Centsably Fit

Today, I was slow to get up.  I heard my alarm and then just lay there.  Not good.  I got up and put my running gear on and then thought I’d check my email.  And then read part of Holly’s book I bought last year on intervals.  Then I helped my girls with their hair and took everyone with me to get an oil change (because they have frees slushies while you wait–I didn’t get one just had fun watching the kids eat theirs.) Um, can we say “stalling?”  The last two times I tried running intervals, I had a bad day.  My body just crashed.  Some light headedness, blacking out, crazy hunger.  That kind of thing.  I wasn’t excited to do it again.

My clubFYM buddies tried to help me find the solution, but the only things we could think of were less popsicles (because of the artificial sweetener) or maybe more vitamin D.  While I was reading Holly’s book it hit me, electrolytes.  I sweat like crazy when I run and never replenished the lost sodium etc.

So I got up the nerve to actually do the workout then sipped Meleluca’s Electrolyte drink while doing my whole body stretches.  I felt fantastic all day!  What a good thing to find a solution.

Breakfast: Greek Yogurt and Strawberries

Snack 1: Protein bar (my last one.  I’m going to go try a new recipe tonight and see if I can come up with something tasty enough from my kitchen.  I’ll let you know.)

Lunch: 1 Ole low carb tortilla with 2 oz deli meat; romaine and half a chopped avocado with 1 cup of fresh broccoli salad (the end of that.)

Snack 2: The other half of my last protein bar and an almond sweet and salty granola bar.  That was an unplanned indulgence because I’m out of popsicles  (excuses–don’t let me get away with that.)

Dinner:  1 Ole low carb tortilla with 2 eggs; 2 slices of turkey bacon; a spot of Miracle Whip and romaine.  Crazy, but my calories were exactly 1600 today.  That rarely happens :).

My sister-in-law called me today about our weekend family gathering to come.  Mom said we could be in charge of the food which means we can plan lots of Fit Yummy Mummy options so we don’t blow this challenge right before reassessment day.  That did a lot to relieve anxiety for me.  We’ll have good stuff for the non FYM folks too, but Gena and I won’t feel deprived. Thanks, Gena, for thinking of that!

I had another good morning with a 6:30 am wakeup and devotion time.  My friend Pam came over and did FYM workout of the month June B with me. I made sure I had the foyer lit up and I was nearby this time so there was no awkward moment for her.

After our workout, we followed this video to stretch out and cool down.  It has a lot of the same exercises Holly recommended at clubFYM, but it’s easier for me to follow a video.

For breakfast I made a post workout shake.  It has real sugar in it to feed the muscles and tastes too sweet to me, so I started doubling the liquid (half almond milk half water) and like it much better.  Plus it lasts longer so I can drink a bit before during and after my workout.  I’ve tested it and can lift more and do better when I sip the shake during the workout.

For lunch I made the kids tostadas (see below–I did NOT eat that.) With ground beef, refried beans, cheese, salsa and lettuce. While I was cooking theirs I put a batch of black rice in the slow cooker.  I bought it at Costco and love the nutty flavor.  It cooks up a little easier than brown rice too. 

I’ve discovered one of my big weaknesses.  When my kids waste food, I feel like it would be ok to eat what they leave.  The whole, I’m not a garbage can doesn’t work for me.  Because I don’t’ see it as garbage.  It’s good food and it’s going to be wasted.  And I’d really like to have it. See below. This was a huge temptation for me, but I quickly threw it in the trash.  It’s still hard when I see those pictures–but I’m a bit hungry tonight.

My lunch was the same lettuce; and salsa and cilantro that the kids had.  Plus I added diced avocado; 1/2 cup black rice and 2 oz of canned chicken breast to my salad.  I liked it so much I had it again for dinner. I think It’s pretty too. Grant tried the black rice (he’s 2) and really liked it.  The other kids turned up their noses.  They might try it the next time I fix it.  Sometimes they need some time to think about it.

My ballet class was canceled due to a death in our instructor’s family.  I looked up some similar type videos on youtube and think I will do one after my intervals. And also keep with the stretching.  My flexibility isn’t good at all. I’d love to improve that.

This morning I got up at 6:30, read my scriptures and then headed out to my friend Pam’s house for a run together.  I ate my breakfast in the car of Greek Yogurt and strawberries.

We went down to a little park by her house and ran 2 minutes and walked 1 for 40 minutes.  I was exhausted and my face was bright red for hours. This is not typical interval training for FYM.  Holly would say anything I could do for more than 1 minutes was too easy a move.  And especially if I could keep it up for more than 15 minutes.  I will say after 15 minutes I was ready to die, but Pam kept me moving.  I was going for fellowship and some extra endurance–I got it.

I drove from Pam’s house to North Kansas City to pick up a Craigslist item for  Heather’s bedroom remodel surprise for her birthday.  I wish I had taken a snack with me!  At least I had water

Once I got home I grabbed a homemade protein bar and a banana.  And then showered and picked up my girls from swimming lessons.  I’m glad that Darren could drop them off this morning!

Lunch was leftover rice and beef from yesterday.  With a side of baby carrots.

Snack: Around 2pm I took Heidi out shopping to try to find a more modest swimming suit. (No Luck :(. Looks like I’m going to have to sew one for her.)

I knew I was donating plasma in an hour so I ate half a MetRX power bar to help fuel my body.  If I don’t eat enough on plasma days it can take me several days to recover and I mostly lay around.  I can’t afford to do that this time.  Also I made sure to exercise before the appointment since it’s not recommended for at least 4 hours afterwards.  I had a special coupon that gave me $80 for this visit which is double the normal fee.  The money is all going towards Heather’s bedroom remodel :). She’ll be 10 in a few weeks and I can’t wait to surprise her.

Dinner:  By the time I got home from Plasma it was dinner time and I was starving.  So I ate the rest of the power bar.  Then I could cook.

I grilled 7 chicken breasts seasoned with lemon pepper on our Foreman grill and saved one for myself. Then I boiled up some cheap Alfredo pasta packets for the family and cut up their chicken into it.  Once the grill was clean I put the brussels sprouts on sprinkled with lemon pepper.  I grilled them 8 minutes, then microwaved them for 3 minutes more until they were crisp tender and still smoky flavored.

I’ll have to admit halfway through my chicken breast I found a vein and that ruined me on it.  I gave the rest to Darren.  But I sure enjoyed my sprouts and salad.  (The Sprouts were from Aldi in their fresh produce section.  I had never seen them there before–a pleasant surprise.  They would have been good with butter, but that was 2 flights of stairs down from my attic kitchen and didn’t feel worth it, lol.)

Sunday’s are good days. I love to go to church and hear God’s word from another perspective and fellowship with the Saints. But today my daughter was recovering from the stomach flu so we stayed home together. That was another kind of wonderful. My mother came and picked up the older children and left me with a quiet house. I was able to read my scriptures longer than usual and just rest and enjoy the morning.

Breakfast: 6 oz Greek Yogurt and 1 cup fresh strawberries (everything with stevia)

Snack: Half a crunch protein bar

Here’s my beautiful oldest daughter waiting to eat with me. I love that everything in this meal we can all eat.

Lunch: Brown rice with Grass Fed Hamburger gravy (thickened with glucomannan so carb free); organic petite green beans; salad from the garden and a Planned Indulgence of a piece of Angel Food Cake and Fresh Strawberries.

Snack: Slept through it, didn’t even miss it :).

Dinner: Another helping of rice and hamburger gravy and a fresh banana

After dinner we went to hear one of my student’s preach his first sermon and a neighboring church. He was just ordained to the ministry this spring and we were so glad to get to go and support him.

Snack 3: After church I was pretty hungry, and was low on my calories. I was stumbling around the kitchen trying to figure out what to eat and DH said, “What nutrients are you low on?” I never thought about it that way before. So I went to myfitnesspal which said I was 27 grams of protein low! That made my food choices much easier. So I made a smoothie with almond milk, Greek yogurt; whey powder; dutch cocoa; and frozen raspberries. Yum! I still finished out the day 100 calories low but my tummy is happily full :). I love smoothies. They are so filling to me and taste like a dessert even without sugar.

This is embarrassing to admit.  Sometime early May before our last frost, I found a packet of gourmet lettuce seeds in the cupboard.  The kids were driving me nuts, so I handed them the seeds and told them to fill one of our raised beds with them.  It took them all of 10 minutes, but it was a nice and quiet ten minutes for those of us left in the house :).

Last year it was so hot and dry that if I didn’t water my plants in the raised bed every day they wilted up and threatened to die.  It didn’t matter much because the wild rabbits came and razed the bed to the ground in the middle of a sad night. And that was the end of that.

So Saturday, when I was watering my hanging baskets on the back deck, you can imagine my surprise to see a raised bed full of lovely lettuce plants down below. (We just ignored it after that first day.) And I’ve been eating that tired yellow stuff from the inside of Romaine hearts for a week?! I sent Heidi out to pick as much as she could and she came back with this:

Breakfast:  1 cup Fit and Active protein cereal; 2 Tbs Hemp seeds; 2 Tbs craisins and 1/2 cup almond milk

Snack1: Homemade protein bar (No produce)

Lunch: Asian Chicken Chef’s salad: 2 cups lettuce; 2 oz canned chicken breast; 1 orange, sectioned and chopped; 1 Tbs sliced almonds; 1 Tbs craisins (for color) and 2 Tbs Fit and Active Sesame Ginger dressing.

Snack 2: 1/3 of a mega crunch protein bar on the way out to buy new shades and produce at Aldi.  1 oz almonds.  No produce.

Dinner:  Planned Indulgence: Grilled Pizza from Aldi’s Deli.  We are making do without a kitchen until mid-August while we remodel. So it’s a real treat to buy something ready made.  We ate it on the back deck.

I just put my pizza stone on the grill, preheat it for 10 minutes.  Then flop the pizza on top.  It’s ready in 8 minutes.  Longer than that and the bottom will burn…..Trust me.

I also had a big salad from the garden with light Italian dressing. And snacked on baby carrots while I waited for the pizza to cook.

It’s Sunday morning now, so I can reflect on how I feel after the PI for dinner.  Not great.  I’m a little bloated up from the extra carbs.  It sure tasted good, but probably not worth it.  I need to plan ahead better so I have an alternative easy to go that is equally enticing to me.  If I had thought about it when I was at Aldi, I’d have bought some mushrooms to grill with onions and peppers and Italian sausage.  Yum!

So for Saturday:  Wins:  I read my scriptures first thing; I was under my calorie goal; I found a garden; I stripped the wallpaper off my kitchen–ready for drywall repair and then paint! Grant started potty training.

Losses:  No workout 🙁 (Unless wallpaper stripping and cleaning counts–I know it doesn’t, but it was a good amount of N.E.A.T) Not enough produce.  PI that makes me feel lousy. Heather has stomach flu.

Yesterday was super busy.  Getting menus out; swimming lessons; helping Darren get ready for a camp out; babysitting 12 kids and fixing their dinner.  Stuff like that.  I fell into bed after it was over and decided to post about yesterday this morning.

I’ve been able to get up at 6:30 every week day morning and get my scriptures read.  That makes a positive difference to how my day goes and how I feel about things.

Breakfast:  Fit and Active Protein cereal from Aldi with hemp seeds; almond milk and a bit of stevia.  I’m not sure if this cereal is on plan or not.  It had the best nutrition I could find in a cereal and it tastes terrible :).  But in a hurry it satisfies and stevia makes the taste a lot better.

I was supposed to work out with my friend Pam at 7:30 am at my house.  She came over and I didn’t hear her!  I was busy working on my menus and poor thing had quite an awkward moment standing in my foyer in the dark wondering if I was expecting her after all or if she was breaking and entering.  Poor thing!  I will be much more attentive from now on.  So neither of us worked out in the morning, but I did get my FYM work out in at 7pm last night.  More on that in a bit.

Morning Snack: 1 homemade protein bar. I had planned to eat an apple with my snack for the produce, but I bit into it on the way to the car to pick up my girls from swimming lessons and it was rotten!  It looked beautiful on the outside, but ewwww on the inside!  Maybe that was my morning lesson from the Holy Spirit.  “1Tim4:8 For bodily exercise profiteth little; but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.” It’s no good to be amazing on the outside if inside I’m rotten to the core.

Lunch: 1 spinach basil tortilla with deli turkey and lettuce.  I tried to eat a nectarine with it too, but 3/4 of it was bruised.  The fourth I did eat had no flavor.  I’m sure there is a lesson in there too.  The fruit was a gift from my neighbor…long story.  I will have to cut everything carefully and use it creatively.  But it was a welcome sight since I hadn’t been to the grocery store in over 2 weeks.  Right after lunch, Grant and I headed to Costco to refresh our carrots and Greek Yogurt.  But I’ll need to go to Aldi today to get the bulk of our produce.  I’ve found Costco’s produce prices to be pretty high on most things.

Afternoon Snack:  Carrots and hummus (oh it tasted so good to have fresh produce again!) And I did taste test 3 thing at Costco.  Multigrain nuggets–it was more like a cookie, but I thought it looked like a big granola bite.  A skinny cow wafer; and a piece of Italian chicken sausage–yum!

For dinner I made a low carb pizza with a whole wheat Ole tortilla topped with marinara; turkey sausage; onion and 1 oz of mozzarella cheese.

I waited an hour after dinner and made a workout shake. It is super sweet tasting so I doubled the recommended liquid with it, which made it taste perfect and last a bunch longer :). I sipped it while I did Holly’s June A workout of the month.  That one is super hard!  I only have a 10lb kettlebell so  switched it out for a 25 lb dumbbell for my swings.  I couldn’t keep a grip on it with just one hand so did 2 hand swings for the whole thing.  My backside is super tender today.  Yay for more muscles.  I was surprised how much easier the workout was Friday than it was Monday.  Our bodies change and adapt quickly.

Last Night I made homemade protein bars from this recipe.  My protein powder isn’t very sweet (I used Desiger Whey in French Vanilla) so I added 2 Tbs of stevia in the raw. They tasted ok, but I’d double the stevia next time. I was pretty excited to read that the recipe made 6 large bars and had such few calories.  But I put the ingredients into Myfitnesspal and found that the calories and other macros were DOUBLE what the bog post said.  Oh no, I already ate one!  I’m working on tweaking the recipe to improve the macros a bit.  I’ll let you know if it comes out any good.

I woke up at 6:30 am, read my scriptures (big win there) and then went to workout with friends at 7:30.  Wow, that was hard.  We did a Bob video from the Biggest Loser series (30 min) and finished up with a 10 minute quickie from Jillian.  It was a different type of workout than I’m used to which was very challenging.

Then I rushed home, showered and took 4 of my kiddoes to swimming lessons.  I took a homemade protein bar and an orange to the pool for my snack which I ended up splitting with Grant.  And I’m so glad I did now that I know how many calories are REALLY in there.

For lunch I warmed up another bit of turkey sausage and onions on a low carb tomato basil tortilla with romaine and a Tbs of caesar dressing.  I’m sorry all my food looks exactly the same.  I do that a lot–make a big batch of something and then eat it over and over.  I fix different stuff for my family that is more versatile.

I worked all afternoon on menus.  Which involves looking at a lot of delicious pictures of food.  One picture of food can make me think I’m hungry.  I got through it with 2 sugar free popsicles spaced far apart.  And then my real snack was a bowl of plain yogurt with peanut flour and apples stirred in.

Dinner was a low carb tomato basil tortilla with homemade tuna salad.  My daughter made a huge batch for the family with full fat Miracle Whip and Sweet relish.  I made a smaller bit for me.  It had:  1/2 can of tuna; 1 Tbs light mayo; dash of worchestershire sauce; 1 hardboiled egg chopped and 1 celery stalk finely chopped.  I add lettuce to it for extra crunch and to make me think I was eating more.

After dinner I went to a baby shower and had planned on an indulgence there ahead of time.  I was out of calories for the day and kind of nervous about what food I would find.  There was a huge assortment of fresh fruit and veggies and pistachios.  They also had brownies and sweet breads, but I was ok with passing them up, even though I know they were yummy.  I ate all the fruit and veggies I wanted without worrying about the calories.  I just enjoyedthe delicious food.

I know deep down that this idea is ridiculous, but every time I start to eat right and exercise, I think my ideal body should appear overnight–or at least by day 3.  Bwa ha ha.  It just doesn’t happen that way.  It takes consistency for weeks upon weeks.  After today I’m going to have to dig deeper to find the motivation to not give up.  I think if I had eaten a brownie, it would have been easier to give up–since it wouldn’t feel like such a flawless performance. kwim?  Do you make your own protein bars?  How about whey? I’m looking for a different brand.  It needs to be Whey isolate and stevia sweetened. Know of one I should try?

My ballet class last night was so much fun.  I’m not very good at it yet.  Those little girls make it look so easy!  There are so many things to think about.  Lean slightly forward, back straight, hips tipped under; shoulders down and back; arms out, elbows up, fingers pretend to grab a marshmallow.  Toes pointed, hips turned out, don’t lean on the bar….now try to move, but don’t loose your posture.  I was never out of breath, but I’m very SORE today.

There are mirrors everywhere in the ballet room and I couldn’t help looking at myself and wishing things were different.  Well, they are going to be different. I have a vision in my mind of what I’m shaping my body to be. It’s reasonable and I’m set emotionally not to quit until I reach that goal.

I got up at 6:30 again :).  For breakfast I had my workout shake, then did Holly’s workout of the month June B.  It had more bodyweight things in it so I was able to finish, but I was still shaking by the end.  I added my ballet bar stretches as a cool down since weight lifting has greatly reduced my flexibility.  I think if I can do those stretches every day and maybe twice, I might get somewhere.  It feels good to be flexible!

I was shaking so badly after my workout, I didn’t know what to eat.  I already had my shake and there wasn’t much time so I grabbed 1/3 a protein bar.  (It’s one of those crazy big bars with 400 calories and 35g of protein so I don’t need to eat a whole one.)  I’ve been trying to do without the protein bars, but today it was that or cookies…..

It’s swimming lessons for us for this week and next.  So for my morning snack I grabbed a string cheese and an apple to eat pool side.

Lunch was the rest of my huge bowl of romaine (it’s not very fresh and lovely looking I know, but it’s what I have.)  Someone ate my last grilled chicken breast, so I quickly sautéed up some Italian turkey sausage with onions and sprinkled that over the lettuce.  Added half a diced avocado and some caesar dressing.  It tasted a whole lot better than it looked.

My Afternoon snack was the rest of the protein bar, an orange and 12 almonds.  I forgot to take a picture of it.

For dinner I made the family skillet lasagna in my electric salad master skillet.  But that wasn’t appropriate for me and by then I was so tired and in a funk I warmed up some scrambled eggs and a bit more of the turkey sausage.  Then had a plate of lettuce with fat free Italian dressing.  Not the most exciting meal, but for having a fridge as empty as mine and being too busy to shop right now, I’ll take it.

Tomorrow I get to work out with friends.  I haven’t figured out how to fit in FYM intervals into my workouts yet.  I have some bad feelings about them being too hard that I need to get over.  And I benefit emotionally a lot from working out with friends.  They choose some pretty hard stuff when we are together, but not the same as what Holly does.

P.S.  The hunger comes and goes but it does’t panic me.  I’ve noticed sometimes all I am is thirsty.  I’m chewing gum now since I feel the most hungry after dinner.  It just never seems like enough at the end of the day.