So let's talk Yoga Ball.

Yoga balls. Big ol' rubber thing that looks pretty useless, right?

Oh so wrong.

I purchased one of these useless pieces of rubber, and thought "is this shit really gonna work?" Guess what people, I'm in love.

See, my issue is, I have a bit of a belly, and just about no upper body strength. When I work out, it's mostly cardio and leg action, so the areas that I really want to tone and work on get just about no attention whatsoever. That all changed though.

See, I can't do a push-up worth crap. I hate doing sit-ups because they make my back hurt. I used to do them because I knew I had to, but my life just got so much easier.

With the yoga ball, I can sit on it while watching TV and do my crunches. No back pain involved. No slamming my shoulders on the ground, no rolling my tailbone into hardwood floors, and I even get a bit of balancing in trying to stay on top of the thing. I friggin love it.

Push ups? Sure, I can still only manage pansy ones, but it's so much easier doing them. I just put the yoga ball under my hips, stick my legs out so that they're not touching the ground, and go to town. It's more of a declining push-up that way, but at least it's doing something.

I've used that little sucker every night for the past 3 nights.

I'm also on a mission with Dance Central. It has this workout mode where it tracks your calories, which is nifty, but DDR also used to do that. What I love about Dance Central though, is that because it's with the Kinect, your whole body is moving. It actual makes me feel like I'm doing something. I even sweat! Which then makes me even happier because then I really know I'm doing something, and working hard.

The mission though is that I'm trying to get gold stars on everything. The stars are how well you score, and you can get five stars, which is really good, but when you really nail a routine, you get 5 gold stars. I literally spent half an hour  this morning working on getting the gold stars for Jay Sean's "Down." Loads of fun. :)

I also went on a walk to day. Can you tell I'm in a happy chit-chatty mood? Endorphins on overdrive.

Srsly though. It was sunny, and beautiful, and 77. Unheard of in Rochester in April, therefore, I took advantage of it. I had my tunes, I had a smile on my face, and then it started raining.

Now, normally, people go running home when it starts raining, but it was just a nice, light trickle. I mean, they were fat drops of rain, but it wasn't complete downpour. Exactly my kind of walk. I was so smiley and happy, I'm still beaming from ear to ear.

Summer is just around the corner, literally. Friday is my official last day of exams, and then I have a whole week off before I go back to work. Knowing all the things I have available to me this summer though, and knowing I won't be so stressed out with school, I'm stoked.

It's going to be an amazing summer. :)

The end is near . . . for school.

You know what I've learned? Eating healthy is extremely difficult when you're under a lot of stress.

With finals week literally being just around the corner (meaning, I have my first final on Monday), I'm freaking out. About everything. The big things, the little things, the nothings, the somethings, all of it. When I freak out, I want to eat. Lots of yummy, carbalicious, sweet, sometimes savory things. All of them have a habit of entering my mind all at the same time, and then I find myself standing in the kitchen, slamming my head against the counter because I know I shouldn't eat something, but I just really want it.

Current perk: Our food supply is practically non-existent. What does that mean? Aside from what mom makes for dinner, I'm limited to FiberPlus cereal, FiberPlus granola bars, popcorn (which I only eat the 94% fat free kind anyway, even though we have "Movie Theatre Style Butter" . . . why I don't know) and some fresh cut broccoli.

With that being said, I've frequently been very upset that there's no leftovers in the fridge for me to gnosh on, no chocolate lying around that didn't have 20% of my daily fiber intake (or more, in some cases), and no mashed potatoes or rice to indulge on. We don't even have cheeses that I like to just slice and eat.

Currently grateful for having an empty house. Currently loathing finals.

Nothing in excess.

I just need a moment to bitch. Okay? Okay.

So. Yesterday, it was an average day. Nothing too big going on, nothing too fun either. I eat my meals as per usual throughout the day, and then I get home.

Now, it's 6:00. Normally, that's dinner time for me, but we can't eat for another hour yet because dad is out picking up some stuff. Since we were having a shrimp dish, mom didn't want us to overcook the shrimp. So I'm in the kitchen, cooking away, dicing up some peppers, snapping some asparagus, and my stomach growling at me. I look in the fridge and I see leftover pizza. I know I shouldn't have, but it was something I had been craving the entire day. So I took the plate out, Cara had a piece, I had a piece, and mom had a piece. Not huge slices, just like, a square. Then there's more sitting on the plate. I honestly could have eaten the whole damn thing, but I didn't. I took another piece out, cut it in half, ate that half and put it back in the fridge. Self control sucks. 

After I ate my piece and a half of pizza though, I was still hungry. So, I had a fiber plus bar. I figured a little fiber would help fill me up until dinner time. And I was wrong. 

I was so hungry, I had no idea what to eat that wouldn't break the calorie bank, so I looked in the fridge, saw that I had some cauliflower cut up in there, grabbed the container, got out my 2 tablespoons of light ranch dressing and high-tailed it out of the kitchen. I sat in the chair while we watched some TV and just munched on my cauliflower until all was right in my world. Was I happy that I couldn't have more pizza? Definitely not, but I realized that I had had my fill of fatty foods and needed to find an alternative. Was I full, and not tempted to tear the kitchen apart afterwards? Yes. And I was thankful for that.

So here's the bitching part:

We're sitting at the table, and since I basically ate dinner before we actually had dinner, I didn't eat too much. I was genuinely full by the time I finished the bit that I put on my plate, but there was still a lot of leftover. Also, there was a lot of leftover mac n' cheese on the table. My Pop has to eat soft foods for now, and Cara doesn't like asparagus, so we made them a baby bowl of mac n' cheese. Well, Cara had eaten what she wanted, Pop ate all he could, and there was still about a whole serving left in there. I thought Pop could have it the next day for lunch, if he wanted it.

But someone at the table started picking at it. Even after they had already eaten a whole plate of the low-calorie dinner I made. One scoop turned into two scoops, which then turned into leaving only one scoop left in the bowl. Someone else at the table turned to them and said "Stay out of that, you don't need it."

What did the other person reply with? "Stop that. Yes I do."

Need.

If you need something, you best be near dying. I know what it's like to need food. I survived on 50 cent pasta in Europe, and ate as little as humanly possible just to get through the day. So when it came time for dinner, I needed something in my system that would help me get through the night. I understood what true hunger was then, and I have great respect for what I'm given these days, and how to notice when there is too much of something in front of me. Granted, when I came back from Europe, I went on a slight indulging spree (hence the extra 20 pounds), because I had missed those foods terribly. Now that reality's kicked back in though, it's not hard to be grateful for what I have, and the choices I'm allowed to make. 

Last night pissed me off. The person honestly said to me "My indulgent days are over" less than 48 hours ago, and then they're at the kitchen table telling my whole family that they need that extra serving of mac n' cheese. Did I have my fork in it? Yes. I had about two bites worth, because I wanted two bites. I wanted to taste it, I wanted to savor the yummy, cheesy goodness that was my mother's mac n' cheese, but I didn't need it. 

On top of that, if you needed food so bad, why waste the calories on the mac n' cheese (especially when your indulgent days are over)? Why not have some of the shrimp, asparagus and peppers that were in a huge bowl on the table? We had so much leftover of that, that we're actually having it again for dinner tonight. 

I used to be obsessed with food. To the point of where that person was, saying I needed things. I'm so grateful for the fact that I will never be placed in their shoes ever again, because I now know better, because I have their example and my experiences in Italy to live by. I was honestly pissed about that last night. And it's hypocritical behavior like that that just drives me up a friggin' wall. 

Aristotle said that the only way to be happy, was to make sure you had nothing in excess. That doesn't just mean wealth, either. It means no extreme poverty, no extreme starvation, no extreme wealth . . . nothing to the extremes. Be happy, but be real about it.

My children will know that, just as I am teaching my family that. Be fucking grateful for the life we've been given, for the choices we are allowed to make, and for the food that is placed before us. Be humble enough to no over indulge, to pinch every penny, and to give to those who need it more than you. It's okay to want, and it's okay to need, but be able to recognize when when need just becomes extreme want. 

That was my lesson yesterday. 

Abandonment. It's a sad thing. And kinda painful.

Oh dear. Shirking my responsibilities to blog every day. No bueno.

However, due to it being the last 2 weeks of the semester (where the hell did it all go?), and having lots of work to do, I'm amending my daily blogs to a "whenever I have the time to breathe." Doesn't mean I'm not going to keep up with my good habits, just means my blogs will be a little more informative on progress, and a little less about daily food updates. Starting with this weekend:

Friday happened, all was pretty good. I thought I would have been getting hammered with my roommate (oh god, I drink, SIN), but we actually just had one drink and spent the night being total nerds together. It was kinda fantastic, and relatively guilt free. Didn't have to spend the next morning feeling guilty over empty calories. :)

Saturday was pretty uneventful, but nice. Made Chicken Tetrazzini from this awesome cookbook I have . . . dear lord, it was amazing. And one serving was like, 250 calories. Now, normally, when they say one serving, you're looking at like, oh, I don't know, a half cup? No man, this was a nice BIG bowl full. We had that and a salad. It was nomtastic.

The grandparents came to visit that night too. They're here for a week, and generally, along with them, they bring dinners out, and lots of eating out. As proven by Sunday morning.

Sunday was my mom's birthday, and she had wanted to go to the Cheesecake Factory to celebrate. I was okay with this, but since it was the day after my grandparents got there, they wanted to go out to breakfast. After everyone went to bed, my roommate brought up a very good point: We were going out twice. In one day. How many flippin' calories is that?

Needless to say, I wasn't about to go to breakfast and not go to Cheesecake Factory, so I stayed home and played Dance Central while they were off doing their thing. And can I just say, ow?  I mean, I love that kind of stuff. Dancing games? Jebus, when I had a DDR mat that worked well, that was my exercise. Preeeeetty much. Dance Central even has a workout mode, which I was really happy about. I spent, between the parts where they actually teach you the moves and the actual dance routines themselves, about 2 hours playing that game. I am SO sore right now. I have muscles I didn't even know existed.

After that, we did our thing, went to the Cheesecake Factory, and I pretty much died.

My roommate and I did a thing I was actually proud of. We each got a side salad to start, then we split a dinner, and then we got our own pieces of Cheesecake. I didn't finish my cheesecake, because I was just so full, but I did bring it home with me. After I play Dance Central again tonight, I'm gonna indulge a bit. Hence the reason why my lunch is raw cauliflower, carrots, celery, a wedge of Laughing Cow cheese, and apple, and a few pretzel sticks.

In all seriousness though, I'm so glad we did it that way. I was ready to walk out of there feeling so guilty, even before I stepped in the door. Afterwards though, I didn't feel quite so bad. That plate that Cara and I split was monstrous. I can't believe they actually sell that as a one person meal. It was 2 chicken cutlets with bacon and a mound of arugula served over this delicious basil pasta with just the slightest bit of a cream sauce. Not the healthiest thing, I know, but you know what? If I'm paying to go out to dinner, I'm going to indulge. Sorry. Otherwise, I'll just go home and make myself a nice low calorie meal. And, I didn't even finish my cheesecake.

I still felt a little pig-like when I got home, but I dealt with that, and now everything is good.

OH. AAAAND I got my yoga ball blown up. Bounced around on that sucker for a little while yesterday too. Soooo excited to start using it more. All around, it was a pretty good weekend. I just hope I can keep it up all week long. :)

Spaghetti, in squash form

Can I just say how much I absolutely adore spaghetti squash? I don't really care what time of year it is, that stuff is just so damn good. Needless to say, I had spaghetti squash for dinner. Actually, my dinner was kinda odd. Delicious, but a very strange combo: watermelon, sushi and spaghetti squash. Not all at once, of course, I ate the watermelon first, then the sushi, then the squash, but ooooh man. Nom.

Also, watermelon? So glad summer's just around the corner. I always forget just how delicious watermelon is until I have it. Today, they had mini ones at Wegman's, so, of course, I had to snag one. Mom and dad had subs for dinner, but I wasn't really in the mood for one, and I figured we could all gnosh on the pinky-watery-sweet goodness. I know I did. :D

Oh. And? Bought a yoga ball today. Super excited to start using it. Just gotta find room for it . . . my room is currently a bit full between an corner TV unit, a makeup stand, a dresser, a trundle bed that's 99% of the time pulled out, a printer, two laundry baskets and end table. Oh, and I'm getting a new bookshelf this weekend. Lots of stuff crammed into one room. Haha. Mom said I could keep the yoga ball downstairs behind the couch, which will be nice.

Aaaand. Aside from the watermelon, I didn't have anything sweet today, which is huge for me. Normally I've gotta have my sweet fix at least once a day, but I held back! I'm on a mission to break the habit. So far, off to a good start.

Now, it be sleep time. Tomorrow, going to Simply Crepe's with one of my many loves. Beyond excited. :D

A big pothole on the road of life

Oy. Today was exhausting. Not even physically exhausting, just emotionally exhausting. My roommate and best friend lost her grandmother last week, and being so close to her and her family, it hurts me to see them all in such great pain. Today was her grandmother's funeral.

Needless to say, I didn't eat too well today. I didn't horribly, but I didn't eat that great either. Mom made my roommate's favorite pound cake, so of course I had to have a piece. Then my roommate's uncle's step mom has this kick-ass recipe for sugar cookies, and of course, I had to have two. There was also a ginger snap in in there too.

On the plus side, as far as actual food went today, for lunch, after the ceremony, my plate was half filled with vegetables, a quarter filled with pasta salad and I had a slice of turkey and provolone cheese. I also offset the cookies and other sweet stuff with a lot of fruit too. Breakfast was another cranberry-pomegranate bagel, something that was just easy to eat while we ran out the door.

The kicker was dinner. We got pizza. And not just any pizza: Uno's. Deep dish. Nom.

So I had a bit much of pizza. I didn't eat anything else for the rest of the night though.

And I apologize for this being primarily a food report, I can totally see where this is just, out-of-your-mind boring, but again, it was just an emotionally exhausting day.

On a slightly better and completely unrelated note: I now have a fish on my room, and am kinda glad that I have a little dinkus to nurture and take care of. Kinda feeds my "oh-my-god-wanna-be-a-mom-but-can't-yet" needs. The poor little guy actually is my brother's, and was in a tank with two other fish, but for some reason, his fins are all torn to hell. I still don't know if it's something called fin-rot or if it's because one of the fish attacked him, but I felt bad. So, now he's up in my room, all safe from harm, in his own 5 gallon tank, and getting love and medication every day.

My little fishy-baby, so cute, giving me some emotional stability. Sad, but true. :)

Tomorrow is yet another day of insanity. Long day of classes, and other crap, so not looking forward to that. Definitely looking forward to the weekend though. Definitely. Praying for sun so I can go out for a walk again.

Oh. And I did it. I stepped on my scale today: 164. A number I'm actually very happy to be seeing again. :)

Day four, and the feelings are blah.

I hate the days when you can feel the ghost of a double chin that used to haunt you attempting to make a comeback.

Again, the thing that I loved most about Italy was just how slender my face had become. I had serious structure workin' for a bit there. I'm grateful for the bone structure I have, somehow, on my good days, I make a very square jawline work. In Italy, that was just about every day. Haha.

Sometimes, it makes me think of those stupid neck things that they were selling a while ago, where it sits on your chest, and by moving your chin up and down on this spring loaded contraption, it made your chin and neck area slimmer. Now. I'm not stupid. I know there's absolutely no way to spot reduce. Whatever you lose comes off wherever the hell it feels like coming off (which is annoying, but I'll take just about anything right now), and I just think it's funny how people buy into the scam of it all.

My goal is to get to where I need to be, then focus on toning. Sure, once I have the time to really spend some time working out religiously, I'm going to be doing some light body lifting for toning, but again, I know how my body works. If I want to make sure that my stomach pooch goes away, I'm going to have to work out until it decides to go away. Won't stop me from doing a million and one crunches, because a tiny piece of me still prays that somehow it'll help make it go away faster, but I know that overall health and total reduction of fat is what counts.

My eating habits today were pretty good, I would say. I kinda had a bit much mayo today (tuna salad for lunch, and turkey salad for dinner), but snacking was kept to a minimum! Breakfast was a cranberry-pomegranate wheat bagel, lunch was a tuna wrap from school (okay, so I didn't feel like a salad today), and dinner was a homemade turkey salad sandwich on wheat bread, and a can of reduced sodium soup. I did have two small pieces of halva today, but I had a presentation and simply couldn't resist. I also had a banana and a skinny cow ice cream sammich for desert.

. . . Not . . . too bad. Right?

. . . I gotta re-read my nutrition notes. Blah.

Well. That's pretty much it. I'm a little afraid to weigh myself. I kinda don't want to know yet, seeing as I haven't really done much. Slow and steady wins the race, I know, but it's all still a little frustrating.

Blah!

FOOD.

Okay.

First of all: Whoever decided to pick the big orange ball from the tree, peel the skin off and eat it was a genius. I am currently eating one of the sweetest oranges I've ever had. And it's dericious. 

Secondly, I had a food crisis this morning. 

So I'm sitting in the kitchen, I've got my cup of light chocolate Silk, I've got my bowl of Fiber Plus Berry Yogurt Crunch cereal (which is to DIE for), that also has half a cup of chocolate silk in it (because it's just that damn good), and life is alright. Then I have to pack a lunch. Now, on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, I work for my university's food service company. One of the benefits of working there is that I get a free meal every day. Because of that, I get a niiiiice big salad. On Monday and Wednesday though, I have to pack my lunch.

So what's the problem?

I don't want a salad on those days. I don't want a wheat bagel and an apple on those days. I really don't want soup . . . and I'm runnin' out of options. (Speaking of soup, definitely just burnt my tongue. Oy.)

Now. Once upon a time, I was told that tuna was fantabulous for the bod. Lean, kinda high sodium (but I don't have problem with it yet), and overall a good choice. Hell, in Italy, it was pretty much my primary source for protein. At the same time though, I don't want to be eating Tuna Salad all the time either. That's a lot of mayo that I really don't enjoy anyway. 

And even if I do have a tuna salad, I don't always want grapes, or an apple. Sometimes, I just REALLY want a bowl of Mama's mac n' cheese . . . but lord knows how many pounds of cheese go into that. Actually, I've been kinda cravin' her mac n' cheese for weeks now. Slight problem. 

I know that denying yourself only leads to binging, so maybe one night I'll make a small batch, and just have a huge salad with it. Who knows. 

BLAH. Can you tell I'm hungry, and that my soup clearly isn't cutting it? Problem. Again. Think I'm gonna go to the grocery store tonight after class and get some broccoli or something to cut up and stick in my bag. 

This is my biggest problem, I'm so addicted to food, it makes it so hard to cut back and eat right. 

MOM. WHY DO YOU HAVE TO BE SUCH A GOOD COOK!? Blah.

So many temptations. Gotta fight it. Gotta stay strong!

(And did I mention it was icky and raining out today? I really need to invest in a treadmill.)

Every step counts

So. Day 2. What the hell could be so revolutionary in just a day? Well. Pretty much nothing. Hahaha. However, I told myself I was going to write every day to keep myself motivated. Some stuff did happen today though, and it was kinda amazing.

Today, in cloudy, icky, dreary Rochester, we had some sun. Today, in cold, damp, frigid Rochester, we had warm weather. Today, I put on my sweatpants and a hoodie, grabbed my mp3 player, and booked  it out my front door. I've been dying to get outside for months now. In Italy, all I ever did was walk everywhere. As soon as I got back home, it stopped. Even though Florence smelled like cigarettes when you turned every corner, it was nice just getting out of the apartment and going for a walk. I honestly had one morning when I couldn't sleep. I literally had been up all night, so to wear myself out, I put on my sneakers, grabbed my mp3 player and headed across town for an early morning walk. Let me tell you, after that walk, I slept like a baby.

I digest. (Failed attempt at humor? I think so! :D )

So the sun was out. I was feeling amazing, and I walked. There's a really straight, flat road right by my house that's nice to walk on, and when you get to a certain point, there's the hill from hell. I told myself I was just going to walk to the hill and walk back (my dad said it was probably a good mile doing that), and that was okay with me. But sure enough, I had my music, I had my Coldplay, and as soon as I got there, I looked down that hill and said to myself, "Fuck it. I did worse than this in Italy."

So I walked my ass down that hill, and I went a little further, then I turned around, looked at that monstrosity, and said to myself, "What the hell was I thinking?"

I did it though. I got all the way to the top, and didn't stop for a breather. Granted, I felt like my lungs were about to pop out of my chest, or crack a rib because they couldn't expand enough, but I felt good. I'm so excited for spring weather. I may not like running, but I like walking. I like hiking. I like being outside, which is much better than what I've had going for me for the past 3 months.

Also, my snacking today? Yeah. Kept to a minimum. 1, because I was busy. 2. I just wasn't all that hungry throughout the day. Go me!

Ahem.

So. Day 2, and things are looking good. Hoping tomorrow is going to be just as awesome. :)

A new beginning.

Alright. So. You know those crazy people who make their new years resolution to lose a bunch of weight, and it never happens?

Yeah, well, I'm one of those.

Once upon a time, I weighed 195 pounds.

I was miserable, I hated myself to such a degree that I didn't think life could get much worse. And in that picture, I was actually pleasantly happy that day. Lighting was good for a decent picture. Once upon a time, I lost 25 pounds because a nutrition teacher at my school scared the living daylights out of me. Once upon a time, I lost another 15 pounds because I was hellbent on getting to my goal weight of 130 (at the time).

Once upon a time, I went to Italy.

I lost so much weight, I couldn't believe it. This was me 3 months ago:

Do you see how damn skinny those legs are? Yeah. That ass was in a size 6 jean. And damn happy about it too.

Three months have passed since my blissful adventure in Italy. And in 3 months, I've gone from a size 6, to a size 10. I made a promise to myself once upon a time ago that it would never happen again, that I'd never let myself get bigger, I'd just keep working my way down.

This is me on St. Patrick's day, this year. I know a lot of people think "Oh, well, you're not bad looking!" But

1. I was wearing spanx for this dress
2. I still feel like crap
3. I can see where my face got rounder, and it pisses me off.

Harsh on myself? Perhaps. But one of my good friends constantly says something along the lines of "If you're not happy, change it. You have the power to fix it, just do it." So, that's what I'm here doing. This blog is going to be my official way of getting back on track. My official way of getting back to my Italy weight (whatever it was), and beyond. I want to fit into my size 6 jeans again. I want to be able to feel hot in my bathing suit, and damnit, I'm going to.

Get ready for a whole lot of bitching, world. Because from here on out,  I'm going to be writing every day about how things go. Things I've noticed, things I hate, things I have no desire to do, but know that I must do anyway. There might be random posts complaining about how sore I am, or how hungry I am. Anyone out there who has any information they want to swing my way would be wonderful as well.

So. Here it goes. Wish me luck.