It’s been a LONG time. I shouldn’t have left you!

Hello blog world!

I’m sorry to leave you hanging… especially after that big confessions post.

First, thanks to everyone who shared their thoughts and support. It felt good to tell the truth about what’s going on with me!

A big thanks to TARA too.  She is one of those thin friends I was referring to in my post. She has been friends with me since grade 1. Yep. We grew up in the same small town, our parents knew each other… and we have been great friends since we were about 5 years old (so… 26 years now?).  Tara is thin, beautiful and always the popular girl. She has always been a great friend and even in high school always made me feel welcome and NEVER made me feel she was embarrassed to be seen with me. It was just my own insecurities! Thanks for your wonderfully encouraging and supportive words Tara! You know you mean the world to me!! I can’t wait to meet your baby girl and watch you be an awesome mommy!!

So… on to life!  The good news is that my cousin’s daughter is doing okay.  The other good news is that I got my medical results back and all is well here!! What a relief!!!   The not so great news is that this weekend I had to say goodbye (for now!) to my sister and her family. Including my nephew who I adore more than life itself.  There were some tears shed but Simon was in such a great mood and more giggly than ever, so it was a fun day.  Here we are…

That’s us with “Tractor Tom”.  The boy LOVES his tractors and they are officially all named “Tractor Tom” … thanks to the Tractor Tom DVD I gave him at Christmas (something to watch BESIDES Toopy & Binoo!).

I have been tracking what I ate and I’m happy to report I did not binge this past weekend!  Exercise has been lacking a bit after a really chaotic weekend and busy day yesterday… which continued today as well as a headache. Tomorrow will be back at Couch to 5K week 4.

I have been taking food pictures periodically, so I’m just going to post what I have for your viewing pleasure…

me with my really orgasmic smoothie; mango, strawberry, banana, Greek yogurt, spinach and a teeny bit of HONEY! Why have I not added honey to them before? I will definitely do it again!

Have you seen these? They are pretty yummy. I think it was 5 of them for 1pt.

Breakfast pizza: baked a flatout wrap to crisp it up, then added salsa, 4 egg whites and mozzarella cheese, put it back in the oven & melt the cheese

My pretty new iPhone!! I am in LOVE with it!

Multi grain thins bun, cottage cheese with vanilla protein powder and a sprinkle of honey on top

Gratuitous Simon picture!

One Bun thins with some PB and Crofter’s

I am off to bed!  Tomorrow’s mission will be to catch up on all of your wonderful blogs!!

Confessions

Inspired by many confessions I’ve seen around blogs lately, I’ve decided to do my own.

1. I used to take laxatives the night before weigh in. I have stopped, but it’s something I’m not proud of.

2. I don’t want to eat before my weigh in (which isn’t until 5pm), so I don’t eat after breakfast at 7:30am on Thursdays. I know it’s not the most healthy, but I eat a slightly bigger breakfast and it’s only 1 day a week where I go 10 hours without eating.

3. I still binge on weekends. I still don’t blog about it.  I’m embarrassed too much by it.

4. My friends and my sisters… and my boyfriend are all thin. I feel embarrassed for them to be seen in public with me (I am not looking for pity posting that… just stating a fact!).

5. I want to be a runner. It looks so therapeutic for so many people.

6. I secretly don’t think I will ever get to my goal weight. VERY bad thought process, I know!

7. I wish I loved exercise. I really dread it before I start doing it, but feel great during and after.

8. I fear I will get married one day and will be a fat bride… and then hate my wedding pictures for the rest of my life.

9. I have a birthmark on my arm in the shape of a heart (random and nothing to do with diet… but I bet you didn’t know about it!)

10. A year ago I was losing more weight. I wasn’t only counting points, I was counting calories. I was only eating about 800 a day. When I blogged at night I added extra food to my daily list so it looked like I ate more (except on weekends when I really did eat more).  I kept it up for 6 months or so until my grandma passed away and went back to old habits. I fear I was starving myself a little and it may have messed up my metabolism. Although, I don’t think it did.

11. I love reading all of your blogs and they give me great inspiration. Despite my confessions tonight, I’m not giving up!

12. I have a great life and am really lucky and really happy.

Tuesday!

Well. Today started out with my sleeping in. I was up too late last night and couldn’t get myself up this morning. It’s okay though, I did the couch to 5K tonight instead. I still despise evening exercise.  I still have to figure out how to find energy to introduce exercise in the evening.

Breakfast today was some vanilla greek yogurt (3) and some homemade granola (1)

The rest of the day is sans photos… I had my camera but ate before I remembered to take pictures!

Snack was berries (2)

Lunch was a spinach salad with black beans (2), 30g light cheddar (2) and Renee’s wellness tuscan garden dressing (0).  Followed by a kashi bar (2)

Snack was 1/2c ff cottage cheese (1), 1 scoop chocolate protein powder (2), small banana (1)

Dinner was supposed to be soup, but I had a sweet tooth so it ended up being kashi berry crisp cereal (4) with almond breeze (1). It was followed by Mary’s crackers (3) and some cheese (2).

Today is lack in photos so I’m going to show you a couple of new (to me) things this week that I currently love.

Mary's Organic Crackers.  I decided to try these the other day. I am in love. So thin and crispy. Made with flax seed and quinoa… how can you go wrong? I have tried herb and pepper flavours. Pepper is my fave so far!

Liberte Greek yogurt. WAIT! Not plain… VANILLA!  I had it with granola this morning. So good!  A staple in my fridge now.  Hello protein.

Also, Liberte apple pie yogurt. I had it with apple butter on toast. Mmmmm.

I am currently watching Biggest Loser, packing lunch and doing dishes. I really have to get to bed earlier tonight!!!

Happy hump day tomorrow!  Thanks for catching up with me!

Monday!

Monday started out with week 3 session 1 of the couch to 5K.  It was hurting my shins.  Note to self: stretch!

Breakfast was 1/2c cottage cheese (1), 1/2 scoop vanilla protein powder (1), a few berries (1)

Lunch was lettuce wraps with a pattie of portabello burger (3) and some grilled veggies (0).  Followed by a PC thins (3), 1tbsp apple butter (0) and 1/4c Liberte apple pie yogurt – so good!

Snack was some berries (2)

Dinner was some chicken tortilla soup (minus tortillas, sour cream, cheese, etc).  2c was 4pts

Dessert was some greek yogurt and coconut yogurt (3) with a small banana (1) and some coconut (1)

That was Monday!

Sunday!

Sunday involved grocery shopping (Yay!) and a visit with the in laws. 

Breakfast ended up not being until lunch time… it was leftover salad from Saturday night.

I may or may not have had a mini cheesecake and about 1/3 slice home made sugar free banana bread at Alex’s parents’ house.  His sister makes a mean SF banana bread.

Afterwards we went to Costco and then went to South St for burgers. I got grilled chicken and pepper jack cheese on a whole wheat bun. No pictures

Wow. Sunday was boring. If you’re still reading… I apologize. I’ll leave you with a food picture and beg for mercy

Ah yes. My favourite.  Mmmmm can’t wait for Thursday.

Saturday!

I’m doing separate posts for each day. I apologize for the overload your google readers will have!

Saturday started off with some sleeping in followed by a hair trim (2 inches gone, but it was needed. My hairdresser took 1 look at my hair and said “holy girl! How did your hair get so long? It’s almost to your waist!”).  Yes, I needed a cut.  BUT she was exaggerating. My hair is NOT to my waist.  Following the hair cut it was time to do errands. I started off deciding to get my eyebrows waxed. Enter Jessica. A new girl who hasn’t done my brows before. She is very enthusiastic about her job. I walked out of there with TINTED and waxed brows. I thought they were FAR too dark at first, but now have taken a loving to them. My eyebrows have some blonde and some baby hairs in them so the ends of them are very faint… resulting in me having to draw/shade them in (when I dress up and actually do my make up).  No more shading in the brows!  yay!  I will take photos of them at some point.

Food on Saturday… breakfast started out with a PC thins bun. one half had greek yogurt with honey. They other side had some hummus, egg whites and cottage cheese.

Fast forward to dinner. We went back to Z-teca. Our new favourite burrito place. Alex got a “burrito bowl” (the insides of a burrito minus the bread)

I decided to get a vegetarian salad; romaine, black beans, corn, guacamole, cheese (I skipped the sour cream).  It came with dressing but it wasn’t needed, the thing was really moist without dressing. I fell in love and will go back for more! I couldn’t even eat the whole salad. What’s that? How does one not finish a salad??

That was Saturday.

Friday!

Hello dear friends!

Where have I been? I apologize… you know how life gets busy and we chose sleep over blogging.

When I last left you we were worried for my dear little cousin Princess, Raven.  I am happy to report after a visit to SickKids hospital they are confident she does NOT have Leukemia. She does have childhood ITP.  Scary stuff and it goes to show you that your kids’ symptoms needs to be taken seriously sometimes.  I’m glad my cousin thought to get Raven to a doctor and now they know she has to be “treated like glass” because any bumps, bruises, falls, etc. can result in internal bleeding.  BUT, at least it’s not Leukemia!

Okay… Friday Alex and I were going to a surprise location for dinner. Where did we end up? 

Frankie Tomatto's! It’s an Italian buffet.  I went to town.

Plate #1: a few kinds of pasta, a few pieces of calamari, piece of eggplant parmesan and a piece of chicken parmesan

Plate #2: salad (not eaten – wasn’t so good), vegetarian pizza, cheese pizza and vegetarian bruschetta. Luckily the slices of pizza are not huge.

I went back for another piece of cheese pizza!

We were pretty full after 2 plates of food.  We still decided to try some dessert.  Let me tell you, desserts were disappointing… which I am choosing to see as a blessing in disguise. I dished up what I thought was a scoop and a half of maple ice cream. Wrong. Coffee flavour. Gross… didn’t eat it all.  The plate had bits and pieces of different things. None of them were great, but I still ate most of it.

That was Friday!

This and that

First things first. I was up 0.2lbs. I actually expected more based on how bloated I was feeling today.  It’s okay. On to next week.

I have to get something off my chest. I’m worrying a little… not about my own medical test results (which I should get the results from in the next few days)… my cousin called and to make a long story short… we have to wait a week for blood work results to find out that her 6yr old daughter does NOT have leukemia. She has a very low platelet count (36,000 for those of you who that may mean anything for) and at this point they aren’t prepared to say it’s leukemia… but repeat blood work in a week will make sure.  Stress.

Any healthy prayers/vibes for my beautiful 6yr old PRINCESS would be appreciated.  She has been my special little girl since the day she was born.  She’s a little girly girl who does my make up, hair and nails for me any time we see each other!

Here’s a picture of her from the back… you can tell from her Easter dress and bonnet she likes to dress up! She is a beauty.

On to good news… I WON, I WON!!!  I won Lynn's Prairie Naturals Giveaway!!!  I have never won anything (unless you count the lottery for the desk at work where I won the prime cubicle. Yippee). I’m so excited! Thanks Lynn!!!

That’s really all there is tonight. I went to WW, went to get my sub for dinner and chatted on the phone with my poor cousin for a bit and then resting on the couch with Alex to enjoy our Subway. 

In other good news… the last 3 days have consisted of lunch time walks AND couch to 5K… my legs are FEELING it! They are tired!

Speaking of couch to 5K… Essentially I am done week 2 now, but I did an extra week 2 session today and might tomorrow. I will move on to week 3 on the weekend!!

Jam Packed Post

So much to say tonight.

1. I drive between Whitby and Toronto every day on the 401, otherwise known as the Highway of Heroes. You see, fallen (Canadian) soldiers travel along this part of the highway to go to the coroner’s office (in Toronto) when they return home (at CFB Trenton).  It is quite a sight to see.  People (including public service workers – firemen, EMS, police) gather on overpasses along the 401 and stand in silence and wave their Canadian flags as the hearse(s) carry the soldiers.  They have Police escorts and Police block the on/off ramps to the highway at that time as well.

Today, while on my walk, I could see part of an overpass… people were gathering to see the latest fallen soldier’s journey into Toronto.  From the distance I was able to take a quick snapshot… if you look carefully you can see (past the Denny’s) a fire truck and a Canadian flag waving.

The first time I witnessed the sad journey I was driving home from work. I ended up getting on the highway RIGHT behind 3 hearses carrying 3 poor fallen boys. Knowing I was behind 3 boys who shouldn’t have died… and seeing people on the overpasses waving their flags, waving… and crying… it was very overwhelming and I cried the entire way. I felt like I should be in silence myself. I remember I kept the radio off.  I’ve seen many more since then. They don’t get any easier… but the love and pride people show to these poor kids is unbelievable.

Has anyone else witnessed a fallen soldier’s journey along the highway of heroes?

2. I like mourning doves. I saw so many of them making nests today (who knew they don’t make nests until now?).  They were going crazy gathering stuff from the grass/sidewalks today to make nests. I caught this little stalker watching me.

3. Pink stuff at my desk makes me happy

4. Christmas always makes me happy as well… all year round. Yes, I am a freak and people despise when I tell them how many days there are until Christmas (FYI – 255 days to go). I have this sticker on my headset all year round.

5. Ugly Betty is ending tonight. I haven’t watched it in a few years but I did watch the first 2 years while it was on Thursdays. I feel compelled to watch it tonight and see how they wrap it up.

6. Alex informed me he is taking me somewhere EXCITING (but not fancy) for dinner on Friday. I managed to guess where we are going… but I can still surprise you guys! Stay tuned!

7. This is a food/exercise blog.  So, without further ado…

Today included a 50min walk at lunch (4.6Km) and week 2 session 3 of the couch to 5K.  I felt sick when I went to bed last night and unfortunately woke up with “gastro issues” in the night, so a c25k session didn’t happen this morning… but I made it happen tonight.  It felt great. I actually found myself wanting to jogging intervals to last longer… but made sure to stick with the plan.

So, what did I eat today?

Breakfast was just 1/2 weight watcher bagel (1) in order to appease my stomach

Snack was some mango and blueberries (2)… still YUMM

Lunch was a spinach salad with 30g light cheddar (2) and veggies (0) with 4tbsp Renee’s Wellness Tuscan dressing (0)… followed by some cucumbers with Renee’s Wellness Yogurt cucumber and dill dressing (1)

 

Snack was a protein cupcake the same as yesterday (3). It doesn’t look like much but hot damn it is good.

Dinner… I was craving protein for some reason. I made up a plate with turkey breast (2), 30g light cheddar (2), 1 tbsp spicy hummus (1) and 1/4c ff cottage cheese (0) and mustard (0)

What you didn’t see was the granola (2) and almond breeze (0) that followed… followed by Kashi toasted berry crisp (4) and more almond breeze (1)… and then a spoon with a mixture of light cream cheese and Crofter’s North America (1)

Total: 22

Meals are made, dishes are done. I guess I can now head to bed and watch the rest of Ugly Betty there.

Camaro, anyone?

So, I work close to a GM town. On my lunch time walks I ALWAYS see GM workers driving Camaros around. It took me a while but I finally discovered where they were going. A HUGE lot full of brand spaking new camaros!  Today I managed to snap a couple of photos of them whizzing past me on my walk. 

I think they’re pretty… but, this is coming from a GM girl.  My dad worked at GM his entire career… he was an engineer for them. He retired just over a year ago, at 55yrs old, during the “GM crisis”.

Anyway… You don’t want to hear about my family.

Today started out with waking up BEFORE my alarm went off. I got in session 2, week 2 of the Couch to 5K today and enjoyed it much more than yesterday.  I watched Fresh with Anna Olson on the Food Network. I love Anna Olson.  Today ALSO consisted of a 50min walk at lunch… 4.8K.

Breakfast was a twist on a breakfast cookie. It was 1/2c homemade granola (2), 1/2tbsp almond butter (1), 1/2 scoop vanilla protein powder (1)

Snack was 2c of mango and blueberries (2). I am seriously LOVING this combination of thawed frozen fruit.

Lunch was a stir fry of sorts. 1/2c brown rice (2), veggies in light soy sauce (1) and 100g turkey breast (2). So good.

Afternoon snack was today’s holy grail. It was a protein cupcake of sorts. It was 3tbsp egg whites (0), 1tbsp each of pumpkin and unsweetened apple butter (1), 1/2 scoop vanilla protein powder (1), pumpkin pie spice (0), a few raisins and some unsweetened coconut and some stevia (0).  It looks like total crap but jumping jehosaphat was it good.

Dinner was more 0 point soup. I added some frank’s, pepper, sea salt… and some salsa.  I still feel like it’s missing something… which I’m guessing is SODIUM. Next time I’d definitely leave out most of the cabbage. I also had a baked sweet potato (1) with a couple of spoonfuls of greek yogurt (0), salsa (0) and some light old cheddar (1)

Afterwards I had a bit of a sweet tooth… I had a spoonful of Crofter’s superfruit (1) but was still looking for something so I had 1/4c Kashi toasted berry crisp (1) and 1/8c unsweetened vanilla almond breeze (0)

I also had a few pieces of gummy candy I took to poor Alex at work tonight since he was working late (1)

Today’s total is 18 points and 3L of water.  I intended on a snack during Biggest Loser… but my stomach started feeling ‘funny’ and I lost my appetite.

Lunch/snacks are made for tomorrow. Dishes are done. Animals are fed. Bed is calling me. Good night to all!