Old Jeans (with photos)

This week has been another slow and steady week.  No illicit snacking at the office combined with my regular meals and workouts (including a visit from Mr. Fitness) have combined for a loss of just over half a pound.  It would have been more, but for the debauchery of last Friday's street housewarming party, for which I was paying most of the week.

We had another housewarming party this Friday for friends and coworkers, but this time I managed to keep my snacking impulses in check.  Not only that, I tracked what I consumed, which made it easier to stay on the right path.  Still, temptation abounded, and I was lucky that my hostessing duties kept me pretty distracted (we had 42 people over) otherwise it could have been another snack food disaster.

This weekend has been hugely social, with the housewarming, coffee/shopping with the matriarch, a book signing for one of the Nerd's hockey buddies, and then a 40th birthday party BBQ for another friend.  I kept snacking to a minimum at the latter because the hosts, while lovely people, let their 2-year old lick all the fruit, crackers, and cheese and then put them back on the trays, so there was no way of knowing what food was safe and what food had boy cooties.  Better safe than sorry, I say, so I avoided it all.  I have no problem with boy cooties generally, but I am choosy as to the source.

On a completely unrelated note, in preparation for our big house move I spent a lot of time beforehand cleaning out closets and cupboards of unwanted or unused things (the way one does before a move).  One thing I discovered was my blue jeans historical stash.  I had been keeping one pair of each size of jeans as they no longer fit.  Because I started at a size 26 you can guess that this amounts to a number of pairs of jeans between the starting pair and my current size 14s.

To say my current self is a mere shadow of the clown pants that I used to wear is an understatement.  Put another way:

Those are some - shall we say capacious - pants right there.

They all went to the Goodwill donation box during the move, but I'll always have the photo of the jean archive to help keep me on the straight and narrow during social weekends like these ...

A Challenging Week, but another NSV...

This week for some reason I went a bit off the rails with snacking, something I haven't done in quite a while.  But all is not lost - I had another NSV this week, so there's that!

I have noticed that I am more prone to do things like this - - engage in a minor blowout - - after hitting new milestones.  Last week I lost another pound to bring my total weight lost to 140.9 pounds, with the 180s (pounds, that is) only a hop, skip and a jump away.  It is only natural that I would find chocolate damn near irresistible under these circumstances, of course.  Sheesh - self-sabotage much?

The weekend started off positively enough, at a dinner party with friends after a 3-hour visit to the Metro Toronto Zoo.  It has been more than 10 years since I have been to the Zoo and it was a lot of fun.  With my improved fitness levels it was actually a pleasant enough walk around the various exhibits looking at the animals, rather than the grim death march that it would have been for me before I started working out. 

Echidna, Snow Leopard, Giant Panda and Red Panda [clockwise from top]

It was actually quite neat to see some of the animals out and about, especially ones known for hiding (like the Echidna) or sleeping (like the pandas and snow leopard).   I really enjoyed seeing all the exhibits we could, even though it was still a bit nippy out.  I was generally comfortable, but my hands got cold whenever I stopped to take photos, which was often.  My only regret is that we did not get to see the tigers, rhinos or giraffes, because by the time we reached those exhibits it was closing time and the animals had been taken off display for the evening. 
 
Trouble started at the dinner where I ate more than I intended, in part because our hosts had clearly gone to a lot of trouble to choose foods that the Nerd and I could eat.  Honestly, though, I just took a day off from good eating discipline. 

The trouble for me is that a day off is never just a single day off...it usually turns into two or three.  And so it was for me this week - - a couple of days of snacking, followed by an unplanned rest day, just in case the snacking wasn't sabotage enough. 

The good news though is that once I shook my head and got back into my routine it was easy enough to get back on track.  Mr. Fitness came to kick my ass on Thursday and we had a great session.  I learned how to do a clean and jerk, something I worked on again in my weekend weight session. Plus, we had fun passing and slamming a medicine ball around. 

Even better, the Nerd has figured out how to help me with food.  I have previously really struggled when my target daily calories has hit 1450 or lower, because many of our Jamie Oliver meals, although balanced and delicious, top out at 700+ calories.  This makes it almost impossible to eat under my target calories in a day and requires me to eat back some of my exercise calories.

This is always risky because estimates of calories burned are notoriously inaccurate, even with the heart rate monitor or pedometer, so I seldom eat back the full calories my workouts allegedly give me.

This week, coincident with me getting back on track (yet again!), the Nerd suggested arranging our meals into smaller portions.  Instead of making a recipe that serves 4 and portioning it into 4 servings, we are portioning it into 6 servings.  Bingo - instant calorie reduction, with a barely noticeable reduction in portion size.  We top up the meals with extra vegetables for bulk, and even with reducing the carbs in most meals I haven't felt deprived in the least. 

The combination of getting the snacking back under control, continuing my ass kicking workouts, and eating more manageable portions has brought be almost within spitting distance of last week's low weight, even after losing my mind with snacking this week.  I'll take that.

The food thing has always been (and I suspect will always be) my Achilles heel.  But I feel more optimistic about my ability to work with my nutrition plan now that we are consciously managing down our portion sizes.  This strategy should easily work until my calorie target gets down to 1,300 calories per day, which won't be a while yet.  Importantly, I don't feel so helpless to hit my calorie targets - - it feels like I can still eat reasonably and stay within my target numbers with our new portioning plan.  And that is a very good thing.

Now on to the NSV. 

I ordered some new workout clothes from Old Navy last week because I have been spending more time living in yoga pants and sports bras at home because of my 6x/wk workouts.  Girlie needs clothes to properly sweat in, after all. 

Along with the yoga pants and workout shirts I ordered a pair of button fly "boyfriend" jeans in size 14.  Given my - ahem - badonkadonk I expected that these would be aspirational jeans that would fit me in a month or so. 

For shits and giggles I put them on yesterday, just to see how far I was from fitting into them.  Yeah, so they were loose. (!!)  Now I understand that each pair of jeans is like a precious snowflake, and each style and manufacturer fits a little bit differently, so a size 14 in one style for one brand will not fit like a size 14 in another style or brand.  But the fact remains that I have a pair of button fly jeans that are size 14 that fit this girl, and that makes me very happy.

Sadly, I cannot wear these magical jeans to the office because they are distressed with holes in the knees (not appropriate for the Pop Factory's dress code, natch), but they are great kicking around jeans for weekends.  Also, super comfortable.  Added bonus - - I love button fly jeans. 

So this week has had a little bit of everything.  Some social activities, some good workouts, some bad eating, some food epiphanies, and some clothing wins.  All in all, a good week.

Tomorrow night the Nerd and I are having dinner with my old landlords, so I will have to do some menu planning tonight so that I keep more or less on track at the restaurant.