Grocery Shopping on a Business Trip

I need to set up my day tomorrow to be successful.  There is a Whole Foods on the drive from my hotel to the office, so I think stopping there first thing in the morning is the plan. 

Shopping list:

• Juice - supposedly they will create your own juice and they juice the fresh veggies right there.  I gotta try this
• Yogurt - siggis, fage, chobani (never tried) or some other tasty and fancy schmancy single serving yogurt
• Granola
• Berries - I love the overpriced fruit.  It's so beautiful and tasty. 
• Hummus - I have heard a rumor about black bean hummus, gotta try this
• Cut up veggies - carrots is really all I want.  I really don't like baby carrots, but I might need to just get over it. (no peppers!)
• Lunch - sushi or a salad or something that I can pull out of a fridge and enjoy later in the day

I think I will stop by Whole Foods again on my way home and hit up the salad bar for dinner.  I just gotta get excited by these healthy foods again! 

They need to make a whole foods rewards program.  They have frequest flyers points for airlines, starwood for hotels, now need need something for the frequent whole fooder!

Greed

When it comes to food I am greedy.  Especially when I am traveling on an expense account.  I need to admit this to myself. 

When I am traveling, I order too much food.  I justify it by saying it is a new restuarant, who knows if I will like it.  But seriously, I know I will have food at the next meal, tomorrow etc.  I don't need to treat every dinner like my last meal

This is ridiculous!

Frustrated

I am so frusterated with myself.  I want to be healthy and fit.  I see myself as something I am not anymore.  I see myself as an athlete that should be able to just pick up and do anything new.  But the truth is I am way too heavy to do many things!  Ugh. 

I'm traveling this week and working very long hours.  Once I finally get out of the office, I just want to buy lots of food and go eat it in my room alone.  I don't know why, but I really need to fix this. 

I'm going to make a serious effort on focusing on eating healthy food tomorrow.  I need to remind myself that this is important very important. 

I am going home late tomorrow night and flying out Saturday morning for a mini vacation, then heading strait back to work Tuesday night.  So I wont be home for a serious bit of time until a week from tomorow.  So I have a good week + to work on keeping healthy eating a priority even when on vacation or an expense account (and over worked)!

Hitting the road

I work in consulting, and I have to travel to work on the client's site generally Monday - Thursday.  I have been very lucky this last year and only traveled 8 week in 2010.  The travel is the biggest problem I have with this job.  I actually quit it already once, was local for 3+ year and then rejoined early last year. 

I do love my job.  I am constantly learning new things and no two days are ever the same.  I get bored easily, so this is a good fit for me. 

2011 doesn't look like it will be so lucky for me in the travel department, as I am heading out to a new project that is likely to run 6 months and potentially longer!  That is a lot of travel and a lot of time away from my family. 

I have a real hard time eating healthy while traveling.  I love love love eating out, and doing it on an expense account is kind of ridiculous.  Dieting at a restaurant just seems wrong to me.  During my last project I was able to eat several meals at Whole Foods or Starbucks, so hopefully I can work something like that out again.   

My plan for this week is to work my butt off so I start the project right.  I'd like to get some 10-20 minte yoga sessions in in the morning and the evenings, but I expect my free time to be extremely limited this week. 

How am I going to lose weight?

I mentioned that I was pondering a bunch of questions in an effort to get on (and stay on) the weight loss path. 

I think this question (How am I going to lose weight?) is the easiest of the questions:

How am I going to lose this weight?

What am I willing to sacrifice/change in order to make it happen?

Am I ready?

Why is weight my struggle?

And finally: WHY do I want to lose weight?

So to lose weight I need to burn more calories than I consume.  I think the best way to do this is to combine eating smaller healthy portions with a somewhat rigorous exercise program. 

Tada - simple.  The next questions will require me getting into some more difficult questions. 

Things to think about

I recently read a great blog post here.  Lorrie asks herself some important questions.  Questions I have been thinking about off and on for a while now. 

These are the questions:

• How am I going to lose this weight?
• What am I willing to sacrifice/change in order to make it happen?
• Am I ready?
• Why is weight my struggle?
• And finally: WHY do I want to lose weight?

Intrinsically I know that I want to lose weight, but I think working logically through these questions will help me get to a place where my actions start to better follow my goals. 

So I think in the interest of posting something (I never seem to have too much time for one post), I will be answering these questions one at a time over the next week or so.

Already late

Woops, I was suppose to weigh in yesterday.  After yesterday, I don't think Friday is the best day for me to weigh in.  When I am traveling during the week, I get home late on Thursday night, so my Friday morning is very busy.  Then on Friday nights I might be able to convince my husband to go out - like I did last night :)

So I guess my weigh in day will have to be somewhat flexible.  This week it is Saturday.  I weighed in this morning as 274.2.  This is a loss of 1.2 lbs.  Not super great, but a loss so that is good.  I also gorged myself on italian food last night, so hopefully I am retaining some water from that large meal. 

Work strikes again

My job is really kind of a problem for me.  I have a hard time balancing family, work and time for myself.  I work as a management consultant and inevitably have some very long days.  Since I work on projects with difinitive end dates, I also tend to have some down time in between projects. 

During my down time I tend to develop very specific plans of what to eat and how much to work out.  I ussually do very well until something from work pops up.  Then work generally gets a good 12+ hours of my attention until whatever is being worked on is done.

After I have spent 12 hours working on something I want to spend time with my son and husband and mybe even have some time to relax myself.  I don't generally feel like spending an hour + to go to the gym or do an exercise video.  I ussually feel less eager to cook a healthy meal at home. 

I kind of feel like any time away(even after 12 hours) from work during these busy spells is bad and that I am playing hookey - which is nutzo!

So this has happened again.  I recieved an e-mail yesterday from my boss asking me to help out on a project.  I am, and the work is interesting.  But I have not worked out today, and I don't particularily feel like working out.  I have had a healthy breakfast, lunch and snack, but I am eagerly hoping for an unhealthy dinner. 

Arg!  I might just go make some shrimp and try and force myself to break this cycle. 

Caught Up

Like I mentioned yesterday I have been trying to catch up to my running plan (the couch to 5 K).

Well today I completed week 7 day 3 which is right back on schedule. 

3 mins @ 3.0 mph
25 mins @ 5.0 mph
3 mins @ 3.0 mph

Total 2.38 miles in 31 mins

I was hoping to run 30 - 35 mins today, but I got tired and knew that 25 minutes would be enough to meet the C25K plan. 

So the next few runs will be increasing run time until I'm running 3 miles strait.  Then I will transition into working on increasing my speed. 

I'm thinking about running the Northshore love fun.  This is a 4 miles or10K run on Feb 13th.  I don't know about running in the winter because I'm worried about slipping and injuring myself.  I still need to plan out my races for this late winter and spring, but I have been having trouble making a decision.

I'm Getting There

Last year I had some major running endurance.  I ran (continuously) my furthest distance ever of 10 miles during a 1/2 marathon last June.  After then half marathon, I quit running for a good 6 months. 

A few weeks ago, I decided I needed to get back to it.  I started back with the couch to 5K plan.  The couch to 5k is a running schedule which can get a couch potato to running a 5K in 9 weeks.  Basically it starts out with walk run combos and slowly increases the run times while decreasing the walk times.

I have used/started this plan multiple times in the past.  Since I was eager to get my legs back, I decided to double up the weeks.  There are only 3 runs per week, so I thought I could do 6 runs per week and just get the endurance back in half the time. 

I ended up missing several runs because I was sick a lot over the holidays.  I skipped over some of the workouts, but have been increasing my running time sucessfully.  Technically I should be in week 7, but I this morning I completed an extended version of the second workout in the week 6 session.

Morning workout:

3 mins @ 3.0 mph
10 mins @ 5.0 mph
3 mins @ 3.0 mph
10 mins @ 5.0 mph
3 mins @ 3.0 mph
10 mins @ 5.0 mph
3 mins @ 3.0 mph

Total 3.08 miles in 42 mins. 

Not my best time, but my best time in the last 6 months :)

First Weigh In

Well I said I would do it today, so with 31 minutes left in the day here goes:

Fridays will be my weigh in day to keep me honest during the week.

Today was great in regards to working out.  I got a treadmill workout in this morning and I just got back from a hockey game tonight.  Tomorrow I'm heading to Madison Wisconsin for a couple of hockey games which will be fun. 

I still need to nail down my race plans for the Spring, but hopefully I'll do that this weekend. 

Popcorn problem

Arg - I am having a problem with microwave popcorn.  I am eating healthy meals, but then when my son goes to bed and my husband goes to play on his computer I hop to and scarf the popcorn.  I am addicted. 

I was chomping constantly on chips a month or so ago.  I quit those and have now replaced them with popcorn.  So I need to figure out how to get out of the habit of eating snack foods at night. 

I'm not sure exactly how I'm going to tackle this, but know I need to start being honest with myself.  On that note, I will be posting my first weigh in tomorrow.  Hopefully I can stay away from the salty popcorn tonight!

Why Race to Fit?

First off why am I blogging? 

I am a planner.  I like to write lists, and enjoy even more crossing items off of lists.  I have been known to put items on lists that I have already completed just to be able to cross them off of the list.  Crazy I know. 

I like to plan out my weight loss, decide what I will eat and how much I will exercise and determine exactly how much I will lose each week.  I think I do this because it is much easier to plan on how to lose wieght than to actually lose weight.

I generally keep my plans to myself because when inevitably I don't live up to them, I am not embarassed.  I am keeping this blog to try and make myself more accountable.  Who knows if anyone will read it, but just knowing my thoughts are out in public should keep me more honest. 

I'm hoping to spend less time planning to lose weight and more time on exercising, finding interesting healthy recipes and activities and less time beating myself up for not losing X # of lbs in so many weeks.

Why Race to Fit?

I am competitive - just ask anyone who has ever played Monopoly with me.  Last year I started racing.  I ran a 5k, a 4miler and a half Marathon (well had to walk the last 3 miles of the half).  Racing was fun, it gave me a reason to get on the treadmill and run further and faster than I have EVER! 

For the past couple of years I have watched the Kono Ironman on TV and it is super inspiring.  I would love to be able to do something like that in my life.  Before I can do anything like that I need to lose a ton of weight and increase my fitness levels a bunch. 

So I am planning on using races to keep my fitness fun and challenging.  I want to keep breaking my own records and race my way to being fit!

Anyone in the Chicago area want to do a race together?

Resolutions

"res·o·lu·tion 
–noun

1. a formal expression of opinion or intention made, usually after voting, by a formal organization, a legislature, a club, or other group. Compare concurrent resolution, joint resolution.

2. a resolve or determination: to make a firm resolution to do something."

Year after year millions of people resolve to get healthy, eat healthy, exercise and lose weight.  I hate to admit it, but I am one of these people. 

For most of my life I have been active.  I was a high school and college althete, so I could pretty much eat whatever I wanted.  I wasn't what you would call slim, not even close, but I didn't start really putting on  a ton of weight until after college. When I left home, I didn't have the nightly salad and vegetables pushed on me anymore.  I started eating more and more junk food, fast food and take out. 

After I had my son about 3.5 years ago, I wanted to improve my eating habits to make sure I was a good influence on him.  Over the past few years I have been reading healthy living blogs as well as lots of nutrition books.  I have learned a lot about what I should be eating and incorporating a lot of healthy food in my and my families diet.  Unfortunately I still eat too much and too much of the wrong foods. 

I think the main problems with resolutions are that they are too general.  For example, one of my biggest goals is to lose weight.  I have lost weight before (60+ lbs), but I have also gained most of it back.  I need to focus on positive lifestyle changes, not numbers on the scale. 

 

So based on this philosophy, here are my goals for 2011.

Goals:

1. Family first
• talk to my son everyday - this may sound odd, but I travel a lot for work, so I need to make this a priority.
• at least one TJ and Mom activity each week
• eat as a family at the kitchen table as least 4 times per week, if I'm traveling at least 2 times per week
2. Take care of myself
• healthy eating
• focus on eating mostly fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and lean meats
• limit snacking - put servings in a bowl rather than taking the whole bag.  Keep portion size in mind
• challenge myself physically
• run a sub 30 minute 5k
• run an entire 1/2 marathon (last year I had to walk the last 3 miles)
3. Develop my career
• Build executive presence
• improve written and verbal communication
• "look" professional consistently - dress for the job I want not the job I have
• Strike work-life balance - work hard at work, so that I have the confidence to take time for family