Note To Self

I cannot give myself a food baby anymore. I will, very literally, puke.

It's a good lesson to keep in mind for my free days (Saturdays). I've been eating really well for almost two months now, and my body is accustomed to eating proper portions and eating many small meals throughout the day, rather than 2 or 3 giant meals. I can allow myself to have a little bit of junk food on my Saturdays, or eat more carbs than I do on most days. But I can't have a frozen yogurt and candy, followed by a complete binge of baked ziti and chips with spicy nacho cheese and tri tip and caesar salad and a beer and a Coke. No bueno.

On the bright side, I ruled out being sick or having food poisoning. And now back to my regularly scheduled dieting. (:

End Of Week Two!

Week Two of LiveFit boot camp is finished! I feel amazing, and I'm noticing a difference because my pants fit better. As promised, here are the pictures for the end of this week. I've decided to put both the start picture up along with the most recent picture for comparison purposes each week.

Day 1Day 10

Day 1 Day 10

Funsies (Finally Not About Working Out!)

Yup, something NOT related to boot camp and healthy lifestyles! This is about stuff I've been doing and a mini haul of things (lots of pictures!) I've gotten recently and really like. (:

First off, I think it should be mentioned that I have a problem, and it is nail polish. I love the stuff, and by far, my favourite brand is Zoya. I've got 18 shades now, and I'm not stopping. This is one of my favourite brands to buy with my fun money paychecks, though I really try to limit myself to only buying when I will save money somehow. For example, seven of my Zoyas were $3.99 on clearance at Ulta, which puts them at half price, since they retail at $8. I'm not going to bore you with the sales on the other eleven, but my three newest Zoya beauties are:

Zoya Bevin...

...Zoya Pasha...

...and Zoya Ruby (more pinkish hued IRL)!

I haven't tried out Pasha or Ruby yet, as I just got them in the mail today, but I've never been disappointed by Zoya, so I'm sure I'll love them as much on nails as I do in the bottle.

I also got a couple glitters recently. I've been lusting over a chunky hexagonal glitter topcoat, and I got Nicole By OPI's Make U Smile from the Justin Bieber line.

I was pretty disappointed because it looks like there's a ton of the hexagonal glitter and then fine glitter in the clear base, but it's mostly base, a fair amount of fine glitter and hardly any hexagonal glitter. I'm waiting for my China Glaze Techno to arrive to see how it does instead, I've read amazing reviews, and though it's not quite the same because its hexagonal glitter is holographic, it's similar enough for me.

Another I recently bought is called China Glaze Fairy Dust, and I am in love with this. It's extremely sheer and a holographic SUPER fine glitter. I would consider it a topcoat, it's so sheer. I haven't even attempted to see how many coats it would take for opacity, though that's on my to do list.

China Glaze Fairy Dust

I tried layering Fairy Dust over Bevin, and I love the combination, from the springy semi-pastel moss green to the holographic shimmer. Definitely in the top ten favourites!

Bevin with a coat of Fairy Dust

 Different view of the glitz of Fairy Dust!

I've been hearing a ton of great things about the Urban Decay 24/7 eyeshadow pencils, and I finally decided to try this product out when I saw that the travel size set of 3 neutrals and 2 brights were on sale for $12, originally $34 for the set. Can you say steal? They also arrived today, and I am seriously diggin' these. The purple (Delinquent) is much more vibrant than the photo shows, I'm still figuring out lighting and camera settings, so Google it if you want a better swatch of the purple. They are fantastic in terms of colour payoff and lasting power. I did a rub test after a couple minutes and not a single smudge, though I did get a couple glitter particles on my finger, so I can't wait to see the magic on the eyes. I am most definitely trying these out tomorrow, they seem to make for a really easy eye look.

(Top to bottom) Clash, Sin, Juju, Rehab, and Delinquent.

And reverse order here!

I really like the 24/7 eyeliner pencils as well. I've used Zero and Whiskey before, and when I saw two full size liners in Whiskey and Flipside with a sharpener for $12 (each regularly $18, I believe), I had to grab it, and I am so glad I did. I love love LOVE my Flipside liner, best investment ever in terms of vibrant liners.

I also bought a full size tube of the Urban Decay Lip Junkie gloss in Wallflower, after receiving a deluxe sample of the shade with a past purchase. It's such a lovely, creamy pinky-nude shade. It looks like a medium brown, but again I blame the camera and lighting on that. I love the scents with all of UD's lip products, too. This one is vanilla mixed with a little mint.

I am very much an avid body modifier. I may not have a lot under my belt, but I have big plans for myself. Two and a half weeks ago, I finally checked double nostrils off of my piercings to do list, part in thanks to my wonderful boyfriend Jon who paid for more than half of the cost of the piercing as his Valentine's gift to me. Fingers crossed that I never have to remove my right nostril (viewer's left in the picture) for a job (my left nostril is two years old this summer), and septum is so easy to hide that it will never go. Ever.

I've got a couple orders from my favourite body jewelry website, www.bodyartforms.com, coming in the mail this week. One is a pre-order from Anatometal Jewelry, and it's a pair of 00ga princess cut eyelets with synthetic emeralds, synthetic sapphires, and cubic zirconium. I've also got a pair of 00ga/10mm steel sparrow plugs with that order. I'm so excited to finally be owning Anatometal jewelry, I've been wanting it for so long and I finally saved up enough to buy them for $132 at 30% off at the beginning of the month, so score for saving about $56 on them! I also ordered a pair of 00ga/10mm black horn ornate hanging jewelry that was marked at 50% off in clearance plus my extra 10% off (once you accumulate $275 in purchases, you get the perma-discount!), and I paid $14.40 for those, which is an incredible deal for horn hanging styles. I'll post pictures of both orders once they arrive, they should be here by Thursday and Friday at the latest.

I know it REALLY looks like I shop a lot, but you have to remember that I only use my allotted fun money for these things, so once I'm out of fun money, I don't get anything else. I also don't necessarily spend all of my fun money before I get more on payday from the candy store, subbing, house/pet sitting, etc. With subbing checks, though, I do put aside enough for a month of gas, and the rest is for fun. I think that's about it for now, as I've written a novel here, and I just realized how many hours before I have to be up for breakfast before boot camp.

Picture Time!

So here's my first set of pictures comparing start to finish of week 1!

Day 1 Day 5

Day 1 Day 5

It doesn't really look like much compared to the beginning of this week, but let me tell you, it FEELS a lot different.

The thing I really need to focus on is drinking enough water, I was doing really well with that while I was on Atkins, and then that week when we said FUCK IT, I stopped drinking all that water. Because I haven't been drinking enough water, I'm not seeing in my abdominal area what I saw after the first week of Atkins. I still feel squishy, and I want to get rid of that feeling.

LiveFit Day Four!

Tomorrow is day five and the end of the first week of boot camp. Holy shit! I have never felt so sore and stiff in my life. But it's that really great kind of sore, the kind that reassures me that I'm making the right decision, that I'm headed in the right direction. Tomorrow is also the benchmark day, to get an idea of where I'm at physically, what I can do.

I will fully admit that after completely letting it go last week, it's been really difficult getting back on track with eating healthy this week. It's completely my fault, though. I chose to buy the Girl Scout cookies, the jalapeno chips, the Turtle Chex Mix, the raspberries and whipped cream. I made the choice to eat 11 of the 15 Samoas today. I have no one to blame but myself, I have to hold myself accountable for the choices I have made.

Today I ate a bit better than the rest of the week, but not by much. I had an egg on toast for breakfast, tuna salad and a cheese quesadilla (could have been made better by using lower carb tortillas, but it is what it is) for lunch, five Samoas before daycare, a bunch of bite size corn dogs and grapes and orange juice at daycare snack, and then six Samoas this evening because I wasn't hungry after daycare snack. I had like 12 of those itty bitty corn dogs, they are FILLING! And so not good for me, either. Good thing we get those like once a year.

So, I restart healthy eating now, right at this moment. I was bad at drinking water all this last week, and I'm changing that by drinking a large bottle of water as we speak. It's time to start flushing out that water weight again. I have put away the Samoas and the Thin Mints where I don't see them every day. Breakfast tomorrow is going to be an egg on toast with avocado and tomato slices, something I have missed eating this week. My post workout snack will be Greek yogurt with some berries and a teaspoon of pure maple syrup. No snacks at the movies with Lea, and I'll be eating some sort of salad when we go to lunch at Hooters, hopefully with grilled chicken on it. There's no school tomorrow, so I don't have to worry about snack at the daycare, and then whatever my mom makes for dinner will be good. One day at a time, I just need to remember that.

I'm struggling on a daily basis in some aspect of this journey, and I probably always will struggle with something. But I want myself to be healthy and fit, and I'll do whatever it takes to get there.
Bottom line.

LiveFit Boot Camp: Day One

I feel great today.

I had my first day of boot camp and while it kicked my ass, I am so excited to go back tomorrow morning. Today consisted of a brief warm up that included knee-highs, butt-kickers, arm rotations, jumping jacks, and other small exercises, and then (for me) three laps around a course. Others did more than three laps, but it was more of a timed run. Then we did triplets. First set was plank, side planks, and sit ups. Second set was dumbbell bench presses with our hips elevated, flies with hips elevated, and jumping jacks. Third set was squats, lunges with weights, and cross countries. Each set was done three times before moving on to the next, and then we ended with stretches. I know my muscles are going to be stiff tomorrow, but I'll push through it the best I can.

I weighed in at 132 pounds this morning (granted, this was after breakfast and the workout). I will not be weighing in again until the end of this month's bootcamp session on March 9th.

Here are my official start photos for the next three months of boot camp:

My starting measurements are:
Bust: 37 inches
Underbust: 30 inches
Waist: 31.25 inches
Upper Hips: 37.5 inches
Lower Hips: 40.5 inches

I will do more measurements on March 9th as well.

Feelin' Good

In anticipation of boot camp starting on Monday (as a recap, not military boot camp, it's an outdoor fitness class), I've been using my exercise bike the last couple days. Yesterday I pedaled while watching Glee on Hulu Plus, this morning I pedaled while watching the series finale of Hannah Montana on Netflix (gimme a break, it's a guilty pleasure), and then tonight I pedaled to a bit over half of the D.R.U.G.S. album before dinner. I'm also rather happy with the fact that while this week has been filled with carbs and lacking a bit in water, I'm only at about 131 lbs, and less since that was what I weighed tonight about a half hour after dinner. So I've clearly lost more than just water weight! I'm even more excited for starting fresh next week now. (:

Also just ordered a chunky silver glitter topcoat nail polish I've been dying to have for some time. It was a couple bucks more on eBay than it'd cost in store, but I can't find it anywhere, so I'm sucking it up and awaiting it's arrival haha.

Also, I did my nails for a nice dinner out with Jon on Wednesday, and I wanted to show a picture of the colour I used. It's called Zoya Edyta, and it's a gorgeous blackened green with a heavy olive-gold shimmer. So vampy and pretty, one of my favourites for sure. Excuse the black area on my palm, I think my camera lens was scratched a tiny bit last summer, which sucks since it was only a couple months old at the time.

And since I'm posting pictures, I want to share a shot of my mom's cat Aodhan (pronounced Aiden) that I thought was pretty spiffy. He's a quirky little cat, a cry baby for sure (he's 1/4 Siamese), a pain in the ass, but I love him anyway.

Not A Good Week

I'll be honest, this has been a horrible week on Atkins so far. I could blame it on having a free day on Saturday, but that would be making Saturday's menu a scapegoat. I followed Atkins to the T on Sunday but didn't do a weigh in or take pictures, on Monday I went out to Olive Garden with Jon, today I had a few french fries at lunch and then a baked potato with tonight's dinner of chicken and salad, and tomorrow is dinner at Graziano's with Jon again. So not 25g of carbs per day. That, and I've been failing at starting my day at 730, a habit I really need to form for boot camp.

I've pretty much blown it this week so far, but I intend on getting back on track starting on Thursday, with a few adjustments after talking to my mom. We're branching off from Atkins a bit, and while I'm a bit disappointed that I'm not going to be finding out how many carbs my body can handle (I admit, I was really interested in that!), I will be okay with it if I'm losing fat, gaining muscle, and feeling better about my reflection in the mirror.

We're still going to be eating low carb, but not as severely as the month or two of Atkins requires. I don't think I will ever tire of scrambled eggs with cheese on top of low carb bread with avocado and tomato for breakfast, especially when we start adding in plain greek yogurt with a little bit of berries and a teaspoon of agave nectar or pure maple syrup. I will be a lot happier to add grains back into my lunch, as the thought of just tuna salad makes me want to gag. Snack will still be a protein shake at daycare and the piece of fruit for the day, and dinner will continue to be much like it has been, a protein with lots of veggies and salad. And this is something I am much more satisfied thinking about.

So yeah, I guess I'm quitting the Atkins program. But I refuse to quit eating a healthy diet that generally follows the ideals of a diabetic/Mediterranean diet, which is very much similar to Atkins Life Maintenance, almost identical. For my friend Evan, I know I promised not to give up, so I hope this is a compromise that you'd approve of.

This upcoming Monday is the start of my three month-long LiveFit boot camp sessions, and I feel that this exercise routine paired with the new diet regiment is going to be a winner. This time I promise to have weekly pictures as I do boot camp, but as I said in my last blog post, I'll only do a weigh in for Monday morning, the end of the first month, the end of the second month, and the end of the third month.

On a non-diet related note, I got my right nostril pierced finally, which I've been wanting for ages. Double nostrils has been on the to-do list for quite some time. Others on the list include both tragii (plural for tragus, but stupid spell check doesn't recognize either), my left conch, three helix flats on the left, a couple traditional helices on the right, and eventually my navel once I'm happy with my stomach. Don't get me started on tattoos, I have two shoulder pieces planned, knuckles planned (likely for once I'm retired). Those all won't come for a few years at least, lots to save up for, as well as needing the art for one shoulder piece, which won't arrive for quite a long time, due to needing offspring to produce said art.

This post is starting to get very ramble-y, so I'll let it go from here. It's just after midnight, and I really should get to bed (and force myself out at 8AM, if not 730).

Atkins Day Thirteen

I've been having a tough time this week, especially yesterday and Wednesday. I think I had too high of expectations for initial weight loss during Induction, but I needed to realize it's not going to be as drastic for someone only looking to lose 29 pounds.

I realize that I need to amp up the whole working out thing. I moved my stationary bike into my bedroom so I can use that when I'm watching tv, but that won't be necessary for long because in about a week and a half, I will be starting a three month session of LiveFit Boot Camp. The icing on the cake? It's free. I'm friends with both the owners and one approached me last night offering three months in exchange for before and after photos. Um, can I get a HELL YEAH?!

I'm going to do my last weekly weigh in this Sunday evening, and the final four weigh ins will be at the start of only the first boot camp and at the end of each month's boot camp, since there's only a week in between each session, so doing two weigh ins in a week won't do much. However, I fully intend on continuing the weekly front and side shots so I can keep track of my progress in terms of appearance.

For the first time during Induction, I went above my 20g of carbs, by about 3g or so. I don't feel guilty, I feel indulging a little won't kill me, since the worst that can happen is I'll gain back water weight and the easy fix is drinking a bunch of water and not going above the daily limit.

I am heading into my last day of Induction tomorrow and I'm excited to start bringing up my carbs, albeit gradually.

Atkins Day Twelve (morning)

Today I moved the stationary bike into my bedroom so I can sit myself on it while watching my shows on Hulu Plus via Xbox360. I currently can't use it while watching 90210 since Jon is playing video games. Not the happiest camper, but he had a rough day yesterday, what with finding out a teacher he's known for 13 years passed away, so I'm letting it go. So starting this evening after work, I'll hop on the bike and pedal for an hour, and I'll do that every night that I watch tv, which is nearly every night.

Atkins Day Eleven (Morning)

So I just weighed myself before getting into the shower and what I saw is getting me in the dumps. Since Sunday, I have gone up to 131, and I really don't think it's from muscle gain, since I did that workout with Britt on Saturday. Hearing that my mom has lost at least 7 pounds already when I've already stalled out and even gone backwards is upsetting, too.

I need to be more diligent about really drinking 64oz of water a day, and I need to be making sure that I'm exercising every day. Clearly following this diet with exercise once or twice a week is just not enough, since I have not broken it at all.

I thought I'd be further along than this. It's time to step it up.