Speed Trials

Yesterday was Mardi Gras. Thing is, I counted back from Easter, and it’s supposed to be next Tuesday, but it seems like everyone’s going along with it… Not that I’m big into a) pancakes, b) religion, c) lent, but you know, a little accuracy never hurt anyone…

I haven’t been writing lately, and it’s because I’m all discombobulated. Or I’m all discombobulated because I haven’t been writing. I’m preoccupied, and I don’t want to get into it here, but it’s weird, and I’m feeling weird these days, and my eating is all over the place, and blah blah blah. I have decided to cut out nuts and peanut butter. Egads, I know. I eat peanut butter every day, because I thought it was good for satiety, healthy fats, protein intake, and all kinds of wonderful things. But, turns out it packs the biggest wallop to my daily fat intake, and that I’m hovering around 70 grams a fat a day because of it. In exchange, it only provides a piddly amount of protein. I get more protein with Fat Free Soy Milk, so the pb’s gotta go. It’s also highly addictive. I crave it (remember how I put it on my egg white omelette one day???) and that’s not good.

So in the mornings I’ve been eating toast and honey, and it’s really lovely. The taste of the toast (Ezekiel sprouted toast) and the sweet honey were really good, and I ended up using about 1/2 a tbsp of honey (as opposed to the 2 tbsps of pb I usually slather on toast).

Yesterday especially I was in a really weird mood. I bought a coffee (egads again, something I haven’t had yet in 2009) and I bought some Shasha Cocoa Snaps, which were my downfall. I love those things. But I can’t stop myself. 1 serving is 15 cookies. So I counted out five cookies. and I ate them. then I counted out 5 more, and I ate them. Then I stopped counting and just ate and ate and ate. I’m going to say that I ate about 60 of them (4 servings). Ew. That’s a lot of cocoa snaps in my belly. And with the coffee, and the sickness still lingering somewhat in my veins, it’s bad. I’ve got terrible heartburn, and a touch of nausea, and I just want to settle out my stomach. I know what will do it – water, but it gives me heartburn, too. Isn’t that weird?

Okay, enough complaining. In other, more exciting news, I’m going to Toronto this weekend to have my first scrimmage as a Bytown Blackheart!! I’m really excited, and also really really nervous. Sure, I’ve referee’d a few games, but playing it is a different beast entirely. I haven’t scrimmaged in a while, and I really want to impress the girls.

Then, on the following weekend, I go for my minimum requirements, and if I pass, I’m officially a Blackheart!! That’s when I get to pick out my Derby Name, and get put on the team’s roster. Oy yoy yoy, it’s too much for me to handle.

Names in the running:

Katsu (short for Katsukiyojo – Female Convict Scorpion in japanese – it’s a sumo thing)
Straight and Narrow Arrow (my personal fave of the moment)
Marcosis (play on Narcosis – which means a state of stupor or drowsiness caused by a drug. Hence, “marcosis” would be a state of stupor caused by ME!)

Yesterday I ran on the treadmill and did 20 minutes on the stepmaster. I’m trying to firm up my buns, because sitting in a chair all day sure doesn’t do much for the old backside. Anyway, the workout was really tough. I’m sick, still, and it’s wreaking havoc with my training. I have to run a 10km in 2 weeks, and I can’t even do 8km under an hour!! Sigh.

I spent the day at home yesterday, recovering from this terrible cold. My day prett much looked like this:

A little crossword, a little Planet Earth, a lot of water and kleenex, and this grazing platter that took me about three hours to eat.

When Angelo got home, he made us a huge, fruit filled smoothie:

Mm-mm. I added up all of my nibbles (there was a bowl of cereal, some hummus and pita, blah blah blah) and I still came up with over 2000 calories. It made me sad. I don’t really know how to go about maintaining a 1600 calorie diet, so I turned to “Becoming Vegan” for some guidance. Turns out I don’t need quite so much protein after all. 10-15% seems to be enough, according to Davis and Melina. So I’ve revised my daily ideals, and hope to cut out even more fat and eat more vegetables (hence the increase in Carbohydrates).

I’ve been hit with that cold that’s been going around. It’s weird, it came on about 2 hours after Angelo returned home from Florida… What terrible timing. Couldn’t I have been sick while he was away?? No, no, no, I have to wait for him to get back before the aches, the fever, the sinus congestion hits like a ton of bricks.

Tuesday was sort of a blur, but then yesterday was absolutely brutal. I had to go to work, because I had an important meeting that day, but I knew it would be rough. I drove to work, and thank god for that, because by noon I was so delirious and weary that I bundled up in my coat, scarf, mittens and toque and slept in my car for my whole lunch hour. Sort of embarrassing, but then, I think it’s what allowed me to make it through to the end of my meeting (at 6:15pm).

Needless to say, I didn’t feel like eating for most of the day, but still managed to rack up:

1169 calories

175 grams Carbs
37 grams Fat
45 grams Protein

Now, obviously I can’t take these numbers to mean anything, since my eating was so out of whack, but it is interesting to see that I still managed to eat my day’s worth of Carbs, while being woefully low on Protein. We’ll have to come up with a plan to fix that discrepancy.

I spent the weekend sorting out my living room and my sewing room, and I am finally satisfied with both. I now have a dedicated corner in my living room for my laptop. This means no more squatting on the couch with the laptop in my lap. See, our couch is way slouchy, and it doesn’t take long before I go from a sitting position to a slouching position, to finally a reclined position, where typing becomes impossible and all I do is idly surf for hours, without accomplishing much.

As for my sewing room, well… I finally went out to the Habitat for Humanity ReStore, and got a used countertop for $30!! I mounted it on the wall with some pretty sturdy brackets (boo, they cost more than the counter…) and now I have a nice big surface for sewing, and for keeping all my pins and other paraphernalia at the ready. I was hoping to make some cushions for the couch, but alas, I didn’t get around to it.

I’ve also sort of stopped taking photos of all my food. There are lots of repeats, and I think it’ll just be better to photograph some highlights:

Like this tasty chili I made for dinner. I only ate one of those cornmeal muffins, though.

I’ve also started counting calories today. Here’s the deal, I have gained some belly inches lately, and it totally sucks, especially so soon after the whole South Beach Diet experiment (I’m back up to 158 lbs – my ideal is 148 lbs…) so I think it’s best to focus on calories and lose the weight slowly and sustainably. In order to lose 1 lb a week, I need to eat 1635 calories a day.

That further breaks down to 204 grams of Carbs, 54 grams of fat, and 82 grams of Protein a day.

I’ve never tracked grams before, and my attempts at tracking calories have been scattered at best. I’m going to use fitday.com, and hopefully it will work out for me. I spent a good long time yesterday inputting a lot of the nutritional information from some of my staples (my fave brand of hummus, tofu, cheeze, etc). So hopefully it will be easy to input, which will go a long way towards doing it daily.

So I started today, and I diligently wrote down everything I ate. Turns out I’m eating WAY more than 1635 cals a day. Whoa. What an eye opener. Here’s my breakdown for today:

2108 calories

316 grams of Carbs (58%)
70 grams of Fat (29%)
72 grams of Protein (13%)

Hmmm. So that means I need to cut out 500 calories (and I know exactly where – I ate this ridiculous shortbread cookie that was about 450 calories. I could have had an apple for just as much satiety and about a 10th of the calories… Sigh)

It also means I need to eat about 10 more grams of protein, to try to boost it up to 30% of my daily intake. I also need to cut down on fat (quit those crazy nuts!!! I should be getting my protein from beans) and cut down on the carbs.

It’s pretty interesting to see that I’ve fallen into the quintessential Vegetarian trap of bulking up on carbs and nuts (aka fat) instead of vegetable proteins, which is why so many Vegetarians gain a little weight when they quit meat.

I don’t actually think that I particularly need to reach 82 grams of protein, but I should seriously get my fat grams down to the high 50′s, instead of 70. As for the carbs. Well, that cookie was 90 grams, so hopefully with a simple reduction of anything store bought, I should be able to get down to about 250 grams easily enough.

I kinda like this quantifiable measurement. Looking at my intake in grams I think will be more helpful than just the big calorie number. We’ll see, I suppose.

I woke up this morning, fully prepared to go to Roller Derby, and yet, somehow, all my good intentions waned as the time ticked on, and I couldn’t bare to head out the door at 10 o’clock.

I did have some fortifying oatmeal:

This time with roasted walnuts. It was very good. But I did get sort of snack shortly after, and had the remaining five of these:

from my trip to Bulk Barn yesterday. They are so good!

I spent most of the day rearranging the living room and sewing room, and I’m very pleased with the outcome. The most important addition is a small desk in the living room dedicated to my laptop, so that I actually have a place to sit and use my computer that isn’t the couch or the kitchen table. Good times.

I made a quickie lunch:

Bread and Sons bread (it’s just white bread, but OMG it is SOOOO good!) with half a tofu patti, some lettuce, cuke, cheeze and a little mustard. I also had carrots and cauliflower with a dolop of hummus. It was very filling, and I ate it in two installments.

I also baked today!!

A very yummy banana cake.

With chocolate frosting!!! It was sooo good.

After frosting the cake, I put it in the fridge, and managed to stay away from it for three whole hours while I finished up installing my countertop in the sewing room, and had a little piece as a reward for all my hard work:

Okay, it’s not so little. But Mm-m. I had it with a nice cup of Chai Tea:

I then popped in a movie, and started in on my skates. I guess I kinda felt bad for missing roller derby practice, so I spent a lot of time cleaning my old wheels, putting on my brand new ones, relacing and fixing the toe-guards, and wearing them around the house. The wheels feel great, much faster than the ones I had on my skates before. Now I can’t wait for the next practice!!

I had a light dinner:

Bowl of All bran, with blueberries. I also had a little snack in the evening:

Pear and some nuts. Boring!!
What isn’t so boring (well not for me) is that I’ve just spent the last 2 hours reading old blog entries from 2004-2006!! Wow, there are a lot of things I’d forgotten about… It’s amazing to look back and see how far I’ve come in just 5 little years. Phewf. (oh, and the posts were from another blog, that was kept private, on my-diary.org)