So, I've been so positive about my whole diet and exercise thing, it was certain that something was going to come and slap me in the face. And here it is.
Starting Saturday and ending next Friday, it is Restaurant Week in Charlotte. What this means is that a slew of (normally expensive) restaurants around the city have put together special 3-4 course menus which will cost $30/person for dinner all week. A lot of them sound awesome. I've already made a reservation at Melting Pot for me and Blake and Susan and Chris because Susan and I have never been there and there's no way I won't love melted cheese and chocolate. Blake and I are also considering going on a date somewhere else (Ruth's Chris or M5 probably). It's not too often that you get to eat super expensive meals for $30/person. And as an avid foodie, I'm stoked.
Our Melting Pot excursion is next Thursday, so I need to be super good about eating and working out until then. I even thought to make the reservation at 7:15 so that I would have ample time to work out after work before eating. I need to go on the defensive before I fill my stomach with cheesy goodness.
Of course I also have training for work twice this week, which comes with catered lunch. Today, fortunately, it was Brixx's pizza and there was no dessert to speak of. There was also no salad. So I had the carrots and spinach salad that I brought for lunch and then two slices (they're really small personal pizzas) of vegetable pizza. At least I'm getting my veggies in. I have no idea what's on the menu tomorrow, but we've already gotten an email about there being both breakfast and lunch provided. I'm going to try my hardest to avoid the breakfast situation all together...because I love breakfast buffets way too much to get out of there with anything that would be considered even remotely healthy. I'm going to bring myself another salad tomorrow just in case. This healthy eating thing is harder than it looks.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
General update
So last night, when I left the office, the sky was staring at me as if to say "that's right. I'm gong to pour all over you as soon as you go to walk home from the gym later. Seriously. Try me." So I really did not want to go to the gym. But I did anyway. I promised to be hardcore for 4 weeks and I'm a huge loser if I can't get through even one week without crapping out on my routine.
I did 45 minutes on an elliptical and then a 25 minute lower-body strength training session. And when I left, it was of course raining. Fortunately, it held out on the monsoon-style thunderstorm until I had already arrived home.
I made a delicious vegetable fried rice last night. Blake's had chicken in it as well. It was super fast and easy to make, and Blake really liked it, so I'll definitely do it again. Plus, it was a great way to get in 3-4 servings of veggies. You know what's cool? Canned water chestnuts. They added a lovely crunch to my meal.
I had an awesome "conversation" with my Wii Fit last night when I turned it on to log my gym activity for the day. Sometimes the walking balance board gives you tips and asks questions and such. Blake hasn't been using it recently, so yesterday morning, it merely remarked "hey, I haven't seen Blake lately" and left it at that. Lats night it said "How would you say Blake's posture looks lately?" And I clicked on the response "The same." And then he said "Change is always better, don't you think? Maybe you're not paying enough attention to Blake. Did you know that eye contact is key in owner-dog relationships?" Yes, a video game just laid a major burn on my boyfriend. And I laughed. A lot. He was less than pleased when I told him about it.
I'm back to my normal routine today. Homemade lunch in the office, gym after work, making dinner, watching TV. Dinner tonight will be grilled chicken (using my new pan of course), baked sweet potatoes, and steamed veggies.
It's almost Friday. Yay!
I did 45 minutes on an elliptical and then a 25 minute lower-body strength training session. And when I left, it was of course raining. Fortunately, it held out on the monsoon-style thunderstorm until I had already arrived home.
I made a delicious vegetable fried rice last night. Blake's had chicken in it as well. It was super fast and easy to make, and Blake really liked it, so I'll definitely do it again. Plus, it was a great way to get in 3-4 servings of veggies. You know what's cool? Canned water chestnuts. They added a lovely crunch to my meal.
I had an awesome "conversation" with my Wii Fit last night when I turned it on to log my gym activity for the day. Sometimes the walking balance board gives you tips and asks questions and such. Blake hasn't been using it recently, so yesterday morning, it merely remarked "hey, I haven't seen Blake lately" and left it at that. Lats night it said "How would you say Blake's posture looks lately?" And I clicked on the response "The same." And then he said "Change is always better, don't you think? Maybe you're not paying enough attention to Blake. Did you know that eye contact is key in owner-dog relationships?" Yes, a video game just laid a major burn on my boyfriend. And I laughed. A lot. He was less than pleased when I told him about it.
I'm back to my normal routine today. Homemade lunch in the office, gym after work, making dinner, watching TV. Dinner tonight will be grilled chicken (using my new pan of course), baked sweet potatoes, and steamed veggies.
It's almost Friday. Yay!
M by Staples
Ok, I completely realize that I'm a huge dork who loves office supplies. And the ones my office actually provides for us are completely shitty (shocker). Let's just say that I'm not the only one around here that buys her own supplies because she hates the free ones (I know of one other person. But there may be more).
I was at Staples last week and found this really cool deal where you can fill up a bucket (small $4.99, large $9.99) with these mix and match binder clips and paper clips and push pins, and they had 3 or 4 different color schemes. And I was all "I really like these black and white ones, maybe I'll buy some." And then I ran into their display of items from their M by Staples collection.
It is full of folders and notebooks and filing items in cool patterns. And yes, there were some black and white ones. So I spent $30 on office supplies at Staples. I'm thinking I may as well throw down for anything that might possibly make me want to show up for work in the morning. Here are some pics of items that I purchased:
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
healthy living diary
So I realize I'm only in day 3 of my whole 'not eating like an idiot/exercising an acceptable amount' kick, but it's going pretty well. Yesterday I had planned to go for a walk when I left the office, but then (of course) as soon as I walked out of here it started raining. Great. So I stopped at the butcher and then drove to Target to get a grill pan (more on that later). I then made up for the fact that I didn't get as much working out in as I'd like by doing 50 minutes of aerobics/strength training/yoga on the Fit last night. And it's a good thing I skipped the gym, because it was basically a monsoon outside at the time I would have been walking home from there. Our softball game got cancelled last night, which was sad.
I christened my grill pan when I got home, and it is great. It feels like it takes longer than an actual grill to make chicken breasts, but I like it. All I did was sprinkle them with salt and pepper and throw them on there. I intended to serve left over pesto sauce on top of them, but I forgot about the sauce until we were done eating. They were good anyway. I also made a gigantic pile of steamed broccoli with lemon juice on top and a very small quantity of risotto. Blake complained about the amount of broccoli, but I informed him that this is how we eat now, so he'd better get used to it.
And now a warning to anyone who wants to buy a cast iron grill pan ($19.99 at Target!). It works great, you just spray some Pam on it before you throw the meat on there...but it gets really hot. And when you're done cooking with it, you're going to want to remove it from the stove and let it sit and cool while you're eating before cleaning it. I tried to run it under the sink when I was done and all I can say is that I can't believe our smoke detectors didn't go off. There was a lot of smoke. A 20 minute cool down was all it needed to stop doing that.
I can't tell if my problem is that my body is adjusting to smaller portions or that it's in the habit of having dessert at night, but despite my dinner of a grilled chicken breast, at least two cups of steamed broccoli, and about a quarter cup of risotto, I felt like I wanted to eat again like an hour later. I didn't. I think this was more out of habit than necessity, because I'm pretty sure I ate a large enough dinner that I shouldn't need to eat again. I did have a square of Dove dark chocolate with almonds, which helped a little.
I continued my Wii Fit morning routine today. I have a lunch date with Kristin, so this will be my one lunch out of the week. I'm going to try to behave myself. After work I'm hitting the gym for a 45 minute cardio/25 minute lifting session and then I'm making vegetable fried rice when I get home. It's a Cooking Light recipe, so it shouldn't be too awful for me. I just have to watch my portions. And of course, I made an extra chicken breast last night so that I can add it to Blake's rice because he wants to kill me when I try to serve him meatless meals.
Have a good day everyone!
I christened my grill pan when I got home, and it is great. It feels like it takes longer than an actual grill to make chicken breasts, but I like it. All I did was sprinkle them with salt and pepper and throw them on there. I intended to serve left over pesto sauce on top of them, but I forgot about the sauce until we were done eating. They were good anyway. I also made a gigantic pile of steamed broccoli with lemon juice on top and a very small quantity of risotto. Blake complained about the amount of broccoli, but I informed him that this is how we eat now, so he'd better get used to it.
And now a warning to anyone who wants to buy a cast iron grill pan ($19.99 at Target!). It works great, you just spray some Pam on it before you throw the meat on there...but it gets really hot. And when you're done cooking with it, you're going to want to remove it from the stove and let it sit and cool while you're eating before cleaning it. I tried to run it under the sink when I was done and all I can say is that I can't believe our smoke detectors didn't go off. There was a lot of smoke. A 20 minute cool down was all it needed to stop doing that.
I can't tell if my problem is that my body is adjusting to smaller portions or that it's in the habit of having dessert at night, but despite my dinner of a grilled chicken breast, at least two cups of steamed broccoli, and about a quarter cup of risotto, I felt like I wanted to eat again like an hour later. I didn't. I think this was more out of habit than necessity, because I'm pretty sure I ate a large enough dinner that I shouldn't need to eat again. I did have a square of Dove dark chocolate with almonds, which helped a little.
I continued my Wii Fit morning routine today. I have a lunch date with Kristin, so this will be my one lunch out of the week. I'm going to try to behave myself. After work I'm hitting the gym for a 45 minute cardio/25 minute lifting session and then I'm making vegetable fried rice when I get home. It's a Cooking Light recipe, so it shouldn't be too awful for me. I just have to watch my portions. And of course, I made an extra chicken breast last night so that I can add it to Blake's rice because he wants to kill me when I try to serve him meatless meals.
Have a good day everyone!
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Healthy living progression; food processor
So yesterday I had an awesome gym workout, fueled by my anger about my raise. I did the really hard adjustable-stride elliptical for 25 minutes, lifted for 25 minutes, and then rode the recumbent bike for 15 minutes. Pretty solid for a Monday.
I'm still not sure what to do about this raise. A lot of people around here got way more screwed than I did (like the people who just got promoted and should have had gigantic raises but didn't), and although my monthly income will likely only increase by $50 after I do my annual 401K percentage increase, it's really not too horrible. I don't have my student loan anymore, so I have more than enough to live off of and save up for either a car or a trip to Italy. But I'm planning to keep my options open, and inform the powers that be around here how unimpressed I am with the current situation. Maybe my bonus will be decent enough to get me through.
When I went home, I made spinach and pine nut pesto (a Giada recipe) over chicken tortellini. I've never eaten much pesto, and it was a bit heavy on the pine nuts for my taste, but it was good. I'm serving the extra over grilled chicken tonight. I'm going to also steam some broccoli and make a (small) side of parmesean risotto.
The food processor is GREAT. It's a KitchenAid (to match my mixer) 7-cup model. Most places only make a 3-cup and then jump to like an 11-cup, which is way too large. But the 7-cup is perfect for cooking for two. And it came with a 3-cup bowl and blade as well, in case I'm doing something smaller. I think my favorite feature is the slicing/shredding blade, which allegedly will grate mozzarella cheese for me. All I have to do is attach the blade and drop the cheese in there. I'm really excited to try that out, because grating the cheese is my least favorite part of pizza making. I know I'm supposed to be being healthy right now, but making one pizza can't hurt that much, right? I may do that this weekend. I also have to try to slice veggies with it. I bet that's cool.
I'm currently avoiding work/going on an iTunes CD buying spree. Yay! After work today, I'm going to stop by the butcher (strangely, we've run out of boneless chicken breasts) and then do my weekly outside workout of walking down to Best Buy (maybe someone has returned a Mario Kart today?) and Target (I need to buy a grill pan because I'm afraid of using the grill by myself). I'm going to round out my activities by doing another half hour of Fit this evening. I'm going to hit up some ab strengthening routines.
Is it Friday yet?
I'm still not sure what to do about this raise. A lot of people around here got way more screwed than I did (like the people who just got promoted and should have had gigantic raises but didn't), and although my monthly income will likely only increase by $50 after I do my annual 401K percentage increase, it's really not too horrible. I don't have my student loan anymore, so I have more than enough to live off of and save up for either a car or a trip to Italy. But I'm planning to keep my options open, and inform the powers that be around here how unimpressed I am with the current situation. Maybe my bonus will be decent enough to get me through.
When I went home, I made spinach and pine nut pesto (a Giada recipe) over chicken tortellini. I've never eaten much pesto, and it was a bit heavy on the pine nuts for my taste, but it was good. I'm serving the extra over grilled chicken tonight. I'm going to also steam some broccoli and make a (small) side of parmesean risotto.
The food processor is GREAT. It's a KitchenAid (to match my mixer) 7-cup model. Most places only make a 3-cup and then jump to like an 11-cup, which is way too large. But the 7-cup is perfect for cooking for two. And it came with a 3-cup bowl and blade as well, in case I'm doing something smaller. I think my favorite feature is the slicing/shredding blade, which allegedly will grate mozzarella cheese for me. All I have to do is attach the blade and drop the cheese in there. I'm really excited to try that out, because grating the cheese is my least favorite part of pizza making. I know I'm supposed to be being healthy right now, but making one pizza can't hurt that much, right? I may do that this weekend. I also have to try to slice veggies with it. I bet that's cool.
I'm currently avoiding work/going on an iTunes CD buying spree. Yay! After work today, I'm going to stop by the butcher (strangely, we've run out of boneless chicken breasts) and then do my weekly outside workout of walking down to Best Buy (maybe someone has returned a Mario Kart today?) and Target (I need to buy a grill pan because I'm afraid of using the grill by myself). I'm going to round out my activities by doing another half hour of Fit this evening. I'm going to hit up some ab strengthening routines.
Is it Friday yet?
Monday, July 7, 2008
crappy job no more?
So the other day, we got an email from the person in charge of the company, in which the general summary is "The economy is in the crapper right now, so your raises are going to be shitty this year. We don't really care though, because it's going to be next to impossible for you to find another job, so we're betting you'll all just accept it and move on."
I don't think so.
Now, I am horribly spoiled by my raises. And I realize that most people get 3-5% per year and the fact that my raises have varied from 11-21% is crazy. But this year, my raise is only 9%. I realize that is still crazy, but I was expecting 12%, which would be a LOT more than what I'm getting. Money is one of the only reasons I'm still working here...and the amount I'm getting paid right now might not really be worth it.
So I'm stuck with a dilemma: I know I want to leave here, but I have no idea what I want to do. I just calculated the lowest base salary that I would be able to live off of in the event that I decide to completely change careers. I have contacts at other accounting firms, but I don't know if leaving here for there is really going to improve my situation. The fancy mall down here is hiring a manager at Banana Republic right now, so although I'm completely unqualified for that, I think I might apply. I have to throw a resume together tonight.
Maybe I'm just being crazy? I mean, I'm still going to be making a lot of money...but I LIVE for the annual raises. That's what makes all of the hours and the travel worth dealing with. And this is really lame. Especially since I'm guessing the bonuses will also be shitty because of the economy.
I wish they were hiring at the Humane Society. I got several emails from them a few months ago about open positions...but I can almost guarantee I wouldn't make enough to live off of there. Boo.
I don't think so.
Now, I am horribly spoiled by my raises. And I realize that most people get 3-5% per year and the fact that my raises have varied from 11-21% is crazy. But this year, my raise is only 9%. I realize that is still crazy, but I was expecting 12%, which would be a LOT more than what I'm getting. Money is one of the only reasons I'm still working here...and the amount I'm getting paid right now might not really be worth it.
So I'm stuck with a dilemma: I know I want to leave here, but I have no idea what I want to do. I just calculated the lowest base salary that I would be able to live off of in the event that I decide to completely change careers. I have contacts at other accounting firms, but I don't know if leaving here for there is really going to improve my situation. The fancy mall down here is hiring a manager at Banana Republic right now, so although I'm completely unqualified for that, I think I might apply. I have to throw a resume together tonight.
Maybe I'm just being crazy? I mean, I'm still going to be making a lot of money...but I LIVE for the annual raises. That's what makes all of the hours and the travel worth dealing with. And this is really lame. Especially since I'm guessing the bonuses will also be shitty because of the economy.
I wish they were hiring at the Humane Society. I got several emails from them a few months ago about open positions...but I can almost guarantee I wouldn't make enough to live off of there. Boo.
For real this time.
So I'm back from my 'vacation' in NJ, and it was lovely to not have to work and to see my family and all of my friends from home, but now it's back to the grind. I'm horribly off of my at-home routine right now because before I went to NJ for a week, I was in WV for two. And the problem with traveling, whether it is for work or for fun, is that while I'm never completely sedentary, I'm not as active as when I'm on my regular routine. Also, I eat with reckless abandon. And hotel gyms are really really bad.
So I'm home for 4 weeks straight before I have to go back to New Orleans (kill me), and I'm going to dedicate myself to losing 5 pounds before I go. I would like to hit up my Wii Fit at least once a day, and get in 5 additional cardio and 4 additional lifting sessions each week. Also, I'm going to watch what I eat by bringing lunch to work 4 out of 5 days each week and making healthy dinners every night (I'm going to try really hard to not consider cereal or egg and cheese sandwiches healthy).
This morning I got up early and did a 30 minute cardio/yoga session on the Fit. After work today, I'm going to hit the gym for about 45 minutes of cardio and 25 minutes of lifting. And then when I get home, I'm going to open up my birthday food processor and give spinach and pine nut pesto sauce a go. I'm going to serve it over some store bought roasted chicken tortellini (and I bought the small, 2.5 serving package so that I don't feel compelled to make and split one of the family size boxes with Blake). I'm pretty pumped about the food processor. I'm going to eventually use it to hide all sorts of vegetables in various sauces so that Blake won't know he's eating them. Yay!
Since I weigh myself every day for my daily body test on the Fit, I'll update when I actually lose some weight. I feel that a month is more than enough time to lose 5 pounds, so as long as I don't get lazy it shouldn't be a problem. I'm counting on you all to keep me on track! I'll update with details about my adventures in pesto sauce tomorrow.
So I'm home for 4 weeks straight before I have to go back to New Orleans (kill me), and I'm going to dedicate myself to losing 5 pounds before I go. I would like to hit up my Wii Fit at least once a day, and get in 5 additional cardio and 4 additional lifting sessions each week. Also, I'm going to watch what I eat by bringing lunch to work 4 out of 5 days each week and making healthy dinners every night (I'm going to try really hard to not consider cereal or egg and cheese sandwiches healthy).
This morning I got up early and did a 30 minute cardio/yoga session on the Fit. After work today, I'm going to hit the gym for about 45 minutes of cardio and 25 minutes of lifting. And then when I get home, I'm going to open up my birthday food processor and give spinach and pine nut pesto sauce a go. I'm going to serve it over some store bought roasted chicken tortellini (and I bought the small, 2.5 serving package so that I don't feel compelled to make and split one of the family size boxes with Blake). I'm pretty pumped about the food processor. I'm going to eventually use it to hide all sorts of vegetables in various sauces so that Blake won't know he's eating them. Yay!
Since I weigh myself every day for my daily body test on the Fit, I'll update when I actually lose some weight. I feel that a month is more than enough time to lose 5 pounds, so as long as I don't get lazy it shouldn't be a problem. I'm counting on you all to keep me on track! I'll update with details about my adventures in pesto sauce tomorrow.
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