The scale.

Ok, so I usually don't let the scale get to me that much but today it was really hard to see it go up a pound and a half. I wish it were as simple as "Calories in Vs Calories out" cause if that were the case I would be down just under 1 pound. I wish I understood the body more to know understand why it went up so much. Nick told me not to let it bother me, as I've done some pretty intense lifting this week, and although I completely agree and know that will affect it. My body fat also didn't change and the rest of the counts weren't off much at all. Makes me wonder. It also sucks all of the motivation out of me. Its insane that just 1 week ago I was in full fledged 100% motivation mode, and now my motivation is down to about 10%.

I think back to how I managed to lose the weight before. And although I succeeded, I was miserable. Eating a VERY strict, VERY boring diet, of the same thing (40%carbs, 40%protein, 20%fat almost exact every day). Egg sandwich for breakfast, snack of fruit and yogurt, lunch of protein packed sandwich or salad, snack of protein bar or pb&j sandwich, and dinner of veggies and chicken. The only time it changed was if I wanted cereal for breakfast instead then I did protein powder cereal. If there was a party or something I never ate cake or ice cream for fear of wanting more of it. On occasion I got fiber one bars for a snack. And although I managed to keep that going over the course of a year, getting my weight down to an impressive 130 lbs. I was miserable and when I got into maintenance mode I couldn't keep it up for another year. I tried my best to keep it going, but being a chef brings in a whole new set of problems. I hated tracking every single thing that went into my body and even more I hated the guilty feeling I got when I ate something I knew wasn't in my dietary plan. I would love to have my old body back and lose the almost 20 lbs I've gained, but at what cost. To not enjoy the gift of food seems like an awfully high price to pay. For a while my motivation to be able to eat more was to work out, the more I worked out the more food I was allowed to eat, unfortunately I was not eating good for me foods which in turn just make things worse.

I'm not sure how I can find a happy medium. One might think I did it before I can do it again, and I keep trying to find that willpower I once had. But so many things are different now. I worked out because I needed to work through depressing times, and I needed some happiness, even if it was artificial. I also didn't cook for anyone else and didn't worry about how my eating affected someone else. I do now, which adds another level of confusion.

As for the rest of my challenge. I'm managing. Like I have said time and time again every day that I apply for 5 jobs and don't get even 1 response is one more day I feel like its a useless cause. But I keep on truckin.

The stress less thing is a near impossibility with my return to work inching nearer. And our house still not being started yet. But now that I'm done with my most recent book series, I will be starting on some others that might help me to get over the stress hump.

Been trying to do things I love daily, mostly it has been reading as I read 6 books in the month of February alone. My goal was 12 in a year and I'm already at 7 this year and we're not even at March 1st yet! So that is definitely a success. Like I said I will be moving onto a book with a little more substance next. Not that I don't love mysteries involving high priced stilettos, but one can only read so much of those.

My calories for the day is right around 1600 which is still pretty good, at around 45/30/25 which is also pretty good. Hopefully I can find some motivation over the next week to eat healthier. I know I need to remove some more of the sugar from my diet, I just need to find a way to do that. Easier said than done.

My goal for tomorrow is to do yoga first thing in the am (which may or may not be at 3 bridges depending on the snow fall. If its still coming down pretty hard I'll just yoga at home) I am going to stick to my diet of 1500-1600 calories and I am going to try to get to 40/35/25 for ratios. After grocery shopping today that should be a little easier if I can just keep the sweet tooth in check. I am also going to try to revamp my resume, maybe a face lift will help me to land a job. And I will start a new book.

Wish me luck... I'm gonna need it.

Learning to push

So yesterday was a rough day as I had said before, although it wasn't as bad as I had expected. Calorie was I was only at about 1600, which isn't bad considering I though I was going to be closer to 1800. I didn't hit any of my bodybugg goals but seeing as my back was in immense pain I didn't do much of anything yesterday, so that was kind of expected. I did get some reading in, and I did reshape my nails (although gave up on polishing them). And I did apply for something like 7 more jobs.

Today I have already applied for another 5, and this is where the learning to push comes into play. Day after day of applying for new jobs starts off with such promise. But after 2 and a half months of it, you start to feel beyond discouraged. At that point is where it is hard to keep going, hard to push forward. You start feeling like you're destined to stay where you're at regardless of how unhappy you are there. Depressing is the only word I can think to describe how you feel. It almost feels like with every resume you send out, its one more person saying, nope sorry you're not good enough. That can be really really hard to overcome. It doesn't matter how many people tell you how great you are, or how perfectly you fit that job description, you have just 15-30 seconds to make that first impression. No pressure guys! At this point I want to give up. I know I can't if I want to retain any sibilance of sanity... So I keep pushing forward, hoping, trying, praying that I will be able to find just that 1 company, to give me a chance.

As for the healthy eating, today was much better. I'm at about 1550 projected calories for the day, which is perfect. My ratios are right where I want them. As for a workout, I know I need to get one in today, and I will. But I'm just not sure how hard I will be able to push. My back is still a little sore depending how I move. Not nearly as bad as yesterday, so we'll see what happens. The goal is to double up since I missed yesterdays and do intense cardio (fire 60) and lifting (push circuit 2). I'm hoping since its push 2 which only does 1 muscle group at a time that my back will be able to handle it. I think the cardio will be fine as long as I don't try to over do it by kicking too high or punching too hard. Either way though, I do want to hit all of my bodybugg goals for the day. (burn 2050 calories, 8000 steps, 30 mins moderate exercise and 15 mins vigorous exercise)

Wish me luck!

Day off!

So yesterday was my day off of my challenge, and it went well, crazy busy but went well. Had breakfast with Becky at Pepperland Cafe in South Berwick and their food was DELISH! then did some shopping with the hubby, and finished it off with dinner at Jimmy the Greeks, which was good too! (mostly cause they had my fav beer of all time Gulden Draak)

Anyways, needless to say it was a good day.

Today on the other hand was less successful. I woke up with a pinched nerve in my lower back, which has stopped me from doing most of the stuff on my to do list... I would still like to get my workout in, but I know that I don't want to hurt myself even more. So a day off might be a necessity. We'll see how I'm feeling in the next hour or so. Today I also haven't eaten the greatest, not the worst either, but definitely not the greatest, probably going to be around 1800 calories again today, which isn't horrible, but isn't good either.

Job hunting is becoming depressing. It feels like every day I send out about 5 resumes, and each week I'm lucky if I've heard back from 1... although usually its none... And the ones I call back to see if they are still looking have 9 times out of 10 already filled the position. Its hard to stay optimistic about it. But I'm trying.

On a good note, I finished another book, which brings it up to 5 in the month of February. I only have 1 left in this set (2 in the series in all). They're entertaining fun read books. After this though it will be time to get back into a book that actually teaches me something, or at the very least is about something more important than being an amateur detective who has a stiletto obsession. My goal is to finish this series by the end of the month... Which only gives me a few days so I need to get crackin!

All I do know is tomorrow will be a productive day! back pain or not!

Wish me luck!

Short and Simple

I'm not feeling very well right now so I'm going to keep this short and sweet. Yesterday I managed to get everything done again, although I was slightly disappointed in the job market search, but thats kind of to be expected at this point. Everything went well yesterday. Today is a different story, but we'll discuss that tomorrow. I hope everyone is having a great weekend.

xoxo!

Day 3 still going strong

Well, day 3 is now over and I'd say it was even better than day 2. Hopefully that is a trend that continues.

Yesterday's workout kicked my ass. I feel like I'm waddling everywhere I go. Nick says I'm being over dramatic but seriously, my body feels like its falling apart! Today will be yoga again, which is good because it should help stretch out the soreness, but bad because I'm going to look awfully silly trying to do a down dog and not being able too cause I'm so sore! Either way tomorrow is my day off of working out which is good cause I need it after these last few days!

I somehow managed to eat really healthy yesterday and even got my ratios pretty close to where I wanted them. (they ended up at 42/34/26) Considering we couldn't eat meat yesterday was pretty damn good! For dinner I cooked a reduced fat shrimp scampi, and you would have never known that I used less butter and oil than it called for! Holy cow was it delicious! Overall my calories were at 1550, which is right where they needed to be. Success!

I read a lot again, and figured out that I've read 4 books in February alone. They're nothing special, just easy readers, but quite frankly right now I'm sick of tv and would rather read a book any day. Don't get me wrong I enjoy being a mindless drone on occasion and watching tv but when I have nothing to do, give me a book instead. (plus while Nick plays Modern Warfare 3 I can read... Works out well) Still putting off that manicure, I think I might give in and just go somewhere so that they start growing out nicer...

One thing I kinda forgot about was taking a multivitamin, I know I need to do it, but I always forget. I can't take them in the morning cause they make me nauseous but I can't seem to remember to take them at night before I go to bed. Going to try to remember tonight!

While I may be over dramatic (according to Nick) I did manage to stress a little less yesterday. Working out is definitely helping a little. As is having something to focus on (this challenge). Hopefully that continues. When I'm done with my current book series (now on book 4 of 5) I think I'll read a book my mom got me years ago that I blew off... Life's a bitch, and then you change your attitude. Think she was hinting at something! haha

Job search wasn't as good yesterday as I hoped it would be, I only applied for 1 position as most of them I was under qualified for or were manufacturing jobs... My dad things I should finish getting my bachelor's degree since I'm only a year and a half from graduating. But I have no idea how that would work. Probably something I should have done before we got married as now I have a double income and won't get much for federal assistance. I'll still check it out to see cause you never know, right?

I am quite excited for my day off from this tomorrow. Mostly for the food aspect. Sunday's are my normal eating day (I don't want to say cheat day cause that makes it seem like I'm going to eat chocolate, ice cream and cake or something). I have a breakfast date with Nick's cousin, Becky, and then we are doing dinner with the in-laws. So I'm not going to be cheating so much as just not counting every calorie that goes into my body. It will be nice to not worry about that for a day. Then its back to normal Monday morning!

I hope everyone has a great weekend!

Wish me luck!

Successful day 2!

Well day 2 was off to a good start and definitely a much better finish than day 1. I did notice I seem to have found myself having a very short fuse lately... With little things, like dropping an entire place of chopped veggies on the floor. Annoying- yes, should it have made me flat out angry- no. But it did, granted I had that anger under control in a matter of minutes, but still. Quick onset anger like that over something so insignificant shouldn't happen, and I know that. Unfortunately I'm not quite sure what to do about it. Aside from that though the day went well, I got all 7 things 'done' even with that little mini meltdown.

1- I convinced Nick to join me in doing KenpoX. Which I think was good for both of us not only because its fun, but because it gets out some aggression by punching and kicking. 419 calories later, I felt great, sticky and sweaty but great. Tomorrow is Burn Circuit 1 (Chalean Extreme) and some video game cardio via Kinect

2- Not only did I manage to eat healthy but I also managed to stay under my calorie goal and get pretty close to my ratios that I wanted. In all I ate 1450 calories which is well under what I was expecting. But to be honest I wasn't hungry for more (until we went to bed then I started to get hungry, but that was well past the point of eating more food). Today I should be somewhere around the 1500 calorie mark which is perfect.

3- So I skipped the mani/pedi again. I wanted to do it, but just wasn't feelin it. And after all my pedicure is barely a month old, and doesn't really look like it needs redoing, my nails on the other than do, but I just can't convince myself to do it... I did read yesterday, plus I enjoyed having a coffee while running my errands.

4- Done and done. Again not much else to say about this one, although I think my face is going through a little of the getting worse before it gets better phase. I've been told that is normal when your face system is working, pulls out all the crap before finally settling in on being normal. I hope this is the case...

5- Stressing less, this I managed to keep under control although I do lump the quick onset anger in this category. I thing it might have something to do with being overly stressed out in the first place, but I'm not sure. Either way I did get it under control in a matter of minutes so I consider that a win. Now its just a matter of learning to cope with my stresses a little better, hopefully working out more will help with that.

6- Finding a new job is a hard venture. Especially when there are certain criteria that it needs to meet, most importantly covering the bills. But also needing benefits (not just health, but also pto/sick time is important) and needing to be able to spend time with family while working which is unfortunately something my current job doesn't allow much of. Its a long painstaking process that makes you feel broken before feeling uplifted. And after feeling broken all week I feel like I might be finally coming back around. I applied for another 5-6 positions yesterday and am hopeful about a couple of them as I see them actually being a fairly good fit for me. I'm not going to get my hopes up (as thats never a smart idea) but I am keeping my fingers crossed that even if one of these doesn't pan out that I will find something that will, sooner rather than later.

7- again, since you're reading these you see that I've been blogging. I think it actually helps me feel accountable for doing this and it also helps me sort through all of the rough feelings, the highs and the lows of my situation without (or with very little) judgment. And for that I thank you! =]

I think this will turn out to be a very interesting 6 weeks. And who knows, maybe come Easter I will have figured out what to do, and maybe that will take me along a new journey that I can blog about.

Wish me Luck!

Day 1 Review

Well yesterday was the first day of this 46 day journey. And It had some high points and some low points. I started off the day feeling like I could take on the world and ended the day feeling totally defeated. Of my 7 things on the list, I managed to do 5 of the 7, which is a pretty good start.

1- I did yoga yesterday, so that was my workout. I also planned out the rest of my workouts for the next 45 days, that way I know whats coming. Today is intense cardio. So I think I will do either KenpoX or Fire45/55/60.

2- I did a fairly good job eating healthy for most of the day. It was hard with not being able to eat meat. I supplemented with a protein bar and protein packed cereal, plus shrimp with dinner. But that didn't quite make it as far as I needed it to. I did log all my calories and although I didn't hit my goal of 1500, I was closer to 1800, its a start for a first day. Today I will work down a little and try to be closer to the 1700 mark and that means by Saturday I should be at the 1500 mark (which is a general mark, I want to be at a 500 calorie deficit for the day, so if my workout pushes me to 2500 calories burned I want to be around the 2000 calorie mark. But its a work in progress.

3- Reading was my choice for this yesterday. I read about 4 chapters in the book I'm currently reading (Undercover In High Heels by Gemma Halliday). Today I will be reading some more as I have to spend some time at the social security office and the dmv (yay...) But I will also be trying to give myself a manicure as my nails are in desperate need!

4- I got all of these done. Plain and simple and I will again today.

5- This is one of the ones I didn't do. My stress level by the end of the night was through the roof. Between signing house paperwork and looking for a job, the overwhelming feeling of dread was washing over me fast! I tried my best to not worry about the things that I couldn't control, but the stress overpowered. Today we will try to get a little better with this...

6- Technically this is the other one I didn't do, as who can really expect to find a job overnight. But I did look for one, and I put out another 5 resumes/applications. So although I didn't complete it, I did work towards it, and to me that is a success. So we will count this as a half done from now on as long as I applied for jobs and we'll count it as 3/4 done if I manage to score an interview.

7- If you're reading this I obviously completed it. Not much needs to be said for this one.

Overall I feel yesterday was a success. Although it was definitely a window into what is to come over the next 45 days. It will be a long hard journey, with some definite ups and downs. Lets just hope I learn to deal with the downs a little easier over the course of it, and that the ups start triumphing over the unavoidable downs.

Wish me luck!

46 Days to freedom!

Ok, so that might be a little dramatic... But 46 days to being healthy and focusing a little more on myself than I have been in the recent past. Nick (my new husband) and I were discussing Lent and what we were going to give up, and knowing that he knows a lot more about the catholic religion than I do, I asked why we have to give something up, can't we resolve to do something better for ourselves instead. I mean people quit smoking or drinking, others quit eating sweets, can't instead of depriving myself of things I like, can't I decide to do something better for myself over the course of the 40 days of lent? And Nick agreed it would be just as good of an idea. So here we go... During the next 40 days I will do a number of things.

1- I will work out 6 days a week (sunday's being my day off as they are technically not included in the 40 days of lent)
2- I will eat healthy and track all of my calories daily, also trying to hit my bodybugg goals daily
3- I will do something I love every day, whether it is as simple as reading a few chapters in a book, or giving myself a self pedicure or manicure, etc.
4- I will do the necessarily basics daily including washing my face twice a day, brushing my teeth twice daily, flossing once a day, using mouthwash once a day, etc. Thing that we should all be doing daily no matter what, but that sometimes either get missed or just end up getting half-assed...
5- I will focus on stressing less about things I can't control. Mainly regarding the house...
6- I will find a new job!
7- And last but not least I will blog about it!

Now that the stress of the wedding is over and done with, there are so many things still to be done. Thank You's need to be written, things need to be put away, maine pictures need to be done. In addition to finishing up wedding stuff house stuff needs to be done. Paperwork needs to be signed, flooring needs to be re-picked out, ground needs to be broken, etc. Along with that I would also love to fit into my favorite bikini come beach season which is fast approaching. AND I also need to find a new job, as the thought of going back to my old one sends me into a near panic attack. With all of these things going on I know that if I don't take some time for myself I will fall into a sort of depression of epic proportions, a terrible thought to say the least. So over the next 40 days (46 including sundays) I will be trying to focus on myself, to bring myself to a location where I am in a better position to deal with the stresses that are bound to come up over the course of my lifetime.

Wish me luck, as although it seems like an easy task, as always its easier said than done.

Feeling lost for greatness...

Lately I feel lost, more lost than I've ever felt in my life. I have always felt I was destined for greatness, doing amazing things in this world that actually make a difference. But at the moment I can't seem to figure out how I will get there. People tell me right now I should be excited because I have a chance to look around and figure it all out without any problems. But instead I feel completely lost. Without direction, without ambitions. It is the most awkward feeling I've ever felt in my life. Everything I've ever read or known tells you to decide on your goals and from there take the steps to get there. Fine and good when you know what your goals are, but what do you do when you have NO IDEA what your goals are. How do you proceed, how to you figure out the steps to get there? Where on earth do you start? Career wise right now I've just been applying for literally ANYTHING to get me going. I've lost my passion for what I do currently, and I also know it isn't fitting for having a family and knowing that will be happening in a few years I need to find something that works for that situation. But I'm feeling lost, and completely clueless and I'm not sure where to go from here. Hopefully in the next few weeks I can figure it out! Wish me luck!