Did Someone Say Soup?

It's been a LOVELY lonnnnnnnnnnnng weekend! I took a couple of days off and it was wonderful. Did some sleeping in, some errands, and some cookin'! Busy busy! Even rented a movie (Get Smart) and played some Wii.

On Friday I went to check out the Whole Foods (one of two in Canada!). It was a bit of a drive away, but I NEEDED to check it out. I've seen it mentioned on a bunch of blogs, so I had to see it for myself. It had a bunch of yummy things, but was quite a bit more expensive than our usual stores. I've heard that the prices are a bit more reasonable in the states, so it could be just higher up here. Anyway, bought four different Larabars and a Greek yogurt!

In order of appearance, Cocoa Coffee, Cocoa Mole, Banana Bread, Cocoa Orange, and Cocoa. The last one was purchased elsewhere and is actually just a wrapper...I ate that one some time last week! It was pretty cocoa-y. Not bad, but could have used a bit more sweetness.

That's the Greek yogurt above. I've had a such a hard time finding Greek yogurt here. Hope this one is good. It's blueberry in the side compartment...I'm going to try it tomorrow for breakfast, so we'll see!

On Saturday I guess I wasn't feeling too spiffy...woke up at 8am or so, but went back to bed after about an hour and a half of checking blogs and such and slept till 2pm! That is so unlike me. Felt really drugged and out of it for the rest of the afternoon. I felt a lot better on Sunday. :-)

Played a bunch of Wii on Sunday! Played some boxing, bowling, and baseball. So much fun! I'm sore today from the boxing...it's quite the cardio workout! Speaking of workout...I went with my better half to her gym this morning and we swam in the pool...it was so nice and warm! Perfect on a chilly day! After some more errands we came home and I had some oatmeal...

I'm sure it looks a bit gross, but it was pretty good. I added some chocolate chips and some cherry craisins. I've heard through the grapevine that I seem to have a theme going for a lot of what I make...a Poop theme, if you will. I'll have you know that it was NOT intentional that this looked like poop! I swear! Also, the pictures of today's soup (further down in this post) do NOT look like poop. Ok, maybe a little... :-P

After my oatmeal settled I went to the gym! I did my usual workout and then weighed myself (since it's Monday and I always try to weigh myself on Mondays). I was 164.6 lbs. Not too shabby, since I've been slacking a bit. Can't wait to see the 150's at some point. I swear, since my better half and I have been together (almost 5 years) I've had such a hard time getting back down to my original weight (130 lbs). I don't know if it's because I'm older and it's harder to lose when you get past your 20's or what. They say the more you gain while in a relationship, the happier you must be...well, it's obvious that we're ecstatic!! :-)

Just for good measure, I'm throwing in a picture of my dummy...I mean my kitten. This is in honor of him getting his manhood taken away from him tomorrow. Poor guy. I must say though...he has the biggest ummm...nads (pardon my French) that I've ever seen on a cat (no picture of that, don't worry...no one needs to see that!)!

He has NO idea it's coming! He loves to sleep with his tail under his chin. He's too cute and he knows it.

OMG, before I forget...I received my wedding present early!! Her present was the Wii, my present is this beauty:

Let me just say...I LOVE this thing!! It's a single cup fancy dancy coffee maker. If I wasn't already taken, I would marry it! I can make a cup of any of those goodies to the left of the machine. I can make coffee, tea, cocoa...even just hot water if I so choose! Ahhh, so much coffee, so little time! :-)

Ok, on to this week's lunch!! Drum roll please!! I would just like to say...I am so very proud of myself, you have no idea. I keep wanting to call my Mom and tell her about this (she passed away in January and would also have been very proud of me and would have loved the items that I made today).

I made Curried Sweet Potato & Carrot Soup and Pumpkin & Prune Bread:

We went out to a fancy Bistro on Friday night and I had an amazing bowl of soup...I knew as soon as I tasted it that I'd have to try and make it. I found a recipe online, tweaked it a smidge, and here is the finished product! It was so freakin' good. I am SOOOO looking forward to lunch tomorrow! YUM!!

This lovely bread recipe I borrowed from Tina at Carrots 'N' Cake. I just substituted pumpkin for squash (since I wasn't able to find squash in a can). The above picture is the mixing part...before I mixed it I was wondering if there would be enough moisture, but as it blended together, the pumpkin handled the job quite nicely! The "batter" was verrrrrrry tasty. I only had a little taste, I swear!

Here is the finished product. I tried a bite and it was delicious! It will go nicely with my soup tomorrow for lunch!

Ok, enough of this blogging nonsense! I need to go dry my hair and get to bed! Have a great week everyone!

YAY!

Been a LITTLE bit lax with my posting on here...no real excuses except for lack of motivation. Just didn't feel like it and just didn't have anything good to say. However, I HAVE done quite well with my eating, so that's a good thing! I've been successfully avoiding bad stuff and eating mostly good stuff.

Last week I made an amazing navy bean soup in the crockpot...it was sooooo good! I was very impressed with myself. Tomorrow I'm going to make a black bean soup (on the stove, not in the crockpot), so hopefully that will turn out nice.

Tonight is either going to be shake n' bake pork chops and stove top stuffing or chicken caesar salad. Either way...yum.

Food for the rest of the day:

• spinach and cheddar crepe-omelet (from a really good place called Cora's) - I had the other half of what I had yesterday when we went there
• a couple of strawberries
• toast (one piece) with almond butter (I've been wanting to try it and it was pretty good on toast!)
• raspberry smoothie

I'll probably have a snack at some point...perhaps a banana. Not sure yet.

Went to the gym yesterday AND today! YAY!!! I wasn't going to weigh myself today, but I was really curious, so I did...I have actually lost a bit! I'm down to 169.8 lbs. I was impressed, since I haven't really been getting much exercise...all I've really been doing is eating healthy. I guess it has helped. :-) Earlier in the week I went for a 40 minute walk outside before I went to work. At least it was something. My mom and I used to walk a bunch when I was younger...helped me lose weight back then, so I figured it was worth a shot now.

Ohhh, had an AMAZING nap yesterday! We laid down around 5:30pm and woke up around 9:30pm!! Ran out to grab some McDonald's (I had grilled chicken wraps) and then came home, laid around for awhile and went to bed again around 1am. Got up around 10am this morning. What a lot of sleep! It was nice.

Ok, one final thing...just wanted to add the little weight ticker, since there was a little change.

Holy Tiredness Batman

Wow, I'm sleeeeeeeeeeepy today. I don't enjoy Mondays when I wake up at a normal time, but when I wake up at 4:45 a.m., I enjoy Mondays even less. Yes, I DID make it to the gym this morning...yay me!!! It was tough, but I did it, so I'm proud of myself. It was kinda iffy for a minute when the stupid/cute cat sat on my chest and started purring. She never does that, so I was all, awww, how cute! I can't possibly leave while she's being cute (and not her usual devilish self). My woman was snoring and tossing and turning, however, so luckily, that cancelled out the cute cat nonsense. :-)

I was somewhat disappointed when I weighed myself this morning. I was 172.2 lbs. Now, this COULD have something to do with the Arby's that I had last night, so who knows. All I'm sayin' is that I'd BETTER be less than 172.2 lbs next Monday. Damn scale. Oh, did I mention that this morning I checked to see how many calories I had consumed at Arby's last night? I had been all proud of myself too, cause I didn't have as many fries or onion petals as I normally do. Ready? Almost 1000 calories. Umm, yeah. Wish I would have calculated the side items BEFORE I ate them. Oh well. Live and learn.

Gonna be an early night tonight. I'm going to go to the gym in the morning again and then take Wednesday off. That way I get at least a bit of sleep during the week. Makes for a long week if I workout all 5 days of the work week. I'm not sure how I used to do that. Getting older sure messes with a girl!

Scary Movie!!

Well...went to the gym again today, yay!!! Two days in a row! Can I go for three?? We'll see tomorrow...hope so!

When I weighed myself yesterday, by the time I got home, I couldn't remember if the scale said 173.8 or 172.8, so I just took the higher number...I'll never know which one it was, but what I DO know is that today I was 171.0!!! I'm thinking that I was just retaining water, but hey, I'll take what I can get! I usually don't weigh myself so often, but since I wasn't sure about yesterday, I thought I'd go ahead. Mondays are my usual weigh days, so I'll post my weight tomorrow too. Then it will go back to once a week.

I realized that I forgot to put down what I ate on here yesterday, so I'll do that now, as well as what I had today.

Saturday

• All-Bran Strawberry Bites w/ milk
• big salad from grocery store salad bar
• beef noodle soup and piece of garlic bread from restaurant

Sunday

• All-Bran Strawberry Bites w/ milk
• big salad that I made at home
• apple
• Arby's roast beef sandwich, some fries, and some onion petals

Not too bad. Went to the gym both days, so that was good. I didn't have any chips, which has been my big weakness lately. I'll just get in chip moods and go crazy on them...eat until my tongue hurts from the salt. Once I've been working out for a few weeks again and continue to eat healthy, I know that I won't be craving the bad stuff as much. Thank god.

Ohhhh, saw the movie "Mirrors" tonight at the theatre. Pretty good! Made us jump! Didn't know what to expect with this one, so it was a pleasant surprise.

I'd better go off to bed...4:45 a.m. comes EARLY! Keep your fingers crossed that I can drag my lazy ass out of bed!

My First Blog!

Big day today! Created my first blog and it's also the first day of getting back into losing weight. I HOPE I will be able to keep up with BOTH of those things.

Ok, a bit about me...much easier to put this into a post than into the "about me" section. I'm old...very old...32. Yes, I know...old. You don't have to tell me, my girlfriend tells me all the time. :-) I'm a lesbian, gaymo, queer (whatever suits your fancy) who just proposed to her almost 5 year girlfriend (now FIANCE!) on her 28th birthday a little over a week ago. The big day will be Dec.22, 2008. We can't wait! I thought it would be a good idea to get hitched on our 5 year anniversary...we're always forgetting the actual date, so if we get married on that day and have the date engraved in our rings, problem solved!

So many reasons to get back on the weight-loss wagon...feel better about myself, increase my confidence, look better, lessen the aches and pains of "old age", look cute again, feel cute again, look purdy for our wedding...many many reasons. So hard to get my tired and lazy ass out of bed in the mornings to get to the gym though. The gym is less than 5 minutes away from home, but the best time (for my schedule) is to go in the morning...the EARLY morning...BEFORE the butt crack of dawn. I try to get up at 4:40 a.m., get to the gym just after 5:00 a.m., and be done working out by just after 6:00 a.m. This allows me to go home, get ready for work, catch the train into the city, and be at my desk just before 8:00 a.m. I was very diligent for a good portion of last year, but then, of course, sh*t happens. It's been a rough year so far here...both my mom and my fiance's mom passed away earlier this year. Hard to get out of that "just don't care how much weight I'm gaining" kinda funk. At least with the upcoming nuptuals, we both have new motivation in our weight-loss goals.

So, my starting weight (today) is 173.8 lbs and my goal weight (where I was about 5 years ago - coincidence, I think not!!) is 130 lbs. Yes, I used to be 130 lbs before the love of my life and I got together...they say the more weight you gain when you are with someone, the happier you are. I must be freakin ecstatic!!! My heaviest (I think) was around 190 lbs. I've been up and down my whole life, but being 5'3", 190 lbs was a bit much for me. I knew I needed to lose weight, so we joined a gym last year and I did really well, losing about 20 lbs. Now, I've started to gain a couple of pounds back and have been trying to make it to the gym for weeks now, with no success. I think I've gone maybe once a week in the last month. Anyway, my current short to mid-term goal is to lose 15 to 20 lbs by Dec.22, 2008. I have 4 months to do this, so I know it's doable. I just have to focus and keep at it.

Today, we both went to the gym, yay!!! We plan to go tomorrow as well. This blog will help me to keep track of when I go, what I do while I'm there, and also what I eat during the day. I've been pretty good about keeping a spreadsheet of what I've been eating and the calories that I've consumed, so I'll be listing that kind of thing as well.

I hope you enjoy this blog...feel free to post some comments, thoughts, and/or words of encouragement along the way. I need all the help I can get!!