New blog... again - and having that "Ah hA!" moment...

For those of you who know me... yes.. I'm starting another blog. You're all thinking I'm ridiculous.. and that's okay. :D  I realized my tumblr was starting to become almost nothing but health/fitness/food updates and I'd really like to keep that as just my main brain-vomit-type-blog, so I'm hopping back onto the blogspot bandwagon (had a blog on here years ago) and this will be my main health/fitness/food blog... but don't be surprised if it morphs into an everything blog at some point in the future. lol  I'm fickle that way. 


I've started calorie counting again, inspire by my cousins (check them out here and here). I'm using good old My Plate which is now part of the Lance Armstrong Livestrong website. It's a great little tool and I believe that even have iPhone/Droid apps for those of you with fancy smartphones. :)  I'm allotting myself 2'000 calories/day. I'm hoping to be able to lose about a pound a week if I can stick to this and my near-daily workouts burning between 350-500 calories per workout. 


Okay, so stats for yesterday:

• whole wheat english muffin w/ earth balance spread and strawberry jam for breakfast, apples with vanilla yogurt for snack, Taco Bell crunch wrap and taco (SO BAD I KNOW) for lunch, giant salad w/ carrots, cucumbers, radishes and shredded cheese for post-workout dinner with one slice (1/8th of the whole pie) of red baron pepperoni pizza, handful of chex mix for snack and an Edy's lemon frozen fruit bar. Total calories: 1935
• 30 minutes of fast-paced resistance training (gotta get a little cardio in whenever you can). Total calories burned: 381
• 3 cigarettes
• another late bedtime - 11:30pm, read until 12:15am.
• money spent: $5 on Taco Bell

So - my ah-ha moment. I think I know why I'm so freaking fat... SUGAR INTAKE. Oh geez. It's so bad. The "average" person on a 2000 calorie diet is suppose to consumer 60g (EDIT: 40g) or LESS of processed sugars (ie: anything with corn syrup, grains, etc. - sugars from fruits and veggies are a-ok)... and I on average consume probably about 100g. That's 2.5 days worth of processed sugar intake. If that were my fat intake I'd be disgusted with myself... the main problem here is that lots of processed sugar is hidden in things you were think are "good" for you. Like yogurt. YOGURT IS JUST DELICIOUS DAIRY SUGAR!!! Noooooooo!! *dies*  I love yogurt. I really really do. But I'm thinking I may have to start buying plain yogurt (or greek yogurt, which is even better for you) and sweetening it myself with honey and perhaps some vanilla extract. I'm going to research how to do this properly on the interwebs and I will share with you my findings. Also invest in more cottage cheese, especially the little yogurt-sized snack packs that I can bring to work and add berries to.

Jackie Warner (from BravoTV fame in "Work Out" and now "Thintervention", two shows I'm not a big fan of, but the lady is in SUPER shape) says this:
Sugar is the devil
Sugar throws our body into an immune suppressed, non-working state of chronic fatigue, depression, and hormonal imbalance. It is the leading cause of disease and depression in this country. To break the sugar addiction, get rid of refined sugar (anything that isn’t fruit or veggies) for 5 days in a row, then allow yourself to have one cheat meal on Saturday and one on Sunday. You will have curbed the chemical addiction for sugar and your brain will desire less.


I may try this "sugar detox" at some point here in the next couple weeks.. but it definitely won't be easy. She recommends not eating anything with more than 9g of sugar per serving as part of just your regular diet (again, unless it's sugars from fruits or veggies). That even cuts out milk. :-\ 


Okay so goals for the rest of this week (normally I will set these on Sunday or Monday):

• keep my sugar intake at or under 60g/day 40g/day as advised for my DRA (Daily Recommended Allowance)
• workout 5 days/week for at least 30 minutes
• 10 cigarettes or less on weekend nights
• continuing focusing on my budget - $50/week for things other than groceries/household needs (ie, toilet paper, cleaning products, etc.)/special occasions (birthdays, etc.)

Does anyone think those are unrealistic goals? I guess we'll see, won't we? heh.