7 Days of Hooray! 7 Days of Gah!

I knew going into this that eating clean for 21 days would be a tall order. The first week I had some rough patches but overall I give myself an A-. The second week, well, I had two good days. If I had to grade myself it would be an Incomplete.

But I'm not beating myself up over it because in the end, I have added the following goodnesses into my life:

-Avocado
-Spinach leaves (and I actually crave this)
-More veggies in general
-Apples for breakfast, which were pretty normal before as a "snack", but now it has become our "go to" in the morning
-Very, very much less alcohol. Because I was having a beer or glass of wine pretty consistently with my husband for a while but now I have very nearly none. I won't say completely none, as I did have two beers this week (on Friday) when I couldn't calm down from the terrible day I had, not that I turn to alcohol for comfort but who are we kidding, I guess in this case I did. But it was in a social setting with my husband in an all-around effort to try and decompress. A naked chicken tender was just not going to do it for me that day.

So instead of looking at the negatives (which was my terrible eating all weekend through to last night which includes the following: Steakandshake burger and shake and fries, veal parmesan and fettuccine with WHITE sauce on Mother's Day, Mother's Day cake, and Mickey D's on Monday, I choose to look at the positives as stated above, despite my 4 day hiccup. And while I have had pretty much the week from hell (I won't lie, that did have something to do with my terrible eating) on the positive side, I have also chosen to do my best to channel my zen into organizing projects and gardening.

In the end, my weight is exactly the same as last week, which is good. I had a huge milestone running week, I actually ran 24 miles last week (8 last Tuesday, and 12 last Saturday), biked 12 miles and swam 2 miles (give or take) so I burned a bajillion calories, I just didn't replace them with the good ones. (My bad.)

So I will begin again, knowing that I have done an ok job at incorporating good things into my life and trying to remember that lots of activity is not a license to gorge self on massive amounts of grease and fat.

So. How did you do?

;p

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Please help me fight cancer by donating HERE. I'll even give you a present! Check it out and read about who I'm running for HERE! Follow me on Twitter. Subscribe to my blog.

7 Days of Hooray! 7 Days of Gah!

https://babytealeaves.blogspot.com/2010/05/7-days-of-hooray-7-days-of-gah.html

Weigh-In Wednesday

Hi!

Well it's Wednesday and you know what that means!

I weighed in, I lost a pound. Woohoo! (Does it count that I've gained and lost this same one for a couple of weeks now? Not really? OK. Fine.)

I am on a 21 day "eat clean" thingy and I did pretty well this week, for the most part. Except for the part when my friend scored tickets to a benefit held by former Tampa Bay Buccaneer Derrick Brooks at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino and there were football players everywhere was a completely open bar and gourmet buffet. I only had sushi though and one asiago cheese ball (I said cheese ball, huh huh huh huh) but I am ashamed that I violated my no drinking policy with vodka and cranberry (you know, for the antioxidents and besides, cranberry juice is great for your urinary tract and whatnots). And around midnight, a slice of pizza at the Hardrock Hotel's food court.

So it was a day of indescretion or as my friend called it, a wash.

But one day out of 7's not bad.

And plus I paid for it the next day. I was dehydrated (not hungover!) and beat (I got home just before 1 a.m. which is unheard of on a Sunday night!) All reasons I am doing this in the first place! Yeah, that's it! I did this in the name of research!
I have learned a lot though so far. I've learned that I really do have a pattern of eating out of leisure or boredom or just because it's there, and I've learned that even if it fits into my calorie allotment, I don't always make healthy choices. It's been nice to eat a ton of spinach salad (and have the kids fight over my last little "leaves"!) and introduce guacamole and avocado to the kids (and have them love it!) and grill up a ton of chicken breast and have it to pick on for a few days. I even found myself switching to yummy tea instead of coffee and having a pomegranate spritzer (the juice with seltzer) in a wine glass!

I hope week 2 goes better though, this really does take some discipline and concentration and it really is just plain old kinda hard! What are you doing for your 21 days??

Hop on over to the Sisterhood to read about everyone elses!

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Please help me fight cancer by donating HERE. I'll even give you a present! Check it out and read about who I'm running for HERE! Follow me on Twitter. Subscribe to my blog.

Weigh-In Wednesday

https://babytealeaves.blogspot.com/2010/05/weigh-in-wednesday.html

Things That I've Found Myself Doing This Week

This 21 Day Challenge at the Sisterhood is awesome and I'll tell you why. My goal was to eat clean and as I go through day 3, I'm finding out I have lots of naughty naughty habits, even if they don't add up calorie-wise to over the limit, they're still not really healthy habits!

Like for instance, I mindlessly eat. Who knew?!

Because eating clean, for me, means no unnecessary snacks and eating whole foods when I'm hungry and only when I'm hungry so I am listening to my body. So imagine my surprise when I'm wandering around the mall after getting the birthday gift I went in to buy and I pass Auntie Anne's and their pretzel sticks, which completely fit into my points regimen with Weight Watchers, but not into the "eating clean" category. See, I wasn't hungry. But it was there. And I totally would have gotten them on any other day, for absolutely no reason.

So goes, too, with Starbucks. I didn't need the coffee or the caffeine, but it was there.

After wandering around the mall for a few minutes and having nothing to do and wanting to just sit down and have coffee or pretzels and stare off into space, I decided I would take the yummy, cleansing, white tea I bought and just go home because there was nothing left to do at the mall besides eat or drink something. Sure, eating those things would not have been that big of a deal, but the reason why I would have been eating them was really sort of interesting to me, because it wasn't out of hunger, it was entirely out of boredom.

Tonight is date night and normally I would have configured my points to include some yummy (bad) dinner with my husband. And bad to only a certain degree, because my version of "bad" now is so much better than it used to be, i.e. we no longer go all the way with the liquory coffees and desserts and the whole shabang like we used to.

But since I'm committed to my version of clean eating (and I say "my version" because I don't know if it fits in with whatever anyone else's idea of clean eating is, it is just mine and cleaning up my personal patterns and habits) instead of eating out, we're eating at home (wow!) and then we're going to the gym to play racquetball and swim (wow again!)

Now, normally after that, we'd go to Buffalo Wild Wings afterward because it is literally in the parking lot of the gym and normally I would have had beer (within my alotted points) but I have also given up alcohol for a few months, so if we do go, I will drink water and probably not eat anything unless I am actually hungry. And if I am hungry, naked grilled chicken tenders it is! It sounds really super boring, but the activities are not, they're super fun, I'm just trying to fill up my life with fun instead of food and trying not to look at my life as boring if it's not centered around food. Because we think about food all the time and how it spices life up so much! Why do we do that? I don't know. I do it, but I don't know why.

The thing is too, I've found that by stopping all this mindless snacking, I'm adding more whole foods to my meals so I'm not too hungry in between. And I've got apples and fruit and probiotic yogurt and whole wheat tortillas or tea and lots of other yummies to snack on if I'm starving. And that's another thing, I'm finding myself turning back to tea, I'm trying new things to try (today was a new guacamole recipe because I want my kids to try avocado!) And by making sure that what I'm doing is not food-centered (bored eating at the mall, sports night as a date night), it's almost completely taking the importance out of food and it's making me view it as fuel instead. And purely functional.

I am wearing my "discipline" necklace to help me along, because when all is said and done, it's really not easy for me to change behaviors especially ones I didn't realize really existed! And especially as I get Happy Meals for the kids (I know, I know, hypocritical mom here!)  I'm doing this because as I continue to train for the half-marathon and the couple of sprint triathlons I'm doing this summer, I want to think like I'm training. I wouldn't half-ass a training run or ride or swim, so I don't want to half-ass my eating either. And I want to see what happens if I am truly, truly serious. Will this stick after 21 days? Will I make it to day 22 and shovel my face with Tijuana Flats? Will I have cravings? How will I fill them? These are all things I want to know! If you have a habit you want to change, join me in this 21 day challenge, it really is interesting and fun! And it's not too late, either! You can read more about it here.

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Please help me fight cancer by donating HERE. I'll even give you a present! Check it out and read about who I'm running for HERE! Follow me on Twitter. Subscribe to my blog.

Things That I've Found Myself Doing This Week

https://babytealeaves.blogspot.com/2010/04/things-that-ive-found-myself-doing-this.html