Memorial Day

This is such the reason that I do not like to plan anything.  First of all...

Mistake (6)  Do not do triceps and biceps one day and then do chest the next!  Take a rest day!!  I did chest today after killing my bi's and tri's Sunday and holy CRAP was it tough!  Awesome workout though! Awesome!! 

My goal today was to eat as "planned" because I knew I was having dinner with my parents after work so I brought stuff to work.  Then I got to work and forgot that I was training someone for their solo shift and was BORED, ALL.DAY.LONG.  The server is great and I am glad she did so well but my boredom always leads to me being hungry and so I ate things when I wasn't "supposed" to.

  I absolutely hate feeling like that though, just because I set out to eat my carrots and grape tomatoes with some whey at 4 but instead munched on some celery with spinach dip should I feel so wrong about it? Another thing I was supposed to do today was make sure I measure/weigh everything which I did not.  I do not feel like I have failed but I do feel guilty about it like tomorrow I will wake up and weigh more than I did today, which by the way today I was 137.  I believe it could have been 1 of 2 things.  Either it was from all the water I drank before bed to get my count in or it was from not accurately counting calories/sodium, etc.  So today since I still didn't accurately track everything but I drank most of my water during the day I will hop on the scale tomorrow to see where I am at.  I definitely need to be more on top of things but this is about where I fall off track when I am dieting/trying to get smaller on my own.  I am on day, what? 18, I usually get to 3 weeks then I star craving.  I feel a little aggitated writing this right now.  Someone at work actually said my face looks thinner.  That IS usually the first thing that people notice when I start losing weight so although deep down I know I am going in the right direction I get scared, my feelings change, and everything else.

Anyways day ended at 1552/31/131/189 which is pretty much near perfect and I can not imagine that I was way off tracking.  If anything my protein might be a little but lower but that's about it. 

Carb Monster-DAY 18

I was down 4 pounds this week! YAY me! So I am at 136!  I am hoping to be under 135 by the end of this week but I know I am going to have to work for it.  Yest\erday I wasn't home and although I made some extremely healthy choices while surrounded by my junk food eating friend I still wasn't 100% on my macros.  I went over a little bit in carbs and my weight this morning was slightly higher which was annoying.  Right now, it's almost 9am, I just ate a small breakfast and I am STARVING for CARBS!  I seriously just want to open up some cereal or something, I am just really hungry today.  I know though that I need to get better at measuring and weighing things because I really am one of those people that will be WAY off if I didn't do it.  I wish I could be the other way and be so accurate.  I planned my first 3 eating times today, nothing major because I plan on having dinner with my family.  I am pretty sure we are having some sort of chicken so I want to make sure I am not starving by the time I eat.  I will have an apple and a shake after my work-out, another shake 2 hours later and then in another 2 hours a shake and some veggies.  That will take me to about 4pm, should be done with work around 430, not sure what time we are eating but by then I will have 960/15/88/123 for macros, plenty of room for more calories and protein.

I know I am only on day 18 and I know I need some improvements but I am also proud of the fact that I have not had a binge, I have not over-ate, the worst I have done is been a little off with calories because of estimating.  I am still on a losing streak and I am determined to see the number on the scale be at least 134!  This means; drinking a lot of water, making sure I get my workouts in but work HARD, and eating good, near perfect macros every time, near perfect calorie counting by measuring/weighing.  To me that is the hardest thing but I know it effects everything!

I really hope work is busy this afternoon but I am not going to hold my breath on that one.  It's gorgeous outside and it's a holiday!  Time to finish up this coffee and hit the weights!!!!! Hope everyone has a great holiday!  I am feeling great, happy, slept good and can't wait to make today better than yesterday!

Shatter?

I needed, yes needed, to re-do my nails tonight.  Obviously I am getting no school work done (again) and so this is what I must do.  I paint the white on first, wait for it to dry then do the black O.P.I shatter over it.  Looks flippin sweet! Then I fuck up my pinky nail because I always try to do things long before they are dry and so somehow the shit flies outta my hand and goes all over the place! GREAT...  Little did I know there was a spot on my desk that when I went to wipe off it created a perfect -NOT -supposed -to- be- there-little-light-brown-circle-on-my-dark-brown desk!  Good grief! For real??  Breathe. Close your eyes and think Talia-there is nothing you can do not, put your laptop over it and no one will EVER know....

My day was tiring, I got up super early to workout and I have a feeling my hamstrings are going to be screaming at me tomorrow, I didn't even have time to stretch because I had to work.  I always manage to make JUST enough time to workout, shower, get ready for work and GO when I work the 1030 shift!  My macros ended at around 1450/21/131/174.  I am on day 15!  can you believe it?  My averages were 1505/34/128/182 last week they were 1528/34/128/186 so I know I am on the right track and considering my recent break-up with peanut butter I could probably place bets on my fat being closer to what it should be by the end of week three.  I am totally geared up for my weigh in tomorrow, always nervous but I know I put forth a good effort and although I have room to improve, I know I am going in the right direction.  

A few things I need to work on are (1) spreading out my macros more evenly through the day.  I have noticed I eat a lot in the beginning parts of the day like breakfast and then by the end of the day I am starving.  This makes things really frustrating because I have to sit down and track BEFORE I eat because if I don't I always end up eating the wrong things.  The other thing I need to work on is getting closer to the macros I need, especially protein.  Drinking water has been better as long as I drink a lot in the earlier part of the day.  I do loose track though so sometimes I end up slammin some before bed, and then I wake up regretting it.

I am making a deal with my trainer to have a little extra fun next Saturday with my sister at the Greek Festival!  I am sooo excited!  As long as I am 100% on and still down in weight I get to eat some BAKLAVA!!! DELICIOUS!!!!!

SLEEP

I am in some serious need of some good sleep tonight.  Last night I slept like utter crap.  Apparently, after 27 years of not having allergies my body thinks it's now time to start.  I was up all night, not only to go to the bathroom but coughing because of my itchy throat, swallowing my spit and wiping my eyes because they were so watery.  This morning I woke up and was crazy hungry and the damn peanut butter got me AGAIN.  I have only 1 serving but still, at almost 200 calories at half the fat I am allowed for the day, I hardly think it's even worth it anymore.  I was at work and annoyed because of an experience before work, so my workout was great!  I did back and I studied a little bit too.  Class was tonight and I wanted to DIE sitting there for so long!  5:30-9:30 is seriously way too long.  Do you really think we are listening after 2 hours passes let alone FOUR?!  




All I wanted to do today was eat at work.  We were really slow, nothing was going on, there was nothing to do and today was just not a good day overall.  I went from a seriously stellar mood on Wednesday to being tired and irritable the next.  I sure hope Friday is better!  No going out for me, I need to stay home and get some stuff done for school so that Sunday I don't have to spend all day there.  
Ended the day at 1525/37/112/194 and I can't write anymore because I need to go to bed before I flip a lid

LOVIN LIFE!

I am really lovin life today!  I feel so, I don't know, ALIVE.  I haven't felt like this in a LONG time!  It feels really good!  That's all.  Really, I have no complaints today AT ALL.  Macros were 1512/30/131/194 and water, just drank a few more so 16! 

WATER

I have lost track of how much water I drank today but it had to have been at least a gallon.  I KNOW I have bitched about this probably 6 times already but SERIOUSLY, drinking this much water sucks!  Does it ever get easier?  Does my body ever want to stop having to pee every 20 minutes?  Will my body ever be GRATEFUL for drinking so much?  My macros ended up being 1548/36/131/179 but I can't say it's 100% I should have never bought that jar of peanut butter.  For real, who buys a jar that big and measures serving sizes?  I should be, but I didn't today, I only guessed with one.  Why?  Well this morning I put some on my toast and then later today I had some too but not like huge spoonfuls, just a little.  Not only that but I guesstimated with other things I ate today too. I guess considering I have been counting calories and learning portion sizes for years I pretty much can tell what things are in terms of servings but for this I know I need to be a little more careful.  Hopefully my trainer skips out on reading this post.  Crap, now I feel like I have to tell him..wow..really?

Mistake (5) - never think you are going to eat just one serving of peanut butter once you start.

Learned. Over it.  Moving on.  Tomorrow I get to see a friend I haven't seen literally since the fourth of July last year!  Ok, maybe that's a touch of over-exaggeration but I honestly can't remember last time I saw her.  Life is weird.  People come and go, have different schedules, get boyfriends, blah blah blah.  HA HA.  Off to bed I go, but before I do I started my second week of exercises and today was chest.  I made sure I pumped out as heavy of weights as I could because I didn't want to be mad at Applebee's when the restaurant became flooded with Canadians.  It never happened but at least I knew I put in an excellent workout!  Good Night ya'll!  Tomorrow and moving forward I need to make sure I am being more accurate with measuring!

Temptations

Last night was an absolute BLAST!  I danced so much I was not walking like a normal human in my over the knees I wore.  Yeah , yeah, stick to sneakers, right? Hell no, these boots always make the outfit look SLAMMIN'  A few people we went out with were wasted before we even went and so when we got there and said we weren't drinking (6 times), that no we didn't want a shot (about another 3 times) and no, really, we haven't had even 1 drink I didn't expect anything less.  Regardless, I still think it's hilarious that being a non-drinker is so abnormal.  I ended up being one of the DD's, driving someones car I just met that night, in my socks because as soon as we got back to the cars I took them off.  I had to chuckle when the owner of the vehicle kept telling me to be careful and even more so when there was a cop.  No worries, I'm sober, remember?

Once we got back to her apartment, around 4am, was probably the hardest part of the day nutrition wise, minus being at work super bored and wanting to eat a whole handful of croutons.  Why was it so hard? All the talk about food and the consumption of left over pizza, that was already there when I got there before we left.  It was tough, especially since I had eaten all of my calories allowed for the day to not eat something.  Ok, I had like 6 blueberries, but I think all the dancing negated them so whatever.

Saturday 1540/31/138/189, water 13 glasses

Sunday was actually really good minus the 4 hours of sleep I got.  I woke up, had a banana that I brought and a protein shake with water.  My friend had to pick up her mother in LeRoy for her jewelry party and so I had a McDonald's coffee black, with another scoop of protein powder.  When we got back I had my carrots I packed and then the party started with the cheese,chips and crackers.  AHHHH My triggers, chips are one of them and crackers well they are basically useless circles of salt and carbs.  I stuck to the cheese, and was very proud that I did.  This whole competition deal has my mind in a completely different place than making up my own goals.  Having such a solid goal to shoot for is absolutely what I needed to get out of the viscous binge, over exercise cycle. I am glad I am changing my habits, kicking bad ones, and although I do get cravings for shitty foods I just remember that after I eat them I feel just like that, shitty. 

Sunday 1552/39/128/178, water 16 glasses

Little over on my fat and under on my protein, but for the temptations that were around me today and by not being at home all day I feel like I did pretty well.  

My other challenge lately has been the 16 glasses of water consumption per day.  Right now I am at about 15 but I started late and I am definitely going to be annoyed getting up in the middle of the night for sure because I KNOW it will happen.  Yesterday I know I didn't drink enough and I was thinking about emailing my trainer and asking how important it is to consume the 16 but then I recalled that even before we started he said as long as I am (1) drinking water (2) following the macro plan and  (3) following the workout plan that I will be fine.  So....I am going to assume drinking that gallon of water everyday is pretty important!

Dance the night away

Any other weekend, I would be getting ready, snacking on stuff, coming back to the computer, snack some more, put on some make-up, snack some more.  I can't believe just by holding myself accountable to not only my trainer but myself as well how different I can be, how I can actually achieve things I always wanted to but never gave it my all.  By now I would have given in, given up and consumed an additional 300 calories (if not more) just wasting time. 

I am hungry right now, not going to deny that at all, but I am saving my last few hundred calories for a coffee and protein powder so I can stay up all night and dance with my good friend Nicole!  I was going to take a nap after work, life can bring you down even when you just thought you were in a good mood.  A lot of things I internalize with my family and things I can't really spit on about on here.  Anyways, I don't want food to change my mood or determine whether or not I will have a good day or bad day.  I think right now it's just tough because although I am eating healthy, I have to watch my macros and I LOVE carbs, I just do.  I am a stubborn italian who loves carbs and food in general and 130 grams oisn't a lot to me.  What is also frustrating is that yes I am eating healthy, but still some of those healthy foods aren't really doing me any good.  For example my fake chicken patty today had over 500 mg of sodium.  What the hell am I doing eating these anyways?  I have already determined I am going to eat chicken so therefore I am no longer considering myself to ever be a vegetarian again.  Seafood and chicken is where I draw the line with occasional red meat but no pork, no bacon.  I guess I will just be a picky meat eater and join the rest of the world.  I also don't want to bore myself into suicide during this process and if I don't introduce some new things into my diet I may end up near that.

Summer school starts next week and I have classes Tuesdays and Thursdays and am also taking an online class.  I have already taken steps to get somewhat ahead and doing things for my online class.  Money will always be my number one stress item, but I haven't taken 3 classes since undergrad back in 2007 so I really hope my task and time management skills will come back quickly.

After my coffee and protein powder my macros will be 1540/31/138/189 and I was 140 this morning so I am proud to say I made it through my first week alive and weighing less!  Off to dance the night away..hopefully with someone hot!!! I could use a good make out session right about now!! BAHAHAHHA

SERIOUS CRISIS

I am currently experiencing my first serious crisis and I don't have a clue what to do.  I am currently at 

1122/28/1296/110 for my macro nutrients, I need 1575/30/130/189 put two and two together I get to eat only something that contains protein, no fat or carbs and I have NOTHING to eat right now and I want to MURDER something!  What do I eat?  I am so hungry! This is what sucks the most right now, this bullshit macro bullshit and I wouldn't care so much if I didn't have to weigh in tomorrow morning but I do and so if I get mad and just eat anyways I am going to go over on everything, even sodium which will destroy the scale ;(   I can't believe how much this is pissing me off but when I got to my second job I only made a salad with lettuce, and onion, had a little cheese and used lemon juice because I wanted to save more calories for later.  Well what the hell! It's all bc I was so hungry this morning my breakfast had a lot of carbs! This is only day 7 Talia, you better suck it the hell up!!!!!  I...need....substance....I have been drinking soooo many friggin liquids I think my bladder may just literally burst open.  Well, 1.5 scoops of whey and more water.... end of the day macros: 1332/33/135/148 and for yesturday since I was being studious and didn't blog they were at 

1522/29/125/202.

Mistake (4?) Do not consume 54 grams of carbs for breakfast or you will be miserably on a liquid diet by the end of the day

On a better note, I did have an awesome shoulder workout today.  The first exercise was a machine shoulder press and by set 4 out of 7 I was already bitching out my trainer in my head, wishing he was next to me so I could shake him.  Although, I do not think I could have lifted my arms high enough to do so.  Peace out! I need to get some lectures listened to.  Fuck off carbs, fuck off!

Trying to keep it cool

Hitting macros is REALLY challenging, and now I am starting to see where doing this competition can ruin your social life.  I never understood what the big deal was but now I see part of it, because going out to dinner just can't happen unless you can be sure you are at lease 90% accurate with your calorie tracking.  Shitty and I refuse to be a single hermit.  Seriously, how lame is that!?!

My friend and I went out to dinner tonight to Papaya in Downtown, Buffalo.  It was DELICIOUS.  Started with some spicy tuna sushi rolls and I have to say they were 10x better than the ones I had in Florida!  I had 3 out of the 8, with chop stick skills not so  great.  Then for dinner I had Tropical Prawn's with Roasted Eggplant and Eggplant tempura. seriously, why don't I have the time to cook things like this?!?!  The description on the menu "Grilled prawns, spicy cashew eggplant sauce, eggplant tempura"  The tempura was probably the worst out of everything-nutrition wise, but I only had 1/2 of one out of the 2 they gave me.  Seriously though, I had to use my will power not to eat them all.  Obviously they were just as palatable as everything else!  

The dish had 3 prawns, which are basically jumbo shrimp, I ate 2 of them and about half of the spicy cashew eggplant sauce.  The sauce had onions, red peppers and eggplant in it, so seriously who the hell knows how many calories was in the damn thing?!  Brown rice was also served on the side which I picked at.  So like I said before not having the internet on my phone, I had no idea I would seriously fuck everything up over this.  I can't say these macros are 100% accurate because they definitely aren't but 1599/37/165/162.  I am really annoyed that I didn't do better, I was doing so well when I first started and I feel like this is where before I would have gotten frustrated and binged because I failed anyways.  I am nowhere near wanting to do that right now but I have the biggest urge to punch my self in the face and so maybe I won't be so dumb next time but I guess that just leads me to ...

Mistake (3) - If you really HAVE to go out to dinner make sure you choose something that you can break down and track easily for calories- chicken and broccoli hahahhaha

Right now my biggest feelings are annoyance and negativity towards myself for not doing better, but also conflicting feelings of positivity because I had a really good time, the food was delicious and I know compared to before this is progress.  Considering how I constantly used to bring myself down by thinking of how much of a failure I was, it's actually unbelievably hard to be positive right now.  I can literally feel it in my chest, the anger that's there for not reaching these macros but that's ridiculous, right?  That's why I truly believe my mentality out of everything needs to be changed before my body can change.  I have treated it so badly with the negative emotions that it needs to trust me again.  Trust that I will be as positive as I can.  I am learning everyday, and if I make little mistakes here and there in the beginning I think it's going to be A LOT better than making more as it gets closer to the show.  I know I have what it takes, I know it's all about mentality and I know I can do this, I know I am not perfect but I also need to learn from ALL of these mistakes and make the rest of the week ROCKIN.  Yeah, for real people, I am only in my first week!

I also really have to give major props to my trainer.  He is so positive, so supportive and brutally honest.  All of these things I need, and it helps having someone like that to report to because when I think he is going to kill me for going over my macros he brings me back to reality about only being on day 6 and that as long as I fix my mistakes, I WILL do better!

Peanut Butter

When I went to pick up supplies for my dad this past weekend I did a little shopping for myself too.  I figured, hell it couldn't hurt to buy a HUGE bag of whole carrots, a monster bag of apples and a bag with 6 heads of lettuce.  Not to mention the case of chicken strips, which I am still on the border line if I want to keep them or sell them to my dad, I just hate the questions that will come out of it.  I mean for heavens sake, I tried selling my mom the fish oil pills I just got because I was explaining how I would rather eat my calories and fat than take a pill.  Know what that caused?  It caused her to believe that THIS was the reason she had gained a few pounds, the fish oil pills.  Flabbergasted, nothing could explain it better, all I could say was, "Mom, are you FOR REAL?!?!?!" Oh brother, seriously, after all of these years being a personal trainer and being on and off the healthy eating wagon, they never listened to me and trying to tell her that fish oil pills are NOT the reason she is gaining weight I figured was just a waste.  Like mother like daughter, she's going to do what she wants to anyways.  Hey mom, if your out there, please keep taking them!

The last thing I bought on this trip was a 4 pound, yes 4, jug of peanut butter.  Sigh of relief it is, peanut butter, it's so good....until you bring it along for a days worth car ride and go over your fat intake. SHIT. 

Confession made to my trainer and he told me don't bring it, and if it's absolutely necessary put it in your trunk, but DON'T pull over to get it out because I will be pissed if the next phone call I get is that you did just that~ HAHHA what? ME? do that? NO! OMG I was cracking up because it totally IS something I would do, in the middle of Transit road, shit, in the middle of any road just to get one more scoop! HAHHA

I definitely struggle with the eating part and other than that I did pretty good with my macros, but I was also about a scoop of whey away from consuming enough protein for the day.  It's tough, getting everything in.  I also don't have an I-phone or internet on my phone so I have to calculate everything before or wait until I get home to see if I was successful or not so that is definitely something that is aggravating.  I know though that I can't let these small things get to me and ruin my mood or turn me into thinking I am an epic failure because that's what I used to do and that NEVER works.  So I will learn from these mistakes.  Let's see, so far 

Mistake (1)  Do not buy pre-cooked/frozen chicken strips. WHY? They have a shit load of sodium in them

Mistake (2) Leave the 4lb peanut butter jug at home, not in the seat next to me like it's my best friend

More mistakes to come I am sure but for today my macros were:

1422/46/101/163

Goals for tomorrow:

--> Reach my macros by making sure I am eating every 2-4 hours with nutritional foods 

--> Keep sodium intake below 2500mg again

You didn't drink?!?!

Today was my first day back to Apple bee's in a week.  The day started off like this; alarm went off at 8am and almost habitually, I reached for the phone and hit snooze.  Don't remember putting it back in my bed until I woke up again and it was almost 10:00! I had to be at work at 10:30 and it takes me a half hour to get there.  Needless to say, I was already not a happy camper, I didn't get to eat breakfast, I didn't get to go to the bank or mail anything, but I did, of course have time to pack some snacks :) come on...you know me!  So my ride there wasn't too horrible until about 15 minutes into it, I see these two birds flying really close to each other, I am making assumptions that they were Robin's, mating, or trying to mate.  The one bird flew away, right into a car!!! I look in my rear view and see it flapping on the pavement! WHAT THE F *@% ! Seriously life? this is how the day is going to go?!?! Wake up late and then see a bird die? Awesome.

I finally make it to work, everyone telling me how glad they are that I could make it, and I am supervising a trainee's last day in training.  Please, take a mental note, I quit being a "Neighborhood Expert"  about 6 months ago.  Anyways, she seems to be a little bit of a hot mess, definitely needs some more time in training, although I think she might just quit before that.  I eventually get to start snacking on the foods I brought with me and feel better and even more better when I have a Tim Horton's coffee in my hand.  My new way of drinking it, 2 creams and a scoop of chocolate protein powder.  Don't judge me. Try it.

So talk of Florida starts to come up, my one manager thought I quit, LMAO.  So the bartender asked me if I had fun, yeah of course I did and then says something along the lines of drinking and partying.  My response "actually, I didn't drink" and as funny as it was for me, he gave the same dumbfounded look as the guys in Florida did after we rejected their drink buying. HAHA.  "So wait, you were on vacation, in FLORIDA, and you didn't drink?" "No, I didn't, you don't have to drink to have fun and before I die I hope I get as many people to realize that as possible"  I think it's great that I have friends in my life that I can have a blast without drinking and I also love myself even more for being who I am and being a fun, happy person without consuming alcohol.  

Food intake today was good.  I have been consuming so much sodium because of this case of frozen chicken breast strips I got.  I don't want to worry too much about it but my sodium intake today was at about 3400! Oh well, I am not going to stress.  I feel like I have let a lot of stress off since I started eating healthier.  I am not putting as much pressure on myself to eat at specific times, as long as I am eating throughout the day, which isn't hard for me to do anyways.  Before I would go crazy if I was scheduled to eat at 12 and I couldn't eat until 1.  I don't want to drive myself crazy like that anymore and since I started, I haven't.  

The only thing I find difficult is drinking more water.  I have accomplished my goal of 1 gallon every day since I was told but man, it's seriously forceful sometimes.  Just picture it.  Filling up the plastic bottle at home, only 6 more cups to go.  Putting the top to my lips and just DREADING it!!  Don't get me wrong, I like water, my body loves it, I just can't get my mind to love it, well my brain does but not INSIDE, know what I mean?  Ok, I think it's time for me to go to bed, ended my macros pretty close today!

1547/38/125/188

You can eat...

so much more food when you eat healthy!  I am pretty sure today is the first day I honestly realized how hard it was reaching my macros because I had so many calories left! 

I guess when I started, I should have put a warning on this blog.  I mean, it is MY blog and so I am allowed to write whatever I want so I do appologize for any straying from competition prep talk but who am I kidding, I am a woman!  The past few days have been emotional, Desperate Housewives finale made me cry, divorce..so devastating.  My past is still the present for me and PMS is right around the corner, although I am pretty sure PMS started Friday when I was a raging bitch 2 airplane rides back to Buffalo.  Whatever.  No one wants vacation to end.

I am an emotional eater, when I get sad, angry, depressed, I want to eat those feelings.   I find comfort in food manufacturers made exactly for that purpose.  The past few days though, aside from going through a lot mentally, I have been feeling AWESOME about getting back to eating healthy.  I haven't felt like I was starving at any point today and like I said before I even found it difficult :GASP: to consume all of my calories while reaching my macros.  I also believe that drinking more water has definitely helped out with that as well. 

Tomorrow I start my new training routine and I am SO EXCITED!  I only worked out once this past week, my body definitely needed the rest.  I am not one to miss any workouts but this just felt right.  I am really nervous about my cardio routine.  Before all of this I was one of those people that had this worked out to a science.  I could binge and then overexercise on cardio to make up for it the next day and stayed pretty much the same weight.  Only thing is, this is also another bad cycle I fell into that I want to get out of.  Man, even being a Personal Trainer I would NEVER tell any of my clients some of the things I was personally doing.  I seriously don't make sense sometimes.  Anyways, my cardio routine is very light and I am actually worried that I am going to lose a lot of my endurance that I gained along the way.  I won't be able to run anymore and what about the elliptical?  Will I get winded if I ever try it again?

Another awesome day at getting in my macros..I am the bomb when I try! :)  A little low on the calorie end but I'd rather take in less calories and reach all my macros than the other way around!  Catch ya'll on the flip side!

1489/32/122/193

End of day two...

I am definitely ready for bed to take my mind off of the ridiculous things that occur in life.  Aside from my past always coming back to haunt me, today was a really good day.  Ok, besides my weigh-in too, so aside from 2 ridiculous things.  I weighed in at, I mind as well say it because I know I will NEVER be at this weight again ...  145!  :(   Gross

You can view my eating habits here, just so you can see that I am reaching my macros in the healthiest ways possible:

http://www.livestrong.com/profile/sweetdreamerzx2/

macros: calories/fat/carbs/protein

The past 2 days have been awesome

May 13th macros: 1541/31/127/200

May 14th macros: 1496/26/129/193

Today I also started drinking a gallon of water and that was really tough especially having to pee so much.  It's seriously a pain in the ass and great advice by someone else to drink most of it earlier in the day so that my nights sleep doesn't suck so much!

I had a few cravings today.  Pizza at my dad's place all seemed to come out picture perfect.  He also baked bread this morning and so when my sister said she was going to take a sub home, I drooled and sulked for a second.  I also had a hard time right before work, because after my appointment with my Trainer, I went to the eye doctor came home and ate lunch and then took a nap.  When I woke up I was REALLY hungry but knew I had planned on eating a snack at work which was only a half-hour away.  Any other day I would have went straight to the cupboard and started mindlessly snacking on dry cereal, chips and anything else crunchy.  I was proud of myself for not doing  that because all I see right now is a sexy, fit and lean Talia!!!!! 

What I really love about this is that my eating plan is not set in stone, I don't have to eat certain things at certain times and be a slave to it all.  I feel like I  can breath easy and worry less knowing that I can eat at whatever time I want.  I also really like the fact that I am in control of it which makes perfect sense because if I rely on him to spoon feed me everything, how will I ever learn to make this a lifestyle change?  By doing it this way I feel really confident already that I can easily do this the rest of my life.  I have even noticed my face thinning out more from just the decrease in calories and increase in the amount of water I am consuming and it has only been two days!  I am super pumped to see what will happen in 5 months!

The background story...

In the beginning of the year I planned a trip to Florida with a good friend of mine to visit another good friend of mine.  The plan was to lose a bunch of weight and look amazing on the beach.  During that time, I manged to get down 15 pounds between water weight loss, etc. and somehow put it all back on the month before I went.  How did this happen?  It was all mental, I play mental games with myself that have gotten me into this position I can't seem to move out of.  I keep digging the hole deeper by making the same mistakes and so this is why I have chosen to start training for my first figure competition.

It has ALWAYS been a dream of mine to be a fitness or bikini model but many people around me turned me into the other direction telling me it wasn't healthy, that these girls didn't really look like that and that they don't look like that 365 days a year.  For the past 5 years I have struggled to get myself into the best shape possible, to get myself to look like the picture in my head and only a few times did I ever get close only to toss it all out the window.

Wait a second, so I lost 15 pounds and then gained it back it a month? WHAT?? ok let's go back to that.  I can EAT, boy can I eat and seriously the best way to my heart is to give me a bag of croutons!  I love my carbs and therefore once I get through those, sweets are obviously next!  I can put down a lot of food and I definitely carry a lot of water weight too so when I eat a lot another obvious point would be that the scale isn't very nice the next few weeks.  So at one point I was 5 pounds away from my goal weight and then I ate it all back, doing a compeition starting dancing around in my head and before you know it my mind took over.  It was my mind that told me"ok, so you will do this compeition, start training when you get back from vacation so you better eat as many shitty and un-nutritional foods as you can because who knows when the next time your trainer will let you have it again"  Anyone who has dieted, lost weight, or gotten caught up in the fitness world knows EXACTLY what I am talking about.  So do that everyday for a week and you get bloated, keep doing it and you gain a few pounds.  Go on vacation and your screwed.

So, here I am today, on day 2 of my diet plan getting ready to do the Olympus in October!  I start my new workout routine either tomorrow or Monday, more than likely Monday and I couldn't be anymore excited to do this!  It's going to be the most challenging thing I have ever had to do in my life but I know I have an AWESOME trainer!  His confidence in me gives me even more of a boost and I know all I have to do is give it my all.  I have struggled with eating since I started getting into fitness.  I became a trainer a few years ago and that made it even worse.  There is so much information out there that it gets super overwhelming and I did just that.  I got overwhelmed, I overloaded my brain with so much information it started to contradict itself.  My weight went up and down, my confidence went up and down.  Bouts of depression came and went and it was all based on this image I had in my head that I constantly held a negative attitude about because I always felt like a failure.

I am doing this competition for me.  I am doing it to feel better, look better, have more confidence and obviously try to win but winning isn't my number one priority.  I want to be healthy, I don't want to cycle on and off binges.  I don't want to gain and lose weight year round, I want to be lean, fit and sexy!  I am keeping this journal for myself and for anyone else that wants to follow along!  Wish me luck!!!