I Used to be Fun

Goodbye sugary fun foods, it's been nice knowing you.

[nosugarmama]

I made a pizza tonight with this Trader Joe's cauliflower crust. It wasn't very pretty, but it tasted delicious. I baked it for twenty minutes (the box says 8-10, but nope). It's a little flimsy when you put sauce on it, I need to figure out how to make it more sturdy... but overall a good lower carb, gluten free, lower cal pizza crust option! I'll be back for more!

[nosugarmama]

Nutrition exhibitionist

After months of starting and stopping the same diet over and over again, with no indication that any dieting actually took place, I decided I couldn't leave matters in my own hands anymore. Because my own hands like pasta too much. And those hands are really good at shoving things in my mouth that shouldn't be there. So, I asked my therapist, who specializes in eating disorders, to recommend someone who could help me not just with calorie counting, but also the emotional aspect of my overeating. Because I know how to count calories, I just don't really WANT to. You know? So now I have this nutritionist. And she's kind of like a therapist who lets you talk about food all the time-and who doesn't like to do that?? Except I have to keep this little notebook and keep track of everything I eat, and how I feel when I'm eating it. There's nothing that brings a dinner party down more than the fat girl who whips out her notebook and starts furiously scribbling in it with after every course. But I gotta do it. The thing that always surprises me is when I have a day that I think is a total disaster (oh no, I ate pizza), and she explains to me why it wasn't such a disaster (pizza, apparently, isn't the devil if you're not eating an entire one). Over a few months, I've started to notice that I think twice about things, sometimes...like i can tell the difference between truly wanting ice cream and going to somewhere quality like Van Leuwynn to get a delicious cone, or grabbing a pint of B&J at my local Foodtown because I want to house a whole pint and feel sorry for myself. There IS a difference!

[nosugarmama]

I'm loving these grain bowls from Fresh &Co, one of my favorite midtown lunch chains. This Yuzu bowl is my favorite, with BBQ Jackfruit coming in a close second.

[nosugarmama]

My Achilles Heel..is My Achilles Heel

To be honest, there isn’t a good reason why I abandoned my musings here, other than I forgot my password and was too lazy to reset it. Oh and maybe I was mad at myself for abandoning pretty much all good sense in fitness and in health. It’s been a pretty rocky road (and I’ve been eating a lot of it, too-and any other ice cream flavor I could get my hands on), but I’m trying with all my might to get back on that damn wagon. I’ve been in and out of physical therapy after being diagnosed with Achilles Tendinitis and then, a torn Achilles. It’s been over a year of chronic pain, a walking boot, and now very limited workouts. So guess what happens when you can’t jump up and down anymore? You get FAT!! Well, I get fat. I got fat. Am still fat. It happened slowly but then it didn’t, one day I woke up and didn’t recognize my body anymore. And that was a giant shocker. Not being able to workout my lower body other than some lame-0 stationary biking (and no matter how long you sit on that thing, it’s never a workout. Ever!) has rendered my thighs 2 useless flabby sausages. So, I spent January dry, which was great for my mental state but did fuck-all for my weight…and I’m ready to take on my eating again. Gluten and sugar have both snuck back into my diet, and I have the tummy to prove it. And the high cholesterol.

So I can use a little help here. And by a little I mean kind of a lot :)

[nosugarmama]

Planet Fitness, Flatbush Avenue. Shoulder press with lunges.

2 years ago I added a pretty aggressive weight training schedule to my all cardio, all the time routine (which clearly wasn't working for me, surprise!). I was floored at how quickly my body started to change and although I didn't lose a lot of POUNDS, the inches melted away. 

I haven't been as diligent with my weight training (at one time I was doing it 4x/week) so I am trying to make it a priority again. Thankfully my main gym - NYSC - makes that pretty easy having classes at my fingertips daily.

I'm probably the most obsessed with the Les Mills Body Pump classes-you can take one in any gym anywhere in the world and the class will be exactly the same, which is fabulous for someone like me who doesn't want to think too much. The best part is that the routines get changed up every 3 months or so, which means as soon as your body gets used to something, BOOM you gotta start all over again.

My other fave that NYSC offers is UXF Burn. I don't really know what the UXF stands for, but it sure as hell does burn. It basically consists of a series of weight and cardio exercises done in intervals-60, 40,30 and 20 seconds. In between each set there are cardio bursts such as burpees, mountain climbers, squat jumps, etc. This is the class that gets me the best results, because my heart rate during those cardio bursts is BEYOND.

[nosugarmama]

Fat-shaming.

That's my new tactic to get myself to take this weight loss thing seriously again. I just don't know what else to do.

Here I am, all 167 pounds of me. At least that's what the scale is saying. I've gained 7 pounds in the last 6 months, and I was already trying to lose 20. 

My cholesterol was also a whopping 265, which is up about 60 points from last year.

I'm back on myfitnesspal.com, so if any of you wanna play, I'm lebaneezblonde.

I'm trying to keep up with the workouts, but the workouts can't keep up with my eating habits, apparently. So...here we go again!

[nosugarmama]

Photo by David Goldman

I somehow managed to get myself through a 75 mile bike ride a few weeks back:

 http://www.bikenewyork.org/ride/twin-lights-ride/

I'd done this ride before, but the most I'd ever done was 55, so I put on my big-girl pants and went for the longer route. Considering I had not been on my bike all summer, I was pretty impressed with myself. I'm pretty sure the four days a week of body pump/cardio shred that includes all those squats and lunges definitely helped!!

[nosugarmama]

The Love Diet

So. I can't even remember the last time I posted in here. I'm guessing sometime last Spring. I'd like to say that I've lost 20 pounds since then and I was waiting for the big reveal and I'm going to post a bunch of pictures of my fabulous weight loss and all that. 

Sadly, that is not to be the case. Alas, quite the opposite. I think I'm probably kind of a fattie right now.

I have a good reason (in my opinion) for putting on a few L.B.s in recent months-I kinda met someone and we fell in crazy love and I'm on what I like to call the Love Diet. You know this diet. It's the one where you find yourself in a new relationship and all you and your fella do are eat, drink, "indoor activities", more eating, and more drinking. You drink wine with every meal, you make brunch where before yogurt was the morning meal of choice...you get my drift.

It doesn't help that New Guy is on the slender side and can eat pretty much whatever he wants, and does. 

We cook a lot, and admittedly I have gotten him eating a lot more vegetables and healthy, hearty foods. But he also likes to bring me ice cream. And chocolate. And I like to eat it.

Thankfully, I have been REALLY sticking to the workout routine, which has helped tremendously. And New Guy is very supportive of my gym time, so he respects my need for that on the regs. I've even gotten him out to Prospect Park for a makeshift crossfit workout we could do together. So if nothing else, I am maintaining some sort of fitness. 

But yea, I'm not doing myself any favors. And I worked too damn hard to let myself fall back into bad, old habits. So I'm owning it and doing something about it! TODAY!!

After we meet up for drinks later...of course... ;)

[nosugarmama]

Happiness is putting on the "skinny" jeans and having them hang off me. 

[nosugarmama]

This Time, I Mean It

Here's a little bit of honesty: I've had so many false starts in the last few months, I don't even know how to change the pattern. I think I have myself fooled that I'm eating healthily, conveniently forgetting about the non-healthy things I've also been ingesting. My most recent transgression was while on mini-break in the Dominican Republic last week. We stayed at an all-inclusive resort; nothing tastes better than "free", in this case unlimited amounts of alcohol (and I was at a resort in the Caribbean, so Pina Coladas were key), desserts (the buffet was a killer) and just poor eating in general (the resort did not have a lot of things for a semi-vegetarian so I had a few protein bars as meals). The biggest offender was this chewy donut that they served at breakfast..they were ridiculously tantalizing and I succumbed to their charms.

I always reward myself when I survive a plane trip, so upon my return (after having FOUR bloody marys on the plane-I'm a terrible flyer), I ordered from my favorite Middle Eastern restaurant and got the Zataar Bread AND Muhallabia for dessert. So, as you can see, things are not looking good over here right now.

I've been seeing a nutritionist through my doctor and part of my "plan" is a medically prescribed shake that I am allowed to have one to two times a day. I am not generally a shake person because I like real food but they do come in handy sometimes. This week I decided that I will have one for breakfast and one for dinner for the next 5 days. Yesterday I did this, with a really good salad from Just Salad (salmon, edamame, black beans and corn, cucumbers and asparagus over kale and romaine) for lunch, some tamari almonds as a snack in the am and after my 2 hour Cardio Shred/Abs/Zumba workout. I did pretty well, no hunger pangs at all.

I'll report back in a few and let you know how I do.

I just know that I need a kickstart after a few months of emotional eating and drinking (and just going out too much to keep myself occupied during a kind of shitty time for me right now). I lost sight of what was important which is MY HEALTH. I am going to the doctor at the end of the month for my A1C test and I am so afraid of what it is going to say.

[nosugarmama]

Happiness is only using the 12 pound dumbbells during a 45 minute shred class.

[nosugarmama]

My workout outfits are getting smaller-and maybe finally my butt???

and yes there is a kitty cameo in there.

[nosugarmama]

Does anyone else have this problem? Everything on me is getting smaller...except my ass. 

[lebaneseblonde]

Green curry and coconut milk. “Noodles” are made from spaghetti squash.

[nosugarmama]

I'm pretty proud of this one; it's completely fabricated by me, made with all things I found in my kitchen.

I sauteed previously cooked spaghetti squash (I usually cook an entire one and scrape out all the squash to use as needed throughout the week), kale, brussels sprouts, Indian dark chickpeas (Kala Channa, courtesy of Jyoti canned foods), and tofu.

The sauce is lite Coconut Milk, 2 heaping teaspoons of green curry paste, and some leftover muhammara that I had (but you could use some sort of hot pepper if you like it really spicy). I threw a bay leaf in there and some dried cilantro (remember, I'm using what I found in the kitchen, so no fresh cilantro for me on this snowy day!), sauteed it all up, and there you go, no-noodle green thai curry!

[gastrogirl]

cinnamon roll oatmeal.

[nosugarmama]

this looks amaze.

[nosugarmama]

Just used my brand new Breville Juice Fountain Crush for the first time to make a healthy green juice. Not bad for my first try!

The mixture of the kale, green apple, cucumber and ginger was perfect. It took a little prep as I had to chop everything up before putting it into the juicer, but next time I definitely won't skin the cucumber-the juicer is really good at separating it out!

Clean up was fairly easy, the juicer even comes with it's own "toothbrush" to get all the leftover bits out. Yay!

[nosugarmama]

January Detox

And so it begins. The dreaded January detox. I've been doing this for about 10 years (not gonna lie, I've skipped here and there, last year being one of the skip years) and it's generally been pretty effective in getting back on track with weight, food, etc.

I never wavered with my workouts during holiday season but there sure was a lot of holiday cheer being eaten and drunk, especially the 2 weeks between Christmas and New Years. Brunches, birthdays, lots of gifts of chocolate, the decadent Christmas Eve I always spend at Rolf's drinking those evil egg nogs and then feasting on Indian food afterwards, two separate Christmas celebrations (one day with my family, another day with the bf's family) and of course the staycation week where going out for meals and drinks every day is the norm (hell let's face it, living in NYC, going out for meals and drinks every day 365 is pretty much the norm!). Last but not least, New Year's Eve, where the ultimate decadence takes place, and of course the New Year's Day brunch to soak up the alcohol from the night prior (I did NOT partake of the hair of the dog, my January detox truly did begin on January 1).

I thought I was going to be juicing up a storm today, but the day got kind of busy and I am still a little bit afraid of my new juicer but I think I did ok:

Breakfast:

Fage plain yogurt with honey and 1 tbsp flax seeds

Lunch:

Homemade quinoa minestrone "stew" with carrots, kale, cannellini beans, tomato, brussel sprouts and broccoli

Snack:

Pure bar and cashews

Dinner:

Tom Yum Soup and tofu and veggies, brown rice

Dessert:

Coconut Bliss Chocolate frozen dessert 1 serving

1 spoon peanut butter

Tea with coconut/almond milk

No, it's not a cleansing fast by any means, but it's a 3 square meal day. Needs more fruits, I realize.

No gym-stupid snow, stupid life, I have to have to go tomorrow. Let's hope the snow remains reasonable and I will be able to leave the house!