I updated my blog theme. I wanted something lighter and summer. Fresh. I’m still going to tweak it a bit. I’ll probably sub my own photograph for the top bar at some point…

Things have been going well. I’ve been getting my exercise in, I’ve been counting my calories. I just haven’t really been losing weight. Well I have but it’s slooooow. I just feel like whining about it. People tend to say: “You didn’t put it on fast, and it’s not going to come off fast either.” But honestly I feel like I do put on weight fast. I can put on 3-5 pounds in a week! And it takes a month or more to lose! Ugh.

Nothing to do but keep going though.

Tonight I’ve got a happy hour–I’m planning on having one glass of white wine, going home, doing 2 miles on the treadmill and then making my white bean chicken chili.

When summertime rolls around (especially this ridiculous DC summer we’ve been having) I have very little interest in cooking or eating hot food. I have several cold salads that I enjoy, but this one I haven’t had in a while and I had forgotten how delicious it is. It is certainly NOT one of those foods that you “eat with your eyes”. It’s totally beige and looks a mess. But it’s amazingly tangy and delicious.

All it is is pasta, pear, feta, and balsamic vinegar. Not a ton of protein, but sweet, tangy and filling! A friend showed me how to make it when I was living in Rome and it always brings back memories of living there. (I ate a lot of pasta when I was in Rome! Strangely I lost a lot of weight then too…)

And then last night I went to my kickboxing class. I’m not sure if it’s because I’ve started increasing  my running in order to train for this ten miler, but I have not been as “good” at the class as I have been in the past. I get tired more quickly and have to take more breaks. That class is brutal, but I used to be able to do it all without a ton of stopping. Now I feel like I’m stopping at almost every exercise.

Today is again tricky. A friend has been craving crab and has the BF and I out to an all-you-can-eat crab feast. Unlimited crabs, and fries. Plus what goes great with crab? Beer! I’m trying to save up enough calories to have one light beer. I’ll eat a ton of crab, and have NO fries. I’m going to make that my challenge to myself. I’m also going to try and be judicious with the application of butter to the crab. If the crab is good enough it doesn’t really need butter–I’m hoping this crab is good!

Situations where there is an unlimited amount of food is always difficult for me. There’s a huge tendency to overeat because I have no cues like a plate being empty so I just keep eating. I hope I can eat well and still have a good time.

If the dinner doesn’t end too late I’m hoping to fit a run in too.

I never do very well with these but I figure it’s better to plan than not right?

I have a dinner out tonight for my mother’s BDay this week. Italian. One of my favorites. I’ve saved up some calories by having a lighter breakfast and dinner, but I think I still need to stick to water, and avoid the bread. And although I really want a pasta dish I may have to pass, or just eat half or something.

Ugh. I wish a had a monster metabolism and didn’t have to think about these things constantly.

So I started a twitter for my blog. I always feel like tweeting my workouts and struggles but frankly I have no intention of doing that on my RL twitter. It’d be way too much clutter for people that just don’t care! So I’ve started another one just for this blog. We’ll see how that works out. @andmiles if you’re interested.

This weekend went well, but not stellar. I maintained a good calorie average on Saturday and only had 2 drinks when we were out at the bar with friends. (I was only going to have one, but another was bought for me and I felt like I couldn’t turn it down.) Sunday was going pretty well until I went out to dinner. I had no idea what the calories were in anything, and it was a tapas bar so there was a huge variety which caused me to over eat a little.

The good news is I got my exercise in too. I did a kickboxing workout on Saturday, and 3 miles on the treadmill on Sunday.

My weight is still being stupid and bobbing right between two numbers. Let’s hope next week I start losing steadily…

I have more hideous photos for you–but it’s more delicious food!

This first photo is of this salad, with once major substitution. I swear I had a can of black beans when I purchased everything else for this recipe, but when I got down to making it I couldn’t find it! So instead in went a can of chick peas. The flavor ended up a little different, but it was just as delicious. This batch made 6 servings each around 200 calories.

This next recipe also got a slight revamp considering it was POURING last night. These boneless pork chops are supposed to be grilled, but instead I poured 1/2 Tbsp of oil in my cast iron skillet, seared the chops, and then finished them in the oven. Then chops are then covered in a citrus vinaigrette with lots of cilantro. Yum! Oh also I brined the chops before cooking. Not part of the recipe but it helps keep the chops from drying out.

I also ran 3 miles yesterday as part of my training! As much as I struggled in my last run, (and I did–don’t remember if I wrote about it) yesterday’s run was great. I felt strong.

Today is a happy hour that I need to navigate. I’m thinking one glass of wine, switch to club soda with lime and then home early-ish and get some walking in. Wish me luck!

Biz asked what my meal plan looked like and I’m obliging! I haven’t gotten to the point where I actually have a calendar with all my meals and snacks on it. I just buy ingredients for 2 meals that I planned out, and then alternate them Monday + Wednesday and Tuesday + Thursday. Friday and Saturday is usually eaten out or in and planned with the BF and Sunday is a toss up–usually left overs or something I rummage. (Sunday tends to be very light–cereal, egg sandwich, something to use up leftovers.) Lunch is left overs or soup/sandwich/wrap and fruit. I’m not a big breakfast person as I’ve said before. My go-to breakfast is yogurt, fruit, and cereal mixed together. Today I had a vita-muffin blueberry muffin.

So my plan this week was: Breakfast: alternate yogurt mix, and muffins Lunch: leftovers (I made a beef roast last weekend and I’m going to use it for sandwiches on bagel thins), or soup. Dinner: tilapia and sweet potato salad, or grilled pork chops and quinoa salad. I also bought snacks of trail mix, triscuits and string cheese, and pudding cups.

Last night? Was tilapia and sweet potato salad.

Internet–I know this is a terrible picture. We have ugly plates. (They are the BFs I will be tossing them out one day and replacing them with nice ones as soon as I care enough to. It took me 2 years to replace his awful place mats. These plates are probably safe for another year. And yes he knows I don’t like the plates and doesn’t care if I replace them. Just like a man!) The lighting is not good. It’s slightly blurry. I took it with my iPhone. But internet–I took this picture for you. And I’m posting it for you. Because you MUST know about this salad. YOU MUST. It was so so so so good. Surprisingly good. It takes a little extra time because of the step where you grill the slices of sweet potato. But after that it comes together in a snap. I altered the recipe slightly to suit my taste. Not much–I brushed the slices of sweet potato with low-fat Newman’s own balsamic, but when it came to dressing the full salad I decided I wasn’t in love with the dressing (it was slightly old so maybe it was a little off or something) so I just tossed the whole thing with 2 T of good olive oil, and splashed on good balsamic vinegar to taste. Amazing! The fresh herbs really make this. And one serving is under 200 calories! (My modified version made 4 servings.)

Ok–I’ve gushed enough about that. Onto the bad part of this post.

Ugh.

I went to my lady doctor the other day. Just a normal visit, and then out of nowhere…she roundhouse kicks me in the face.

“You may want to watch your weight–when you first came to me you weighed 144 and now you’re 163. These things can creep up on you as you get older, so just keep an eye on it.”

Internet–a one two punch to my most delicate parts. “Watch your weight” also: “older”.

I’ve been trying to get back into fighting shape because I know my 30th is coming next year and I do know that weight can creep on as the years go by. I don’t need some one to remind me!

I’ve never had a doctor tell me about my weight before (I avoided them like the plague when I was at my heaviest, otherwise I know I would have heard it then!) and it was really… embarrassing? Demoralizing? I’m not sure actually what I felt, but it was not a good feeling I can tell you that.

But maybe I can use this too. I have to go back in December–I’m hoping to have lost a lot of this extra weight by then. If only to prove to someone else I can.

What’s up guys? My RSS reader has been mighty quiet lately. Are you all enjoying the summer? I have! I little too well I think.

I’m feeling pretty good about my 10 miler training though. I haven’t missed a day yet, and so far the runs have been pretty good. Of course the longest one has been 2.75 miles–ask me again when I’m running 6!

Food I’ve been  more meticulous about. I’ve been logging all  my calories, and today I went grocery shopping after I did my weekly meal plan! I’ve got yummy food all planned out to cook and plenty of quick, healthy “back ups” (soups, frozen foods) just in case I’m too tired or something pops up.

Looking at the future optimistically!

Sheesh! I played around with my numbers spreadsheet again today. Just messing with calories in/out and what it takes to lose x pounds by y date. Like I said before I’m not taking this all literally but I like having a ballpark and data to look at.

So I tried to figure out what it would take to lose 2 pounds per week. The only way I could make it work and not go under 1200 calories each week was to eat exactly 1200 calories a day plus I’d have to burn 200 calories in exercise every day AND burn 500 calories (total) twice a week. Yikes! That is totally not sustainable for me. I’m going to have to stick with the more reasonable 1 pound a week. That allows me 1600 calories on the weekends, 1400 calories during the week, plus I get two days off from the gym. So much more realistic.

Ahh–it was so relaxing. I took of Thursday, Friday, and Tuesday. Thursday night the BF and I headed out to my parent’s beach house in Ocean City to meet up with 9 friends. We had a great time! We rented a boat one day, BBQed, played putt putt golf, rented jet skis, played games and all in all had a wonderful time hanging out together.

How did this all affect my healthy efforts? Good question. I thought I was doing well, but once again I relied on my “guesstimating” when it came to calories and when I weighed myself this morning I saw I had gained three pounds in 5 days! How in the world?! I’m going to chalk some of it up to water and salt, the rest to overeating and just start over.

The good thing is that I didn’t let vacation get in the way of exercise or training. I still did my 2.5 mile run on Saturday and my walk on Sunday. Plus I did my 2.75 mile run last night! Woo, go me!

And now that I’m back at work I’m back to tracking calories. I’ve just got to get to the grocery store and stock up on healthy food, and ingredients for healthy meals.

Plus, I got my Wellness Moleskine journal in the mail July 1st! I love it! I’ve already started filling it up.

So here is my number crunching spreadsheet.

If you’re more interested in playing around with your own numbers: Download it here. I don’t think I have any male readers, but if so you’ll need to change the BMR formula if you want to use it.

Basically I put my weight, height in inches, and age and I put the calculation for female BMR in to dynamically generate it. Like today I lost weight and I went from losing over a pound this week to .96. Although I guess to be completely accurate I’d have to put in a weight each day so I don’t mess up past BMRs. Hmmm…Well anyway, then I multiplied BMR by 1.2 (sedentary) to get my daily caloric burn. (Indicated by BCR.)

Then I set up a week’s worth of inputs. I record each day how many calories I ate and then subtract any exercise plus my BCR to get my daily delta. I then add up all the daily deltas to get my calories burned (or stored) for the week, and then I divide that by 3500 to get how many pounds that equals.

I know that this isn’t an exact science. Salt intake, weight lifting, water retention, etc will skew these numbers but it was just really interesting for me to see exactly what goes into this. For instance after months of just half-assing it I would wonder to myself why I didn’t lose weight, but without exercise and hovering around 1800-2000 calories a day–a range I eat in pretty regularly–that makes sense now. Even if I had a couple good eating days and I worked out for 2-3 miles a couple days a week it’s not enough to lose weight. That would still be maintenance.

I’m going to finish out this spreadsheet for the rest of the week, I’m not sure it’s something I want to look at every week, but it’s definitely a wake up call. I really need to pay more attention to calories in if I want this weight loss thing to happen.

In other food related news my goal for gathering some delicious recipes to try out is going well. I stumbled upon this blog where I found links to a grilled sweet potato salad and grilled shrimp over white beans. (I’m going to jazz that last one up based on an orzo salad I make.)