Who wants that roasted coffee?? Check in this week and let us know how you are doing with your personal challenge for September! We are halfway there as of today 😀
I am doing pretty well. Down 1 pound, so that is 1.8 for the month of September. Almost 1/2 way to my goal of 4 pounds. Struggled a little with eating on Friday and Saturday, but was right on Sunday and yesterday. Need to somehow come up with a better plan for F & Sat.
How are you doing?
Can you believe a week of September is gone already? I do not know how time can be so fleeting.
How are you doing with your personal challenge for the month? I’ve decided to give a little motivation for the challenge. As most of you know, I roast coffee beans. I will draw a random challenger at the end of the month and send them a bag of fresh roasted coffee! If you are chosen and don’t like coffee ( :O ) we’ll figure something else out (tea?).
The only catch is that you need to check in for the challenge during the month. It doesn’t matter how you are doing so much as being accountable for checking in. We are all going to have ups and downs, and sometimes when you are in a down – that is when you need to check in most!
I have had a pretty good start to the month. My personal challenge is to lose 4 pounds by Oct 1. I have lost 0.8 so far.
I’m pretty happy with that. I certainly can use a little more restraint on weekends. That’s always a toughie for me.
How are you all doing?
Gorgeous Sunday here, absolutely gorgeous! And I have to work LOL! Although it has been really slow, so I am getting stuff done around the house. Went to Panera Bread for our ritual bagel: Asiago cheese here:
Then grocery shopping. Lots and lots of good stuff, including some new Chobani greek yogurt flavors: Pomegranate and Pineapple. You’ll see those this week. I was so excited to find them. I think I embarassed John about how excited I was to find them. Or maybe it was my dancing to the store music 😀
And these were in and on sale!
So, I after some thinking and pondering, I decided that part of me is just being a baby about getting off the last bit of weight. It’s because I love food ( ya think??), and tend to not want to limit myself. I think the possibility of going to Cancun in January also makes me want to work a bit harder. I won’t have to do much, just trim back some of the extras for a bit (like those little cinnamon rolls!). In general, just tighten up the food. The exercise portion is totally fine. So, I decided I am going to give myself a challenge to lose 4 pounds during September. Those long-time followers know this is going to be hard, I am the turtle queen even when things are going well LOL!
Anyone want to join me in a personal challenge for September? It doesn’t have to be weight loss; it could be exercise, or eating more whole grains, keeping your desk free of clutter, or saying something positive to yourself each day. We can just check in once or twice a week here to be accountable.
Lunch was a deliciously sweet/tart kiwi with a grilled wrap stuffed with chicken and cheese spread and broccoli (yep, broccoli at lunch today, not dinner!).
John made up some homemade chocolate sauce, so I had to have some on my latte today. We have a squeeze bottle for it so I can make pretty patterns. For those curious, we drink 1% milk at home.
Met with one of my tenants today (the good one) and he gave his 30-day notice to leave as he is buying a house. I am a little bummed since he was such a great tenant. Always on time with the rent, very polite, etc. Will be speaking with the other tenant in a few days to see what he wants to do. If he wants to move, I will probably try putting it on the market, but I imagine he will get a room mate and stay. Anyone want to buy a house? LOL.
It was so nice out that I took a run before dinner. I just wanted to do 2 miles and hopefully get under 10 minutes for each mile.
Total time: 19:20 (9:40 per mile). I was pretty happy with that (and sweaty).
We were going to make a vegetarian chili for dinner, but I was hot and sweaty, and I wanted something lighter and cool for dinner. So yogurt, cereal, and berries it is!
Starting to get some fall blooms in the garden!
Liriope:
Sedum:
Aster:
Mums will be blooming soon.
Question: Anyone up for a personal September challenge?
Felt like a busy day today. Went to the Y and did a bit of biking and walking, then the extra bonus NROLW workout – goal to do as many reps as possible at starting weight.
Dead lifts – 25 # bar 32 reps (I could have kept going, but got bored LOL)
Pushups at 45 degree angle = 30 reps
Seated lat rows at 40# = 25 reps
Step ups with 20 pound dumbbells = 30 reps each leg
Stability ball jackknife = 18 reps.
Now I have a whole week off from strength training! I’ll take that time to concentrate on bricks and fueling.
Came home to protein pancakes:
I left out the protein powder today since I had a lighter workout. That makes them a little fluffier without the extra protein.
Got started at work early – since I have a 3-day weekend starting tomorrow! Woo Hoo! Sooner I got done, the sooner my mini vacay starts 😀
Dinner was a buffalo chicken wrap. I had some cooked chicken breast which I chopped up and put on a smart carb wrap with a tiny bit of blue cheese dressing, lots of hot sauce and some spring mix salad. So good! And fresh blueberries. I am going to turn purple pretty soon!
After dinner, we went for a bike ride and got some frozen yogurt. I tried carrot cake flavor, which was pretty good, but not great. The ride there and back is around 13 miles or so, which is great to have a treat and burn off all the calories getting there and back!
So the challenge ends today! I ate pretty well today to finish off the challenge. I had 10 good days and 2 not so good days, so overall I am pleased. Plus, I lost about 2 pounds, which is awesome for me! I have gained a few while training for the triathlon, so it is nice to see the scale go the other way.
Tomorrow is my birthday (41 eeek!), and I have a nice long weekend to enjoy! I’ll post pics of my dinner tomorrow.
Here is a picture of my run this morning on the GoWear fit:
Note how the rest of my workday is quiet.
I did very well on the challenge today! Yay! Lots of calories burned and stayed within calories (even with the bagel). 1 more day of challenge to go!
Daily challenge up date. Not real great on the eating. Big time PMS cravings (sorry TMI!). I need to really concentrate tomorrow and Thursday to end my challenge strong!
Talk to you all tomorrow!
Today was a bit of a struggle food-wise. I fueled with a protein drink before hitting the Y.
Ran for about 3.5 miles with pace work and then did one of the bonus workouts from NROLW. This was to show the progress I had made and was supposed to do as many reps as possible with the starting weights from 2 months ago. It would probably have been more dramatic if I had started with no weights LOL!
For today:
Squats with the 25# bar = 30 reps (finish weight was 110#)
Shoulder press with 15 pound dumbbells = 21 reps (finish weight was 25# dumbbells)
Wide grip lat pull down at 40# = 25 reps (finish weight was 60#)
Lunges with 20 pound dumbbells = 20 each leg (finish weight was 30# dumbbells)
Swiss ball crunches = 32
I definitely have gotten stronger in the last 2 months. I will post workout B in a couple days after I do that. Then a week off from weights!
Anyway, I was eating well up until dinner, and I just got a snack attack big time while we were cooking dinner. I started munching on wheat thins and then some Kashi cereal. Ugh. Probably an extra 400 calories (so much for the run today). I did stop myself from having a donut though, John wanted to go to Dunkins, which is only a mile from our house. So I walked with him and had a coffee with skim milk and decided against the donut, which I really, really wanted – but certainly did not need. I am fighting that “It’s not fair” feeling today. Think it is PMS or something. Ever get those feelings?
I did try something new today:
I had some coupons for these, they are really expensive, so it was certainly a treat. These are very, very good! 3 grams of fiber and 100 calories, sweet and crunchy.
Plus it had blueberries in it! I also had some fresh blueberries today:
I am a berry girl. I eat strawberries almost every day – for some reason, upstate NY has berries available at a really good price year round, which is amazing. Fresh blueberries only come in season in early summer, so I eat as many as I can during that time! The pint packages are available now, which makes me happy!
After all of yesterday’s activity, it was nice to have a rest day. The most movement I did was walking around the grocery store! I also had to work today, so that involves a lot of sitting.
I did pretty well on the food front, cereal for a snack, which I really try to get stay away from – but I love it!
And fresh blueberries are in the house! I love this time of year when the large containers of blueberries come around!
All in all I am pretty pleased with my food choices over the weekend. Always room for improvement, but I’ll take it!
Have a great night!
On the challenge front today, I would give myself a B. Did much better than last Saturday, but still have room for improvement.
The day turned out glorious, and we biked to Lake George. That is one hilly ride! Plus it was windy, which really increased the resistance. Thank you squats for helping me get up those hills. Had fueled up with a good oats breakfast with protein powder, and it did the trick to get me there.
It happened to be Elvis Tribute weekend in Lake George :O So we see this guy as we pull into town:
Now that it is past Memorial Day, all the restaurants are now open, including one of our favorite Indian ones. We love to eat Indian because vegetarian options are really diverse. It’s very difficult to find restaurants that serve locally produced meats, so we try to avoid that when dining out.
Me waiting for food:
Note the hat covering up my helmet head! I had some yummy dal mahkni! This was devinely delicious, although probably cream laden by the looks:
It also came with about a pound of jasmine rice. White rice is a trigger food for me. I love it to pieces, so I really tried to control myself. I did have a little to much, but it was less than a cup (which was still less than half the bowl). I also sampled some of John’s paneer – yum!:
His dish also came with the same boatload of rice!
The meals were enjoyed with a nice view:
We spent the afternoon browsing the stores and viewing more Elvi (is that the plural??)
Then we stopped at a new coffee shop to have a treat. I was sorely disappointed that they only had whole milk available! I was shocked, to say the least. I did not want 16 oz of whole milk in my latte, so I just went with a regular cup of coffee with some milk. What is up with that? However, they did have some of the delectable 3-bite desserts, which are awesome to have a treat, yet keep it small.
Then we got ready to go home. We hit an interesting spot where we could hear 3 different Elvi performing all at once. It was like a house of mirrors. Saw one last Elvis on the way out of the village, and he was the most flamboyant one.
The bike ride home was a little better wind-wise.
Stopped for a peaceful view along the path:
Crashed on the couch after we got home. 30 miles of hills. Ate a fairly light dinner and if I can manage to not snack before bed in the next couple hours, I still will have the B grade for Challenge Day 7!
Thank you very much…… Think I will be hearing that in my sleep tonight. 😀
Quick update before bedtime. Half way there!
I did quite well today. I also allowed myself a small treat this afternoon of a cookie. So that meant an brisk walk before dinner.
John made one of our favorites for dinner: Jambalaya! He even calculated the calories for different portion sizes and asked me how much I wanted. He is so super! So I was able to have a small bowl of jambalaya, broccoli and strawberries for around 300 calories. It was filling, too – since it had brown rice (I normally don’t eat grain, pasta, or potato starches for dinner).
So, that feels pretty good. Tomorrow will be a real challenge. Off biking to Lake George. It’s hard not to just eat whatever, since the ride will be 30+ hilly miles there and back. I’ve gotten Sundays under control, but Saturdays are still a challenge to allow something extra but not go overboard.