Keeping the Routine

It's sometimes difficult to keep with a routine. I get that. I've been through the slumps. But my mind has made so many changes over the past year that for whatever reason I am determined to make my goal this year.

I can't promise I can keep up with posting every day on the blog, after all I am a Mom/Wife first, athlete second and blogger last. So I hope you'll forgive me as I stumble my way through this. :)

For now to help keep myself in order I've downloaded the JEFit app. I love it so far. It's helped me with my workouts this last week. I plug in the workout as planned by my friend and then it basically walks me through each set and shows me how to do the workouts if I'm not familiar with them. I can't say enough great things about it.

And... here's more of my routine for the week...

January 5th - Legs & Biceps

January 6th - Cardio 5000m on the Erg

I've become a pro at pounding back no less than a gallon of water a day. :)

January 7th - Back/Shoulders, Calves & Core

I've taken up the art of food prep. Makes snacking and meal time a lot easier. Don't get me wrong I still cook dinner often, but I make enough to have a few extras for a couple of days ahead. Love it!

January 8th - Rest

Yesterday was supposed to be cardio day. Things did not go as planned. It was a crappy day from the minute I woke up. My daughter was in my room umpteen times through out the night and I ended up getting up around 6am for the day which does not make me happy on weigh in day. It seemed like nothing could go my way. So I ended my day with a nice mug of calm. I really enjoy this tea and it truly does help relax me and put me to bed a lot easier.

And now, to help keep my honest I will *try* to take a pic of EVERYTHING I eat (the good, the bad and the ugly) and post compilation pics like these. Again, don't hold me to it every day but we will see how this goes. LOL.

1. Breakfast - Skinny Potato Cakes with Black Beans & Rotel and Strawberries {4PP}
2. 3.16 mile run in 43 minutes, and Part II of my Virtual Half Marathon for this month.
3. Post Workout Snack - Protein Shake, Made with Milk {4PP}
4. Lunch - Super Salad (Romaine, Spinach, Green Onion, Cherry Tomatoes) with Grilled Chicken and 2 Cuties {4PP}
5. My favorite "dressing" these days. Straight up Balsamic.
6. Snack - 1c Raw Broccoli & 1c Raw Cauliflower with French Onion Laughing Cow {2PP}
7. Snack - Special K Protein Meal Bar. This is the last one I had and will not be purchasing more. I'm trying to get away from so much processed food. {5PP}
8. Dinner - Spicy Black Bean Turkey Burger, Broiled Spicy Sweet Potato and Brown Rice {8PP}
9. Snack - Chocolate PB Sludge Don't worry, it's a LOT of protein to help get me through the night.{5PP}
10. Night Cap - A relaxing cup of Yogi Bedtime tea. {0PP}

Total Points consumed: 32PP Points Remaining: 2PP Activity Points Earned: 9PP

And now I bid you goodnight.

Snacks & Stuff

I'm not a huge fan of celery per se, but it was a necessary evil for a recipe my hubby plans on fixing. He said we could fore go buying it, but I disagreed. So I picked up a bag and today I was having a weird celery craving...not necessarily for the celery, but more so for the peanut butter I think. It was a tasty treat. After dinner Baby Girl said she was still hungry (We had Super Easy Chicken, Rice, and Steamed Broccoli) so I offered a stock of celery with a small scoop of peanut butter. This kid is over the moon for peanut butter, especially if the spoon that accompanies it is edible. So, apparently she takes after me? After that she was still hungry? So her and Bubba split a fresh Georgia Peach. I'm so proud.

Eek *HAPPY DANCE*

So without giving too much information away, I received a fabulous sample in the mail to review for the blog. It's for a product I've seen around on various blogs and I FINALLY get to try it out. So there will be an in depth review coming soon. Happy Dance, Happy Dance, Happy Dance.

In other news, what a night I had last night. I, for whatever reason, could not sleep. I finally crashed at 7:30 this morning. My hubby, God bless him, let me sleep until 2pm when he had to go to bed. So needless to say at 9:35pm I'm not feeling too sleepy and I've only managed to squander away 1,100 calories. I'm going to do my darnedest to squeeze a few more in before I hit the sack, when ever that will be.

I did get some shopping in this evening and boy did I sweat my butt off. Phew. Well I think that's all the info in my brain for now. Till next time.

Let's Talk

You know I felt really great posting my food diary each night. I felt like it held me accountable to someone, though I'm not sure who that is exactly. So after I completed my 21 day challenge I sort of dropped off the Earth.

Snacks and Ramblings

Athenos Roasted Garlic Hummus and Stacy's Simply Naked "Nothing but Sea Salt" Pita Chips

First off I have to say that I used to think hummus was nasty. I couldn't get past the grit. In my defense I was pregnant when I tried it. Now I think it's scrumptious. Which leads to my next problem, I eat too much of it in one sitting. Usually I just bring the bowl with me, snag pita chips out of the bag and eat until I *think* I've eating one serving. BIG MISTAKE. I'm pretty sure I've been eating a quarter of the hummus container and most likely a half a bag of pita chips.

Secondly the hubby and I buy in bulk at Sam's, meats included. We usually buy around ten pounds of ground beef and six or eight pounds of ground turkey. In this past we used this dinky 2 cup food scale to measure out two pounds of beef at a time to be put in freezer bags. That took forever.

So between our need for a quicker method of measuring our meat and the necessity to ensure I'm only truly eating one serving of snacks/foods I snagged a fabulous new tool. A manual food scale! I picked it up at Target for $5 and it weighs up to 11 pounds, SCORE! I have been drooling over digital food scales, but I cannot justify spending $50 bucks on one. Sure the manual takes up a little more space, but for the price I had to buy it. I do not regret it at all.

So instead of my normal half a bag of pita chips and quarter container of hummus, I measured out 2 tablespoons of hummus and weighed out 2oz of pita chips. Yeah, it was very obvious I had been over doing it. Which leads me to the whole "you don't need to count calories" method of weight loss. I truly beg to differ. I'm sure it's different for every person, but I've already proved to myself that if I'm not keeping a food diary and I'm not measuring out what a serving is, I cannot do this. When I do squeeze in time to eat on the no counting method, I overeat terribly. This weekend was absolute proof of it.

We ate out at SONIC, I love that place, but it did not like my new healthy habits. While I agree it's okay to splurge every now and then, what I did this weekend was probably more of a cardinal sin. My hubby surprised me with a box of Girl Scout's Thin Mints (absolute heaven), I'm sure you can guess the entire box is gone. So, yes, I NEED measurements to be my friend, if only for now. I'm still in the baby stages of my life long healthy habits change and I cannot afford to "think" that I'm eating the appropriate amounts if I'm not.

I also must make a mental note to myself, apple juice is an "okay" substitute for orange juice when you're out of o.j. and in dire need of a fruit smoothie. It's just not as sweet, so start buying a gallon versus the tiny individual bottles of orange juice, mmmkay?