Step-Ups of Doom

This summer is just flying by! I've been a busy bee and haven't had a chance to squeeze in a post.

Last weekend I went to a lovely wedding. I saw a few friends from teacher's college (including the bride) that I hadn't seen in about two years.

I looked up a fun french braid hairstyle on Youtube and I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out!

The food was amazing! There were seven courses, and I'm not ashamed to say I ate every single one (and multiple types of cake!).

So far, that's been the only day I haven't tracked during my six weeks of tracking challenge… But I got up early (as in, early enough to be ready for a noon checkout) the next morning to work out in the hotel gym! I'm basically a superstar.

I have also been taking some random food photos with intentions of writing blog posts about them. I can't recall exactly what I planned to say, but I can show you a couple of pictures at least.

Ginormous salad

I always bring a ridiculous amount of food to work.

I am still seeing my personal trainer (I'm planning to keep seeing her for the rest of the summer, except for the two weeks I'm out of town, and then in September I'll probably stop). I know that I don't need a trainer to get in shape, but I work out so much harder with her than I would on my own. Yesterday, after running some drills with an agility ladder, I had to do 15 squats with a kettlebell, then run a short sprint, then do 14 squats, then run, then 13 squats... all the way down to 1 squat. Needless to say, the sprints quickly turned into slow, stagger-y jogs. After that, she had me do 15 slams with a medicine ball, then 20 walking lunges, then 14 ball slams, then 20 walking lunges... luckily, I was only at 9 ball slams when my hour was up.

I saw her again today, and the workout was so hard that I honestly wanted to cry. Not so much because it was the most physically challenging workout we've done (although it was really tough), but it was very challenging mentally. I did step-ups tonight on a higher step than I've ever used before. Even though I did the first few without any problem, I stumbled a couple of times and totally lost my confidence. I had to REALLY psych myself up before attempting each step-up, and I was a bit scared that I was just going to go headfirst over the other side. My trainer kept reminding me that I was completely capable of doing them, which I was, and somehow I made it through. I really didn't believe I was going to, though. Oh, and I also had to flip a tire a bunch of times.

By the time I came home from personal training (my session was after work today), I really wanted to just buy something junky to eat for dinner. I was so exhausted and felt like I "deserved" it. But somehow I ended up just microwaving some vegetables and leftover chicken. Who am I!?

That's all for today! Have a great, healthy weekend!

Another Successful Week

I am proud to say I've just completed another week of 6 workouts! This week, I also tracked everything I ate using Weight Watchers (so far - I suppose there are a few more hours left in the day where it can all go downhill...). I don't know why, but tracking everything just felt so easy and natural. Maybe I was just ready to commit to something again? Whatever the reason, I'm feeling extremely motivated to continue. :)

My proudest moment this week was on Friday. I went out for an all-you-can-eat sushi lunch with a few colleagues. I was very worried that I would do what I usually do at all-you-can-eat sushi: eat all that I can, and feel gross and sick afterwards. But this time, I somehow avoided all of the deep-fried appetizers that were on the table in front of me and ate a seaweed salad instead. I ate a ton of sushi, but I counted roughly how many pieces I ate so I could track it later (which I did). I also avoided dessert. All in all, I had a great time, really enjoyed the food I ate, and I wasn't overly stuffed afterwards. Restaurants in general, let alone an all-you-can-eat situation, are always difficult for me to navigate. I was extremely worried going into this lunch, and I'm so happy I managed to eat reasonably.

I'm still seeing my personal trainer, and the workouts are getting increasingly... interesting. Last week, I had to push a 110-pound tire across the floor (on its side; I couldn't just roll it, unfortunately). Yesterday morning, I had to do TONS of stuff with battle ropes, alternated with lower body stuff. Brutal! On the bright side, it's getting much easier to get out of bed at 5:30 am.

I mentioned in my last post that I was trying a couple of recipes from Eat, Shrink & Be Merry. I ate some of the leftovers on top of some mixed greens. It was more appetizing than what I usually eat, so I snapped a picture:

Chicken thighs in barbecue sauce & mashed cauliflower

This morning, I knew I had to squeeze in a workout. Getting to the gym on Sundays is always a challenge for me. I don't know if it's because my gym is where I work, so I feel like I'm going to work on a weekend, or if I'm just very lazy on Sundays (or both), but I never want to get dressed and go out the door. Today was extremely hot, which made the walk to the gym even less appealing. 

Eventually I left my apartment. By the time I got to the gym, I was already drenched in sweat. I put in some time on the stationary bike (my left foot has been acting up, so I've been avoiding the treadmill so I don't aggravate it further), and I was EVEN SWEATIER afterwards. Despite the fact that my shirt had very interesting sweat-patches all over it, I then hopped on the bus to go to the grocery store. Thankfully, no one seemed too offended by my appearance...

I made it home in the heat successfully!

Now I'm in the middle of a new cooking adventure (and I may or may not still be wearing that sweaty t-shirt, hours later). I have some seitan simmering on the stove (I used this recipe) which I'm planning to use in this noodle salad. Let's hope it turns out! I don't think I've ever had seitan before...

Stepping it Up

This morning started bright and early with a personal training session. Now, my trainer changes the workout every time I see her, but there's one move that she makes me do rather often. It's my LEAST favourite move: step-ups. All it consists of is stepping up onto a step. Sounds simple. But you're not supposed to push off with your bottom foot! So, for example, if my right foot is on the step, I'm supposed to be able to just push into the heel of my right foot and somehow lift my body up without my left foot helping much at all. This is literally impossible for me to do. Sometimes I have to do it with weights, sometimes I have to do a giant step, sometimes both... but it is never possible for me to not push off the bottom foot. Maybe one day..

Anyway, somehow I survived. I also confessed to my trainer (and now to you) that I've had a few slip-ups with my eating the past few days. I know I'm doing better than I was, but I won't get the results I want if I keep making excuses and eating junk. Somehow, I rationalize it to myself by thinking that "one bad meal" won't make a difference, even though I know it does.

I'm pleased to say though, that today was completely on track! I started off my day with steel cut oats with natural peanut butter. I ate some before my workout, and some after. Then I packed a LOT of food to bring for a long day at work:

I brought a green smoothie (spinach, flaxseed, almond milk, berries, and banana), leftover turkey sausage with brown rice pasta, leftover potato enchiladas, carrots, and plums. I was pretty satisfied. I had some frozen pineapple when I got home, and now I'm eating second dinner - leftover thai coconut chicken curry with brown rice. Delicious!

I know that I can go the rest of the week without any more junk food. So that's exactly what I'm going to do! Stay tuned for more details of my stellar, perfect-eating week. :)

Fast Metabolism Diet - Day 10

Today was a crazy day. I was too discombobulated to take pictures, but at least I'm squeezing in a post! Today was my first day of Week 2 Phase 2 (the high-protein, low-carb, low-fat phase) and I struggled.

I only had about 6 hours of sleep last night, so I did not feel great when I got up this morning. I tried to eat the ground beef, egg white, and spinach casserole I made on Sunday, but I did NOT care for it. It was kind of dry and... mealy? Ugh. I'll attempt it again tomorrow and try to get a picture. To supplement my breakfast, I quickly choked down a slice of turkey deli meat and ran out the door to the gym to meet my personal trainer.

My quads were already killing me, and I was feeling a bit queasy from the lack of sleep and weird breakfast, so I was quite nervous about making it through my workout. I thought I would have to take a lot of breaks, or that I would pass out or something. But the strangest thing happened... once I started exercising, I actually felt good! The workout was challenging, as usual, but I survived.

Once I finished working out with the personal trainer, I headed out to... another gym! My trainer told me to fit in a cardio workout today, and since I had to work until 8:30pm, I knew it had to happen before work (I start work later in the day when I have to stay late in the evening). Never in my life have I done TWO workouts before going to work. But I somehow did it today!

Overall, I'm really glad I got a personal trainer. This week is extremely busy for me, and normally I would have considered myself too busy to fit in any workouts at all (and probably too busy to cook my own food, etc). But as it turns out, I do have the time if I make it a priority. Making time for exercise is something I've always known you have to do, but actually doing it has been a revelation of sorts.

Anyway, I hit another roadblock at lunchtime. I just couldn't face the meatloaf I had waiting in my lunch bag. I couldn't do it. Something about it (the weird colour? the weird smell?) just didn't work for me, so I bought a salad from Subway. I'm sure the chicken wasn't perfectly on-plan, and I added avocado, which definitely isn't allowed during Phase 2, but as we've seen, I'm not being too particular anymore.

I had a few afternoon snacks (some cold cuts and hardboiled eggs), and then around 7:30, I got hungry enough to actually try eating the meatloaf I'd brought to work. It didn't actually taste that bad. A little dry, but fairly edible. I managed to eat about half of it. I need to find some new recipes for Phase 2 next week, though...

Now it's time to collapse into bed! I have another workout with my personal trainer in the morning... eep! (I have been seeing her three times a week to start off, and this week it worked out to be Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday.) Toodle-oo!

Fast Metabolism Diet - Day 3

Today was my first day of Phase 2 of the Fast Metabolism Diet - the high protein phase! For breakfast, I had scrambled egg whites and vegetables:

After breakfast, I headed to the gym to meet with my personal trainer! We started outside using an agility ladder. I had to run through it in various ways... hopefully I didn't get too many stares from passersby! Then I had to do about a billion leg lifts (among other things), which basically killed me. I was still a sweaty mess when I got home (my apologies to everyone else on the bus with me!):

I had a late work day today, which meant I was bringing all my meals to work.

Today, I had two hardboiled egg whites, lots of cut up veggies to snack on, a salad with chicken breast to put on top, some steamed fish with asparagus and spinach, and some deli meat for a snack (either chicken or turkey... I bought both and portioned them out earlier this week). Luckily, one of my lunch bags is big enough to accommodate so much food (I believe it's actually meant for several people going on a picnic or something... it's called a Social Cooler... I didn't realize this when I bought it. I just thought it was the perfect size for me.):

The neat thing about this bag is that you store it in the freezer, and the gel in the lining keeps your food cold for a long time. While I was grabbing it from the freezer, I couldn't help but feel some joy at seeing all the meals I have ready to go:

Today wasn't as hard as I expected. I didn't get too hungry and, for the most part, I enjoyed my food. The worst part was the salad: my fridge has been freezing things on me, so the greens were all gross from being almost-frozen and thawed.

Tomorrow night I'm going to my mom's house for the weekend. I will be bringing lots of food with me! But first, I have another personal training session at 6:45 am tomorrow... I'd better get to bed!

Summer of Katie!

Hello friends!

As you can probably guess from my post title, I am feeling pretty psyched about the upcoming summer. A few things seem to be falling into place for me, I've set some good goals for myself, and I feel like I am finally "getting my life together" in some sense (not that it's been falling apart or anything... I just often don't feel like as much of a grown-up as I should). Before I get to that, perhaps I should update you on what's been going on since my last blog post, which was apparently in October.

Firstly, I travelled around Europe over Christmas with my mom and sister! We went to London, Wales, Liverpool, Venice, Nice, Paris, and Amsterdam.

Dinner overlooking a canal in Venice

On the beach in Nice with my sister

Christmas morning in Paris!

The trip was truly amazing and while I was on it I was already thinking about where I wanted to travel next. Travelling certainly is addictive!

Winter was fairly busy at work for me, but I actually kept up my running somehow. I signed up for the Toronto Yonge Street 10K back in November, and no one was more surprised than me that I actually ran it in April! Right up to the race itself, I REALLY wanted to quit. About two weeks before the race, my shins started giving me a lot of trouble. I rested a lot, and my shins felt better, but I couldn't do my last two scheduled long runs. The longest distance I'd run beforehand (and by "run", I mean "jog slowly with lots of walking breaks") was only about 8.5km. However, I had convinced my dear friend Martina to do the race with me and she was coming all the way from Ottawa! I couldn't let her down.

Of course, I didn't die during the race like I worried I might. I ran some of it, and walked some of it, and I finished in 1:24:33.7! That's actually faster than I expected.

I still can't believe I actually crossed that finish line. One of the coolest parts was when a woman came up to me after the race to tell me I'd been pacing her for the last two kilometres or so. Apparently she would run whenever I ran and I got her to the end! It was so crazy and amazing to hear that. I was helping this woman and I didn't even know it!

I have to confess, though, that I haven't run since the 10k. And, given the nature of this blog, I should also tell you that overall, my eating habits have been terrible. Just... garbage. The worst. Like, buying breakfast on my way to work several times a week. And buying lunch. And buying dinner. And just generally eating lots of junk and feeling blah. I have had no motivation to cook, for the most part. I'll buy groceries, but they'll mostly just go bad in my fridge. Sometimes I'll have a green smoothie for a few days in a row, but I haven't been consistent at all, and my weight is still at the highest it's ever been.

I don't really know the reason for this. I think I fell out of the habit of cooking, and I don't know how to get back into it. I also still read and think SO MUCH about nutrition and eating, and it's overwhelming when I try to start eating healthfully again. When I do try, it feels like this big production, because I feel like I have to do everything perfectly, or else why bother at all? Which is of course totally insane.

But something does have to change. So.... I got.... a personal trainer!

Yes, that's right, I actually got a personal trainer. Last Sunday I went for a consultation and then I bought 10 sessions to see how it goes. It was definitely expensive, but I KNOW it will force me to work out, and I think help with my eating habits as well. I've already had two sessions this week, and despite the fact that it now hurts to move at all, I am feeling really good about it.

My first session was on Tuesday at 6:45 am (it seemed like a good idea when I scheduled it...) It was embarrassingly brutal. I don't think I ate enough beforehand, and I kept having to stop and take breaks because I felt nauseous. It wasn't even that hard of a workout! My trainer was very nice though, and told me not to apologize for taking breaks. My second session was Wednesday morning at a more civilized hour. This time, I ate more for breakfast, and I didn't feel sick during the workout. I worked MUCH harder and did way more than I would have if I'd tried to exercise on my own (a big if, seeing as I haven't been exercising at all on my own lately).

My trainer also asks during my workouts what I've been eating. I think this will help keep me accountable. She suggested that I try the Fast Metabolism Diet if I am up for doing a lot of meal prep and crazy food planning. I got the book from the library, and I think it seems slightly ridiculous and unnecessarily complicated. Not the foods themselves, but rather the claims about it taking exactly 28 days to "repair" your metabolism, and cycling through certain foods on certain days of the week. It's definitely a fad diet, in my opinion, but it does consist of whole foods and is definitely much healthier than the way I've been eating now.  It eliminates caffeine, dairy, and sugar, among other things, which are all things I would like to cut back on or eliminate anyway. You know I love a good strict diet to blog about, so I think I will actually give this one a try. If it gets me back to regular cooking and meal prepping, and jump starts some weight loss, then I think it will be a success. I just want someone to TELL me what to eat for awhile and not have to make any decisions myself.

My personal trainer and healthy eating plans aren't the only reasons that this is the Summer of Katie (although they are the biggest reasons). Some other things I've been up to:

• I have been practicing my driving whenever I can and hope to get my G2 this summer! I am SO TIRED of not having my licence. Last weekend I had to get to Kitchener from my friend's house in Port Elgin... let's just say the trip ended up taking ten hours by bus (it's about a two and a half hour drive). Alright, I'll admit that the bus broke down in Orangeville and we were stuck for 3 hours, but still!
• Dating! I've been on a few dates over the past few months. Luckily it hasn't been too traumatic, and I've gotten a few funny stories out of the experience. For example, I was on a date with someone, and then all of a sudden he said "there was something I have to do today... what was it... oh yes, I need to get to the grocery store before it closes so I can buy lettuce and make lunches for the week!" I was ditched for LETTUCE! So weirdly specific. Like, dude, just tell me you're not interested. But part of me thought he was telling the truth and we might be really well-suited for each other, because buying lettuce to make healthy lunches is the kind of thing I might have to do on a Sunday afternoon as well... anyway, we never spoke again.
• I have another trip planned! My friend Michelle and I are going to Nashville and Memphis in August. Afterwards, I think I will go to Chicago by myself for a couple of days (although I haven't finalized that part yet).

I think I've written enough for now! Stay tuned for more this weekend... perhaps another meal prep video is in order?!

Joshi's Holistic Detox: Day Sixteen

I can barely keep my eyes open while I write this post, so I'll keep it to the point!

Breakfast:


Egg whites with spinach and onion, spelt bread with dairy-free margarine.

At-work snack:


Probiotic yogurt with a banana (I didn't end up eating the sunflower seeds).

Lunch:


The last of the leftover Chickpea Curry! Yum.

This afternoon, I headed to the gym to get an assessment. Before Christmas, I won a session with a personal trainer (which I don't think I ever mentioned on the blog... because I wasn't blogging much at the time). I couldn't afford to buy more sessions, but I've been going back about once a month to meet with the trainer to measure my progress and discuss my workouts (which is free!). It's been great.

Today, my resting heart rate was lower than it's been in the past. In fact, the first time I met with the trainer, it was in the "below average" range, and now, it's in the "excellent" range for my age group!

It's really exciting to find out that something so directly related to my health has improved. I wonder how much is because of the exercise I've been getting, and how much is from the lack of coffee!!

I also held a plank for 1 minute 50 seconds, which is an improvement for me as well! But then she corrected my form slightly and I collapsed after about 10 seconds. Grrr.

As soon as I got home I devoured this bowl of rice puffs and soy milk.


... and then maybe another one.

Then I dozed off on the couch! I roused myself just long enough to get into bed for a proper nap. Last night I hardly slept at all, and it finally hit me. I slept for about an hour and a half, then forced my groggy self out of bed to have some dins. I ended up with kind of a hodge-podge:



Leftover sesame vegetables from yesterday, the last of the roast chicken I bought a few days ago, and some crackers with hummus. It did the trick!

My weigh-in is tomorrow morning, so I will try to keep myself from snacking on crackers & hummus all night... not enough sleep always puts me in a snacking mood.

Tomorrow night I'm attending a party. I really really wish I could drink, but I can't wreck the detox so close to the end! I've warned my friends that I can't drink, and I also volunteered to bring veggies & hummus. I will report back to you sharing tales of my steely willpower, I'm sure! Probably not until Sunday though. ;)

Happy Friday, everyone!