Ready for a new year!

I have been calorie counting for 2 months now (for me, that's a record!) and this last week I have gone to the gym a lot more often than usual.

I am really hoping to keep this up as long as I can without getting worn out. Everything I have done so far on this fitness journey has been a learning experience.

It seems like my most successful attempt at losing weight has been counting calories, even though I hate it.

However, if it's working, and it's making me learn about what I am eating, then I simply have to continue it. I will NOT let myself quit.

I have put together a workout outfit that is tighter than I'd like, and I am going to use that to take a picture in each month so I have a visual on my progress.

On January 2 we are going to a place where we can start training for a 5k, hopefully the weather doesn't suck! (It might snow)

Looking forward to being successful this year!

December 8 no time for anything!

Recently at work I have started training on a new position. For me, this means more networking within the city I work for, with my goal being to someday find a more permanent place then where I am.

However, between covering coworkers time off and learning this new system, I don't have a lot of free time. Not to mention, I need to be working on my cosplay for March (I am SO far behind) and my back has been hurting since Monday. It's getting better (I think) but it's a weird sort of pain and I am trying to rest it. That means no Kickboxing this week, which is tough!

Anyways, My lowest weight for November was 182.4 That weight is now my new weight to beat for December. I have matched it once, but have not managed to get lower yet.

I was bad last weekend and didn't think about what I was eating, so I went way over calories. Now that I am back to working pretty much every day, I have more control over what I eat (in this case, what goes in my lunch box).

I have found aiming for 300 or so calories for breakfast and having about 600 or 700 calories for dinner seems to be ideal (leaving around 600 or 700 calories for snacks and lunch).

Anywho, here is some of the food I have packed:

Peanut butter sandwhich (190 cal) green tea (0 cal) coffee (35 cal) pomegranate (1/2 cup, 72 cal) mandarine (47 cal) steel cut oats (300 cal) pretzels (100 cal) BBQ turkey (141 cal) = roughly 885 cal

Salad (lettuce, tomato, sugar snap peas and sunflower seeds w/ 2 TBSP of Italian dressing- roughly 300 cal), steel cut oats (300 cal) BBq turkey (141 cal) Pomegranate (72 cal) apple (80 cal) and blackberries (62 cal) = roughly 955 calories

coffee (35 cal) california roll sushi (I believe it was around 400 cal for these) apple (80 cal) 2 mandarines (94 cal) blackberries (62 cal) sugar snap peas (35 cal) string cheese (160 cal for 2) = roughly 866 calories. 

coffee (35 cal) Ceasar Salad (that I didn't end up eating, had Italian dressing roughly 300 cal) apple (80 cal) BBQ turkey (141 cal) two mandarines (94 cal) sugar snap peas (35 cal) hard boiled eggs (pic below) and blackberries (62 cal) = roughly 890 (only 590 without the salad, and I made up for it by eating spaghetti for dinner)

Breakfast is hard, oatmeal isn't always filling and it's calorie expensive. I LOVE eggs, but I never make the time for them in the morning to cook some. So I tried hard boiled eggs. Not my favorite, but still a nice bit of protein in the morning!

I found a new oatmeal! It's Steel cut oats with flaxseed, by Better Oats, Oat Revolution. It's prepackaged for convenience, flavored with maple and brown sugar (yum!) and has 170 calories. So far, it has been getting me through to lunch!
Steel cut oats (170 cal), coffee (35 cal) raisins (90 cal) 2 mandarines (94 cal) sugar snap peas (35 cal) red bell pepper (24 cal) white rice (169 cal) canned salmon (90 cal) spiral ham (280 cal) = roughly 987 cal 

I have been bad already, but am getting more focused now on staying under cal. The new oatmeal really helps! I am using my lowest weight from November to set a standard for this month. I feel pretty motivated to try and drink lots of water and reduce my calories so I can keep going down! 

So far I have been able to bike to kickboxing still, but now it's getting cold and we got some snow. Once my back feels better I am going to try to go again, and hopefully I can bike because I love being able to bike to class!

Bundled up for my bike ride to class

Day 29

Checking in again!

I haven't lost any weight, but I am getting better and better at this calorie counting business. I just spent the last several hours writing down the calories for each of my favorite foods, so when I am packing lunch I can do a better job.

Hopefully this will give me a better idea of how many calories I am packing for lunch/breakfast, and how much I can have for dinner.

The next thing I need to do is look for a good core workout video, and then make a schedule I can stick to so I can workout 5 times a week.

The easiest option is to start bringing my gym bag to work so I can go to the gym right after my shift ends.

This might be my slowest worst time of year (less active, eat more pie than normal) but starting December I get out of work at 4, so that gives me more time to hit the gym or go kickboxing. So, no excuses!

Some lunches that I have packed:

Salmon (280 cal) , pineapple (160 cal), multigrain rice (220 cal) steel cut oatmeal (300 cal) Raisins (90 cal) crackers (190 cal) =1,140 calories. That left only 490 cal for dinner, and I am certain I went over on this day. Oatmeal is great, but it's so calorie expensive!

Raisins (90 cal) cheezits (300 cal) crackers (190 cal) breakfast burrito (270 cal) white rice (169 cal) Canned salmon (90 cal) pineapple (160 cal) =1,269 calories.  This left only 361 calories for dinner. I went over again. I 100% should not have eaten the cheezits. 

Today I have had coffee (35 cal), raisins (90 cal), a granny smith apple (80) and pomegranates (72 cal). With this much fruit, I am feeling VERY hungry, so I am going to eat a peanut butter jelly sandwich soon (430 cal ... yikes! It would have been 190 without the jelly).

I also packed some leftover ham and green olives. If I eat them, the ham is about 140 cal, and the olives are 25 cal, that puts me at 872 cal! I packed 100cal worth of sourdough pretzels (LOVE those) which still gives me plenty for dinner. I am thinking chicken, because chicken is awesome.

Starting December I will be hitting the gym along with Calorie counting (might as well do something new each month) so I'd better come up with a good schedule!

That's all for now.

Day 18

Still going strong with calorie counting. I have gotten better once I had written down how often I was under or over on calories, and I think it's because it felt like I was going over only a few times. When I had written it all down, I could see this was not the case.

I added a few more things to the list, so I can have a nice visual report on under/over calories, weight, BMI and what days I exercised. My goal is 30 minutes of exercise, but ANYTHING is better than nothing.

It's important that it's colorful. Otherwise I'd never keep up with it.

I jogged in place a few times at work today when it was slow, but had to stop when a patron came along (I didn't want to look like a crazy person!)

Things in my lunch box today:

Ritz crackers, pineapple, green olives and chick peas, string cheese, mixed rice with canned salmon and two eggs with a little bit of bacon.

 I have only eaten some of this, mostly because someone gave me a pumpkin latte today and there go 320 calories. 320 DELICIOUS calories, but still.

I ate the pineapple, green olives and chickpeas, eggs and string cheese. I am hoping to save the rice and salmon, and the crackers for tomorrow. As I stand, I have 680 calories left for dinner, and we are having tacos tonight!

So I will try and only have one. Fingers crossed I do good.

The rice was a new thing, I haven't tried it yet but I am excited to have some.

It's multigrain, and I've never (to my knowledge) had red rice before!

The all important Nutrition Info! 

That's it for now, time to try to get another short jog in before I'm done for the day!

Day 15

I am keeping up with calorie counting every day so far. It's been challenging, and half the time I guess at what I ate because I forgot to write it down.

Looking over my numbers so far, I have been over more often than I have been under.
Granted, I usually don't include any cardio I do. Cardio being my once a week kickboxing class.

I was doing good for a little bit where I was going two or three times a week, but I have had to take care of my friends dogs right after work and I hurt my knee again so I have been cutting back on my workout.

November has been flying by at lightning speeds, and now I am trying to plan out Thanksgiving.
If I wanted to be really healthy, I would have turkey instead of our traditional ham. But, I have decided to still have ham, but focus on portion control, using a small plate, and having a nice salad to go with dinner.

Maybe a walk after dinner to get some exercise, hopefully I'm not comatose.

Meals that I remembered to take a picture of:

This meal is from day 11. I went over 151 calories for the day, probably because I had velveta mac and cheese for dinner.
Rasin bran, toasted peanut butter cracker,s sugar snap peas, apple, and pork chops with rice and corn.

I love breakfast. I haven't been able to do it justice now that I work 9-5, because I have a hard time getting my butt up early enough to cook this. Sausage, egg and pineapple. I had 2 sausages and 3 eggs on this day (yesterday, the 14th) because I had a really busy morning and didn't eat breakfast until 12. Despite how bad that is, I still managed to keep my calorie count under 1,600

Today's lunch box. All added up, I have 652 calories left for dinner!
Breakfast burrito, peanut butter crackers, salmon (homemade with lemon and some spice) mashed potato, pineapple and oatmeal with cinnamon and some milk.

I am on 2 days in a row of being under the calorie goal. 11/6 was really bad because that was our Day of the Dead party.
I need to have more good days!

I was scrapbooking recently, and my roommate was looking through my college scrapbook. She pointed at a picture of me and exclaimed "Look how thin you were!"

I know she wasn't calling me fat. I KNOW it wasn't meant to be hurtful or mean. It was, however, true.

I am bouncing around 182-185 right now, and back in college I was around 175.

I walked everywhere, biked everywhere. I didn't eat great, but I was leaner. Back then I was trying to get back to my before college weight, 165.

I can't get back to being able to walk everywhere,  (work is so far away, and while I COULD bike, I have NO motivation to bike myself and my heavy backpack to work everyday). I can however watch what I eat, and really focus on going to the gym and walking when I can.

I am going to find some old pictures of myself to use as references, and a few pictures of me from right now. They should hopefully stop me from overeating....

This was the photo my roommate commented on. This was back in 2011

This was in 2012, in Costa Rica. We did a LOT of walking while we were there. A lot of eating too.

This was in 2010 or 2011 in Acadia Park, Maine

For reference, here I am wearing that same fleece in Yellowstone in 2016:

2016 in Yellowstone.

May of 2013.

Fall of 2012

This was me at my best since high school. I biked 45minutes to work every day (to and from) and I was too poor to afford food. This was right before I started college in 2008.

 Now for the photos of present me.

This is me in Marble Colorado in 2015. I forgot to suck in my gut for the photo...

This was me this summer. Yuck. The lighting didn't help, but this is part of what made me join kickboxing class and start calorie counting. This photo. I get embarrassed every time I look. 

Day 5

Yesterday I went WAY over my calorie intake. I hadn't been feeling well, so I made the "smart" choice of eating a whole box of velveta mac and cheese (so good) and too many butterfinger candies.

As a result, I saw my weight go up the following day.

I realize that weight can bounce around a lot due to water weight, but mine tends to be fairly consistent, so seeing my weight go up 2 lbs made me realize I need to be more careful.

I plan to go out to dinner tonight (another danger zone!) so I am packing a light lunch for my 8 hour shift, and if I need to, I will have a salad for dinner instead of the burger I am already daydreaming of.

The delicious pumpkin latte I had for breakfast cost me 350 calories (ouch!) so I will try and stick to homemade coffee from now on. It's better for me anyway and I use no added sugar, just honey, powdered creamer (which has some sugar, I get the Hazelnut flavor) and cinnamon.

My lunch box for today:

pomegranates, pumpkin seeds, granny smith apple, chicken with rice, chick peas, and yogurt

I had a breakfast burrito in here, but opted to save it for another day. With everything in here, I have 592 calories left for dinner. So, I am going to try to eat only a few things in here so I can remove some of this from my calorie list!

I didn't feel well yesterday and the day before, it felt like I had soap in my stomach or something. (You know that feeling you get when you drink too much water, or when your in the pool and accidentally ingest some chlorine water? THAT feeling. Ugh) I almost wonder if it was because I had a lot of fruit (more than usual) and had two cups of green tea (also unusual). I might have just flooded my system, so to speak?

I dunno. But after over eating yesterday, this is the first day I have felt awake all week (even though I had to get up earlier) and I don't feel sick anymore.

Maybe I just tried to make too many changes too fast. After all, my original intent was to simply log what I was eating so I could get a feel for what my calorie intake each day was, not to immediately try to cut down the amount I'm eating.

If I can cut out the yogurt and pumpkin seeds from today, that will leave me with about 200 extra calories for dinner!

Day 3 of counting calories!

Up to day three of counting calories. Sunday will be the hardest because we are having a Day of the Dead party, but I think if I just take a picture of everything I eat that should help me log it later!

Day One I went over by 440 calories. I wasn't too upset by this, it was my own fault for having Wendy's for dinner. I had a small drink and fry (I always have medium, so this was a small change). I'm not necessarily trying to keep it to a limited calorie intake right now, I want to see what my average is.

However, I can't seem to help but want to keep it below the goal of 1,630 whenever I log my food. It makes me want to eat less, so that's been helpful!

Day Two I was under by 74 calories, which is good. I didn't drink enough water however, or go to the gym, so I can hopefully focus on that today!

Yesterday we cooked mango chicken with rice and corn for dinner!

Here is the sauce we used

And the chicken with rice, corn, and I stole a little quinoa from my roommate.

Today's breakfast was the usual, one sausage, two eggs, and coffee.

Today's lunch box is filled with:

Pomegranate, granny smith apple, Chobani Greek Strawberry honey yogurt, pumpkin seeds, and mango chicken with rice and quinoa. 

According to the calories, I have 857 left for dinner tonight! We don't currently have dinner plans, so I might make either pasta, or have salmon!

Halloween temptations

I made it two days before I lost track of calorie counting. Mostly, because that night I went to a Halloween party and I lost track of what I'd eaten.

I forgot to even try the following day, and after that, it was Halloween.

Now that I am back at work, I have a much better way to keep track of what I eat. I can take a picture of everything I put in my lunch box, and log from there. That way I only have to worry about breakfast and possibly dinner.

So, I am going to try and focus on what I eat this week. I have one more party to get through, hopefully I can at least avoid the candy and soda!

This morning I had 1 sausage and 2 eggs for breakfast, and I packed a healthy lunch. Or at least i think I did, we will see what the calories say when I log it!

Chili, pomegranates, pumpkin seeds, granny smith apple, and pumpkin yogurt!

All of that (including breakfast) is 1,030 calories. That leaves me 600 calories for dinner, which should be more than enough!

Back from summer slacking!

I realize I abandoned this since April of 2015, and it's been a long time since I have posted. But, this blog is mostly for my benefit, so no big deal, right?

What have I been up to since April?

Well, I lost some weight after getting braces in January 2016. With a combination of having to have oral surgery to make an expander work and struggling to eat anything for a while, I managed to lose 5lbs and keep it off.

Over the summer I was super busy with work (the most stressful summer at work yet, I got promoted to a new position and the only person to train me got a promotion too so we were both thrown into the fire a little bit this summer. Oh well, we survived!)

I felt like I was doing alright on my diet, but when I participated in GISHWHES for the first time, a photo of myself trying to run in Pineapple shoes and hat made me realize I'm not in a good shape. I'm still not where I want to be.

GISHWHES is a scavenger hunt where we do silly or compassionate things. Make the world a stranger place. This task was to make a video of running in a pineapple hat and shoes. This picture doesn't make me look terrible, but still, I am not at the weight I wan to be.

So, I ended up finding something totally awesome, a Kickboxing club!

Back in college UMaine had an amazing rec center and a free cardio kickboxing class that my roommate and I would go to. It was a LOT of fun, super intense (I couldn't do the whole thing without needed to stop and pant for breath) but it was packed full of people with only one instructor. There was no one to make sure you had good form. No one to teach you how to do a proper roundhouse or hook.

So I checked out I Love Kickboxing, after I kept seeing advertisements on Facebook. (Sneaky facebook ads!) They do this trial where you sign up for a couple classes at a reduced rate, and at the end of the first class they ask if you want to join. If you sign up right there and then you get a discount, but you have to sign up for either 6 months or a year.

That's the only downside that made me feel a little uncomfortable about the whole thing, I wasn't sure I wanted to commit.

However, I decided to commit to a year and make the best of it. So far, I have no regrets!

Before kickboxing

After Kickboxing

It's awesome getting to hit and kick an actual bag, and the instructors make sure you have the right form! They take a lot of pictures and videos too, which if you don't mind is awesome because you can check your own form and see how you progress as time goes on.

This is a body cross punch (squat a little to lower yourself, punch with right)

Right front kick. One day I will kick over the bag! The instructor asked my permission before posting these pictures, which was appreciated!

I have gained about 3lbs since joining in August, but I look and feel better, so I am certain it's just muscle. (Which is awesome!!)

Now I need to focus on the thing that is hardest for me: watching what I eat and trying to eat less. This is cookie, pie, and candy season, and I need to keep my diet in check. 6-pack abs are made in the kitchen, after all!

So I am back to no food after 9pm, and while I would like to go to zero soda, I might just have one a week.

I am also going to try and log what I eat again, but I hate doing that! However, it has made me more aware of what I am eating, so I know I need to keep up with it. Calorie counting sucks, but feeling like I don't love my body right now sucks even more.

I will probably post food pictures when I made healthy food, it's really nice looking back at that for inspiration.

I will try and keep up with this blog! ^^