New Toys (Day 534)

Hi all!

Good afternoon, sorry this is later than normal but I've had a busy day. How is everyone doing today? This morning I had a wonderful coffee date with my best friend and then as soon as I was done with that, I went shopping with my mom, one of my nieces and my nephew. So we just got back unloaded everything and I can finally relax a little bit. So I have on the World Baseball Classic (Canada vs. Mexico), not really cheering for anyone in particular. Tonight's game will be interesting though, I'm torn. Do I cheer for Italy (the team I've been cheering for all along) or USA (where I live). Oh well, whatever happens, will happen.

Today is another low carb days, but it was crazy. We went out for lunch, I got a salad with grilled chicken, apples, and cranberries, but I didn't realize there was bleu cheese on it. I absolutely hate bleu cheese, I tried to pick it off but it was just crumbled on it too much, so I barely touched my salad. I didn't let that derail my low carb day, I just ate when we got home. Atkins Beef Merlot meal and an Atkins nutty fudge brownie. :) They were both delicious. I did fairly well yesterday, my protein levels were still low but other than that I did wonderfully. Here's the recap:

Type	Carbs	Protein	Fats
Total	173	347	144
Used	148	117	102
Left	25	230	42

But I'm excited, now I get to talk about my new toys. :) Today I got my chocolate protein powder (I can't wait to try it out!), I got a new pedometer, and some 2 lb weights. With my back, I can't be lifting too hard, and when I do the 30DS 2 lb weights are all I can handle right now. I cannot wait to try all my new toys out! :) Now when I'm walking I don't have to count my steps and I can be walking with some weights in my hands, it'll all help out. Plus now my protein levels will be up higher. I'm planning on trying out my protein powder tonight, so I'll give you a little review of it tomorrow.

I've got to cut this one short. My paper is not done yet (eek!) and it's due tomorrow. So I really need to finish it up so I can get all my proofreading done. Plus I'm still not even close to caught up on the blogs I follow (oops). I'll try to get caught up after my paper is done.

~Sara~

I cheated! (Day 531)

Hi all!

How is everyone doing today? I can't believe it's Wednesday already, that means the week is half over. My house is smelling amazing right now, there is a roast and potatoes in the crock pot as I type this. :) Yes, today is a low carb day and I'm having potatoes with dinner tonight (sue me). I love potatoes and I'm making sure it fits into my carb limit for the day. In fact, I had some mashed potatoes with dinner last night as well. And I'll be having them tomorrow too (it's a high carb day tomorrow though). The day after we have a roast, we make meat pie. It's just left over meat, potatoes, carrots, some gravy and 2 pie crusts. :) Believe me, it's absolutely delicious, but full of carbs (obviously).

Well as my title suggests, I cheated this morning. I stepped on the scale because I was curious (oh well), and the carb cycling is working well. I'm not recording this weight, I'll be doing that on Sunday. But I did like the number that I saw on the scale. Oh and I also cheated last night, oops! I was laying in bed, trying to fall asleep. Then all of a sudden I got this huge craving for some Cheetos (which of course we have in the cupboard right now) and I gave in and got a bowl of them. But I was smart, I chose a smaller bowl so I wouldn't eat quite so many of them. It was all still within my ranges, for the most part, so I'm not really feeling guilty about it, but I know that I didn't need them.

Here's a recap of yesterday:

Type	Carbs	Protein	Fats
Total	173	347	144
Used	128	129	105
Left	45	218	39

I did so much better yesterday than I did the day before. I'm still trying to figure out how to up my protein count more with eating so much. But I have realized that I'm really enjoying eating low carb, it's a lot easier than the high carb days. And I never thought I would say those words, I'm the girl who could have easily eaten pasta for every single year. Let's be honest, I was a carb-o-holic. I did have pasta just about every day plus some bread or oats or something like that. And there's nothing wrong with any of those things, I do still eat them, just a lot less of them now.

But I have to keep this one short. I haven't even started my paper yet and it's due on Sunday (eek!) So I need to get writing that, and then catching up on all the blogs I follow later tonight. Tomorrow is NSV Thursday, so be prepared for that. :) Until next time!

~Sara~

First Low Carb Day Recap (Day 530)

Hi all!

How is everyone doing today? I'm doing much better this morning (get to this a little later). And I'm super psyched this morning! I decided to try on some pants that I bought a few months back and they didn't really fit when I bought them (size 20's), but this morning they fit a lot more comfortably than they did back when I bought them! They just about fit perfectly, and this is quite exciting for me! Even better, the big storm we are suppose to get today, we aren't suppose to get quite as much snow now (although it is snowing as I write this).

I want to recap my first low carb day, honestly, both days were difficult (for different reasons). Yesterday, I felt very satisfied, I ate a ton but I never made it to my calorie goal (in fact I don't think I reached any of my nutritional goals yesterday). I'll share that with you here:

Type	Carbs	Protein	Fats
Total	173	347	144
Used	120	118	87
Left	53	229	57

These were my numbers for yesterday, as you can see I was quite a bit under each category (especially protein). I don't think I could have ate more yesterday if I tried, because I ate 5 delicious meals. As I have stated in past posts, I really want to be eating healthy foods while doing this (and in general). But last night I had to give in and had these crackers, just to up my carb total (they added 40 grams of carbs, 10 grams of fat, and 6 grams of protein). I didn't get anywhere near my calorie goal either, 1687 was my total. That's a 503 deficit from predetermined deficit to lose weight. But I couldn't eat anymore last night, because my stomach was a little upset. I'm not sure if that was because of the drastic change of my diet overnight or if it was something else. All I know is that I'm feeling much better this morning. So today is my second low carb day, and I have a few goals today.

1. Eat more carbs throughout the day (to put me closer to my goal)

2. Eat more protein throughout the day

3. Eat more calorie dense foods (to put me closer to my calorie goal)

4. Continue eating lots of veggies

5. Add fruit to the mix (to add nutrients and carbs)

6. Continue drinking a lot of water

If I do these things, today should be better. But I have realized that I can handle the fewer carbs, honestly, I don't miss the carbs all that much. And the vegetables are very satisfying, which surprised me. I never thought that a salad could be so delicious, and my lunch showed me otherwise yesterday. I'm sure by making just these few changes will help me a ton, and I'm so excited to see my complete results at the end of the month.  

One thing that I really want to share with all of you is a forum posting from a group that I'm a part of on sparkpeople.com. A woman posted how she needs to gain confidence (don't we all), but she just assumes that when she loses weight she will just gain confidence. I responded to her post saying something along these lines, "You need to start gaining confidence now, because if you don't love yourself now, then you won't love yourself later on." Plus I told her about a few people that I know personally who are at a healthy weight and they are not confident, so being at a healthy weight does not ultimately mean that you will gain confidence. She really didn't like what I had to say, but oh well. I do really hope that someday she will realize that being thin doesn't give you confidence. Confidence is who we are, not what we look like. I may not be where I want to be (160ish lbs), but I'm no longer where I was (315 lbs). The more important thing, I have gained confidence and more happiness. I sincerely hope that this woman finds that as well. 

But I suppose. I have to finish my discussion post (as the initial posting is due by tonight) and start my paper. So I hope that you all have a wonderful day! Until next time.

~Sara~

Recap and low carb day (Day 529)

Hi all!

Happy Monday! How is everyone doing today? It's a quite chilly day here in southeastern Wisconsin, but we're suppose to get more of the accursed white stuff tonight and tomorrow. :( But thankfully, it's suppose to start warming up on Friday, to upper 30's! And yes, that is warm to me. :) I had PT this morning and it was crazy, I'm hurting a ton from it right now. She tried something new today and it definitely moved things around, we'll see how I'm feeling over the next few days.

I want to do a little recap of my first high carb day. But before I get into that, I do want to mention that I am trying to reach my levels through healthy foods. Anyway, it was quite difficult to reach my levels throughout the day. In the evening I did reach my levels, but it was because of unhealthy foods. :( This was a major defeat for me. My mother, gotta love her, decided to make brownies for when my SIL, nieces, and nephew came over. Thankfully, they are gone now, but I ate way too many of them last night.

Now today is my first low carb day, it's going well so far. I can't wait to give you all a recap of how it went, tomorrow! But here's a little preview of my day, my delicious lunch. Baby leaf greens with grilled fajita chicken (6 oz), cucumbers, mozzarella cheese, and some Caesar vinaigrette dressing. :) About 400 calories, 18 g carbs, 15 g fat, and 51 g protein. You'll get the full recap tomorrow.

Today I received my giveaway prize, it's downloading as I write this. And I am super excited about it, I can't wait to start using it. I'll be able to use this for so many things, invitations for all my wedding activities, calendars, and all sorts of cool things. It takes a long time to download, but that's alright. Thankfully I'm just sitting here writing this blog and working on homework while I'm waiting for it. But then I'll probably go on there play around with it just to see what I can all do.

Time to go work on more homework, I've got quite a bit of reading to catch up on along with this weeks. So until next time.

~Sara~