Another Week Down

Posted on 20 May, 2013 by Renée

What a week!
What a weekend!

Where do I even start? Everything about my life seems like such a blur at times. I know. It’s getting boring. I’m saying the same things over and over.

So I’m still off and feeling a bit discombobulated. I’m not eating well (still) but I’m not eating completely off the rails either.

What I wanted to do was start over again, fresh. Be more aware of my diet and do my best to stay within those so-called calorie guidelines. I made a HUGE effort. For three days. Three. Well, it seemed huge at the time.

So last year I was fighting my way to get under 80KG and I did it, I lost a couple of kilos and thought “never again” – but I’ve said those words before (when I lost 30 KG a long time ago and gained it all back anyway) and here I am, weighing in again at 81.6KG (Tuesday’s weight).

I want to say something right here, right now though… the number on the scale is such a tiny factor in my life now. I’m happy about that. Yes I would like to lose weight but it’s just not as important as everything else.

Anyway.

So Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday were in line with calorie goals and I even went to the gym twice. I logged everything. But yeah, I wouldn’t be honest with you if I were to not tell you that I’m simply bored with all of that calorie counting stuff. I’m not saying one shouldn’t count calories. I’m not saying that one shouldn’t use a program like Weight Watchers to help them along. What I am saying, for ME, MY opinion, MY life, I’m just bored, bored, bored. Paleo. Not Paleo. Carbs. No Carbs. How many calories? How many did I burn? How many steps did I take? Oh bloody hell enough already. This is what people ~~who don’t worry about their weight~~ ~~, who don’t care~~ who aren’t obsessed about their weight think when they hear all of us unfortunates rambling on and on about weight loss, calories in and out, etc. Enough already.

Don’t get me wrong. What I’m just trying to say is, there must be some point where we just stop this madness, right? Where it’s just natural? Where we just grab a bowl of yoghurt and cereal and it’s not 7x the normal portion for both, that it’s just “right”? That stopping when full is just what you do? I am at that point. I want to just “be”, naturally.

And maybe I’m just supposed to be somewhere hovering around 80KG and who gives a flying backend of a rat if the charts tell me I’m overweight?

The fact is, I’m a very healthy and fit Forty-four year old. I’m probably fitter than I was when I was Thirty-four. Or maybe not. But it doesn’t matter. I’m ok. I’m good even.

All right. Let me show you something. This means more to me than the scale number:

my “painting” jeans

About 6 years ago we painted our apartment for the last time, that is until last week when we redid the hallways. I went to put on my painting clothes but there was no way I was going to paint in these pants! In fact, they didn’t even stay up longer than about 5 minutes. I had to wear an older pair of sweat pants instead.

And these jeans were also already smaller than my biggest jeans ever (a size up – these are 18W’s for reference). Clearly I was still in an ok place as far as my weight goes.

Unfortunately I have to remain cognizant of my choices and remember that eating crunchy veggies and fruit is always going to be a better choice than crisps or sticking my head in the candy jar at work, but isn’t that logical anyway?

Moving on

This weekend was fabulous. Saturday I was in Rotterdam for a surprise birthday party for my friend Tammy which in and of itself was amazing. On top of that I also got to see friends I haven’t seen in person for so long and it was just truly wonderful to be surrounded by that friendship. She’s been going through a really rough time with infertility so I hope that we lifted her spirits enough to keep her going for a little while longer while she and her husband continue treatments.

Yesterday I was in Amsterdam for the Nike Ladies We Own the Night 10K, originally planned with my friend Patricia, who is my running partner these days (next weekend as well on the Colour Run)

and ended up that my friend Lisa was also running and her very first 10K!! She’s been working very hard at weight loss and recently picked up running so this was an amazing experience for her! Joanna was also there and as usual we only managed to meet up somewhere around 3K on the course! For once we also caught each other afterwards as well!

I liked the course a lot but I have three complaints to the organisation:

1) No real food and drink available for the supporters – hubs and P’s boyfriend basically had no dinner because there was nothing available once we got started. even the bar shut down at 9pm.
2) The catwalk into the Westergasfabriek was a great idea but not executed well. As many of us came speeding around the corner to the finish we had to stop abruptly once entering the building. This isn’t a good way to run. There was a total bottle neck and took an additional 10-15 minutes to get down to the stage to receive our “bling”
3) speaking of “bling” – really Nike? A string? a string bracelet in the packet and then another at the end? Surely you could do better than that (seriously, folks, not even worth photographing)

I did the race for fun, and my Garmin told me it was 9.83KM and not 10KM but here’s the official results:

Afterwards it took forever but we finally had the beloved beer and fries afterwards and made it home around 2am. Yawn. Thank dog we didn’t work today!

We also went to visit friends today – he is also a runner and was originally supposed to run with Hubs today (apparently he messed up his back and Hubs is in pain still from his accidental Half Marathon last week… brought to him by a terrible sense of direction) and she is a fellow expat whom I met through Tammy. It was night to just hang out and chat and drink coffee.

Reality is upon me. It’s 9pm and there are dishes to be done and laundry to be put away. As per usual I’m putting off the inevitable by writing a blog post instead. I still have no plan for next week. No food ideas (fresh out). Well, guess it’s another 5am start then to whip up some healthy meals for tomorrow at least!

Are you burnt on on calorie counting? fresh out of food ideas? struggling for a real training plan? Please tell me I’m not alone!!

Week 3 Update

Posted on 10 February, 2013 by Renée

This week has been Cray Cray.

I mean seriously. Between work, running and gym I have zero time left over. I’m trying to make it work, you know, but I’m burning the candle at both ends!

For week 3 I needed 4 runs, 1 cross training day and 2 rest days.

Monday – this was a treadmill run at the gym again. I’m feeling pretty ok about treadmill runs, they are much easier when it comes to continuing at a certain speed (i.e. faster) than outside running. Who knew I would be less of a hater? Although I kind of messed this one up; I should have done 10 min at 10KPH and 4 Fartleks for 1 min at 12.5KPH but I only ended up doing 3 fartleks. I don’t know what happened except maybe I didn’t set the right time on the TM.

Tuesday – GRIT class and 20 min on the bike. I have been leaving work early just to get to this class and while I really like it and think it’s great for cross training, it’s also very frustrating. I am just not up to speed on proper pushups and while my burpees are getting better (I can do the three sets in the beginning of the class), nearer the end of the class I just tend to collapse instead of jumping back up out of the burpee. Not going to give up, just need to keep pushing through.

Wednesday – I worked from home so that I could either go outside to do my intervals, or go to the gym early. Well neither of those things happened, we ended up going to the gym fairly late and I had to cut my run short. It should have been 7 x 800 at D2-D3 and 3 min walking in between each interval, but I ended up with 5 x 800.

Thursday – RECOVERY RUN. AHHHHHHH… it feels good just to run normally. OUTSIDE. Went with my colleague and he was like the speed of light while I trudged along miles behind him. Still. Great run. 4.65 tiny little kilometres.

Friday – REST day! I did this on purpose so I could go out with friends Thursday after work. I was exhausted Friday. Going out kills me.

Saturday – sort of a rest day. We went ice skating with friends. It was HILARIOUS. I think between Tammy and I we must have tried 57 different pairs of skates until we found a pair that fit. The rink was GREAT, we all liked it more than the one we went to in January, but the skates were AWFUL. Time to buy our own skates I guess, but is that another sport I want to be participating in??? You kind of have to in this country.

I also cooked quite a bit this week – Wednesday I made a paleo chicken casserole, which was ok, but I’m going to play with the recipe a bit to pimp it up. Then I made paleo pumpkin pancakes. I did quite a few Kale salads. I made my paleo pumpkin courgette hummus. Oh and the larabars, which are delish. I also prepped quite a bit yesterday for the week – I have at least 3 lunches ready to go and lots of cut up veggies.

I am really loving the fitbit – not only the sleep data but how it’s actually keeping me on track with my food! I am now almost 100% convinced that I was not eating enough. I have been actually not eating enough for a long time and this is why it’s so hard to lose weight. It sounds crazy but honestly, at least for me, it’s true; don’t eat enough, don’t lose weight!!

I started Week 4 today with an 11K run – 65 min at D1 and 10 min at D2. Today we went outside. It snowed yesterday but it was perfect running weather today. I roped Hubs into doing the Bridge loop I was doing before I did the Bruggenloop in Rotterdam in December:

The run went really well. Except of course the last 10 minutes that I have to do faster which I just can’t do all in one go when not on the treadmill! I’m not unhappy with it, it was a gorgeous day for running, even if it was a wee bit cold and windy. I love my Sunday runs – I look forward to them all week!

I have some other news…

Thursday I was surprised with the news that I have been selected to go on this year’s Origin Trip! Each year a group of colleagues goes to one of the countries that we have the privilege to source our coffee from and this year the destination is Rwanda!! I don’t normally brag a lot but I actually believe when people say to me “You deserve this!”. I may be in financial administration for my “normal” job, but all of the stuff that I get to do outside of that is what makes me get up in the morning and go to work each day. I love where I work but more than that I love the coffee, the story of coffee, what love and hard work goes into getting those beans to our roasting plant, the care that goes into roasting and the delivery of that gorgeous cup of coffee to the customer. I spend a lot of extra time teaching others what passionate partners have taught me and to actually go to one of the coffee growing countries and see for myself what it’s all about is just an absolute dream come true. I don’t know many details except it’s likely happening around 15th of April. So, stay tuned. When I know more, I’ll post more.

How was your week? Are you training for anything?

How about this – have you ever been to Africa???

Oh Wow.

Posted on 18 January, 2013 by Renée

It’s like a freaking ghost town in here, man

It’s already January 18th! How did this happen??

Well. I will tell you how.

New Years Came and Went. I had to work. That’s right. I work in financial admin and end of the month is end of the month. Bookkeeping stops for no man! Sure it sucks but don’t worry, blog friends, I get the time compensated. That whole festive feeling? Yeah, I didn’t quite have it.

The Holidays are busy times for all of us. Here in the Netherlands we have Sinterklaas, then Christmas, then New Years. In addition to that, my husband’s birthday is on the 12th pf January, then my stepson’s the 30th and the stepdaughters the 12th of Feb. I am broke my mid-February as you can imagine!

I was feeling pretty homesick around the beginning of December and I know it has a lot to do with wanting to see my Grandmother (she is 90, has Alzheimers and is living in a care facility near my dad), but also the holidays were kind of dramatic this year and while I won’t divulge too much, let’s just say celebrating here is more complex and, well, different than at home. And the atmosphere isn’t the same. There are no snow-capped mountains and the smell of juniper and pinon burning in neighbours’ fireplaces. There are no luminarias. No posole or bizcochitos. I know it’s not about food or lights or whatever, it’s about being with the ones you love. For me it just doesn’t work out the way I envision. No matter how I try. In any case I’ve decided next Christmas and New Year I will be in New Mexico proving most likely that the grass isn’t always greener, but, hey, I’ll get that out of my system once and for all.

Work has been stressful, even still; a lot of work to be done and not enough people. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t travel 130KM each way to work for almost 6 years now if I didn’t love my employer and my colleagues. Add a few other dynamic elements to the mix and that led to quite a lot of stressful days, emotional reactions, and, yes… chocolate.

I ended the year just under 80 kilos – just under at 79.8 I believe – which is still a slight improvement from the year(s) before, but at some point in 2012 I saw the number 77 and remember keeping my squeals of delight to a minimum to not wake up the entire neighbourhood. I know what I’m doing wrong. I know how to stop it. I just don’t.

So here we are. January 18th, 2013. I was the cook for my husband’s birthday party last weekend which meant total control over what went into the food and let me tell you, it was a huge success. Everyone loved my no-bean hummus and veggies, my lean meatballs and falafel and very low fat garlic sauce to fill up little pita breads. You know what I did though? I forgot to eat enough and ended up with a huge hangover! I haven’t had a hangover like that for years! Running and training has sort of “wrecked” (I’m not complaining) my drinking nights and I just forgot what that old life felt like! For the first time in aaaaaaages I didn’t run on a Sunday. That didn’t feel very good at all.

Food has been a total challenge so far this month. December saw quite a few old habits rearing their ugly heads – bread, rice, cookies, cake… well you know what the holidays are like. Don’t you love that excuse? I wanted a fresh start but I’m feeling uninspired. I’m lacking that drive I normally have to do the right things, as much as possible, when it comes to food. I don’t have desire for anything so I’m just stuffing everything in. I’m still tired, sad, bored, frustrated, missing home (odd, after 18 years of living in another country), wishing I could seemingly be like all those other people in the world who can just eat and do (or do not) anything they want. Poor me. Pity Party Table for One. Preferably in the Corner, thanks.

On the other hand, fitness has been pretty good! But I believe it was Tara who said “you can’t out-exercise a bad diet”. Too right, darlin. You can’t. However, So far I’ve run 38 Kilometers and amazingly BIKED 40 Kilometers in just 18 days. Biked. In the cold and snow. AND I’ve been to the gym 3 times. I actually went to the new GRIT class -and if you know me, you know that I am deathly fearful/ intimidated by classes – I want to do more and try more and experience more this year!

Speaking of which – I have a few things lined up already:
10 MARCH – DUNEA 10K RUN in Den Haag
21 APRIL – SHERPA LADIES 10K, SPIEREN VOOR SPIEREN CITY RUN in Hilversum (did this last year with Samantha)
15 SEPTEMBER – LEONTIEN LADIES RIDE in Rotterdam. Very excited to be doing this with Penny and Tammy!

and the one I’m most preparing for right now -
Berlin Half Marathon – 7 April! I said I would never do this again but I’m going to do this again. This time not just for me, a prepared me, a me who doesn’t compare to others, but also to a cause – I’m going to be raising money for the National Epilepsy Funds here locally in the Netherlands.

Well, I say most preparing for… mentally that is… I still don’t have a real training plan but I think I better get on that ASAP!

So yeah. Being blasé about food and my diet in general needs to stop. Back to focusing again. Feels much, much better when I focus (on a side note, I *am* going home on the 17th of February for a week so I can see my grandmother!! And be home!!! Even if just a week).

What an Odd Week

Posted on 7 October, 2012 by Renée

This week was so strange. Good and bad it was just really all over the place. Most of the stress and “bad” came from work – I can’t say too much about it but I’ve gone through probably the hardest thing I’ve had to go through so far in my career, besides when I was made redundant and sent home only to not find work for 6 months. I have been a people manager for a little over 3 years and I’ve definitely learned a lot from the experience, so I guess what happened this week was just another thing to tick off my list.

Since I started off the month with goals, the bad was compensated with good – on Monday I went to the gym (this wasn’t even the most stressful day) and it helped me tremendously to have a release – the pain in my neck and shoulders from the tension was beyond anything I’d felt before and for a short period, it was gone.

Tuesday was the “worst” day. I was all over the place mentally. I just didn’t focus well at all (and I found out later that this had a big effect on my work) because I knew I had to handle something major. By the time I got home, luckily the hubs had made dinner and I was able to put together my Wednesday blog post (see? I’m trying!).

Wednesday was aftermath day at work. It felt so slow and I was quite discombobulated again. I was tired and stressed and knew I had to just make it through the day. Once it was over with I left the office with my gym bag again, this time with my running gear inside. I changed at the station and hopped on a train home. Hubs sent me a message “I don’t think you’ll want to run, it’s raining.” I sent one back “please bring me my pink Nike jacket and my black cap, rain won’t hurt me.” And so he did. When I arrived it was in fact raining but I really needed that run. I ran more than I’d planned (5K), 7.5KM in total and the rain felt so invigorating! Call me crazy but rain running is just so refreshing and as long as there is no lightening and I’m properly dressed then bring on the precipitation!

On Thursday I worked from home. I needed to do complete my team’s performance evals and with everything going on in the office I had to have some time on my own to do this. First thing I found out in the morning was that something I *didn’t* complete on Tuesday morning caused a HUGE problem and delay with our financial year-end close. I know it’s ok to make mistakes, but I remember bursting into tears thinking “How could I be so stupid!???” I am glad that 1) my boss wasn’t cross with me for it and 2) it was solvable and didn’t have an impact on the actual close itself. But still. I hate that I let stress get the better of me and that it caused a huge issue. I worked quite hard on the reviews, but didn’t eat properly and then ended up eating stuff I wouldn’t normally have and consuming way too many non value added calories.

Friday was another day of fun. All those reviews I wrote? Now it was time to deliver. I admit that this is not my favourite part of the job, although some go very well and it’s good to have a dialogue, the ones that don’t go well are too close to confrontation and defensiveness. The thing is, I know it helps me grow, each time I get through it, it’s just, well, hard. I had my gym bag and I went again to the gym after work. It felt very good once again to get rid of some stress.

On Saturday I finally got some seriously needed sleep and eventually I went into town, alone, to attempt to go shopping. One thing I really would like is to stop looking like such a raggamuffin all the time. I just don’t like shopping, I do it terribly alone and I end up being really frustrated about the whole thing. I don’t understand sizing or styles at all. I don’t think that we as curvy girls should be stuck with the trends of the non-curvy girls. I ranted a bit about it:

I felt a bit better when the responses came in, especially that others know how this feels and that it has an emotional impact. I did end up with a few things and I may give it another shot next weekend. We’ll see. I want to say though, I don’t normally have a lot of hate for my body anymore, I HAVE come a long way from that, but seriously, I wish I could just have a better experience and I don’t think that any store out there will be catering to my body type, at least not a shop I can afford (and, I am sorry, but I don’t want to shop at the Fat City type shops. I spent years and years in those clothes and I feel like I deserve to have more choice right now – for those of you in North America, you have so much more choice; we have like 3 shops and that’s it!)

Today again I was able to sleep in, yay! I love it when I get to sleep on the weekends, it really makes up for the 6 hours per night I get during the week! I decided at 12 I was going for a run, and in true “It’s Me vs. Me” fashion it took me forever to finally get everything together to go and do it (2 hours):

Because we all know that a 30 minute run actually takes about 3 hours once you talk yourself into, change, check twitter, retalk yourself into it, strap on your electronics, check twitter, fill your water bottle, warmup, run, cooldown, check twitter, pass out, stretch, check twitter, shower and change.

(go see Thea if you haven’t yet, she is über-cool)

At 2pm I left with about 10KM in mind. It was a glorious day with the exception of two girls in a bus at the bus stop staring at me while I was getting sattelite on my Garmin and then basically sticking their tongue out at me when the bus finally departed, I felt good. (But really, WTAF was their problem??? No idea!) I wanted to run along the dyke and the farmland near my apartment and then go up to Velp (a couple KM away) near my old gym, then loop back around to my house (which is about 3.5KM from the gym). Somehow or another I took the wrong bike path which didn’t lead me to Velp at all… and I noticed I was already almost at 7KM so it was going to be at least 14KM total at that point (since, well, I’d have to turn around and go back). But the sun was shining and my legs felt great and breathing was good. The views were spectacular and I couldn’t help but just smile. I walked 1 kilometer at 7KM to take a few pics and drink some of my Fitmixer (which is amazing stuff you guys, and let me tell you I’m not getting anything for saying that and once mine is finished, it’s finished… I only have the sample given to me at Fitbloggin and I won’t be able to get any more here as they don’t ship internationally) before I headed back again. So basically my run was this:

1 KM walking / warm-up
6 KM running
1 KM walking
6 KM running
1 KM walking / cool down

I could have gone on with my energy level the way it was but my feet were actually starting to hurt (I think I need different socks) so it was good that I arrived home when I did.

It was my turn to cook dinner, so while I was doing that I did three lunches up in the oven (post on Weds) and started making the enchiladas I promised the hubs. Somewhere around 45 minutes into cooking, my stomach really started bothering me. I posted on twitter and was reminded about chocolate milk. Unfortunately I don’t have a lot of milk products ever in the house, but I did have Turkish Yoghurt so decided to try that. It did help a wee bit and then with dinner it eventually calmed down.

At the risk of making this post even longer, I’ll just say that food was all over the place this week. I’m not sure why it seems harder to keep it under control compared to a couple months ago, but I just need to keep working at it. It is my goal to log every day and close out my food journal daily at MFP, even if I’m over in numbers, just to that I’m accountable and I did accomplish that this week but look at this:

Mind you the 1st is wrong, I’ve no idea why that happened -

Monday was total 1573 with 364 cals burned from exercise

Basically my goal for each day should be 1440 calories. This can go up if I work out so, fair enough, some days are higher. But some days are just really high, regardless. I want to fix that. I eat when I’m hungry so I tend to eat exercise cals (at least some) but this week has just been, well, a bit outrageous. Time to fix that.

So yeah, stress, food, exercise, a lot happened but a lot still needs to be done. Let’s see what the new week brings!

How was your week? Do you like to run in the rain? Do you eat your exercise calories or activity points?

Wednesday Food Fest: looks like bleep to me!

Posted on 29 August, 2012 by Renée

One of the things I really have wanted to do lately was try out a new recipe, dare I even say it, once a week. I should already tell you I’m one of those cooks – you can give me a few ingredients and I can probably whip up something tasty but don’t actually ask me to read AND follow a recipe.

Even so I spend tons of money and time with cookbooks, websites, blogs and pinterest thinking “that looks great! I should make that!” and yet I just don’t follow through.

Since I made a bit of a change in February even hubs has does his best to take a recipe and carefully trim down the oil or amount of meat so that it still fits into the daily plan. He’s switched to coconut oil instead of olive and even eats cauliflower instead of rice or gluten-free pasta. So basically hubs has made more of an effort than I have to make new things and try different recipes!

I bring you to my blog title now…

Whilst in New Mexico I picked up several different nutritional bars, most GF and Vegan, some only gluten-free. I’ve never tried Lärabars or Raw Revolution but I’m way impressed. I mentioned it a few times on Twitter and my friend Tammy pointed out that I COULD MAKE MY OWN!! She sent mea few links and I decided it was time to make the effort.

I got my recipe here

As far as ingredients go, it’s really quite simple. The main ingredient is dried fruit, namely dates. I don’t generally eat dates (they remind me of cockroaches!!!) but I bought a package at my health food store, a giant bag of almonds and some Fair-trade cocoa powder – the other ingredient, shredded coconut, I already had at home. Four ingredients, how hard could it be?

Well. First of all I failed to read the package before I put the dates in the food processor. After a few minutes it actually smelled like it was burning and the little Cuisinart was shaking like crazy. I emptied the contents in a larger bowl (this included the almonds) and added my coconut and two tablespoons of cocoa powder. I was mixing with my hands so I thought I would try to stir it with a spatula… well, that wasn’t the best idea… not only did I break my spatula, the top bit flew off with a bunch of cocoa powder along with it. It was a wonderful comedy of errors and I couldn’t help but laugh hysterically. Hubs heard a lot of commotion and came in to find me laughing with tears streaming down my face and mess EVERYWHERE.

And the dates… what I failed to read was that they still had the pits in them. No wonder the poor Cuisinart was struggling to grind! I literally had to go through and pull ALL the stones out of my mixture before I could make the bars. So far the end result has not revealed any forgotten pits.

So, how did they turn out?

What a Lärabar looks like:

What mine look like:

Like poop!
(I contemplated putting one in the toilet today at work. Yes, I’m a 12 year old boy)

They taste GREAT though I can tell you that!!

Have you ever tried to make your own type of nutrition bar?

Wednesday Food Fest

Posted on 22 August, 2012 by Renée

As I’m trying to bring more life to the blog I thought I would try to have at least one regular post per week. I have a pretty busy life and I know I’m not alone; we are all trying our best to eat well and be healthy AND come up with new ideas for meals at the same time. I keep finding recipes I want to try (and don’t ) and while my food is pretty much the same week after week I do try to change things up from time to time.

I really love leftovers since I changed up my diet a few months ago. I also love taking a bit of “gravy” or even fat and juice from the previous evening meal and then use it on something else. For example, Monday night the hubs made roasted chicken and potatoes for dinner and it was absolutely divine. There was quite a bit of gravy left over so I took three frozen chicken breasts (at 100g each) and basically marinated them in the juice all night. The chicken I buy in a box of 5 as I find it extremely handy to have and it’s the exact portion I want.

Tuesday morning I took the chicken and put it in the roasting pan, chopped up two half bell peppers and some sweet potato, added some sea salt and 1tbsp of olive oil and threw it in the oven. While that was busy I then steamed some broccoli and prepped the rest of my food for the day (including what I make for hubs daily). Here is the result:

I can’t tell you just how satisfying it is to have a meal like this at lunch time. I have very long days and on a day like Tuesday – I went running directly after I arrived at my home station – this meal gets me pretty much through the entire afternoon. Now I also have two other pieces of chicken to use this week, maybe in a salad or for breakfast. Whatever floats the boat at the time :)

What are your favorite meals for during your work week?
Do you plan ahead?
Use leftovers to create a new meal?
Do you get up early each morning or cook huge batches of food in the weekend?

Vacation Part II – Eat, drink, stay Healthy!

Posted on 6 August, 2012 by Renée

OK we all know what it’s like…

we go on vacation

especially “back home”

and there is SO MUCH good stuff to eat! Especially in New Mexico!

I mean COME ON!! “Red or Green?”

Let’s not forget all the places I wanted to go:
Blake’s Lotaburger (green chile cheeseburgers)
Dairy Queen (chili cheese dogs)
Sonic (Sonic burger #4, cheese tots, and a large cherry lime)
Krispy Kreme (do I need to say more?)
Any dodgy looking taco house
Any dodgy looking BBQ house

the list goes on!

The reality is, all that stuff above, that made me fat. At least that sent me on my WAY to being fat. That was the time of slight gluttony, of throwing caution to the wind, of eating now and caring later. Honestly, I wanted that stuff. I really did.

And I did have some of that stuff. But I had the chili dog, no bun and a kiddie blizzard. I had a cheeseburger with a GF bun, I had the tacos, no sides. And then I did this stuff:

and then I did a LOT of this:

Other than that I also down to Starbucks to meet my brother (a mile down and back up the hill) – no big deal right, but it was 100 degrees F and my entire family was like “WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU!? TAKE THE CAR!” and another day whilst in Scottsdale (110 degrees F) we walked 1.5 mile down to the breakfast place and back. No biggie, gotta earn those Huevos Rancheros!

So my friends, indulge. Have fun. Enjoy! But be responsible. And make sure you have some ice cream too :)

Leontien Ladies Ride Raalte

Posted on 17 June, 2012 by Renée

Well I’ve got a lot of catching up to do! May and June have just been nuts, but I guess you guys wouldn’t expect anything less of me right?

After the glorious, warm, sun-filled weekend we had at the end of May, I would have thought that the first weekend in June would have shown us a nice time as well. Unfortunately it was not the case.

On Sunday morning I was (or I should say “we” ) up bright and early drive to Raalte, which is in the province of Overijssel (I live in Gelderland), not too far from us, but I’d say about an hour. It was already raining and the forecast wasn’t really showing anything better. I really hate complaining about weather, because, yeah, what can you do about it, but I was not really looking foward to cycling in the rain for 4 hours. So I made a little plea to the Universe on Facebook to at least compromise with me and give me a couple of dry hours.

Once we arrived it seemed like rain was definitely going to be the weather du jour, so I sucked it up and made my way to pick up my starters pack and tee shirt. If there is something I DON’T like about these types of events, it’s the chaos of picking up your pack. I personally prefer to have everything sent to me so that I’m organised on the day. My experience is (and mind you, it’s only in the Netherlands really so tell me if yours is different in another country), people don’t queue well. Or rather, people don’t really queue at all. So there’s a lot of pushing and shoving and people tending to butt into the line when you’ve already been waiting for 15 minutes. So yeah, Leontien, take note and send us the packets like you did last year thankyouverymuch.

Once I was ready I wanted to head to my starting area, which was… where? Seemed like so few people in the area deemed as the “long ride” section that I went over to the “short ride” because it seemed more likely. Not the case at all! Quickly back through my section and I can hear the announcer talking about us starting like any minute so I just went up to the starting line to take off! It happened so fast that Hubs didn’t even have a chance to see me start (he was still walking towards the front).

What else can I tell you? It rained. And rained. I don’t think I really enjoyed it as much as I could have because to be honest I was just trying to get through it. The area is nice, went through lots of forests and farmlands and ended up break area just about at the time I thought I would be there. Next bit of fun was waiting in the queues for the toilets. In the rain. And of course the “free lunch” is sandwiches, which I no longer do, so I had my own stuff with me and continued on as soon as I could (there was an espresso bar there, but you had to pay for it and I had NO CASH with me. seriously? they could have let us cold ladies have a cup of coffee!! this saddened me greatly).

As if the universe decided we did in fact have enough, it stopped raining for the second part of the trip! Total time was just over 4 hours and it was 65KM and NOT 70 as expected.

I have to say I was glad to be finished with it. I could have just cancelled all together but I really hate signing up for something and then not following through. Once I finished, hubs found me pretty quickly and we then got ready for the next part of our day (I would have preferred it being laying on the couch) – the BBQ Birthday Party for my mother-in-law. Before we arrived I’d warmed up a bit, had some beverages and some chocolate (mmmmmmm… ) so I was ready for the party. Several bits of meat later and some nice conversation, I was well and truly ready to go home and SLEEP.

Would I do the Ladies Ride again? Yes. I think I’ll wait until the second one though in hopes that the weather will be nicer. Usually that is Rotterdam, so, fingers crossed I can rope in a few friends for that one next summer (hint: Tammy, Penny… ).

Hmmm. This May Be Working.

Posted on 5 April, 2012 by Renée

After more than 2 long years of nothing happening in the weight loss department, it seems I have had some success for more than a few weeks in a row. I haven’t noted all results here on the blog, but I have been tracking on My Fitness Pal:

Interesting enough is that I started this “silly” Paleo thing in February and my first weigh-in (on home scale) was on the 23rd of Feb (the few weigh-ins prior to that were after I’d started at the new gym). As you know, in the beginning I was struggling to find my way, struggling with the concept of not eating grains – rice, bread, pasta – but after several attempts, and several chats with my PT there is a clear path of moving downwards. Check this out:

Translation:

lengte – height
gewicht – weight
BMI
BMR
Vet% – Fat Percentage
Vet Mass – Fat Mass
Vetvrije Massa – Fat Free Mass
Lichaamsvocht – Body Moisture
Ieasle Waarden – Ideal Values

I think all the numbers look quite interesting, especially the vat percentage change and the amount of kilos (fat mass). Then if you look at the Ideal Values, I’m actually close as far as Fat Mass goes, with being “normal”.

This is more convincing to me than just losing weight – of course we all know how much i would love to be under 80KG and dareIsayit I do think it may just be possible, but I’m most interested in being fit and reaching other goals than just the one on the scale. I want to be LEAN and FIT so not necessarily fitting into the “perfect weight” box with the actual amount of kilos in total.

For you food porn lovers, a few things I’ve eaten recently:

Chicken sausage. Goat’s cheese, mushrooms, red onion tomato, courgette

Turkey, bimi, light feta cheese, sundried tomatoes, bit of olive oil

Little omelet the hubs made for me

Cottage Cheese with cherry tomatoes, celery, spring onion, teaspoon olive oil

Cottage cheese with courgette, cherry tomatoes, avocado

Leftover meat (spaghetti) sauce with steamed broccoli and fresh parmagiana cheese

My famous tuna salad with romaine lettuce (I have this often, changing the veg or “salad” type, but always use a small tin or Rio Mare Italian tuna in oil)

A little snack: chicken, chorizo, celery sticks and mustard

I found this recipe and then changed it a wee bit by using Salmon instead of tuna and sun dried tomatoes instead of mango chutney. My vegetables used were string beans and broccoli with 2 teaspoons sesame seeds. So really I just used the recipe for an idea and it turned out really well yummy

And finally – recently I participated in Ali’s photo contest for Running With Spatulas – here’s me, well, “running” with spatulas (I didn’t win, boo, but I still love you Ali!!)

As far as exercise goes, finally a good workout yesterday at the gym but OMG do the kettlebells KILL!! Last week I ran once and cycled 35ish KM. Trying to just stay active but not overtain. Milan is not this weekend but next (!!!!), week after that I have a 10 K, one in May, 2 in June, and one in September! I’m excited to have a few races lined up!!

Why I’m Still At It

Posted on 28 March, 2012 by Renée

In February I signed up with a personal trainer. To be honest I am not sure that I am a better person for it. But fine, I signed the contract, I’m in for 3 – 4 months.

Part of the deal is that I give a specific diet a try even though I said several times I did not want to diet because I was sick of it being such a focus in my life when nothing ever changed. And, only three days in I was pretty much Bitchy McBitcherson and convinced I would not give it any further time or energy. I spoke to my PT about it, he helped me figure out how to work it into my life and schedule and so I carried on.

It’s something like 6 weeks later and nothing has really changed that much. At least not on the scale. Well, wait, that’s not the truth because I have seen 81.5 KG recently, which is a whopping 700 grams less than when I started the diet :) So, just weight wise, I’m not super convinced. I have NOT been 100% and I’m just putting that out there because I am fully aware that I can not blame the diet, the trainer, the candy jar, or anyone or thing else for ANYTHING except for myself.

As we have had a fairly rough start (he’s been ill and cancelled many appointments) I also don’t see a huge change in my body shape or fitness level. On Monday I went to my appointment and basically said “I want to get fit. I want to work out. I don’t want to diet.” However, I promised I would give it another 30 days with the weekdays being full on and shooting for under 1500 calories and the weekends being a bit more free and having bread if I want it (and I don’t eat much bread but Hubs makes it fresh and damn if that is not hard to pass up!), for example.

I did notice that after 3 weeks of no pasta, one night I decided I was just going to have it, I totally felt a difference in my digestion! My stomach was working VERY hard to process it! This was even whole wheat pasta, you know the stuff that is supposed to be good for you! Now I’m not going to tell anyone to throw out their pasta and rice but honestly, had I not gone without it, I wouldn’t have known. I also had rice a couple of times and noticed a slight tinge, but not as bad. As for dairy, I still have a wee bit, but again I never really had much milk for example, and was limited on cheese. I tried coconut milk on my cereal (well muesli – and on this plan I have TWO carb meals a day and FOUR protein/veg/fat meals) and I LOVED it! So, score on replacing some dairy. Goat’s cheese is fine, cottage cheese is fine, kwark and greek yoghurt is fine too (as a protein though, so NO fruit or sugars with it, I’ll pass thanks). Yoghurt is fine but it’s a carb, so I have it with fruit (preferably berries, totally skipping my banana for the time being).

The change we’ve now made is to have only ONE carb meal a day and replace the other with or a little protein or just munching on veggies. That’s fine, I am prepping a load of veggies on the weekend and then just taking little baggies with me. I’m eating so many vegetables, it’s kind of insane. Like at least a kilo. I feel LESS hungry than before I was eating this way.

I am getting a little bit bored with what I have so I’ve actually bought a cook book called Well Fed and I’ve been listening to Robb Wolf‘s Podcasts of the Paleo Solution. I like the science behind the solution, but I do not think I could fully avoid grains, dairy, legumes and potatoes the rest of my life. I do think I could sustain quite a lot of the plan, simply because I feel pretty good at the moment.

I also feel good because Operation Get Enough Sleep is actually working out quite well and that has a lot to do with the supplements that my PT recommended – namely Magnesium Citrate and Melatonin. I am also going to be picking up some Vitamin D soon (even with sun you can be deficient) and I take Valerian from time to time when I feel my stress levels rising. So actually food, plus exercise, plus sleep, plus less stress actually is not a bad deal. It really shouldn’t be able the scale, even though I am still officially overweight. I’m going to say it again, I don’t want it to be my focus, it doesn’t create a good feeling for me.

More food on the paleo front:
Chicken jalfreezi with sauteed courgette

Chicken sausage with mushrooms and spinach

And look I’m still running, in fact hubs started running with me again!

{run} {laugh} {eat pie}

amazing what changes when you start to run

Tag Archives: food