075. At the Risk of Sounding Like a Broken Record...

...I'm sorry for being a blogging lame. I swear. This week it is on like Donkey Kong. Starting right now!

I've had some major realization in the last week in regard to my weight loss and healthy living journey. I guess you could call this my "getting back on track post" even though I haven't been "off-track" per se; I've been maintaining my weight, eating healthy, and getting a couple work-outs in each week. I'm just not giving it 100% which would explain why the weight loss is going no where.

I started reading The Spark last week, and I'm really enjoying it. I'm pretty much only reading it during my commute though so I'm moving through it at a pretty slow pace. Anyway, even with just the two chapters I've read so far, I've had a major revelation.

From the beginning, there were two things that attracted me to SparkPeople. I love the proactive, goal-oriented nature of the site and the emphasis on planning. Setting my health and fitness goals, striving for them, and achieving them creates such a drive in me. It spreads to other areas of my life. Planning my meals and my fitness helps me keep other area of my life more organized. (If I know I'm going running after work then I have to structure the rest of my activities for the day accordingly so I can fit everything in.) I find myself more motivated in all areas of my life.

So given this, why the heck did I stop setting goals and making plans for myself?! I used to do monthly goal blogs and the occasional weekly goal blog; I had a weekly meal plan and fitness routine blogs then I just stopped. I have no idea why. Maybe got bored of setting the same goals. Maybe I got lazy. In any case, the time has come to change that.

So, starting February 1st*, I am back on the goal-setting wagon. I'm going to be writing them down in my planner. I'm going to make meal plans and fitness plans. I'm going to blog about these goals and plans to keep myself accountable. I'm getting back on the wagon!

I plan to have my February goals blog posted by Thursday at the latest. Keep an eye out for it.


*I am actually starting today and making meal and fitness plans for the remainder of the week, but my "official" start is going to be February 1st.

I took some time this evening to plan out the rest of the week's meals and make my grocery list. I really don't know why I stopped doing this. I makes life so much easier on so many levels! I also followed some of the advise of Tina over Trading Up Downtown and took stock of what I had in my pantry before choosing my meals to limit how much I needed to buy. This was especially important since I was going shopping at Jewel tonight. I hate going to Jewel because I always leave feeling ripped off. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to go all the way out to Trader Joe's tonight, and there aren't a lot of grocery store options in my immediate area. Anyway, here we go with the meal plans!

1/27
B: Oats with peanut butter and banana
L: Some Kashi frozen black bean mango thing I has a coupon for so I decided to try it.
D: Southwest Chicken Stew

1/28
B: Oats with banana, cinnamon, and brown sugar
L: Southwest Chicken Stew leftovers
D: Homemade BBQ Chicken Pizza

1/29
B: Chocolate oats with peanut butter and banana
L: BBQ Chicken pizza leftovers
D: Burrito Bowls

1/30
B: Homemade Whole Wheat Waffles
L: Mac n Cheese (with tuna and veggies added)
D: Ginger Orange Tofu with brown rice

1/31
B: omelets with roasted red potatoes
L: Chick'n nuggets and tater tots
D: TBD (My goal is to go grocery shopping for next week on Sunday so I left this as a free-be)

Give-Away Alert! There are some really great blogger give-aways going on right now. You should go check 'em out!
Shannon at The Daily Balance has two give-aways going right now: a Manduka yoga mat sling and a Gaiam yoga mat.
Tina at Trading Up Downtown is giving away some chocolate inspired goodies. She's also got a 24-class pass at Healthworks up for grabs over on Carrots n Cake.

035. Today Just Keeps Getting Better

Lunch today was fantastic (though I now realize I totally forgot to photograph it.)

I had half of my tuna from last night left over so I made a really simple spinach salad from it. Sadly, I only had about 2 cups of spinach that hadn't gone bad. :(

• 2c. baby spinach leaves
• 1/2 my Sesame Seared Hawaiian Tuna from Tavern on Rush
• 3/4c. frozen mixed berries (blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries)

The frozen berries were perfect because as they thawed they created their own "dressing" for the salad!

I just wish I had more spinach. It would have been a bit more filling.

The real excitment of the afternoon, however, is being the winner of Shannon's Musselman's giftbasket give-away! I am so one of those people that never wins anything (except a wakeboard handle at INT Nationals two years ago which was really helpful given all the wakeboarding I do...or not.) so I was super excited when I checked my email after lunch and saw Laura posted to my Facebook wall about having won the contest!

032. New Moon Review and Tea Time

I finally saw New Moon last night. Chris and I went after I got home from work. I have to say, I was not horribly impressed with it

Don’t get me wrong; I enjoyed the movie. I also liked it better than Twilight. However, I was still a bit disappointed. At least part of my disappointment is based in my own wants and expectations of the film. I just feel like they could have done so much more with these films. The books were such a hit, but the movies (particularly Twilight) seem so low-budget. Honestly, I want Harry Potter level production values.

I think my biggest problem is I just don’t like Kristen Stewart. I think she is a terrible actress. I don’t like her constant brooding. I understand that Bella is whiney and brooding, especially in New Moon, but I think Kristen really is over the top about it. I’ve seen her in other movies (e.g. Adventureland) and didn’t care her for much in those roles either.

Somewhat related to my distaste for Kristen Stewart as an actress, there was something missing in the acting. I don’t know if it was Kristen, the chemistry between the actors in general, or the direction of the movie, but I just didn’t feel the emotion I felt when I read the book. When I read the book, I cried (and I am not a crier!) a lot. It was heartbreaking. It was like reliving every nasty high school break-up I ever went through. I could feel Bella’s pain like it were my own. I got very emo during that book; I didn’t get that in the movie. Her pain is the driving force behind the entire plot of that book. Without that pain being conveyed, her actions just seem ridiculous.

I can’t be completely negative though. The wolves were awesome! I think they did a great job with the CGI and effects in those scenes. It was so cool to watch Jacob phase in mid-air. And hello Taylor Lautner! I felt like such a dirty old lady every time he showed up on screen shirtless.

After the movie we made a quick trip to Whole Foods because I needed more tea. I was planning to walk over to the Whole Foods near my office during lunch, but I decided it was too cold to make the mile walk over there. Sadly the Whole Foods nearest my house is a good 20 – 30 minutes away so it requires a special trip. Luckily, the theater that had the best show time for New Moon is relatively close to Whole Foods.

I was on a quest for more green tea and the Celestial Seasoning’s Sugar Cookie Sleigh Ride. I got my green tea, but I had no luck on the Sugar Cookie tea. I’m getting the feeling this is like the holy grail of teas!

I went to the Celestial Seasoning’s website and supposedly the Dominick’s near my house carriers the Sugar Cookie Sleigh Ride as well as the Gingerbread Spice which sounds equally as amazing. I think I might have to head over there after I get home tonight.

The bright side is Tazo teas were on sale!

I picked up Zen which is a spearmint green tea.

I also grabbed Refresh which is a peppemint and spearmint herbal.

I do love mint teas!

Chris and I also grabbed a couple pizzas to heat up for dinner since we didn’t eat before the movie and we were both starving by the time we got out! We bought the Whole Foods 365 brand pizza.

He got Four Cheese and I got BBQ Chicken. I have to admit I ended up eating the whole thing. Ooops! Both were yummy, but I definitely prefer the pizzas from Trader Joe’s.

Tonight I have a dinner after work with one of the agents we work with a great deal. We’re going to Tavern on Rush which I’ve heard great things about. I’ll be sure to report back on how it was. I’ve looked at the menu, and there’s already a few dishes I’m drooling over. I’m thinking seared tuna is definitely in my future.

Finally – make sure you head over to The Daily Balance and check out Shannon’s Musselman’s Gift Basket Give-Away because who doesn’t love free stuff!?