Waffles and Yoga

Just a few quick pics of what I've been eating. Salad and chili from saladworks, waffles with peanutbutter/ sunflower butter/ apple butter.

An attempt at yoga, but someone was feeling neglected. She kept laying down and pretending she was asleep every time there was free mat acreage.

Egg/ veggie scrambles. Ugly, but delicious. 

 School has taken over my entire life, but I'm trying to get an update together about the changes I've been making.

Feels like a Monday

I went to my last wedding of the season this past weekend! It was super formal, and we were sparkly and pretty and, to be honest, a little bit drunk.

But when am I not?

Looking at the food pics I've taken the last few days, I think I'm seeing what changes need to happen. 

I went for a run yesterday at 6AM in my new neighborhood. It was glorious. I was all set to go again today, but woke up with a pounding sinus headache. Ugh. Tomorrow it is .

Food lately has been something like this:

Caprese panini, cider, ipad

Greek Yogurt, a splash of milk, Multigrain puffins, steel cut oats, chia seeds, peaches (I swear!)

Allllllllll the tea, milk, truvia

Worlds best salad! From this little place by work called melinda's. Actually ate it for lunch and dinner. Grilled Chicken, cheddar, apple, croutons, greens, honey mustard. Not pictured: Broccoli bites

Fish tacos with cabbage slaw and corn salsa from PJ's.... and spicy fries. Whoops. But they were YUM

Today's veggie scramble. Sorry the picture is so phenomenally ugly. Scrambles are not beautiful under fluorescent lighting. 2 eggs, 1 giant portobello mushroom, 1/2 an onion, 1/2 a tomato, some frozen spinach, a little cheddar cheese. Not pictured: 1 slice sprouted whole wheat bread from trader joes, 1 tbsp apple honey butter.

Crazed

Life. Is. Crazy.

The wedding was last weekend. I'm moving this weekend. There's another wedding next weekend.

I have also had an exam and 2 papers due in the last week. Oh and I work a full time job that reached what had better be the pinnacle of its craziness last week.

I have a smattering of food to share, some bevs, and some dog pics. 

I have been boycotting the grocery store for the last couple of weeks before we move. I don't wanna move food. I have enough crap to move.

Turns out, we have a fridge full of condiments and a pantry and freezer smattered with things that you can't really eat on their own.

Jill made me try Bob Evan's breakfast. I had the fat kid special - biscuits with sausage gravy, eggs, and hash browns. And I'm not even sorry.

Modge podge and foil. Moving has made me kind of in an HGTV/ Pinterest craze. On a $4 budget.

It looks amazing in person. I  promise. I also did it with my dresser (the top) and my coffee table. Pics to come.

This is what we need to watch football. Chinese food and all kinds of burrrrr. Or lady burr for Steph. I had a pear cider and apple cider that were AWESOME.

A double yolked egg. Good luck?

What my double yolked egg turned into. Plus turkey sausage, peaches, greek yogurt with granola and chia seeds.

  

Yes, I stalked the outside of my new place to get approximate measurments for the inside. And got caught by a neighbor. Whoops.

This is Ziva's contribution to packing. She's super helpful. She has actually been doing a great deal of unpacking while I'm at work during the day. Jerk.

I cooked up some of the Polenta that I got from Trader Joes MONTHS ago... it scared me. It was lovely with some veggie packed marinara and a lil parm cheese.

Frozen grapes. Couldn't stop eating, figured these were better then more fried polenta.

Breakfast this morning. Eggies, turkey sausage, and challah bread my roommate brought me because I wasn't able to break fast with them last night.

I am in full on panic mode. Packing an entire house, on my own. And then moving it and unpacking it.

Running Makes Me Hungry

Back from a greaaattttt successful bachelorette party weekend!! We managed to totally surprise my friend Alex with a trip to Ocean City, Maryland for the weekend. Great times with some great ladies! 

Some delightful fruity bevs, pickles, drinking games, and penis straws. The norm.

We went to a neat bar for dinner. I got an amazingggggg grapefruit sparkly vodka drink... or two. So refreshing. I got raw oysters and a fried green tomato BLT for dinner. All amazing. I'm so glad I got the oysters. You rarely see a raw bar anymore and it just reminds me how much I love seafood and the ocean. My dad and I used to put away dozens of these. 

Please forgive the half eaten food in the following pictures... I have been STARVING all the time since I upped my mileage. I need to find a balance between protein and calories....Help?

Grabbed a bagel with cream cheese and a hot tea from dunkin for breakfast. Lunch on monday was a salmon sushi mix with seaweed salad. This was my first seaweed salad ever, and I didn't hate it. This salmon platter is salmon and avocado roll, salmon sashimi, and spicy salmon roll. DELISH.

Had very unattractive leftover chicken for dinner.. .and could not stop munching. I bought all my produce yesterday, and chopped and cleaned a bunch. Had cucumber with salt and a drizzle of honey for a pre-bed snack.

Le dog is less than thrilled with my picture taking.

OMGGG she looks like a little dachshund pupppyyyyyyy. lovelovelove.

Later that night she reminded me that she is actually 80 lbs and rolled over on me.

Starving again this morning after my run... Causing another emergency bagel stop. Drove a little out of my way to Einstein's today so I could try and make a more filling breakfast.

6 cheese bagel (OMG WANT EVERY DAY), turkey, cheddar cheese, hummus, sprouts, cucumbers. NOM NOM.

I restarted weight watchers to try and control some medication associated weight gain. My new meds make me very very hungry. And I wanna eat everything in sight. So weight watchers should help me keep that in check. should. 

Right now I just want more turkey bagel.... NOM.

Ohhhh Holiday Weekend.

Only ran once.

Ate a DELICIOUS cheeseburger.

Don't regret a gosh darn thing.

...perhaps I should start regretting things because I have lost no weight... Ziva is judging me. And laughing.

This is a picture of my own personal crack. Mountain Dew is the only reason I survive school.

I found this box of wine. $18, 3 liters. Delightful. I know NOTHING about wine so if this is actually garbage.... I enjoyed the garbage.

 A little wedding hair practice... Doing my own hair and makeup for a wedding I'm in at the end of the month. Because I'm incredible at hair.
Or because I'm poor. That sounds more believable.

A glimpse of inappropriate actions taken by adults this weekend. Whoops.

And I leave you with a very tired.... kangaroo.

Hugs.

I have started running regularly. It super helps that it will count as something I can do for my Wellness class. That class is about self-care and how important it is to be physically and mentally healthy if you're going to be helping other people to achieve that same goal.

It also helps that this face is waiting for me every morning. Don't let her fool you, she has the whole "puppy eyes" thing down to a science... but she's secretly a big spoiled jerk. 

She definitely helps to get me out the door and motivates me on runs.... she also never runs out of energy and I'm super jealous and wish I had 4 legs.

I have an actual DESIRE to run. Scary stuff here folks. Stay tuned.

I also enjoy vegetables. So does the pup. They give us both gas.... It's a sexy, sexy time in my bedroom at night.... 

I end today on a sad note... a friend of mine passed away from a drug overdose this morning. Hug your loved ones extra tight today  <3

Back In Jersey

I'm baaaackkkkk.

Colorado was the most amazing experience. I ate fantastic home grown veggies every single day, hiked all over the place, fished, drank, and enjoyed the company of family and new friends.
I will do a full pictorial/ overview in the coming week.

Ummm. My diet.... hasn't been a diet. 

So I have to do the unthinkable. I had written this off as something I would never do. But after a pretty big overhaul of my eating in the last few months and not seeing the results I think I should be on the scale...

I am cutting back on alcohol.

EEEEEKK. Well it probably was going to happen anyway, because school starts next week, but still.

I am now limiting my drinking to two nights per week. Now I know that may still sound like a lot to some people, but my typical week involves grabbing a drink or two with one friend or another multiple nights. So that can add up to 20 drinks a week! I can't even believe how many calories that is. ugh.  No glasses of wine after work, no beers with the boys while watching the game. Unless I budget for it and it's one of my "days"


In other news, after I pay the deposit on the new place, I will be officially broke. As in $100 to my name broke. Between the deposit and my car having a serious issue before vacation, I have depleted my entire savings account. Now it's not life-ending, I will receive my deposit on our current house back at some point in the month after I move, so that is a significant amount. But the month between now and then and moving expenses and whatnot... yikes.

School is starting. So my social life and sanity will be in the back of the drawer until December.

Hopefully, all this school and no money will equal some serious weight loss... no eating out for me!!

I have done my meal plan and grocery list for next week. And will schedule my runs for September this weekend. I will share the details here!!

Vacation

All sorts of fun stuff going on over here.


1. Going on a 10 day vacation to Colorado!! YAY.


2. Looking for a new place. We rent, and we need to move further north. Like 45 minutes. The area we're looking is a historic district... so wood floors, bay windows, and front porches are definitely on my radar. Stoked.


3. Going to get back into running.




I plan to detail my plans for all of these things on the plane ride out there. 

Strike 2

Oookkkaaayyyyyy. So right after my last post, I got seriously I'll. For about 6 weeks. I'm feeling much better, but I had lost a bunch of weight, and then they put me on a high steroid dose and I gained a ton. I'm back to working out though, and I'm getting started again. In addition, I'm now house hunting. I've lived in this rental for almost two years, but I think it's time for a change. My social and school obligations have shifted, and it looks like something a half hour north would better suit me. I found a town I lovveeeeeee. Collingswood, NJ. Close to the train, lots of shops, a great riverside park with a dog park. But I found a huge drawback. The houses are historic, which I love, but the lack of closet space or a backyard in most places is really disheartening. So far I've looked at five places, and the places I love don't really suit a large dog, and the places that she would be comfy in have something seriously wrong from a human standpoint. More to come on all this!

Slackerrrrrrr

Wow. I'm a terrible blogger. Not that anyone really reads this, but it is supposed to be keeping me accountable and I'm avoiding it. A quick photo blast and then hopefully we will be back on the horse.




My central air was MIA Memorial Day weekend. It didnt appear to bother my landlord. Luckily, my father has given me all of the various junk from the house that doesn't go in his fancy schmancy new condo. Now, we have had central air in ALL of the houses I have lived in with my parents. So this thing must be old enough to take itself out for a drink. I was convinced it didn't work. I was wrong. That beast chilled my ENTIRE house from that one window. I bow to it. Please note the excellent dishtowel/ trashbag macgyver situation I have created to stop up the rest of the window. A little trailer trash never hurt nobody.

This is just veggie pasta salad. I didnt have italian dressing, so I tried to use dried italian seasoning and oil..... I ate a great deal of resemary. I was not pleased. Note the creamy italian that I fixed it with. A little arugala and spinich salad with balsamic and lemon....

and the star of the dish, my BURGERWICH. All I had was this sourdough bread, and I ended up not eating the bread.  I think thats my best food picture to date though. YAY.

My little laser eyed monster under the bed. She loves it under the bed in the summertime because 1. I sleep with a fan on in the summers. She HATES the fan. Until about a week ago I had a wicker lamp hanging over my bed (yes, I am a babushka), and it would swing in the wind and I would wake up to her growling at it. 2. In all of the places we've lived. I inexplicably park my bed over a perfectly good air vent. So its like her own personal ice cave down there. 3. The bed mayyyyy tend to have more... guests in the summer months. Take that as you will.

We order lunch out at work. EVERY DAY. No joke. And the boss pays, so my broke ass cannot refuse. I make terrible choices. This was an excellent choice. If you subtract the tarter sauce. Which was amazing. Full lump crab, hardly any fillers. and a lovely side salad.

 This is my typical breakfast. And typical horrible lighting. Frozen berries, greek yogurt, frozen banana, protein powder, frozen spinach, water. In my magic bullet. Need to get some new fruit options... mango and pineapple perhaps?

What I Gained.

I gained. Combination of lots of celebratory weekend eating and drinking, missed workouts because of memorial day, starting a new workout, and making excuses for myself.


I ate great for breakfast, and ate my feelings for lunch. ugh.


Pilates, zumba, a walk with the pup, and a pep talk tonight.


More on how I feel about my gain and my excuses tomorrow.

Feel The Burrrnnnnn

So last night I jogged down to... This building. I'm not sure what to call it actually. It's not a gym or a dance studio or anything. Just kind of an all purpose building in town. It's about a half mile from my house. I was attending my first zumba class in about 2 years. I have only done it once or twice before, but it's offered 4 days a week so close to home that I'm m making it my new workout class.

It was a blast! I've always been more of a contact sports girl, so the dancing is a really nice change of pace. I was definitely getting some muscle fatigue during the workout. Afterwards, they had a Pilates class.... This is where my life changed. It was so difficult, and worked so many great muscles, that I am totally hooked. So I signed up for that too. Yay!

I am not nearly as sore as I thought I would be today.... Which in my experience means that tommorrow morning I will be stiff as a board! Gonna try and walk the pup and get a good stretch in today to lessen tommorrows pain.

Pizza and wine with the nursing girls tonight!

Weekend. Was. Gorg.

The weekend was amazzzinnngggg. So nice out. I love sunshine. I had all the windows open and aired the house out. Yay. I managed to get the entire kitchen swept and mopped and cleaned up. It is now dirty again. Of course. I brought the pups cage down to the basement because she hasn't been in it in months. Lunch was Trader Joe's Wild Mushroom and Black Truffle Flatbread. OH. MY. GOODNESS. So delish. I had a salad with mushrooms, balsamic, lemon and olive oil as well. Then it was off to the city for the evening. I got snacky while I was getting ready so I had a popsicle and... a cocktail.

The city was greattttt. I took exacty zero photos. Korean pulled pork bbq tacos with homemade pickled jalepenos and cabbage slaw. Garlicky french fries. Martinis. Extra dirty. We walked from bar to bar all night. I love that. It's too bad my dog is more like a horse or I would consider moving to the city.

The next morning, we took the pups for brunch. I was terrified because I was pretty sure my dog was going to go a little nuts and misbehave. She didn't. So well behaved. It was super amazing. Must do it again. More city walking. Then a quick nap and off to Laur's for wedding talk and about 11 bottles of wine. And the boys made us stromboli's. 




So I am officially -27 points in the red right now. Must be on plan and be in workout city the rest of the week. I changed my WI day back to fridays so I have all week to make up for my weekend damage. Mondays were not working out. Zumba and pilates tonight maybe?

Belated spring cleaning

Woke up early this morning, made a bacon, avocado, and tomato sandwich on seeded multigrain. Not very point friendly, but absolutely delicious and filling.
It's yard sale day here in town... And while Ziva is outside enjoying the people watching, I have a ton of half finished projects that need finishing. And of course, it's gorgeous out.

Sorry the picture is a little ugly... But it was delicious!

Puppy playdate and a new veggie.

Beautiful afternoon, and the pups next door wanted to play!
I went to the produce outlet on the way home and bought- kale, bananas, lettuce, mushrooms, lemons, limes, tomatoes, cucumbers, celery ... Other stuff I can't think of. AND TURNIPS.
When I was home last weekend, my aunt and uncle from Colorado had come to visit. I hadn't seen them in 10 years, and they have a beautiful garden. Last time I went, they said I ate almost a whole crops worth of turnips! Raw! The ones I bought today were just as delicious. Peeled, a little salt, voila! The outer parts are mild and the middles are spicy, like a radish!
Along with two turnips, I had a tomato, mozzarella, and basil pesto panini on a delicious whole grain bread from Trader Joes.
Tonight I'm staying in with the pup and my dvr. And a vodka soda. Mostly good for my waistline, very good for my mind.

Day 1....A New Beginning!...?

This is it. Today I stop making excuses and start making things happen. I can't keep thinking that I can "slip up" 5 days a week and still lose weight. Or feel any better. So today, I change. 


It sounds a little cliche, I know. But seriously, I need to get my shit together. I used to be in shape, could feel great with 5 hours of sleep a night, my head was clear, I enjoyed delicious foods that weren't dripping with grease. I was happy. I was smart. I was funny. I was really exceptionally good looking. Haha I kid, I kid. But you know what the worst part is? 


I STILL AM ALL THESE THINGS! I just don't feel that way all the time. And it's no one's fault but my own. No sad story about a verbally abusive boyfriend or a lifetime of being overweight. So I have no excuses. Now on to deliciousness. 

This is... was... My beautiful breakfast. That I dropped on my way into work. So it's less beautiful now. It's Greek yogurt, Trader Joes Mango Passion Granola, Chia seeds, and frozen blueberries. I forgot nuts or the sunflower seed butter that I bought last night.. But I had to sneak around my kitchen this morning so I wasn't on my A game. More on that later. I use frozen instead of fresh fruits in my breakfasts usually because I don't eat until I get to work, so they have about an hour to defrost. And they are just as delicious as far as I can tell. Always unsweetened, organic if I can find them.




Andd now I need to get back to work.

Oh hello delicious salad

This is lunch. Yay. And probably part of dinner bc its enormous.