Laura: Nice Weather, More Effort

Spring's here. I guess I can come out of my cave and start working out again.

I had great intentions during the cold months for getting moving and eating healthy. What did I do? I pouted on the couch and ate comfort food because I couldn't get outside that much (and enjoy it). I'm curious to see if I ever get the motivation to change that.

Anyway, after my first taste of warmth this week, I'm already getting back to my warm weather routine. I'm out walking, getting my bike tuned up, and in a new twist, I'm heading back to pilates class. Went to class today and my body is thankful, and traumatized. Muscles that haven't gotten work in months are feeling it.

I'm also experimenting with different vegetables and grains in my cooking as I continue to work on making my diet less meat filled. I purchased some rutabagas today and some bulgar. I even picked up some tempeh. We'll see how it goes.

Here's hoping my spring enthusiasm lasts longer than my winter enthusiasm for healthy living did.

Laura: New year, new resolve

So, it's 2009. Hard to believe, isn't it. It's that time of year when people will begin making resolutions, and the vast majority of them will fail to keep them through February. I definitely fall into that category every year. So, this time, I'm going to create some principles to try to live by in 2009, instead. These are flexible guidelines, but they are something that adds purpose to the new year.

So, here they go...

1. My body was meant to be active, and staying active keeps me healthy. Everyday, I will try to move, whether I bike, walk, run, go to pilates, or walk up the steps instead of taking the elevator.

2. I will eat more wholesome foods and watch my portion sizes, but I won't beat myself up when I really need a delicious cup of Aglamesis Bros. Cinnamon Ice Cream or a giant juicy burger. Food is fuel for all the things I want to do in life. It is not bad.

3. I will not stress about the little things. And let's face it, I have a great job, family, friends and home -- so any thing I would stress about would be small in comparison to what so many people are facing in our city and our world.

4. A healthy lifestyle starts with a healthy home. I'll continue to work on improving the indoor environment in my house. It needs to be a place that encourages a healthy lifestyle.

So, that's it. Those are my guiding principles for 2009. So far, so good. In the last three days I've been on an 8.5 mile hike, learned to ski (and, wow, are my muscles punishing me for it), and been on a two mile walk. I've cleaned my house from top to bottom, and Jon and I have come up with a strategy to keep it that way.

So, here's to an outstanding 2009 -- a happy, healthy new year.

Laura: Xmas is no time to diet

I went to a Christmas program recently, during which the choir sang a song about holiday eating called "Christmastime is no time to diet." That pretty much sums up the last month for me. All weightloss have been regained, fitness is at a pitiful low, and clothes are not looking so great on.

It's about time to start a new year with a new resolve for fitness and healthy eating. I'm doing the couch to 5k training program -- in theory, with Shannan and Loree. We'll see how that goes. AND, my dear husband bought me a bicycle trainer for our house for Christmas. Since I can't really get out to ride that much (because I'm a winter wuss), this is great for me.

Not really any excuses now, are there? Odds that I come up with excuses anyway? Pretty good. I'm working on it though.

UPDATE: Just finished a run, and I really don't like running that much. My husband swears it's because I'm not breathing right. May be true. I'll keep going though and see if I can push through over the next couple weeks.

Laura: A Quick Check-in

I lost a pound this week. I've been pretty disciplined during the last week -- cooking, bringing my lunch, even hitting up a spin class. I think it may have been possible for me to lose 2 this week, but I weighed in right after spending an evening having multiple beers and eating chicken dip. Overall, I feel like I'm on track. I just have to keep it up!

5 pounds to go!

Laura: I'm baaaaaaack!

So, guess what guys? I'm married. I'm married and I only have one mortgage. Last time I posted I had reached the pinnacle of lifetime stress with a home sale in jeopardy because of title issues and because I was just a week away from my wedding. In the end, I didn't lose 10 pounds. I think on the big day I was only down 2 pounds, but I found a really great fat sucker in thing at Victoria's Secret that made it look like I lost 5 more pounds, so life was good.

After the wedding, I fell off the dieting wagon. Wait -- who am I kidding? I jumped off the wagon, did a couple cartwheels and then mooned the wagon. I ate like a king who loves cheese, meat, and ice cream for a couple weeks solid until I decided it was time to regroup.

For the last week I've been trying to reform. I started with an attempt to start cooking healthier foods instead of the comfort foods I was raised with and can cook with my eyes closed. I tried a few recipes from my most recent Fitness Magazine, which surprisingly has a lot of great food ideas. Here are two recipes I thought were particularly good.

Whole Wheat Linguine with Green Olives (serves 2)

• Whole wheat pasta
• 1/2 cup halved red or yellow grape tomatoes
• 3 tbs sliced green olives
• 1 tsp minced garlic
• 1 tsp olive oil
• 1/4 cup white wine
• 1/2 tsp dried rosemary
• Grated Romano cheese

Prepare pasta according to package directions. Saute tomatoes, olives and garlic in olive oil for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add white wine; let simmer 3 minutes. Stir in rosemary; toss with cooked pasta. Top with grate Romano cheese.

Sauteed Baja Fish

• 2 6-ounce white fish fillets, such as tilapia, halibut or flounder
• 1 1/2 tbs olive oil
• 1/2 tsp chili powder
• 1 lime, cut into wedges
• Snipped fresh cilantro

Lightly rub fillets with 1 tbs olive oil and season with chili powder. Rub remaining 1/2 tbs oil in a heavy skillet. Heat skillet over high heat. Saute fillets for 3 minutes per side, or until fish just flakes easily with a fork. Serve with lime wedges and snipped cilantro.

Now that I'm starting to get a hang of this light cooking thing, I need to work on getting to the gym. Now that it's getting colder and I can't go out on my bike, motivating to workout will be very difficult. But, where there's a will there's a way. Let's just hope I can find the will.

Still got 6 pounds to go.

Laura: When life gives you lemons, make diet lemonade

I don't know how it happened, but I managed to lose a pound this week. I think amazing amounts of stress can actually lead to weight loss. I know I mentioned that the wedding was starting to wear on me and last week, I gained a pound. This week, things took a turn for the laughably stressful.

My dress was finally located on Tuesday, which was an exciting turn for the better. Now we're in the final details stretch of the wedding, and I'm starting to calm down about that, which is good, because life totally blew up on another front. I'm in the process of selling my house in Covington. Jon owns a nice, larger house in Oakley, so we decided to live there and sell mine. Lucky for me, I was under contract with someone after only 6 weeks on the market. Everything was moving smoothly until I found out on Monday that I have a title issue. Basically, there are still some liens on the property originating when the previous owner's ex-husband deeded the house over to her. Sorting through the paperwork and getting this resolved has been a nightmare, and I reached my ultimate stressed out low on Friday afternoon when it was suggested that I get a lawyer to prepare for "worst case scenarios." I actually had to leave work. I was totally distressed. Luckily, I have very understanding bosses. 

Anyway, the closing was supposed to happen on Monday, but that will be postponed "indefinitely" -- Ugh. Hopefully we'll get it worked out soon enough that the buyer doesn't want to back out. 

So basically, I've been totally distracted from the wedding and my goal. I'm feeling good that despite all the insanity, I'm still down 3 pounds from where I started. I wouldn't say I'm making the best eating choices right now, but I'm definitely eating less. This week, I'm going to focus, so at least I'm feeling good for the wedding next Saturday. Lots of fruits, veggies and whole grains this week. And, a bunch of water. 

My goal is to lose two more pounds this week, so I'm looking the best I can in my wedding dress (which is perfect, by the way). 

Laura: Two weeks to go and heading backward

It's been a stressful week, and much like Julie, I'm a stress eater. I'm a stress eater deluxe. Shannan totally busted me with a buffalo chicken burrito on Friday -- which was amazingly delicious -- and it helped me forget for a brief moment that my wedding dress is missing! That's right, missing.

And it's not like the alterations people have it -- no, it's two weeks until the wedding and it hasn't even arrived from the dressmaker yet. They keep telling me they will call when it arrives, and they'll check on where it is -- but now that it's more than a week late and I'm getting few answers, I'm starting to get worried. When I get worried, I eat.

I gained a pound this week -- so I have to find some way to deal with the stress of the wedding other than eating burritos and burgers. Ugh.

Oh, and have I mentioned I'm going to have to have this thing altered for sure? How I'm going to do that in two weeks or less is going to be interesting. My waist is two sizes bigger than my bust and hips (not gifted with the curves, this one). And, since my fiance and I are close in height, I'll be wearing flats so I won't be taller -- meaning length must come off.

Somebody, get me a burrito!

Photo Courtesy of Stock.xchng

Laura: The mother of all colds (week 3)

After spending last week working out daily, I spent the first half of this week in bed nursing the worst head/chest cold I've had in about a year. I felt it coming on last Friday, and by Sunday, it was a challenge to drag myself out of bed to do anything, let alone work out. I was pretty much confined to the house when not working through Tuesday, and even as the cold started to die down at the end of the week, my lungs were sore and my schedule was busy.

I guess it's fortunate that the cold wrecked my appetite for a few days, because despite the lack of physical activity, I managed to lose half a pound this week.

I'm definitely starting to feel a lot better, so it's time to get back on the exercise horse. I've only got three weeks left until the wedding, and losing that extra 7.5 pounds is starting to seem impossible. Time to remind myself that it's not about the number, it's about how exercise and eating make me feel.

Laura: Rolling and walking along (week 2)

After breaking even last week due to an exciting weekend in Gatlinburg, I decided to get serious and really come up with a strategy I could live with as I try to get wedding dress ready. It's less than a month to go until the big day, and the pressure is certainly on.

One thing I've definitely learned about myself over the years is that my key to success is completely tied to exercise, for a couple reasons. First, I suffer from pretty severe reactive hypoglycemia that's given me problems for years. I actually have a food drawer at work to help me deal with the problem. It's best if I eat every 3 hours or so, and preferably items that are high in fiber and low in refined sugars. I'm also supposed to avoid caffeine, which I've been trying to do lately because it definitely causes my blood sugar to dive and me to snack more than I should. It's hard for me to go under my daily recommended caloric intake of 1750 calories when I'm eating so often. I can do 1500 most days, but 1200 is pretty near impossible. Exercise definitely helps with the blood sugar thing too. I don't know why, but it works.

The other reason exercise is so important to my success is that I generally eat out 3 or 4 times each week. It's completely tied to convenience most of time, but sometimes, as my fiance says, "I just need to feed my tasty."

So, here's the new strategy, and it's working so far, because I've lost 2 pounds this week:

• I'm going to exercise 5 days a week for at least 30 minutes. Some days it's just getting a long walk in. Sometimes it's riding my bike (my preferred form of exercise as I typically burn about 500-600 calories per hour). And, if all else fails, and the weather is miserable, I'll go to the gym.

• I'm running most of my errands on foot or by bike. This has been more interesting than expected, as I'm really having to plan out my trips so I don't have to carry too much back or so I don't forget something and have to turn around. I bet I walked 4 miles this week just running errands.

• I'm going to make smart eating choices -- salad over fries, fruit instead of chips, water instead of soda, etc -- but I'm not counting calories or measuring anything, since it makes me crazy.

So, that's the plan. Here's hoping I can stick to it. I really feel great when I exercise, but sometimes getting the motivation to get started can be tough. I just need to visualize myself putting on the wedding dress and how nice and toned I look and how much energy I have.

Photo Courtesy of Stock.Xchng

Laura: A lesson from Dollywood

When this post appeared on this blog I was on my way to Dollywood, where I likely had a some nachos, maybe some funnel cake or a soft serve cone -- and despite the fact I was blowing any pound losses I would have made had I been at home over the weekend -- I'm was perfectly happy with it. After all, it's my bachelorette party weekend. (Yes, I wanted to go to Dollywood for my bachelorette party. Accept me.) I'm spending a weekend with my best friends and my sisters. It's so rare that we're all together, I'm going to enjoy every last minute of it.

I'm writing this on Thursday night before I head out on my trip -- and for the past few days I've been thinking how my post is going to have to be about my failures from the week and my inability to resist temptation while traveling. But, after some reflection, I realize that wanting to enjoy myself and not letting my experience be controlled by food isn't a failure. It's ok to not eat perfectly every day, for every meal. I'll try to make some good choices -- maybe skip the french fries with my burger, have water instead of soda, you know, the little things. I'll be moving around and walking a lot -- more than I do on an average work day. I'll be fine.

When I get back, I'll pick back up on my workout routine. I got a 27-mile bike ride in on Sunday morning, and made a conscious effort to walk a lot more this week, but I never made it to that 6 a.m. spin class, thanks to a crazy schedule this week. For me, I know my route to health is all about exercise -- after all, my 10 pound weight loss has to do with me getting back to my fit weight. Exercise frees me from the guilt that comes from food -- that feeling I get when I know I've eaten too much but it was sooooooo good.

So, as far as eating went, it was a good week. Through Thursday I ate very well and was on my way to a 2 pound loss this week. I'm sure I've negated it.

Weight loss: 0 pounds

Exercise: Not bad, ramping back up.

Mood: Great!

Talk to you next week!