Category Archives: Health

Another Bombshell Partnership! (or Doing A Healthy Detox)

Posted on January 13, 2015 | 6 comments

I’m super excited to announce that for the next month, Finding My Inner Bombshell is going to be part of a partnership with Nykki Hardin and Nykki’s Cleanse!

Before I go into what the cleanse is all about, a little backstory.

At Orangetheory, they sometimes have special guests who come in and speak for free on issues that are related to healthy living. They’ve had a couple of different fitness clothing companies and some nutritionists. But they have usually been in the studio either on days that I’m not there or during and after my workout class (and when I’m done working out I usually just want to go home).

Last Wednesday, Nykki was the guest speaker and my workout buddy Sarah convinced me to stay and hear what she had to say. I’m so grateful that Sarah peer-pressured me into staying!

I usually hesitate when I hear the word “cleanse” or “detox”. They usually are things like juice cleanses or similar programs where you don’t eat any normal food. I’ve gone through that with the UCLA RFO program in the past and I don’t want to put myself through that again. I’ve learned that any food changes I make need to be changes that are sustainable and can be something I do for the rest of my life.

And that’s exactly what Nykki’s Cleanse is all about!

Her program is all about eating whole and clean foods (which is something that I’m doing with my bulk cooking). You supplement the whole foods with tonics that are designed to help to rebalance your system and get rid of any toxins. You add the tonics for 14 days to your balanced meals. And afterwards, you continue to eat whole and clean foods (as you really should).

Nykki provides recipes for the balanced meals so you can try new and healthy foods and to help build up your personal recipes that you will continue to make after the cleanse ends. And the program that I’m going to be a part of also includes 1 week before the cleanse doing prep work to prepare for the 14 day cleanse and 1 week after the cleanse to help continue living a balanced lifestyle outside of the cleanse. There is a group about to be a part of this 4 week journey so I will have a community around me (which I love!) and there will also be webinars about various healthy living topics.

I’m going to be starting this 4 week journey on Friday, and similar to how I post weekly recaps about Orangetheory, I’m going to share with you updates each week on what I’ve been doing on the cleanse and how things are going. I’m so excited to start this next month and to get more inspired to eat clean and cook at home more!

It really feels like this came into my life at just the perfect time. I’m now very comfortable cooking in my home and have been spending a lot of time online looking for inspiration for more recipes and how to improve my food choices even more. Now, I have a wonderful coach in Nykki to help guide me through this healthy food world that I’ve just started to explore.

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Default ThumbnailWeek One On The Cleanse (or Temporarily Vegan) Default ThumbnailFinishing Up The Cleanse (or Some Lessons I’ve Learned) Default ThumbnailThe End Of The Cleanse Tonics (or Time To Start The Transition Back) Default ThumbnailSpending The Next 2 Months Going Orange! (or A Bombshell Partnership!) Default ThumbnailAlmost Halfway Through The Cleanse (or Bring On The Tonics And Detox Drinks!) Default ThumbnailFinding A Balance (or Eating Healthy And Fun At The Same Time)

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Posted in Celebrations, Food, Fun Stuff, Health, Weight Loss

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New Workout Gadgets And Records (or Improving On My Workouts)

Posted on January 12, 2015 | 18 comments

This past week brought some fun things to my Orangetheory workouts. The first thing was at my Monday workout.

Since I started at Orangetheory, there has always been heart rate monitors. This is part of the reason why I love Orangetheory. The heart monitors that have been used in the past are by Polar. I owned my own strap and every time I worked out, I got a pod (the device that hooks on to the strap) from the front desk. The pods belonged to Orangetheory and had to be turned in after each class.

But on Monday, we all got a nice present waiting for us at the front desk.

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We got new heart rate monitors! This is the OTBeat system. It uses Bluetooth to connect in class and you can even use it for workouts outside of class (which is perfect since the battery in my other heart rate monitor still needs replacing). And now I don’t have to get a pod from the front desk (or remember to turn it back in) each workout!

The only possible glitch with the new heart rate monitor for me is the calorie count. It’s saying that I’m burning about 200-300 calories less than the old system did. And when I use the app on my phone with the heart rate monitor (while I’m in class), it says I do burn those extra 200-300 calories. I’ve told the management at my Orangetheory and we are trying to figure out why this is happening. I’m not sure if I should trust what the class calorie burn is or the app calorie burn is. Hopefully this will be resolved this week.

Sadly, I wasn’t able to do the Monday Challenge this past week. It was a 1/4 mile on the treadmill at 10%, but you couldn’t hold on to the treadmill while you did it. Since I have so many balance and walking straight issues, it was more important for me to hold on and not fall than to try the Monday Challenge.

Other than not being able to do the Monday Challenge, I had a great workout.

Wednesday I pushed myself to some new limits with my weights. The new OTBeat system shows how long you have been in the orange and red zones (the zones that help your body burn calories post-workout), so I wanted to see if I could get more time in those zones. In the past, you only knew how long you were in those zones after the workout, but now that I can see how close I am to my goals throughout the workout, I feel extra motivated to push myself farther and farther.

And pushing myself was the theme of my Friday workout. For the treadmill block, we had some distance races. The first and last 7 minutes of the treadmill block were for distance. The first 7 minutes, I got to .401 miles. My goal was .4 miles, so getting that little extra was super motivating. When we had the next 7 minute race, I made myself go even faster than last time (so much easier to do that on a treadmill where it forces me to go faster if I increase the speed on the machine).

Going faster (and at 6% incline instead of 3% which is the norm), was painful at times, but all I really wanted to do is to go for the full 7 minutes without taking a break. And somehow, I managed to do that.

When I looked at the treadmill to see how far I went, I was in shock.

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That’s so much better than the first time, and I was exhausted this time from doing the first 7 minute race and the intervals we had between the 2 races.

Honestly, the rest of my workout after that was a bit of a blur. It was a blur of pain and happiness that I was able to go so much farther than I ever expected.

This coming week, I’m going to be calling Kaiser to try to get an appointment with a potential hip surgeon. I know what my old surgeon had as a plan for me, but since he isn’t at Kaiser anymore and that plan was created almost 8 years ago, I want to know what else is possible for me. My goal is to find a way to be able to walk faster without pain and to perhaps find more ways to delay the 3 surgeries that I was told that I need. Seeing how far I can push myself when I’m in pain in a workout has really motivated me to work with a new doctor to make my future workouts even better.

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Posted in Celebrations, Fitness, Fun Stuff, Health, Weight Loss

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Surviving At The Dentist (or When Will I Grow Out Of My Fear)

Posted on January 8, 2015 | Comments Off on Surviving At The Dentist (or When Will I Grow Out Of My Fear)

I had to go to the dentist this week for a regular cleaning. Although, for me, even a regular cleaning feels like a major procedure.

I’ve gotten to the point where I’m sick and tired of having panic attacks over the dentist. I tell myself over and over that things will be fine, but I’m still a mess when I get there.

While I’m happy that I have the timing of my panic pills down to a science so I know exactly when to take them in order to make things not as bad as they could be. But it’s still horrible going in.

This time, there was a combined panic because not only was I going to the dentist but because I was unable to find parking I was sure I was going to be late (I hate to be late and being late makes me feel a bit panicky as well). By the time I was walking up the stairs to the office, I was sweating like crazy and my vision was getting very dark (I’m lucky I never passed out).

I’m basically holding back on having a panic attack for the first few minutes of the appointment. Once the dental hygienist does the counting thing and moves on to the cleaning, I figure that any tragedy with my teeth (like cavities or something worse) would have already been discovered.

While I am grateful that my dental team knows how bad my fear is and is very accommodating for me, I’m ready for this fear to end. I haven’t had it my entire life so I feel like there should be an end date.

I’m not sure what I can do to make the fear go away. I know of hypnotherapy (which I’ve done before and it doesn’t work on me that well) and exposure therapy, but I don’t know if either would really help. And going to the dentist 3 times a year and having no problems is basically exposure therapy.

I’ve got the same frustration with my fear of flying. I’ll be flying in about 7 weeks and on the flight home, I might not be able to take my panic meds (I’ll be wine tasting that morning and you can’t mix alcohol and the medicine). I might skip the wine tasting to take my meds, but I wish there was a way to test myself to see if I really need them without actually flying without my meds.

So I’m reaching out to all of you for suggestions. Have any of you successfully gotten over something that you feared or had panic issues with? How did you do it? And how can you test if the fear/panic issues are really gone?

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Default ThumbnailAnother Year Another Dentist Panic (or One Medications Overriding Another) Default ThumbnailSurviving The Dentist (or Testing My Panic Meds) Default ThumbnailMy Fear of the Dentist (or Why I’m a Faint Risk) Default ThumbnailStaying Calm With Changes (or Testing My Fear Of The Dentist) Default ThumbnailLess Panic At The Dentist (or Am I Finally Over This?) Default ThumbnailAnother Dentist Visit (or Panicking About Panicking)

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Honey-Dijon Pork (or Inventing My Own Recipe)

Posted on January 7, 2015 | 1 comment

Since I was getting a little bored with basic chicken every week when I did my bulk cooking, I decided to spice things up a bit this week. I did a lot of searching online for ideas that seemed yummy and easy.

I found a lot of great ideas, but they all took so many ingredients! So I decided to take the ideas that I was finding online and simplifying them to make it something that I wouldn’t have to buy a ton of ingredients for.

And this is what I came up with.

Honey-Dijon Pork Chops

What You Need:

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Dijon Mustard

Honey

Garlic

Pork Chops

Here’s What To Do (it’s seriously so simple!)

Put the pork chops in a zip bag.

Measure out about 1/4 cup of Dijon mustard and pour into the bag.

Measure out about the same amount of honey and pour into the bag.

Finely chop some garlic (I used 2 cloves because I love garlic!) and put that into the bag.

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Zip up the bag and let most of the air out. Then massage the mustard/honey/garlic mixture all over the pork chops.

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Put the bag into the fridge and let it sit for about an hour or two.

When you are ready to cook, pre-heat the oven to 425.

Take each pork chop out of the bag and place them on a foil-lined baking sheet.

Pepper the top and bottom on each pork chop.

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Cook in the oven until they are done (for me it took about 25 minutes).

Take them out of the oven and set them onto a chopping board or other surface to rest (you don’t want them to stay on the hot baking sheet or they will continue to cook).

Since I was doing this for bulk cooking, I portioned out my pork into my dinner containers (I forgot to get a picture of how beautiful they looked before I cut them up).

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Seriously, that’s it! They were so delicious, flavorful, and juicy! When I made them, I used closer to 1/2 cup of the mustard and honey and that was way too much. There was so much marinade on the pork when I removed them from the bag that I had to wipe them off a little.

I’ve had this for the past 2 days so far, and I’m really enjoying it! You can probably use the same marinade for chicken and maybe for fish as well.

This will totally be a part of my regular food planning from now on and I hope that you enjoy it as much as I have!

Seriously, I can’t believe how far I’ve come in my cooking over the last month. I started out scared to cook at all and now I’m creating my own recipes!

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Posted in Food, Fun Stuff, Health

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What I Plan To Do This Year (or 2015 Goals)

Posted on January 1, 2015 | 5 comments

Now that I’ve reflected back on my 2014 goals and how well I accomplished them, I really thought hard about what I want my 2015 goals to be. I think I’ve got a good list going for this year and I’m excited to see how well I get them done over the next year.

My first goal is workout related. I want to get 175 workouts done in 2015. That’s pretty much 3-4 workouts every week of the year. I’m not allowing myself workout vacation time (even though my dad did suggest it). I’m sure a majority of the 175 workouts will be at Orangetheory. I have every intention of going at least 3 times a week (and trying to add in a 4th day every other week). But I’m also going to include any 5Ks that I chose to do this year as well as other fitness classes (SoulCycle and maybe trying yoga again). I will also consider including hiking, but I don’t think I’ll have a lot of hiking days except when I get to Tahoe in the summer.

My next goal is a food goal. I want to have home cooked dinners at least 4 times a week. Since I started bulk cooking, I’ve been eating something home cooked most weeknights. I usually prepare food for 4 nights and then on weekends I’m out. And many times on Tuesdays or Thursdays (when I don’t workout after my day job) I don’t necessarily eat dinner. I’ll have a big late breakfast (since my shift doesn’t start until 10am) and then have another bigger meal around 4 or 5pm. Both of those meals are home cooked, but I don’t know if it counts as dinner. So I’m saying home cooked dinners 4 nights a week. If I do more than that, all the better for me.

Next is a day job goal. I want to be down to 2 main day jobs (not counting babysitting or running the film festival). Right now, I have 1 main day job and 6 sporadic jobs. I don’t make enough each week (to the point that I’m still collecting unemployment to make up for the fact that I don’t make enough to not be eligible anymore) and this needs to end. I’m enjoying my box office from home job and if I made enough doing that job I’d be so happy. But I don’t think that will be a reality even with the raise we are supposed to get this year. And while I love being able to make some extra money babysitting, I don’t see that as something that will make enough to make up for what I’m lacking. So I need to find one more steady day job that has regular hours to help me make enough to pay all my bills comfortably. There is a chance to make the film festival another main day job, but there is no guarantee with that.

And I’ve made this a goal in the past, but I really want to get into an improv class this year. I think that now that I feel secure with my day job and have a steady schedule with it, I will be able to pick out a class time that will work for me. I’m working on saving up the money for the class right now.

Again, another repeat goal from last year, but I’d like to travel again this year. I have a trip to Napa planned in 2 months and I’m really looking forward to that. And there is a possibility of another New York trip in the fall this year. I don’t know if I’ll have any other trips (besides visiting my parents or grandparents) but 2 trips in one year sounds wonderful to me!

And my final goal which is a goal every year is to keep blogging. Not just on here, but on other sites as well. I freelance on two blogs and I’ve written a few guest posts on other sites. I had no idea when I started this blog how important and therapeutic writing would become for me. It’s an amazing journal of the past few years of my life and I love going back and reading some of my old posts to remind me how far I’ve come. And I can’t wait to track 2015 the same way.

So those are my main goals for 2015. And in a year, I’ll let you all know how I did with them.

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Posted in Acting, Celebrations, Fitness, Food, Fun Stuff, Health, Travel, Weight Loss, Work

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Reflecting Back On 2014 (or How I Did With My Goals)

Posted on December 31, 2014 | 1 comment

I can’t believe that 2014 is ending! It really seems like it was just a month or two ago that I was posting my goals for this year.

I just want to take some time and reflect on my year and the goals that I had set out for myself.

I really felt like 2014 was a rebuilding year for me and my family. While 2013 did have some great moments, there were also a lot of sad and stressful ones. I think of 2013 as the year that Ross and Krystle got married, that my mom was diagnosed with cancer, and my family lost two dogs. While we did technically adopt Tucker right before New Year’s Eve last year, I think of 2014 as the year he joined our family.

In 2014, so many positives happened for my family. Adopting Tucker was a big one, but the biggest was my mom being declared cancer-free. Knowing that she is ok (even though we all knew that she would be in the beginning) really has taken so much stress out of my life. I know that there are still some stressful times ahead with making sure that she stays cancer-free (and now I have annual mammograms to worry about too), but knowing that it’s all good right now just makes me so happy.

This was also a rebuilding year for me as far as my health goes. I have finally connected with a workout in a way that I had hoped for. And very recently I’ve been getting my food in a better place too. This isn’t to say that I don’t have days where I seriously struggle, but I’m taking more and more steps in the right direction.

So let’s take a look back at my goals from last year and see how I did with them.

My first goal was to continue to do 5Ks. I did 3 this year. And while that is much less than the year prior, I’m ok with that. I don’t love doing 5Ks as much as I want to, but the few races that I did do are ones that I look forward to a lot. I also got a new PR which I am very excited about!

My next goal was to make spin a regular habit. This did not happen. I stopped going to SoulCycle a while ago because I have replaced it with Orangetheory. I’m planning on going back next year every so often to spin, but I really wanted to focus on Orangetheory during the second half of this year. But since I did make exercise a regular habit, I’m declaring this goal as a partial success.

Next on my list was to track my food/exercise better. I’m still using MyFitnessPal to track my food every day. I’m much happier tracking it when I’m making smart choices. And as far as tracking my exercise, I think I’m doing pretty great at that too. It makes it easy to track my exercise in MyFitnessPal when Orangetheory tells me exactly how many calories I’m burning in each workout.

The next goal I had set was to get into an improv class. I failed to do this goal. I had every intention of getting started at UCB this year. I even purchased the book that all students are required to read. But I think the lack of stability with my job got to me. When I thought I knew when a class would fit into my schedule I would lose my job and everything changed. I’m feeling pretty stable with my current day job, but I’m still looking for something else to help me make enough each month. Once that stability is set, I think I can look into class again.

Next was pay down my debt and not add more. While I did pay down some of the debt, it was impossible to not add more this year. With some expenses having to be put on a credit card, there was no way to not add to it. But when I did have those expenses, I tried to pay off exactly what I spent by the time the bill came around.

Then I had the goal of going on another vacation. While I did go to visit my parents, those don’t seem to feel like vacations to me. They seem like getting to have family time. That’s probably because I’m either visiting them at the house I grew up in or I’m at their place in Tahoe. But I did get to go on a fabulous trip to New York with my sister-in-law this past spring. That trip was amazing and we are planning to try to go to New York again in the coming year.

My final goal for 2014 was to continue blogging. While some days are tough to come up with a topic to write about, I have maintained posting a new post Monday-Friday every week of this year. That’s a lot of posts!

All in all, even though I didn’t complete all of my goals, I think that I did a great job in trying to do them all. I’ll post my goals for 2015 tomorrow.

I hope that you all have an amazing New Year’s Eve tonight! If you chose to drink, please don’t drive. Take a taxi/Uber/Lyft to get home. Or you can call AAA for a Tipsy Tow.

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Posted in Acting, Celebrations, Family, Fitness, Food, Fun Stuff, Health, Tough Stuff, Travel, Weight Loss, Work

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Pre-Burning Jewish Christmas Calories (or Holiday Workouts)

Posted on December 29, 2014 | 1 comment

This past week of workout were intense! That’s good because I had a nice splurge on Christmas, but it was not easy getting through the week!

Monday and Wednesday both were Christmas themed workouts (since those were in the days leading up to Christmas). They reminded me a lot of Hell Week during Halloween and were pretty much as tough as those workouts were.

Monday’s theme was the 12 Days Of Christmas. We had a list of 12 cardio tasks and a list of 12 strength tasks. This was the cardio list.

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It went 100 meter row, 2 minute push, 3 squat curls, and so on. You worked your way down the list and if you were able to complete it, you worked your way back up.

The first few things on the list weren’t too bad. It was a nice way to ease into the workout. At 7 (or the 700 meter row) I was starting to get exhausted. I slowed my rowing down to try to keep my form nice and it seemed like that row took forever! I did make it to the 1200 meter row, but I only completed about 300 meters of it before it was time to switch to the strength portion.

This was also a list of 12 tasks, but you went through the tasks like the 12 Days of Christmas song. I don’t remember all 12 tasks but the first few were 1 full burpee, 2 squat jumps, 3 push-ups, and 4 pop jacks. But instead of working down the list like we did for cardio you started with 1 burpee; then 2 squat jumps and 1 burpee; then 3 push-ups, 2 squat jumps, and 1 burpee.

Holy moly was that tough! I think I made it to 10 on that list before time was called. The last task of the day was the Monday Challenge. I saw a sneak peek at the challenge on Instagram and new ahead of time that is was going to be a 100 meter row. I didn’t have a previous record saved in my phone for a 100 meter row, but I did have a 1 minute record of 313 meters. So I set it in my head that I wanted to do better than 20 seconds. And I managed to do it in 19.5 seconds, so I was pretty darn happy with myself!

Wednesday’s workout was Christmas Eve so I tried to dress festively.

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Sadly, that little Santa hat that I’m wearing broke right before I took the picture. It was attached to a headband that snapped in half when I tried to wear it. Oh well.

The theme on Wednesday was Naughty or Nice. There were 2 stockings in the room, one for cardio and one for strength. When you did the cardio section, you pulled a card from the stocking and it told you what to do. After completing that task 3 times, you pulled a new card. There were Nice cards that were short exercises and there were Naughty cards (like having to do a 5K on the treadmill or rowing machine). I was lucky and only pulled Nice cards during cardio. It was essentially run/row workouts. The first card was .13 mile run (really a walk for me) and then 400 meters on the rowing machine. My second card was a 1 minute all-out pace on the treadmill followed by a 1 minute row. I just got through those 2 cards when time was called.

For the strength section, we all had the same exercises to do. But the cards would tell us how many reps we had to do of each workout. I pulled 2 Nice cards and 1 Naughty card. In the end, I did about 80 reps of each workout.

On Friday, I was a bit tired and feeling the effects of my Chinese food, but I was ready to burn off all that junk in my system. The cardio portion was all treadmill and the strength portion was a mixture of body weight, strap work, rowing, and abs. I was doing ok until the abs portion. I’m really losing flexibility in my hips (this is actually really worrying me and will be something I discuss when I interview potential new hip surgeons), and the lack of flexibility makes sit-ups and crunches really tough to do. I can’t really have my feet flat on the floor and bring my upper body to my legs. The pain in my hips is too intense. So most of the time, I either do crunches where I don’t bring my upper body up as much or have my legs straight out in front of me.

Doing full body sit-ups with your legs straight ahead of you is not easy to do, and my Friday coach Whitney saw that I was struggling and in a lot of pain. So she came over and held my legs down so I could successfully complete my sit-ups.

It’s the little touches like that where you can really see that the coaches at Orangetheory care about you and want to see you succeed that makes me so happy that I found my workout home.

I only did 3 workouts this week. My body probably could not have taken a 4th workout this time. But with the New Year almost here I’ve got some goals set in my head that will make the 4th workout more of a regular thing.

But it’s not time for me to share my 2015 goals quite yet. That’s coming up in a few days.

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Posted in Celebrations, Fitness, Food, Fun Stuff, Health, Weight Loss

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I Really Am Doing Everything Right (or It’s Frustrating Not Losing Weight)

Posted on December 25, 2014 | Comments Off on I Really Am Doing Everything Right (or It’s Frustrating Not Losing Weight)

First of all, Merry Christmas everyone! I hope that you are all having an amazing day doing exactly what you want to do today! My recap of Christmas will come soon.

I’ve been on a very good path lately. My exercise routine is getting to be in a very good place. I’m going to Orangetheory 3 times a week every day and I’m even adding a 4th day every so often. I’m thinking that for 2015 I will do 1 week of 3 workouts and then 1 week of 4 workouts just to push myself.

I’m getting so much stronger and I know that I’m getting much healthier. While I haven’t necessarily tested my cardiovascular abilities, I know that I don’t feel as tired as I did my first few weeks of workouts after the cardio section. And I can row much farther than before without having to take a break.

There are some things that aren’t on the right track. My hips are hurting more and more each day. They aren’t nearly as bad as I know that they can get, but I do sometimes miss my pain-free days as now they are much less frequent than they used to be. I’m also starting to lose a bit of flexibility that I had worked very hard to get back after my hip surgery. I’m not sure what exactly is causing this, but I think it’s a combination of the pain and maybe my muscles being stronger and bigger. I’m going to be interviewing new orthopedic surgeons soon and this is a concern that I’m going to bring up with them.

And finally, I’m starting to get my food in control. I’m getting very comfortable with cooking and in fact am planning on spending some time today reorganizing my kitchen to help make things more efficient when I am doing my bulk cooking.

I still have some food setbacks, but they aren’t as often or as crazy as they used to be. Having my food ready for me the moment I’m hungry really does help stop me from needing to run to the store to buy something in desperation.

So why am I frustrated?

I’m really not losing weight at the pace I feel like I should be. I know the saying that muscle weighs more than fat and I could just be gaining muscle, I should be seeing the scale go down in more significant increments that they are doing right now.

I know that sometimes it takes some time for the weight loss to show up on the scale so I’m trying to be patient. But having that instant gratification of knowing that I’m doing the right things really does help with motivation. And I have some clothes in 1 size smaller that I’d really like to start wearing.

I really don’t think I can do more than I’m doing right now. I guess I can work on adding more workout days, but I do need those recovery days for my hips to stop hurting. And I don’t want to decrease or increase my daily calories. The number of calories that I’m eating right now is something that my old therapist/nutritionist set up for me and I know that it’s a good number for me.

So for now, I just have to keep doing what I’m doing and hope that my scale pays attention one day.

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Default ThumbnailSeeing What Other People See (or Losing Weight Without Losing Weight) Default ThumbnailLosing Some Weight (or Confused If This Is Good) Default ThumbnailWeight Loss Update (or Why I’m Trying Not To Get Frustrated) Default ThumbnailReality TV (or How Losing 200 Pounds Can Be Something That Is Booed) Default ThumbnailLosing Weight The Techie Way (or My FitBit Fail) Default ThumbnailTough Workout Week (or I Made It Through My 4 Workouts)

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Posted in Fitness, Food, Health, Tough Stuff, Weight Loss

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Home Cooking (or Getting Used To Making What I Eat)

Posted on December 23, 2014 | 1 comment

Since my first attempt at bulk cooking, things have been going pretty great so far.

I’m getting into a groove with my food, and for once it’s almost all food that I make myself. I know that boredom is going to happen eventually, but for now, my focus is to just get used to cooking on a regular basis.

My focus on cooking has been my dinners as that is my weak point in my day. 3 days a week, I’m getting home from my workout at dinnertime. And I don’t want to think about making something then. So it’s been really easy in the past to run to Subway on the way home for a veggie sub or to make a microwave dinner.

My dinners are pretty simple. My first week of bulk cooking, I put each food in a container and each night I would take out what I needed. But after that first week, I learned that doing things that way make my Fridays full of doing dishes. So now, I make dinner boxes (each container is a full dinner).

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I always have chicken breast for dinner. I’m going to start exploring other good protein options, but this one works for me right now. I get skinless boneless chicken at Trader Joes and season it with some Trader Joes seasoning or another salt-free seasoning. Then they go into the oven until they are done. Then I put the amount of chicken I want for each night (right now it’s 4 oz cooked chicken) in the container.

I also have always had sweet potatoes in my dinner boxes. The first week of bulk cooking, I made them whole, but they got a little slime toward the end of the week. The next week, I tried cutting them into rounds, and those were ok. But this week when I went to Trader Joes to get my food, I saw pre-cubed sweet potatoes and made those instead. I think cutting them up myself is a better plan for me, but it’s good to try something else.

The last thing that I have had each week is roasted/caramelized red onions. I love onions, especially red onions. I’ve quartered them and roasted them once but this week I cut them into rings to roast them. No matter what, they are so delicious and I know that I will keep having onions in my dinner boxes.

Then there is always a vegetable. The first week I had broccoli and green beans. Those were awesome. Last week I had asparagus, and they didn’t turn out so great. I ended up going out and buying more asparagus so I could make some each night for dinner. This week, I tried to roast carrots. But something went seriously wrong. They never felt cooked (they felt really hard), but they turned white in the oven. I have no idea what I did, but they went straight into the trash. Fortunately, I had some frozen veggies that I hadn’t used so I microwaved those and put a cup of the veggies in each dinner box.

I’m still working on more lunch ideas, but I’ve been having hard-boiled eggs and turkey meatballs a lot. And on days I don’t have a workout, I sometimes have a sandwich. But I’m looking for more easy options that I can eat while I work (I don’t get a lunch break at my day job).

This week, I know that Thursday will be a “bad” food day since I will be ordering Chinese food. But hopefully since I’m doing really well the other days, I will still be able to make some progress. After all, isn’t this how I’m supposed to live? Mostly eating the right foods but allowing myself to have a splurge every once in a while?

If you have any bulk cooking things that you love, I’d love to hear them in the comments! I know that boredom will happen soon and I’d like to have some ideas to be ready for that!

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Default ThumbnailDoing More Cooking (or Maybe It Does Save Time) Default ThumbnailCooking Routine (or Adding Flavor) Default ThumbnailFirst Time Bulk Cooking (or Making My Kitchen Smell Yummy!) Default ThumbnailHome Cooking (or Getting Into A Routine) Default ThumbnailForced To Do Some Cooking (or Making The Best Of Things) Default ThumbnailA Day Of Being Vegan (or What Do I Actually Eat On The Cleanse)

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Final Days Of The Nike Challenge (or How To Work Out When You Can’t Breathe Through Your Nose)

Posted on December 22, 2014 | 1 comment

The Nike ID Challenge at Orangetheory ended this past week. But I ended up having a new challenge during the week because I got sick.

Monday was workout #15 for me for the Nike ID Challenge, so after that workout, I knew that I was going to be winning the shoes. I went to a morning workout that day because of the Tweetup that evening, and it felt very different to me than an evening workout. I’m so used to going at 4:15 that when I work out early, it is a little confusing to me. I’m used to going home after a workout and starting to decompress from my day. This time instead, I went home and got ready for my day.

On Wednesday, I was definitely sick. I felt a little better than the day before, but I was still taking lots of medicine to help me feel better. I tried my very best at the workout, but since I was feeling off, I didn’t do nearly as much as I normally can do. But as my dad always says, it’s all about being consistent in working out, not always having the best workout ever. So by going while I was sick, I was making sure I stayed consistent.

Another fun thing that happened on Wednesday was I got some workout gloves. My workout friend, Sarah, has been using them for a while and loves them. And since I’ve been getting some blisters on my hands from the weights, rowing, and TRX work; I figured I should get some gloves too. They were a little weird to use at first, but I quickly got used to them. And they do make a big difference in how strongly I can grip during my workouts. I’m hoping when I’m feeling better that with this better grip I can use some heavier weights.

Friday was my last workout of the week. Since the Nike ID Challenge was officially over then, I had to go in a bit early to have all of my challenge tasks to be verified. I came prepared with my checklist that I made.

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Everything was fine, so I know for sure now that I am one of the winners and I’ll be getting my free shoes! I can’t wait until we get to design them so I can see what they look like.

Friday’s workout was very similar to Wednesday’s. It turns out the worst day of my cold was Thursday, so by Friday I was finally starting to feel a bit better. But even though I was getting better, I still was coughing a lot and having trouble breathing through my nose. So I tried to take it easy. It’s not simple to do that when I’m really trying to push myself, but I tried. It was a run/row day and I tried to take a little break between the run segments and the row segments (instead of racing from one to the other). After the workout, I was exhausted, but I was so glad that I went.

Now that the Nike ID Challenge is over, I have another challenge to look forward to. There will be a national weight loss challenge and there will be 1 winner out of all the Orangetheory locations participating (the last weight loss challenge was just for the location I go to). I’m totally going to enter the new challenge, but it’s going to be really tough when I can’t see my competitors in my workouts with me. But I know a lot of people at my Orangetheory are hoping that I’ll be able to place in the top 3 and I don’t want to let them down.

But until that challenge starts (I think it begins in a month), I’m just going to focus on getting over this cold and doing everything I can to end 2014 in the best shape I’ve been in for a long time.

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Default ThumbnailA New Challenge (or Who Wants To Come Workout With Me?) Default ThumbnailFirst Week of Workouts After The Challenge (or Weird Workout Times) Default ThumbnailChecking Things Off The List (or 4 Workouts In 1 Week) Default ThumbnailGetting Through My Workouts (or Sweating When I Can’t Breathe Through My Nose) Default ThumbnailGoing To The Limit (or How To Work Out With A Broken Shoe) Default ThumbnailGetting Through It Because Of My Workout Friends (or 3 Days In A Row)

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