Where's My Energy?

First off, I'm not one for energy drinks really, nor any diet aids and pills. I stick to vitamins and go. However, the heat has been draining me like there's no tomorrow. On the upside, it turns out I really don't sweat much and I have a high tolerance for the heat. At any rate, I do subscribe to Hungry Girl and I took her advice to try out FRS Energy Concentrates, for free no less (also 20% off by using the code "hungrygirl" when you purchase), and it's sooooo fantastic! I truly love it and it actually gives me tons of energy without feeling like I'm on drugs or something! I feel great and only use it once a day in the afternoon if I need it. So at least during the summer I've found a new energy friend lol.

Did I mention that the air conditioner at work gets so overloaded that it ends up being 90 to 95 degrees in here during the day with the AC on? Yeah, it's pretty bad.

Fitness Appreciation

This weekend was a great change of pace due to going to my sister-in-law's house for the weekend. I had a really great time. One of the things we did was go on a 2 mile brisk walk yesterday morning. It was great and made me realize how fit I am because it was so easy for me. We went up hills and all at a truly brisk pace, yet it was incredibly easy to do and just felt good. It's difficult for me to judge how fit I am because I work out on the elliptical and use tapes at home and I focus on maximizing caloric expenditure. Therefore, it's hard for me to realize how fit I am until something like this comes up where I pound the pavement. Feels great to "see" these kinds of things!

Recipe Blog

For those of you interested, I've created a recipe blog that's linked on the sidebar here which hosts different foods I made for the different meals and my grocery list.

Enjoy!

My Scale is Toying with Me

Yes, you read that right, I'm attributing sentient qualities to an inanimate object. No, I'm not quite crazy yet. This not so little minx housed in my garage likes to play with me. Last Monday it tells me I weigh 188 lbs, on Saturday I weighed 184 lbs, on Sunday I weighed 182 lbs, and today I weigh 190 lbs. So where's the truth?

In all fairness, I gave new meaning to the word gluttony last night and I was still full from dinner after breakfast when I weighed myself. I knew it would toy with me. So the upside in all this is what you ask? The upside is that the scale has less power than the mirror. I am getting firmer and I will lose this weight and I'm not taking a year to lose these last 30 lbs either! I have decided to have 2 weigh in dates now though. I will weigh in Monday's as usual and on Wednesdays. Why? Because while the scale isn't the end, it does affect how I feel to some degree and constant negativity won't work. I haven't lost a pound in 2 weeks and well, that's my own fault, but I need to see something positive and I know my actual loss or lack of loss will be reflected in a couple of days.

Or should I ditch the minx? LOL

Restlessness

Days off feel sooooo good! I'm so glad to be done with my little work marathon from the past few weeks. I have noticed something very important about myself though. I've become one of those restless people that always need to be moving or doing something. Even though I've been so tired these last few weeks I still got up early yesterday and got waxed, hair done, cooking, exercise, etc. I even kept getting up to do this or that while watching a movie for goodness sake. Today too, I got a massage then came home and ate lunch and immediately went out to do errands, etc and just kept myself moving all day long. I can't seem to help myself. I wonder what the deal is. The Flavia of the past would sleep in until 1pm at any opportunity, lounge around watching movies or playing a game, or anything lazy like that and the new Flavia just can't sit still through a movie! The plus side? More calories burned HAHAHA. Plus, I just feel so productive.

On the food front, I made some killer biscotti today. I've been wanting to make some since I just haven't seen some that I'd want to buy anywhere and I'm all out of the NS ones, so I gave it a shot today and they turned out fantastic. I'll never buy biscotti again. I made some apricot-pecan ones and chocolate-pecan ones. The chocolate ones were better in my opinion and my husband agreed. I think my mom will love the apricot-pecan ones though.

Anyhow, enough ramblings for one day. Hope everyone is having a great weekend and Happy Father's Day to all you fathers out there!

NS

June 27th will mark my 1 year anniversary on NutriSystem. Luckily I will be able to say that I've accomplished alot thanks to this program and what I've learned from it. It has been, and will continue to be, quite the journey. The easiest part has truly been losing the weight because I feel that I still eat well. The hardest part, which I'm still working on, has been coming to terms with the fact that I will forever have to watch what I eat and continuously work at staying thin.

I want to list a few things that have been important to me. There are many more, but listing all of them would take quite a while. Also, I tend to forget the little things sometimes and that's too bad really. But I'll never forget what it felt like to weigh 341 lbs.

Thanks to NS:

*I know what a meal should look like.
*I know what kinds of food I should be eating for optimum health.
*I know how to successfully eat out at a restaurant or other events where I don't prepare the food.
*I am physically active.
*I have all the tools I need to ensure long-term success regardless of whether life throws me curveballs or not.


Due to working NS:

*I am able to fit in an airplane seat comfortably and eat on the tray.
*I can move freely! Bending, kneeling, squatting, running, walking, jumping, etc.
*I like what I see in the mirror.
*I can essentially wear what I want. I am no longer limited to shopping by catalog only.
*I feel good about myself.
*I'm not ashamed to be "seen" in public and I no longer feel I don't look good enough to be by my husband's side. (He doesn't agree with this statement that I should ever have felt embarassed because he's always loved me for who I am and never felt embarassed to be at my side).

Heat & Sweat

Ah, the good life. It was over 100 degrees yesterday and a high of 97 degrees today, yet I barely broke a sweat!

To give you some insight as to why this is even important to me, I am the one who would have the fan on even in winter because I would get hot and sweat. I was like a waterfall whenever it was hot, even 80 degrees, which is very uncomfortable and not pleasant when dealing with customers especially. I couldn't straighten my hair because while I was straightening it, it would start to curl from the sweat. Wearing makeup in Spring even was ridiculous because it ended up running and looking worse than wearing no makeup. The list goes on. I was incredibly hot all the time for so long. Now, I barely sweat unless I'm working up a sweat on purpose! It's so liberating and feels fantastic!

I can finally begin to understand why people enjoy the warm months that I've detested for so long.

Counting Down

I'm sitting here at work on a Saturday and counting down the days until I have a day off. I'm so tired and sleepy. So 6 days down, 12 days to go. My being tired isn't work related though. I've been tired the past week and a half, maybe I need more downtime. It's all good, I will persevere.

On another front though, the main advantage to working everyday is that I'm always 100% at work! Woohoo! LOL, not much room to cheat when you prepare your meals for the day!

Enough blabbering and more working. Have a great weekend!