Healthy Challenge Day 1

So my goals are
1) continue 5 days of boot camp/week and add 1 hour of cardio per week
2) continue eating according to nutritionist's plan--that means fresh vegetables at lunch and cooked vegetables at dinner
3) work up to a full run on 2 laps
4) start practicing meditation
5) I aim to lose 20 lbs. by my birthday (Oct. 7)

Sunday night we didn't sleep well so when the alarm went off at 4:48 I was not happy! I hit snooze a full 4 times and then Todd said, "did you sleep at all last night?" I said, "no" and he said, "me either." If it weren't for first day of challenge obligations I NEVER would have removed myself from the bed! But I was motivated to at least be successful on the first day. So we went.

I ran one entire lap without stopping and then Adrian lost his mind and we had to run--I dunno--about a thousand laps today. I was able to run about 80% of them and it made me feel 1) exhausted and 2) kinda proud of myself...well, really proud of myself!

After boot camp I weighed in over at Diet for Health and could not decide between delight and depression when I saw my weight. I stepped on the scale twice to make sure it wasn't broken. Nope. I was down 3.5 lbs. from Friday. So the delight was the new lowest weight and the depression was that I'd eaten jelly beans and frosting on Sunday as a sort of pre-challenge "last supper" so my weight should have been up so it would be easier to meet my goal. How sick is that?

Jill had great advice, as always. She said that nutritionists have been fostering the idea that a treat day is ok every once in a while...but new research has shown that people who know they can have a treat usually obsess on the thought and tend to go way overboard, so it's better to just not plan on having treats. She compared it to a dog. If you tell your dog she can't ever get on the couch she won't...but if you tell your dog it's ok to get on the couch sometimes, then the dang dog is always on the couch. (This is one of those totally perfect analogies because our dog ruined our last couch and now is not allowed on at all.)

So, I revised my goals to include nothing about a treat day. My favorite food weakness is movie popcorn. It doesn't set me up on a craving and it is totally limited to while I'm in the theater (ok, the first 10 minutes of being in the theater)...something about eating in the dark. So I will still have the once in a while popcorn...and I think some chili-chocolate on Sunday is ok. I only have a one inch square...wait, does this count as obsessing?

After weighing in I went to a meeting and meditated twice for 5 minutes each time. It was not a business meeting and "meditating" does not mean sleeping! It was a meditation meeting and I tried to do it. The problem was I was exceedingly distracted by thoughts around one of my children who is struggling so it wasn't very relaxing.

When I got home I enjoyed my delicious lemon water (ugh) and some wasa crackers with egg white salad then off for a walk with dear Carol B. We walk from Pennsylvania to Lowell and that counts as 1 extra hour of cardio per week! So I'm totally ahead of the game.

Here's my food today:

3.5 light wasa crackers
1 container egg white salad (God bless Trader Joe's) 100 calories

Chipotle salad with barbacoa and guacamole, extra light serving of rice (1/3 cup) (3 cups vegetables, 1 serving starch, 1 fat serving)

1 nectarine & 1/2 wasa

I had a salad with cucumber, lettuce, tomatoes, 1/8 avocado, lime juice, salt & pepper and then I grilled up 3 miniature potatoes, 1 bell pepper, 1/2 slice onion, olive oil spray, 8 large shrimp. It was really yummy!

Ok, and here's the last component of this very lengthy and severely boring post--I started a meditation book reading group and had an assignment which I completed today. I didn't want to--well, I sorta wanted to--so Yay me!