Cheater Cheater Pumpkin Eater

As many of you know I am doing everything I can to eat healthy all the time. Well for Halloween instead gorging myself on the candy I bought for trick or treaters, I decided to handle things differently this year. We didn't buy any candy for the small children that never showed up to start. The evening went something like this:

Jimmy and I were hanging out on the couch per usual and he could tell something was wrong with me so he asked "what's wrong with you babe". I replied that it was so depressing to not have any treats on Halloween. That I felt very much like a big uncelebratory non candy eating loser. He asked me over the next few hours "well what can we do to fix it". I, of course, mulled over my decision, contemplating all the terrible things I wanted. My inner fat girl immediately went into full swing. She came up with some amazing ideas like cookies and cake and brownies. Mmmm. However new Dani kept interjecting and ruining things so I just couldn't decide.

So, we decided that we would just go food shopping and see what we found to fulfill my inner fat chicks desires. We went to Trader Joe's first. We got all our normal stuff but nothing there screamed out to me to have it as my treat. We left TJs and moved on to Ralph's.

We went immediately to the Ben and Jerry's section of Ralph's. Very dangerous terrain for my inner fat girl. I stared at the glorious labels on the small cartons of creamy goodness. Guilt set in, so I reached for the chocolate chip cookie dough light. I felt sad that it wasn't really a treat if it was light. I don't know which of us thought it first, but almost as if drawn by scent, we found ourselves in the candy aisle next.

What to pick? What will look best on my thighs after I devour it?? We settled on two boxes of Reese's pieces. One for me and one for him. Jim turned the corner but something else had caught his eye. He had found a bar that we had never seen or eaten before. It was much like a Hershey bar except in each square was Reese's peanut butter. I stared up at my tall fiance and said "we must have it" and without a 2nd thought grabbed it and ran for the register.

We went home and I measured out a serving size of the Reese's pieces. Pretty disappointing to see how little it was but in fairness one serving was 200 calories and I had ice cream and a candy bar to taste too. After that I went for the ice cream. I ate what my eye thought was 1/4 cup, the serving size. I have to admit I was beginning to feel pretty gross about eating all this crap, but just did not care. And of course we saved what we thought would be the best for last. We opened up the Reese's bar and I have to say it was quite anti-climatic. Not enough sugary peanut butter in a square. I had two squares, which was half the serving size for another whopping 100 calories. So in total I think I ate 500 calories, including the ice cream, of deliciousness. Mission accomplished. I was no longer a loser who did not celebrate Halloween and I felt like I had a really successful cheat day.

About an hour after feeling super satisfied with what I was able to consume, I felt sick to my stomach. Cheat day is not all that its cracked up to be after all. I do highly recommend them, because you really can't starve yourself of the good stuff all the time. That's just not fair. But I will admit that it may make your tummy feel upset if you eat lots of candy and ice cream like Jim and I did. Also it may cause you to force your fiance to throw your ice cream away the following day because you are not sure if you can control your urge to eat it again. I may or may not have done that. And my fiance may or may not have poured liquid dish soap on the ice cream before putting it in the trash should I decide to rescue it. We are still reviewing the tapes, so I'll have to get back to you about that. Ahh yes, these are the stories we will some day tell our children.

Standing Up or Sitting Down?

Today I started a new experiment with my body. I came into work and decided that this week I will stand up rather than sitting at my desk. I am doing this so that I can see what the difference is in my calorie burn for the hours I am at work from when I was sitting before. Thanks to my trusty body bugg, which counts my calorie burn, it makes this experiment much easier.

I am already starting to see a difference as I sit here blogging from the gym on my blackberry. So far today I have burned 100 more calories than last Monday when I was seated. I have also noticed that I feel less tired while I stand. One unpleasant element would be my soar feet and back, but if I remember right from my waiting tables days, this should eventually subside. Its so weird what a difference simply standing can make.

I managed to also raise an eyebrow or two with my standing up at my cube. I was asked by one person why I was standing today and if I had back problems. After explaining my little science experiment to them, they expressed that they thought what I was doing was neat. Its always nice when people find what I'm doing interesting. Then on the other hand I have the nay sayers. For example, I was pulled aside and asked again about my standing. But before I could really explain myself, I soon realized I had already been slightly judged by them saying "you know who used to stand all the time"... And I knew who they were referring to and am fully aware of how this person was not looked upon favorably by all at the office. The point is my judger thought it might deter me from standing. They were wrong. They also went on to suggest that maybe I should just go for jog during lunch if I am calorie counting. I laughed and made it very clear that I already do that.

The point is that no matter what you do that is different from the norm, people will always judge you, whether they realize that's what they've done or not. I will not sit down because someone is concerned that I might be compared to someone else who used to work here that wasn't well liked. That is just silly. So, I encourage all of you to do as you please and not to give a crap about others and their opinions. Because you know what they say, opinions are like assholes, everybody's got one and they all STINK.

Disclaimer: I do realize this person who tried to get me to stop standing up did it out of the kindness of their heart and do not discount them for that all.

Bugging Around

A few months ago I started hearing about this thing called a Body Bugg. The first time I think I heard about it was by watching the Biggest Loser, as I believe they make all their contestants wear one. I also saw that you could win a body bugg if you spelled enough letters by playing Scrabble through Subway, which by the way, I now believe is a total hoax. And then I met up with my cousin, Meredith, at her new apartment in San Diego to find out that she has one too.

I, of course, had a bizillion questions for Meredith. What was it? What did it do? What was it like? Did she find it annoying (because you wear it on your arm)? She answered all my questions as follows. She explained that the body bugg was a device that tracked her calorie burn and at the end of each day, she had to plug it into her computer and also manually enter her calories consumed, and then see if she had a calorie deficit or surplus. She explained that it didn't bother her at all, even after I said "really"? Because it just seemed hard to believe that this thing that is on your arm at all times except for when you shower would just be intolerable. She insisted otherwise.

Of course after hearing about it from Mere, I grew much more curious about this device. I got disheartened at first, finding out that they only sold them at 24 hour fitness... or so I thought. Turns out they also sell them online at apex's website. I guess they would be considered the makers of the body bugg. First thing to note about the body bugg is the price. It is not cheap. I had to find a way to rationalize this purchase while also saving for a wedding. The way I see it, even though it costs about three hundred dollars for the whole shebang, it is a life time investment, so after about two weeks of wrestling with the decision, I went for it.

Now it has been one week that I have been wearing the Body Bugg on my arm. Mere was right. It is not annoying, it does not bother me at all. I think the trickiest part was just getting it started. I had the worlds most difficult time trying to figure out how to take the device out of the arm band it comes in. You see, in order to charge it, you have to remove it from the arm band to find the usb port. Jimmy and I must have looked like fools staring at this trying to figure it out that first night. Once we found it, it was glorious and we felt like we had conquered something much greater than what we actually had. Nonetheless once set up of the actual arm band and device was complete, I had to synch it with my calorie counter watch.

The calorie counter watch is an optional part of the body bugg. You don't have to get it, but I find it very helpful. Instead of having to plug in the arm device to see what your caloric burn is, you can just glance at your wrist and there are the numbers. Easy breezy. The watch also shows me how many steps I've taken, what time it is and length of each activity I do that it monitors. In a nut shell, I think its awesome.

When I started on the body bugg I weighed in at 148 with my clothes on last Tuesday. Last night, one week later, I weighed in at 146.6. I truly believe that the food journaling along with tracking my caloric burn is really working for me. I mean I am seeing the results, this morning I weighed in at 145. I have not seen that number in a very very long time. I almost cried, but that wouldn't anything unusual, now would it?

If any of you who read this are considering purchasing the Body Bugg, I highly recommend it. Once you get in the habit of writing down everything you eat and entering it later, its not that bad. Also it's really neat to see what you are actually burning versus what the machines at the gym tell you that you burn. I am going to update everyone on my status with the body bugg as I go just because I find this whole thing fascinating.

Another Football Sunday

You know what they say... another Sunday another game.. or um wait.. I must be mixing that up with something else. Anyway, I was woken up by Jim at around 9AM and asked if I wanted to go to the game with him. Since we had some friends from college that were in town, I decided I would go and grace the others with my presence. However I did not have a lot of time to prepare, as Jimmy told me we had to be to the bar by 9:45ish.

First things first, I did all my usual morning cleansing routines, straightened the hair and put on some make up. Although I am okay with forgoing the makeup for work, I try to look nice for my friends. The best part about getting ready for football Sunday is not having to think about what to wear. God bless the Lehman family for getting me an Eagles jersey, because last year was hell trying to come up with outfits that early in the morning (and did I mention last year I was probably hung over each Sunday, so that made it harder?). The other nice thing I noticed is that my jersey is beginning to fit me better. Ah yes, it's the little things.

I found out that we would not have time to make breakfast, so I started to scramble around the kitchen like a bull in a china shop. What in God's name could I take with me? It had to be something that I could discreetly eat, as to not get looked at strangely by others for bringing my own food to a bar. I found an apple, sliced that up and put it into a plastic baggie. My stomach growled. This indicated to me that I would need more than the apple to make it to 1pm for the end of the game. I searched around some more and saw we still had some Trader Joe's shredded wheat with maple left. YUM. I threw some on the food scale to make sure I was only going to eat the serving size and then put them into a zip loc as well.

Oh, did I mention my new toy yet? I purchased the biggest loser food scale and it is AWESOME. I try to measure everything I eat so that way I know how many calories I am consuming with each meal. I also purchased the biggest loser cook book as well as the biggest loser calorie counter book. Put all three together and I hope to be unstoppable with my calorie counting.

Back to the story kids. We get in the car and I show Jimmy the treats that I have prepared for myself. I don't know why, but I feel as though if I show them to him, then I must eat them. We arrive at the strip of stores where the bar is and there is no time to stop at the coffee shop. Ugh. So we go into the bar and I order a coffee and it is just not the same. Not only that, but they do not have 2% milk to offer me to put into my watered down beverage. In fact, the waitress said to me "i am pretty sure that all they have is whole milk because of all the cooking they do". I told her its fine and to just please bring me some creamer. This is the problem with eating out, even if it is something as small as coffee, you can never get it just right so that it is healthy. You have to make do and hope that you won't go over your calories at the end of the day.

After the whole coffee thing and I was more awake, some more friends started to arrive. I had my biggest loser calorie counter book obnoxiously placed on the table, not because I wanted to force it upon others, but just to remind myself not to give in to temptation. One of the guys noticed my book and sarcastically said "oh are you going to write about this in your blog" and i said "yes, i am going to blog about this and tell my readers all about the asshole who asked me if i would blog about today". I hope you are happy, Dan.

Soon, the bar food arrived on the table. I was sitting in between two dudes, who both ordered what appeared to be the most delicious buffalo wings I had ever seen. I had to really put the lasso around my inner fat girls neck so that she would not take over. I mean inner fat girl was really out of control drooling when the food started coming out. They smelled so good, even the ranch, in plastic little cups, seemed enchanting. What the hell is wrong with me? Good thing I had my trusty apples and cereal on stand by. I began to just stuff my face with my snacks that I had in my purse and silently stare at the wings. To make myself feel better, I even looked in the calorie counter book to see how many calories was in the buffalo wings. 261 calories for every 3 ounces is what I found. Good lord. Thank goodness I had self control and did not ask to eat one.

Once everyone was done eating their food, all I could do was stare at the drinks they were having. I think it has been almost two months since I've had alcohol of any kind. I don't really remember what my start date was for stopping consumption of alcohol, but I can tell you this, the longer I go with out beer wine or mixed drinks, the easier it gets to be around it. If only I could have the same change in thoughts about food. The good news is I still left the bar feeling proud that I had not eaten or drank anything out of the ordinary. Fingers crossed that next football sunday is that much easier.