Healthier Every Day

Breakfast

• Coffee with 1/2 & 1/2 and sugar 
• Chocolate Dream Protein

Morning Snack

• Organic lowfat blueberry yogurt

Lunch

• Nitrate-free pastrami
• non-fat cottage cheese
• carrots

Afternoon snack

• Protein powder Went for low fat string cheese instead

Dinner

• Thai food!! I ordered Red Curry with rice 
• A few bites of Chippy’s Jungle Rice with green beans
• 10 Petite cocoa nibs
• 2 glasses of wine

Total calories (approximately): 1550 still within my range, yay!

Yep, I ate that rice and it was delicious. The next 24 hours are my “free” day, so I’m gonna live it up. Well, a little bit anyway. Those Petite cocoa nibs from Trader Joes might just be my new favorite treat. There are 17 pieces in a serving, which is 140 calories, 5 grams of fat and 2 grams of protein, which is totally not that bad! Mostly, I’m just stoked that the serving size is 17 pieces! That’s a lot - and as you can see, I didn’t even eat that many to satisfy my craving. I love that. As I’m getting more aware of my body, I’m realizing when to stop. :)

Today Chippy and I are going to a Halloween/housewarming party. We’ll be carving pumpkins but it’s not a “dress up” party. Last year we made a Wall-E Pumpkin. I’m no artist, but here’s how it came out.

Not too bad, right? ;)

Not sure how good or bad the food will be tonight &  I’m okay with eating some splurges, if they are “good”. Meaning, no crappy m&m’s, no nasty snickers bars, etc. Those are filled with garbage. I’d eat something like a cake or brownie if someone “homemade” them. That other stuff isn’t even tempting to me. Thank goodness!

Lunch today will be indian food. Chippy brought home some leftovers that his co-worker’s mom made - so at least it’s homemade (again!)! WIN! I feel so much better about my splurges when I know they are homemade - really, I can’t even tell you. I just know they are better for me. I’ll take butter, sugar and cream over chemical nastiness any day, thankyouverymuch. 

Alright, I’m off! Have a fantastic day!

Yikes! Okay, so I’ve been eating great - really great - all day so far. I even finished lunch & all I want is candy. What? This basically never happens to me. :/ Normally I crave salty things like chips or cheese. I think I’m being influenced by all the Halloween talk. Luckily for me, there is NONE in sight.

I’m at work right now so my options are incredibly limited.

Here’s what options I do have: popcorn, my chocolate dream protein, or more of the stuff I just ate for lunch (pastrami, nonfat cottage cheese or carrots, which, frankly, totally don’t sound appealing right now).

HELP!

I’m leaning toward drinking water for another hour and then taking another protein shake.

What do you think is the best option?

My dad, a doctor, wrote this article and I thought my followers with kids might really enjoy it. And YEP, he REALLY did this with my sister and I when we were kids!

Are you worried that allowing your young-uns the full “Trick or Treat” experience will ensure that they poison their pancreas, get diabetes, or get so amped up on a sugar-high that they try to scale the “Hollywood” sign in a glittery Liberace costume?

But seriously, folks …what to do to cut down on the ingested HFCS that will erode your kid’s immune system like Drano?

Use my “BUY-IT-BACK” plan, of course!

It’s simple:

 1) After trick-or-treating, allow the little buggers to scarf up all the candy their little goblin-hearts desire.

 2) Then have them lay it all out on the floor at the end of the night.

 3) Select a few “good” pieces (look for better candies..made with REAL SUGAR and dark chocolates) and a few they REALLY want and put those aside. (Reese’s Peanutbutter Cups are still pretty ‘clean’, a good choice to hand out to your tricksters, too!)

 4) Now BUY THE REST OF THE CANDY FROM THEM! Have fun with it! Make deals, break deals, scream, laugh, re-nig on them, throw it around, and teach those rugrats how to haggle!

5) When you get to the end THROW THE BOUGHT CANDY OUT! Be careful to toss it where they can’t retrieve it. Try to remember what YOU would have done for a supply of candy that would last until February!!

My daughters and I used to have a blast doing this! Be prepared, though, if this is not the first year, to cover the upward sliding scale (or ..if your kid is the next Ari Gold). Yes, what cost me a couple of quarters when they were very young cost me a few Dead Presidents named Grant a few years later. Small price to pay for preserving the health of my kid’s innards!

 STAY HEALTHY, MY FRIENDS!

Breakfast

• Coffee with 1/2 & 1/2 and sugar 
• Fage 0%
• Myofusion Banana protein powder

Morning Snack

• Popcorn with Olive oil

Lunch

• 6 nitrate-free pastrami rolls filled with fat free cottage cheese
• 15 baby carrots
• popcorn w/ olive oil

At this point in the day, I have achieved my protein requirement for the day. YAY!

Snack

• Trader Joe’s roasted seaweed snack

Dinner

• 1 organic hot dog (no bun)
• 2 cups of Cesar salad with organic Cesar salad dressing (no croutons)

Total Calories: 1093

So last night I got together with my friend, R. He’s an amazing inspiration to me. About 13 months ago he went through a divorce. He had been about 80* pounds overweight for years. During his divorce he realized he was feeling incredibly depressed and turned to working out as a source of endorphins (because, as Elle Woods said “Happy people just don’t kill their husbands!” Well, R is straight, so substitute wife in there… anyway, you get what I’m saying. Endorphins make you feel happy. Working out gives you endorphins. Badabing!)

Anyway, R made a goal of his to run a marathon and during his training lost 50* of those pounds. He firmed up, gained muscles, learned all about eating healthy and for his fitness goals and now, 6 months after completing his first marathon, is gearing up for a 2nd, and 3rd … has lost 27* more pounds and is only 3.5 lbs away from his goal weight of 180 lbs! R has become my personal inspiration. If he can do it - well, hell, so can I!

As we took our one mile walk yesterday together we discussed food intake and he dished out some very specific advice to me, based on his experience with Lindora, training and running marathons and having a step-mom who is a nutritionist. He agreed with me that I have not been eating enough calories but stressed the importance of not eating carbs (like popcorn or bread) just to fill that caloric void. He advised me to go ahead with a low-carb meal plan, which isn’t hard for me since I hardly ever eat them anyway (with the exception of beer). I’ll be reworking my daily intake with that in mind from here on out, mainly because I trust him and I’ve seen the evidence on his body that he knows what he’s talking about.

Oh, and I weighed in yesterday. Still exactly 140. I’m not surprised though, since my workouts this week were totally sparse. And I’m not mad about it since I’m totally revamping the things I thought I knew about what I was putting into my body.

Next week’s goal: much more working out.

Have an incredible day, everyone! I’ll talk to you later! xxx,M

*numbers corrected, per R.

Wow! Overnight I gained almost 40 followers in response to this post: “I NEED to be skinny”. I’m loving this fitblr community!!

Welcome, everyone! I’m pleasantly surprised that my post touched so many people in such a short amount of time.

My intention with this blog is to connect with other healthy-minded individuals who see working out, eating healthy and loving themselves as the best path to overall health. Even if you aren’t quite at that point yet but are working to take the first step towards health: this is the blog for you. So welcome!!

No you don’t. To continue to live, you need to be healthy.

It really bothers me whenever I read this in a post. Whether it’s a re-blog or something that someone wrote themselves - it really irks me every time I see it. 

This kind of statement has entirely the wrong focus. What each and every one of us needs to be is healthy. The ultimate goal should be health!! A number on a scale is fine to have, I mean - I have a goal that I’d like the scale to read too - but my goal is to reach it in a healthy way, taking as much time as I need to get there. No crash diet, no ED, no fasting.

Achieving skinniness will not make you “perfect” (wtf is “perfect anyway? Anyone know?), it won’t make you happy, and it won’t solve your problems. If anything, if your sole focus is skinniness without health - I’d bet you right now that it’s going to create more problems in your life in the immediate and long term future.

 For me, health means:

• working out
• eating tasty, healthy foods that I have cooked
• finding balance
• loving myself

You may define health differently for yourself, and I respect that. But no one needs to be skinny, my friends. We need to be healthy, strong, and have peace of mind to live long, fulfilling lives.

For those of you who are battling eating disorders, this is not a rage against you. In fact, I respect those who are making every effort to change unhealthy eating patterns and find new inspiration other than thinspo-type-mary-kate-and-ashly-olsen-6-inches-between-my-thighs-oooooo-my-hipbones-are-so-sexy stuff. And I’m 100% here to support you in that journey, so please, just reach out and ask for my help. You can do it. We are all unique and don’t need to fit into anyone’s box of what “attractive” is. Define it for yourself. That’s where strength begins. <3

Breakfast

• Coffee with 1/2 & 1/2 and sugar 
• Low-Fat Organic French Vanilla Yogurt

Morning Snack

• Popcorn with Olive oil

Lunch

• Salad: organic baby greens, 2 hard boiled eggs, 1/2 red bell pepper, 5 green olives, 1 persian cucumber, Trader Joe’s Ballsmacking vinaigrette

Afternoon Snack

• 1 cup of oven roasted butternut squash with red onions, rum, honey, nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves

Dinner

• stir fry of: langostino tails, okra, eggplant, zucchini, red onion, garlic and peanut oil
• Chocolate Dream Protein shake

Total Calories: 1166

I tried really hard to eat enough yesterday since my daily caloric intake has been consistently too low. Wow. I don’t think I could have possibly eaten any more food yesterday. I was stuffed! But I still came in over 200 calories under (my suggested intake is between 1350-1550).

Chippy and I discussed it in detail and he suggested that I’m eating too many veggies. I mean… I love veggies! The problem is that they are so low in calories and very filling - meaning that perhaps I don’t actually have anymore room in my stomach for other nutritious foods.

He suggested eating sandwiches for lunch which, honestly, I balked at. I hardly ever eat bread. I thought bread was the “enemy”. Obviously I have a lot to learn, though, since I’m not eating enough throughout the day. So I’m considering doing that next week.

I went to the market last night and picked up some nitrate-free lunch meats to incorporate into today’s lunch & snacks (gotta keep my protein level up) as well as popcorn (a suggestion from a follower - thanks for that, btw!), some roasted seaweed (one of my favorite things ever), and on a whim: some Fage 0%.

Oh my god, people!! How do you eat that stuff???? I choked it down this morning. I’m serious. Choked! It was not to my liking. The consistency was incredible - light and whipped and I could imagine using it as a substitute in mashed potatoes instead of sour cream or cream. But plain? Ew. I could barely stomach it. I forced myself only because I brought nothing else with me for breakfast and I needed the calories.

What do you add to your Fage 0% to make it tastier?

So today I was planning to try an online workout that another fitblr recommended but I got some surprise extra time on my hands at work (my boss needed to access my computer remotely from her house, which meant I had no computer to use).

Therefore: I did sit-ups and pushups. No time like the present to say goodbye to my extra flab. ;)

Here’s what I did:

• 20 regular situps (not crunchies)
• 20 oblique situps for each side
• Then I attempted 10 pushups. This was actually REALLY hard for me, so hard that I started laughing at myself. I haven’t done pushups in years. I fell on the floor after doing 8 four seperate times.
• Then I decided that doing 20 “girl” pushups would make up for it. So I did that.
• Then I did the whole sit up routine again.

GO ME!

I joined this amazing community of like-minded people: YOU ALL! My virtual tumblr workout buddies! :)

I’m honored beyond belief to have already gained over 50 followers!!!

You are all amazing! I’m inspired by your belief in me! I know I have a lot of healthy changes to make and lots of working out to do to achieve my goal, but thank you for following me! Thank you for seeing value in what I have to share! Thank you for sharing amazing work out tips, recipes, and your beautiful, diverse opinions.

From the bottom of my heart - thank you.

Okay, two 16 ounce bottles down, one more to go minimum today. I can do it! I can do it!

Hang on, bathroom break. ;)

I DID IT! I drank four 16 ounce water bottles today! Unbelievable! And it’s only 2:08 pm, so I totally win! YAY! GO ME!

Please don’t be grossed out - everyone does it. If we didn’t, we’d all be dead. Yes, I’m using the word poop. I’m not 80 and I don’t call them bowel movements. Plus, we’re all friends and supporters here, right? And I want to talk you like I talk to my friends. :)

I’m just wondering, since not many people talk about it on Tumblr (from what I’ve noticed anyway) what everyone thinks is normal. Over the years I’ve read or heard everything from “20-40 minutes after a meal you should poop” to “at least three times a week you should poop”.

I poop daily and normally 2-3 times a day when I’m eating enough healthy, fibrous foods. In fact, if I go an entire day without pooping I start asking myself “did I not eat enough fiber yesterday?” I start feel bloated and toxic and so I’ll immediately integrate Kefir into my diet in the form of a one-ounce shot, once a day. I also will sometimes use Psyllium Husk from Trader Joe’s before I go to bed in order to get things moving by the next morning.

How many times a day do you poop?

Breakfast

• Coffee with 1/2 & 1/2 and sugar 
• Low-Fat Organic French Vanilla Yogurt (150 cal)

Mid-Morning 

• Organic popcorn with Olive oil (2 handfuls)

Lunch

• Leftover chicken soup from dinner last night

Mid-Afternoon Snack

• Carrots

Dinner

• Steamed cod with dill and chives
• oven roasted butternut squash with red onions, rum, honey, nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves
• Baby green salad with red bell pepper, tomato, avocado, cucumber, ball-smacking vinegar, olive oil, a dash of Vietnamese fish sauce, dill, basil, parsley, chives. Those fresh herbs made the salad amazing. I highly recommend you try it. 

Total Calories: 1237

I’m still about 100 calories short, per day, according to Dailyburn.com. Man, eating enough is harder than I thought. :-/ I seriously would have never thought I wasn’t eating enough. Super weird!

I ran out of protein powder (nooooooooo) yesterday so I’m going to have to pick up some more tomorrow. I get Dream Protein from my dad, since he’s a distributor, but his office is closed today so I can’t get any until tomorrow. Dream Protein is the greatest. It’s a whey protein made from hormone free, meadow fed cows and. Check out that link if you’re interested.

I’m still working really hard to drink enough water each day. It’s difficult! I don’t know why, but I’m never really thirsty except for in the middle of the night. Today though: I’m going to drink three 16oz bottles. So it is written. ;)

I did 200 crunchies + 50 on each oblique and then lower ab leg lifts. 

I’m gonna be sore tomorrow…

My recommendation for the week is iamlosingit.

She has an amazingly positive outlook, is encouraging to the people she follows, and her journey has been done in a healthy manner, which I personally appreciate.

Check out her prog blog and then tell me you don’t want to follow such an amazing woman! http://iamlosingit.tumblr.com/tagged/comparison