Day 21: 5...

...is my NEW FAVOURITE NUMBER!!!

I know I'm probably jumping the gun a little since I promised I would do my weigh-in on Sundays, but I got on the scale today and did a complete double-take! It said 269 *happy dance* (BWAHAHAHAHA, someone just told me that I had made a typo...omg, with that typo it would look like I was doing a happy dance because I GAINED over 100 pounds! So what I meant was ONE sixty-nine *whew* THANK YOU for pointing that out! *grins*) 21 days ago, my scale reading was 174! I even got on and off four times just to make sure, but each time I was getting the same reading - showing me I'm 5 lbs down from when I first started! I'm doing it, I'm REALLY doing it!!! *screech*

*breathes* Alright...I know I shouldn't get so excited as weight can fluctuate every day multiple times a day, but for the longest time, this has been the lowest weigh-in I've had, plus it's really showing a difference! I'm working hard at something I normally quit at before I barely even start and it actually looks like it's paying off! I'm eating right, working out and losing weight! Who woulda thunk it?! No crazy fad diets, diet pills, blah blah blah!

As the day isn't even halfway over yet, I know I'm a little bit early with this post, but I'll be back with the rest of Day 21 later! Today marks three weeks! It took me three weeks to lose 5 pounds - to me, that ain't bad! I have another three weeks to go until the upcoming wedding, so by that day, I could possibly be down a total of 10 pounds if I stay on track (not counting the 15 $0.40 chicken wings that I ate yesterday *winces*).

More updates later! Choir practice was cancelled for this evening so I'm hoping that I can get in another Zumba class later! Look at me being all excited for exercising!!!

Day 8: Punch, Drink, Kick, Drink, Jab, Drink...

...are you seeing some sort of pattern forming? Let me tell you, that pattern right there is the only reason why I'm still ALIVE, I tell ya! I can't even believe a week went by that fast. Wasn't it only yesterday that I was punch, kick, jabbing? And all of a sudden I'm doing it again?!

Even though my burning calf muscles, thighs, abs, back, shoulders, arms, wrists, toes, nailbeds and hair follicles are telling me different, I did actually do much better this time around than last week. I think I was able to last a bit longer throughout the different combos and take less pretend water breaks (plus I think the instructor was beginning to catch on since I did it so many times last week...*LOL*) She's a tough one, she actually yelled out "COME ON! This is what you came here FOOOOR! Why did you come if you're not going to GIIIIIVE IT?! Don't you dare stop unless you actually really NEED TO!" I was too busy gasping for breath and trying to see around the black spots dancing around my field of vision to yell at her that I DID NEED TO! I'm going to keep going and not complain too much about it...but I'm just saying...if I get attacked in an alley or something, I better be able to throw down punch, hook, jab and drop kick the living daylights out of that moron without breaking a sweat. If that karate kid was able to learn how to beat people up after waxing on and waxing off, then I should be able to do it no problem...I'm just saying...

ANYWHO! That's that with the exercise part. From absolutely ZERO activity (unless you count my arm movement when I bring the food to mouth) to cardio twice in one week, I'd say I'm giving myself two thumbs up!

That towel right there has SWEAT on it. LOTS! And that water bottle is EMPTY! (2 parts pretending to need a water break and drinking the water and 1 part actually just needing to drink the water - but whatevs, the same goal is accomplished anyway! I will be very proud of the day when I'll get through class without having to feign a water break, though...)

The diet portion is going pretty well too! After that not-so-great start on Monday, yesterday went awesome! I ate my breakfast, had to force myself to eat my snack (sometimes I actually do enough work that I'll forget my break - CONFESSION: we were stuffing bills today so I was actually reading the Breaking Dawn eBook while stuffing which is the actual reason why I almost forgot to eat my snack - and I feel okay with announcing on my blog that I was reading because I was SIMULTANEOUSLY doing ACTUAL work at the same time. MULTITASKERS are AWESOME!) I totally got sidetracked, where was I? Oh right, so for lunch I wasn't so good (but didn't cheat) and ended up having a burger from Harvey's (I've been eating too many burgers lately, methinks...) but just the burger. No fries, no pop. I took the burger back to the office and ate that with my tall glass of water and my delicious salad. Ate my afternoon snack of non-fat yogurt and cereal for crunch and went to the cardio kickboxing class! Came home and ate pork souvlaki and mashed potatoes. All of these are STILL ten times better than how I used to eat before, so I'm feeling good about everything! I did go a bit lax on the water drinking today. I was only able to get in two glasses at work (even though I've already read it, Breaking Dawn is STILL such a good entertaining read!) but I made up for it at the gym during my water "breaks" and after!

So that's Day 8 and I'm feelin' GREAT! I haven't really been weighing myself (can't seem to find a scale I actually trust) so I'm going to use a different method for now. Yesterday, Bart and I were cleaning out our closets and I found a pair of jeans. These are THE TEST PAIR of jeans that I will be using. I tried to put them on last night and it fit pretty good everywhere else except for the fact that I couldn't get them done up. So every few weeks or so, I'll put on the TEST JEANS and see what's what...after I'm able to get them done up, I'll know that I'm on the right track!

I think this may be the longest I've ever stayed on any kind of diet plan...so I'm definitely going to stick with it! How're you doing?

WORKING OUT TO:

Just Like A Pill - Pink

Deskercise

Like a majority of the population, your bum probably spends a majority of the day creating it's own little butt-groove in an office chair. There is no easier way to get NO exercise than working in an office (except if you work at mine and your printer dies and nobody knows how to fix it so you have to spend every five minutes getting up and walking to the other side of the office to get your receipt print-out and then walk back to your desk to give it to the person at your window...but I digress...)

There are actually a LOT of 'exercise-at-your-desk' instructions and videos out there on the great WWW, but I found this one to be pretty all-around.

Fit Exercise Into A Busy Schedule: How To Do Basic Deskercise

Some of the things I wouldn't actually do at my desk and to be honest, if I walked by and saw you doing it at yours, I'd probably secretly laugh at you. I'm not the politest person, so I probably wouldn't even do it secretly...but you get the gist of it. If you're sitting down more than you're up and around throughout the day, you should be making a conscious effort to get up from your desk and get a little movin' and a shakin' going on. It'll also help around the 3 PM mark...you know, the time when your lunch finally settles and your eyelids get all drooooopy...if you're able to get outside, especially now that the days are looking mighty fine, make sure to take advantage of that!

P.S. If you're going to be doing some of the suggestions on the video (ie. rubbing your eyes, your face, etc.) make sure to wash your hands or disinfect! Fact is that the dirtiest thing in the office is NOT the toilet, it's your KEYBOARD! Especially in busy places or where desktops or workspaces can be shared, you have NO idea what other peoples' fingers have touched before they've tinkered around on your keyboard! *wrinkles nose*

So if you're reading this from your office chair...isn't it about time you got up and stretched or had a little walk? (Just not down to the vending machines!)

Leeeeeet's go!

WORKING OUT TO:

My humps - Black Eyed Peas

Day 6 & 7: Where did my hip go?

...I can't find it. I think I must have dislocated it sometime yesterday while I was shakin' what my mama gave me.

Who knew that intentionally acting all loose and hippy could be so freakin' painful! *LOL* I got nothin' on Shakira, lemme tell ya, the woman must not have any bones or vertebrae or something! My hips can't possibly lie, they're dislocated.

Okay, so whining aside, the class was actually pretty AWESOME! I think I got more cardio in than I did with the kickboxing/martial arts class - or it could have been that I had a tiny bit more energy/stamina to give 'er a little more. Whatever the case, I was movin' and a-shakin' and a-shimmyin' like nobody's business! I think I must have shook too hard though because things were starting to hurt halfway through class! It's weird too...there were some moves that the instructor was wanting us to do that I found a lot harder in a class...although much easier to do in a dance club...with alcohol. Maybe next week, we can get slightly smashed first and then go to the class. I'll out-shake that instructor then! *LOL*

Anywho, Day 6 of the three-step diet was actually pretty hard for me. I think after the weekend of being slightly naughty, I was having a hard time. I ate breakfast and sensible snacks throughout the day, but I wanted MORE!

Confession: I ended up eating POTATO CHIPS! *gasp* I know...and worse than that, I ate more than what the package said to eat for 140 calories. *winces* Ah well, the extra salt helped me down more water, but of course, more salt helps my body RETAIN more water, so it pretty much cancels each other out.

I did find that I did much better yesterday (Day 7) and didn't need to snack extra. I did my breakfast (sausage breakfast sandwich), snack (one snack slice of cheese) and for lunch I had two pieces of chicken from Mary Browns and with that I ate a salad that I brought from home which was DELICIOUS! Normally when I eat Mary Browns I go for the whole shebang of chicken, TATERS and GRAVY (oh my gosh...) and a pop, but eating JUST the chicken left me feeling pretty good. So all in moderation to help me build up to being even better at choosing the right foods! Trust me, for the crap that I USED to eat, just those two pieces of chicken is already like, a breakthrough for me. *LOL* Anywho, had four glasses of water throughout the day and another bottle at the gym (again, I had to resort to my trusty "go-for-water-breaks-to-stop-the-BURNING-PAIN-in-my-muscles" technique. For those who are new to exercising, I highly recommend this method...) and of course on my breaks at work I was able to jog around on the trampoline in my co-worker's office. So all in all, I'm feeling pretty good about Day 7! I know if I can keep this up, little by little, I can get better and better!

Anywho, here's an idea of the "recipe" for the salad I had at lunch today:

Catherine's Sweet Cranberry Salad
(by sweet I mean sweet-tasting, not just me loving all over myself and naming my recipes with ego-boosting names...)

Lettuce blend with julienne carrots (this was already pre-packaged, I got it from Costco, I think)
Dried cranberries
Chopped walnuts
Light raspberry vinaigrette dressing made from extra virgin olive oil - or EVOO as Rachel Ray likes to say (Kraft)

That's it! Nothing else needed and it is soooo YUMMY! I didn't mix the salad and the dressing together. I had the dressing in a separate container and kind of just dipped my fork into the dressing before grabbing up a bunch of the salad. The dressing is flavorful enough that a little really does go a long way - and that's ALSO saying something because remember, this girl is a more is MORE kind of girl. I like EXTRA sauce on everything!

And here's another recipe that came to mind when Marti busted out with her awesome salsa! I'm not a big fan of salsa the regular ol' way (like the Old el Paso stuff in the jars *wrinkle face*) but I do like this version:

Catherine's Strawberry-Mango Salsa
I don't know why I'm calling all the recipes "Catherine's" I didn't invent them...but I figure it's half my blog, I can name them mine if I feel like it - plus these recipes do come with my form of variation...

• 1 yellow mango (the sweeter the better, I usually use the small yellow ones and not the larger red/green mangos for this recipe) diced
• Strawberries - quartered
• Scallions - chopped pretty fine, it doesn't really matter, you can chop them however you like
• Finely chopped jalapenos (I get mine in the Old el Paso jars that are already pre-sliced. I usually use about 3 - 4 of those, but you can use it to your taste...the slightly spicy with all the sweet is SO GOOD!)
• Squirt of lemon juice (don't you love how precise my recipes are?)
• Salt and pepper to taste

Just like Marti's salsa, these are awesome with pita chips or tortilla chips or with fish (I love this with tilapia).

Confession: None of those pictures are actually mine, so that's not EXACTLY what my food looks like after I've done butchering chopping them. Photos courtesy of Google Images.

Anywho, that's it for me today, it looks like I've been going on for quite a while now with this post. It must be all the extra energy that I've got now that I'm on my way to living a healthier more active life! *LOL* If you've decided to try out this three-step diet business with Marti and I, I hope things are going just as swimmingly for you! Please definitely let us know how it's going! Marti and I looooove comments. Okay fine, I guess it's not really fair for me to speak for Marti (or hide behind her) so I'll go ahead and just say it: I LOOOOOOVE COMMENTS!

WORKING OUT TO:

Hips Dont Lie - Shakira

Running for a Cause...

...I DID IT!

Well, I haven't actually done anything yet, but I started the first part! I signed up for the CIBC Run for the Cure event! It's basically a fundraising program to raise funding and awareness for breast cancer. It's a 5 k distance and you can choose to run it or walk it...and guess what this crafty loser is going to do? I'm RUNNIN' IT, BABY!

I figure that having three little goals every month is fine and dandywith the long-term goal of losing weight being the object being awesome, but I thought that I needed to have an ACTUAL goal to really work towards. I mean, losing weight is always an on-going thing so there is never anything to work towards, or build up to. So I saw a Run for the Cure commercial and I was IN!

I signed up this morning and I've already got donations from people who would like to support me on my run and would like to support the cause that I'm running for! You can't beat that in inspiration! Plus, if people have already donated money, I'm definitely accountable to them to actually complete it, right?

The run isn't until October 4, so I think I signed up at a perfect time. It gives me a lot of time to train and to fail (undoubtedly, I'll quit a bunch of times and wonder what the whole point is) and get up and get going again! I think this will really help because even when I do start to wonder what the whole point is of even trying and blah blah blah and I get all Debbie Downer on myself, I can always remind myself that there is ALWAYS a point to fundraising for a cause - especially this cause. Nowadays, who doesn't know anyone who is suffering from cancer or know someone who isn't affected by cancer? If my doing this helps more people than just me out and along the way I happen to lose weight, then I'm thinking it's a win-win situation! *fist pump* Yes, I did the fist pump!

So if you've got a CIBC Run for the Cure around your area, consider registering as a participant or even as a volunteer! This even is 100% volunteer driven, so I know that they'll always find a place for a helping hand. If it isn't around your area, maybe look for something similar around you or if it's just not your 'thang' just yet, maybe you'd like to sponsor me on my run and in turn support those that I'm running for!

Here's my Run for the Cure Donation Page: https://www.cibcrunforthecure.com/html/p.asp?t=3317742&l=1

I am now off to my Zumba class! I'll leave you with a quick peek at a video I found when I first wanted to know what this Zumba business was all about!

WORKING OUT TO:

Dont Cha - Pussycat Dolls

Day 3: Getting a jump start...

...I am doing a pretty good job on this baby step diet, if I do say so myself! Because there aren't SO many outstanding demands, me being able to complete the three goals all day everyday has left me feeling pretty good and motivated! Normally at this time with a cold turkey diet of cutting everything bad out, I would have already cheated multiple times and felt bad enough about it that I just scrap the diet altogether! So pat on the back for me and for Marti and for any of you who are trying out the three-goal-a-month diet.

Here are some of the things that I brought in to work yesterday morning for my third day:

Don't mind all the other stuff...this is the back room in our office. Let's see, what oh what do we have here...there's two boxes of delicious Crystal Light powder...I don't really know if it's delicious because I haven't tried it out yet, but it BETTER be delicious. There's a packet of two hard boiled eggs (I know, I bought hard-boiled eggs...I didn't have any eggs in the house to MAKE hard boiled eggs so I spent $2 on these two *wrinkles nose*, there's some weight friendly tapioca pudding, which kind of sucks because I thought I had grabbed rice pudding - ah well! There's snack packs of light, probiotice cheese and a fruit bowl! Oh there's also a snack pack of hummus and pretzel in there somewhere too!

So I'll have to say that yesterday was pretty good - CONFESSION: it was choir practice last night and we always have a little fellowship after we practice and it's kind of rude NOT to eat when the people who host practice have prepared stuff, so I had a TEENY miniscule amount of the pasta that they had made and *gasp* two pieces of garlic bread. YIKES! I knew I shouldn't have - especially at the late hour (I think it was around 9 pm that we started eating) but I didn't really feel all that bad. It wasn't in my three goals and I DID drastically reduce the amount of pasta that I ate, which would have been a LOT more had I not been conscious about the food that I'm eating. Plus, I made a note to probably put bread or pasta or something in my next month's goal. For lunch I went to Harvey's and had an original burger and a side salad and a bottle of water!

I also didn't feel too badly because even after my crazy kickboxing session yesterday and how my body was almost seized up on itself, I found another way to exercise throughout the day and get my butt off of this office chair!

This thing is AWESOME! Can you believe that my co-worker had this in her office for more than TWO MONTHS without me even knowing?! So I have secured a membership to her office so that I can use this throughout the day. Well, I don't really have a membership, more like I walk in there and use it!

It is HARD, I tell ya! I actually needed a little demonstration on how to use it because I couldn't see how jumping around on it would help you lose weight. But basically you get on it and you jog. Knees up high, jog, jog, jog and it's so cool! I wasn't even on it for a minute and I was already sweating! My co-worker can only do 3 - 5 minutes on it consecutively and she's been doing it for a while! So guess what Catherine did on her lunch hour?

BWAHAHAHAHA, I went ahead and bought one! I was on it last night for probably about 10 minutes altogether. I set it up and went about my house-ly duties (which is nothing like cleaning, or cooking or laundry, just to get it straight) and every time I walked by it, I just hopped on and did as much jogging as I could until I got winded and just hopped off.

So I definitely plan to implement that bad boy into my daily routine and my three goals a month! Hopefully it'll help move things along nicely! It'll be my break time in about half an hour so I'll be jumpin' around in my co-worker's office behind closed doors!

WORKING OUT TO:

Time after time - Distant soundz

Day 2: Of This I am Certain...

...BodyCombat was invented by the devil.

I can barely type this and to reach for things, I have to actually turn my WHOLE body around and reach slowly. *LOL* O.M.G.

So last night was my once at the gym for a week day and I had decided that to make the most out of it and get the most impact, I would go to BodyCombat. It's a one hour cardio class that mixes kickboxing and martial arts (ie. tae bo and karate). After the first ten minutes, I couldn't tell what was running down my face anymore, sweat or tears...probably a combination of both! My friend Tammy had come along with me to make sure that I went and finished the whole class and even she was all splotchy and sweaty after the first ten. It would have been an awesome workout if I hadn't pretty much run out of energy after the half-hour mark. But I'm not getting discouraged or quitting! It was only my first time and I'm hoping that next week will be better!

This is what I mean what I say "a glass" of water

In terms of the diet portion, I'm still sticking to the baby step goals. I had three tall glasses of water at work and then a LOT of water at the gym - CONFESSION - I was actually resorting to taking water breaks just so I wouldn't have to keep kick-punch-jabbing anymore...*LOL* and a few more glasses when I got home from the gym. I had water with ALL my meals and yay for me, I was even able to have breakfast yesterday! Here's the low-down:

Breakfast
Two waffles
Small amount of margarine (definitely a lot less than what I would normally put on it)
Table spoon of maple syrup for each waffle

Snack
Non-fat vanilla yogurt with a little bit of frosted flakes sprinkled on top for some crunch
6 Ritz Crackers (I know, not really the best, but they're SOOOO GOOD!)

Lunch
Small personal pizza from Pizza Hut

Snack
The rest of my non-fat vanilla yogurt with the rest of the frosted flakes sprinkled on top
A microwaved poached egg before the gym

Dinner
Home cooked pork souvlaki with tzatziki sauce
Greek salad with light Greek dressing

Confession: Had another snack a couple hours after dinner as I was still feeling a bit hungry...I had a light tapioca pudding cup. For some reason, I was craving something SWEET!

Ta-daaaa, so that was Day 2 for me! I have no idea why, whenever I'm NOT on a diet, I can go through the day without snacks or feeling so hungry, but all of a sudden, as soon as I tell myself I'm going to portion control and eat more sensibly, I feel hungry the WHOLE day! AAARGH!

Ah well! I'm sure it's because that whole reverse psychology/opposite thoughts thing is happening...because I'm telling myself NOT to eat as much, my brain is only hearing EAT!

I took some pictures last night, but silly me passed out before I could upload them so I'll have to get them uploaded and posted later on today or this evening. I think to REALLY get the full benefit of doing this publicly and being accountable to the blog and to myself, I've gotta do the whole nine yards which means a before picture (which will hopefully look WAY different from the after picture! *cross fingers*) and an official weigh-in *makes wrinkle-face*...

Let's DO THIS!!!

WORKING OUT TO:

Smack That - Akon Feat Eminem