Completely Insane

Today was pretty good. I only had two cups of coffee... BUT coffee is good for you! So take that! I also had my gallon of water, boom boom!

For breakfast I had reduced sugar oatmeal because it was left on the counter and I took it. I had no breakfast food, sooo yeah.

Snacks today consisted of watermelon, hard boiled egg whites, and a banana. Lunch was a lunch and learn on nutrition, perfect right? They brought in Subway. I had a 6" veggie with no cheese, no toppings on wheat. It was delish.

I went to the gym do to some lifting and of course, everyone in the neighborhood decided to hit that tiny gym. Sooo I left and tried my first attempt at Insanity. I found a link that had all the workouts, so I decided to give the fit test a try.

Guess what, it wasn't the fit test :( As you can tell by my expression, I'm not quite sure what happened, but I think it was an actual work out. It was hard. I sweated, and now with this breeze blowing on through the house, I'm FREEZING! Colbie just sat and watched me the whole time and she desperately wanted to join in...

As I was preparing to cook my dinner, I realized that Colbie didn't have any food. Soo we took a little trip to the pet store and I got my lifting in after all! I got the giant bag of food and had to muscle that around the store with a dog pulling me every which way ;)

So now on to the fun part! Foooooood! Here's what we started with...

We always have to include my peppers and onions, dinner just wouldn't be complete without them! Pre-heat the pan to medium and layer the whole wheat tortilla with fat free mozzarella and peppers and onions. Fold over and spray the top of some cooking spray, flip, spray, flip, flip and take out of the pan once the cheese has melted and glued everything together. Cut and serve with the Light Prego sauce and you have a yummy pizza quesadilla!

I'm really excited for lunch tomorrow, not gonna lie. I packed another whole wheat tortilla, fat free cream cheese mixed with freshly chopped green onion and basil, turkey breast and lettuce... I'ma gonna have me a wrap!! Pair it with a salad covered in peppers and I'm gonna have a fantastic lunch hour.

I'll try to document it, but I'm pretty sure I'll eat it before I realize my camera is still in my pocket.

It's ok, I know I suck at updating.

Thanks to my cousin Becky, whom I've tasked with riding my butt for blog posts, I'm finally writing an update.

Work is NUTS! My team lead was out this week on vacation and I essentially was tasked with covering his list of active candidates on top of my own. Mind you, my list can barely be considered a list. I've now learned how to get H1 documents together and ready for the immigration department to send out to our attorneys... lesson learned, don't forget to make copies of your offer letter and employment agreement before turning them in to HR. I sent one of his candidates his offer letter and employment agreement and then I helped two candidates get their new hire appointments set up so they could start with ICC. Now if only I could do this for my own candidates, life would be swell.

Last week was a good week for me and the gym. We were buddy buddies. Then this week happened and with it went the gym visits and my good will to eat well. I'm getting p-r-e-t-t-y bruised up from falling off this wagon so many times. It's getting harder and harder to jump back up and climb aboard. But ima gonna give it another go, especially in light of the five weddings I still have yet to attend this summer.

Today begins the renewed urge to track everything that goes in my mouth. So far we've broken the over night fast with pineapple Greek yogurt (I'm still an advocate of Aldi's brand, $.89 a cup, come on!), I had a salt craving so I had a serving of chips and I'm fine with that as long as I drink extra water to make up for it. Lunch is comprised of delicious watermelon and this num num entree.

Can anyone guess what I have here? One hint, it's only 200 calories give or take for that entire thing.

Also, why did summer decide that she wanted to visit early? It's so dreadfully hot that I've had my air on continuously for over a week. I dislike not being able to sleep with my windows open, Colbie hates it too. I'm also grumpy about the hot weather because I'm not able to enjoy it poolside on the weekends due to having to drive home so often! I bought two new swim suits that I'm dying to wear (first off, I never die to wear a swim suit, does that tell you anything?)

My cousin Katie has said that she's enjoying a diet that consists of zero processed foods. I've come to realize that when I buy groceries on my own, I don't usually buy the standards of processed foods ie: cereal, bread, pasta. I do however, for convenience purposes, get things like rice cakes, breakfast bars, and veggie straws (my chip attack was a random thing that should never have happened). I used to have lean cuisines at lunch almost every day, and those were easy for me and kept my intake to a minimum but I no longer buy those because my wallet always says no.

This weekend I'll be heading back up to the Dusky to visit Put In Bay with a close friend of mine who will be in town from DC for the weekend. It should be beautiful and not too hot. My challenge will be to make the right decisions for my body. Try to eat before I leave or if I have to get food on the island, make it a dry salad. Drinking will be the biggest hurdle. I've adopted the lowest calorie approach of vodka and diet soda or water when not available. I will be sure to put a water or two in between every drink, but need to be conscious that every drink adds up!

As I stated to my cousins in a conversation a few weeks ago, next summer I want to be in a bikini on a beach, making men stare long enough to run into signs when passing by. Instead of "who let that whale on the beach" it'll be "hey, can I get your number". Take that!

My name is Lindsay

and I'm addicted to food. I'm always honest in my posts... and it is so hard for me to say that I've gained 15 pounds total ever since I stopped watching what I was eating, working out and training with Heather... I think since before the start of the year. That's way too much weight to gain in so little time.

I feel bad and tired and grumpy all the time now and know that I need to re-learn the smart choices, re-dedicate myself to the gym and eating right.

I had a long week this week. It was MidwestUX 2012, a conference that I was part of planning and running. It was quite tiring and I was only home to sleep for 5-6 hours a night before heading back to start the next day of the conference.

Since I haven't had any time to walk or cook my own food, today I woke up and immediately went to the gym to hit some weights and get some cardio in. I was dripping sweat and feeling so tired after only an hour... disappointing :(

Came home, had a salad with fat free ranch and two veggie burgers. Then I tackled painting the kitchen. I'm going to log that as exercise, cause let's be honest, painting is a WORKOUT. Especially in tiny spaces where you are standing on the counter, ducking and painting at the same time.

I succeeded in giving myself a migraine, so the rest of today was spent sleeping, ordering a pizza (which I only ate a little of, considering I had nothing the rest of the day, not such a horrible decision)

I am going to try so hard to be a gym rat again by taking my clothes to work and changing so I can go directly after.

Wish me luck, I have to do some damage control.

Wow... not good!

I must update my diet plan as of right now. This GM thing is nuts... I'm already shaky, dizzy and have a headache. I didn't feel bad doing my last diet, nor did I feel hungry. Tried and true is the way to go. I'm going to find that dedication and wrangle it by the horns.

Portion control, fresh produce mixed with a healthy amount of protein and carbs, followed by exercise.

Let's do this instead of fad diets. There's a reason I feel like poo only 7 hours in.

Hi, my name is Lindsay and I've fallen off the wagon

I've fallen off the wagon so hard that part of the ground embedded itself into my skin... I mean, that's the only reason that I've gained 10 pounds... pavement is really heavy, so yeah...

I have been an adult for almost 5 years now and there is one thing that I've noticed, time flies. Literally. As the time flies, my ability to overindulge in yumminess has increased and my diet minded self took a vacation. She must be in France, or Italy, maybe even China, because those dishes have made quite the appearance in my daily meals. It's so frustrating to know that I am addicted to bad food (it tastes so good).

All that dedication and ability to focus solely on making the right decisions has fallen by the wayside. I've been telling myself its okay because I'm slightly stressed and lonely. But again, lonely calories don't make for an attractive person, it sets me back in my goal of feeling attractive.

I knew stepping on the scale this morning wouldn't make me feel like a good person. I knew that it would make me want to crawl into bed and just cry my eyes out... instead, I'm attempting a crazy diet. Yep. Why not start back in an insane and untested way?

The GM Diet. Yep, General Motors felt that their employees needed a way to cleanse their bodies and lose weight to enjoy work better :::crickets::: I'm not going to lie, I didn't hear about this idea from a friend, coworker, trainer or anyone that I know. I saw it on Pinterest... and since Pinterest is all knowing and truthful, so here we are.

Day 1 consists of eating only fruit, excluding bananas. The site suggests eating mainly melons. Kristy and I decided we would do this together. We went grocery shopping and I bought watermelon, cantaloupe, honeydew and apples. I'm not a huge fan of fruit, so I think today will be the most difficult for me and so far it's proving true. I'm not satisfied with my cantaloupe nor my apple. With every diet plan, water plays a large role. So I have to hit ten cups, easy breezy.

I think lunch will consist of my watermelon and tons of water. Snack will be apples and the honey dew. Dinner... well, you get the idea.

I don't think this is unhealthy for those of you thinking this is crazy. Yes, I'm not eating any carbs, but everything is fresh and good for me and I get to eat as much of it as I want. I'm not limited to 500 calories and if I'm hungry I just eat more of my daily allowance.

I think this is more of a test of my ability to say no to my cravings. I need to regain my steel backbone that can withstand temptation in the form of cupcakes, mac and cheese, pizza and crab rangoon. I need my fitness drive back, I need it back so I don't feel guilty and horrible. I liked in shape Lindsay, she was fun and confident and hot. Hopefully her vacation is over and she's ready for this, cause it's on!

Lost in Time

Well, as my cousin Becky has pointed out multiple times... I haven't updated in quite a long time. I lost my drive, interest and frankly, I've lost a lot of time. I've recently started training to take the next step in my career and while it's not a TON of new information, my responsibility and my visibility in the company have grown by leaps and bounds. I'll soon be held accountable in driving a small portion of ICC's daily business. Eek... scary! But I'm ready for the challenge as I was growing a bit stale. I have noticed my wine intake having jumped a bit, but I think that's just cause I love an excuse to drink that delishious feet smushed liquid.

I've been horrible in watching what I eat, how often and how much. I know I've gained some weight back and I feel more slow, tired and overall unhappy. I looked in the mirror and lectured myself on how far I've come, it's not fair to me to stop now. I lecture really well (just ask my little sister) and convinced myself that the bandwagon was still waiting out back for me to jump on. To start my renewed "skinnybitchskinny" plan I portioned out my veggie straws into seperate bags. Again, we all know you can eat whatever you want in life as long as you keep it on the small side and/or account for those calories in your daily allotment. I also packed myself a hardboiled eggwhite, low fat string cheese, Chobani greek yogurt, a baked sweet potato and a Morning Star California turkey burger.

In my defense, I've made half good choices and half bad choices during the past few weeks. I've ate some pretty yummy and bad for you things like mac and cheese (REAL mac and cheese), Chinese, Pizza, Beer/Wine, Chips and Dip... you get the idea. I've also become obsessed with sweet potatoes. Well, I've been obsessed for a while but only recently felt brave enough to prepare them myself. I've made fries and baked potatoes... please add this orange spuds of delight to my list of amazing low calorie/good for you foods! 1. Spaghetti Squash 2. Sweet Potatoes 3. Fat Free Ranch :)

Please observe my new found sweet potato culinary skills and a few other items I've consumed :)

I have my first 5k on Sunday and let me tell you... I haven't been "training" aka running for longer than 5 minutes like I should have been. Mother Nature is dead set against me participating in outdoor activities. She's sent her silent killers out to attack my eyes, nose and throat so badly that when I attempted to run at the metro parks, instead of running I was flinging snot left and right. I will NEVER run without a fanny pack full of tissues EVER AGAIN. Since I'll never run with a fanny pack, I guess I'm back to my slogan of not running unless someone is chasing me.

le sigh.

I told Becks that I would run at least one mile every day this week and randomly choose one day to shoot for the whole 3.1 miles. Does this outlook seem remotely good for being outside and making your lungs work overtime?

 No, I didn't think so! I will push through, but I'm not sure how happy I will be about it. This week is a test. I must not cheat, I must not over eat, I must not skip my workout. Here we go!

Hunger Games & More!

Yes, I am a fan of The Hunger Games series. So I've been eagerly awaiting the release of the first movie. Friday rolled around and I watched that movie was noshing on some popcorn with butter :::gasp::: followed by chicken fingers and a baked potato :::heave::: and topped it with a handful of jelly beans :::womp:::

The movie was great despite my horrid behavior :)

I ate pizza for two meals out of my three on Saturday. Does that give you ANY idea as to how the rest of the weekend went? I own up to it. I was craving pizza so bad as I am a firm believer that Columbus pizza sucks, so while in Sandusky I needed real nom nom pizza.

So overall, I was bad Friday and Saturday. Sunday we made some red skin mashed potatoes, baked chicken and broccoli. I might have had two biscuits. Sue me.

I've been extremely good today, back on the boat... (I prefer boats over wagons personally, smoother ride). I welcomed the day with my toast and sugar free jam, snacked on some carrots and hummus, indulged in a lean cuisine for lunch and snacked again on a turkey, lettuce, hummus wrap in the afternoon.

The challenge of the day is my cupcake decorating groupon class that Kelly and I will be participating in tonight. I have 6 cupcakes I'm responsible for learning to frost and decorate... and NOT EAT. I plan on taking them to work tomorrow to show off my mad skill and to pawn the calories off on some unsuspecting soul :) After cupcakes I get to dominate in volleyball. I'm very excited about this round of indoor as my sister is playing and I know together we will wipe the court... if not with the other team, then with each other ;)

Update on ICC Biggest Loser... since I so frustratingly gained and not lost this round, I've opted to push my weigh in out to July. I want to meet my personal goal of 5% fat loss or 5% muscle gain. I know that I haven't put my foot down and I know that that has to change! I still have weight and inches to lose, and damned if it doesn't happen by July.