Fast Metabolism Diet - Days 8-9

Is it really only Tuesday?! I have been going since about 5:30 am so I'm completely exhausted and I don't know how I'm going to make it to the weekend...

Monday was the first day of my second week on the FMD. Phase 1 is the high-carb phase, so my breakfast was sprouted grain toast and some strawberries:

For lunch, I brought some turkey sausage with zucchini, broccoli, and brown rice pasta that I made last weekend. For snacks, I had carrots, cantaloupe, and two apples:

I ate dinner out. I was STARVING by the time we ordered, so I couldn't bear to order a salad (even though I know it would probably be satisfying). I ordered a teriyaki stirfry dish with rice... it wasn't the worst thing I could have ordered, but obviously it wasn't on plan. I also had a root beer during the day. I was helping out with a knitting event all afternoon (more on that momentarily), and was repeatedly offered drinks, snacks, etc. I was also given chocolate as a gift! So, considering the circumstances, I'm fine with my one root beer and meal out. :)

This morning, I woke up around 5:30 to meet my personal trainer for 6:45. Breakfast beforehand was strawberries and plain steel cut oats.

My workout started with a "lunge matrix" (to be honest, not as terrible as it sounds), and worsened from there. It included burpees (thankfully modified, still terrifying), extremely deep squats (I had something to hold to help pull myself back up), and other exercises that I've seemingly blocked out. Oh. There were planks. They were dreadful. She also told me to do a cardio workout tomorrow (as well as Friday and Sunday). That's fine, except I'm already meeting with her in the morning and working until 8:30 at night! I'll have to get creative to squeeze that extra workout in...

Anyway, my lunch today was basically the same as yesterday. Even the picture is eerily similar:

Note the addition of peaches. Delicious!

After work, I rushed home to drop off my bag, then hurried over to my knitting event (which I was helping to prepare for yesterday). I'm in my local knitters' guild, and every two years they put on an adjudicated show. A guest judge comes and offers comments on knitted items in various categories and awards prizes. I was on the committee to help plan this year's show, and I think it went really well! I also won a prize! I won second place in my category, which had about 26 entries. I was extremely surprised and honoured to win. Here is my winning shawl (unfortunately this isn't a great picture):

Here's a close-up. Can you spot the beads?

It honestly wasn't that challenging to knit, and it went much quicker than I anticipated (for those who might be curious, the pattern is called Vesna and designed by Susanna IC). I won a gift certificate to a yarn store, so I'm very happy about that! I also won more chocolate as a door prize... I will have to save that for a later date.

Anyway, back to food. I came home around 10:30 and realized that I had to have dinner as well as prep my food for tomorrow. Blargh. Dinner was pork, brown rice, and sweet potatoes leftover from last week. Here it is, fresh out of the freezer:

I am eating this right now!

Next I need to chop some veggies for tomorrow. I'm quite nervous about my lunch. I made turkey meatloaf that looks (and, to be honest, smells) a bit weird, and I feel slightly self-conscious about bringing it into the lunchroom. I might just eat in my office...

Snow Day!

Is there anything better than a snow day? I think not!

I slept in late, spent most of the day in my pyjamas (and the rest in sweatpants), and did a lot of knitting while watching The Walking Dead.

I finished this hat, which I desperately need!

I'm still plugging along foodwise, for the most part. There was an incident last night with some buttery microwave popcorn, BUT I didn't feel very good afterwards and I ate well today. Plus, I ate a lot of kale yesterday:

That has to cancel out the damage, right?!

I hope you all enjoyed your snow day (if you got one!). I'm going to knit a bit more and go to bed (if the pounding, vibrating music coming from my downstairs neighbours' ever quiets down...).

Tomorrow I'm off to Toronto, and probably eating out for the rest of the weekend. Let's hope I don't go TOO crazy! I'm also doing something fun on Sunday that I'll be sure to tell you all about afterwards...

Night!

Looking back on 2010

I started this blog last January with a post about New Year's resolutions. I mentioned two of them on this blog - how I wanted to reach my goal weight and become a Weight Watchers Lifetime member, and how I wanted to eliminate artificial sweetener in my coffee...

One out of two ain't bad, right??

I used to take three sweeteners in my coffee.... gross!!! I can't imagine how much aspartame my poor body has had to deal with. But I'm very proud to announce that, in a relatively short amount of time, I was able to cut that number from three down to ZERO. So at least I met one health-related goal in 2010!

As for reaching my goal weight: Nope, not even close! I gained weight instead. But instead of dwelling on that fact, I will treat the new year as a fresh start (like I always do).

2010 was a year of changes, including some difficult ones. Some significant events that come to mind are:

• Trying Booty Camp Fitness, joining the gym, and trying yoga. I'm still not in as much of a routine as I'd like to be, but I definitely put the tools in place to become a fitness machine!

• Going through a difficult break-up & dating someone new for the first time in years.

• Reaching my Weight Watchers 10% goal in May.
  

• My father suffering a fairly serious heart attack and being diagnosed with congestive heart failure (he is also a diabetic) - on the bright side, he has quit smoking. :)

• A fairly stressful job interview process for a full-time teaching job - I didn't get the job, I'm still "just" a contract teacher, but I learned a lot from the interview, and was very proud of myself for getting one in the first place.

As is evident by my weight gain, eating is definitely my number one coping mechanism for stressful situations.

Over the past couple of months, I have also been doing a lot of knitting! I don't think I've mentioned it here on the blog, but I love knitting and fancy myself pretty good. ;) In fact, for my mom's birthday (right before Christmas), I knit her a milkweed shawl that I consider my best work ever. I didn't manage to get a good picture of it yet, but here it is during blocking (I soaked it in water and pinned it in the shape I wanted it to take):


Knitting is definitely something I want to do more of in 2011 - but I will talk about my aspirations for 2011 in a post tomorrow (yes, I'm planning two posts in two days... after a hiatus of over a month...)

So stay tuned for tomorrow's 2011 post, and have a lovely Saturday evening!