I survived pizza night

Monday nights are usually pizza night. Since Monday was Memorial Day, we had pizza night last night instead. There's one major problem with pizza for someone who's swearing off dairy for 30 days: CHEESE! So, what I ended up doing was I ordered some Domino's pizza for Sean and the kids and I made a small pizza for myself with whole wheat flat bread, pizza sauce, soy cheese, sliced up baked tofu and mushrooms. Then I had a big salad with it. It turned out really good and it was super-filling. I felt like I got a lot more to eat than I would've with the same number calories worth of the regular pizza. I'm four days into this and I'm feeling really good. I think I'm going to go ahead and add eggs to the list of foods I'm not eating and limit fish to once a week.

Here's my log for yesterday:

B: apricot, 1/2 c. oatmeal, 1/2 c. blueberries, 3/4 c. soymilk 247 calories
L: veggie lo mien 320 calories
S: 1 cucumber, soy yogurt 184 calories
D: veggie pizza (w/ soy cheese & WW crust), salad 513 calories
S: 1 c. strawberries, 1/4 c. lite cool whip 87 calories
Total: 1351 calories
Workout: Step Blast

Skinny Bitch

I bought a new book on Friday night called "Skinny Bitch". It's a nutrition book about how you can't expect to loose weight if you keep shoveling the same crap in your mouth. It lists out all the vices in the typical diet and discusses why they make you fat and what you should eat instead. They single out:

1. smoking (that's easy, I've never smoked even once in my life)
2. alcohol (that's easy too since I don't drink at all)
3. caffiene (that's a little harder since I still suck down diet coke every now and then)
4. artificial sweeteners (this one's really hard for me since I use splenda so frequently)
5. refined sugar/grains (this is going to be a big challenge)
6. dairy (yikes! but they do give a lot of convincing reasons why dairy makes you fat)
7. eggs
8. meat (not a big meat fan anyway)
9. fish (I love fish)

They say try giving up one or two vices at a time and not try to be perfect all at once. They even said that achieving perfection is impossible and to just do the best you can. The biggest lesson in the book is to read ingredient lists and know what you're eating.

So I decided to give it a shot. For 30 days, I'm giving up meat and dairy. I've been at it for 3 days and I'm doing pretty well I miss cheese but I don't miss meat at all. I can't say that I've had my last cheeseburger or steak but I'm fairly certain I can make it at least 30 days. I added up my calories and it's turning out to be REALLY easy to keep my calories low without even trying (it's all that cheese that I haven't been eating.)

Here's my log for yesterday:

B: banana, orange, 1 c. chocolate soymilk 320 calories
L: fish burrito (made with grilled fish, black beans, rice, salsa & a WW tortilla) 550 calories
S: 2 tbsp. cashews 98 calories
D: 2 tofu hot dogs, 1 WW hotdog bun, corn on the cob, mixed veggies, pita chips, salsa 478 calories
S: chocolate covered frozen banana 160 calories
Total: 1606 calories
Workout: Super Body Sculpt

Here's my log for Sunday:

B: apricot, 1/2 c. oatmeal, 1/2 c. blueberries, 3/4 c. soymilk 247 calories
L: baked tofu, soycheese, 2 slices WW bread, 2 small zucchini 436 calories
S: 11 soy crisps, banana 180 calories
D: veggie burger, WW bun, salad, roasted carrots 308 calories
S: frozen fruit bar, 2 slices toast, tofu cream cheese 363 calories
Total: 1599 calories
Workout: 4 mile run

Here's my log for Saturday:

B: apple 63 calories
L: veggie sub (WW roll, avocado, lettuce, tomato, onions, cucumbers), baked potato chips 439 calories
S: chocolate covered frozen banana 160 calories
S: apricot, 3 WW crackers, 1 corn chip 92 calories
D: Boca burger, WW bun, salad, 6 fries 449 calories
S: frozen fruit bar 80 calories
Total: 1284 calories

Crazy Day

Tonight is going to be crazy. Emily's play and Nick's orchestra concert are at the same time tonight. Sean also had a meeting scheduled at the same time but he was able to change it when we all realized I couldn't be two places at once. So Sean's going to the play and I'm going to the concert. Of course they picked the most convenient time in the world to put these things on: Dinnertime. So sometime between work and picking the kids up and performances, we'll need to eat. Welcome to the craziness that is being a mom. Hopefully, in the midst of all this, I'll have time to squeeze in a 3 mile run.

Here's my food log for yesterday:

B: 1/2 c. oatmeal, 1 c. soymilk, 1/2 c. blueberries, 1 egg 319 calories
L: Veggie Sub, salad 414 calories
S: 17 soycrisps, snap peas, orange 198 calories
D: Veggie pizza, salad 574 calories
S: 1/2 c. LF ice cream, 1/4 c. cool whip 151 calories

Total: 1658 (a little higher than my 1600 calorie goal but the pizza and ice cream were worth it.)

Workout: Pyramid Lower Body (without the floor work since my back is still hurting a little)

I ran 4 miles!

I'm all proud of myself because I ran four miles yesterday. It took me 55 minutes. Nick came along but only made it three miles. After the first half a mile, he started walking and it took me 2 more miles to finally lap him. He kept up with me for almost the whole last mile though. We stopped by Circle K on the way home and got sodas. I told the cashier lady that we just ran four miles so we deserved a soda. She said, "Wow! I salute you!" Then the guy behind the counter told me to try running at lake miramar. He said that it's really easy to run eight miles there (four miles out and back). I rolled my eyes and said "yeah right" and he's like, "No, really, it's really doable." I can't even imagine running eight miles and being like, "yeah, it's really doable." Maybe someday.

Saturday we went to Nick's orchestra performance at the Poway Center for the Arts. He did really well. He was so excited about it that we woke up to him practicing his violin at 8:00 in the morning. It sounded great but we just weren't ready to wake up yet. He's got another performance on Tuesday night. Emily's school has the fourth grade play on Tuesday night at the same time so we haven't quite figured out how that's all going to work out yet. Her play is about the gold rush and she's been talking about it nonstop for months. I can't wait until summer so I don't have to hear about California history anymore. I know it's good for kids to get excited about school but if I hear another thing about the mission system or the gold rush, I just might hurl.

Saturday afternoon, we went to the pool and me and Sean got burnt to a crisp. Back when I was young and spent all of my time outside, I'd never burn. I was a nice toasty brown all the time. Now that I'm a cubicle-monkey, I'm usually day-glow-white and burn like crazy as soon as a spend more than a few minutes outside. I really need to get outside more.

Just a food log today

The only interesting stuff that happened yesterday was work related, therefore incredibly boring for normal people. So I'll just bore you with my food log.


B: 1/2 c. oatmeal, 3/4 c. soymilk, 1 egg, 1/2 c. blueberries 304 calories
L: BBQ chicken sandwich, salad 421 calories
S: 17 soy crisps, banana 219 calories
D: 1 c. WW pasta w/ goat cheese & sundried tomatoes, 1 c. green beans 522 calories
S: 1/2 c. LF ice cream, 1/4 c. cool whip 151 calories

Ran a whole mile without stopping!

Last night I did my 2.5 mile run on the treadmill and I ran the whole first mile without stopping. That's a major accomplishment for me. I was pretty slow at a little less than 15 minutes a mile but I'm not convinced that the treadmill is accurate distance-wise. I found a website that gives instructions for testing treadmill accuracy so I'm probably going to check it tonight and figure out how far I'm really going. In other news, we've officially booked our summer vacation. We're going on a cruise to Mexico during the week of the 4th of July. That means I really need to step up my diet and exercise since I'm going to be running around in a swimsuit for a week. As far as diet goes, I think I'm going to go with 1600 on my low calorie days and 1900 on my high calorie days. When I did the math based on my bodyweight, I came up with 1827 for the low-cal days and 2150 for the high-cal days but I'm thinking that's too much. I didn't lose anything the week I did that and I think I actually gained a pound. I'll see how I do this week and go from there.

Here's my log for yesterday:

B: 1/2 c. oatmeal, 3/4 c. soymilk, 1/2 c. blueberries, 1 egg 305 calories
L: Tofu & Veggie stir-fry with rice 389 calories
S: 17 soy crisps, carrot sticks, banana 265 calories
D: shrimp taco made with 4 oz. shrimp, onions, garlic, olive oil, avocado & WW tortilla, 1 c. broccoli 325 calories
S: 1 c. LF ice cream, 1/4 c. cool whip

Total: 1545 calories

Getting back on track

I'm working really hard this week to get my eating back on track. Yesterday, I planned everything I ate and ate my plan. It came out to 1586 calories. Last night I did a weight work out and it was the fist time in a few weeks that I've lifted heavy. I pooped out on some of the back exercises but all in all, I did alright. I just had to make sure I really did a good stretch for my back when I was done. Oddly, the video I did has barely any stretching at the end for back muscles so I threw in my own. Today I'm scheduled to run 2.5 miles. I'll probably do it on the treadmill.

Here's my log for yesterday:

B: 1/2 c. oatmeal, 3/4 c. soymilk, 1 egg, 1/2 c. blueberries 305 calories
L: BBQ chicken sandwich, salad 421 calories
S: 17 soy crisps, orange 172 calories
D: 2 slices veggie pizza, 1 c. zuchinni, 2 c. salad 601 calories
S: 3/4 c. strawberries, 1/4 c. cool whip 87 calories

Total: 1586

Workout: SuperCharged Sculpting

Mother's Day

Mother's Day was nice. Other than going to church and then going for a jog, it was a nice, lazy day. Emily made me breakfast for dinner (since she wanted to make me breakfast for breakfast but church is too early for that) and Nick made me a banana split for desert. After dinner we watched lots of TV (The West Wing, Family Guy, The Simpsons and Big Love), fed the fish and went to bed. I went jogging yesterday after church. I'm not sure how far I went but it took 52 minutes. I'm thinking it was more than 3.5 miles and less than 4.

I'm going to get all geeky on you now...

Starting on Monday, I get to start working on a neat new modeling and simulation project at work. I've done quite a lot of simulation work at my last two jobs and it's probably my favorite type of project to work on 'cuz it's so geeky and all. So today I got to meet with the lead on the program and we were chatting and I mentioned that I worked with Jeff Steinman on Warp IV back when we both worked at RAM Labs. Turns out that he and Jeff are friends from way back. Wierd, huh. So I started poking around on the Warp IV website and skimmed through a few of the technical papers and noticed that he referenced a paper that I wrote that RAM ended up publishing after they laid me off. So I did some searching and found my paper. Turns out they presented it at the 2004 International Symposium on Collaborative Technologies and Systems. COOL BEANS!!! I did most of the work on it and I didn't even get to present it which is kind of a bummer but it's still pretty awesome that it was actually published. I put a link to it in the sidebar so you can go check it out. It's super-geeky stuff so consider youself warned.

Feeling Better

I finally felt well enough to exercise again. I was fine as long as I didn't do anything bouncy. It was actually easier to do my stretches with warmed up muscles. My plan is to do easy workouts all this week and hit the pavement again on Sunday.

In other news, I took my car in for an oil change/tire rotation and it turned out that I needed new brakes and new tires. It's understandable because the tires are the original ones that came with the car two years ago. I'd replaced the front brakes once before. It just sucked because it took 4 hours and cost $700. Not a gigantic amount of money but I wasn't prepared for it and I ended up missing half a day of work.

Here's my log for yesterday (I didn't count my calories but at least I know what I ate):

B: 1/2 c. oatmeal, 3/4 c. soymilk, 2/3 c. peaches
L: Kung Pow Tofu, 1/2 c. brown rice, salad
D: 2 slices pizza, salad
S: 1/2 c. light ice cream

Workout: JF Arms

Another setback

I haven't written in a while because I hurt my back last week and didn't feel like typing. I don't know what I did but I woke up last Sunday with an aweful stabbing pain in my lower back. I went to the doctor on Wednesday and he gave me some medicine that makes me sleepy and loopy and makes my back feel a tiny bit better. I'm starting to feel a lot better but it still hurts like crazy. I haven't been able to do my workouts or run but hopefully I'll be feeling well enough to jump back into it.

A funny thing has been happening over the past few months. I had gotten an email from my friend Kim in Oregon announcing that she was going to run off to Reno and get married. She sent it to me and a few of our other old friends from High School who I haven't seen in forever. My friend Sean saw my email address on there and sent me an email to say hi. We've been emailing back and forth and reading eachother's blogs since then. Then I swiped my old friend Liz's email address from Kim's email and sent her a note. I got an email from her a few days ago saying that she was working on a longer email and would be sending it soon. She also sent me a bulk email that she had sent to a few more people where she had listed all the concerts she went to and who she went with which was kind of interesting. She had also sent it to my old friend June so I lifted her email address and sent her a note. I got an email back from her yesterday. Turns out she lives in Hemet and has 4 kids. She's also been keeping in touch with our friend Jenny who I'll probably be emailing tonight. It's amazing how all my high school friends have kept in touch with one or two people and how easy it is to find everyone again with just a few emails because of that. It's like a human binary search tree (totally geeky computer science term): I've been keeping in touch with Dave and Kim who's been keeping in touch with Sean and Liz who's been keeping in touch with Marc (who I also need to email) and June who's been keeping in touch with Jenny. It's like 6 degrees to Kevin Bacon. You can connect any two of us in 6 steps or less.

Anyway, no diet or exercise log today. I've been lazing out because of my bad back. I know, it's a feeble excuse. I'll do better this week.