Having to say goodbye to Nara

It’s sad but I woke up to a bloodbath in the dining room Sunday morning. I’m still not 100% sure whose blood it was but I am suspecting Nara, she won’t sit still long enough for me to check but she was the only one with blood on her. It was on her feet though and was obvious she had been walking in it. She is in heat which really doesn’t help on the inspection aspects as she is a writhing ball of fuzz whenever you touch her. She does have a lump on her tail which could be the wound but again I can’t check it very well.

And I’m not joking, for a 6 lb cat this was a lot of blood, I’d be concerned at a human shedding that much, let alone a cat. I’ve seen a few drops here and there before now and Anya has several obvious bites on her ears which was concerning me but this was big fat droplets covering about a foot and a half square. She promptly got a room of her own and I am keeping her separated. I thought she was the one instigating the fights but hubby said that it is Willow and Anya who are just beating the crap out of her. They both seem to be seriously jealous or something. We were hoping everyone would eventually settle down but after Sunday we had to decide to rehome her. Koby’s Mum is going to take her as they have a nice place out in the country now. She has a huge yard to wander in, quiet sub division road and the only other pet is a chiuahua whom she is probably bigger than. I know Angie will spoil her rotten so I feel good about it, although she is a sweetie and I’ll be sad to see her go. We just have to get her spayed which I will do this week and then we’ll take her over to her new home.

Hell has frozen over…

I like my salad…

Yup, you read that right, I actually found myself looking forward to my salad on Sunday night.

I’m still using the same base of organic herb salad which is basically baby lettuces, rocket, spinach etc. There is about 4 or 5 different leaves in there. I am using organic avocado’s which are actually smaller than normal avocado’s which is great.

After a comment by Mum on the phone I added some organic pine nuts and sunflower seeds (see the organic theme here? lol) and I’m gonna throw some flax meal on top too when I find where I buried it in the freezer. I was kinda emptying packets on sunday and I saw the remains of my trail mix that had a mix of organic dried raisins, apple, dates, cranberries and apricot and I threw that in there, it was maybe a tablespoon of fruit in a huge bowl of salad but wow, I kept getting these little occasional nuggets of sweet in my salad and it was wonderful. I might do that more often, Need to be careful though as that is exactly the sort of thing that I tend to ‘ooh just a little extra’ on.

I had a very successful weekend, I went to gorilla fitness on Saturday morning, that consisted of:

5 mins bike, 5 mins treadmill (3.5mph) 5 mins airdyne, 5 mins stairmaster for warmup (there were 4 of us so we were switching machines)

John is experimenting again this week and has been trying some different workouts. He gave each of us a different circuit, I’m not sure how personalised each one was but mine was definitely tough.

5 rounds:

• 10  x wall burpees (start in a crouch in front of a padded wall, jump back so feet are on wall, jump back down into the crouch and then jump up into the air. Supposed to get a push up in there while on the wall but that didn’t exactly happen.)
• 10  x Man Makers – 10lb db’s. (Start in a pushup position with hands on dumbells, legs can be shoulder width apart, row each dumbell. Do a pushup. jump the legs up into a crouch and stand up curl the db’s and finish with a shoulder press. That’s 1.. )
• 10  x 20lb Kettlebell snatch and squat.

Phew.. I drank a yoghurt smoothie straight after class and got home and went to a movie (Twilight – cute chick flick) and we went out for lunch afterwards. I had grilled salmon, veggie skewer and a baked potato with a bit of butter. Supper was an apple So pretty much normal day just moved my main meal to lunch instead of dinner. I did skip the crunky restaurant salad.

Sunday I did a bunch of housework (vacummed and mopped floors) and rewarded myself with a bowl of oatmeal afterwards (oatmeal, protein powder, milk, cocoa powder, peanut butter and a splodge of maple syrup). Very tasty, fixed a craving for oatmeal I was having and kept me going till supper where I had the salad mentioned above and some baked salmon and veggies.

I am being real careful with dinner, even on the veggies I am not going overboard with a humoungous pile which I can often do. So far I am content when finished, not stuffed. I did find some great meat and veggie frozen skillet mixes at the store, usually they always add pasta and rice but not these 3. I’ll use them on those days I just need something quick.

I make a nod to the warrior diet in regards to food combining but I am not fretting about it. I eat my veggies before my meat, I always will. I really am not convinced about the whole food combining aspect, I still feel it comes down to limiting calories in the end but I am avoiding wheat and sugar right now primarily. Ie no bread and pasta. And no more icecream for a while except on special occasions.

I had a small breakdown thursday night after class when it was obvious I wasn’t exactly first choice to roll with and it put some things into perspective. When I stopped bawling my eyes out on hubby’s shoulder (thanks babe) I refound my determination to do this properly. Small nibbles here and there are hurting me. My lack of true progress can only be blamed on one thing, I eat too much. Plain and simple. I am therefore going to try and avoid all the baked goods here at work (which I did successfully on Friday, there was donuts, chocolate fudge and a cake in there) and just treat myself on the actual holi’days’ coming up. Thanksgiving should not be an excuse to orgy on baked goods for a whole week prior. Nor should Christmas so I am not. Everytime I see something I want I am gonna ask myself if it will get me closer to my goal, I will try and be brutally honest with myself. I don’t wanna end up in tears again, I do not like being the kid at school who is always picked last for the team sports. It’s embarassing. I’m gonna fix it. Now.

I lost 2 lbs last week and maintained that loss over the weekend. Here’s to another good week coming up

Food, PR’s and other random stuff..

We are playing World of Warcraft again and the new expansion came out last week so our days have been mostly centered around that I am playing a hunter this time around and having a blast. I might even get to the expansion content at some point!

Elsewhere I had an unplanned cheat meal on Saturday afternoon when Koby convinced me to go out. It turns out his ulterior motive was the dippin dots store that had just opened at the mall. The meal was okay, we went to red lobster and I had stuffed flounder and a baked potato. (yeah and two of their heavenly biscuits) we did say no to the biscuit refill though. Had I known icecream was involved I might have planned the meal a bit better but oh well. I knew we were going to a party that night so things were going to be slightly fubar’d anyhow. Btw, Dark Chocolate IceCream from Maggie Moo’s is awesome. I was a little perturbed when he handed me the cup without asking if I wanted any mix-ins when I was standing there looking over the selection but then I figured they were just gonna be crunchy chunks of extra calories. Very few places have the right kind of chocolate chips for mixing in icecream. Dairy Queen used to have it perfect, you could taste the chocolate. Everywhere else though the icecream sweetness overpowers the chips and all you get is added crunch which is not my thing.

The party was great, we met a friends new baby. She was cute and very baby like, I still don’t quite get the ooey gooey reaction that most women get when they see babies. I’ll stick to my kitties, they exude less bodily fluids. :p

I did eat way to much and left feeling somewhat stuffed. I made up for it by fasting through till 6pm the next day. After talking to mum on the phone and trying to explain the WD I have made a few changes. I introduced her to ESE a while back and she is doing great on it. I was trying to explain my dislike of missing dinner and just a preference for how the WD works out but she wasn’t too impressed I think. I probably wasn’t explaining it very well, she did make some points that made me think though about the fat burn aspect of fasting. Anyway I am moving towards days being more fasting than light eating. I’ll have my Dannon shot (all of 70 calories) in the am and then go through till 4.30 -5ish with just water/coffee. Then I have my apple and yoghurt before class.

Class has been surprisingly easy and I am feeling good about my workouts without much food in my belly. Speaking of which Saturday morning I went to Gorilla fitness and John gave me a serious upper body workout. We started with 15 mins of the stair stepper, then 15 or so on the airdyne. Then we went in to a circuit of 1 min rounds: Ab wheel rollouts, jumping pullups, standing tricep extensions (15lb db) and then bosu ball squats.

The bosu ball is a devious invention, it’s a half ball with a flat plastic side. With bosu ball squats you put it ball side down and then stand and try to balance on the flat plastic side. When I first started with BJJ I couldn’t even stand on the thing. Saturday I managed to do 2 sets of squats, second time round with no help. I was so happy. I am really beginning to realise how far I have come since starting. Even the dreaded feet 6″ off the ground stuff, which has always been seriously hard for me is slowly becoming doable. We have ab exercise in particular which is where I am seeing it.

One leg is out straight, the other knee is up, touch opposing elbow to knee then switch arms/legs. Preferably without putting your feet on the ground. For me my heel still touches the ground but I did realise that the actual switch movement is becoming a lot more stable. I can change legs with both feet off the ground now. Of course out of the 30 we do this is only for about 12 or so before my back is arching off the ground again but hey, progress is progress.

My two main goals is real pushups and pullups. When I achieve those I am gonna be doing the happy dance for sure.

Anyway, we did 2.5 circuits through that set of exercises and then moved onto a Rowing machine/bench press. 100 meters rowing as fast as possible, 20 bench press, 200 meters rowing, 16 bench press, 300 meters, 12 bench, 400 meters 8 bench.

I was struggling on the bench press, I have always been weak there, probably why I suck at pushups too. We started with 20lbs on the bar and that just wasn’t happening, not with 20 reps. By round 3 John switched the 10’s for 5’s which was a bit better. I did manage to eke out the last 8 reps on my own which has to be a PR for me I think.

By sunday morning I was seriously feeling it. I can say that having a sneezing fit with an extremely sore set of abs and shoulders is not a fun experience. Especially when they are those huge sneezes that make you think your head is about to explode. Hubby was laughing his arse off at my aaaAAAChooooooOWWWW’s

I’m a 1 stripe whitebelt!

Woot, I got my first stripe last night.  The seminar was with Allen Hopkins. We spent about 2.5 hours doing technique work which was awesome, I learnt a bunch of good stuff.

Diet is continuing to go well. I am having no problems on the undereating, in fact I am surprised at how not hungry I have been feeling. Even last night when I got home from class at almost 10pm I was wanting to eat more from the desire to consume food rather than actual hunger.

The scales delighted me this morning with a dip to the 178’s. I was 181 on monday *sigh*. In some ways I feel better about this. Everything before has always started off with a big woosh and then hung tight. This time I kinda hung tight for 3 days and then lost 2 lbs overnight. I get the feeling that this is gonna be more lasting, could be wishful thinking and I have been midly antsy about the lack of movement on the scale before today but I put that up to bigger evening meals still sitting in my gut. I am not fretting though and taking the mindset of seeing where I am in a week or 2. We will definitely see where we are after the weekend which is my usual failing spot.

I really feel this is doable at the moment long term. I am not feeling deprived, I am not constantly craving stuff, in fact hubby bought me a brownie home (I had asked him to get me a sample, it is a coworker of his and he told me they were delicious and I know how fussy he is on that stuff so it had to be good) and the first night it sat in the refridgerator untouched as I didn’t feel the urge to eat it.

Probably my only serious urge right now is to put some sugar in my coffee.. I don’t really like it black and unsweetened but I like the pick me up which tea doesn’t give me. I am sticking to it though hoping it helps me retrain my tastes.

Warrior Diet – Day 3

Tuesday night was definitely way too much food, I went to bed stuffed, and woke up still feeling somewhat full. I will say I was on fire though, I am usually a cold blooded mortal and spend most of my time running around in extra thick sweaters and blankets. Hubby lets it get down to 65 during the night and we have a ceiling fan blowing and I was still overly warm. Crazy.

Wednesday was simple, Dannon shot and vitamins for brekkie, pineapple cup and yogurt smoothie for lunch. Apple before class (brutal again that was, gotta love circuit training).

Dinner was my avocado salad, I trimmed back the olives and walnuts a bit. Followed by about 4-5oz of ground venison, I made it into a patty and threw it in a skillet. Topped with a slice of pepper jack cheese yum . Oh and the big pile of veg alongside with a splodge of an organic peanut satay sauce which I have come to adore. (mushrooms, black beans, yellow squash and zucchini)

Still feel great, I was tired this morning but a cup of plain black coffee perked me up. This is definitely an acquired taste but I am determined to get off of the sweeteners.

I had my first restaurant lunch today, sucky salad with egg, bit of cheddar and oil and vinigar dressing. Was just romaine lettuce and cost me 9 bucks. I think that is one reason why I dislike salad for the most part. Restaurant salads suck, they charge through the roof for what must cost pennies and I resent it highly which doesn’t help my satisfaction levels. Bah humbug.

Tonight I am hopefully gonna get my first belt stripes for Jiu-Jitsu. You have to get 7 stripes (I think, could be 9, there is no real standard for the stripes and different schools have different req’s) before you can go to the next belt (in my case blue) Getting a belt takes 1-2 years depending on how good you are and how often you go to class so it’s a pretty big deal for me. Wish me luck

Warrior Diet – Day 2

Another good day, 

Dannon Pro-biotic shot and my vits and minerals for ‘breakfast’

Mid-morning had a cup of pineapple.

Midday an organic peach smoothie from Stonyfield Farms.

4.30pm an organic apple.

Dinner consisted of avocado salad & soup same as yesterday. Followed by a lightly seared tuna steak and pile o veg (zucchini, yellow squash, mushrooms and black beans)

I am suitably full now

Warrior Diet – Day 1

Great first day, I am used to fasting for 24 hours straight though so I wasn’t expecting the undereating phase to be a big deal. I’ll see how I feel on day 3 or 4

Breakfast was one of those little Dannon probiotic ‘immunity’ shots and a big glass of water.

At noon I ate 3/4 cup plain organic yogurt with 3/4 cup of berries (blueberries , blackberries , raspberries  and strawberries) and an organic apple around 4.30pm. I drank green tea (unsweetened) and water. 

Class was at 5.30 and went great. 

My feast was a bowl of mixed organic herb salad with an avocado, walnuts, dried goji berries, black olives and some light balsamic vinaigrette. followed by a small bowl of chicken/mushroom/corn/wild rice soup (bit over a cup I’d guess) a mouthful of goats cheese and a roast chicken sandwich. Also had a cup of hot apple cider sweetened with local honey for dessert. 

The sandwich was finishing up leftovers, won’t be standard fare. The salad was actually pretty good and I am an avid salad hater for the most part. 

Looking forward to day 2.

New Week, new diet

Lol, I am so bad. Seriously though, I love the fasting and have been reading more about it and I came across the Warrior Diet. It has you under eat during the day, (a controlled fast) only light amounts of raw veggies, fruit, yoghurt etc and then you eat a big supper at night.

I bought the book just so I could read it and add knowledge to my already stuffed brain. However by chapter 3 or so I had an epihany. I reached the scary 200lb mark right around my wedding day (2003) which was a humiliating moment when the wedding dress my Mum bought before I came to the states wouldn’t fit and all her excellent seamstress skills couldn’t make it fit. I had to buy a new one, I still hide all my wedding photo’s *sigh* Frumpy marshmellow doesn’t even begin to cover it.

After that I went on a serious diet, yoghurt smoothie for breakfast, one for lunch and a decent sized supper (a garlic shrimp pasta skillet mix that I added chicken to and a biscuit). Sound familiar? I lost 20lbs doing that.

Seems I have come full circle. Of course now I can apply some much better knowledge to the diet, can we say fresh veggies, real meat (not pre cooked chicken breasts) and a lot more variety. And this time I am exercising which will reduce the obvious muscle loss I experienced first time round.

I am excited thats for sure. I feel I am finally beginning to pull together all the nutrition knowledge I have been gathering for the last few years into something I can make work for me.

Going back to class this week has been an eyeopener too. I hadn’t realised that in the month I took off I had almost talked myself out of getting uber fit. I was content to just lose a few lbs. I figured I’d just get into the healthy weight range and then I’d be happy.

After 3 days of John and Mike and all the guys I wanna find the Spartan Warrior that lurks inside me. I wanna find my abs and make guys swoon over my sexy legs. *grin* I am actually inspired to eat healthy and turn down junk food instead of finding excuses to eat the bad stuff. I want to be able to do some of those cool moves that John shows us that there is no way in hell I can do because I just don’t have that awesome control over my body that they do. I will one day

And one day for the hell of it I am gonna buy a new wedding dress and we are gonna renew our vows and I am gonna look awesome And I will have those photo’s proudly displayed on my wall.

Goals.. Gotta have em

Pain…

Well lets see, we had a halloween party on Friday night, I had cool wall hangings with ghosties and such on to decorate the house and Koby burned a good chunk of the firewood that the previous owners left. Much food and booze was also partaken in. I mulled some wine (thanks dad) which was dangerously good and now I want more of it, alcohol is not exactly good for weightloss. And someone else brought some cider.. real cider.. as in alcoholic cider not this weird apple juice version that I cannot tell the difference between. (although I am reliably told that apple juice and cider are not the same thing and taste different) Must be my weird English tastebuds because the two jugs of apple ‘cider’ I bought to test tasted just like apple juice.

*shakes head* anyway, now thanks to Hornsby I can drink pretty decent alcoholic cider which was always my tipple of choice growing up. Thankfully I haven’t a clue where they bought it. My local grocery store doesn’t sell it I know that much. So as long as I can keep from asking I won’t be tempted to go buy any. *lol*

Weekend finished out as a sordid food  and booze orgy that I highly regret but enjoyed thoroughly

This week we went back to Jiu Jitsu properly. 3 days and I am in agony. Monday class I was close to puking up in probably due to a bad choice for lunch. Tuesday ended up with some interesting bruises. Wednesday was circuit training.

John is getting getting seriously brutal in these and I love it. Just being there makes me want to work my tail off. Getting a ‘good job’ shout across the room in front of a whole bunch of guys is seriously good for the esteem. At first I was nervous about showing myself up but now I just love it. John takes me seriously (I am one of the few women there and the only unfit one) and I don’t feel out of place with all the guys anymore. I push myself hard, way harder than I would if I was just at home on my own.

And today I am seriously feeling that. My whole upper back and shoulders are stiff. The good stiff though, the ‘I worked my butt off’ stiff not the ‘oh god I think I tore something’ stiff.

• 10 x Barbell Powercleans: 75lbs
• 2 mins Airdyne (bike thing)
• 12 Barbell Squats 95lbs
• 14 Pullups
• 500m rowing machine
• 16 Turkish Getups (8 per side, 12kg kettlebell)
• 18 Bent Over Barbell Row: 75Lbs
• 20 Flying Burpees (think burpee with a long jump in the middle)

I am going back tonight for adult class Pain is just weakness leaving the body as my good spouse loves to say.

Speaking off, he just got glasses (and contacts) – turns out he has an astigmatism which has been making him squint for a long time, he finally went and got it looked at and is now marvelling in the joys of being able to see clearly again. The little rat is also delighting me with in depth discussions on his contacts and putting them in (I am seriously eye phobic to the point I won’t even carry an umbrella cause of the little spiky bits that might poke one in the eye, putting my sunglasses on is a small ordeal which involves me putting them on round my neck and then lifting them up over my ears so I am not directly moving thin spikey bits towards my eyes) I keep sticking my fingers in my ears and saying La La La but he just waits till I stop.. little bugger.

meh, breaks over – back to work..