23 minutes, 2 seconds

today's treat at work was more cookies. the box had the "nutrition" information on it. in this case it should have been called the "lack of nutrition" information. 190 calories in ONE cookie. when i ran on the treadmill later, i kept an eye on the time and the calories burned. it took me 23 minutes and 2 seconds to burn 190 calories. as you are faced with choices about food, ask yourself, "is this cookie worth 23 minutes on the treadmill?" some things are so delicious that the answer might be yes. today, that was not the case.

however, i wasn't perfect. between work and the gym i went to a christmas party at the red cross where i'm on the board of directors. they had a really nice appetizer buffet, and i caved a bit. i had 2 crackers with a smidge of 2 types of dip on, a cube of swiss and a cube of cheddar, one slice of trail bologna, one meatball, one tiny bbq wiener, and one boneless chicken wing. it sounds like a lot when i type it out. and it was probably more than the 190 calorie cookie. but it lasted longer and tasted better. i passed up all of the cookies (even the orange drop cookies, oh my gosh), egg rolls, other flavors of wings, and various other nom noms.

followed that up with 30 minutes on the treadmill, then half of a zumba class. my friend who lives 70 minutes away was in town, so we met at subway for dinner, and i left zumba early. at subway i had a salad with all of the veggies, no meat, no cheese, no croutons, no dressing. ummm...yum? not so much.

someone on the reboot fb page mentioned today that she has the "nice" problem of her clothes all being too big. i have been lamenting this issue myself the past few days. i have some really nice new clothes, but it's not a "wardrobe." i feel like i wear the same outfits all of the time. part of the problem is vanity--i have clothes that fit, but they're baggy enough that they add weight. i have 12-15 pairs of jeans and i really only like wearing one of them--the old navy pair i bought that time before they fit. and for as long as i can remember, my winter wardrobe was jeans and hoodies. i LOVE hoodies, i have 20 at least. but now that i feel better about myself, i don't want to dress that way for work. the hoodies are mostly hanging untouched this winter. i'm VERY sad that i bought a goodyear blimp hoodie over the summer in a 2x that is now just unreasonably big. i look like i weigh 250 when i wear it. sadness.

ok, i need to pay closer attention to the stupid browns game now, so....abrupt ending.

on the second day of christmas my true love gave to me...

five creamsticks, seven doughnuts, a nutty thing and a twisty thing. i'm telling you people, 'tis the season for a food extravaganza in my face every single day. and as you can see, doughnuts were only the beginning of the problems. there were brownies, amish chocolate chip cookies, and christmas cookies. of course i didn't eat any of it, but i would have loved to tear up one of those pink creamsticks and a chocolate iced doughnut.

instead i had lunch with a friend and had a salad of romaine lettuce with cucumber, tomato, red onion, and carrots. i had a little feta cheese on it and greek dressing, with a side of hummus.

tonight i made gingerbread houses (sort of) and decorated gingerbread men with my family. i wouldn't have eaten the cookie parts anyway, but i would have gladly gobbled some of the candy decorations. i was careful not to even lick icing from my fingers though.

my day started with a boost of power to help me through all of this: i was down another 2 pounds. that's 5 pounds in 2 days. so now i weigh a pound less than i did on thanksgiving. i'm only 7 pounds away from my next small goal, and i think it would kick ass to LOSE weight this month. there are some tough obstacles coming up, but i'll just do the best i can. i'm really happy tonight knowing that my thanksgiving binge debt has already been paid, and i'm on my way back down.

cookie-cookie!

what has two thumbs and didn't touch a single cookie on this tray at work today? THIS GIRL! before you pat me on the back, i have to admit something. this group brings us a giant cookie tray every year, and every year we marvel at how much they suck at cookie baking. i do not know how a group of people can suck the flavor out of so many types of cookies, yet make them look so good, year after year. so when a co-worker confirmed that they were just as terrible this year as every other year, it made my day easier. i guess the victory comes in the fact that in years past, i would stand by the tray taking one bite of cookie after cookie, looking for one that tasted good...at LEAST picking the hershey kisses off of the shitty peanut butter blossoms before i threw the scraps into the trash.

the real victory came when i didn't eat any of the white chocolate chip cheesecake brownies that evil betty crocker lady jessica brought in today. THOSE i know are ridiculously amazing. luckily everyone else knows too, and they disappeared quickly.

i did eat a single serving package of tuna today. i am starting to experiment with adding certain foods, combining certain foods. i read various websites that suggested combining fruit with protein for people with insulin resistance, which i exhibit all signs of. i never intended to be completely vegetarian, but i will severely limit my animal protein, focusing mostly on small amounts of fish and some lean white meats occasionally.

anyway, i mixed some kimchi (korean spicy marinated cabbage) in with the tuna, along with some spicy mustard....to die for. i had a pear with it, and i felt great after that meal. totally full and content, and a few hours later i kicked ass at the gym with that as my fuel.

i didn't run before zumba, which made me MUCH more productive in zumba. so instead of yoga, i hit the treadmill after class and went back to week 1 of couch-to-5k, only i am doing it at 6mph this time. my goal is to run a 10 minute mile on saturday, january 7th. if i follow the c25k schedule and manage to get through each week with no repeats, that is the day the program will first call for 10+ minutes of running. in fact, it will be a 20 minute run. so if i reach my goal, i'll run 2 miles that day in those 20 minutes. we will see.

anyway, i worked up a sweat, burned off some calories. and speaking of burning things off... when i weighed myself today i was down 3.2 pounds from yesterday. ONE day of eating right, exercising hard, drinking my tea and drinking lots of water---and i dropped almost all that i had reported gaining in last night's blog. whew. and today i saw a friend of my sister's i hadn't seen in a long time. the first thing she said was "wow, you look great!" she commented a couple of times. so that was nice.

i guess those are all of the boring details of my day. right now i need to focus on clearing a few shows from my DVR box so i can THROW IT THROUGH THE WINDOW OF TIME WARNER CABLE by week's end. it refuses to record any showing of the young and the restless--either on CBS or the soap network--and i simply can't live in these conditions. plus tonight it screwed me out of "new girl," and the recording log says "deleted to make room for a new recording." YOU'RE ONLY 3% FULL, DVR A-HOLE! sorry, little rant there. carry on.

so boring.

i feel like i've run out of things to tell you. now that i'm not on all juice, it's kind of like...how can i benefit these readers? i guess i'll just keep telling you about my food and exercise and if you care, great. if you don't, you don't.

today i finally weighed myself for the first time since thanksgiving. not good. up 4 pounds in 2 weeks. yikes. so today i was very serious with my eating. no meat, no dairy. just a couple of pita chips, otherwise no wheat. i need to get back to all natural, or MORE natural, whole foods. i had edamame, organic pea soup, a couple of pita chips, hummus, and cucumber. i wanted to go to my nephews' basketball game tonight, but instead i went to a zumba class at the hospital and worked up a sweat. i think at this point my goal is to finish the year at least at the weight i was on thanksgiving morning. i can play with these 4 pounds, but if i can go into 2012 without them, then i won't have gained any weight over the holidays--technically. then january begins the quest to drop another 30 pounds. i think i'll start the new year with a week or two of just juice. it would be impossible for the rest of this month--too much going on. but 2012 is going to be the year i finally fix this problem once and for all.

thanks for listening.

sorry, sorry, sorry!

i have been such a slacker! i was just tired this past week. i THOUGHT about blogging, but i felt like i didn't have anything exciting enough to report. but then my mom yelled at me tonight for not writing, so here you be.

my eating was up and down all week. i did ok monday-friday for the most part, until friday night. i met friends at a bar/restaurant and had 2 big great lakes christmas ales (if you don't have this in your region, i am sorry for your loss). i also had a salad with chicken and blue cheese on it, delish. and a cup of french onion soup--cheese and everything. saturday, same deal--i ate what i wanted, and what i wanted was crap.

me and kristy finished another one together

today i met a friend for breakfast at bob evans where i had 2 slices of wheat toast with peanut butter, and yogurt with blueberries and bananas. because....i had a 5k at 1:00pm. i was more nervous about this one than the last. my training didn't go well this week, and my eating was SO crappy yesterday. plus i just have never fully recovered from that cold i had...it just gets a little better or a little worse. and yesterday and today my throat was hurting, i was sniffling. but somehow i pulled out some stamina from somewhere, and i finished the race in 39:18--my personal record. i've always wanted to do one in less than 40 minutes. my first mile was 11:25, a total record for me. my time today is a full 3minute improvement over my time in this race a year ago. and 5 minutes better than last year's turkey trot time. if i can make myself keep up with my running, i should be able to improve a lot more in a lot less time. it's just SO boring to run when there's not a race coming up, so i need to find out who is having one, and when.

the thing about 5k's is that it's hard to find out the info i really need to know. basically--is this the kind of 5k that is friendly to slow runners, or is it a runner's race? after doing several 5k's last year that had 200-500 participants, including lots of walkers, joggers, etc...i showed up for one in the middle of summer that had about 35 people. there were 32 elite runners. 2 normal runners. and me, who had slacked hard on training. i panicked. in the first mile i was the very last person, WAY behind the second to last person, with the ambulance slowly following beside me making sure i didn't die. let's just say that that race ended (early) in tears. it was the most humiliating moment of my life.

so anyway...i don't want to show up for some random race in some random town and find out that it's 35 awesomes, and ME. i also don't want to show up for said random race in said random town and find out it's a race filled with hills. i wish the race websites would list as standard info the previous year's number of participants, and the level of intensity of the course. how hard could it be to come up with a standard rating system for this?

i guess the thing is that "real" runners don't care. they'll do hills, they'll run a thousand miles per hour. but i think races with super challenging courses leave out a segment of people who could really enjoy the sport if they weren't so intimidated. we're all beginners at some point.

so tomorrow it's back to the grind with my food. i feel like i'm in limbo--not going entirely crazy, but not being diligent either. this is a slippery slope that i know all too well. i'd really like to drop another 5-9 pounds this month. we shall see.