Healthy Choices - 5/13, 5/12, 5/11, 5/10

I swear to someone that I am not supposed to put this post up. My computer has spazzed on me multiple times as I tried to write this. It's not bad enough that I'm 3 days late...Let's go:

5/13 Food:

B: French Toast (Wheat), Strawberries, Turkey Bacon
L: Nothing :(
D: Grilled Salmon, Asparagus, Brown Rice

5/13 Exercise: Nothing!

Comments: Carolyn's sister decided to make breakfast for Mother's Day and it ended up being made closer to lunch. Tasty, but took way too long. As a result, I didn't have an appetite for lunch. I made Mother's Day dinner for Carolyn. Lucky for me she likes to eat healthy normally. The Salmon and Asparagus had an Asian theme. Tasty and healthy...

5/12 Food:

B: Kashi Go Lean Crunch
L: Turkey and Swiss on Rye w/ Lettuce and Mayo
D: Shrimp and Clams over Pasta in a White Wine Sauce, Arugula Salad w/ Oil and Vinegar

5/12 Exercise: Nothing!

Comments: Carolyn's family came into town for Mother's Day weekend and her sister wanted to make a fancy dish for dinner. Hey, I'm not arguing. Since her parents are on a health kick as well, the meal was mostly healthy. No exercise really this weekend. Planned on doing a bike ride, but little AJ takes up a lot of time these days!

5/11 Food:

B: Kashi Go Lean Crunch
L: Spinach Calzone / Chicken & Broccoli over Pasta (& a Cherry Coke!)
D: Drawing a blank...

5/11 Exercise:

3 Sets / 15 Reps of 10 lb Arm Curls
3 Sets / 15 Reps of 10 lb Arm Lifts


Comments: Funny story for lunch...went to a local pizza joint with a co-worker and had plans to eat healthy. It's a cafeteria style place...so I got in line and ordered a nice Spinach calzone...as I move further down the line past the pizza related options, I see this chicken & broccoli pasta dish and thought, "This is healthy too. I'll get a side dish". I asked for a small plate. Apparently, a small plate could feed an army of 4 (thank goodness I didn't get the large) and I felt silly asking the owner to put it back...so I paid for $12 worth of food! To my credit, I threw most of the pasta away and focused on the chicken and broccoli only...

5/10 Food:

B: Weight Control Oatmeal
L: Sushi! (and lots of it)
D: Pulled Chicken Sandwiches on Wheat Buns w/ a Salad

5/10 Exercise:

Cardio: Elliptical Machine (11/2,14/8,16/10,14/5)
Abs: Crunch Machine (90/25, 105/15, 120/10)
Strength: Seated Press (75/20, 80/15, 85/10, 100/5)

Comments: First, I am impressed that I can remember 4 days of food and exercise with the exception of 1 meal. Funny story of the day: I've been collecting a lot of pennies over the years at my job and I decided to finally cash in. I took them all to the local Superfresh where there is a Coinstar machine and dumped them in. I had 937 pennies! After Coinstar took thier cut, I still ended up with $8.58 in credit to spend. I decided to treat myself to the deluxe sushi option they had. 8 pieces of sushi and 2 rolls....yum!

I'll stop now...I feel like I'm pressing my luck with this post....the dreaded "Blue Screen of Death" is lurking around the corner...

Holla Back...

For those keeping score at home, I blogged a while back about participating in a weight loss challenge at a fellow blogger's site: Flip This Body. The goal was to lose 15 lbs between 4/1 and 7/15.

Here is Julie, blogger at Flip This Body --------------------->

I thought the challenge was to lose the most pounds by 7/15. It was a nice surprise to find myself already featured in a post as the winner. Thanks Julie. I certainly was motivated to lose the pounds before, but having the challenge out there certainly made it more fun!

I hope you keep the challenge going until 7/15...or start a new challenge!

I also wanted to thank Julie for putting my blog on her site. It is the biggest contributor to my small audience...I hope to send a few people your way someday...

Argh!!!

I had a very large, 4 day "Healthy Choice" post pretty much all typed up when my laptop hit me with the dreaded "Blue Screen of Death".

So 30 minutes of blogging has to be re-written...

Just thought I'd put that out there in case you stopped by and wonder where I've been

Healthy Choices - 5/9

Food:

B: Weight Control Oatmeal
L: Cosi Toasted Fennel and Chicken Salad (Highly Recommended)
D: Chicken Pad Thai (TJ box mix w/ grilled chicken & snap peas)

Exercise: None

Comments: Nothing much to say. The Pad Thai was Carolyn's idea and sounded good to me. Enough for a leftover lunch. If you have a Cosi near you, I recommend their salads (although they are a little pricey). The one above is very low in fat and calories and the fennel seeds add a nice crunch and licorice taste.

Healthy Choices - 5/8

Food:

B: Weight Control Oatmeal
L: "Smoke Stack" sandwich (smoked turkey, cheese, lettuce, onion, mustard on roll)
D: 2 Nathan's Hot Dogs w/ Cheese and a mix of Macaroni Salad / Cole Slaw

Exercise:

Cardio: Elliptical Machine (10/2,13/8,15/13, 13/2)
Abs: Crunch Machine (90/25, 105/15, 120/10)

Comments: I thought I did OK until dinner rolled around. Carolyn decided it would be an easy meal to finish up the rest of the hot dogs we had from a previous family meal. I have to admit that the dogs were tasty, but I'm glad we finished up those leftovers. Except for 2 frozen helpings of Mom's Baked Ziti, I think all of the leftovers are used up now!

Healthy Choices - 5/7

Food:

B: Weight Control Oatmeal
L: Chipotle Glazed Chicken Salad from Baja Fresh (right where I left off)
D: Mom's Baked Ziti (skim ricotta, mozzarella, meat sauce) w/ Salad and Bread (and a beer)

Exercise (back at the gym!):

Cardio: Elliptical Machine (10/2,13/8,15/13, 13/2)
Strength: Leg Press (100/20,115/15,130/15)
Leg Extension (60/15, 65/10, 70/10)
Leg Curl (80/20, 85/15, 90/10)

Comments: Felt good to be back in the old rhythm. Work really helps to keep me on track with this whole thing. Can't say no to Mom's cooking, but I know it wasn't great for me. I've had a lot more red meat than normal this week. Gotta get back on the chicken and fish game. It was nice to get back to the gym as well, although I would have liked to have seen at least 1 more lb of progress on the scale...

Healthy Choices - A week and a half recap

Now that I am back to work and both sets of parents are back in their respective states, I can hopefully get back on track with the daily blogs. This would include my daily healthy choices where I chronicle the previous days choices in food and exercise. When I missed a day or three before, I would actually try to remember and document everything, but I missed 1 1/2 weeks this time. There is no way I'm remembering all of that (plus my schedule was all over the map as previously noted). Instead, I'll just provide some bullets of notable choices:

Food:

• At the hospital, my breakfasts turned into brunches as I could not get down to the cafeteria before 11AM. That meant either a healthy salad or a sandwich. I was surprised at how diverse a hospital salad bar could be. I ate beets, peas, chickpeas, hard boiled eggs, chicken in addition to the normal lettuce, onion, etc...If I grabbed lunch, the meal was the same.
• Funny note: Carolyn's parents know that I am trying to lose weight. So what do they bring me in the hospital? A pretzel dog and large Baskin-Robbins Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Milkshake. I mean...c'mon! I kind of understand...if you're bringing comfort food to your daughter and son-in-law, it's always better to go with a milkshake than a head of lettuce. If you're going to bring the shake, make it a small. If you're going to bring a pretzel, just bring a pretzel...not a pretzel wrapped hotdog. Full disclosure: I drank the shake (very tasty!), but kept the dog at bay.
• Post hospital: Back on the Kashi Cereal / Oatmeal train for breakfasts. Cold cuts on wheat with lettuce and onion for lunches. Chicken and vegetables for dinners.
• Notable bad choice exceptions: Got Moe's Burritos for dinner one night. Had an actual regular coke with Moe's as well. Popped a bottle of champagne to celebrate the newest addition (not good for me, but worth it). Drinking beers with Dad since he's been in town. Had 2 Nathan's hot dogs (another weakness) and a hamburger. Went out to dinner at a local Chinese restaurant and had a little more than my fill of dumplings, noodles, and wantons.

Exercise:

• In anticipation of being in the hospital, I got my 3 gym days in earlier in the birth week. Once in the hospital, there wasn't an opportunity to really exercise (not that I had any desire to).
• Post hospital: I pulled out the old mountain bike and biked around Lansdale for over and hour on 2 separate occasions. Saw parts of my town that I did not know about and biked on roads that were probably more high traffic than I would have liked. Felt awesome though...Hopefully I'll be able to do that more often with the summer upon us.

So I tried to keep on track on the whole and I managed to lose 6 lbs over these past 2 weigh-ins. Now I can get back to the one a day journaling that everyone loves so much.

Weigh In - Week 6

Well, I guess I can take a few things away from this week's weigh in. On the negative side:

• This is punishment for being lax on the blogging end of things.


• This is punishment for not getting to the gym (I was home all week and the gym is 45 minutes away where I work)


• This is punishment for having probably close to a 12 pack of beer this week with my Dad who was in town to see the new baby.

On the positive side:

• A pound is a pound is a pound. All I wanted to do when I started this was lose 1 lb a week. Perhaps, I'm getting greedy with losing close to 4 lbs a week to over the first 5 weeks.


• I still managed to eat pretty healthy throughout the week with salads and lean meats for the most part.


• I managed to get in 2 1 hour bicycle jaunts through Lansdale to partially fulfill my exercise quotient for the week.


• The women over at Flip This Body should be happy that they can catch up a bit on an off week for me.

Now with all the relatives away, I can hopefully get somewhat of a normal eating and exercise routine back in place. We'll see...

One more pic...

This time I'll put a closeup of just AJ:



Cute, isn't he?

Weigh In - Week 5

As I am off this week to care for our newest addition, I was unable to get to a scale on Monday. On Tuesday morning though, I took a trip to the doctor's office specifically to get on the scale that started it all...

To my surprise, I weighed in at 217! I thought for sure that this week of being totally out of whack from my normal schedule. Instead, I matched my best weeks to date...
To my credit, I did work out the first three days of last week anticipating the induction date on Thursday. I also, did not have anything bad from the hospital cafeteria (Just sandwhiches, salads, and iced tea)...Of course, my breakfasts were at 11AM, my lunches were around 3PM, and my dinners were either non-existant or around 8-9PM....Not my normal schedule by a long shot...

At any rate, I'll take the 5 lbs for what its worth...I'm thinking perhaps the loss was due to the stress I've been under for the past week or so...I think I'm due to put a little back on...The whole "50 lb in 50 weeks" thing is turning into "50 lb in 20 weeks"...and I'm not looking to crash diet...