The Best Laid Plans...

Yesterday, I had planned to run a quick 2 mile run.  However, when the alarm went off at 8:30am, I thought better of it and reset my alarm for 10:30am.  I “thought better” of it because I worked a double shift yesterday and I was thinking about how long I would be awake for if I did that…about 22 hours…to be followed by only 5 hours of sleep this morning and then back to work again.  (sorry, Carina…but I will try out your idea of how to run that quick 2 miler within the next couple weeks and make sure to write report on it!)

I did, however, make it to the bookstore to have a looksee at the Super Shred Diet.  I didn’t buy it because, well, it seems to be basically the same thing as the regular Shred Diet that I already have.  So, I couldn’t justify spending the money on it.  I looked through some of the other diet books they had and found a book I might go back and buy.  It had about 4 weeks of meal plans already written out for you to just follow. 

I’ve looked through the DASH diet and, well, I like it.  I really like it.  It will obviously take more thought on my part than the Shred diet does because it doesn’t lay out you need to eat this, this, this or this or choose from this ample list of items to eat at this meal/snack.  It provides the first week of meal plans based on your calorie needs, but after that, you’re on your own with only a checklist to make sure you’re getting the right amount of servings of each food grouping each day.  Of course, this really opens up what you can be eating.  And it does have a few super tasty looking recipes in the back of the book.  Also, if you’re just starting out and have loads of questions about what to do, I highly recommend this book even if you don’t follow the diet.  It’s extremely informative and has a great deal of relevant information.

Yesterday, when I was getting ready for work, I consciously noticed that my pants weren’t tight AT ALL and were very easy to clasp.  Also, my gun belt wasn’t at all tight.  HOORAY!!!  I love non-scale victories!!!  I’m really looking forward to my weigh-in on Sunday.  I’d really like to see 180-ish.  The first week, I lost about 2.2 lbs and last week I lost 2.6 lbs.  I’m on a roll!  So, yea, I’m really hoping to at least partially replicate the last 2 weeks and get a 2-ish lb loss again.

Also yesterday, I paid in my $25 for the new fitness competition!  I officially logged my long-term goals that I would like to achieve by August 15^th and my short-term goals that I want to achieve over the next 2 months.  My long-term goals are:

• get down to a 31” waist

• run 5 organized events by the end of competition (Aug. 15^th)

• run an organized half marathon in 2:41 hrs or less

My short-term goal for the first segment is to lose 5 lbs.  That would put me at 177 at the 2 month mark.  I’m really hoping to blow that goal out of the water, though.  I’m pretty sure that this will be the ONLY weight loss goal I’ll have during the entire competition.  I don’t like setting myself up for potential failure if I’m not able to meet a weight loss goal, which is entirely possible since I’m so close to my goal weight.  And during the last competition, I got down to 172.2 and could not get down any further, no matter how hard I tried or what I did, I just couldn’t get the scale down any lower.  So, I’m loathe to set a weight loss goal for the competition for this reason.    There is a high probability that I won’t reach my personal weight loss goal of getting to 160.  It may just not be physically possible for me to reach 160 in a healthy way.  170-ish may be my healthy low weight.  And I’m fine with that.  I did like how I looked at 172.  And I felt good at that weight.

So, today I started the Shred Diet over from day 1!  I’m going to be choosing some different selections from the options it gives for different meals this time around.  Also, I’m going to broaden my selection of snacks from the lists provided.  Even though yesterday was the last day of my first cycle through the Shred, I did eat something I hadn’t eaten in the weeks previous: a portobello mushroom stuffed with roasted veggies.  I chose zucchini, onion and tomato to dice up and roast.  Then, I stuffed it all in the mushroom and roasted it for another 10 minutes before packing it up to take to work with me.  It was VERY good.  I’ll plan better for it next time I eat it and make sure I have enough time to roast it all properly…I roasted the diced veggies for 15 minutes and then the whole thing for 10 minutes.  I would have preferred to roast the veggies themselves for 25 minutes and the whole thing for 12-15 minutes. 

I went the other day and bought some new syrups for my SodaStream.  I grabbed what I thought was “Diet Dr. Pete.”  The first time I used it, I noticed that the syrup was thicker than the syrups for the other diet syrups I use.  The second time I used it, I figured out why.  It’s not diet.  D’oh.  So, I did a quick nutrition label check.  35 calories per serving and there’s 4 servings in a liter.  That’s 140 calories.  I got lucky and that same day, when I got to work, there was a box for Dr. Pepper so I checked the nutrition label.  150 calories for a 12 oz can.  So, my 140 calories for an entire liter was nothing.  Sure, I prefer to NOT drink my calories (unless it’s a healthy smoothie or juice), but I’m okay with finishing the bottle of syrup and not throwing it away.

Today I ate yet another snack that was new to me: dried apricots with blue cheese!  I was a little skeptical, but curious enough to try it.  OMG!  Delicious!  This is now one of my favorite snacks!  I will definitely be having that again.

When I first got to work today, I was recounting the fact that I had not even wanted one of my favorite donuts when presented with them the other day and then that last night, on my overtime shift, I had been offered and had refused root beer floats…as I was telling this to a coworker, another coworker walks up with some Girl Scout cookies and asks if I want one and I exclaimed “NO!  get away from me!”  Hahaha!  Oh, and if that wasn’t enough, the judge bought BBQ for our shift…so I had to turn that down too!  But, I did indeed turn it down.  So many non-scale victories this week!!!  So proud of myself.