Sorry I missed yesterday, I try to write every Wednesday after my meetings and weigh-in, when everything is fresh in my brain. I had to meet with my bank yesterday because they kept calling me... to help me avoid my monthly service charges. Never had a bank do that!! It was awesome. The woman also helped show me where I can start saving, paying off debt, and improving my credit. Thanks Wells Fargo! Because of that meeting, and because I'm one of those weirdos who loves making budgets, lists, and plans (see fitness goal), I spent the three hours after the meeting, before work, working on financial planning. I am now set up to either be extremely poor or extremely stable- money-wise.
To move into weight-loss talk, I have to admit that I gained a pound this week. 1.4 pounds to be exact. I stayed under my calories, but instead of working out everyday, I did three 1 1/2 hour sessions in the gym. I did a lot more strength training than normal, doing full circuits of weight-lifting followed by about 35-45 minutes of cardio. Each session burned about 700-800 calories.
We also worked less hours than normal last week, as we had just paid rent, just got our student loan rebate, and had an opportunity to take three days off in a row- so we did!
Because serving burns a lot more calories than I factor in, I ended up gaining a bit back. I know that some of it is muscle weight, and I'm ok with gaining, as long as I'm losing more often (which I am). Gaining some weeks is completely normal! They tell me at TOPS, "no one loses every week." When I do gain, I make a list of things I'm going to focus on this week, including: staying under my calories everyday, balancing out a hard workout (cardio + strength) with a day of just cardio, not giving away any shifts all week (which will keep me burning calories all day), and drinking more water than I did before. Gaining doesn't make me feel frustrated, I use it to get more motivated. I want to win my biggest loser dollar next week!
With financial planning, and since we've been eating healthier, Costco has become our new friend. We buy all our meat in bulk, freeze it, and try to make dinner at home. We went today and got 20 dinners worth of meat, 10 pounds each of taters and onions, 2 dozen eggs, and a gigantic bucket of cottage cheese for under a hundred big ones!! We are set up for healthy eating for a while again.
One of my biggest reasons for not losing weight in the past is that I didn't want to lose out on cooking. We love to cook. We eat at home almost every night, and cook as much as we can. We both come from families that sat down to eat together every night, which was weird to do when I was in grade school. We do it now. The surprise of losing weight and trying healthier things, is that we get to try a lot of new recipes. We experiment in the kitchen a lot more, and have found some healthy staples. I thought I'd share a few pictures of some of our favorite dinners we rotate through:
Spicy chicken with cumin, over brown rice with cilantro, lime, avocado. With sautéed green beans with garlic.
Roasted veggies. Just toss a pan full of vegetables with a tiny bit of olive oil, salt and pepper. Roast at 400 for about 40 mins. Some nights this is all we have for dinner. It's that good.
Spicy pork chops (we use cumin a lot) with sweet corn, and our favorite veggie: the green bean with garlic. Seriously- eat it.
I love pierogis (best recipe I've found for them). However, they are problematic: 1. They are a ton of work. 2. They are not good for you.
This is a healthier, faster version of them. I still use a mix of dry cottage cheese and egg for the filling, but stuff them in wonton wrappers instead. You can cook them with just a little bit of oil or butter, no need to boil first with these (or make the extremely temperamental dough).
I haven't been missing out on cooking, we have just been finding different things to make. I definitely miss making fried chicken, homemade pizza, and snacks that we always refer to as "super bowl food." But, when we get a craving for them, we try to make healthier versions, or just make it in smaller amounts. Eating healthier hasn't deprived me of kitchen time, we've just gotten craftier in there.
The last perk I want to talk about is energy. I've mentioned before how much more of it I have. And, something that our leader at TOPS said got me thinking: he mentioned that he doesn't like to workout because he wants to have time to relax, or just kick back on the couch. I used to think the same way. Why would I want to waste an hour at the gym, and an hour showering, when I could have two hours on the couch? It sounds like a bad deal. After working out regularly, I realized I'm not losing one hour of feeling better by not exercising. The hour of exercising sucks- but I feel good doing it. I feel powerful, and awesome. I do not feel those things on the couch. Plus, the exercising gives me a good feeling the rest of the day. I've accomplished something, and made myself better. I get all those hours in the day of feeling strong and healthy. I'm not losing an hour of relaxing, I'm getting a day's worth of awesome. I'll trade that hour in the gym for that satisfied feeling every single time.
Hope everyone has a good week!!
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