a good day to get a run in. I hadnt run since Tuesday and i wanted to rerun my messed up run, this time went much better. Except that it was windy.. and cold. When i first got to the boardwalk i  realized i forgot my garmin! i have now learned i cant live without it, i quickly went back home (i live just a few miles away) and grabbed my garmin, and back to the boardwalk i went. Parts of the run were a little tough with the wind, but i pushed through. Mardi Gras was in full swing with temptations, luckily they werent open at 8:30 in the morning.

On the last run I had to do i decided to push myself and see how fast i could really go. I gave it all I had. When i glanced at my garmin i said 8:16 pace! Holy crap!! Did i really just do that?? Once i got home and plugged in my garmin to see what the fastest really was, i saw this:

 7:45?!?! hellllls yesss!! I declare that makes me an official badass! though i didnt run that fast for very long, and i had a little help from the wind im so proud of myself!! I really felt like i was flying! And it almost became not an effort. I had to actually stop myself, which i shoulda kept going to see how long i could do it.

I cant wait til i really get back into running and see what i can really do!!


Did you have anything exciting happen this weekend?

Lent Challenge

Last night the Mardi Gras Parades started, which to me is the official kick off to Mardi Gras because im not in a krewe so i dont go any balls. Me and my good friend met up at Casa Ole, which was along the parade route, to get a bite to eat before the parade got there. We didnt know the parade started early, due to rain, so we missed part of it while still in the restaurant. We quickly went outside to catch the rest of the parade, in the rain. Thankfully it wasnt raining too bad and we caught beads, cups, and she even got a shirt. Its raining as we speak, so hopefully not too many activities are getting rained out today.

Mardi Gras's last and biggest day is Fat Tuesday, which is followed by Ash Wednesday. Which we all know is the start of lent. I time we use for reflecting, and most people usually give up something they really want, or pray more, or do good deeds. Well this year im going to use lent as my "get fit" challenge. I plan on doing some kind of workout everyday -- for 40 days. Whether its running, working out at the gym (that im about to join), weights, or even a simple ab workout. Ill also be eating much healthier, keeping track of what i eat (but not calories), and giving up alot of sweets and sugar.

Ill be tracking my workouts on the Lent Challenge page and will be posting before and after measurements. MAYBE pictures too (eek!).. i dont know if im that brave.

I better get all those sweets in now! ;)

Finally a run!

i hadnt run in 10 days and my knee was feeling good enough this afternoon that i decided to go for my run. It wasnt raining today, which is a different story tomorrow. ugh. gotta get it in while i can!

i dont really know what happened, but my app for my 5k trainer messed up and cut 5 mins out of the program. it was too late by the time i realized it. so after it finished, i did 5 more mins like this: run 2 mins, walk 1 min, run 2 mins.

i decided i wanted to go for a full 2 miles so i just walked the rest and ended with a lil over 30 mins total.

im doing really good so far with the plan, i just wish i could run more often. rain go away! im still on week 2.. but i hope to start running more often and getting more practice of each run in to become comfortable in each weeks training. ill be able to run a 5k in no time!

Dream Vs. Reality

well.. this is my dream..

but this was the reality…

But in an effort to actually do something.. I took to the weights.. and had plans for 20 mins. on the elliptical.

I did about 30 min. of weight exercises from a dvd I have. It was all going great til we had to do a sumo squat.. and my knee decided it didn’t like that. Ive had trouble with my knee before, but this time it hurt for awhile, and actually still hurts this morning depending on how I bend it. this wouldn’t have happened if I coulda just ran

After the weights I decided to tackle the elliptical..

That lasted a whole 2 mins. the pain in my knee was sooo bad on the elliptical I decided to just rest it before anything else would happen. Im off too a bad start of the week with exercise

Should I get a knee brace or maybe ice it?

Rain, Rain, Go away!

The weather for this week:

Frack!! How am I suppose to run with all this rain?? –sigh-

M.I.A.

Well ive been M.I.A. for a week now.. opps! Sorry! I haven't had too much to blog about. I didn’t exercise at all this week and there was awesome dinners to blog about, I didn’t count calories. Basically I was a lazy bum.

But it’s a new week and I’m very positive about the week! I have decided to dedicate my weeks to running. like 5 days a week. it’s the only exercise I can motivate myself for it seems. if I bring my stuff to work, its almost like I have to go run. So that's my plan this week. we shall see how all that comes out in the wash, and then add on or adjust as needed.

Its Sunday, so that means its prep day. I did lost more prepping this week than last. Mainly because I will get home late from my runs so I want dinner half cooked. After I woke up this morning I made a quick menu for the week and headed to the grocery store. When I got home, I got to work in the kitchen and this is what I had going:

Baked meatballs for spaghetti later this week:

Boiled eggs for a snack:

Pizza dough for calzones and to freeze for pizza later in the month:

And tuna fish for my lunch this week:


My menu for the week is:
Mon: spaghetti and meatballs
Tues: pork chops with veggies
Wed: enchiladas (recipe to come)
Thurs: meatloaf, roasted potatoes, and broccoli with cheese
Fri: calzones with turkey

Hopefully being extra prepared this week will help me make it a successful week!
Hope everyone had a great weekend.

Calories

I have decided that I need to start counting calories. Though I know about the average of what I eat during the day, I always fail to count calories during dinner. And it seems I always consume more during dinner. So im going to try my best to input my dinner into a meal calculator to see how many calories im eating.

im also going to be using Sparkpeople to track my calories and exercises. Though im a bit sad that they don’t have and app for my windows 7 phone, they have the app for iphone/ipad, android, and blackberry. But i can easily just go online and input all my food.

Because I don’t work out like I probably should, im going to be keeping my calorie intake between 1300-1500. I will change this range as I see how my mood and body react to this change. Right now im only really burning about 200 calories a day, so im trying to keep food calories lower.

One way to keep me on track with my numbers is prepping. Ill prepare as much meals and snacks as i can today so its one less thing to worry about and my mind wont wonder into food that i shouldn't be eating. I will be sharing my normal breakfast, lunch and snack in a later post.

Dinner last night

Workout
Well.. it has been raining for days.. all week.. wont stop til this weekendish. *sigh* I wanna get my runs in, but I don’t wanna get soaked again like I did tuesday.  I wanna try and get a run in before I have to be somewhere at 930 tomorrow, so hopefully the clouds stay again til I finish my run! if not.. tuesday for sure will be run day!

I think along with my pilates id also like to go walking. Maybe a few miles a day, then come home to do pilates. I don’t know. I just know I need to get serious about all this! im probably going to start calorie counting next week.. ill post about that later.

Dinner
While I was browsing Wal-mart last week I saw these new “sizzling salad” kits. it comes with a sauce for your chicken and a sauce for your salad. im a big fan of having salad and chicken and I make it quite often for dinner, so I knew this was right up my alley.

I bought the southwest chicken dinner kit. they also have a ceasar one, thatll be next week!

 

 all you have to do is cook then chicken, then top it with some sauce. then make your salad and top it with the dressing.

I added extra toppings to my american blend salad (roman, iceburg, cabbage, and carrots) . I added croutons, cheese, corn and black beans. ok.. so I totally stole this idea from the picture on the box.. but I do make salads with fried black beans n corn.. so good! i also cut up my chicken and mixed it right in.

 and there ya have it! it was pretty tasty, I can wait to try the other flavor!