Trying New Things

Hello all!

It's been an interesting week.  If I had to pick a theme for my week it would be the same as the title of this post: trying new things.  I've been trying new snacks and I've been trying new fitness activities. Most of them turned out well, but some did not. But the point is to try!

On Thursday, I tried a Boot Camp group exercise class.  I was really, really nervous before I went and was scared that it would be too intense for me.  The class was taught by my friend, Stephanie, who also teaches the Zumba classes and Pilates class that I take each week.  I trusted her to push me without pushing me past my limit. It turns out that I absolutely loved Boot Camp!  I did feel like I pushed myself and did things I didn't even think I could do.  Because of my weight and my size, I feel like I tell myself that I "can't" do things.  Before Boot Camp, I told myself "I can't run, I'm too heavy." During the class I realized that I CAN run. It may not be for more than a minute at a time, but I can run nonetheless.  I'll work my way up to running for longer. I told myself I couldn't do lunges or jumping jacks because I have bad knees. I CAN do lunges and jumping jacks. I can't do 100 of them at a time, but I can do enough of them. I told myself I couldn't do pushups because my body was just too heavy, but I CAN.  I know that I can because I tried. Unless your doctor tells you not to do something, then it's worth trying things that you have told yourself you cannot do. You might just surprise yourself!

Today, I tried something else new and I failed at it. I had decided to go try a 30-minute Spin class at one of the local YMCA branches.  I thought "30 minutes, I can probably make it through that." So I went early and met the teacher (super nice!) and got the spin bike all set up to the proper settings and was ready to go. The instructor warned me that first couple of times I did Spin would be painful on my tailbone/sit bones because of the way the seats are designed, but that eventually it would get better as I got used to it. So I practiced a little on the bike before class started and pretty soon we were ready to go.  After a couple of minutes into the class, the pain in my tailbone/sit bones was excruciating and my legs (of course) felt like jello.  I tried to tough it out, but the pain was unbearable, so after just 5 minutes of Spin class, I got off the bike and left.

I was so disappointed in myself and felt really embarrassed to have had to leave a class after only five minutes.  I drove to my usual YMCA branch to finish some type of workout, called Kyle, and cried. I felt really defeated.  Kyle (being the awesome husband that he is) told me that there was no reason to be upset or embarrassed because I had at least tried.  He reiterated that Spin class is really intense and that I could work my way up to it in the future if it is something I really wanted to do. I still felt really bummed, but I felt considerably better after talking to him. I also got a text message pep talk from my Mom who told me pretty much the same thing. So after composing myself, I walked into the gym and got on a standard exercise bike (much easier on my tailbone) and rode for 25 minutes to finish the 30 minutes I would have spent in my spin class.  I pushed myself and got 4.66 miles in those 25 minutes and felt pretty good about it.  I'd be lying if I said I wasn't still disappointed about my failure in Spin, but I'm proud of myself for trying. I now know that I can't do Spin class....yet.  I plan to revisit it after I get in better shape and take some more of this weight off.

In addition to trying Larabars this week, I also bought a couple of Luna bars to try!  I had one today for a snack and it was delicious.

Luna bars are nutrition bars made for women that are a source of Vitamin D, Folic Acid, Iron, and Calcium, among others. They also have 8 grams of protein and 4 grams of fiber to keep you full!  There's a larger list of ingredients with these bars than there are with Larabars, but this bar definitely has its perks. It is 5 points plus per bar (according to the 3 I calculated) and they come in a lot of different flavors. As with Larabars, quite a few of their bars contain tree nuts, but as you can see I found at least 3 flavors without. Today I had the Chocolate Peppermint Stick flavor and it definitely satisfied my sweet craving.  I got these at Whole Foods for $1 a piece (they were on sale!).

So go out and try new things!  Don't be too hard on yourself if you aren't able to do everything, but if you are like me, your body might just surprise you!

Until next time,
BK

Snack of the Week: Larabars

Hello everyone!

It's Sunday! Time for a snack of the week post.  This week's snack is a recommendation I got from Bob Harper on the Biggest Loser as a filling and healthy snack. It's called a Larabar and it's an all-natural fruit and nut bar that is full of yummy ingredients. They are dairy free (all except ones with chocolate chips), soy free, gluten free, and vegan (all except the ones with chocolate chips). They are also kosher!

Here's what the wrappers look like. I bought mine today at Whole Foods for about $1.35 a piece.  You can also order them online (and see all the flavors!) at www.larabar.com.  They come in all different flavors from Cherry Pie to Peanut Butter and Jelly.

Whole Foods had at least 2/3 of the flavors I saw online. I'm in an interesting situation in that I can't eat snacks that have tree nuts in them. My husband and I are both allergic. Our allergies aren't severe (they don't involve anaphylaxis), but our symptoms are still unpleasant enough to avoid them. So anything with almonds, walnuts, cashews, pecans, macadamia nuts, Brazil nuts, or pistachios are off limits to us.  This can be frustrating because a lot of health food companies fill their products with these types of nuts because they are healthy and full of protein.  This is especially true with Kashi. I've wanted to badly to try their cookies and bars and cereals, but every single product I look at has some type of tree nut in the ingredients. Luckily, Larabar has three different flavors without any tree nuts in them: Peanut Butter and Jelly, Peanut Butter Cookie, and Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip.  Whole Foods had the first two flavors, which I snatched up today. Instead of tree nuts, these bars have peanuts in them (peanuts are legumes, not actual nuts, so Kyle and I can eat them without side effects). Also, because so many people have severe peanut allergies, Larabar's company makes the peanut bars in a separate place from the tree nut bars!

So anyway, I found some tree nut-free flavors and decided to give them a try. I ate one of the Peanut Butter and Jelly bars today for an afternoon snack and let me just read you the list of ingredients: dates, peanuts, unsweetened cherries, and sea salt. THAT'S IT! No preservatives, no fillers, no artificial flavors.  I was amazed. When I usually stop for a bar, like a Fiber One bar or a Special K protein bar (both delicious), there's a long list of ingredients to look through.

Granted, they aren't the most appealing to look at, here's the bar unwrapped:

I really enjoyed my snack today!  It wasn't the same as eating a PB& J sandwich, but it definitely had that same flavor, which satisfied my sweet craving.  The bar was also very moist.  Most bars I eat are pretty dry, but not this one. It had almost a cake-y quality to it. As you can see from the picture, the ingredients are apparent: you can SEE the peanut and cherry pieces immediately.

These bars are 6 points plus per bar, which seems like a lot, but they have 6 grams of protein and 4 grams of fiber, so they should be nice and filling! I also appreciate the fact that I know EXACTLY what I'm eating with that tiny list of truly all-natural ingredients!  So give a Larabar a try if you want and see if you like them as much as I do!  Snack smart!

Until next time,
BK

Twoterville!

Good morning, everyone!

After last week's frustrated post over not losing any weight, I am happy to be writing an excited post today! This week I lost 3.9 pounds!

Current weight: 296.1

I've reached my first goal of being back in the 200s! My next goal is to get under my "wedding weight," (what I weighed on the day of my wedding) which was 284. So just 12.2 more pounds to go until I reach that goal!  I've always been told by friends and Weight Watcher Leaders (and probably Dr. Oz) that in successful weight loss, it's important to set small goals on the way to your larger goal.  Obviously my large goal is to be my healthy weight (which is around 150), BUT that goal is a long way off.  It will take me quite some time to lose that amount of weight and, in the meantime, I need smaller goals that I can meet and feel successful!

Looking back over the past five weeks of renewed determination in my weight loss, I've lost 11.7 pounds.  That's an average of about 2.3 a week, which is a healthy rate of weight loss and pretty impressive to me!  I know that as I keep losing, I most likely won't sustain a consistent loss of 2.3 per week, but as long as I'm in the negative I will be happy!

It was also a relief this week to cross the hurdle of "having friends in town" and its possible hindrances in weight loss. It can be anxiety-provoking trying to handle eating out and enjoying yourselves while trying to continue a consistent weight loss. Let's face it: sometimes friends can bring out our not-so-healthy eating habits (at least for me). This can be especially true when they are in town for a visit, which can fall under "vacation mode" eating.  Luckily, Sara and Laura are also making healthy choices in their lifestyles and were understanding when I fretted over what to order in restaurants. They also didn't suggest we go to completely unhealthy places where it would have been difficult for me to stay on track.

The next hurdle to cross is the "going home" hurdle. In 8 days, I'm headed back to South Carolina to see my husband Kyle graduate from Clemson with a master's degree!  I'm so excited to see him (it's been over five weeks) and also excited to see my family (it's been over two months)!  However, I'm also nervous about how going home will affect my weight loss. More on that later,though; we'll cross that hurdle when we get to it!

I hope you all have a great week!

Until next time,
BK

A Pretty Amazing Weekend

Hello all!

As promised, I'm finally getting around to writing an entry about this weekend. It was super wonderful in so many ways. My good friend Sara and her friend Laura came down to Baton Rouge to compete in the Rocket Chix triathlon!  Living alone, I LOVE having visitors and it's been months and months since I'd gotten a chance to hang out with Sara. So Sara and Laura came into town Friday afternoon and we headed over to an expo for them to get their free swag for competing in the tri.  Laura was craving Italian so we decided to go eat Italian for dinner.

I LOVE Italian food.  I've always loved pasta. Old Blair would have taken one look at that menu and ordered some type of creamy pasta and eaten the entire bowl of it without thinking twice. Since my weigh-in last week, I've been really vigilant about what I've been eating. As I looked over the menu, panic started to set in. I didn't know what to order!  Pizza was too high in points, Calzones too high, and I just couldn't bring myself to order pasta. I knew this wouldn't be the only time we would be going out during the weekend, so I tried to plan ahead. The pasta looked delicious, but every time I thought about ordering it, I just pictured my scale at home and could not do it. I noticed they had a pretty awesome salad selection that included salads with spinach.

Let me give you a little background about me & salads.  I can probably count on one hand the number of salads I have eaten in my lifetime. The thing about me is that I hate lettuce. I can't stand it, I think it tastes disgusting. I've tried iceberg, romaine, everything. I've tried it at home, in fancy restaurants, with every type of dressing. I just can't do it. About two years ago, someone told me that I should try salads with spinach leaves in place of lettuce.  I really like spinach, so I gave it a try and loved it!  I'm still not the type of girl who eats salads frequently, but it was nice to know I could if I wanted to.

So back to the Italian place. I found a salad with spinach leaves, feta cheese, red onions, dried cranberries, chicken and balsamic vinaigrette dressing. It sure sounded good to me! So I ordered a cup of minestrone and an entree salad.  I was pretty proud of myself: (1) I have NEVER ordered an entree salad in a restaurant and (2) I did it in an Italian restaurant of all places.  It seems silly to people who order salads all the time, but for me it was a big step.  Both the soup and the salad were delicious, by the way! :)

After dinner, we decided to head over to Tutti Frutti for some fro-yo (one of my FAVORITE desserts). I had already planned to get a small serving with fruit as my topping. When we got there, we saw that they had a new soy-based yogurt with no fat and no dairy that was enriched with protein. Since Tutti Frutti allows free samples, we all tried it.  I was skeptical at first. Aside from Boca burgers and edamame, I don't really like soy products. I'm not a fan of soy milk or soy chicken. But I'm here to tell you, that soy yogurt was delicious!  Absolutely delicious. It tasted like the most creamy of all vanilla yogurts. All three of us ordered it!  I highly recommend at least sampling it if you are a fan of fro-yo!

The next morning, I headed off the Zumba and the ladies headed off to compete in the tri. After Zumba I went and met them for the awards ceremony. They each finished in about 1 hour 15 minutes, which I thought was phenomenal. I was so inspired by the work they had done and watching people accomplish this goal that they had set for themselves. I had already told Kyle that as soon as he moves down, we're going to start training for a 5K. I am even more excited about that goal now! I'm ready to push my body and to finish something that I never would have dreamed I'd be able to do.  I plan to do quite a few 5Ks over the next few years. :)  Thank you Sara and Laura for inspiring me even more!

Aside from the quality girl time (with a matinee of Magic Mike), the other awesome thing about my weekend was that I found a dress for Kyle's graduation next Friday. I've been looking for a dress to wear to that event for weeks and have been unhappy with every single dress I tried on. I found one at Lane Bryant (for $30) and it is a size 22/24!  I'm still a size 26 in pants/shorts and the dress I bought was very flowy and has an elastic top, but it has been a while since I bought a dress that wasn't 26/28 (aside from my magical corset back wedding dress which was a size 22). I'm pretty excited about it.  After Kyle's graduation, I'll try to remember to post a picture on here. :)

I am very nervous about my weigh-in this week.  We did eat out twice this weekend (I counted points both times) and I was only able to make it to 3 hours of exercise instead of 5. My pilates class was cancelled and I missed my Friday night Zumba class to spend time with Sara and Laura. BUT I still attended two Zumba classes and swam a mile today. I think I'm just apprehensive because of my weigh-in last week. As always, you can expect an entry on Wednesday letting you know how I did! Here's hoping that I see a number in the 200s!

Until next time,
BK

Snack of the Week: Special K Cracker Chips

Hello all!

It's Sunday and it's time for the Snack of the Week Post!  I plan to write a longer blog entry later tonight because it's been a pretty awesome weekend.  But for now, here's my favorite snack this week.

I love to snack and I love crunchy, salty treats. However, I do NOT like the calories/fat in traditional potato chips (though I do occasionally indulge and spend the points on the real thing).  These chips come in a variety of flavors including Sea Salt, Cheddar, Southwest Ranch, and Sour Cream & Onion.  So far, my favorite is Sour Cream & Onion, but I haven't tried a flavor I haven't liked.  My FAVORITE thing about this snack is that the portion size is great!  You get 27 chips per serving (which is 3 pointsplus).  That's awesome for a salty snack! Here's a picture of what the portion size looks like.

I'm pretty sure I don't even get that many chips in an individual sized bag of REGULAR potato chips and they are double the points!  I will warn you, unless you like the "popped" style of chips, you may not like these. I know a few friends who do not care for these. If you want it to taste just like potato chips, you will be disappointed. If you want a crunchy, salty, and satisfying snack that lives up to its name of a "cracker" chip, then I think you'll enjoy this snack as much as I do.  Snack healthy! :)

Until next time,
BK

"Momma said there'd be days like this."

Good morning y'all!

It's weigh-in day and I come to you with a frustrated post. I have not lost or gained any weight since last week.

Current weight: 300.0 (still)

Not only did I not lose ANY weight at all, I'm still not under 300, which is a milestone I was looking forward to passing today. I'm not going to sugarcoat it, I was really disappointed and frustrated when I saw that number. I feel like I haven't done anything wrong this week. I counted my points, I didn't use ANY of my activity points (as always), I didn't eat all of my weekly points, and I exercised a total of 6 hours this week. So why no weight loss?

I've been troubleshooting since I weighed in this morning and here are two reasons that might explain why my weight hasn't changed.
(1) It could be residual bloating/water retention from my monthly cycle which just ended.
(2) Because I'm exercising more than I ever have, I might have gained more muscle than I lost weight this week, which might be why it seems that my weight has stayed the same.

Those are the only two reasons I can come up with! But who knows, from losing weight in the past I have come to know that when you have a few good weeks in a row (like 7.8 lbs in 3 weeks) sometimes your body just does not want to let go of any more weight right yet. What I also have come to find is that I could be set up for a good weight loss next week, if I continue what I've been doing.

I may be frustrated, but I'm not going to give up. Weight loss is hard. If it were easy, then obesity would not be as big a problem as it is in America today. Today is the first day of a new week and I'm going into this week with the same determination (if not more) than I had before. Zumba is tonight and I'm going to go and dance my butt off and try to shed some calories.

This week presents with another challenge also. My dear, dear friend Sara is coming into town to visit this weekend (she's doing a mini-triathalon! she's awesome). I have not seen Sara since my wedding in December and I've missed her terribly. Of course, since she's coming to Baton Rouge for the first time, I'm taking her to my two favorite restaurants. I've already begun planning what I'll be ordering during both meals so that temptation does not get the best of me. I'm nervous about not losing (or even gaining) weight in the next week, but I'm going to make the smartest decisions possible nutrition-wise and keep exercising at least 4-5 hours this week.

In the mean time, I'll be soldiering on. I honestly can't be too upset. I'm making healthy choices for my body and I have begun to tell a difference in the way some of my clothes are fitting. I bought a skirt on sale about a month ago that "fit" but was pretty snug when I bought it. Yesterday, I wore it to work for the first time and it fit very well! Weight loss or no weight loss, I'm making healthy decisions and not giving up and I can't be anything but proud of myself for that.

Until next time,
BK

Snack of the Week: Skinny Cow Ice Cream Sandwiches!

Hello all! 

It's Sunday, which means it's Snack of the Week Day!  Before I go into what this week's snack is, I will say that I have found some new plus size work-out clothes!  Online and in-store at Lane Bryant (a different and better branch than the one I visited a few weeks ago).  I look good and feel confident when I'm exercising now. Not to mention I'm cooler because I bought pants/shirts with sweat wicking technology, so they are thin and stay dry during my workout!

Forgive my cluttered bathroom sink in my guest bath, but here I am in my new workout clothes ready for my Zumba class! (And almost 8 lbs lighter, which just makes me giddy).

So this week's snack is a life-saver for me because I have an epic sweet tooth. It's Skinny Cow brand ice cream sandwiches, which you can buy at any grocery store.

My "current" flavor is Strawberry Shortcake, which is delicious, but they come in all kinds of flavors. I've tried Peanut Butter/Chocolate (also delicious) and Chocolate Mint (might be my fave). They also have plain Chocolate/Vanilla types and Cookies & Cream flavor.  These delicious treats are only 4 points plus, which to me is a guilt-free dessert.  Also, they are a great size!

As you can see, the ice cream sandwich is the same size as the palm of my hand. So well worth the 4 points plus (in my opinion)!

So if you LOVE eating ice cream treats in the summer and you have an insatiable sweet tooth like I do, don't deprive yourself this summer!  Try these treats to get your ice cream fix.  Snack smart!

Until next time,
BK