Friday, August 21, 2009

Crunchy disasters

I tried my friend's oatmeal suggestions this morning. Complete disaster. So much so that there was an oatmeal explosion all over my microwave and it was still crunchy. I ate it plain today. Gross. Tomorrow, I will try again and this time will try some of my comment suggestions. Which, PS to my dear friend...where does one buy steel cut oats? I could not find them at the grocery store today.

Earned my pony tail today. Rode my bike to and from work. Fell off my bike at a busy intersection. How embarrassing. Cars stopped to make sure I was alright. Pride was the only injury.

As for the eating healthy...ate plain crunchy oatmeal for breakfast, fresh watermelon for lunch, and homemade spaghetti for dinner. Oh, and four cookies and peach cobbler. Ugh. I did so well until the cookies and cobbler. The cobbler was made from fresh peaches? Does that count? Will try harder tomorrow.

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Breakfast poop

Yet another new goal...to try and limit the kinds of crappy foods I eat.

I have been trying for about 2 years now to slowly but surely make lifestyle changes towards what I eat. And I have slowly but surely made some changes. But they have been little tiny baby changes. I feel like perhaps now is the time to at least try to start making some larger steps. I read an article in a magazine about only eating things that have a few ingredients. I think the article suggested 4 ingredients. I don't so much care about the actual number but I care a lot about the concept. I know that I should eat more natural foods. We all know that. I want to change my diet habits to encourage myself to eat mainly foods that only have a few ingredients. If only the crappy, high fat, high sugar stuff was instead the natural foods. Poop. Instead, the natural foods taste like poop. Ok, not really. Really, I need to learn how to properly cook the natural foods so that they do taste good. I have a friend who is so good at this she made toast, tomato and basil taste good. See, my friend is my example. Every time she suggests something healthy, I cringe. But every single time she produces this amazingly wonderful food, natural plus all sorts of tasty. Soooo.....

Starting this morning I made myself good old crappy tasting oatmeal. Plain old rolled oats oatmeal. Tastes like poop. Ok, I have never actually tasted poop, but I think that my breakfast this morning would have been a good example. My first and biggest problem with oatmeal (and I am embarrassed to admit) is I can't cook oatmeal. It is always crunchy. So not only does my breakfast taste like poop, it tastes like crunchy poop. Sick on so many levels. I have tried cooking it on the stove and in the microwave. I follow the recipe to the letter. Stupid crunchy healthy one ingredient oatmeal. This morning I added fresh blueberries, which I hate; fresh cherries, which I hate; and fresh peaches, which I hate. It was a hard morning. It took me so long to eat that I was late for my lunch meeting. Eeewww. But everything for breakfast was one lousy ingredient. Lunch and dinner was not so good. But tomorrow, back to the oatmeal. And I have plans for all sorts of few ingredient meals for lunch and dinner tomorrow. Tonight I received oatmeal cooking tips. I will implement them in the morning. As for the cherries, blueberries and peaches, I will prevail. I am a firm believer that you can train yourself to like anything, including oatmeal that tastes like crunchy poop.

Sunday, August 9, 2009

The secret to exercise

The secret to exercise? Apparently there is none.

I just read an article from Time magazine, ( http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1914857-1,00.html ), about why exercise won't make you thin. I knew it! I knew that watching NCIS was a better alternative! My favorite part of the whole article was this paragraph.

"...in June the Association for Psychological Science issued a news release saying that "physical exercise ... may indeed preserve or enhance various aspects of cognitive functioning." But in fact, those who had better cognitive function merely walked more and climbed more stairs. They didn't even walk faster; walking speed wasn't correlated with cognitive ability."

Why I like this part so much? Because recently a group of women I know were chastised for being part of a walking group that was not walking fast enough. WHAT? This kind of mentality drives me insane. Sure, maybe they could walk faster, but if this is the only exercise that they are doing, it is better then none. One of my co-workers lectured me for eating pretzels. She said I should be eating carrots. UGH! Of course, I know that I should be eating carrots but at least I am not eating potato chips. For me, it is all about baby steps. I am currently on pretzels. Soon, I will baby step it to carrots. The walking group? Those ladies will eventually start to walk faster. But I know from personal experience. I can run dang hard and dang long the first day, but I won't run at all the next. Where if I walk/run for 15 minutes for two weeks, I will be able to continue walking/running for 20 minutes the next two weeks. Baby steps.

But what this article was really saying was that as we exercise, we get more hungry and as we are more hungry we can justify eating more and worse because of the amazing workout we just had. The author used muffins at Starbucks (not a problem) and Gatorade (ok, maybe a little bit of a problem), as examples. And this is where it pertains to me. I LOVE lemonade. I love just love any sugary drink. And I always justify myself in drinking lemonade or Gatorade because I just worked out super hard for like, 15 whole minutes. I obviously have burned away any electrolytes that my body so desperately needs so I must have to drink a Gatorade just to be healthy. Yea right. I have plenty of electrolytes left in my body after my measly 15 minute workout. It is most certainly a great goal for me to someday be the kind of athlete that needs to drink Gatorade to replenish burned electrolytes but I am nowhere near that now.

So the moral of this story is that I need to start cutting out my sugaring drinks. This is huge. I drink the Panera lemonade so much that the workers give me free refills, which is against the rules. But since I drink it so much they know me there. Craziness. But as much as I love my lemonade, I hate working out even more. And I have to work out. If not to lose weight, to at least help preserve my bone density and my arteries. And if I have to work out, I am not going to throw away the last 15 minutes of hell on a stupid lemonade. So new goal. Cut down the sugary drinks. Drink more water. I must break my addiction to lemonade. Ugh. Why can't I be one of those people who don't like sugar? I am not sure I have ever met anyone like that, but I hear they exist.

My Secret Plan

My goal of becoming organized by throwing everything I own away is being pushed into the forefront.

My father has a problem. He can not throw anything away. He is so anal about it that he keeps track of how much trash is in the garbage can in the garage! If he feels that there is to much garbage out there, he will go through the entire can!! SO GROSS!! During the few times I have attempted my organization goal, he has dug through my trash and pulled out everything he deemed not garbage. Which was pretty much everything.

But my father is going out of town this week. He is going to be gone over a garbage day. The goal is to get as much stuff as I can thrown away while he is unable to pillage through the trash. The garbage people come on Wed. Only 2 days left. The pressure is on. Stay tuned. Maybe I will even post a picture of the curb on garbage day.

Saturday, August 8, 2009

If only I was a lesbian

Seriously. Have you noticed that girls are the best at giving compliments? When you look good, they tell you. And the best thing about girls is that they still think you are pretty darn amazing even when you are not all dressed up. As girls, we get all dressed up, we primp, we squeeze, we pluck, we, in essence, torture ourselves. All for the sake of men. And the only people who notice are the girls. And they are the ones that don't care if I shave my legs. They don't care if I am wearing uncomfortable heels or ripped out half of my eyebrow. They still love me when I am wearing flip flops and pjs and my eyebrows have become two fuzzy caterpillars. My girl friends think I am the cat's pajamas when I am in my pajamas. Dang my attraction to men. Cuz my girl friends are pretty much amazing in every way. They are wonderful. A girl could not ask for better friends. Lucky lucky me. Yay for my incredible friends! Thanks for the compliments ladies!!!


Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Plan B is overtaking my life

I am sick sick sick of plan B. Did I miss the train to plan A? Seriously, did I miss it? I am bored with plan B. Sick of plan B. Tired of plan B. I want plan A. Now. And anyone who does not know what I am talking about is an idiot. Ok, maybe not. That was harsh. I guess there are the few who have never had a plan B. Plan A was all that they needed. Stupid plan A people. But I guess I should be grateful that I am only on plan B. I could be on plan C or D. That is a dreadful thought. Just great, now I have something else to worry about! Plan C. Oh crap. To all of my friends who are asking the same question as I am...WHERE IS MY PLAN A!!???

Letter to my friends

Dear friends:
Of course I wear a helmet. I am much to fond of my head, spine and brains to take a chance not wearing a helmet. Though my helmet would not be in a very fair fight against a speeding bus. Would I look like a complete idiot wearing a full motorcycle helmet on my bike? Something for me to ponder...
Much love,
ME