Weekly Wrapup (Jan 14-20)

Monday, January 14th through Sunday, January 21st, 2013

Workouts

Worked out for a total of 4 hours and 5 minutes. Burned 1,527 calories total.

Eating

I did well during the work week (as per usual...) but then Max and I went away on a getaway for the long Martin Luther King holiday weekend. I think I did well in bringing our breakfast with us, so each day we both started out responsibly with an apple and a bowl of cereal. I think I ate well at lunch and dinner, but I feel like I deserved a treat.

Social Life

Nothing social to report here...I really do need to work on this one more in the future.

Positivity

I am very happy that Max is done with his crazy work schedule and should be back to a more sane schedule. I had a great time over the weekend and we both got to relax a bit and appreciated getting away for some quality R&R time together.

Planning Ahead

This week we are going to make some lasagna and are planning to have a Mushroom Lentil Barley stew crockpot recipe that I found recently. I think we will add some veggies to it to make it a bit heartier.

My Maiden #WIAW

I have never blogged about what I ate in a day before, so here is my first attempt for #What I Ate Wednesday. (This is actually what I ate on Monday this week.)

Breakfast, 7:30a.m.

I keep breakfast pretty simple. I have a bowl of cereal with almond milk (today it was Kix, which isn't too too bad sugar-wise). I also always have at least one piece of fruit. Today I had a peach (loads of fiber to help get me through until my late lunch at work). I also have a bunch of clementines hanging around, so I ate one of those as well. LOVE clementines - taste just like candy :-)

Lunch, 2:00p.m.

Lunch usually features some sort of leftover. Today's highlight was some over-a-week-old Minted Potato and Chickpea Curry. It still tasted great - I adore chickpeas. I always bring some cut-up veggies to snack on: celery, carrots, and mushrooms. Is anyone else like me and absolutely can't get enough of mushrooms? I also ate an apple and another of the ubiquitous clementines.

Dinner, 8:00p.m.

Dinner always starts out with one of my husband's huge, awesome, colorful salads (I usually add some Italian dressing). I forgot to snap a picture of my plate before I ate, so I had to take the official dinner photo of my spaghetti squash and meatballs in a leftover container. We just put some spaghetti squash in with some Trader Joe's Meatless Meatballs (very tasty) and some sauce. The spaghetti sauce that I have pictured only had a small bit left, so I added an additional half jar of Classico's Red Pepper sauce.

Snacks, 5:15p.m. and 10:00p.m.

I always enjoy a banana on my short commute home from work. I take a bite at each red light. (I took the photo while parked, don't worry!) After dinner was all cleaned up and lunches for tomorrow were made, I enjoyed a small bowl of yogurt with blueberries and a generous amount of cinnamon. It hit the spot for a sweet end to the day.

I don't think photographing my food will become a daily habit, since my breakfasts remain pretty stagnant (cereal, a piece or two of fruit, and some tea). I also have pretty much the same lunch - leftovers, some cut-up veggies, an apple, and a banana as a snack on my drive home. Dinner is usually the only variable most weeknights. I like the idea of doing this once a week, though. It certainly helped keep me on my toes and mindful of what I was putting into my body.

Can Meetup Give Me a "Social" Push?

I have a pretty good life at the moment. I have a terrific husband, a great family, health for myself and my family, and a decent job. However, shyness is still an issue in my life, even after learning to cope fairly well with my social limitations. I basically do not have friends socially. I am friendly and chat with a few of the women that I work with, but I don't actively do anything with anyone after work hours. Except for my husband that is, who really is my best friend. 

Sometimes I feel like this guy...

I think that I should have slightly more social contact at this stage in my life and that it might not be a bad idea to push myself a little in this area where I continuously struggle. The trouble is, as an introvert, I don't often feel like being social. The time I spend at work with people is usually enough for me, though I wouldn't mind having a female friend or two to do things with occasionally. Or another couple to hang out with on the weekends.

My husband and I have been looking at Meetup groups, both for inspiration for some activities to do by ourselves, and also for possibilities to go individually or together to meet new people. My husband successfully went to one (I was super proud of him!), but I haven't been able to yet. I even sign up to attend, but then invariably chicken out.

Everything about it seems to intimidate me. For example, I am into exercise and fitness now and there are TONS of local meetups around fitness. I usually end up convincing myself that I am unable to do the exercise or activity properly or that I don't belong with "real" fitness enthusiasts (similar to my feelings that keep me from enjoying a gym experience). Otherwise, I just convince myself that I already know that I won't fit in or be comfortable, and I end up staying home.

I am not exactly "resolving" to make more of an effort in this area, but here's hoping that I can make some progress...Anyone out there have any tips that have worked for them?

Hoping to Eat a Bit Better in 2013

My husband and I eat pretty healthily, I think, all things considered. Our main issue is that we eat out a lot, and that can get unhealthy pretty easily, even when I am focused on trying to eat the healthiest thing on the menu. 

We usually eat out on Friday and Saturday nights, and I think that I am okay with that at this point. After all, we deserve a break and a reward. As shy folks, this is pretty much our main relaxation activity on the weekends. This is something we would like to work on changing in 2013. We will try to schedule some things each weekend for us to do to get out and about so that we are more social and so that our "going out" no longer solely revolves around food. Maybe a post on this later.

Two weeks of (blurry - sorry!) our meal plans

Anyway, within the last 2 or 3 months, we had started to go out on Thursday nights as well. Not good, not a pattern we want to see made permanent or (God forbid) start creeping into other weekdays as well. Last week after the New Year's holiday, we planned out what we would be eating on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday night. We really liked this, as it made it super easy to throw meals together when we got home from work and it helped keep us on track diet-wise. We also planned meals for Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday this week (I work Tuesday nights on most normal weeks, so we usually end up eating separately that night). Planning the meals makes shopping a breeze, too, and we bought a lot of fresh stuff. Fresh items make up the majority of our grocery bills most weeks, but I think we managed to bump up the freshness lately by planning ahead. Win, win!

Hopefully planning ahead will start becoming more of a habit and we'll be on a roll doing this for the next few weeks. It is a good feeling knowing that we did this, it actually makes me feel in control of my life, which is definitely a good feeling ;-)

FitnessBlender

I recently discovered the FitnessBlender channel on YouTube and am really enjoying their workouts. I have seen other circuit workouts presented on YouTube, but some of them just tell you what to do (like Amanda Russell's workouts), but don't lead you through them. (Which I do understand at some level, since everyone might be at a different pace, but it helps me to follow along or I usually won't do the workout at all.)

On Christmas Day, I did this quick 5-minute HIIT workout. It wasn't too terribly intense, but it definitely got my heart rate going a bit. I tried out my new gift, a Polar FT60 heart rate monitor, and I burned 45 calories, had an average heart rate of 155 and a max of 174. Now I know I can push harder next time.

I am loving FitnessBlender's no-nonsense videos that have timers, someone to follow, and a "narrator" giving you pointers and telling you how many seconds you have left. There are a ton of videos on their channel, and I look forward to trying some more of their HIIT workouts and a few Tabata workouts, too. I haven't done too many of those, but I would like to see and compare them now that I have my heart rate monitor to play with :-)

Muffin Substitution Success!

My husband and I received a great gift box featuring General Mills products this Christmas (thanks, Grandma!). It was a cool gift if you're looking to send something slightly out-of-the-ordinary to someone -- it's not your standard gift basket and was fun to go through (and eat, of course!) Check out what was included at the website here. By the way, I am not an employee or sponsored by them, I just am enjoying my gift :-)

Included in the gift box was a Betty Crocker Cinnamon Toast Crunch muffin mix. I really liked this cereal as a kid. I was not allowed to eat sugary cereal , but my mom would buy those little single-serve boxes of the sugary cereals as a treat when we would go on vacation at the New Jersey beach most summers. I think I liked Frosted Flakes best, but Cinnamon Toast Crunch was definitely a favorite as well. Nowadays they are a bit too sweet for a breakfast meal for me, but they are tasty as a snack.

I tried to make them a slight bit "healthier" by tweaking the ingredients that are added to the mix. The package calls for water, 1/4 cup of oil, and 2 eggs. I added a 1/4 cup of applesauce and 6 tablespoons of egg whites instead. Both my husband I agree that the muffins are very tasty, maybe a tiny bit chewier than normal. Definitely a substitution win for this one!

The substitutions saved about 40 calories per muffin (and I'm sure quite a bit of fat as well, though I didn't compute that). The mix itself is 120 calories per muffin, with the box estimating 170 per muffin using the normal additional ingredients. According to my LoseIt app, my substitutions made each muffin about 130 calories. Yes, please, I'll take 40 fewer calories and less fat, without sacrificing taste :-) They are making a sinfully delicious dessert tonight with some decaf Red Rose Cinnamon Streusel tea. My aunts just happened to send some of this home with my mom after she recently visited them. I picked it up today - just in time to have it as the perfect complement to the muffins.

So, yes, I am still snacking...and not on great choices right now. However, I have been doing much better the past two or three days in controlling the quantity of what I am eating. This is usually very difficult for me to do on weekends, so I am proud of myself for starting to get my normal diet back on track after the holidays.

My Biggest Health Issue at the Moment

The holiday glut of food really affected me this year, and still is, really. I am having difficulty controlling myself around all of the sweets and snacks that are all around. My main issue seems to be stopping - once I start, I keep going. I think I have a strange mindset of "if I eat it all now, it will go away and stop giving me trouble."

I love these Hershey's kisses for example. I'm usually not a huge chocolate fan, but these do it for me. I tried to get the dark chocolate, thinking I would be a smidge healthier and maybe not eat as many, but that hasn't worked - I unfortunately love both varieties!

I am thinking of bringing the rest of the kisses and a few other items in to work. I hate to foist unhealthy food off on other people, but I need this stuff to go away and I can't bring myself to simply throw it out. I would much rather substitute out these snacks for something slightly healthier, something that is more actual "food." For example, air-popped popcorn or cottage cheese (with salsa, delicious!) were some of the snacks I enjoyed before the holidays hit.

How did you combat any tendencies to overeat at the holidays? I have occasionally felt gross and sick at night from the snacking and I need to make sure this isn't something that lasts deep into the new year.