Sweaty and sore pretty much sum it up. We just finished day two of the Insanity workout and guess what? It was insane. We actually got into the workout today and it was by far the hardest workout I've ever done. Ever. In my whole life. It was like Biggest Loser contestant hard. Grunting included.

For serious. I loved it though. How is it possible to enjoy something that is so hard? For starters when I couldn't do an exercise like say jumping push ups, I modified it and pushed myself. The 45 minutes went by quickly and while the exercises were hard I liked not having to memorize steps. The warm-up was just as hard, if not harder than the actual workout.

Check out my GoWear Fit results:

See that huge spike around 7pm? That was Insanity, I was burning up to 14 calories per minute. I can only imagine what my body is going to feel like tomorrow.

Oh! I (we) got new workout shoes...this is funny to me, but we got his and her's nike air span + 7 running shoes:

I'm still following the "S" plan (no snacks, sweets or seconds except for days that begin with S or special occasions) and it really has cut out a lot of excess eating. I did allow myself to have moderate seconds as lunch today to make up for not having breakfast, but I'm really pleased with how I feel on this plan.

I've moved my weight loss goal up to April to coincide with our trip to Vegas on the first, I really want to be at 265 by then! What goals are you working on?

I hope you all had a wonderful Valentine's Day weekend! I know this holiday is bitter sweet for a lot of people, but I have to say even when single, I've always loved this time of year.

Last week was so quick for me, and still seems like a blur. We had so much wind last week that it pushed all of our snow back into the roads making it almost impossible to travel to work. Wednesday night I didn't make it home at all. And today I'm contemplating a grocery trip before the next wave of snow comes in. It's hard to buy produce in the winter because you can't stock up without it going bad.

This is totally unrelated, but I've gotten a lot of emails about my GoWear Fit armband and I want to do a big Q and A post tomorrow for it. One of them involves expanding the armband which I did to mine and will show you how to do (it was very easy!). If you have any questions at all feel free to email them to me or leave a comment and I will get to each one of them!

Okay, the "No S" diet... After my last post about the S diet a very easy plan that I found while reading Food Rules by Michael Pollan. The website explains everything in more detail, but basically the plan is this: no snacks, seconds or sweets except for days that begin with S or special occasions.

It seemed really easy as I never pegged myself as a "snacker" even though as the week progressed I realized that all of my in between eats are considered snacks. I never realized how much I eat outside of a meal. I found myself wanting to eat when things were stressful. When I didn't want to deal with emotions. I didn't worry so much about what I was eating as long as it could fit on a reasonable sized plate, wasn't a sweet and I wasn't eating seconds or between meals.

This is what I found:

1. I have strong desires to mindlessly eat when I'm stressed out or have anxiety.

2. I was able to curb cravings and quell my desire to overeat with the knowledge that I could pick whatever I want for my next meal. For some reason, knowing that I could eat whatever i wanted (as long as it fit on a plate, didn't overeat, or go back for seconds) for my next meal helped me tremendously.

3. This plan prevented me from secret eating.  It wasn't an option to go to the store and buy sweets and eat them secretly, so I didn't do it. Knowing that I was going to have special occasion treats on the weekend, ended all thoughts of overeating or finding a way to have something sweet.

4. I lost 2lbs. Which is showing back up on the scale this morning as a gain from my weekend treat eating, but I know that it is water, and it will balance out as losses over time. This isn't unusual for me. I also know that:

5. I only exercised once this week, which on the s diet is recommended and required daily. I need to do this, no excuses.

6. No day was ruined. I remember on Tuesday morning specifically where my mind was going back to old habits. We had some leftover baguette (locally made) , organic pepperoni (yes, i know that organic does not give me license to eat it in excess) and mozzarella. That is what I wanted to eat and I thought "oh I can't have that right now" and then I thought "well I can always start over tomorrow" . But guess what? that is how I always think! So I realized that I could have the baguette with two slices of pepperoni and the cheese for breakfast as a meal.

7. I ate real food, majority of the time except for Thursday morning. I'm looking at you Hardee's morning biscuit run. That was gross. I hate fast food.

That's all I've got for now, but send your GoWear fit questions my way!

Hi! If you're living in the northeast right now I'll imagine that you're either crazily digging yourself out for work or still in your pj's when you read this. Hopefully like me, you're the latter. I should turn this into the Virginia Snow of 2010 blog because I just can't stop talking about it! We are expecting MORE snow tomorrow and even more this weekend. What's that?

I can sense spring is coming, far off in the distance. I have a weird habit of being able to smell and sense the coming seasons and then craving them. I do this a lot with fall and now I can feel spring. It's coming. Maybe not till May, but it's coming!

I'm hoping that Michael Pollan's new book Food Rules arrives in the mail today (along with season 3,4,5,6 of Lost) so that I can get ready for Lent! Fatbridesmaid got me in the mood to participate in Lent this year. What am I giving up? Processed/convenience foods. This means, buying food without packaging and labels. Making my own bread, eating only local or organic meat/produce/dairy. Basically making everything from scratch. And only eating sweats if they are made by a real person (not in a factory), on the weekends or on special occasions.

Which leads me to the No S Diet. That sounds gimmicky. While reading the reviews of Food Rules on Amazon, I saw mention of something called the No S Diet which piqued my curiosity. After a quick google search I came to the official No S Diet website. And holy moly, I loved every word! This couldn't be more anti-diet, dieting if it tried.

I read and reread, I emailed, I read the discussion boards and thought "I'll try that!" because you know me, I'll pretty much try anything once. What is the no S diet? Easy...

No sweets

No Snacks

No Seconds

Except for days that start with S or special occasions.

I had a lot of questions at first like- how big should my plate be? What should be on my plate? And then I realized that my brain was asking all of the confusing yet obviously answerable questons from my dieting past.

No sweets. What does that mean? Anything that gets most of it's calories from sugar. Anything that is obviously dessert. This doesn't mean NO SUGAR it means...no desserts. Sugar in oatmeal, coffee etc. is fine. Save desserts for the weekend or special occasion and preferably ones that are not processed.

No snacks. This means eating three meals a day. When I first read this I thought "well I don't snack". And then I really thought about it and yes, indeed I do snack. I just never think of it as snacking. A snack is anything you eat outside of a meal.

No seconds. Eat what is on your plate and that's it. He mentioned at first people tend to put way too much on their plate or too little until they realize that A) this meal needs to tide me over until the next one and B) this meal is not for stuffing myself. If you think about eating in front of other people and putting all of the food on your plate the first time, chances are you would realize this is a lot of food. But, instead we go back and it looks like less for to us and everyone else.

There are no other rules. No food rules, no nutrtion rules, no counting calories. I think this is scary for people (myself included) we like structure, we like being told what is "bad" and "good". We are scared to trust ourselves, our hunger or knowing what we even want to eat. Do any of us really know what we like to eat anymore?

My favorite quotes from the website?

make you sick.

Most diets today can be divided into two categories:

1. Pseudoscientific forbidden foods diets that pretend that you can go on being a glutton as long as you confine your gluttony to a particular class of foods while completely excluding others (no agreement on what these particular kinds of foods are, of course).
2. Diets that require you to be a full time calorie accountant.

The forbidden foods diets are patent nonsense. They contradict one another, go in and out of fashion every ten years, and never seem to gather any serious scientific support. You won't stick with one of these because not being able to eat whole categories of food is a real drag. At the outset, it might seem worth it to trade pasta for unlimited steaks (or vice versa), but it gets old fast. And it might even

not any delicious thing. No pleasure is denied, just unobtrusively delayed and contained. Served up on the platter of limited opportunity, each pleasure becomes even more enjoyable than it was before.

Because it is simple, sustainable, and you aren't really depriving yourself of anything. You don't have to sacrifice anything -- not time, not health, not

There are no magic potions and there are no poisons. You are targeting just the culprit, just the bad habit of overeating itself.

Ask yourself if you can imagine staying on a particular diet for the rest of your life. If not, don't bother starting, it's a waste of time and will.

It's not the carrots, it's the carrot cake (etc.). More to the point, it's youeating so damn much of the carrot cake. People refuse to look at the obvious suspects because the implications are so unflattering to themselves -- that they simply eat too much and that there is no "stab in the back" substance to blame. The forbidden food diets pander to this suicidal vanity. They are not just harmless (if unmaintainable) games. They are dangerous distractions. They are blinkers. They keep you from seeing and confronting the real problem. This isn't "murder she wrote." It's not the mousy schoolmarm whom no one suspected who winds up having "dunnit." It's a brazen attack in broad daylight. Take a look in the mirror. The guilty party is staring right at you.

That said, I find that having a limited number of limited quantity meals makes me take them more seriously, both from a gastronomic and a nutritional point of view. Pretty much every meal I eat is delicious or healthy or both.

The no S diet isn't for overthinking, and he suggests taking 21 days to get accustom to eating this way. I like that this plan eliminates everything that makes me obese. The option to overeat.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I'm not fat from the meals I choose to eat. I'm not fat from a nice plate of really delicious food. I'm fat because I eat too many seconds. I'm fat from eating too much in private (snacking) and I'm fat from too many calorie dense sweets.

I'm giving it a try! I have a really hard time tracking what I eat and posting it, mostly because I'm lazy, and I won't require that I do this unless I want to. I do know that this helps me to stay accountable, but also know that I sometimes get drained from dieting advice. Either way, I'll keep you posted!

Oh and this is coming in the mail too...more on that later.

CLICK HERE TO COMMENT ON THIS ENTRY

I haven't forgotten!

Two pounds away from my monthly goal! I started at 290 on January 1st and now I'm back down to a more familiar weight pre-holiday 2009. I'm looking forward to a new weight for this blog in the spring. 250's will be new.

I cannot believe this month is already over! Where did it go? That's what you say when you get old "where did the time go?".  I'm looking back on the past month and see changes that I put into action. One of them is going to the store alone and not buying "trigger" foods. Items that I tend to overeat or eat when no one is around. I've been here before, I've been to the store many times and sticking with what I needed and leaving. It became a habit, that I allowed. And it is a habit that can be undone. It is our choice.

Another thing that I will note is keeping a constant reminder of my goals handy. I bought a large moleskin with blank pages for writing in. On the first page you will find a  list of my goals, on the following pages you will find to-do lists, weekly goals and little reminders. I found that working in this book daily reminded me of my goals instead of forgetting where I wanted to be.

I also realized that I needed to take personal responsibility for myself. It is so EASY to fall back, to sabotage, to forget and ignore my body. But, I found with gentle reminders I was able to stay on track most of the time. I confirmed that I will be healthy this year.

I want to do better in February. One with exercise and two with more planning and organization with my food. I am as anti-schedule as they get, but I found that having food ready to prepare, having the dishes cleaned helped me to stick with my cooking at home plans. I want to get better at that.

My goal for March 1st is 270.

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Remember the jewelry I showed you last week? Well, I finally got around to taking photographs and posting them in my shop!

You can find my jewelry  here.

If I gained nothing else from my last entry it is: I am not alone. Not even close. Thank you for being courageous enough to share your voice along with mine. I've done a lot of thinking, gathering, and contemplating since I wrote that and a little bit of much needed crying. I realized what I already know: I choose my direction.

Gaining weight can be a slippery slope and I don't have to go down that path. I felt for the first time true sorrow for what I am choosing to do to myself. When I watch the biggest loser and see the contestants crying about what they have done to their bodies and the toll it takes on their loved ones. I never got it. I just saw it as "this is my own issue and it's not that big of a deal", but then I realized that 290 could easily become 300. And 300 could easily become 320 and then 350 and then 400. Eating my life away. Is this really what I want for myself? My future? My husband and our life?

No. And I cried, because I was choosing that for myself. I was choosing a half-life. I was choosing insecurities over confidence. Fear over health.  To be comfortable rather than just dealing with life. And for what? Temporary satisfaction or the soothing tone of excess?

I was going through emails recently, some dating back to March of 2009. One caught my attention, it was from Tyler Weeks. The same Tyler from 344pounds.com which coincidentally came right at the same time of his CNN Health article. Tyler has lost 125 lbs. over the past year and is very close to his 150lb loss goal.

I emailed him and asked him for an interview and he accepted, I will post that in the coming days, but first I want to share with you how he has inspired me in the days since my last post.

When I came across his CNN interview and started reading his archives and regular blog posts there were several quotes of his that really stood out to me. Some of them hit me with a ton of bricks.

"If someone had told me in January that I had to stop cold turkey and eat salads, grilled chicken ... all day long, I wouldn't have lost this weight or gradually progressed into a healthier lifestyle."

on motivation:

"But I respect you more than that — you already know why you want to lose weight.  You know what’s at stake if you don’t lose weight and you know you’ll be reward with a happy, healthy life that you’ve always wanted.

Motivation is so overrated.

You just need to decide to earn your new life.  Nobody is going to give it to you.  Motivation is so overrated — it’s not a requisite for losing weight or obtaining your goals.  I’ll say that again:  you don’t need motivation to lose weight.  You don’t feel like going to the gym tonight?  Tired, have a headache?  Tough.  I slept about 6 hours last night and will end up working 10 hours today, getting off around 5 and coming home to cook dinner for the wife.  After an hour or two of quality time (cooking, cleaning), I’ll leave my warm, cozy house and family behind to go to the gym and leave my heart on the floor.  Around 9, I’ll come back home to find my daughter already asleep and my wife soon thereafter."

What I like about Tyler's approach to weight loss is that he keeps it simple: Calories in vs. calories out. If you've been around for any length of time you will know that I've gone on a few restrictive diets. Always in the back of my mind I know that when I'm in a "binge eating" spell it's as a result of being too restrictive. This isn't an excuse, just a pattern I've noticed over the years. I feel that there is a need to find a way to eat as to prevent "last meals" or the "I'll diet tomorrow mentality".  Tyler has connected the two which has resulted in his success. There isn't a start day for eating diet food and "bad days" for overeating "bad" foods, which for me is the result of an endless cycle. Feast of Famine.

What if all days we allowed ourselves to eat what we want in moderation. To keep trigger foods out of the house, but to actually enjoy the food we are eating on a daily basis. If you look at Tyler's meal plans many would argue (and do) that he isn't eating enough "health food" or would claim that he could be eating more food in his day if he was eating less calorie laden/fatty foods. I think over time, Tyler has and will become more accustom to eating foods that are higher in nutritional value vs. foods with higher caloric value with low nutrition naturally.

His plan worked for his lifestyle. 1) he eats out a lot 2) he likes "man food" or "bar food" style meals so instead of cutting them out cold turkey he just eats less, counts the calories and exercises. Which makes sense for a lot of us.

I make no excuses for the fact that I love food. This quote by Julia Child sums it up:

“The only time to eat diet food is while you're waiting for the steak to cook”

 

I love good food, I love recipes, good cooking, ethnic foods , you name it. I actually love to grocery shop. And I just cannot for the life of me get on board with eating "diet" food. The notion that some foods are bad and others are not. I've covered this topic many times and continue to come back to this same point. How to make both worlds exist. Eating good food in moderation. Eliminating the idea that "diet" anything is the key to weight loss and stop feeling bad for wanting to enjoy food for what it is and should be: delicious nourishment

I hate rules and will always, no matter what, will rebel. But something has to give. What is the payoff for living a healthier life while enjoying food? Keeping track of what I eat, moderation, keeping foods that I tend to overeat out of my house or office space, only eat dessert if it is (strictly) made from scratch with good ingredients and to exercise a lot.

With that said, Tyler has given me hope that I too can lose 125lbs with dedication and direction rather than restriction and struggle.

 Binge eating is a habit that I allow myself to (on occasion) subscribe to. I've had many months where I never bought anything from the store that I didn't need and never ate secretly in my car. And I was fine with it. And I've had others where that was not at all the case. But, it is always a choice. Just because the cookies, cakes, frozen pizza and ice cream are there does not mean I always have to have them around. And it doesn't mean I can't enjoy them on occasion.

What am I feeding when I overeat?

I've decided to make my daily food and exercise choices more prevalent on my front page. I can't guarantee I will always take photos of what I eat, but I am doing my best to keep it public. I have a little notebook that I carry with me to write what I eat in. I've done this before and it's really helpful. This is a sacrifice, for right now, I need to make and dedicate myself to. Recording what I eat and exercise.

I know that this opens me up to many comments that have irked me in the past. I know my best interest is always at hand, but I'm no dummy, I know what foods are best to eat. I know about real food, local food, moderation, protein, fiber, carbs. Trust me, by now. I know. I just need to be able to use this space to honestly share my journey without judgement regarding what I should or should not be eating. My goal isn't  perfection. This isn't a raw food, vegan or nutrition blog. They exist and I have a few I highly recommend if you're interested.

I know that the 400 calories I ate in mashed potatoes yesterday is not "diet food" or a wise choice. But, I wrote it down and was accountable for it. I adjusted my calories for it and exercised. Or I could have felt guilty and overate that rest of the day, but I didn't.  I could have had a more filling meal of eggs or whole grains. Some days will be better than others. Some days I will have lower calories and others will be higher. Some days I will want more food than others and other days I may just want to eat pizza and the next spinach salads. I'm okay with this.

Tuesday January 12th 2010:

1+1/2 C mashed potatoes w/ 1 slice Colby : 400 calories

1/2 C roasted sunflower seeds- 180

2 ladles potato soup (made by coworker) + 6 wheat thin flat bread crackers + a very small serving of cheese+ salad with a touch of cream of cucumber dressing: 670 calories

2 clementines: about 100 calories

1 Tbs. chia goodness: 55 calories

veggie pizza from subway without extra cheese (they put this on as default)- 430 calories

bowl of chili: 340 calories

Total calories: 2,175

Exercise: 30 minutes of strength training

Note from day one:

I've been here before. I've had what seems like a hundred of "start days". What will make this particular journey different from the last? Daily reminders of where I want to be, planning and organization. The quote from above describes exactly where I've been many times before: looking for the right situation to lose weight. The right diet, the right circumstance, the right season, but I know there will never be a perfect day, time, or weight loss plan to lose weight.

I got on my Smooth Fitness Elliptical machine yesterday (graciously given to me by the company) for the first time in a couple of months. I've moved the machine into my home office/creative space and planted it in the direction of my monitor screen. I climbed on, started playing The Office on hulu.com (why am I so late with this one?) and started moving.

Five minutes in I felt like Bridget Jones in her famous stationary bike scene. But before I knew it I was sweating and laughing as Pam tried to hook Oscar up with the new warehouse guy over Pate'. I wrote down what I ate, which is something I'm aiming to stick with. It's a good habit for me to get in, not only to keep track of portions, but for record keeping. It's fun for me to look back and remember meals I had over the course of time, which triggers memories and helps me to remember meals that I can make again when I get bored or stuck.

There are sacrifices to losing weight, but I don't have to kill myself in the process. I've been known to set up crazy obstacles for myself that are simply not obtainable long-term. You can find my food and exercise log at the top of my website or here.

This is what my food looks like lately... wild salmon, wild greens...it's a wild time around here! I crack myself up. I tried quinoa for the first time this week. Man that stuff is crazy. First it tastes like a grain, but it is actually a seed that used to be rare and worshipped. It has a lot of protein (7grams per serving) and even more fiber, 11 grams! It is really good. I stirred in a little olive oil, garlic and a pinch of sea salt for taste and it was really good.

I purchased these from the natural section at Kroger, they are organic and about $4 for the package. I've been making my own oil based dressings with garlic and roasted red peppers since I can't have vinegar right now. What else? Roasted chicken, eggs, spinach, walnuts and almonds.

So far the pro's: I've been peeing (tmi) a lot which means I'm losing water weight and ridding myself of excess bloat. win, win. I've felt really good, no brain fog, not energy crashes from sugar and carbs, and no mid-day slumps. I also genuinely enjoy what I'm eating. And not that I'm being obsessive about my weight, but the scale has been going down, down, down.

Con's: The supplements I'm taking are not the best things in the world and if I'm being totally honest I haven't been taking them as often as I should be. It has been hard to get into the habit of remembering to take them with every meal. I am working on getting better at this.

I still have sugar cravings. I was faced with cake and mindlessly shoved two bites into my mouth. And then I realized that I'm off of sugar. oh yeah. I didn't beat myself up over it, just moved on. It hasn't helped that I've been PMSing like crazy, but that have been relieved. Man, I'm classy.

This is not convenient. I love eating out with Josh. We love Indian food and trying out new restaurants, this makes it really hard when you are trying to eat local meat and following a plan that in a restaurant means only eating...lettuce. yum. I have bent my local meat rules a bit, as I just can't starve when given no other options. Like yesterday, I went to an indesign workshop where they served lunch. The best option for me was chili and tossed salad. I put the chili on the salad and called it a day. This plan requires planning, prepping food, and being prepared which isn't always easy and having leftovers is a huge necessity for me.

First things first, weigh-in!

Hoorah! Low 270's! I know you like my knitted socks...in May. It's actually really chili and rainy lately, which I'm really over. Rain, rain,  and more rain. I look at the forecast, guess what? rain. oh well.

So, I'm down this week and super happy to see 271.5 today. It goes back in forth between this number and 272.5 and I like both. Just happened to snap this shot when I grabbed my camera and dropped the lens cap, note at the top of the photo.

I have to say that losing weight this week is attributed to balancing out my meals and making mental notes of what I'm eating. I've exercised too this past week, but not as much as I would have liked. This week will be different though. I had a few treats here and there, but overall sticking to eating less.

Last night, while Josh was out grocery shopping I had a chance to try on my dress and really see how it looks. Every time that I've tried it on it has been as someone else's house with their mirrors. I put it over my head, tied the sash and put my red peep toe high heels on and really felt pretty. And now tempted to wear red heels with my dress haha. I have three weeks to get in better shape which is my goal. Not just to look good, but to feel good.

When I exercise I feel good and more confident. I have more energy and drive. I don't want to be sluggish on my wedding day or think "man, I wish I would have exercised more". I have that chance now to feel differently in three weeks as I walk down the aisle. Differently as I bucket the airplane seat belt. Those decisions are totally up to me.

Things are moving right along on the challenge express. That's corny, I'm sorry. Thanks for the shoe compliments! They arrived yesterday and instead of being Beige, which is what  I ordered they were black and grey. Cute, but probably wouldn't go with my dress. Luckily, they were two big and would have returned them anyway.

I can't believe the wedding is in three weeks and so many people have RSVP'd! A lot of people we haven't seen in years or even met at all. One of them to my (happy) surprise is from a lady who I had my first internship with the summer after my freshman year of college. She is a self-employed graphic designer who lives a very interesting life. She hired me without any experience and gave me a lot of room to learn which I will always be grateful for. I'll never forget when she told me "I can't pay you much, just $7 an hour" and I almost fell off my chair. For me, at the time, that was big money. I sent her a resume when she wasn't hiring and she hired someone without experience, that doesn't happen often in this world. After that summer I knew I wanted to be self-employed and have been working towards that goal ever since. So, yes I'm excited to see her!

In other unrelated to weight loss news, I've been getting a lot of really weird emails. Weirder than usual, I should say. Asking if I'm a real person. I am aware that the internet world is becoming privy to the money making abilities of a weight loss blog and a lot of these weight loss bloggers are fictional. And a lot of those blogs tend to plug in pictures of people pretending to be real. I don't know if it is the graphics, the ads or both, but I am real. At least I hope I am, otherwise that could be scary. Yes, I am really a fat person blogging and have been for two years.

I also don't approve comments from anyone who links to a promotional website or  "fake" blog. I can spot one pretty quickly, but I get emails from folks saying "I left a comment linking to my website that links back to you, why did you delete it?" because you aren't a blogger. I get about 10 spam comments an entry. Sometimes a few get through, but otherwise I delete them. Not that I'm against making money online (am not, at all, and would like to make some myself) I just don't let other people make money off of links from my blog.

And now onto weight loss. My eating has been back on track this week and have been recording everything I eat and emailing it to one of my good friends who is also trying to lose weight. I've been monitoring my calories and staying below 1,500 a day. Wednesday morning I did tae bo boot camp level 2 and yesterday I didn't do much but mope around about our missing cat, who we found 24 hours later in the garage across the yard. He was cut on the face and shaken up, but so glad to be home. My sister lost her cat this week to a stomach tumor and she has been heartbroken about it. I kept thinking I would never see Simon again and knew how she must feel having her cat gone.

I have weigh-in this weekend! Which I'm hoping will be a good one and continuing to stay on track to get there. I had a pretty funny moment yesterday while feeling sorry for myself. I really wanted to make something sweet and even wrote down a recipe on a note card of something small to make. I flipped over the note card and there was a picture of myself in a pretend wedding dress, a thinner version that I made in photoshop as a visual reminder of where I want to be. I laughed out loud at the situation and ate an apple. Sometimes all we need is a reminder of our goals and where we want to be to get us back on track.

Playing catch-up once again. I got back Monday evening from my weekend trip to WV. I had a pretty good time with my friends and family and ate and didn't exercise. I was doing a lot of eating when I wasn't hungry, and I ate out multiple times over the weekend. Four to be exact, well, five if you count subway on the way home Monday.

It is was it is and now I'm ready to get back on track! Only 3 1/2 weeks until the wedding!! Yesterday we went to the gym and did strength training session B and then 35 minutes on the elliptical. We were both feeling weak and out of shape. I am out of shape, but feeling it more so than usual. I just kept staring at the clock during cardio. Two things: I need a better mix of fast paced music. As much as I love Sia and Fleet Foxes they just don't get me going like Rhianna does haha.

Food was okay, I kept feeling the need to munch and eat. I woke up and ate a bowl of oatmeal, then an apple, then some plan yogurt w/ jam and granola, then I made a small burger and then I had two chicken, black bean, rice and avocado burritos when I got home. I definantly had an appetite.

I started the day out with 40 minutes of tae bo level 2 boot camp. I. did. not. want. to. do. it. Which is how it goes with exercise. Why does the brain do that? I know I'm not the only one. Its just exercise, whats the struggle about? I felt so spent when I finished. I just sat on the couch like a sweaty noodle and then made a fried egg. And then ate an apple. Now I feel good again.

Want to see fun wedding stuff? yes? okay!

Here are my wedding shoes:

I can't tell you how long I search and search for wedding shoes. It's sad really. All I wanted was a simple pair of mid-heel, peep-toed, light colored shoes that don't cost a ton of money. I found the perfect shoe like 10 tens, but it was in black, or $200, or with a 3" heel. And finally I found these at mod cloth and hoping they fit nicely. I also wanted a shoe I could wear again and I will defianantly wear these.

And then I got one of these to push up and suck in.

And finally, I've been making boutonnierre's for the fellows: