December 2009

31 Days Challenge

by Jen, a priorfatgirl on December 29, 2009

I sure am taking my time getting a post up today. This not working until 10am deal sure is nice! Only one more day of work and then I have the rest of the week off. I love this time of year! Our plans for New Years Eve include dinner at a new restaurant and then over to a friends house for some guys vs. girls kinda games. Any wild crazy plans on your side? Hopefully no drinking & driving included.

31 days of no eating out
Well, you read it here first ladies & gentlemen! The time has come for Carlos and I to tighten up a little, re-analyze what we think is important in our budget and make some changes. You see, we are trying to get to Italy in October so we’ve got some saving to do! (Carlos’ niece who lives in Italy is getting married. And yes, I’m totally bouncing off the walls excited about it!)

As we were looking at our spending habits, and we realized we eat out A LOT. And by a lot, I mean I am one expensive date! Lately, when we’ve been going out we rarely spend under $50. Doing that 4-6 times a month sure adds up!

So, there ya have it. For the entire month of January, no eating out. There are a few tiny exceptions though

  • New Years Eve Dinner. We have dinner reservations at a new restaurant called Samba – it’s Brazilian and I can’t wait!
  • Carlos may occasionally grab something during the day. He is a sales rep and since he is running around from appt to appt, its hard for him to not eat out if he’s at a client or doing lunch with his boss. For the past year, I’ve packed him some sandwiches so him going out to eat during the day isn’t a huge concern.
  • My sister’s birthday. My little sister, Alicia’s birthday is on January 31st. If we as a family decide to get together before her birthday well, we aren’t willing to say no to that!

So there ya have it. No Mexican for me. No soup from the lunch cafeteria for me. This is all on me, planning my lunch and being pro-active in my eating every day. It also means being very thoughtful with our weekly grocery shopping so as to make sure we have plenty of food options throughout the week.

Anyone wanna do this
31 day challenge with me?

More PB Talk
So many of you had great alternatives & options for peanut butter including natural peanut butter, almond peanut butter and even powdered peanut butter.

Here’s my thinking though – I agree that finding an alternative should be considered an option but at some point, I’m going to have to face my Peanut Butter Demon because lets face it, I can’t go my entire life without eating the real stuff. Facing Demon Day was yesterday.

Today, well – I’ve decided that 2 pieces of peanut butter toast plus the eggs is just too much of a breakfast for me. (It’s like 450+ calories!) I would rather eat one of each and then have a mid-morning snack. So today, I’m having one piece of peanut butter toast and one hard boiled egg.

Tell me, what does your well-balanced breakfast look like.

{ 49 comments }

Is this thing on?! Can you hear me!?

by Lindsay, another priorfatgirl on December 29, 2009

Ugh, my body is talkin’ and I haven’t been listening very well! Sorry body…

My body is SICK of the junk. Sick of the over-eating. Sick of feeling icky. Sick of getting fatter. SICK OF IT ALL!

I think it’s been trying to tell me this for the last few days, but I tried to shut it up with cookies and fried food and all of that nonsense. This morning though, my body was YELLING at me. Seriously, I woke up and all I wanted was a huge, giant glass of water. When I was packing my lunch all my body wanted was something healthy, particularly salad. So, that’s what I did. I am listening to my body. Quenching my thirst with H2O – not Diet Coke. I’m going to get a salad for lunch, not processed crap.


Funny, if you listen to your body, it tells you what it needs. Hmmm.. what a concept! Like I said yesterday, the holidays killed me. Really killed me. Threw me so far in a tailspin. Ugh. I felt like crap after all of the food. I have one more hurdle before I can put this all in the past until next year: New Year’s Eve dinner. My mom always makes a nice (BIG!) dinner for NYE. Every year it is Prime Rib and Crab Legs. It’s the only time of the year I get those things. I absolutely love crab legs… and they really aren’t too bad, minus the butter sauce! Haha So, I have to get through that and I’m in the clear until next year. Thank God. And hopefully by next year, I’ll be more “experienced” on my healthiness journey. That’s not to say it will be easy. But I am hoping it will be easier and more second nature to stop when I’m full, pass up things that I don’t really want. This year, that was really, REALLY hard for me.

Right now, Adam and I are working on our “New Years Resolutions” – I’ve never made resolutions before… I thought it was kind of dumb. But Adam and I decided we would try it this year. When he asked me what my resolution would be. The first thing out of my mouth…? “Lose weight” how cliche of me! :)

Here are a few other ideas we threw around:
- GET BACK TO THE GYM!!! (At LEAST 2 times a week)
- Eat out no more than once a week (most weeks)
- Save some money
That’s all we had talked about together.

Here’s my personal list:
- Lose the weight… obviously
- GYM.
- Cut back on the soda (no more than 5(?) sodas a week)
- Be a better blogger!!!!!!!!
(This list is still under construction! :)

Are you making New Year Resolutions? If so, what are they? :)

I’m hoping to have some very, VERY fun, exciting changes coming my way in 2010. If all goes as planned, I may be able to share some exciting news with you on Thursday….ecccck! No promises though, but keep those little fingies crossed! :)

Also, starting on Thursday, I’m starting a project that PriorFatGirl, Jen presented me with. I’m pretty pumped about it. I’ll talk about it more tomorrow, so stay tuned!

Thanks, as always, for reading! Have a super fab day! And do yourself a favor, listen to your body!! :)

xoxo
Lindsay

{ 0 comments }

Making out with peanut butter…

by Jen, a priorfatgirl on December 29, 2009

errr….I mean making up with, not making out with. Or so I thought – then I took pictures for the post. More on “making out” later!

So forever (okay, just 2 years) I have eating oatmeal for breakfast. Lady of routine, one pack of instant sugar free apple cinnamon oatmeal.

Once, I got crazy and added berries.

And once, I got crazy and mushed up a banana.
(P.S., you MUST try this! Instructions here)


There was a day I even put chia seeds
in my oatmeal! But mostly,
I just like my oatmeal plain.

Until a couple of weeks ago, when I realized I was eating 99.9% carbs all day every day. And I decided I better step outside of the instant oatmeal and find some other options.

ENTER THE EGG AND
PEANUT BUTTER!!

Well, not together but both on the same plate. You see, I’ve heard so many people at the gym (well, trainers mostly) talk about 2 hard boiled eggs & peanut butter toast for breakfast.

And…if you have paid attention to my blog, ya’ll know I’m deeply scared of having peanut butter in my house. Wanna know why? Cuz I LOVE IT. TOO MUCH. Give me a jar of peanut butter and I’ll tell ya a bazillion food combination that would tempt your taste buds (or at least tempt a binger like myself!) I’m not kidding – you see, pre-weight loss, peanut butter was my go-to food. I would put peanut butter on EVERYTHING!

  • Kit Kat dipped in peanut butter
  • Peanut butter & cheese sandwiches
  • Crackers & peanut butter
  • Pretzels & peanut butter
  • Celery & peanut butter
  • Oreo’s dipped in peanut butter
  • Peanut butter smeared banana
  • Peanut butter on a spoon
  • or a fork
  • or on my finger

And it wouldn’t be just a serving. I would totally overdose on peanut butter. And then when I started counting calories, I made the decision that peanut butter was just not worth the potential binge so I never brought it into my house.

The past couple of weeks, I’ve had eggs and toast.


But I really want the added protein from the peanut butter. (I want to increase my protein intake.) And, since the light-bulb moment about controlling my response to the environment instead of controlling the environment, I made a risky decision this weekend.

My shopping list…
Yes, I’ve decided to purchase a jar of peanut butter. So while standing in the peanut butter section, I felt my armpits start to sweat. I examined the nutritional labels carefully and to be honest, felt very overwhelmed looking at the calories. Flashbacks of peanut butter filled binges flashed in my mind.

But alas, I bought it anyways.
I can control my response to my environment.

Enter The Peanut Butter

ah, how I’ve missed you.
Can we make out?
okay okay, no making out
with the peanut butter!

(P.S. notice the glasses? Doctor says I better start wearing them all the time so I dug around and found an old pair I had. Glasses bother me, they rub on my nose too much – maybe I’ll look into contacts.)

Anyways, this Beck Diet book is giving me the confidence that I can live with Peanut Butter without impaling my tongue deep into the jar to lick the remaining insides out. I tried this morning to add it to my toast but when I turned the jar over to look at the servings and saw 1 serving = 2 tablespoons = 190 calories, I got overwhelmed and decided I would only use 1 tablespoon.

I know it’s a mental struggle. I made it through day one of having the peanut butter in my house. We’ll see how I do for the rest of the week. I’m going to try to incorporate the recommended 2 tablespoons in my breakfast tomorrow.

Do you have a food in particular you struggle with? One that, no matter what, you just cannot seem to control yourself around?

{ 0 comments }

Making out with peanut butter…

by Jen, a priorfatgirl on December 29, 2009

errr….I mean making up with, not making out with. Or so I thought – then I took pictures for the post. More on “making out” later!

So forever (okay, just 2 years) I have eating oatmeal for breakfast. Lady of routine, one pack of instant sugar free apple cinnamon oatmeal.

Once, I got crazy and added berries.

And once, I got crazy and mushed up a banana.
(P.S., you MUST try this! Instructions here)


There was a day I even put chia seeds
in my oatmeal! But mostly,
I just like my oatmeal plain.

Until a couple of weeks ago, when I realized I was eating 99.9% carbs all day every day. And I decided I better step outside of the instant oatmeal and find some other options.

ENTER THE EGG AND
PEANUT BUTTER!!

Well, not together but both on the same plate. You see, I’ve heard so many people at the gym (well, trainers mostly) talk about 2 hard boiled eggs & peanut butter toast for breakfast.

And…if you have paid attention to my blog, ya’ll know I’m deeply scared of having peanut butter in my house. Wanna know why? Cuz I LOVE IT. TOO MUCH. Give me a jar of peanut butter and I’ll tell ya a bazillion food combination that would tempt your taste buds (or at least tempt a binger like myself!) I’m not kidding – you see, pre-weight loss, peanut butter was my go-to food. I would put peanut butter on EVERYTHING!

  • Kit Kat dipped in peanut butter
  • Peanut butter & cheese sandwiches
  • Crackers & peanut butter
  • Pretzels & peanut butter
  • Celery & peanut butter
  • Oreo’s dipped in peanut butter
  • Peanut butter smeared banana
  • Peanut butter on a spoon
  • or a fork
  • or on my finger

And it wouldn’t be just a serving. I would totally overdose on peanut butter. And then when I started counting calories, I made the decision that peanut butter was just not worth the potential binge so I never brought it into my house.

The past couple of weeks, I’ve had eggs and toast.


But I really want the added protein from the peanut butter. (I want to increase my protein intake.) And, since the light-bulb moment about controlling my response to the environment instead of controlling the environment, I made a risky decision this weekend.

My shopping list…
Yes, I’ve decided to purchase a jar of peanut butter. So while standing in the peanut butter section, I felt my armpits start to sweat. I examined the nutritional labels carefully and to be honest, felt very overwhelmed looking at the calories. Flashbacks of peanut butter filled binges flashed in my mind.

But alas, I bought it anyways.
I can control my response to my environment.

Enter The Peanut Butter

ah, how I’ve missed you.
Can we make out?
okay okay, no making out
with the peanut butter!

(P.S. notice the glasses? Doctor says I better start wearing them all the time so I dug around and found an old pair I had. Glasses bother me, they rub on my nose too much – maybe I’ll look into contacts.)

Anyways, this Beck Diet book is giving me the confidence that I can live with Peanut Butter without impaling my tongue deep into the jar to lick the remaining insides out. I tried this morning to add it to my toast but when I turned the jar over to look at the servings and saw 1 serving = 2 tablespoons = 190 calories, I got overwhelmed and decided I would only use 1 tablespoon.

I know it’s a mental struggle. I made it through day one of having the peanut butter in my house. We’ll see how I do for the rest of the week. I’m going to try to incorporate the recommended 2 tablespoons in my breakfast tomorrow.

Do you have a food in particular you struggle with? One that, no matter what, you just cannot seem to control yourself around?

{ 73 comments }

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