Mid-Week Check In

Here we are half way through the week already! I have to say, for being the first week back to work after two weeks of holidays, it’s gone by pretty fast.

So far I am 3/3 with my workouts for the week and I’m feeling good.

The weather has been warm – relatively speaking – hovering around 0 – 2 degrees Celsius most days. I’m loving it!

And I’ve managed to fit in some piano time every day.

I call that a successful week so far.

Tonight was weights, followed by Steady State Cardio. Supper was in the Slow Cooker, so I told Husband he could eat whenever he wanted and came downstairs to do my thing.

Since it was the first time doing the weight workout, it took me a little while to get situated, and then I was having such a good time walking on the treadmill, singing along to my tunes (very badly), I decided to walk for 15 minutes longer than I had planned.

Then I realized I had forgotten that I still had Abs to do. I decided I’d better leave that for tomorrow.

When I went upstairs, sure enough, Husband had not eaten and he was starving. Don’t know why he does that when the food is sitting there, all ready to be eaten. It’s not like he even sat down and ate with me – he was online playing a game and had to rush back to his computer. Silly Husband.

Anyway, dinner was our recently discovered favorite: Chicken & Lentils. We had some Naan on the side.

I added a little dollop of sour cream on top, since we have some in the fridge. So yummy!

And now it is piano time, so I leave you with today’s thought from Happy Bunny (Sister gave me a calendar for Christmas)…

What can I say? It makes me chuckle.

Putting 2 and 2 together…

I was hit with a realization this week. I’ve been whining for a while now about how the scale has been going up. I used to try and try to lose weight and get nowhere, but at least I was maintaining where I was. Over the past couple of years, it seems like there have been random jumps where I put on a few pounds. These are not fluctuations where my weight goes up and comes back down; it goes up and stays up and becomes my new weight range. It sucks.

Anyway, this week it occurred to me that these jumps seem to correlate with periods where I’ve been restricting my calories, trying (but not succeeding) to lose a few pounds. When I stop restricting, bam! Some new pounds show up and take permanent residence.

And yes, I know. I’ve heard about how on-again, off-again dieting can mess up your metabolism and all that. I’ve just never experienced it. I’m not one of these people who has been dieting on and off since I was 12 years old. I started gaining weight in my late 20’s when I moved to a new province all by myself and started working my first full time job. I think I was 29 when I first seriously tried to lose weight. I managed to drop about 5 lb, and that’s about as far as I got.

After that I put on 10 pounds over the course of a couple of years – during which time I got married, moved and then bought a house and moved again.

Then I joined a gym and my on-again-off-again exercise habit became a regular exercise habit. I didn’t lose weight, but it stayed stable for a long time. During most of that time, I think I probably was counting calories (though I don’t remember for sure).

Anyway, it’s only been the past couple of years when it seems like I have suddenly started gaining again. I don’t know if it’s age. I don’t know if my eating habits have really gone that badly down the drain. It seems to me that we do keep more treats around the house that we used to. But honestly, I’m not even really sure of that.

Anyway, it just hit me that recently this is what has been happening. I will try to lose weight. I will get nowhere. I will go back to normal eating. I gain a few pounds right away and then it levels off again and I pretty much stay put.

So this makes me kind of depressed and also kind of scared to try losing weight again. Maybe I should learn to love being chubby, but I really don’t want to.

And I could be wrong about the whole thing…but it does seem to add up.

Anyway…On to today.

I started to take out my ear plugs and get out of bed this morning and Husband told me it was a work from home day because the radio was saying freezing rain and snow. So I put my ear plugs back in and snoozed for another half hour – I will always take the opportunity to sleep in a bit. But, eventually I had to get up.

It didn’t look that bad out…

But our road definitely looked snowy and messy and I was quite happy to have a day at home.

I had actual breakfast! I tried a new hot cereal.

The directions said to mix with hot water or milk so I heated up some Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Breeze and mixed that in to my packet of cereal. As soon as the hot Almond Milk hit the cereal I could smell the spices – smelled so good. I tasted it and it was kind of salty tasting (no sugar added) so I added a little bit of maple syrup and then it was just right.

I started out sitting in the living room with my laptop, but then I decided to move to the table because I wanted to be able to make notes. Zappa kept jumping up on the table and trying to walk on my laptop, so I put a towel on the table thinking he’d curl up and go to sleep.

This is what I got.

That would be my notepad he is sitting on. Sigh.

I may have had a couple of shortbread cookies this morning as well…they didn’t make it to the camera somehow…

For lunch I felt like having a few things to nibble on, so I had half of a huge Pomegranate (the other half went in the fridge for later), some Balderson Double Smoked Cheddar and some Triscuits. Hit the spot.

A little while later I did have a Super-Charge Me cookie. Just because they are so good.

Eventually Zappa did settle down on his towel. Then a short while later Frank came along wondering where his was. That was the end of that.

I don’t know if it was just being home, sitting in the kitchen, but I just wanted to nibble all day today.

There were these:

And also some dark chocolate covered almonds. For a while there I thought I was getting the sugar thing under control, but it seems like I’ve lost it again.

I worked away, with breaks for Fabulous Feline cuddles and chats with Husband. It got chilly in the afternoon, my feet were cold – had to dig out some big fuzzy slippers. By the time the end of the day rolled around I really didn’t want to exercise. Seems to happen a lot – I get cold, I don’t want to exercise. Makes no sense when you consider that exercise will warm you up.

I briefly considered skipping it, but knowing that workouts will be sparse towards the end of the month, I feel like I should be exercising while I can. So I just did it.

Some days you don’t really feel like exercising, but once you start you get into it and have a great workout. This was not one of those days. All I can really say about it is that I made myself push through and get it done.

Dinner was leftovers – Broccoli Slaw, Focaccia bread and Chicken & Lentils.

It was all good – especially the lovely soft focaccia bread dipped into the Chicken & Lentils sauce. Mmmm! I was full after, though not too full.

I did think about having a cookie, but decided I’d had enough already today.

And that’s Tuesday down. Three more days ‘til vacation!

Chicken and Lentils, Take 2

I have a confession to make. Last weekend when I made the Super-Charge Me Cookies, I sort of had in mind that I would eat them for breakfast. Then it turned out that I was enjoying them so much in the evening with a cup of tea that I was starting and ending my day with cookies and I wasn’t sure that was such a good idea – even if they are healthy cookies.

So, when I made another batch this weekend, I had every intention to save the cookies for dessert and eat real breakfast this week.

Then this morning we had to leave the house early because Husband was taking it in for maintenance and to have the winter tires put on. I was trying to get dinner in the slow cooker. I was rushing around. I didn’t even take the time to put on makeup. So breakfast?

I’m sure you can guess…

For lunch I had some cucumber and Bean Balls with Marinara Sauce. Also a couple of chocolates for dessert.

I had a dentist appointment this afternoon, so I didn’t get around to having a snack and I was fine without one.

Husband picked me up around 5 pm and I came home to dinner in the slow cooker. I threw in a load of laundry, then hit the basement for a Circuit Workout. I have to tell you – I did not have a lot of energy to throw into it today; it was a bit half-hearted. I blame the dentist appointment; the stress just wears me right out.

Dinner was Chicken & Lentils again, but I changed it up a bit from last week.

I had chopped up an onion and a stalk of celery the night before. This morning I rinsed a cup of green lentils & put them in the slow cooker with the onion and celery. Instead of measuring out spices I went with 3 tablespoons of Madras Curry Paste:

I added 1 can of chicken broth + equal amount of water,  and a 14 oz can of diced tomatoes and stirred it all around. Two chicken breasts went in on top of everything else. On went the lid, the slow cooker was turned on to low, and off we went.

By the end of the day the chicken was ready to fall apart and was easily shredded and mixed in with everything else.

Husband had been to the store a picked up a fresh loaf of focaccia bread. A little broccoli slaw on the side and we had dinner.

We both thought this was better than what we made last week. It had more flavor and the tomatoes gave it a hint of sweetness. It was very tasty and I look forward to the leftovers tomorrow night.

Dessert – Twice Baked Shortbread and Peppermint Tea.

And that’s Monday – 4 more days to vacation!