Fighting

Still keeping up with the workouts, folks!

I moved into "Phase 2" of the Body Breakthrough workouts. I think I may hit a snag as I progress through this bad-boys, though, because I do not have a gym in my basement... only dumbbells, a stability ball, a flat bench, and a yoga mat. The more challenging workouts definitely require cable pulls and pull-up bars. I'm thinking about purchasing a pull-up bar - one of those you can install in a door frame. But for now I'm just googling "dumbell alternatives for [enter exercise here]" like a crazy person. So far, so good, but I'm not really sure how much longer I will be able to substitute before it effects my results. Maybe that's a negative view to have and it will all be just fine. We'll see.

I'm going to do new measurements this weekend and see if I made any progress - which I feel like I definitely have! My posture is definitely improving, which naturally makes me look a bit slimmer. No more of my grandfather threatening to strap a board to my back!

Okay, so we know that exercise is going well (can't say enough how proud I am of myself for this!!) - now I will talk on some of the food stuff I've been doing:

• I recently boosted my calorie-intake to 1,900/day from 1,800/day. I said I was going to do 2,000 - which honestly is what I'm aiming for - but it was screwing up my charts on MFP to increase it by that much. Also, I'm trying to boost my protein intake a little bit... and at 2,000 calories they were suggesting I eat something like 250g of protein a day - right now it's at, like, 195g which is still RIDICULOUS! I'm starting to feel like these online tools aren't as awesome as I'd like them to be.. and wondering if there might be something better out there that always also (Freudian slip - ALWAYS IPHONE!!) has an iPhone app. 
• I have switched to almost all full-fat dairy. Full-fat cheese, full-fat yogurt (plain greek is the only kind I can find full-fat that isn't super expensive baby yogurt), sour cream, and 2% milk. 
• The biggest difference, though, is I am now cooking almost every night or eating leftovers from a night I did cook. I am also eating lunch at home during the workweek, with the exception of one day where I can choose a restaurant. 

Since we are nearing the end of September (where does the time go?!), I figured I'd update everyone on my vices; drinking and smoking. I'm doing much better. There are now nights where I don't drink at all, or will maybe just have a few sips of Mike's beer. A lot of nights I'm only smoking 1 or 2 cigarettes - however, I'm still having my half-pack nights. The weather is getting much cooler now, so that will help cut that down since I do not smoke in my house.

Edit:
I began drafting this post Tuesday morning and am just now getting about to editing and adding some things. Tuesday morning I felt awesome about my workout. Last night was rough. Our oldest son had an hour-long meltdown. By the time is was over all I could think about was go outside and having a smoke - which I did. And then remembered "duh, this is Wednesday, this is workout B day"... but I wasn't trying to go workout for an hour at 8:30pm after having smoked like 3 cigarettes. That just sounded gross to me. I haven't taken more than one walk this week, either. Having lunch at home I feel like it's a little harder to motivate and/or not enough time to go walk the neighborhood vs walking around the pond next to our office building.

I'm getting very down on myself for skipping this workout. And technically it wasn't "skipped" because I will make it up tonight, and according to the Body Breakthrough plan you can do as few as 2 workouts/week, so I'm not ruining the progress I've made so far. I'm trying to tell myself that just because this week didn't work out the way it normally would/the way I'd like it to, doesn't mean everything is ruined and next week can still be great.

Another thing adding to this self-hate cycle: I stepped on the scale this morning (even though it's not my weigh-in day) and came in at 201lbs. That's a 5lb gain in a week. Aunt Flo will be visiting in a little over a week - but 5 lbs is not just water retention. I'd like to think it's muscle. I'd like to also quit being so scale obsessed and focus solely on how awesome I'm feeling about my body and my back-fat disappearing (!!), how my clothes fit better every week and I have more energy and look forward to my workouts. I guess it's just hammered into my head that I "can't be healthy" at 200lbs when the media inundates me with BMI charts showing that my "healthy weight" should be between 150 and 165. I need to reprogram, but I'm not entirely sure how to do that.

Maybe I should challenge myself to 6 weeks scale-free, only taking measurements weekly or bi-weekly and tracking that way. 

Should I ban the scale for a month or so? What do you think?

There is no excuse - and I'm the sweatiest person ever

I have not blogged in a week and I have no excuse. I’ve still been exercising, still been tracking calories. I guess you could say I’ve just been busy with, well, life. I mean, there is a reason this blog has been retitled… life has a tendency to get the best of me sometimes.

Let’s see… I last updated on Thursday, with every intention to post Friday. My 6 year old has judo on Friday nights. We don’t get home until 8 or after and at that point he’s usually on the verge of a meltdown because that is his usual bedtime and there is still the matter of bathing and teeth brushing and story reading to attend to. He gets a little cranky. I was hoping that after dealing with this crankiness that perhaps my wonderful husband would put the grumpy child to bed so that I might lift heavy things and sweat and breathe hard in an effort to look AWESOME. But no. This did not happen. Grumpy child needed mommy to do bedtime.

Bedtime did not go as smoothly as planned. It ended up being almost 8:45pm. Then my friend John came over. No exercise for mommy on Friday night.

I still had an awesome Friday night. It ended up being an impromptu party with John and Caitlin and Neal. And, as impromptu parties tend to do, this impromtu’d me to drink many of the beers… and when I say many, I only mean 5, but for some reason these were magically Miller Lites that made me much more inebriated than usual. I stayed up until 2am chatting and being wildly witty and entertaining (actually, probably not). I collapsed into bed and slept a deep sleep for… 4.5 hours. When my children awoke.

Now I was a grumpy mommy. And Grumpy Child was STILL a grumpy child from staying up too late the night before pitching a giant fit about bedtime. Grumpy Mommy + Grumpy Child = WORLD WAR III IN THE TROTT HOUSEHOLD!!!

From 7am until 10am (when Always Happy Baby went down for a nap), James (aka Grumpy Child) and I bit each other’s heads off, whined and complained (mostly him, but a little bit me too), and generally didn’t get along. I was so exhausted. I just wanted to take a nap in hopes that I could pull it together for my friend’s bridal shower and Bachelorette revisited later that day/night. The baby went down for a nap… and instead of crawling back into bed with my husband, I put on my workout clothes and headed to the basement for my workout!

I was so proud of myself. I was hungover, tired, grumpy… and I knew that pushing through that workout would definitely make me feel better. It did. However, it didn’t really fix my tired… and the Grumpy Child decided he needed to come to the basement and play while I did my exercise and talked to me the whole time. I tried to explain that exercise time is mommy’s time and that it was fine for him to be down there with me but there was not going to be extensive conversation being had about all things Transformers and superheroes and Skylanders and and and and and and… this point was lost on him. LOST.

It did not lend that whole “stress relief” portion of exercise to the situation, that’s for sure.

So, yes, it was great. I worked out on a Saturday. Awesome, super duper. But then: I continued to sweat buckets for the REST OF THE DAY. It was disgusting. I wasn’t even warm! I don’t know what the deal was! It would.not.stop. Super embarrassing. Also ruined my hair-do. 

One downer thing I want to talk about: I went up a little over a pound 2 weeks ago... and haven't come back down. In fact, Tuesday morning I weighed myself just to see and I was up ANOTHER pound back to 197!! This morning (Friday) I stepped on the scale after sticking with exercise for the week and doing much better on my eating... I was still at 196.4. I'm very disappointed. My strength routine is doing an excellent job of toning me up - and I'm trying really hard just to focus on that. But between counting calories and exercise I was expecting to see at least some kind of results on the scale - and if not, at least maintain, not go up almost 2 lbs!! I just have to keep reminding myself of this:

But it's much easier said than done. I'm not really "okay" with the idea of being over 200lbs again... even if I look like I'm less than that. 

I decided to go back through MyFitnessPal to figure out what I was doing food-wise when I dropped from 197 to 195 in like 9 days (I wasn't exercising at the time except for occasional short walks at lunch and cleaning house - that type of stuff). I was averaging higher caloric intake during all of my recent weight drops. I would plateau for 2-3weeks, then have a week or two where I would go way over my calorie goals most days, and then see a 1.5 to 2 lbs drop at the end of that week. 

I understand that there isn't really a "starvation mode" - that's pretty much a total myth in the standard way dieters think of it. However, everyone operates differently and apparently I was operating a little more efficiently eating closer to 2000 calories a day than 1500 calories a day. So.. I'm giving that a try. We'll see how it goes. 

While we are sort of on the negative side of things for a moment... I feel like ever since I started regularly exercising again I've become completely fixated on my calorie burn and feel totally guilty and crazy if I don't at least walk EVERY. DAY. Plus I feel like I'm beating myself up over what I'm choosing to eat and drink. It's like, I'm finally doing what I've been aiming for for all these months, and I was much calmer about the weight loss and food and, well, everything when I wasn't even trying - when I was just kind of being conscious of my calories and being happy for whatever loss happened. 

What's up with that? 

It's almost like exercise is having a negative impact on my mental health rather than a positive one. Am I allergic to endorphins or something? Do they make me crazy instead of sane? Depressed instead of happy? I mean, that's doesn't seem particularly fair. I'm obviously still keeping up with it since it does make me feel good at the time, even if when I'm  not exercising it makes me feel like a pile of mental poo. I wish there was like "A Tall Girl's Guide to Eating and Exercising" - because I feel like 90% of the stuff I read only applies to the "average" girl, who is 5'4".. so I guess I should just start paying more attention to men's stuff since the average man is 5'11". Much closer to my height at 5'10". 

I feel like when I started drafting this post 4 days ago I was actually trying to go somewhere with it and then I got distracted and/or didn't have time to wrap it all up and now it's all "blah" and all over the place. Sorry for not keeping things updated this week. Hopefully next week will work out a little better. 

Food stuff for those that are interested can be stalked here: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/PrettyGirlsOnFire

Ahhhh!!

It's been a little bit like the week from hell, but a new post is coming soon!! I've been drafting since Tuesday!!

Pep Talks in the mirror - true story

Yesterday I headed straight from work to get my hair done. For those of you that maybe don't know me and are just Dear Readers, I have a LOT of hair. My ponytail is like 3" in diameter. It's ridiculous. So when I say I "got my hair done" - this means at least 2-3 hours at the salon. And that is usually just for color.

After my hair appointment I knew I had dinner plans with friends. I ended up getting finished with my hair in less time than expected (only 2 hours this time lol), and headed home to tuck the kids in and change my clothes. As I was changing, I started completely freaking out that I had not gone for my version of "running" that night since it was an off-day from strength training. I had gone for a 30 minute walk at lunch. I got about a 150 calorie burn in. 2 weeks ago that would have been the ONLY EXERCISE I WAS DOING. PERIOD. But for some reason my brain decided taking that 30 minute walk on my off-strength day was just not enough. I started thinking, "Maybe I shouldn't go out for dinner. I can't afford the calories."

what?

Where was this coming from? Again, I ask you... "Who is this chick?" but this time in a bad way.

Well, that was just enough of that craziness. I marched myself into the bathroom, looked myself in the eye in the mirror and literally said out loud: "Jessica, you stop this right now. You worked out hard last night. You kicked butt, you pushed yourself, you were covered in sweat. The fact that you aren't completely sore right now from that workout is a good sign. It means your body is adapting, your muscles are getting stronger. This is what you want to happen. This is the point. You went for a walk today - THAT COUNTS. Go have your delicious dinner and enjoy yourself. You are beautiful and strong and healthy. It's okay to work hard, but you can't overdo it."

And I did go enjoy my delicious dinner. I went over my calories because I had to enjoy delicious beer with my delicious dinner. But that is okay. There was still this little piece of crazy in the back of my mind trying to tell me I should do strength training AND run last night... but I did not do that. A) I didn't have the time, and B) that just would have been too much. The last thing I want to do is overwork myself this early back in the game. I need to stop freaking out about calorie burns. It's not about that. It's about being healthy. It's not like I am required to drop a ton of weight in a short amount of time. If it takes me another 9 months to lose another 20lbs then so be it.

Fighting crazy is exhausting.

I did another round of Workout B last night and Mike even joined me! I realized: Maybe I just don't like working out with other people. It feels a lot better to just stick my headphones on and escape somewhere else for a while. But I know he appreciated it, and it was good for him. Tonight I don't know if I'll get a walk/run in or not, but I did have a walk at lunch even though it wasn't as long as I would have liked.

Here is my food/calorie burn for the last couple days:

Who is this chick?

Seriously, who is she? Because she certainly isn't me. At least not the me that I've known virtually my whole life. This chick, well, she does things like: cleans her house on the weekends and in the evenings after work, cooks dinner nearly every night, keeps up with her kids' laundry, bakes zucchini bread from scratch, and - probably most importantly - exercises on a regular basis!

The only thing that clues me in that this chick is still me is her complete and total inability to not go out for lunch everyday during the work week and eat things like: Taco Bell, Qdoba, Firehouse Subs, Wendy's, and Chick Fil A. Yeah.. there is that part.

So remember when I told you guys a few weeks ago that I'd picked up this book called The French Don't Diet Plan? Well, the beginning really had me... and it even made me want to take a trip to France. But then I completely lost interest. I got through most of the important parts - the cutting out fake foods (processed chemical-filled crap - y'know, like TACO BELL), the eating smaller portions, the mindful eating, returning to the family table, the activity vs exercise... but then... I kind of got bored. I am going to finish it, but it's just taking me a while.

So last week I worked out 3 times. In a row. Wednesday I did workout A from Phase 1 of The Female Body Breakthrough, Thursday I went for a walk/run, and Fri I did workout B from Body Breakthrough. Then Saturday and Sunday.. well.. I kind of did a bunch of nothing. Aside from cleaning my house (which I totally forgot to log into MyFitnessPal, btw). I guess that's where that whole activity vs exercise thing comes in. I was still active, I just didn't actively exercise. I had intended to go for a walk/run Saturday afternoon but then ARMAGEDDON happened... and by armageddon I mean ridiculous thunderstorms. Sunday I had a bunch of errands to run and also realized I was still super sore from my Friday workout, as well as the 4 hours of standing/dancing at my buddy Derek's AWESOME cd release party (go Derek, woo!). I reminded myself that not exercising is just as important as the exercise when it comes to strength training and decided not to give myself a mental guilt trip all day long.

So now, here we are, on Monday. Things with the kids were a little crazy this afternoon/evening. I usually do my strength training stuff after the baby goes to bed and while our big-kid is doing his bathtime/before-bed-quiet-time, around 7pm. That worked out pretty well last week. Well, tonight 8:15pm rolled around and I still hadn't exercised. I had just gotten our eldest (James) to bed and marched myself to the basement to kick butt on another round of workout A.

It. Was. Awesome.

I pushed myself tonight and I usually have a rough time doing that (read: I'm a big baby). It probably helped that the hubby and I got into a little tiff earlier today and were giving each other some awesome silent treatment (all has been resolved now, but it had to wait until after my workout lol). Anger is apparently the best motivation for me! I was so proud of myself for pounding out this workout even though it had gotten really late and I had been feeling kind of wishy-washy about it earlier in the day. I'm excited to see what kind of results I'll see next time I do measurements. I'm pretty convinced I'm going to continue to see the scale move upwards or stay steady over the next few weeks, so I'm trying really hard not to let that bum me out.

I had blogged a few months back about feeling like I wasn't at a high enough fitness level to whole-heartedly attempt this Body Breakthrough program (tried to link to the post, but I couldn't find it - yay no blog organization!).. and honestly I can't really tell you what motivated me to give it another shot. But I'm sure glad I did. It's making me feel really awesome. Shortly after giving up the Body Breakthrough program I also talked about trying to shed some of my weight before working on the toning portion of my fitness/weight loss. I think, for me, that was a really good idea. I got my eating/calories under control, saw that I could lose weight steadily (albeit very very slooowwwly) by controlling my diet, and realized that adding a good solid routine on top of that might really boost my results.

Here's hoping anyway.

Now to talk a little bit about how I'm a bad spouse and a bad friend:

a) my friend Courtney asked last week if I wanted to try to do somewhat regular walks in the evenings during the week. Um, DUH. Yes! I would love that! Well, every single one we've tried to schedule, life has come in and interrupted on my end. No wonder no one wants to be my workout buddy. I suck at being a workout buddy. Courtney, I am super sorry and I promise we WILL get at least ONE damn walk in this week! If my basement wasn't completely cluttered save for the 8x8 cleared square where I attempt to lift weights, I would invite you to lift weights with me. Maybe I should make my next weekend clean-up project my basement!

b) I still still still have yet to put a workout/eating program together for Mike. Worst. Spouse. Ever. Instead of giving him workout assignments, I found motivation to do my own workouts. By myself. Because I'm an ass. I love you, baby, and I will do this!! Make me do it for you!! (Ha, look at me talking to him like he actually reads my blog.. psht.)

Now for some food logs:

Nevermind. MyFitnessPal is being completely buggy today. Will try to remember to post tomorrow!

Fed up

Yesterday was another really “grumpy” day for me – it got even grumpier after my blog post. There is just so much rough stuff going on right now, and it’s put me in a weird place because I’m really happy with my life and where I am and where I’m going, but there is still a lot of stress that is putting this giant Anger Cloud over me. I feel like I usually handle stress pretty well, but I’m almost starting to feel like things are just never going to be “normal” again.

By the time I got home from work last night, I’d just about had enough. My head was going to explode. I was going to commit acts of violence against people. My children were going to be sold to the gypsies. My husband was going to be spending the night in a literal doghouse. I had to run away. I had to get the f up out of life for a while. So what did I do? I went running.

“WHAAAAA-??” you say (again)? I know! I know!! It’s like the only response you have for me anymore, right? It’s like you’re thinking, “Well, sure, Jess. You say you’re going to do all these fitness things all the time and then you post the next day or a week later and say, ‘Oh, well, I decided I didn’t feel like it’.” It’s TRUE!! I do that all. the. time. But something has come over me, folks. I can’t explain what it is. I can’t describe this bizarre feeling of drive and determination – but it’s there. And hell if I’m not going to take advantage of it while I can, because who knows when it might disappear, taking me back to the land of “I don’t wanna”!!

Now, before all my runner people out there get all excited… let me explain to you what I mean when I say “I went running”:  I went for a 40 minute fast-paced (4mph) walk that included several short (but so-very-sweet) bursts of running my little heart out until my lungs screamed for oxygen. It was my own little loose version of HIIT.

And it cured me.

I got home and I was calm. I was ready to read a story to my kid and not want to strangle him the whole time. I didn’t feel all tired and lethargic leading up to bedtime. I fell asleep quickly and deeply… and then, as if the gods were blessing me, my baby slept until 7:30!!! SEVEN-THIRTY!! It was beautiful. I’m hoping that was some of the positive reinforcement I need to continue to be a healthy, fit person who is full of awesome – and blog posts.

Tonight: I lift. Weights, that is. Actually, to be honest, I’m more working on body-weight-resistance type exercises. Squats, push-ups, planks, etc. Get that form down and build up some base strength and then move on to actual weighted movements. I’m also trying to work on my ridiculous quad dominance (here’s a good explanation of what that actually is). I’m definitely still feeling some soreness from Weds night, especially in my abs – which is where I need to be feeling it most anyway. This mommy-pouch needs to go. Over. It.

I keep forgetting that I just had a baby 9 months ago and that it will take another 12-14 months for my body to finish recovering from that process. I have a feeling I’m going to lose my hips. The shape of my body is already so much different than before I got pregnant this second time around, and it’s like every couple of months something sort of shifts or shrinks or sags or sticks out more/less, etc. Having babies is weird. Let’s just all agree on that.

I’ve been thinking about snapping some progress photos in either short-shorts w/ sports bra or a bikini. I’m thinking of doing this to keep my perspective when it comes to stepping on that stupid scale every week. If I end up sticking with this whole strength training/cardio thing I’ve had going on this week I know the fat and inches will start coming off, but the scale may not move much and may actually end up going up before coming down. I figure if I have half-nekkid pictures of myself and can see, “Oh, hey, maybe I’ve gained 5 lbs according to the scale, but look! I’ve lost nearly all my back-fat compared with 3 weeks ago!” I won’t start freaking out. This is big “if”. We’ll see. Also, I’m not sure I want people realizing just how fat I really am… maybe I need to get over that and/or use it to push me forward in this process.

Enjoy my food count from yesterday (yay for abrupt endings! I got distracted and forgot where I was going next with this):

Motivation - a funny thing

Yesterday (I almost wrote "last day", as my 6 year old calls it) was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. For no particular reason... I woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Work was stressful but for no real reason other than people were acting like things were on fire (in a metaphorical sense) when really they weren't. Everyone on Facebook was kicking their own personal campaigns for "their candidate" into full gear, so there's a lot of up-in-arms going on there (I have a very politically diverse group of friends). The new school year has just begun and our 6 year old had a really rough year last year, so I'm on edge expecting the worst to happen with that again. And on top of that I made an off-color joke to one of my best friends that really offended her and made her pretty mad at me.

It sucked. 

Normally I feel like I would have gone home and crawled into bed feigning some kind of illness... but I was pretty riled up and kind of wanted to cause physical harm to... well.. everyone. So I did something completely unexpected: I worked out. 

"WHAAAAA???", you say? I know, I know... I was shocked myself. I got home with the kids, fed the baby one of the most nutritional dinners ever (bananas, avocado and brown rice, if you were curious), put on my gym clothes and moments after Mike walked into the door I was in the basement listening to Pandora's Rap Strength Training station and taking my anger and frustration out on my muscles. 

It felt amazing. 

Unfortunately, like an hour later I was right back to being cranky and ragey. I hate to say this.. but I think a run may have done me better. I hate running. And it was really humid last night. Maybe tonight.. even though it's more humid and hotter. I think I need it, though.. 

(Dear Lord: Please don't let me become one of those runners that thinks running is the answer to everything in life. Some of them are my friends and I love them, but let's leave the running to them and the crazy girl-muscles to me. Amen. *adjusts halo*)

I guess I'll have to let you know tomorrow if I actually did go for the dreaded run. I wish I could lift weights every day. Stupid muscle recovery. 

Maybe I'll just dance. Dance my little heart out. 

I feel like I'm a little all over the place with this post, and I apologize for that, so I'm just going wrap it up with calorie counts from yesterday:

Re-branding/naming/whatever - CHANGES!

Change! Change is good, right?

As you may have noticed I'm currently in the process of sort of "re-branding" my blog. The focus is still mostly going to be on health/fitness/weight loss, but I realized I talk a lot about ordinary life things sometimes too... maybe it was time to go with something a little catchier and a little more accurate in describing what this blog is actually about - y'know, instead of just some random song lyric reference that no one really understands.

Oh, btw: HAPPY SEPTEMBER!

My oldest started 1st grade yesterday, and my baby is going to 1 year old in just a few short months!! Where has the time gone?? I can't believe how fast this year is going by. It's sort of awesome and terrifying all at the same time. The concept of time is so vastly different as I become a Real Live Adult. I can still remember summer being ALL ETERNITY as a child - now it's like, "Um, wasn't 2 weeks ago April?". No. It wasn't. You're just old and forget things.

Go ahead. Ask me what I had for lunch yesterday. Go on.

**pause**

That pause right there? That was me having to go look at my calorie tracker to remember... because I'm old. And forget things.

I am very pleased to report that I accomplished all of my August goals... for probably the first time since I began this whole "setting monthly goals" business. My August goals were (to recap):

1. Blog more consistently 
2. Focus more on being "active", less on "exercise" 
3. Make time for myself: reading, playing music, meditation, etc. 

My blogging still needs work, but we're getting there! Definitely posting more often than once or twice a month these days, that's for sure. As for activity vs exercise? Done, done, and done! I've been taking almost-daily walks, as well as putting focus and effort into keeping my home clean and somewhat organized has turned out to be wonderful and productive activity, as well as some serious calorie-burning when you spend a couple hours vacuuming/mopping! And as for the third, I've been spending more time reading, watching movies I want to see that maybe my husband isn't interested in, and just general "down" time.

If you'll take a gander over at September's goals, you'll see something that hasn't been touched on or talked about much on this blog since the birth of my 2nd child... smoking!

I, unfortunately, quickly picked this bad habit back up after I stopped breastfeeding back in January. And over this summer I have progressively become a much heavier smoker than I ever have been in the past and would like to be in the present and/or future.

I am not making any declaration of quitting, mind you. I know myself. I enjoy smoking. Trying to quit right now would be unsuccessful, as I don't "want" to. However, I do "want" to quit going through half-a-pack every night. I feel so gross most mornings, and I know it's those 8-10 cigarettes I smoke in the 2-3 hour period before heading to bed.

Here's the thing: I'm a weird smoker. I only smoke at night after my kids go to bed. I don't smoke at work, I don't smoke in my car. I mostly smoke when I'm drinking alcohol, although I have been known to indulge if I'm having Starbucks. Not just coffee or tea, specifically Starbucks. So there's that. I used to pretty much only smoke on the weekends - or if I happened to be drinking alcohol during the week. I might occasionally have a cigarette in the hour before bed, but not every night. I used to average about a pack a week.

Gone are those days.

I am currently averaging about 5 packs a week. I still do not smoke at work or in my car or really at all during daylight hours. However, lately I have found the "need" (if you will) to smoke a LOT at night as I sit on my porch and drink beer or wine.

Here's another thing: over this summer I've become a "regular" drinker. I have at least one beer or one glass of wine every night. I used to only be a "social" drinker. I would drink on the weekends if I saw friends, or during the week if I went out for social interaction. Other than that, didn't really drink. Wasn't really interested in drinking.

Gone are those days, as well. I think I'm definitely experiencing a phenomena my friend Holly refers to as "Drunk Summer". Last summer I was pregnant and could not participate in any of my usual vices. Holly experienced a similar situation when she was pregnant with her youngest child over the summer months a few years ago... and subsequently made up for lost time the following summer. (Holly, hope you don't mind me sharing!! lol) Subconsciously I seem to be making up for my "lost" summer this summer. Hence, Drunk Summer.

Once thing I can say about that: summer is almost over. Drunk Fall and/or Drunk Winter don't sound quite as fun. But during September I am going to make a conscious effort to scale back on my alcohol/cigarette consumption. I'd like to get my smoking back down to that 1-2 packs/week level. Certainly will save me some money as well! As far as the boozing, well, lots of recent studies have shown that one drink a day is actually good for you. So, by the end of this month I'm shooting to be down to only one drink a day or less on days that I'm not actively out socializing.

No big deal. I got this.

So yay for all the positivity, but I did have a momentary sort-of-freak-out-breakdown thing the other night while taking new progress photos. See my first problem was: taking them at night after a giant mexican dinner for my anniversary (4 years!) complete with giant margarita and then a beer upon arriving at home. Should have taken them morning/mid-day like I've taken all of my OTHER progress photos... oh well... but the freak out was this: I am sick of being fat.

I don't mean in the sense that I feel like I'm some huge gargantuan blob of yuck... I mean, I'm sick of having so much fat on my frame even though I'm getting thinner/smaller/shrinking/what-have-you. My body fat percentage is around 33% right now. I need to lose about 6% to put myself well into the "average" range, or about 10% of my current body fat. I'm not going to be able to do that if I don't kick up my activity level a little more. I have 6 weeks to reach my halfway goal of 185lbs. That 10lbs away. I feel like 6 weeks is a perfectly acceptable amount of time to accomplish this. But we know what this means... Gym. Or at the very least: basement weights.

And probably more/most importantly - cut out all the JUNK FOOD!!! *gets crushed by a giant mountain of chips, cookies, taco bell, and french fries* AHHHHHHHH!!

I have been so good and so terrible all at once with my eating lately. I've been good because I've been cooking more, buying  more organic, eating more fruits/veggies... but I've been bad because I've been eating out for lunch almost every single work day - and I eat stuff like Taco Bell, Qdoba, Wendy's, Firehouse Subs, etc... high calorie faux foods. And granted it's only one meal, but that one meal a lot of the times kicks my calorie limit out of the water. Today is a perfect example. Go ahead. Take a look.

I've said it once, and I'll say it again: Brownies are my sweets weakness.

*sigh*

From that link you should also be able to view my recent diary entries. Check out last Weds - Saturday. It's a scream! And I don't mean that in a "funny haha" way.. heh.

Oh, hey, real quick before I go... I made the most amazing pork chops last night, and I want to share the "recipe" with you:

1lb boneless pork chops about 1" thick
2tbsp of Olive Oil (extra virgin or otherwise)
mix dried garlic, sea salt and cracker pepper and rub on the pork chops
pan-sear for 2-3 mins on each side
bake for 40 mins at 350
serve with rice and veggies/salad

SUPER YUM! Seriously. Best pork chops I've ever made and I totally just did it on the fly. Didn't look up a recipe or "how to" or anything. I'm pretty proud of myself. I've really been enjoying my little forays into cooking/chefery (not a word) lately! I'm really starting to enjoy it and I'm hoping to really expand into it a little more.... for example: cooking for lunches instead of eating a bunch of junk every day.

~Tell me what you think of my "new" blog, and any goals you accomplished during August!~