November Challenge Recap:
- Self-imposed shopping freeze. This mostly has to do with clothing. Desired shopping trip come Black Friday.
- Starting weight on November 1st = X.
- Need to Lose: 6% of X
- Deadline (in order to break shopping freeze): Black Friday morning, 3 weeks.
- Added little challenges: That is the morning immediately following Thanksgiving. Pre-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving with some friends this weekend. (huge meals!)
- General approach: Better eating, Start to routine up working out again for regularity, Start sleeping like a human being.
So at the end of Week 1:
Weight Progress: Lost 1% of X. That means still 5% to go, and now with only 2 weeks!
Sleep: In Progress.
Weekends could be called in either direction. NinjaManFriend was at my place, and he's a great sleeper, so that usually brings me some balance. And he lets me sleep late on weekend mornings because I can otherwise be sleep-deprived and mean. That said, we go out and see friends, and sometimes that means we are out (and thus up) too late to consider it good sleep habitizing.
I spent the earlier part of this week making great strides. I was forcing myself to just drag over to my bed and read (eliminating falling asleep on the couch and waking up rickety and confused). I went back to the world of alarms to get my body back on a schedule.
Mid-week, because it's dark out, I eliminated late afternoon naps. I sometimes let myself succumb to such on my couch for about 30-45 minutes. But now that we've set the clocks back (Daylight Savings) and it's nearing winter, I discovered the dangers of a 30-minute nap at my usual time, because I wake up and it's dark and I panic thinking I've missed class or returning to work or any other plethora of things that happens before nighttime.
The later half of this week was a sleeping mess. I would not notice that I was up really absurdly late working on something (such as preparing my exam supplement for a quiz in one of my classes), and it threw me off a bit. One night was spent on the couch by accident. But otherwise, we'll still consider this in progress.
Workouts: Just started.
Sadly, there was only one actual workout, and it was later in the week.
This week, I was strangely productive in most facets of my life except for this one. But the one workout was progress. Usually, my problem when I've hit this lull/rut is that workouts are easily the first thing I cut when I "just don't have time." With the gym, there's a lot of "and if I don't go now, then I won't make it for [insert a class here] and then I'll be late for school"...
But I got out of my "you're paying for the gym so go to it" head, and forced myself to just do an at-home workout. It was a core workout from SELF magazine using these balance pods and it actually kicked my ass. My sense of balance is... off, apparently. I also either did something wrong or should really use this as an eye-opening tool for where I am weak right now - because the following day, my core was not sore, but my legs were, and my Achilles tendon was screaming with "your ankle is weak please fix that and I will remind you with sharp pains." So really, as far as workouts go, I've only just begun.
I'll try to do another update before Week 2 is completely over, but until next time, I leave you with a skinnier take on a feel-good, for when the weather gets cold and it's dark at 5:30pm:
Lazy-person's Less-Guilty Grilled Cheese and Soup:
I was in the mood for a creamy soup for weeks. And honestly, as much as I love to cook, and I love a good roasted tomato soup or a squash soup, I just did not feel like blending hot things to make this happen. Also, I have a bunch of soup in my pantry (including that old-school Campbell's condensed tomato soup). So one day this week, I was feeling kind of morose for no reason except that we're nearing winter, and I thought... what better pick-me-up than some grilled cheese and some tomato soup!
Also, the week before, I had gone to the market and bought the largest bunch of kale I've ever seen for less than $4, and had already used well more than half of it, but still had a freezer bag full of stemmed, chopped kale. And you could tell it was starting to go a bit. So I thought: "Of course! Kale should be in my soup!"
Also, I add Crushed Red Pepper and regular Ground Black Pepper to 97% of my food.
On top of that, my parents go to Costco often, and my mom and I have worked out a game plan where we split a lot of things (I either take half or one-third) because neither her and my father, nor myself, can ever finish an entire sized anything from Costco on our own. So I have just this ridiculous collection of light swiss cheese slices and laughing cow cheese in my fridge right now. And this helped me finally finish off one bag (of multiple) of light Swiss cheese slices.
Oh and I have sprayable fake butter because sometimes I am tired and don't want to dirty a knife...
By the way, did you know: Sandwich Thins, if you love sandwiches, are your diet best friend.
So in the end, here are the lazy ingredients:
- Sandwich Thins (1 "roll" (is that the quantifier for a sandwich thin?))
- 1 can Campbell's tomato soup (condensed)
- Sprayable butter
- Leftover greens (kale in my case)
- Crushed red pepper (to taste)
- Ground pepper (to taste)
- 2 slices light Swiss cheese.
Cook the can of soup on your stove top as it instructs, add in your greens for simmering, pepper to your tastes. Meanwhile, split open your sandwich thin roll. Flip the two halves into a plate so the insides of the roll are facing up. Spray with butter concept. Place one slice, buttered side down, in a pan. Arrange on your cheese. Place the other slice of sandwich thin butter side up. When the cheese starts to melt, flip. Eat. Dip in soup.
Decidedly, the tricks to making grilled cheese with a sandwich thin:
- I should have found round-sliced provolone because sandwich thins are circular. But I had rectangular-sliced Swiss cheese, so just note, you get a little but of cheese spillover.
- When you open up your sandwich thin, use the official outsides (the rougher pocked sides) as the insides of your grilled cheese (where the cheese goes). Spray the softer, flatter, smoother side of the sandwich thins with the fake butter and use that side for grilling. It comes out more even and happier that way.
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