Archive for February, 2008
February 29th, 2008 by Cynthia
I'm not sure what possessed me!
I did water aerobics, hard, but possibly not as hard as usual, thanks to not wanting to irritate my foot too much or my shoulder. I did use the aqua gloves again. Julie worked us hard on legs today, I know I am going to feel it tomorrow. So, after that, I decided to swim slowly for a quarter mile. My incentive was THE BOOK.
My health club keeps a note book, and if you can check off enough miles, classes, minutes, etc... you can win a T-shirt. Well, last year, I'd gotten close to 100 miles of walking when the plantar fasciitis kicked in and walking was limited. Only another 400 miles to a T-shirt. The walking club is the "500 Club". (Hubby might make his shirt this year... he's got 300+ miles!)
For the swimming club "Century Swim", you mark every quarter mile and you get a T-shirt for 100 miles. I'm at around 18 and counting.
You can make a mark for each class you take at the club as well, known as "Class Club".
Anyway, I have to admit, it does give me the incentive to plug onwards. I like making my mark in the book. I hope one day I'll earn a T-shirt doing "something".
Anyway, I was tired after the swimming and I was going to get out, but then I thought I could walk a quarter mile and finish off my legs. Well, I ended by walking another HALF mile... got out of the pool TWO HOURS after getting in. Man, I was beat! I was starting to FEEL that lactic acid each time I'd get to one end of the pool and have to step against the current on my way to the other end!
Once out of the locker room, I quick downed a serving and a half of chocolate whey protein in water. That perked me up enough to do a quick shopping trip to Safeway, for more organic spinach, Goji berries and my beloved Scharffen Berger cocoa powder. I also got some zucchini, a red onion and found a new food to try, Tofu Shirataki noodles, which are very low carb and low calorie. I'll let you know what I think later.
Getting the Goji berries required a trip to the CANDY AISLE! That was a trial, because hubby had informed me previously that Safeway was carrying new brands of dark chocolate. I actually picked up one bar, salivated over it (Only mentally, I didn't *actually* drool on it.) and put it back down. But then, then I saw THE ONE. Côte d‘Or Experiences Noir 86% Cacao. It was the 86% that did it. Had to try that! Well, I only ate two squares when I got home and I was satisfied. Very good, very crisp, very dark. I'm going to see if I can eat a square a day and learn to be happy with that until it is gone. I just hope I'm not a goner! You know me and dark chocolate!
February 29th, 2008 by Cynthia
Hubby's birthday dinner was fun as per usual... I had a plan, kind of. Thought I would skip a drink entirely, perhaps eat the lovely Indian Salmon dish instead of fried crab (Indian Salmon is steamed, with spinach, tomatoes and a little huckleberry puree.) and otherwise enjoy.
That plan evaporated when we hit the restaurant!
I immediately FELT like a drink this time, but hubby and I opted to SHARE a huckleberry margarita to limit the damage. But then, we decided to splurge and have an appetizer EACH! OK, that's not so bad, I had the fresh Dungeness crab again, almost a pure protein dish. Hubby had nuggets of filet mignon with a huckleberry glaze.
The good part of this appetizer extravaganza was that I managed to not even notice when the waitress brought a second basket of bread, so I only had my two small slices from the first basket and no more.
I did ask the waitress about nixing the pilaf with the pan fried Dungeness crab legs and asked for more veggies instead, which they were happy to do. So I had a lovely pile of broccoli rabe and very fresh green beans.
Fell for the chocolate no-flour souffle again, but this time there was only one tiny scoop of ice cream with it instead of two. Literally about 2 tablespoons worth. The desserts at Raphael's are exquisitely good, but not huge.
So I don't really feel bad about my third 10% meal of the week... it's my 5th meal after that busted my compliance, sigh. I needed to eat something and instead of getting a light snack of say, yogurt and protein powder pudding, I was lazy and ate a couple spoons of peanut butter and a handful of dried apricots. No veggie, no protein.
Heaven knows if I'll come up with a loss at the end of this week.
February 27th, 2008 by Cynthia
Monday's water aerobics was fine, I worked really hard and was very sore Tuesday. Still somewhat sore this morning, in fact! I may have gone to hard at it with my aqua gloves on during the resistance portion, and will probably neither wear gloves nor use the Hydrofit dumbbells today. My bad left shoulder was protesting too much.
Tuesday, I did 30 minutes on the Nordic Track, which seemed fine at the time, but when I went to bed much later, I had arch pain and woke up with same. So I probably need to just chill and be happy with the 20-24 minutes I can usually do. It's irritating though. And I iced a lot last night, so all the more irritating to still have pain.
I've had quite a few ISP outages in the last couple days, some fairly lengthy... due to a Qwest cable that was cut up in Kennewick. So that's why I've been unable to get here and post. I'm behind with all my other Internet stuff too. Which is why yesterday, in the middle of this outage nonsense, I forgot and skipped my third meal.
The fourth meal was compliant, but I was still hungry and my 5th meal after that was totally non-compliant, a can of Progresso Reduced Sodium Chicken Gumbo. OK, well, it may not have been compliant, but it wasn't candy or chips. But it left me feeling hungry and I ate a few servings more of dried apricots and almonds. So high on carb/fat... low on protein, sigh. My last meal was compliant again. Still, I managed to use up TWO 10% meals!
The worst is that I need my last and third 10% tonight, as we are back to Raphael's to belatedly celebrate hubby's birthday. So I really need to focus and try to stay on track the rest of the week.
The soup probably explains my weight gain today. Sodium bloat. I'm sort of regretting putting that daily weight graph up on my weigh-in page! But this is what it is really like, so you might as well know what I see each morning.
The plan today is to hit water aerobics and eat on the lower carb side, in anticipation of tonight's feast. Believe it or not, I had sardines, spinach and peperoncini for breakfast. With a bit of Hood Calorie Countdown milk and whey protein to up the protein content. Next, I'll do a low carb protein shake. Then I'm off to class!
February 25th, 2008 by Cynthia
There are days when I wish I could swap out weigh-ins, I'll tell ya!
Yesterday morning, I hit 226.2 a new low, but today, I am at 226.6.
It's still a .8 pound loss over last weeks 227.4 and considering two meals out, one meal skipped and one Nordic Track workout skipped, I'm good with it. Some days I hit nifty new lows... and other days I'm going "Uh OH!". I've added a new graph to my weigh in page to show my daily weigh-in amusement park ride. It's embedded flash and seemed to be working! Let me know if you have problems with it.
Plans for this week... well, as hubby's birthday comes near Valentine's and he was sick for his birthday, we may venture out to Raphael's again, before he gets hit with midnight shifts. Have to talk that over with him. We'd sure like more of that wonderful crab while it is being offered!
The eating went pretty well over the past week. I used no more than my allotted three 10% meals, one of which was a skipped meal. Sunday was a day where I was not up for more than 12 hours, so I only got 4 meals in. I pretty much did the same thing yesterday. I missed on drinking my gallon of water/green tea only one day and not by much!
Off to water aerobics!
February 25th, 2008 by Cynthia
Now, having eaten out on Wednesday AND Friday, I figured I better stay VERY clean the rest of the weekend and I have. I wasn't sure if I would be able to Nordic Track on Saturday, because frankly, my ankles were killing me by Friday afternoon. I did water aerobics, but we did a new dorsi-flexion exercise and I think it may have set my bad ankles off. They hurt like I'd sprained them, only I hadn't. I figured I'd just wait and see how they were.
Saturday morning, they didn't feel so great. I was in pain while fixing breakfast, but that was so good, that I shortly forgot about my ankles, LOL!
I used a non-stick pan, a teaspoon of butter and a spritz of olive oil and sautéed up some onion and mushrooms and pecans, then added a big mess o' collard greens and a couple cloves of fresh garlic, minced. Stir fried until starting to wilt, then hit it with two teaspoons of balsamic vinegar and a tiny bit of powdered Splenda. At the same time, I had spice rubbed chicken breasts grilling on the contact grill. Fast, easy... and really, really good! Hubby was impressed!
But yeah, my ankles were hurting after cooking, so I plunked myself down at the computer for a while. But by afternoon, my ankles felt better, so I decided I could at least try to Nordic Track and if it was bad, I'd stop. Actually, all was fine, and I did 25 minutes at a 4.5 mph clip which is good for me. No repercussions from the ankles later either.
I elected to keep carbs a little lower than usual over the weekend, below 100g. Calories at 1740 Saturday, closer to 1400 today, primarily because I slept late and have only been awake for 12 hours, so I only ate four meals instead of my usual five. I won't worry over the cals being so low... tomorrow is water aerobics, so I'll be eating more.
Off to bed and hoping for a good weigh-in tomorrow. Today's weight looked promising!
February 24th, 2008 by Cynthia
As hubby was sick for Valentine's Day, we opted to just schedule when he was feeling better. We planned it for Friday, which worked well for me, as if I'm gonna have extra calories, I'd rather it be on a workout day!
I ended up getting my hair cut Friday afternoon, so I felt a lot better about not going "shaggy" to the restaurant. Who knows, maybe now I'll get around to taking some long delayed photos.
We dined early, at Raphael's Restaurant. I have to say, while we can't afford to do this often, it really is fun every once in a while. And better to spend the money on delicious real food, than on junk food that never could taste so good! Besides, since our beloved Thai restaurant closed in December, we have not been going out so much.
As it was a planned 10% meal, my only concession to calories was to opt not to have a drink or wine with dinner. I figured I could do without the empty calories, I'm not that much of a drinker anyway. Otherwise, I planned to eat whatever I wanted from the menu with no apology and no regrets.
We started with a fresh Dungeness crab appetizer, basically a lovely mound of perfectly cooked crab meat, with a little decorative wasabi and cocktail sauce on the side. Oh my! Well, I could've just eaten a few more of this appetizer and been happy! I hadn't had crab in a long time, so a true treat!
That set us up nicely for our soup, a small cup of fresh corn chowder. That and two small slices of sourdough bread with a little butter were very good on a chilly night!
Then there was dinner. We kept on going with the crab... pan fried Dungeness crab legs. Sheer heaven. Served with a little broccoli rabe and a nice rice pilaf. Perhaps not so good for the waistline, I could taste the lovely butter and garlic the lightly floured crab had been fried in. Served with a lovely fresh made tomato cocktail sauce. I'm afraid that when our waitress asked if we wanted more bread, the answer was "Yes, please!" But without bread, how could we get every last scrap off our plates?
I usually have the huckleberry crème brulee for dessert, but I decided to try something different and I had a craving for chocolate. So I went for a no-flour chocolate souffle served with crushed hazelnuts and ice cream drizzled with Ghiradelli caramel sauce. WORTH EVERY BITE! Thank goodness Raphael's believes in small dessert portions!
A truly lovely dinner. We had so much fun! And as we'd eaten relatively early, we also caught a movie when we got home, a fun little British film "The Full Monty". I'd seen it once, but George hadn't and had always wanted to. Too cool it was on TV, starting minutes after we arrived home. So we had a very nice snuggly night. I skipped my last meal. 
February 24th, 2008 by Cynthia
This is an area where I get frustrated. My feet were still bothering me Thursday and I had to skip doing my Nordic Track. Injury is a difficult thing. Too often, I think I should push through anyway, but it usually has me worse off than before. This time I was smart, I took it as a rest day.
I did my grocery shopping, as you saw, and only brought one item that wasn't on my list home. Beef jerky, on sale. But I did eat a little of it that same night and the sodium content instantly bounced my weight from 227.2 to 228.8 the next morning! I guess jerky, though providing lots of protein, needs to stay a very occasional treat!
I wasn't too happy about the gain, since hubby and I had our delayed Valentine's dinner planned for Friday and I figured I might well have some sodium bloat after that meal as well. Still, it's water, and I *know* that, but it's hard seeing it there right in front of you on the scale.
