yay! computer fixed

Turned out it was my motherboard, so I didn't end up losing any of my data. Phew!

i showered three times today

Why? Because I worked out! BOOYAH!

Ok, the 2nd time was because I went to get a massage and had oil in my hair and on my skin. Considering how desperately tired I was, I wanted to get in a good nap, and knew I wouldn't be able to sleep with all that oily nastiness.

But I did 30 mins of cardio kickboxing and 20 mins of weight training for upper body, all in the comfort of my lovely home. Sometimes I really love fitness videos, especially on crappy days like this.

Speaking of which, I am so over this weather.

never try cooking brown rice in the microwave

Tonight, in my ill-fated attempt to concoct a vegetable pot pie from scratch, I managed to perform the most spectacular microwave disaster in my 30 years of life.

Let me just preface that by saying that I've had some truly awe-inspiring microwave disasters, a la exploding eggs. (Who knew you couldn't boil a whole egg in the nuker... sans water?)

My idea: Veggie pot pie topped with mashed parmesan cauliflower. I usually make chicken pot pie with a Bisquick crust, chicken veggies and chicken gravy, and mashed potatoes. Well. I was trying to watch the calories, so I thought to substitute mashed cauliflower for the potatoes, and I couldnt use chicken gravy because I gave up chicken for Lent. So I had the brilliant thought of making a veggie gravy from vegetable broth and flour.

I was already in a terrible mood. I'd not yet gotten my paycheck (yet again!), my newly cleaned kitchen was 1/2 piled with dirty dishes, and I was just rotten tired. On top of which, I realized that we didn't have any Bisquick in the house, which is pretty essential to making any kind of pot pie.

Oh, and no flour in the house either.

OK, so here I am with boiled veggies, veggie broth, mashed cauliflower and nothing else. I attempted to thicken the broth with corn starch (bad idea), added butter (gross!), then tried cooking orzo to bulk up the base (ew).

Then I thought - ooh ooh! Let's add some brown rice!

Well, brown rice takes a while to cook - and besides, the rice cooker still had rice. [OK - side note: Why did I not use the already cooked rice?! It just occured to me as I am writing this.] So I think, "Hey, let's cook some brown rice in the microwave!"

To make an already long disastrous story short, I blew a fuse, almost broke the microwave, seared the rice, and actually melted a hole in the glass pyrex top. Not only that, after I took it out to cool, the entire glass lid sank in and broke.




Yeah. Uh huh.

I ended up mixing the cauliflower and veggies, added some bay shrimp, sprinkled some breadcrumbs, and sticking the concoction in the oven. And you know what? My accidental recipe actually turned out pretty darn good. And its only 3 points per serving! Here's the recipe.

weight loss diary: week 3 of 15

Yoinks! Last night I took some herbal muscle relaxant to alleviate the pain in my jaw and totally did not get up this morning. Add in the time change confusion (I thought 12:00 was 11), I ended up not getting out of bed until around noon. I made getting up early one of my goals for April.

Overall, a good week... although I took a pretty hard fall off the wagon on Friday night...

*~*~*~*
Week 3 Stats, 3/26 - 4/1:

• Weight: 129.5 lbs
• Body Fat: 28.5%
• Body Fat Lost: 0.5 lbs
• Total Points: 195 (target = 186.5)
• Average Steps: 6,145.3 per day

Pictures:













Me, 4/2/06. You can't tell from the pictures, but I fit better in the dress. I could see the difference when I put it on.

Workouts:

• Goal: 3 workouts this week
• Tues, 3/28: Elliptical 10 mins, Strength on Bosu 20 mins
• Wed, 3/29: Spinning 10 mins, Kickboxing 30 mins
• Fri, 3/31: Kickboxing 20 mins, Walk 20 mins

Accomplishments:

• Renained pretty much on goal for most of the week
• Had enough points saved up for a 27 point dinner on Friday
• Did cardio kickboxing on Wed, and got my mojo back. I'm better than the teacher! (OK, she was a sub.)
• Walked A LOT. I mean, most of my days were 7,000+ steps, which are not counted in AP
• Went out on Thursday and stuck to my allocated 2 beers. Also I managed to resist the fried foods
• Was at work at 9 or earlier
  

*~*~*~*
What Helped Me:

• The blogs and boards, of course. WW and ExP ladies, you are fabulous! Thanks for all of your support.
• Tracking, calcing, tracking, and recalcing. Excel is my best weight loss friend. I constantly recalculate my points for the day/week to understand the impact of my eating.
• Salad and frozen food. Kept me full and happy post workout
• Single-serve natural popcorn. 'Nuff said.
• My friends. Love you all, especially the ones that helped me resist the alcohol on Thurs
• Home workout videos. Did yoga on Sunday and cardio kickbox on Friday, which I might not have otherwise done for time reasons.
  

What Hurt Me:

• Sake. Ouch - a total of 12 points just in sake alone on Friday. This doesn't take into account the 2 glasses of wine (4 points) or 2 glasses of champagne (6 points) that I guzzled on Friday.
• Drunk eating. Hmmm... see a theme? While I was good on Thursday, I lost control on Friday. All that alcohol broke down my inhibitions for cheese-flavored popcorn and more alcohol! Not only that, but I was hangover eating on Sat. Bleh. I made a compromise with myself and am absorbing 7 of he 13 points over from last week into this coming week.
• Didn't weigh in at WW this week. And its only week 2!
• Overconfidence. Seriously. I clocked in at 129 earlier in the week and realized that I'd lost9 pounds. Great, right? Then on Friday, my scale said 127. This gave me a little too much confidence that I could just keep losing weight rapidly, and eventually turned into overeating/drinking on Friday night.

*~*~*~*
Week 3 Goals:

• Work out 4x this week, including 1 solid hour of weight training. Currently planned: Spinning on Mon, Elliptical/Weights on Wed, Boxing on Thurs, Hip Hop on Sat
• Target Points: 25.5 per day, 178.5 for week. Was supposed to be 185.5 for the week, but I am sucking up 7 of the 13.5 points that I went over this week. Compromise :-)
• Steps: 6,000 per day
• Weight Watchers meeting on Friday
• Weight: 128 lbs
• Finish weeks 1 and 2 of Body Intelligence program - I'm behind
• Start reading The Power of Now, by Eckhart Tolle
• Return weight training books to Borders, make flashcards for the Shape program
• Get my freakin car back!

Yeah, I fell off, but I'm climbing back on.

Last night, I completely fell off the wagon. I had saved up 27 points for dinner and drinking since I'd been good. I also did 30 mins of kickboxing and walked 20 minutes before I got to the restaurant.

Needless to say, I was ravenous when I arrived at Koo, a little sushi place tucked away in the Inner Sunset that Karen and I have been dying to try.

The first strike was with the sake. It was freezing, and I spent 20 mins outside waiting for my connecting bus. So I got a small serving to warm me up. Then, a very nice, fruity sake came with our Spoonfuls of Happiness (yummmmmm!), which resulted in us ordering more sake.

Koo was amazing. Karen and I were situated at the sushi bar, where we watched the master chef prepare our yumminess.



Since I knew that sake was 3 points for 1/2 cup, I suggested that we drink wine instead. Karen brought a Gewurtzaminer. If only we'd stuck to that...



We tried practically everything from the specialty menu, but by far the best was the Spoonful of Happiness: Uni and Quail Egg in one spoon, Whitefish wrapped around Monkfish Pate in another, both drizzled with truffle oil ponzu sauce and accompanied by a shot of sake.


It ain't called the Spoonful of Happiness for nothin'


I was apprehensive about the uni, since I'd had it before and really hated it, but I wanted to try the Spoonful nonetheless.


Karen liked the food so much that she licked the plate... literally.

Afterwards, both buzzed and satiated, Eric Pop scooped us up and we all headed to Pink. What a pretentious club! I mean, inside its ok, but they were not letting people in at 10:00! When I asked the bouncer about that, he made some noises about exclusive parties. Huhn, as if letting in cute girls like us is problematic. I managed to get us in anyways, along with some guys that were turned away at the door. And when we got inside, it was totally empty!


The random guys we helped in last night - who thanked us by buying us drinks all night.


Agnes joined us a little while later...






All I can say is that I'm glad I was too trunk to remember what was going on here.

We were wasted, Karen more so than I. Dr. Pop dropped us off at my place, and she crashed here since both roomies are away. This morning, she woke me up in a panic, since she thought she's lost her wallet and phone.

Strike Two: In my drunked state, I of course got the munchies, and ended up eating 2 servings of Smart Pop popcorn. Yikes! That's 8 points... and considering dinner was something like 30, that puts me waaaaaay over my weekly points. What a bummer, since I'd been SO GOOD all week!

Now, everyone knows about drunk eating. So I just said, hey, what the hell - move on. Well, I didn't consider hangover eating! Strike three was basically all day today, when I had this need to eat all day long! I wasn't terrible if you don't count the Smart Pop. But I did eat a cupful of buttery and sweet popcorn, quite possibly the nastiest, greasiest popcorn ever made. I finally chucked the rest of it out and washed my face. Twice.

Oh well. Another week begins. But I have to say... last night was a lot of fun ;-)