Day 29: Who needs skinny jeans....

...when you have a whole closet full of skinniER jeans!? Today, I did something I haven't done in a while- I attempted to put on jeans that I KNOW are too small. I did this not because I am a masochist, but because I needed to know if my body really was changing despite not seeing huge results on the scale. Rumor has it, that 12lbs = 1 pant size. I needed to know if this was true.(dont get excited... I havent lost 12lbs...I just needed to see if I was making ANY progress at all....)  Of course, I picked jeans that are the same "size" as the ones I fit comfortably into, but because they are an entirely different brand, they are at least a size or so smaller than what the label says. At the beginning of all this, I wasn't able to even pull these pants of death over my thunder thighs.... today, not only did I surmount the thighs, but I was able to climb Mt. Hugeass and actually button them! Now, they weren't even close to looking ok, and I will NOT be wearing them out of the house for a very long time, but I pulled them up. And let's face it, that is way more than half the battle! Either way, tomorrow is another day, and I will hopefully be one step closer to the end goal. I am taking a day off from the gym tomorrow A) because the roads are going to be so horrible that I will burn plenty of calories just from having my heart pump out of my chest during the drive to and from work and 2) because my legs officially feel like jello. I think that is a sign that I need a day off!Yup. Immabe thinkin'.......

29 days down...151 to go!

Day 28: Cheeseheads vs. Theives

Or something like that right? Now, I DO like football. I actually watch it and understand it and cheer and yell and get stressed out about the outcome.... when it's a team I care about. Today? I watched for the commercials and what I *assumed* would be an entertaining half time show. I won't even get into my feelings about the "singing" of any of tonight's performances (I mean who forgets, changes, and skips lines in the Star Spangled Banner!? Not MY choir I will tell you THAT much.....) but since that is not the point of this blog, I won't bother to go there. Today I will continue my daily chronicle and struggle with losing weight vs. all the delicious foods in my wake. Superbowl is synonymous with eating. Lots. Football pig out  high calorie yumminess. Today was no exception. Kind of. I have one food that I always eat for as football food. Super Pretzels and cheese. I was not going to let counting calories stop me, even despite the partridge in a pear tree that I consumed yesterday. My plan was as follows: A) work out (check! That makes 6/7 days this week!) B) Make the cheese as low cal as possible. And I did. I used 2% velveta and "light" alfredo sauce. Granted, it wasn't the healthiest choice possible, but for me, counting calories is not about giving up every single food that I love, but about making them accessible. At least for now. So that was my day. I still feel guilty from yesterday's food fest 2011 and today's subsequent round 2 today, but at least I did work out so that offsets SOME of it. Well, that and celery of course. haha.

28 days down...152 to go!

Day 27: 4 pieces of cake, 3 chicken wings, 2 rounds of fries...

AAAAnd one de-ep fried Twinkie!!!!!!!!!! And there you have it. My cheat day. In my "defense" the cake slices are TINY. As in, 16 slices per 8 inch round cake. But I still ate 4. At least. And loved every single delicious bite! Until later when my body said "ummmmmm what the hell did you just do!?" and made me feel violently ill for the remainder of the day. Oops. I guess I just can't hold my cake like I used to! I will also say that I did not eat a whole deep fried Twinkie. In fact, I don't think I ate ANY of the Twinkie. Don't cheer. I ate 1/2 a deep fried Oreo (did you even know Oreos could BE deep fried!? Me either....) and a bite or 2 of a funnel cake. After eating chicken wings with ranch and fries for dinner. Kill. Me. I did however eat 5 pieces of celery. That has to negate SOMETHING right!? Yeah I didn't think so.................

The ONLY good news is that I went to the gym this morning and burned around 500 calories. And I have gone every day this week except Tuesday. AND right now I feel so guilty about my day of splurging that I stared longingly at every 24 Hour Fitness we passed on the drive home and thought about going back and buring another 500 calories. Or 1000. Or 1500. Sigh. But I won't. The fact that I even care is proving to me that I am growing (and I don't just mean my pants size from today's indiscretions.) Oh yeah, and 1/2 a chocolate caramel from Rocky Mountain Chocolate. Forgot about that. Oh boy....... Tomorrow is Sunday. I better start praying. BL members.... stop. cheering. NOW.

27 days down....1 cake ordered.....153 to go!

Day 26: Rated PG-13 for brief discussions of nudity

I realized today that beyond the obvious short term goal of wanting to look amazing in my wedding dress, I have a long term goal as well... one that might seem odd (and it is)...but one that is totally honest. I want to be able to go to the gym and change in the locker room. That's it. Odd right? Let me explain. I do NOT want to be one of those woman that proudly strut around with nothing more than the stale air as their clothing. I do NOT want to be the woman who undresses completely and THEN starts slowly doing the combination to the locker.... on the bottom  while practicing her squats of course. I do NOT want to be the woman who gladly shows her cash and prizes to everyone walking in the room while continuing to have a conversation with her equally naked friend. I also do NOT want to be in the naked welcoming committee in the first row of lockers, pausing every few seconds to say hello to the naked (and non naked) newcomers to the room. Yes, these are all things that I experience daily at the gym. These things, to be frank, gross me out. I do not understand how or why these people parade around like that! What I would like to be able to do however is change quietly in the back row of lockers, far away from the front door, from work clothes to gym clothes, WITHOUT displaying all that I have to offer and more. Is this really so difficult?! Yes. Every day I think to myself, "TODAY is the day I will do it". And every day, "today" comes.... and goes.... and I run right into a stall to change in the privacy, and intimacy (read: teeny tiny) instead of out in the open with everyone else. I have never seen ANYONE else do what I do. Everyone else, big or small, young or old, has no issue stripping down in front of God and everyone to change and go about their business. And then there is me. Hiding. I guess it really shouldn't come as a huge surprise since I don't want to look at myself while changing, so i really can't imagine anyone else wanting to suffer the fate of having to see me do it! I'll end this now before you get too much of a mental picture.... Sadly, I dont need a mental picture.... I have a mirror. Barf.

26 days down...154 to go!

Day 25: Redemtion

So after last night's dinner fiasco, I knew that I would not only need to make a meal that was decent, but one that redeemed the utter crap from last night AND be delicious and non "diety" tasting for John. He has been craving a cheeseburger, so I decided thats what I would make tonight. Sounds simple enough.. until you remember that both people eating only have 800 calories left for the day. I found the lowest fat beef I could, weighed my options of cheese, chose a yummy non low cal bread, and picked up the toppings that John likes. The good news? I TOTALLY redeemed myself! The burgers tasted like real burgers, not dry scary bits of beef like I was fearing. In fact, had John not been concerned with his calorie count for the day, he wouldn't have even known they were totally within our budget! In fact, we were even able to eat fries (18 of them) and still have calories left over! WAAAAHOOOOO! Redemption!

I hate to cut this short, but thanks to my 2 hour commute home, my whole night has been pushed back and it is now late and time for bed. Stay tuned my dear readers. Saturday is going to be a whole day of eating really really REALLY horrible food (and eating/ordering wedding cake!) and loving every morsel. Fingers crossed I don't blow all my hard work in one day.... we'll see............ :)

25 days down... 155 to go!

Day 24: The road to hell....

is paved with whatever I just produced for dinner.... YUCK. Now, let me say that I CAN cook. I don't do it often, but when I do cook, it is edible 99% of the time. Today? The 1%. I had around 700ish calories left for dinner so I decided to make myself some fried shrimp using panko breadcrumbs. I've made this before. Lots of times. I know how to do this. I SWEAR. I measured out my breadcrumbs and counted out my shrimp. I even had enough calories for some french fries so I carefully counted those out as well. Thankfully, the fries I was able to handle. I mean how difficult is it to put frozen fries in a toaster oven? The shrimp however was another story. Everything was going along as planned until the shrimp hit the pan. And then? Ew. Plastic burning and melting. WHY does my dinner smell like plastic burning and melting!? I panicked. I pulled the pan from the stove just waiting to see a plastic massacre.... but there was nothing. OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooook. Maybe my hunger was making me smell things? So I continued cooking. And the smell continued as well. I tried to ignore it, and wait until dinner was ready to make any rash decisions about what this peculiar smell was from..... I took the food off the stove and took a bite...... and spit it out into the sink. It was HORRIBLE. The taste was worse than the smell. I don't know what in the world happened, but something went terribly TERRIBLY wrong. In my defense, I did not burn dinner, and I did not do anything differently. I'm beginning to think the culprit may have been oil. Can oil go bad?! If so, that's the answer. All I know is A) I will not be eating shrimp anytime soon and B) I should stick to cheez-its and teddy grahams!

24 days down...156 to go!

Day 23: "Snow Day". Neither snow, nor just one day. Discuss.

Today I had the priviledge of having my very first snow day... without any additional snow! AND just in case I wasn't able to get it right today, I get to practice again tomorrow! Wahoo!!!!!!! Being in the house all day does have it's downfalls however.... and today I realized I was not the only one feeling this way. In fact, a facebook friend of mine posted this earlier, "Dear West Coast Friends- I hate you and your perfectly normal weather and environment. Think of me gaining 123432334 pounds due to being stuck in my house for days while you are out at "beaches" and "beer gardens" and "running daily errands." And the only witty comment I could think of for this was, "agreed". 

I have been pacing the house all day (in my pjs thank you very much!) from the kitchen to the couch and back again. True, I did take a detour once or twice, but for the most part, my only exercising has been the 3.4 steps it takes to walk from one to the other and back again. Wait! I also stretched a few times by reaching for food on top of the fridge or on a high shelf in the pantry. Whew. What a workout! I'm sure that burned a whole calorie! Combined! Now, as I said yesterday, I will no longer be counting my workouts as negative calories, so don't worry, you wont see that whole one calorie show up as my exercise for the day! But I digress. I have done my very best not to eat my weight in cheez-its and teddy grahams today. These things are great when I can count them out, put them in a ziplock bag, and head off to school. There is no way to over eat or consume the whole box and call it "lunch". But today.... today when the high was -2 and there was no way I was leaving my house, I SWEAR I heard those teddy grahams whispering and laughing and taunting me.... which should shy me away from the box altogether... but you know what I mean! The good news about being in the house all day is that I was unable to drive to the local delicious drive thru. Although the I think pizza place number is starting to conspire with the "grahams" and "its"..........SHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

23 days down...157 to go! (and 1 more day of being in the house with the whispering snack foods!)