Archive for October, 2009

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Fast-Food vs. Real Food

Saturday, October 3rd, 2009

One of the sites I read frequently, BODA Blog, does a neat feature each week called Friday News Bites. All three items this week are fascinating, so check them out.

I especially wanted to share one of them with you: A woman on a mission did some testing to find out if she could make home-cooked versions of some popular fast-food items cheaper, healthier and better tasting.

Spoiler alert: She could.

In most cases, it was no more time consuming, either.

She had a small group of testers – teenage fast-food connoisseurs – and tackled the McDonald’s Sausage McMuffin With Egg, the Burger King Double Whopper, and Domino’s Hand Tossed Pizza. After some trial and error (in some cases) she came up with equivalents to each of these items… that were far from equivalent. They all had better nutrition, were less expensive, reasonably easy to make, and the testers unanimously agreed that her versions tasted better. She even included her recipes!

If you didn’t know it before, perhaps this article will help you realize that there really is no reason to eat fast-food.

Of course, fast-food isn’t my downfall. It’s sit-down restaurants that cause me problems, but I’m sure the same can be done with food from those places, as well.

I’m getting there…

>> Read the full article at The Washington Post.

Posted in Diet, Health Information | No Comments »

90 Days Left

Friday, October 2nd, 2009

We’re 10 days in and that makes it time for an all-around update on The Hot 100. Here goes:

Keep running! I want to be able to run 5 miles without having to walk by the end of the year. Yesterday, I added an addendum that specifies how I plan on doing this – by running a minimum of 10 miles per week.

So far, I haven’t been doing great at this; I’ve only been out running once this week. That being said, though, that one run was VERY successful (3.44 miles without walking!). After that run on Sunday, once again, life got in the way and I didn’t get out again. Hence yesterday’s addendum, which I think will keep me on track.

I was planning on going out today, but at yesterday’s softball game I took a hard grounder to the shin and I’m all black & blue and swollen. *sigh* I’m so damn accident-prone. Hopefully the swelling will go down enough to not hinder my performance at my 5k on Sunday…

Lose some more weight. The goal was to lose 20 pounds by the end of the year. And then I thought about it. I don’t know that that’s a reasonable goal considering my current weight. When I was 80 pounds heavier, sure. But now? Not so much.

That doesn’t mean that I’m giving up; I’m going to get as close to that 20-pound mark as I can, but I’m aware that it’s going to be incredibly tough to get all the way there. You never know, though, right?

Of course, I’m not off to a great start. I’m actually the same as I was last Friday, but that’s 2 pounds more than I was when I wrote out my goals. Meaning rather than being down at the 10-day point, I’m up 2. My current weight is now 177.5. Again. (grr grr grr)

Clearly I need a new game plan here as well. I’ve known for a while now that I need to go back to logging my food and tracking my calories in and out on a daily basis like I did before. I know it works – that’s how I lost 90% of the weight to begin with (thank you My Food Diary!) But it takes a lot of time and dedication – almost obsession – and I’m not obsessed right now. I really need to work on keeping close track, while maintaining a balance with the rest of my life. That balance is tough though. I’m working on it.

Eat out less – cook more. I’ve been doing really well here. Not too much eating out these last 10 days; far less than usual. And it hasn’t been horrible! The husband is on board and we’ve been cooking a lot lately. I just need to keep up with it. It’s quite easy to have a long day and in a moment of exhaustion, order take out or stop to pick something up.

Also, my birthday is on Monday and my husband is taking me out for dinner. That’s a meal out that I didn’t plan on, and I’m trying to decide if I should just say, “Yeah, but it’s my birthday” and just add it in, or cut out one of the other, regularly scheduled meals out. I’m very tempted to say the former, but part of me thinks I should resist and say the latter.

Maybe I’ll eat out both times and just log it :)

Posted in Diet, Personal Stories, The Hot 100, Trials and Tribulations, Weight Loss, Workouts | 4 Comments »

Running Addendum

Thursday, October 1st, 2009

I think I need to be even more specific about my running goal in The Hot 100 challenge. It seems that just saying that I want to work my way up to being able to run 5 miles without having to walk isn’t enough. I need something more concrete – a plan of action to get me up to that.

I’m really good at following a schedule, whether it was made by someone else or myself. If I know I have to do something, I’ll do it. On the other hand, if I wait and play it by ear, it’s likely that it won’t happen at all.

Since I know this about myself, I’ve come up with a more specific plan of action for this running goal. And it goes a little something like this:

I will run a minimum of 10 miles per week through the end of the year.

At this point, that means I’ll have to go out at least 3 times, each time running over three miles. In a week or two, I going to lower two of those runs a tad, and raise the third. So two shorter runs and one long run. Ideally, this will prevent me from burning myself out during the week and allow me to work up to that 5-mile mark on the weekend.

As I progress, of course, I’ll increase this. But for now, 10 miles per week for me would be a huge accomplishment. I’d love that.

Incidentally, I ran earlier this week and did 3.44 miles (with hills!) without walking at all. That’s the farthest yet, so I’m on my way!

Posted in The Hot 100, Trials and Tribulations, Workouts | 3 Comments »

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