Hey there guys! Happy Tuesday! Wow, it’s only Tuesday? That is slightly depressing. Oh well, I’m sure Friday will be here before we know it!

Ok so there’s something I’d love to talk about with you guys. You see, I have this problem.

It all started out when I went to Italy. I ate doughy, cheesy bites of pizza and washed it down with prosciutto, fresh mozzarella, and goblets of wine. It was delicious, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

Then came my birthday. I celebrated and had a great time with my friends and family and wound up with a ton of leftover cake in my fridge. It was a nice special occasion and I treated myself to a few small bites most nights after dinner, until the cake was gone.

Then on Halloween I munched on too much extra candy and on Thanksgiving I splurged on all of my favorite Thanksgiving treats.

Blerg!!

When you pile on pizza, cake, candy, and all of the glorious food that I gobbled up over Thanksgiving, my normal mantra of “eat healthy 80% of the time and splurge when you must” was no longer cutting it.

This past weekend while I was getting ready to go out, I realized I didn’t like the way any of my clothes were fitting. The top I usually love? Looked bad. The dress that’s usually my go-to choice? Not so flattering. It’s not that I couldn’t wear the stuff I could before- my skinny jeans still fit- but they were just feeling a little tight and I didn’t think I looked that good in them.

A quick hop on the scale confirmed my beliefs; throughout the fall I had gained five pounds.

Now, five pounds may not sound like a lot to you (or maybe it does) but to me, it sounds like a slippery slope to ten pounds and beyond. It’s not like I have to be in a bikini anytime soon and I don’t feel the need to look super sexy in the middle of winter for just my friends and family, but I just didn’t feel good about myself. I wanted to look better for me. And I knew if I wasn’t careful, that five pounds that I worked so hard to lose over the years could quickly turn into much more (especially with the approaching holidays).

Five pounds is one thing, but ten?! That suddenly sounds a whole lot harder.

Anyway, a few options crossed my mind.

1. Try to be more mindful of what I’m eating and kick up the workouts (I nixed this idea because that’s what I was supposed to be doing all along. You can see how well that worked).

2. Try a new fitness routine, like a half marathon (there’s a half marathon I really want to do in March but it costs around $100 and I just can’t rationalize that cost right now. Plus, I’m not sure if that would be enough to do the trick).

3. Rejoin Weight Watchers. Hmmm. Now there’s an idea. I could rejoin the organization that brought me so much success the first time I needed to lose weight. I have pretty much been following its principles all along anyway, only without counting and keeping as careful track as I should have been.

Weight Watchers is just the motivation I needed to keep track of what I’m eating and not splurge too often. Like I said, I believe it’s fine to splurge now and then, as long as you are eating healthfully about 80% of the time and you’re not going too crazy with your splurges. I thought my 80% was slowly sliding toward 60%, and I was hoping Weight Watchers would be the answer.

Without giving one more thought to the Christmas cookies and goodies I might feel like I’m missing, I took the plunge (for the second time) and joined Weight Watchers.

Sure, I could have waited until January 1 and joined the masses of people embarking on a weight loss journey just because it’s the popular time to do so- but I like to think I’m above that. I wanted to join now, today, because that’s what’s best for me. I felt like I was at the tipping point of my comfortable weight zone and it was time for me to do something about it, whether it was a “good time of the year” or not.

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So there you have it! I will now be following a more Weight Watchers-friendly diet. I don’t think things will change around here too much, but I will now include points on all my WIAWs and possibly even my new recipes (although I have a few old ones I’ve been meaning to post for a while now that will not be WW friendly. Oh well.)

I’m really excited about this new choice in my life and so happy I was able to be proactive and actually do something when I felt my weight creeping up. Here’s to making healthy choices!!

Question of the day: What do you when you start feeling like you’re at the “end” of your weight comfort zone? Is there a certain number that you see on the scale that sparks you into action? Or do you rely more on how your clothes are fitting? Are you lucky enough that you’re always comfortable with your weight?

I try not to look at a scale too often (too many horror stories of people obsessing over a scale have warned me away) but I like to keep an eye on things. When I see a certain number or feel a certain way in my clothes, that’s my breaking point. Time for something new!

Hellllooooo everyone! I am glad to see you were all as excited about my Rome announcement as I was Wheee!! I can’t wait

But anyway, today is Wednesday and you know what that means…

What I Ate Wednesday! Yay! For the month of July, Jenn over at Peas and Crayons is asking us to incorporate some fitness information into our WIAW posts. That is a-okay with me since I do that pretty regularly anyway. In fact, I thought instead of just giving you guys an update about what I’ve been doing for my workouts, I might share a little bit about why I like doing those particular workouts. So anyway, if you’re interested in the fitness portion of today’s What I Ate Wednesday post, you can read about it after I recap my eats from yesterday.

1. For breakfast I had my apple cinnamon overnight oats. They were packed with nutrients and kept me really full all morning. I didn’t wind up eating my lunch until around 1:15 which is really late for me. Plus, the oats were delicious. This is definitely a meal that is going to be seen around here a lot more often, now that I finally bought the required chia seeds. Woohoo!

2. When I finally did get hungry for lunch, I had a PB&J on a sandwich thin along with some raw almonds, pretzel twists, and yogurt-covered pretzels. Yeah I know, this lunch is incredibly lame, but I am still in the process of restocking my fridge after the power outage last week. Even though I went to Trader Joe’s over the weekend, I only picked up a few things and still need to do a full-on restocking shopping trip. Looks like lunch meat is number one on my shopping list (along with lettuce for salads. Argh!)

3. For a snack I had some fresh Rainer cherries from Trader Joe’s. They are so delicious right now and I have been snacking on them all week. Yum!

4. For dinner I had two broiled chicken breast tenders seasoned with cumin, paprika, and Mexican chili powder, topped with half an avocado. On the side I had quinoa cooked in half a packet of taco seasoning (yum!) and some fresh salsa mixed in (similar to my Mexican quinoa). I also had some roasted asparagus. This was a great dinner!

Not a bad day of eating! I am pretty embarrassed about my lunch though; how sad is that picture? I definitely need to make a trip to the food store soon so that I can get some more greens in my diet. Where are my veggies??

Workout

Instead of just posting the usual workout recap (i.e. I ran a mile with Jack today and then did half of an Insanity DVD- which is true), I wanted to talk to you guys about why I do Insanity. Why I choose to do the same workouts over and over instead of joining a gym.

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Insanity is a 60-day program with a set of DVDs for month 1 and month 2. The DVDs all have a similar layout; they start with a warmup circuit, then stretch, then do two more circuits, then stretch again. Each DVD is slightly different and has different moves. The month 2 DVDs have an extra circuit and are therefore longer and more intense. Here’s an example of what some of the circuits look like:

Warm-up (repeat 3 times)

Jog in place
Jumping Jacks
Heisman (jump from right to left in a crouched position)
1-2-3 (same as Heisman but with three quick steps in between)
Butt kicks
High knees
Mummy kicks (arms out straight, alternate kicking your legs)

Circuit 2 (repeat 3 times)

Suicide drills
Power squats
Mountain climbers
Ski down (jump side to side and move as if you’re skiing down a mountain)

Circuit 3 (repeat 3 times)

Basketball jumps (jump from down low and “shoot” a basketball)
Level 1 drills (get down on the floor, do 4 push ups, do 4 mountain climbers on the ground, come back up, repeat)
Side-to-side abs (stay in a plank and jump with your legs from side to side)
In-and-out abs (stay in a plank and jump with your legs forward and back)

These things are no joke! I will be hot and sweaty at the end of every single Insanity workout I do. It doesn’t matter if I’ve done it every day that week or I haven’t touched the videos in a month. They always give me a fantastic workout. Plus they are short and sweet and nothing gets my heart rate so high after a mere 45 minutes. They are also quick and intense and don’t allow me to get bored.

I have, however, been thinking about joining a gym (just because I miss being in classes) but it’s been hard to rationalize paying $30 a month (at best) for a gym membership when I already have a workout that I enjoy that is a great mix of cardio and strength workouts. I am signed up to complete Tina’s Best Body Bootcamp at the end of the month, which may be enough to push that gym membership. We will see!

Anyway, what have you guys been eating this week? Any interesting workout regimes you’d like to share? I’m all ears (er- eyes?)

Hellooooooo people! Happy Friday to you! I felt like this week lasted entirely too long and I am ready for the day to be OVER! Oh wait, what’s that you say? It’s on 9:30 am? I have a ton of work to do and probably won’t leave the office until 7:00 again? OH WELL WHO CARES IT’S FRIDAY! Haha sorry, I’m just really ready for this week to be over. Plus the weather is supposed to be gorgeous this weekend so bring on the fun!

For today’s Fashion Friday ensemble I chose jeans and one of my favorite tops since the weather is supposed to get nice this afternoon but was too chilly this morning for a dress.

Jeans: Nordstrom rack

Top: Ella Moss via Bloomingdale’s

Shoes: Target (I do love me some Targét)

For breakfast this morning I indulged in another scooped out whole wheat bagel with veggie cream cheese. This combo never gets old!

Fitness Lessons Learned

Last night after I finished my Curried Rice and Veggie Bowl, I caught up on some of the magazines that are piling up on my kitchen table. I subscribed to Fitness back in January when they had a special promotion for a year’s subscription for $5.99. It was an impulse buy and if I had been thinking more clearly I would have realized that I actually don’t read Fitness very often and I prefer Women’s Health. Duh. What was I thinking? Anyway, there’s nothing wrong with Fitness, I’m just not as excited to read it right when it gets delivered. So i tend to get busy and forget about them until they pile up and eventually I give in and read all of them in one sitting. Ugh!

Last night’s reading, however, was actually pretty interesting. As I was perusing through the April issue, I read an interesting article about things your trainer tells you that are not true.

While a lot of them were pretty obvious, there were two that I was pretty surprised by.

1. Have you ever heard that saying, sweat is fat crying? Well I guess I always took that to mean that sweat was actually fat coming out of your body. I thought it was all the extra salt and toxins getting pushed out of your system. The article explained that sweat is only a means of cooling off your body, and does not actually help you lose weight except for maybe water weight. They also pretty much said that sweating in a hot yoga class is not going to make you lose any more weight than a regular yoga class. Pretty interesting. I personally was slightly disappointed because when I get really sweaty after a workout I always thought that physically meant fat was pouring out of my body. Not so!

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2. The article also discussed how stretching after a workout is no longer as important as people once thought. Apparently scientists always thought sore muscles after a workout was due to the buildup of lactic acid (that’s certainly what I always thought) but new research shows that lactic acid might not be the cause at all. In fact they said stretching after a workout is important, but totally not necessary if you need to leave the gym in a hurry. The article explained that the only thing it helps with is slowing down your heart rate and keeping you from getting dizzy.

Now, both of these factoids go against everything I’ve ever heard/read about being fit. Sometimes I can’t tell whether to truly believe stories like this or to stick with what I’ve learned in the past. Take for example, the Today Show. One day they will tell you how coffee is terrible for you and gives you cancer, and then a month later they will tell you it’s awesome for your heart. How can you take any of their advice seriously when they are obviously just searching for “new” content? Filling up a show like that every single day has got to be difficult, so of course their stories aren’t always going to be the most verified. Either way, I will file this new information I learned as “interesting” and keep it in the back of my mind.

I also love reading magazines so I can read little interesting tidbits like this and see gross/motivating pictures to put things into perspective:

Interesting, huh?