day 8

of my 30-day challenge.

boy am i glad yesterday didn't count as cheat day because today unwittingly became one.  i did not eat rice yes but i ate a lot.  a little of this and a little of that, ends up a lot.  that i don't, can't, remember each and every item that i shoved into my mouth.

so i won't make a food report.  and yes i'm cheating cause i declare today as my cheat day,  and i'm going to make up for my pigging out tomorrow.  rest assured my binge did not include any dessert, nor a grain of rice.

today's realization:

• i have to find a way to get rid of my clean-plate mentality, and no throwing-out of food mentality.  i can't seem to stand the thought of wasting food even if i am confronted with the most unpalatable dish ever [unless i have an aversion to it's aroma, of course]
• i must, must learn to say no, NO, NO, NO.

Day 7

of my 30 day challenge.

i wasn't able to update last night because i got home really late.  after watching eat, pray, love.  alone. on last full show.  ha ha ha.  i had a silly grin on my face from when i got up from my seat as the credits rolled, all the way to the almost empty parking lot.  but that story belongs to another blog.  so, on with my 1-day-late report.

so yesterday being a sunday was my cheat day.  but because i had my pilates the day before, it didn't really feel like cheat day.  i don't think i made a huge dent on my diet.

i'm feeling good about my self-discipline when it comes to eating lately  so i think it's time to tighten the belt  so to speak [pun super-intended], so i am going to up the ante on this challenge in a while.

but first,

• at 8 am i had the breakfast of champions and my morning coffee
• lunch at noon was a serving of my left over creamy squash soup over a half cup of corn grits and an egg
• i was famished by 3pm, so i ordered myself a heavy mid-afternoon snack of a big cervelat and a small siding of warm potato salad.  i dredged each yummy bite of sausage with their really good mustard [edmond fallot].  and i had another mug of coffee, this time brewed.
• we had a dinner meeting at a filipino restaurant and i am proud to say that it was not difficult to NOT eat rice.  i had salad greens with mango salsa, a small cup of molo soup, mixed veggies, and a few slices of pata tim. i mopped up the sauce with a slice and a half of the bread that came with it.  the bread was heavenly and i suspected calorific so i stopped myself from reaching for more.

what i learned this week:

1.  that it is INDEED good to write down what you eat.  it helps a lot because it makes you aware of what you put into your mouth.  doing it in a blog makes you feel more accountable even if you know not many people read you.  i did not know that saving-face can be a good weight-loss tool.
2. that you can control how much you eat by pacing yourself.  it is very dangerous to let myself get really hungry because i WILL eat calorie-dense food.  my brain will not function when i am that hungry so i will end up wasting all that effort.  and the self-loathing that comes immediately after sucks big time.  i'm glad i had that occasional banana and cereal bar to tide miyself over to dinner time.
3. that if you have a really light dinner, you have to accept that you should drink something hot before going to bed because you will wake-up in the middle of the night with a rumbly stomach.  by the way, i forgot to write this,  that night i slept hungry, i think the other day, the one where i had salad greens for dinner, i downed a handful of peanuts and a glass of water at 2am, or i wouldn't have been able to go back to sleep.
4. that discipline grows on you.  i said no to dessert so many times this week, i lost count.  i wanted to go for seconds many times but i didn't.  i unintentionally ended up with something sweet [i ordered a cold raspberry green tea, requesting the staff not to add sugar/sweetener] to drink with my salad that other night.  i only drank half of it because they forgot my request, and the i found it too sweet.
5. that it's okay to tweak this challenge if it will make it a better challenge. the tweaks i will post later just because. =P

Day 6

of my 30 day challenge.

today was good.  in more ways than one.

let me get the food diary out of the way, i had:

• coffee and the breakfast of champions in the morning
• this for lunch:

creamy squash soup over con grits and sprinkled with chili flakes

• a banana and a cereal bar as late-afternoon snack
• a salad of mesclun greens with parma ham, goat cheese, shavings of parmesan cheese, cherry tomatoes drizzled in vinaigrette.  it was delish!!! [note to self for next time:  ask the waiter to serve the dressing separately so i consume less of it.]

on to more good news:

• one of the pilates instructors commented that i lost a considerable amount of weight from when i first started [a few months ago].  yipee!  and he gave me further tips on how to lose more weight gradually.  he gave me the no-no about not eating carbs, i should be happy, i guess.
• i met an online friend who is my most supportive cheerer in the weight-loss department, and she is the reason i had salad for dinner.  i can just imagine if we lived in the same city, either i'm now as slim as she is or we won't be friends anymore, ha ha ha.  i actually fear her.  i mean that in a good way. =P
•  i did some new routines on the reformer today.  it was really hard but i did not give up.
• tomorrow is my cheat day but i'm deadset on eating right to make up for my challenge booboo.

to be honest i feel a bit hungry now so i'm going to drink a glass of water and hit the bed so i don't end up ruining today. =P

major booboo discovery

OMG

i checked out my 30-day challenge post and reread it.

and i just made a major booboo.  i thought i wrote NO RICE, and not NO CARBS...

lol, i've been eating carbs here and there, albeit reduced portions to my normal capacity.  i'm so effing pathetic.  =P

so i guess i have to tighten the belt and do the nocarbs if no exercise etc, etc thing from now on.

way to go self, i think i just got the gold for world's worst challenge-taker ever. =P

Day 5

of my 30-day challenge.

so this is a late post.  i've been waking up so early for the past week or so that my eyelids shut down on me even before i finished reading my blog roll last night.  so i was too sleepy to stay up and recall yesterday's food report.  here goes:

yesterday i had:
a mug of coffee and 2 cold chinese lumpia for breakfast [it was yummy, and it felt strangely okay even if the insides were kinda frozen, it gave it a bit of an extra crunch, lol]

i had a late lunch at around 2pm and had a hot roast chicken on bread which was smothered with gravy and a scoop of potato salad at Pancake house, while waiting for my car to finish being washed.

in the afternoon i had guests from cebu city [my college classmate and her hubby], i brought them to my house to see my bebes and for some durian treat.  i had 3 pcs downed with coke light. [i had to show them how to eat it okay, =P]

for dinner we went to a chinese resto, AHFAT III, and i had Hototay soup, kinilaw, french beans in garlic sauce, a few pieces of spicy pork ribs, and 1 steamed garlic and chili prawn.  take note, NO RICE!  and i drank hot chinese tea in the hopes of melting the fried pork ribs i had. =P

i'm going to meet up with another friend from cebu tonight and because i was too busy to exercise again yesterday, i will have to skip the sweets again,  and go without rice again, today.

self-analysis:
this is becoming more of a food diary than a challenge-to-exercise blog.  i admit defeat in the exercise department but i'm finding the "writing down everything i eat" habit really helpful on being mindful of what i eat and how much of the tempting but really bad for me food i allow myself.

i really tried the gym thing but it is just not for me right now.  i end up getting more stressed trying to fit it in into my already full life.  and if i pressure myself more i end up miserable and harassed, so for now i guess its not just worth it.

i'm sticking with my twice a week pilates though and i might embark on a new physical activity after i finish this book i am in the middle of reading.  it is health-related and timely for me, and am actually excited to start the program it is recommending.  i'll write about it tomorrow.

i am also reducing my intake of fried food and trying my darnedest best to drink nothing but water. err, morning coffee not included in the beverage ban, okay.

Day 4

of my 30-day challenge.

i had an early morning meeting so i had nothing but coffee for breakfast.  i did not do it intentionally of course, i know it's unhealthy to skip meals, but then some days are just like that.

the meeting took all morning and even till noon so by 1pm i was ravenous.  my hubby asked to order from our fave persian place, Majid's.  so that's what we had for lunch.  at 1:30pm.  and yes, i completely forgot that i wasn't allowed to eat rice today.  this is what i had:

1 goat kabab with loobia and grilled tomato, garlic sauce and hummus
dill chicken and rice [left-over of guela]  which was about 2/3 of the whole serving
1 mango and a half
i remembered not to take juice.

i ran some errands in the afternoon and had a banana at 6pm so i would not be ravenous again at dinner.  we went out to Spirale, an italian resto, as requested by my daughter who made a major booboo just before we went home.  i had:

1/3 serving of salcicce pasta [cream, tomato sauce, assorted sausages]
2 slices Gordo pizza [assorted sausages and prosciutto]
half a can of coke zero

i know, dinner sounds really calorific but hubby is going away again tomorrow so dinner had to be special, salad greens just isn't gonna cut it.


bold note:

• the juice we have here right now is of the powdered kind [meaning: sugar-laden]
• guela went out to play as we were waiting for the bill, picked up a stone and threw it as hard as she could, it hit the glass window of the japanese resto beside ours.  good thing she isn't so strong yet, the stone only made an itty bitty scratch on the glass.  but we scolded her good and she was masulub-on the rest of the way home. ha ha, lesson definitely learned, i hope. =P

Day 3

of my 30 - day challenge.

this is going to be quick cause i'm sleepy already.  today started really early.  and no i did not exercise.

6am - coffee, 1 cup corn grits, corned beef hash, lemonade

10:30am - a banana

12noon - 3/4 cup corn grits, an invented salad [i don't know what to call it but it was yummy], broiled fish, dessert: a banana with nut nougat spread, orange juice

2pm a cup of cofffee

5pm - 2 chinese lumpia, orange juice

7:30pm 2 servings of pork meatball soup with patola and bihon [rice noodles], orange juice

and i also had the following somewhere in between the above times: 2 jellybeans, 1/5 of a chocochip cookie, a handful of milo cereals. THESE WERE FORCE-FED TO ME BY MY BEBES

note to self:

• stop drinking juice, go by water instead.
• i can always spit the junk into the trash bin when the bebes aren't looking.
• i meant to experiment on a german potato salad recipe i just received but the hubby wanted soup for dinner, so soup it was.

Day 2

of my 30 day challenge.

Today started really great.  i had what i call the breakfast of champions because i actually copied it from the blogs of some of my fave weight-loss champions, Ben and Theodora. 

breakfast of champions

i had it at 6:00 am. can you believe that?  if i did not actually eat them, i wouldn't have believed it myself, lol.  once upon a time i was the kind of person who did not eat till lunch time.  well, sometimes i'm still like that.  but this morning i had to arm myself because i was going to be stuck in guela's school and the canteen serves mostly starchy and fried food.  so i decided to try the banana and peanut butter on whole wheat toasts which i often see in my champions' blogs.

i also brought with me a quarter of a cup of corn grits which i ate with guela's left over chicken nuggets at 10am.

i returned to my pilates class after a week-long absence and was happy that i aced all but one of the routines.  my shoulders were weak today and i could hardly finish one of my arm exercises.  but i sweat buckets so i declare the session a success, ha ha.

i had late lunch with the hubby at 2:30pm and had a cup of corn grits and something we call picadillo over here.  it is ground pork cooked with diced potatoes, peas and raisins, and it was good.  the downside was it was a bit too oily. =(

before heading out to the supermarket at 6pm i had a banana and a handful of peanuts.  i did this to stave off hunger so i wouldn't go berserk at the mall and order the first sinful thing i laid my eyes on [it worked!]

for dinner at 8pm, i had my last cup of corn grits for the day [shoo, go away cholesterol, shoo, go away evil sugar in my blood!] and the left over picadillo and 1 cheek of a ripe, sweet, juicy mango.

today was a big improvement to my usual convenient but really-bad-for-you choice of food.  i also bought more veggies to make our meals healthier.  i also chucked my plan of preparing fish and chips tomorrow and instead serve baked fish and german potato salad, the recipe of which was recently shared to me.

i hope to be able to make it to the gym tomorrow.  there was lightness in my step today.  maybe it's the excitement of taking on a challenge.  maybe it's the good feeling you get when you know you did right by yourself.  whatever it is, i hope to keep it up, so that the lightness i feel inside will be reflected on what is seen on the outside. =P

Day 1

of my 30 day challenge.

today was the last day of my frenzied concentration and preparation for two major work-related activities. well, at least for now.  so work took up practically the whole day which means, you get it, i did not get to do a conscious physical work out.  but if running around and going up and down a flight of stairs in heels count... no? err, okay, so i did not get to exercise today.

which means, i don't get to eat rice nor my itty-bitty-daily-indulgence of something sweet.  well, i think knowing this ugly truth made me eat everything offered to me today, which for the major part was, what our culinary students prepared for our activity.

the lowdown: [don't gasp, i'm outing myself here, you may cringe with me]

7:00 am 1 can of San Marino Tuna Paella, heated in the microwave

10:00 am Guela's left-over cheesy rice omelet [about 1/2 cup], 1 mug of coffee with coffeemate and cocosugar

1:00pm 1/2 of a modest club sandwich, 4 tuna-fita canapes, 3 spoonfuls of chocolate mousse [from the culinary class kitchen], 4 small pieces of bulad from cebu dipped in spicy vinegar with 4 spoonfuls of rice [from my dad's lunch box]

4:00pm 1/2 of another modest club sandwich, 3 spoonfuls of chocolate mousse, a cup of fruit punch [left-over from what we served our guests, eaten while relaxing with my colleagues, after the day's work was done

6:30 pm suddenly felt ravenous and went and ordered a plate of salisbury steak from red ribbon [had to go to the mall to buy something guela need's for her school activity tomorrow, i wanna bite the teacher's head off for informing us last minute]  i left about a half cup of rice on my plate.  downed what i ate with coke lite

7:30 pm a cone of milo-soft freeze eaten while browsing for books at booksale, was able to buy me three books and some adorable notebooks and pads

here's where it gets absolutely worse,

8:30pm - guilt eating, i had to eat what was prepared for me at home - 4 chicken nuggets, a cup of soup with spinach, 2 small slices of fried eggplant dribbled with knorr original seasoning, a cup of corn grits

10:00pm - 1 honey glazed dunkin donut with 1bottle of cerveza negra while blogging

bold notes:

• the club sandwich was modest because all the fillings were thinly sliced
• i love corn grits and i'm glad to find out they lower down cholesterol and blood sugar levels, i'm not saying i didn't mess up today just because i had corn grits
• the beer is for the period, which my grandmother taught me [not that she meant to]

so today was an epic fail at eating healthy, i know.  i hope i fare better tomorrow, if only to regain some of my dignity.

good night, the cerveza is no more.