Breakfast, the same two days in a row!

Breakfast today and yesterday is leftover taco meat and cheese on corn tortillas with spinach and avocado and an apple on the side. Actually the pic is from yesterdays breakfast and I don't think I did avocado, there was enough leftover olive oil in the pan from muffin doing the same thing, but without the spinach and avocado and sandwiching the meat and cheese in between two tortillas. Also, muffin made me a giant vat of coffee! I was feeling pretty rough when I got up. Today too, but I'm perking up as the caffeine makes it's way into my system.

Yesterday crashed and burned in terms of timing. I had the best of intentions! Part of the deal with the meal plan I'm on, eating every 2-3 hours, 5-6 meals a day. I only had 4 or so and they were all way late. Breakfast was tasty but late. Then I headed out to my parents place in "T-town" late in the morning. I even packed a complete snack! (An apple, 2oz of hard cheese and 6 almonds). Of course I got to doing little jobs for them and then suddenly it was 3 hours past when I had eaten last, which is not bad, but I only ended up eating a small amount. Salad with cheese and nuts. Then we went for a walk which was supposed to be maybe an hour and ended up being 3 hours, we kept running into people and stopping to talk!
What do you do in these situations! I was quite happy to talk to lots of people I hadn't seen in a while, but I was also thinking about how off my schedule was getting. While I know that getting off a plan every now and again is ok, my life is often like this! We eventually got home and it was about dinner time, so I said goodbye and headed back into town as I had plans with friends. I ate my snack and off I went!

Went to a friends house for celebrating the spring equinox and there was lots of food. I did my best at the beginning eating a bit of chicken, some nuts, a piece of bread and some roasted veggies, but the chocolate and pile of bread was just so tempting. Oh well. Today I'm staying home to nurse my cold so food will be a bit more predictable. Also, the scale stayed about the same as yesterday 197.6!

Lunch and introducing Muffin!

Lunch today was two corn tortillas with a bit of deli meat, cheddar cheese, spinach and tomato, with apple on the side.

I made tacos for my muffin (my roommate, we call each other muffin) and I cause she was stressing about school. Organic ground beef, lettuce, tomato, mozza cheese and more avocado with cucumber on the side. Muffin ate her cucumber in her taco and commented that it wasn't bad, but it was more refreshing than a taco needed to be.

I'm realizing that my Mom, though she probably didn't know it, had the variety and proportion thing down. I'm eating much like I did when I lived at home. Of course she, like me, likes to snack on chips and sweet things so while I was a kid and only ate what was given to me, I was pretty friggen skinny. It was later on that I developed the tendency to eat when I was bored or as an escape.

After lunch I went for a walk so I could actually get out of the house for a bit. Had tea with a friend. I avoided ordering a fancy shmancy latte or mocha and got rooibos tea instead! On the way home I got more corn tortillas. Muffin is gluten intolerant so we go through a lot of them. I got the 5 dozen pack from dollar grocer. They don't sell them at stupid store and a lot of the big chain stores! It's stupid! I went into several and all they ever have is flour tortillas. I also got more veggies and some tofu. Maybe tomorrow I will venture away from the vast amounts of meat and cheese. Tofu stirfry? We shall see!

First Post

So what do you do when you are home sick? Start a new blog of course.
This is todays breakfast. 2 eggs scrambled with cheese, a cup of grapes, spinach, tomato and a wee bit of avocado. It just looked all pretty and colourful, had to take a picture.

So about three months ago I decided a couple of things, one: the pain in my feet (plantar fasciitis) needed to stop and two: I was going on a trip in two months to either Mexico or Cuba so even more, I needed my feet to not hurt if I was going to play tourist. I've been dealing with foot pain off and on for about 7 years and after trying everything except cortisone injections and surgery, I've found the only thing that made it go away completely was weighing less. When I made this resolution I weighed 228, the last time my feet didn't hurt I was at about 175.

So what to do? I had struggled with body image since elementary school and as an adult I had come to love my body the way it is. I've also supported others in being healthy at every size and fought discrimination against fat people. Am I turning into a hypocrite? I hope not. The only thing that was clear was that the pain in my feet was keeping me from doing fun things and the only way to get rid of it was to drop some weight.

First thing, off to the gym with me. The reason I was down at 175 a while ago was that I was doing a very intensely physical job and before I took it I started training at a gym to get ready. When I changed jobs, I ended up with what amounted to a slightly more active desk job. I had had a membership to fitness world and so did a bunch of friends. I reinstated that and started going with them.

Then a friend posted on facebook about a program they were using on their iPhone to track calories and excercise. I had just got one for christmas and the program was free (loseit) so I downloaded it. One thing I have been reading which seems to be universal is that recording what you eat and your activity is very helpful. So I started tracking calories. I managed to lose 24 pounds before going on my trip. I was pretty stoked and I was seeing progress with my feet too! Still not pain free, but I was able to walk way more than I could before and I had a great time.

I skipped out on counting calories while I was in Mexico because it was almost impossible and I just wanted to have a good time. We were also walking 2-3 hours a day, swimming, hiking and generally being pretty active. Of course I also drank a lot of beer. And I mean a LOT of beer. I came back at exactly the same weight I left at. I thought that wasn't too shabby.

Since my return, the weight loss has been much slower, so I've been focusing even more on my eating habits. This is the part that I struggle with however, I really don't want to go in on those fad diets, I want something I will be able to stick to and make it a life long habit. This is a big commitment! On one of my check ins at the gym I asked about nutrition and they set me up with the "nutrition director" or something fancy like that and I ended up signing up for their program. What made me finally do it was that they get you to eat 5-6 times a day, fruits or vegetables every meal, lots of water and don't completely ban you from anything. All things I've heard from registered nutritionists, doctors, nurses and anyone else from a reputable background and not just the "latest tips". So here we are, on day 4 of said plan, though the first two days were a little sketchy. Tequila tuesday? Cream puffs? Right.

Well, here we go!