Day 3 – Let the Festivities Begin

12/28/19
Fasting Glucose 155

Quick post today. Of course lots going on but I tracked all day and even went to the gym. Managed to do 10 minutes on the stairmaster which is a feat for me. That seems to be the only equipment that makes my heart rate go up rather quickly since I can no longer run after my foot surgery. After that I walked on the track. Hoping this workout helped offset my dinner lol.

Breakfast:

  • Whole Wheat pancakes with a small amount of maple syrup
  • Chicken sausages

Snack:

  • Gouda Baby Bel
  • Hard boiled egg

Lunch

  • Leftover sloppy joes on whole wheat bread
  • Mozaic chips (these are pretty good. I tried the cheddar flavor)

Dinner

  • I can’t be a saint all the time Aurelios pizza – pepperoni with black olive and garlic plus salad w/ Italian dressing
  • Small amount of ice cream and the deadly portillo’s chocolate cake (it was a small piece)

So not the best day but not the worst day. Until tomorrow!

Day 2 – Five Days Off are Coming

December 27, 2019
Fasting Glucose 155

I’m a little concerned about the next five days. Lots of events and eating out planned. I guess that’s what happens when you start eating healthy before the holiday season has truly concluded lol.

So here’s my game plan for each day:

Today – Making dinner at home

Saturday – Going to an event and then back to the house for pizza; pack a snack for the event so I’m not starving by the time we are back to the house; order a salad to go with dinner and limit the amount of pizza and beer I consume; Go to the gym

Sunday – Make sure I exercise; going to a Hockey game so no idea if I can find anything healthy; make sure I eat something before I leave the house as the less hungry I am, the less I am tempted to eat poorly

Monday – Last Christmas party; limit my alcohol intake (saving that for New Year’s Eve) and only one portion of dinner; do my best to make healthy choices and avoid the dips and such before the meal

Tuesday – Going out for New Year’s eve. Italian. Yea, good luck with that (my inner negativity says). Avoid the bread basket. Go to the gym

Wednesday – Cook at home; something healthy and delicious and congratulate myself on doing well the past five days!

So back to today. Below is a breakdown of how Day 2 went.

Breakfast:

Snack:

  • Remainder of the overnight oats from breakfast
  • Coffee w/ splenda and sugar free vanilla creamer
  • Lowfat String Cheese

Lunch:

  • Leftover orange chicken and brown rice from dinner

Afternoon Snack:

  • Hard boiled egg w/ seasoned salt

Dinner:

  • Homemade sloppy joes and parmesan potatoes

Late evening snacks:

  • Pirates Booty
  • Cheese and whole wheat crackers

Overall could of done better for the day but could have been much worse. See you tomorrow!

Day 1 – The Journey Begins….Again

December 26, 2019
Weight 234.4 (will weigh in twice a week – Thursday and Monday)
Fasting Glucose 159

I truly believe I have eaten everything under the sun this holiday season. Today I feel like I’m in detox for both sugar and alcohol. My glucose this morning was very high, like 159 fasting high and it’s supposed to be below 130. Yikes.

Christmas was great spending time with the family. Lots of parties of course with one additional party to go on Monday, the 30th. Figured no time like the present to get started on those 2020 goals right?!?

To kick off today, I spent about a half hour last night planning breakfast, lunch and snacks for work today and tomorrow. Things really do go better when I take a bit of time to plan ahead. Earlier this week I had already planned dinners for the next two days so good on that. For tonight’s dinner I am making brown rice in the Instapot (love my Instapot!) and healthy orange chicken. Here’s the link. https://thecleaneatingcouple.com/healthy-orange-chicken/ . I did make this before and the family loved it so total win!

For breakfast I had a Daily Harvest smoothie. If you haven’t tried them before they are pretty good. Here’s the link just in case. https://www.daily-harvest.com/ I don’t want to have a smoothie every day but think if I can shoot for every other day that will help me with additional fruits and veggies. They come frozen and you throw them in the blender along with some almond milk so super easy and healthy.

I also made egg salad for lunch today on some whole grain bread. The egg salad was super easy. I just chopped up three hardboiled eggs, added some 2% plain greek yogurt, a small amount of dijon mustard and some Tastefully Simple Onion Onion and Seasoned salt. Done. Lunch made in a few minutes!

Below is my entire day today including my water intake.

Breakfast

  • Coffee with splash of half and half and splenda
  • Cacao and Avocado Smoothie from Daily Harvest

Morning Snack

  • Lowfat string cheese
  • Decaf tea

Lunch

  • Egg salad on two pieces of whole grain toast
  • 2 clementines
  • Sparkling Water

Afternoon Snack

  • celery sticks
  • 2 tablespoons hummus
  • hard boiled egg

Dinner

  • Healthy orange chicken (recipe above)
  • Brown rice
  • Organic salad in a bag (I know, need to be doing this myself…baby steps

Evening Snack

  • Pirate’s Booty (no idea if this is truly good for me. Need to investigate.)

Water Intake

  • 80 oz (it’s a good start but need to do better!)

Overall I think Day 1 went well. Goals for day 2 are to drink more than 80 oz of water and to keep on tracking.

Here we Come 2020 – Get Ready!

December 26, 2019
3 p.m.

I took the time before writing this post to read back through my posts from 2019. Other than kicking myself that I fell off the bandwagon it was interesting to read how I was feeling throughout the year between my martial arts, foot surgery and recovery. Quite honestly, I’m still not back to 100% post surgery. I literally just went back to the advanced martial arts class earlier this month but did start back to the basic class in September and then moved to intermediate in November. Time will tell whether I can achieve black belt in May of 2020. This next month will make or break me as our first black belt test will be later in January. I have lots to do before then!

So personally, I have two rather large goals that go hand in hand – achieve my black belt and get healthy. I got this.

Goal #1 – Get Healthy

  • Track glucose every morning
  • Get A1C checked every three months religiously
  • Work on getting enough liquids in each day – helpful to track through My Fitness Pal
  • Limit processed food
  • Exercise five times a week
  • Don’t…I repeat…Don’t get derailed by a bad meal (no one ever got fat by eating just one bad meal)
  • Increase fruits and vegetables
  • Track as much as humanly possible (and be truthful as the only person I am hurting is myself)
  • Menu planning – such a huge key to success

Goal #2 – Black Belt

  • Set a goal of class 4 times a week; attend as many advanced classes as possible and supplement with basic
  • Practice forms with Tyler
  • Work on the form names, number of moves and what they mean – create new flashcards to study

Alright, I think these are two great goals. I’m ready to get going!

2019 Wrap Up

December 26, 2019

Lets just say that 2019 didn’t exactly go according to plan. I had these hefty goals of eating clean, dropping lots of weight and getting my black belt.

In 2019, I did manage to lose some weight. At my lowest, I was 215. I was super good early in 2019, then had foot surgery and had to stop exercising. I however managed to lose weight when in the cast, most likely because I couldn’t make it to the fridge. I’m joking…well…mostly joking. I do attribute it to the fact that I was super careful about what I was putting in my mouth knowing that I would not be able to work it off through exercise…and it was way too much effort to make it to the fridge.

As I started to exercise slowly, my weight went up and down the remainder of the year. It’s amazing to me how truly focused I can be one day and completely off the rails the next. So irritating. Like what’s wrong with me? Why can’t I just focus and lose weight. Should be easy enough. But it’s not. It’s something that I continually struggle with.

So I’m going to set out with some new bite sized goals for 2020 (what? When the heck did that happen?) that will hopefully inspire me to continue on this journey of health. I have crappy genes and want to do everything within reason to make sure I live a long and healthy life.

It’s Been a Long Time

We are nearing Memorial Day weekend and it has been more than two months since posting. Crazy. I’ve been plugging away at weight loss since my foot surgery. I did drop weight right after surgery — probably because I couldn’t walk to get to the fridge lol. Truthfully, a lot was probably loss of muscle since I stopped martial arts and exercise back in February.

I am in physical therapy and can now bike ride and walk so it’s a start. No idea when I will be back in martial arts….trying to let my body take the time it needs to heal. Patience….not something I am known for.

I have some good recipes planned for this week so I am looking forward to sharing them with you.

My fasting glucose numbers have been amazing and I recently had my A1C tested and it was 6.1 which is the lowest it has been in a super long time. Apparently 215 is my magic number for weight as that is when I saw a huge drop in the A1C. Will keep you posted on that one!

I’ve decided for every 10 pounds I lose I will reward myself with a massage. How do you reward yourself when you reach goals?

I’m Back

Well, not totally back, but back enough that I can now get back to focusing on my health. Foot surgery went well. Cast is off and stitches came out late last week. I’m in a walking boot but still using crutches for support. I head back to work tomorrow thank God. One can only work from home so many days in a row before they go crazy lol.

Menu planning was at an all time low these past few weeks and we ate out way more than we cooked but the menu is done for this week and I’m back to tracking my water intake, glucose levels, etc. Sent my daughter to the store with a grocery list so we are set for this week to hit the ground running.

The menu isn’t extravagant by any means and I haven’t incorporated anything new this week however I have gotten a few recipes for making clean bagels so I may experiment with that later today. I’ll keep you posted on that.

Here’s to a good week!

Weekly Update

Well, it’s been a little rough in the house in the past few days. Between the nervousness of having foot surgery and then the surgery itself yesterday I’ve been a little out of sorts. I’m pleased to report though that the surgery went great and I am on the road to recovery. I’ll be exercising again in no time!

In the meantime my glucose levels have been much better which is a result of me paying attention and watching what I am eating and drinking that 100 oz per day. My next goal is going to make sure that the 100 oz doesn’t include coffee but that will be for another week when I am feeling better plus…no need to rush these things.

I made a few healthy recipes this past weekend before the surgery. The family really liked this new one I tried: https://therecipecritic.com/creamy-tomato-italian-parmesan-chicken/ I did modify it slightly, switching out the heavy cream for fat free half and half. Next time I’m going to try to make an eating clean tomato sauce but for this recipe I just used canned. We had it over whole wheat pasta.

I also have some new recipes on the schedule this week that are relatively easy for the husband/kids to make. Will keep you posted on those new recipes.

Weekly glucose update (testing twice a day before breakfast and before bed):

Past 7 days average 126
Past 14 days average 129
Past 30 days average 132
Past 90 days 149

It’s very encouraging to me to see the averages start to come down as I really focus on my health.

Enjoy your week!

Kicking off the Week

Here’s to the start of a good week. Menu has been planned for the entire week and groceries have been purchased.

In a previous post I believe I mentioned that I got some not so good news on the health front regarding my foot/ankle. Saw the doctor today and have tears in the tendons on the side of my foot and a tear in my facia so I’ll be having surgery a week from today. Now I really have to be focused on food if I expect to keep on the straight and narrow without exercise to help me out. I’ll be in a cast for two weeks and then a walking boot for one. Am probably out of the gym for at least two months which is such a bummer.

Now on to happier things! I made a really good dinner tonight, meatballs in the crock pot. Made some whole grain pasta with the sauce/meatballs on top. So good. Here’s the recipe. The whole family gave it 2 thumbs up so WIN!

https://cleaneatingrecipes.com/clean-eating-crock-pot-spaghetti-sauce-meatballs-recipe/

I have quite a few ripe bananas so made the following blueberry banana muffins for the week. Haven’t tried them yet. Will let you know how they taste!

https://www.sweetashoney.co/whole-wheat-banana-blueberry-muffins-easy-cooking-with-kids/

And lastly, made this banana bread recipe however turned them into muffins for better portion control and added walnuts.

https://www.ambitiouskitchen.com/my-favorite-healthy-banana-bread-recipe/

Fasting glucose: Sunday @ 8:20 a.m. 120; Monday @ 8:35 a.m. 115
Past 7 day average 132
Water: 100.9 oz

Week Two Wrap Up

As I conclude the second week of eating clean I can say without a doubt that it was a challenging week. I didn’t get all my water in like I had planned and strayed from eating clean for more than a few meals. This coming week’s goals will be to get that water in each and every day and to do a better job of eating clean. I don’t have any work events which should help!

Today I made a really good vegetable soup recipe. The whole family really liked it so it is for sure going to be made again (and soon since I still have extra cabbage). https://www.recipesthatcrock.com/electric-pressure-cooker-vegetable-soup-easy-instant-pot-recipe/ I’ve had an Instapot for probably about a year now and absolutely love it. The soup literally took only 25 minutes once it reached the appropriate pressure. The veggies were super tender.

I also made that game day dip again as we have Avocados that are pretty ripe. Such a great recipe. https://prettyhungrygirl.wordpress.com/2013/02/03/game-day-green-goddess-veggie-dip/amp/ Dip some carrots in it. So good!

Looking forward to really focusing on my goals as I enter into Week 3!