Weigh-In and Super Bowl Parties….

So I didn’t do a weigh-in last week because it was that time of the month and I figure there’s no reason to weigh myself when I’m bloated and know I’ll weigh a couple pounds more than I should. So for today’s weigh-in we have:

 

Current Weight: 174.2 lbs

Change from Last Weigh-In: +0.6 lbs

Overall Change: +2.2 lbs

 

So I’m not doing as great as I’d hoped so far. I really only have myself to blame. I keep putting myself in situations where I don’t eat as healthy as I should. Case in point being this past weekend and the Super Bowl. I ended up having 7 people in my apartment including myself and my boyfriend so we had quite a bit of food. I made potato skins but I roast the potatoes versus deep frying them so they are a bit healthier but they’re too delicious for my own good and I kept eating them. Plus we got some pulled pork from this amazing barbeque place that’s close to us. My mom made some lasagna and brought all the fixings for some salad. So I just ate small throughout the day and we spaced the food out throughout the game so I wasn’t eating that huge amount of food all at once but still. Not the best thing I could have done.

But that’s what happens for sporting event get-togethers I think. I can’t say I’ve been to or hosted one that had a lot of healthy food. It’s rare to even find a veggie plate it seems like. But I guess I look at it like, these things aren’t an every day occurrence. They’re kind of like holiday meals. Yeah you eat way too much and eat a lot of the unhealthy stuff but it’s not like you do it every day our of the year. I feel like you can have these occasions if you plan accordingly. So I made sure I had a lot of the leftover salad the next day versus some of the other leftovers. I have also eaten smaller portions the last couple days. So I think by making some smarter decisions and concessions in the days surrounding these kinds of parties I can have a day where I don’t eat as well and not feel terrible about it.

Luckily though, I have my double whammy of Zumba and Pilates on Friday at the rec to look forward to. But I’ll get into that in my next post. I have to get back to studying at the moment.

Weigh-In For the Week

So I’m short on time today but I wanted to get the weigh-in information in. I’m gonna try and get a longer post tomorrow.

 

Current Weight: 173.6

Change from Last Week: 0

Overall change: +1.6

Weigh In and The Paula Deen Situation

So I will preface this entry by saying I’ve been having internet issues. First the home internet decided to go kaput and then I’ve been having issues with the wireless internet at school. The couple times I was able to get on, I’ve had to address school work first so this had to take a back seat.

So here’s the weigh in information for this past week:

Current Weight: 173.6

Change from Last Week: +1.6

Overall change: +1.6

Not what I wanted, but when I can’t really work out much cause of this cold, I can’t do much about it.

So Paula Deen came out this week and announced that she has Type 2 diabetes. I can’t say that I’m overly surprised by this. But here’s my thing. I think that she’s getting a bad rap to a certain extent. The people who blame her diet and the type of food she makes, either haven’t watched her show or are a bit naive. I’m a Food Network junkie, and I have always enjoyed watching her show. If you’ve ever watched it, you know that she always says that the food should be enjoyed in moderation or on special occasions. She has never in any way encouraged eating that way for every meal.

And think about your grandparents. What kind of food do you think they made a lot? People have been eating food like that for generations but the difference is the activity level. Our generations are lazy as all get out. We rely on cars to get us everywhere and we don’t compensate for it with any type of physical activity. Our parents and our grandparents didn’t have the luxuries that we had and we are lot more active because of it. So they burned off a lot of calories and it wasn’t a big deal. I remember growing up and going to my grandma’s and we would make pizzas, rolls and biscuits, cookies, fatty , etc. We didn’t skimp on the fat and calories, and my grandma cooks the same way now. And she’s perfectly healthy. Because she works around the house. She doesn’t sit around all day. And she eats in moderation. She doesn’t go back for seconds and she doesn’t load her plate down.

And you get people that try and blame celebrity chefs like her for our nation’s obesity problem, especially that of children. But how is that fair to place blame on one person? Why not blame the parents who let their kids sit around and play video games instead of forcing them to go play outside or taking them to play in youth sports leagues? Why not blame school cafeterias for serving a bunch of preprocessed and unhealthy food? And why not blame ourselves for letting it happen? Or for stopping at McDonald’s and letting kids get the fatty foods instead of forcing the fruit cups? We are so quick to place the blame on everyone else when a lot of the fault is our own.

So, is Paula Deen the poster woman for healthy eating? No. But should she be placed on a cross for it? No.

Now I can’t comment on the manner in how she came out with it. But I can buy her delaying coming out with it so she could adjust to the diagnosis. I have a friend that was suddenly diagnosed with diabetes (and she is a super healthy twig by the way), and it took her months to really get used to adjusting her diet and changing everything. It was a huge lifestyle change for her, as active and healthy as she was. Now waiting 3 years does seem a bit extreme, but maybe there’s some ulterior motive that we aren’t aware of. There’s really no way to know for sure.

Weigh-In #1 and The Lunch Debacle

So I actually did my first weigh-in on Wednesday. School being what it is, I’ve been kinda busy the last couple days with classes and meetings. So I plan on laying out the weigh in results as follows:

Current Weight: 172 lbs

Difference from Last Week: n/a

Total Difference: n/a

Other than listing the weights I really don’t plan on saying too much about them since I’m not trying to obsess over the numbers themselves. If I come across something with it that really warrants commenting on, I will but for the most part I’ll do the stats and then move on.

So, for the first stumbling block I’ve come across but knew I would sooner or later: waking up late. I’m nursing a nasty cold right now so I’ve been taking medicine for it. Needless to say, I woke up late Thursday and Friday. The main downside to waking up late is not having time to make a lunch. I know I could pack it up the night before but to be perfectly honest, I hate doing that, especially if I’m packing a sandwich.The bread just gets all saturated and I HATE a soggy sandwich. For the most part packing sides and things like that are okay to do the night before but I usually forget or I’m just too lazy (that’s for another time).

Anyway, as you can imagine, being on a college campus, my options for lunch aren’t exactly the best. We have  a ton of bars/pubs, fast food, and just crappy food. And the places that have salads I swear sell couple day old salads. Browning lettuce is just disgusting. So it doesn’t exactly inspire someone to make better eating choices. There is a cafeteria in our student union that has a really nice salad bar and some really delicious pre-made salads but they are really expensive.

So I typically have a not fun decision to make: eat food that isn’t as good for me but is a lot cheaper or pay a lot more to eat better. Being on the budget of a graduate student, I can’t always afford to take the healthier route. This is probably the biggest obstacle on the day-to-day efforts: eating healthy costs a lot. I’ll get into my thoughts on that in another post. I know the simple answer is just to make sure I pack what I can the night before and if worse comes to worse just take the individual elements for the sandwich with me. And the only thing I can really offer is excuses.

My only hope is that once this cold goes away (which if the weather patterns keep up their current trends won’t be anytime soon and will most likely be bronchitis before it’s over) it’ll be a lot easier to keep up with lunch.