Looking for veggies

I don't have it often, but I've been craving veggies today, and a salad in particular. Maybe I just haven't been getting enough servings of fruit and vegetables so far this week, but I'm finding it irritatingly difficult to find a salad. Not just any salad, but preferably a not too expensive salad bar like place where I can get lots of veggies and not much lettuce or cheese or meat or other sources of protein (that's what hamburgers are for).

Usually I'd pop across the street to the dining hall of the dorm for my usual little bit of spinach, lots of beets and peas, maybe some broccoli or shredded carrots and whatever else looked appetizing (can be difficult at times), but it being spring break around here, they're closed.

So, I went down the street and started perusing menus and peeking at tables. Most places has a caesar salad which is almost entirely romaine lettuce, and house salad which is mostly lettuce, a pale slice of tomato, a few shreds of carrot and/or red cabbage, and maybe some onion. You might find an entree salad which is guaranteed to have some sort of cheese (usually blue or feta) and grilled chicken. I found a pea salad that had bright orange cubes of cheese and enough white fattening dressing that I found it downright scary. Oh, did I mention that being lactose intolerant lack of dairy in my salad is a BIG plus? Lastly, none of the above mentioned salads would have cost me less than $5 after tax and tip; that includes the caesar and house salads without chicken.

So, I'm stuck at my desk eating old baby carrots and a squished green banana. I might go back down to the corner store to grab a bag of Terra chips since that's the closest to veggies not in a salad I could find. Plus, I'm hoping that I remembered to ask M to pick up some veggies, any veggies, on the grocery list I left him last night. Otherwise, I might have to drag a toddler to the co-op for an early evening veggie run.

Reaching a plateau

A note on reaching a plateau in your weight loss.
One is to make sure that you are still drinking enough water. A health instructor I had for a health class said that most diets advertise losing 5-10 pounds in the first two weeks. Most people do it successfully because... before that they are not drinking enough water, and once they do they lose the water they were retaining which sheds somewhere in the neighborhood of...5-10 pounds.

A second thing to do is when your body hits a plateau in weight loss a physical therapist told me once to "eat a big meal." It kicks your body back in to losing mode.

I've also heard varying your routine because your body gets efficient at doing what it does normally.

Silver Lining

So I'm probably in the worst shape of my whole life. I can barely walk up a few stairs without being winded. But (as I posted before) I've signed up for a Danskin mini-triathlon in July. I also plan to go on a backpacking trip this summer. (I'll save details of that for a future post.) We have a great gym setup in our basement. It includes a nice new TV and Tivo (which we don't have anywhere else in the house.) And yet I haven't worked out down there in... well.. I don't know how long it's been.
However, I did start with an easy 30 min. workout last night on the eliptical machine. (yea!!) I pressed the User 2 button (that's me) and the machine proeceded to step me through some settings to confirm. (Here comes the silver lining part.) Despite the fact that I haven't worked out in ages, my current weight is 7 lbs. less than when I set my weight on the machine! Cool! (Trust me, there's still a long way to go!)

Epiphany

I finally came to a realization about at least a good part of the reason I have such a problem going to bed on time.
Despite the fact that I go to work and spend time away from the kids, while I am at work I am running around like a crazy woman trying to get things done. When I am at home I am with the kids and running around like a crazy woman trying to take care of children and get things done.

The evenings are my only real time that things might be quiet. Usually I try to get whatever chores done and I then can have maybe some quiet time. However I also don't necessarily want the last thing I do during the day to be that I have cleaned the kitchen (or whatever the chore happens to be). I don't mind ending with the feeling I have accomplished a job but somehow doing the kitchen over and over and over again is not the same as say...I unpacked a box, or I sorted out all of my clothes to be donated, or I did something creative.

So therefore I find myself doing little stupid things and staying up really late. It probably doesn't hurt that pre-children my natural preference was for late night (not late late night...just late night....)

So now that I have come to realization that I am fighting my natural preference, craving some quiet time, and generally looking to end the day on something more meaningful or fun...I have to figure out how I am going to address this issue.

Menu planning

I've been trying to help Michael help me out around the house, and this week I discovered that if I make a menu and post it on the fridge, it helps make the grocery list easier to figure out (which means its easier for M to go to the store for me), and it's easier for him to start dinner when I'm running late in the evening (which is almost always).

While I was procrastinating surfing the web, I found Menu Plan Monday. Okay, so it's Thursday, but I didn't do the whole week on Monday. I don't know if I'll post my menu plan, but it meant that there was yummy crockpot corned beef for dinner tonight.

A serious goal!!

I just signed up for the Danskin Triathlon in MA that takes place at the end of July. I have a LONG way to go to get in shape, but a goal will help a lot. PLUS, my local friend, Sara, wants to do it with me. So I'll have a training partner. Yea!! I'd better get on that treadmill tonight!

BTW, I was thinking of also signing up for the NY metro area race (which takes place in Sandy Hook, NJ) since I have friends ;-) to stay with nearby, but that one's already full!!! Danskin runs a very popular race.

Daylight Savings Time

I want to call it "taking my daylight away from me time" because I really really miss having the sun up when I have to get out of bed in the morning. The winter days are too short here in Seattle, and I feel so much better when there is sun in the morning. It was only about a month ago when the sun was starting to show when I have to get up in the morning, and now it's gone again.

I can't say that I appreciate the extra light in the evening much since I spent it trying to wrangle the kids to bed and extra sunshine doesn't help.

I was good and moved my SAD lamp into the bathroom so I can sleep as long as I can manage and then turn on all the lights in the bathroom AND the SAD lamp so it's super duper bright in there while I take my shower and get ready in the morning. It seemed to help a bit this morning.

Of course, unless I go to bed soon, it won't be enough tomorrow.

We are here, we are here, we are here!

I haven't posted here in forever, sorry! I have been being good about going to the gym, 3 days a week since the beginning of January. I did miss one session when William had a day off from school and the other two didn't and one session when we had a snow day - but I used the snowblower and cleared the whole driveway, so that counts.

However, I am eating JUNK and too much of it. I lost no weight or inches for the month of February. I am very much an emotional eater and struggling with it. I make decent choices at mealtimes and then spend the afternoon shoving junk in my mouth. Somehow I have to get that under control or I will make very little progress.

Monday I go to the neurologist, finally. I will admit to a mild amount of underlying stress about that, which probably doesn't help the eating, and I really have no idea what she's going to say. I don't even know what I'm hoping to hear. But we'll find out!

Good Trend?

I have had two days where I got outside with the kids. My back hurts a little bit from having Jo on my back for so long (one day we were outside for about 2 hours), but I think I got at least some exercise because I tried to get some of the leaves up. I want to keep up the trend...although it is predicted to get cold again.

Sleep glorious sleep

I must be sleep deprived because my body tells me so. I've fallen asleep in Timothy's bed for the last several nights (um... 3?) before the boys fell asleep. After I spent most of 2 nights sleeping in their room, last night Michael woke me up at around midnight to come up to bed. Oh, did I mention that I took a 90 minute nap on Sat?

I can't blame not enough sleep since I'd been getting at least 8 hours a night the whole week before. I think it's just my body telling me that if I want to get healthy I need to get more sleep. The cough is getting better, but spring is in the air. No really, both Timothy and I have had the mild itchy red eyes since late last week.