The Five Mishaps of Christmas

I absolutely LOVE Christmas.  I love going to Christmas Eve service, I start listening to Christmas tunes the day after Thanksgiving, and look forward to the chaos of the Biller family gatherings.  (I should never leave home without a video camera when attending such functions.)

What I forgot is how much I love the festive holiday food.  My goal is to lose 2 pounds during the holiday season but I believe that unless I cut off my left arm, I won't be reaching that goal.  In fact, I think I added another arm in the process.  Here are a few reasons why I think my goal wasn't a priority:

1. The annual ZPC meat and cheese tray, which was the beginning of the decline.  This monstrosity is normally delivered from a neighboring business the week before Christmas and I think it may be brought in by crane.  I was doing REALLY well until that thing arrived.  A co-worker of mine (who shall remain nameless so as not to shame him) and I pounced on that thing like the contestants that won a food reward challenge on Survivor.
2.  Christmas morning breakfast.  I'm such a sucker for bacon, eggs, fried potatoes, and coffee.  I was willing to deal with the pain. (Some of you may know that my body doesn't respond well to coffee and eggs.)
3.  John's birthday dinner at Domo.  Sushi can be really healthy, unless it's stuffed with cream cheese, rolled in batter and deep fried...all of which we had in every roll we ate. 
4.  My Aunt Kathy's cookie tray, which included peanut butter fudge, cookies stuffed with peanut butter cups, and powdered sugar-dusted shortbread cookies.  I think I can actually feel the butter clogging my arteries.
5.  The Peck family weekend extravaganza (which is this coming weekend).  We normally pick a food theme for dinner, and this year it's mexican.  Need I say more.

I'm not blaming anyone but myself for this fiasco.  I know that when I eat things that aren't good for me in large quantities that I will gain weight, that's just how it works people.  But I am looking forward to all of this food madness being over after New Year's weekend.  I can't wait to get back to some normalcy and consistency.  But I'm not gonna lie, I enjoyed every stinking bite!!  Guess that bikini is just going to have to wait a few weeks longer.  It's already waited 33 years, why not another 3-4 weeks. 

Updated Pics

The holidays haven't been so bad after all!! I'm feeling pretty good about reaching my goal (and I've still indulged a little in the festive munchies!)

Merry Christmas to all!!
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Minor Setbacks

So the holidays are proving to be a tougher time than I anticipated.  I didn't think that refined sugar would be such tough opponent, but alas, it is.  Today I got together with my Mom, aunt and cousin to make Christmas cookies using my Grandma Wilson's tried and true recipes.  (And I also bought a mix for gluten-free cutouts so my son could join in on the fun).

This is where it gets tricky.  I know in my head that eating one or two cookies isn't going to undo all of the hard work that I've put in, but my body feels like the stay puffed marshmallow man after eating the chocolate drop with buttercream icing.  This logic is totally in my thick nogin, but it is still a process that I am dealing with.  Another part that doesn't help is that I was sick over the past 4-5 days and I didn't get in my normal workouts, so in my head I'm thinking I've packed on about 18 pounds.  (I know that's not physically possible but that's how my shady little brain works.)

So tomorrow is Monday and back to the land of Boot Camp with the fabulous ladies in the class that I teach.  For some reason teaching this class puts me right back in a "healthy" mindset and makes eating healthy foods a whole lot easier.  So I'm going to go back to taking it one day, one meal at a time and only think about what is put in front of me each minute.  I know that I can make healthy choices and get to my goal, it's just a matter of DOING IT!!

Being Sick Bites the Big One!

Well hello again!  After taking a tiny sabbatical, I'm back to the land of blogging.  Nothing interesting kept me away, just plain old business and laziness.  I've been doing my daily workouts, eating pretty well (considering the bountiful supply of trash that surrounds me daily) and up until yesterday feeling pretty darn good.  Yesterday morning however, it felt like the devil took a seat on my head, shoved a fire hose up my nose and turned it on full blast.  Now it's like mass exodus with all of the stuff running out of my head...even my eyes are watering. 

I decided to take the morning off today from working out and switch my day off this week (it's normally Friday).  However I did welcome back my old friend Mr. Scale to see what his opinion is of my progress since the last time we saw each other.  (Now the scale is only sharing an opinion of my health. If I was five feet tall and weighed 200 pounds, I'd have a different take. At this point in my journey with all of the strength training and with my current eating habits I know that I'm on the right path and I just need to keep moving forward, even if the scale doesn't agree every week.)

Notice the freshly painted toes, finally!

Other than the massive head cold and Rudolf nose I'm sporting, I'm feeling pretty good about things.  I've lost a pound (half my goal during the festive season) and I've been keeping up with my workouts and good eating habits.  Bring on Christmas and New Year's!!