Menu Monday, and Fat Plans!

Today = first day of working out and working earnestly on my Plans to Get Healthy. This is my weight:

Which you'll notice is 7 lbs heavier than I was three months ago. It's actually 8 lbs heavier than I was 6 weeks ago, when I went back to work from maternity leave. I blame it all on sitting in a cubical all week, eating lunch at my desk and snacking on the chocolates that my assistant leaves next to the printer.

Saturday - no good about any dieting plans, or working out: we went to the Outback Bowl, tailgated with a box of wine and rosemary tortilla chips and strawberries (yes, random but delicious) and drank beers at the game (Miller Lite - not generally my taste but perfect for game day), ate at barbeque chicken sandwich and broccoli at Alehouse (I don't generally eat fries, so while broccoli is indeed the healthy choice it's my only choice). Then there was sweet, sweet sleep. It was a long beautiful, Gator-winning day.

Sunday - no exercise unless you count walking the mall in wedge heels (I do), but I was smarter about my food choices. We missed out on eating black eyed peas and greens on New Year's day, so I made this fabulous dish with eggs, lean ham (97% fat free), collard greens, black-eyed peas, onions and garlic. Hubby thought it needed cheese to feel more like breakfast but I thought it was awesome ... so awesome that I used the leftover greens/peas mixture and mixed it in with half a dozen scrambled egg whites (and two yolks) for my breakfast the rest of the week. We missed lunch and had linner at our favorite Mexican joint, where I limited myself to one vegetarian mushroom quesadilla (if I would have ordered two, I would have eaten two. There's crack in them thar mushroom quesadillas).

Today was my official start, so I dragged myself out of bed at 5am (okay, 5:30) to go for a run. I only got in 1.7 miles before I felt like hacking up a lung, but I thought it was a good start. I drank my coffee black with a little creamer (not too bad) and had some of the egg mixture and a banana for breakfast. On my way! Hopefully I can keep it up.

So I haven't done Menu Monday in awhile, but here's the plan for this week:

Monday: flounder and roasted vegetables
Tuesday: pork roast and garlic spinach
Wednesday: broccoli cheese soup for hubby, and I'm not sure if I'll eat that or something else.
Thursday: grilled shrimp and brown rice
Friday: a lo-cal version of Sarah's Poppyseed Chicken (if it's successful I'll post the recipe) w/ whole wheat pasta
Saturday: grilled chicken salad

***update, ate 4 (small) pieces of pizza and two Coke Zeros at Chuck E Cheese with MamaFuss today ... pretty sure that's not in my diet. Maybe all the calories I burned off packing Christmas away this morning helped? I'm sadly still hungry so I'm going to go clean my kitchen instead of staring bleakly into my refrigerator.

Happy new year!

Aren't these tea tups the most darling things? I was searching for a Happy New Year image and came across my mama's table which then prompted me to Like her on FB, and enter her contest for some darling little cups and peruse the pretty ceramics ... I can already tell it's going to be a good year!

I have black eyed peas soaking in a bowl, collard greens in my fridge and Outback Bowl tickets burning a hole on my dresser. I can even say that Project: Neighbor was a success! I dropped a Christmas card in their mailbox, which led to Mrs. Neighbor friend-requesting me on Facebook, which led to me inviting them over for New Year's Eve festivities ... they were here for 5 hours, not even with the social lubrication of alcohol (she's 8 months pregnant) and it wasn't awkward at all!

Anyhow, I'm off ... I hope everyone had a safe and fun NYE in however you celebrate it, and here's to hoping that 2011 is everything it's cracked up to be!

Planning

It’s been quiet around here, not that anyone noticed because I’m sure that I’ve scared any potential readers off with my woe-is-me whining. No matter though, it’s a new week and I’ve been busy burrowed in my cubical at work catching up on the monstrous amount of work being reassigned to me now that I’ve acclimated to being back from maternity leave. Thankfully I now have 4 days off. Woohoo!

It also appears that I’m padding my weight by eating all the sweets in the house in preparation for Jennie’s BiggestBloggingLoser competition. I was very good about gifting almost all of the cookies I made but now there are these chocolates … anyhow, they should be gone by January 3, more or less. I trashed the Halloween candy I had stuffed into a snowman cookie jar today. I feel good about that decision. I don’t feel like digging out one last tootsie roll pop out of the garbage all. Nope, not me.

My plan diet-wise is to switch to brown rice and whole wheat pasta, cut out soda and sweets except one fudgcicle a night and cut my wine to 1-2 nights a week at 1-2 glasses. I know if I go cold turkey on sweets that I’ll never make it. I’m also toying with the idea of serving myself all my meals on top of a bed of lettuce, because I won’t eat a side salad and it might make a smaller portion look bigger and fill me up a little more. I need to play tricks on myself. Knowing thyself is the first step, right?

For exercise, I think the best way for me to do it is to get up early and go for a run. Tentative plan: running 2-3 days a week, Wii Fit 2-3 days a week. I’ll also be resuming my stairs at work. I’m also going back to holding myself accountable on this blog as well and not just on my weigh-ins, so be prepared for weekly pictures of my ugly feet on a scale. Maybe that will tie into my Menu Mondays, because nothing says EAT like I picture of how fat you are, right?

Resolve

I am terrible about making resolutions, and also terrible about keeping them. Last year: no resolutions. The year before: losing weight, of course. However, I made a list for my maternity leave time, and I stuck to it and even surpassed it, so I’ve resolved to make a 2011 list. Maybe not resolutions, just some things I’d like to happen:

1) Spend more quality time with my kids. Play with them, even if I get frustrated that Spencer won’t play Memory correctly or Henry just wants to chew the cars.

2) Lose 30 lbs (hopefully made possible by Jennie’s BiggestBloggingLoser competition and my running goals)

3) Cut white pasta and soda from my diet and sweetener from my tea and coffee

4) Run the Gasparilla 5k (February)

5) Run the Turkey Trot 10k (November)

6) See six movies in the theater (this is not so much for me, but my husband who loves the movies and we haven’t gone at all in 2010). Included in this, go on eight dates with my husband sans children.

7) Read 125 books (I usually surpass this, but with my other goals I don’t want my reading to go by the wayside)

8) Hang up my clothes or put them in the hamper (this sounds simple, but I always throw my clothes on my dresser and then sort them when the pile gets too high or company’s coming … I know, I’m a guy).

9) Re-plant my front flower beds and keep them weeded and properly tidy (and alive)

10) Get the deck done and the backyard spruced up appropriately.

Ten on Tuesday on Wednesday

We’re here, we’re … no wait. ANYWHO, I hope you had a marvelous holiday, no matter what your religion. My Christmas was fantastic, and my sons got ridiculous amounts of unneeded stuff that made their holidays complete as well. It was a magical time, really. But more on that likely in a separate post. I answered these yesterday with full intention of posting them, but then I never saw my computer yesterday. On to the questions:

1. What was the number one item on your Christmas wish list? I really wanted an armband that fit my phone so I didn’t have to run while holding onto it for dear life.

2. Did you get the number one item on your Christmas wish list? I did not, and my husband said it was because no one makes them but after a jaunt around the internet, it seems like it’s because no one LOCAL makes them and he waited until the week of Christmas again. So I’m using my Christmas money to get it, and I’m quite okay with that.

3. How long has it been since you’ve had a pedicure? Since September. And now I’m waiting for the fungus to go away on my one toe, and the toenail to grow back on the other toe. So … it might be awhile and I’m not going back to that place ever again. Take that, Star Nail.

4. How cold is it in your city today? There was frost on my grass this morning – a veritable white wonderland. Thankfully, I park in the garage so I didn’t have to scrape ice from my windshield, but I was still late because I didn’t want to scrape myself out of my warm bed, and then my warm shower. I was told it was 29 degrees this morning at my house. In Tampa. FLORIDA.

5. How many pillows do you sleep with? I start with a mountain of them, but I sleep on my stomach and end up with one, kind of rolled up under my neck.

6. Can you roll your tongue? Yes.

7. Do you always buy the same mascara or do you try new ones each tube? I have no loyalty; I think my current tube is yellow but I get suckered every time to different ones that promise longer thicker lashes … it’s always the same thing.

8. What’s your favorite cookbook? I go through my cookbooks to get a sense of what to make and not necessarily to follow recipes. The one I use most is my mom’s old Betty Crocker cookbook, and the usual websites: allrecipes.com, tasty kitchen, and the like - I have a mess of magazine clippings and cutouts in a binder that I usually end up using.

9. What was your first pet? I’m told that a runt mutt named Tippy was my first dog but I don’t remember her except that I have one picture of her with a litter of puppies. We had a German shepherd named Pi when I was four that barked all the time and we had to give to the Humane Society so we didn’t get evicted (I still miss that dog). Also, I had a bunny rabbit when I was about that age that dropped dead while I was playing with it.

10. Do you wear jewelry on a daily basis? I wear my wedding jewelry every day except while I’m home, and I usually wear some sort of ring on my right hand as well. I try to wear earrings almost every day. I buy necklaces but don’t wear them because I think they look weird on me.

Happy Holidays!

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Merry christmas!

It's 3am, and someone has no interest in sleeping. That someone is not me. Have a wonderful holiday, everyone!

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