More Recipes Please!

Lately, I haven't felt inspired to cook. [[There I said it!]]

It seems like since I've been back from vacation I have just dropped the ball completely. I realize this and in an effort to get excited about food again I have been racking up a bunch of new recipes that I want to try AND share with you all.

I want to try to make some sort of oat protein bars, a cranberry mug cake and also a totally new main course recipe.

I also want to make a spinach pesto sauce that I saw on the Nutribullet website today.

I will post up all my pictures and recipes when I get around to doing them.

Basically, be patient!

A Birthday and Cake

This weekend we celebrated my son's 4th birthday.

We had a BBQ and cake with just the grandparents and uncle.

If there is one theme for this birthday it was for sure Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. He scored big time!

He was so excited. He got all the ninja turtles, a motorcycle for the ninja turtle and his uncle got him the ninja turtle bus...

Opening the motorcycle....

Even though he is into TMNT, he still loves Spiderman and he loved his cake...

No longer a baby...

Chomping big time on his cake...

Bodybugg Results – Week 2

Do you like my new skin?

I have had the Bodybugg for over two weeks now and I wanted to give an update on how it is helping me improve my health.  If you don’t know what a Bodybugg is you can visit my in-depth review of the product here.

So I’ve been wearing it on average 21.9 hours a day. I changed my goals from losing 1lb. a week to 1.5lbs a week, which comes out to a deficit of 750 calories a day. I’ve been able to keep an average deficit of 760 the last two weeks.

Theoretically, I should have been able to lose 3lbs. in the last two weeks. As of today, I am right on target with a 3lb. loss over the last two weeks. I went down 4lbs., but a pound of it must have been water weight because I’m holding steady at 3lbs. lost.

The Bodybugg is also a pedometer and my goal is 10,000 steps a day. I find that during the weekend I reach this goal with no problem. However, during the week I have difficulties reaching 10,000 steps because I sit on my butt all day long at work. I’ve been really conscious of my steps and I try to walk around the office as much as possible. On days where I run, I can reach the 10,000 steps a day without a problem as well. I would like to get to a point where I am doing 10,000 steps just in my daily routine.

My worst numbers come from the sleep category. My goal is to sleep 8 hours a day. However, I have fallen short every single day. My average over the last two weeks has been 4 hours and 55 minutes of restful sleep. My goal over the next month or two is to condition myself to go to bed earlier on weekdays. It shouldn’t be a problem so long as I don’t exercise too long in the garage and/or stay up watching entire network TV seasons on Netflix…lol  [[Damn Netflix!!!]]

All in all, I am really happy with the last two weeks. I have learned so much and going forward I want to apply what I have learned and become even healthier.

____

As far as the armband, I have had plenty of people ask me about it. I don’t get tired of telling them about how amazing the Bodybugg really is. However, I think people must think I am nuts because I want to know everything about my body. Maybe they are right to an extent, but who cares! I am so happy knowing my body this well. After all, I am stuck with this body my entire life, might as well get to know it intimately.

It’s a blog. IT’S A BLOG! A BLOG!?!?!

I have a new coworker at work that swears that she has seen me before. She’ll come back every few days and say, “Do you know so-and-so?” or she’ll ask, “Do you go to XYZ place?” It must be driving her bananas for sure because she keeps trying to narrow it down.

So finally yesterday I asked her if she by chance followed any fitness/health/nutrition blogs online. She looked at me with an expression of, “What the hell are you talking about?” She finally asked, “What’s a blog?”

WHAT’S A BLOG?!?!? Really? I found it hard to explain to her that a blog is like a journal where you can write however often you want about whatever you want. I explained to her that often time’s blogs have a theme. After clarifying what a blog is and telling her that I have one, we obviously came to the conclusion that she’s never been to any healthy living blogs and that’s not where she knows me from.

Honestly, I don’t know why people don’t know what a blog is, but she’s not the first to ask me. I have encountered a lot of curiosity, negativity, and confusion when I explain to people that I have a blog.

The really negative people always re-buff my explanation of my blog with, “Why would you do that? Why would you type about nutrition and your life on the Internet?”  Then I need to explain to them that it’s an outlet just like any other hobby.  At times, these people walk away not fully understanding why I blog. At times, I just want to hurl a laptop at them and tell them to type in my web address so that I can show them just how amazing my blog is…lol. I generally feel that when someone gives me friction about the blog it’s either because they believe that the internet is full of predators trying to find copious amounts of information about me or they are just plain miserable in their own lives and could never fathom writing about it. I try not to focus on the negative people because there are just too many positives about having my blog and they can criticize all they want. Besides, for every negative person in my life there are many more that are positive.

I love it when I encounter the really positive people. They immediately ask for the web address and check out the blog and give me compliments with huge smiles. These are the people that don’t quite understand what a blog is but still enjoy reading about nutrition/health and my life. These are my favorite kind of people! These are my supporters! These are the people that I write for. They outnumber the haters and they are the ones that believe in me. I focus on them when I write and I try to write often because I know that they check my page often. Too all of you…

THANK YOU FOR THE SUPPORT!!!

It doesn't go unnoticed and it is truly appreciated J

It's Mother's Day and I'm whining about my job...

I'm sure if you have been reading my blog you know that I am an Accountant. I always tell people that what I do for a living doesn't define me, but somehow I always get the feeling that people don't understand what I mean by that. Let me explain it a little better...

Have you ever notice when you meet someone for the first time the second question out of their mouth is, "What do you do (for a living)?" I don't know why it urks me so much that people ask that. Maybe it is because I know that they are trying to put me into some pre-defined mold that they have in their head as to what an Accountant represents to them. All I know is that it bugs me and sometimes when that question is thrown out there I can feel my insides cringe.

The thing is, I don't mind the path that I have chosen. It allows me to support my family. Lord knows, I'm lucky that I even have a job.  I am just mentioning that I wish it wouldn't be the second question people ask (the first being "What's your name?"). I much rather prefer that they ask me what I like, because what I like is really what I think defines who I am.

I could sit here and say that if I didn't have a child I would  start a new career in fitness, but the truth is I probably wouldn't because of my mortgage. I truly believe I missed my calling in life. I would have loved to be something to the effect of a life coach. If I could, I would love to inspire someone struggling with their weight to see that  anything is possible, that the sky is the limit and all it takes to achieve ones goals is hard work. I wish I could be that person that could educate even slightly overweight people on the dangers of carrying around too much weight. I don't even know if that's what a life coach does. Maybe that's called something else. All I know is that I would love to be that person.

However, I'm not. But my blog is a good outlet for all my fitness babble. I love my blog because it allows me to have a little slice of that 'Life Coach' dream.
_______________

Oh yeah, Happy Mother's Day ladies! 

Being a mom is the one job that I don't mind!

5 Things You Might Not Know About Me...

1. I am SUPER shy in person.

I have always struggled with being shy and it's always felt like a curse. So many things that I want to say but it's almost like there is a brick wall between my brain and my mouth. The worst thing about being shy is that people misunderstand it. I have had many people (primarily women) say that they thought I was a total b*tch when they met me but once they got to know me they couldn't believe how humble I am. The worst is that pretty and shy do not mix well and people automatically think I'm stuck up when in fact I'm really just trapped by my own personality. I have learned to push myself to be less shy but it really doesn't come easy at all.

Isn't funny that I write a blog (that is pretty wordy) but have a hard time making conversation?

I find it to be almost comical.

2. My favorite thing to hear out of people is “I’m going on a diet.”

I love, love, love it when people around me go on a diet. It instantly makes me want to talk about nutrition and health with them. It also instantly makes me want to help that person get healthy and learn the ropes. At my last job, whenever the women in the office would begin to talk about losing weight and needing to go on a diet it always seemed like a little huge spark went off in me. I felt like they were going to be my new best friend because we had something amazing in common. Of course, I am all hardcore (I mean I wear a Bodybugg 23/7. C'mon! That's hardcore!) and I find myself resisting the urge to dump a million different health facts on my new best friend. I just love helping people learn about nutrition.

3. Laziness is my biggest pet peeve.

Urgh! I can't stress just how much lazy people drive me crazy. It's the worst when you are working with someone that will not pull there own weight. I have no tolerance for people who try to shove off their work or neglect their work in an effort to have someone else pick up the slack. It just boils my blood! Especially because they think that they've outsmarted everyone when in fact they just look like lazy asses!

Was that a mini rant?!?!

4. I have a nice and dirty sense of humor.

No prude here! The dirtier the better!

I don't know where I got my sense of humor from but I think it came from my dad. I am always down to hear a good joke and my dad is loaded with good ones. My brother has a good sense of humor as well. When I get to know people better my quick wit comes out and the one liners begin. Nobody ever expects it from me and usually I am greeted with a look of disbelief that I said something so vulgar. Hahaha!

5. I always root for an underdog.

I will always root for the underdog because I am the underdog. There have been so many challenges that I have encountered in my life that threatened to break my spirit (like my Junior High PE teacher) yet I never did break. In fact, it made me stronger and it made me appreciate my victories a lot more. I always get inspired when I hear about someone accomplishing something that everyone else thought was impossible. I believe in the human spirit and I believe that the sky is the limit and that you should never let anyone tell you that you can't or you won't.

3 Things My Bodybugg Taught Me

1. Online BMR formulas are WAY off.

For years, I have been using online BMR calculators. I trusted that these calculators were correct and I would eat accordingly. After being stuck for 3 months at the same weight something had to give. I knew that it had to be one of two things. I thought that either my metabolism was slow or I was eating too few calories. Never in my life did I think that the BMR I was using was off by 400 calories.

After wearing the Bodybugg for a week my average calorie expenditure comes out to 2,321 calories a day. The online calculator that I was using was predicting that with working out 3 times a week my average calorie expenditure a day was 1,886. If you do the math, the foundation of ALL my calculations has been off by 435 calories a day for the last year!!!!!

Since my goal is always to lose a pound a week, I was then subtracting 500 calories from 1,886 and eating 1,386 calories. So what I have been doing for a year is burning 2,321 calories a day on average but only eating 1,386.

This means that everyday I have had a deficit of 935 calories!!!

Well no frickin' wonder I haven't been losing weight. I've been unintentionally starving my body for the past year! It's a wonder that I've lost the first 31lbs. I think I lost it before my body caught on that I was unintentionally starving myself. I even feel bad that I've put my body through such lean times. I feel even worse because I think of all the food I skipped over to only eat 1,386 calories a day. I've been missing out!

Well thank god for the Bodybugg! I get to eat more now!!!

2. My metabolism is not slow, but rather fast.

Closely related to the above, I thought that one of the reasons why I wasn't losing any more weight was because my metabolism was super slow. In fact, I've always told people that my metabolism is slow. Well after wearing the Bodybugg I have come to find out that my metabolism is NOT slow but rather fast. This just shows me how out of tune the online calculators are and how valuable the Bodybugg is. As I mentioned above, the reason why I haven't been losing is because I've been unintentionally starving myself. My body is so freaked out of starving to death that it has been holding on to every last pound. I can't imagine the damage that I have been doing to my body. It makes me feel horrible that I've been starving my body and making it basically run on one cylinder instead of all eight. Oh yes, my body is a V8 engine!!!

3. I was eating too little.

As stated above, because of online calculators and my belief that my metabolism is slow I have been eating WAY too little. This has caused my body to run inefficiently and in turn I have not been able to break my plateau. My hope for the coming month is that my body will "reset" and realize that I am not starving anymore. This in turn will hopefully make my body begin to shed the weight.

____

I wish I had a Bodybugg sooner. I think back at all the times I went to bed feeling like I wanted to eat a spoonful of peanut butter or a banana but didn't because I was at my calorie limit. How unfortunate that I missed out on all that food. How unfortunate for my body that it went to bed starving.

I really wish I had a Bodybugg sooner.