Cereal and yogurt are from the devil

Today I went by the store and purchased some Kellogg's All Bran Cereal with Yogurt Bites. This stuff is way too good. I had some at lunch mixed up with low fat yogurt. With 10 grams of fiber and 6 grams of protein per serving, it really filled me up. That's pretty difficult to do.

I got so excited about my cereal discovery that I had two more small bowls of it after dinner. Eating after dinner is a big no-no for me, but I couldn't resist. It was too damn good.

It's the devil!

Last night's interval workout/ Thursdays at the nursing home

My interval workout last night went very well. I decided to do 60 second jogs at 6 mph, followed by 90 second walks at 4 mph. I kept this up for an hour. Doing intervals like this really helps the session fly by, because it's broken up into so many "mini-goals." It also makes it difficult to zone out, because you have to be paying attention to adjust the settings every minute or so.

The plan is to continue doing intervals, but increase the running portions and decrease the walks. I'll keep all two of my readers posted on my progress, but one of them lives with me so she'll probably already be aware of what I'm doing.

...Subject change...

My grandmother has been in a nursing home for almost two years now. She's 97 years old, and thankfully has pretty much all of her wits about her, but this wasn't always the case. Parkinson's is a real bitch of a disease. She started developing little tremors when I was a kid. At first it was barely noticeable and didn't cause any sort of decrease in her quality of life.

As time passed, of course it got worse, and it got to the point where she couldn't walk very well. She lived alone at that time, so I was worried for her a lot. I called her every day in the afternoon to check on her and work the crossword puzzle over the phone. One day, she didn't answer. I figured she was in the bathroom or something, because old people tend to hang out there a lot. I called back about 30 minutes later, and still no answer. I kept calling and calling, letting it ring for what seemed like forever, and she never picked up. By this point I was very worried, and I called my mom. She drove over there and found her on the floor, alive but pretty freaked out. It was the classic "I've fallen and I can't get up" scenario. She had been like that for hours.

She obviously wasn't thrilled to move into a nursing home and sit idly by as her family picked through her house and either threw away or sold most of her belongings. I can't even imagine how bad it sucks for her there. The fact that she is mostly mentally sound sometimes seems like a curse and not a blessing. If she were a zonked-out senile person, at least maybe she wouldn't realize how bad it sucks at that place.

At least we go to visit her. Either my mom, my dad, or myself goes every day. Tuesdays and Thursdays I stop by after work. I sit with her at dinner and we work the crossword, then we go back to her room for a bit and play gin. I'll admit it's not something I always look forward to. I have to take a Xanax before I go, because I get really tense and anxious about being there. Honestly, what do you tell someone who looks you in the eyes and says "Why can't I just die?" How the hell am I supposed to respond to that?

This is turning into a really morbid post, and I didn't mean for it to. But Tuesdays and Thursdays make me all wonky. Sorry.

Last night's record breaker / appointment with nutritionist

In all my whining about my lunchtime binge, I forgot to mention that I jogged for 50 CONSECUTIVE minutes last night. It was pretty awesome.

I consulted with one of my PeerTrainer buddies who is a runner, and she thinks I should concentrate less on endurance and start working more on increasing my speed. She writes:

"About the running, once you have reached the point of running 30+ mins consecutively you need to add more of a challenge.
Do you currently run with any resistance? If not make sure all runs are at least 1% incline. You will work both your quads and glutes a lot more...this may be the only change you need right now but if you want to bump it up a notch add intervals a couple times/ week.
Interval workouts are shorter (30-45 mins) will improve your speed. If you look back at my workouts you'll see one from my trainer where I sprint at 6-6.5mph for 1 min and walk 1 min both w\ a 3.5% incline...this is a tough one but you get the idea. The main thing is to go all-out (what ever that is for you) for 30-60 sec's and recover for 60-120sec about 15 times or more. Shorten the recovery time and lengthen the all-out time as you get fitter. Finally, change your endurance runs to 10 & 1's, Run 10min / Brisk Walk 1min start with 5 set and add a set each week...you'll be running races in no time ;) "

I was able to build up to 50 minutes at 5 mph by using the principles of interval training, so I know it works. I just need to try a different interval now. Perhaps I'll do 6 mph for 1 minute, then walk for 2 minutes, and work my way up to running at 6 mph for 45 minutes or so.

Sounds like a plan!

In other news... did anyone catch The Biggest Loser last night? In the beginning, a couple of the contestants reveal to Jillian (one of the trainers) that they've been cutting their calories back. One girl was eating 1000 calories per day, and the other dropped all the way to 500. This is obviously too low, but it made me wonder if I'm on the right track with my nutrition.

I picked up the phone right then and called a nutritionist I saw in the newsletter of the local community center. I have an appointment on Monday, February 25th. I need to get her opinion on how much I should be consuming, and just get a general consultation. I'm looking forward to it, and I'll be sure to write about what we discuss.

I need to call my sponsor.

Remember my earlier post where I skillfully avoided a binge by blogging instead of eating? That strategy didn't work so well this afternoon.

My day started off kind of crappy. I had a totally weird dream last night which freaked me out and set a kind of negative tone for the day. Weight training was on my schedule for this morning, but I skipped it. By lunch, I felt like the world owed me something. That's the best way I can explain it. I felt like I deserved to stuff my face.

I got home for lunch and made my planned meal- a turkey sandwich with spinach, and cottage cheese on the side. While making my sandwich, I also got out the potato chips and starting snacking on them, along with more cottage cheese. After finishing my sandwich, I went for some cereal with yogurt, and then a fudge pop.

In the grand scheme of things, this binge (if you can even call it that) is not so bad. Back in the old days when I weighed almost 100 lbs. more than I do now, a typical binge would be a Big Mac meal at McDonald's, followed by a PB&J sandwich, then two huge bowls of ice cream, and then possibly another sandwich. This doesn't even compare to my old life. Still, that's not the point. The point is that I had a plan and I couldn't stick to it.

My attitude on days like this is kind of all-or-nothing. Now I seriously feel like the day is ruined, and I should just skip my 60 minute treadmill session tonight. The truth is, I just feel like crying right now. Too bad I'm at work and I can't let loose with the tears. People would look at me funny.

Angie has to work until 6:15 tonight, and I'm seriously worried about what kind of damage I will do if I'm alone with the refrigerator for an hour. I just called my mom to see if she'd come over and hang out until Angie gets back, but I guess her car is in the shop. It must seem pretty pathetic that I need a babysitter so I won't eat myself into a coma.

Cupcakes and cheat days

I had my cupcake on Saturday, and I do believe it was the most delicious cupcake I've ever tasted. Just as I'd fantasized, the cake part was white and the icing was pink and fluffy. It was pretty big, too. I had to cut it in half to eat it. Just writing about it is getting me pretty excited.

Saturday was my cheat day. I started having a weekly cheat day a few months ago because I was beginning to feel deprived with the whole "diet" thing. I didn't want it to turn into one of those things where I'd be perfect for so long that one day I'd just snap and gain back 90 pounds in one day. I know that can't actually happen, but for now I live in fear of it.

So for a while, I had a whole day where I pretty much ate whatever I wanted. Typically, there would be a gain of 1-2 pounds the next day due to all the salt and water retention, and I was okay with that. Then, in September/October I hurt my back and couldn't work out, but I continued to have the cheat days. A temporary gain of 1-2 pounds would turn into 4-5 pounds, and not all of it would always come off. That was scary and counter-productive.

I switched to a weekly cheat meal, rather than a whole day, because that seemed more reasonable. There are some definite drawbacks, though. For example, when you eat pretty much all healthy stuff all week, you really look forward to that one meal. There's so much you want to have... Mexican, a burger and fries, cheesecake, etc. It's so difficult to focus on one thing.

Anyway, so Saturday we went to The Mixx where I had my perfect cupcake. I also had a salad they call the "Heath Nut." It has greens, grilled salmon, red onions, walnuts, and soy nuts, with a low-fat pear and ginger vinaigrette. It was really good, and I know nuts are supposed to be "good fat." However, the sheer amount of nuts they put in, combined with the salmon and other stuff, leads me to believe that the salad alone was around 600 calories. So I basically used my cheat meal for a salad and a cupcake. Kind of depressing.

So that should have been it. I should have stopped with that one meal and not had another splurge for a week. Naturally, that didn't happen. That night we went to Angie's cousin's house for dinner and a movie. She made all the food with recipes from Cooking Light magazine, and it really was delicious. Scallops and pasta with a creamy tomato sauce, a salad, some garlic bread, and sheet cake. Of course, I had too much of all of it, thus negating the "healthy" factor. On top of that, I had 4 beers.

It doesn't end there. Sunday I planned to make dinner myself, but the day wound up being a stressful whirlwind and the last think I wanted to do when it was over was cook. We wound up going for Chinese food, where I ate enough rice, beef and chicken to feed a small village. Oh, and crab Rangoon. When I die, please bury me with crab Rangoon surrounding my body.

All of this resulted in a not-so-pleasant number on the scale Monday morning. I'm pretty much back on track now, but this has left me wondering if I should be having a cheat meal/day at all.

I'm pretty sure no one actually reads this blog, but if you do, leave me a comment and let me know what you think. One caveat- please don't say something like "having a cheat meal every week is the same as an alcoholic taking a drink every week." I reject that completely. An alcoholic doesn't have to drink to survive. I gotta eat.

Now you know what to get me for my birthday...

My 30th birthday is coming up in April, and I bet a lot of you are wondering what to buy me. Look no further. Are you ready for this? Wait for it... The Hawaii Chair! Watch and learn, people. If you don't see the video below, click here to be redirected.

I Want a Cupcake

Yup, that's right. I've got a hankering for a cupcake. I want it to be white cake with fluffy pink frosting. I want it to be dense, so that when I bite into it, it doesn't fall apart into crumbs. There had better be an obscene amount of frosting on that bitch, too.

There's a place here in lovely Kansas City called The Mixx that serves excellent salads. You go through the line and tell the nice man what you want in your salad, and he tosses it up in a big shiny bowl, flops a roll on top, and gives it to you. When you get to the end of the counter to pay, there is a b.e.a.uuuuutiful display of confections made by some local company. I've just emailed my girlfriend and informed her we'll be eating there this weekend. Hope she's on board, because like I said, I have a hankering.