Music makes me dance in my chair

Yup, you heard me. Music makes me dance in my chair, at the office. And sometimes I make hand movements. And when I get really rambunctious, I throw my arms up in the air. Usually that fun little move is reserved for when I'm the only one at the office, but not always.

So as I think I've mentioned previously this week, I have NOT been working out. This week has been crazy busy with work and getting ready to go to California for the next week. I didn't really think I missed it, until I put on my headphones and started listening to my most recent and most favorite workout play list. (Thanks to my friend Megan for her "Mixed Tape" of great music) Man, I hate not working out for this long a period of time. It's been almost a full 2 weeks since I've been to the gym. That's disgusting. I had all these big plans for yesterday, but then there was too much to do at home in preparation for vacation. I can't wait to get out of here and have nothing to worry about, even if it is only for a week, so maybe I can start working out again.

I have all these amazing images of myself running through my parents neighborhood, listening to my ipod, just feeling the road.... yeah, it's probably not going to be as glorious as my imagination makes it look, but still, I can't wait.

Sweet Nector of the Gods

This afternoon at work we had a Christmas party. Whose brilliant idea was it to have everyone bring in Greek food, you might ask? Well that was MY great idea!! Yes, the food was amazing and in great supply. WHY is it that I overeat whenever I am eating somewhere other than my house? Interesting or completely absurd? Yeah, I say the latter of the two as well. But I loves me so greek food, so I ate. The food itself wasn't so bad, it was the small slice of pecan pie I had after and the bag of sweet chex mix that I also partake of and the bag of homemade toffee that I plan on partaking of later tonight. Ahhhh..... I hate the freaking holidays.


And kinda love them all at the same time.

Christmas Challenge: Week 12 Weigh In and Rants

Well holy crap ladies, it has been a rough ride these last few weeks. I am STRUGGLING to get back to eating clean and healthy, especially when my friend gives me a whole bag of homemade toffee and I worked until 9 without dinner. Oops, the bag is gone. I ate the WHOLE thing in one day! My weigh in was pitiful. I lost .2 lbs last week. And to be quite honest, I'm shocked that I did even that! It'd been a week full of chocolate covered nuts and other office goodies. This week has been a little better, except for the aforementioned bag of toffee. Although I haven't been able to get to the gym because I've been at work until 10 the past 2 nights. And it looks like tonight will be a repeat performance. But tomorrow, just wait, tomorrow I will hit the gym hard. I haven't been lifting as regularly as I used to. It's been a good 2 weeks since I did and that makes me sick. So tomorrow night, it's on.

Now let me explain why my workouts have been scarce the last week. Not only am I working late, but my husband finished the semester so he doesn't have to do homework every night. Which means he's home and available to play! Sure we don't really do anything, but I really like him and like spending time with him. During the semester, I don't really see him. He goes to the print lab just about every night and doesn't get home until about 10. So now that he's home for a few weeks, I want to see him as much as possible. Sure that could be an excuse to not workout, but I think it's a legitimate one.

On Saturday my husband and I are going home, to my home, Southern California, to visit my parents. We will be there until the 31st, and I am a wee bit panicked about eating healthy and especially working out. My mom has been doing Weight Watchers for EVER so the food options aren't really that bad, but our neighbors bring goodies over and I'm out of my controlled environment, so it's hard. I'm hoping my Gold's gym membership will be good in CA, so I can go to the gym while I'm there. I have big plans of waking up and going to the gym first thing. We'll see if that happens.

Christmas Challenge: Week 11 Weigh In

Another one bites the dust! One pound lost this last week. Not sure how that happened, given that I didn't eat very well or workout that much this week, but I'm pretty happy about it!

The beauty of smaller jeans!

Feast your eyes on my fat thighs! HA! They kinda look bigger than I want them to, but that's the purpose of this whole thing right?! But here's the size 12 jeans purchased this weekend.

Christmas Challenge: Week 10 Weigh In

Down .2!HA!.2 That's ridiculous, according to my brother. But it's something! So I'll take it. And to top it all off, I bought my first pair of size 12 jeans since I was a senior in high school. That's 10 years that I have been bigger than a size 12! This is BIG news people!! I didn't even have an "skinny pants" in that size. My skinny size was a 14. That feels pretty freaking cool, if I do say so myself.

Thankgiving and the tree

My husband and I went to visit his family in Idaho for Thanksgiving. It was fun, cold, but fun. It's a Shirley family tradition to go up to the mountains for trees the day after Thanksgiving, so here's our tree. Oh, and you bet your arse I went shopping on Black Friday! I got a Kitchenaid and a bunch of clothes, it was so fun and the deals were AMAZING! Sure we left the house at 4:54 am, but it was so worth it. The finniest part is, we didn't buy a single thing for anyone but ourselves! No Christmas gifts were purchased, HA!

Christmas Challenge: Week 9 Weigh In

Nope, I'm not gonna do it. I was out of town on Friday, so I couldn't weigh, and I just know that I gained last week, so I'm not going to weigh today either! I can't do it! Although, I do have to go to the doctor this afternoon, so I will HAVE to be weighed there, although it won't really count cause I'll have all my clothes on!

So I'm back on track this week, kinda. Yesterday was my birthday, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!! So my husband and I went to the Cheesecake Factory. So not only was Thursday a bad eating day, but Friday was bad, Saturday was not as bad, but not good and Sunday was bad too! Ah crap! And they are bringing in a pie for my birthday today at work, so today won't be as stellar, but it will be better than the last few days.

I have tons of pics to post of my weekend, but I forgot the cord for my camera, so I can't download them today. I'll try and get that tomorrow.

a few issues....

As I was at the gym last night, working my little buns off, a few issues came to my mind that I think need to be seriously discussed. If possible I would like a memo to go out to all the gym goers at the Bountiful Gold's Gym, so they will be able to correct their annoying behavior.

1. Is it really necessary for men, or women for that matter, to put on cologne, perfume OR scented lotion BEFORE a workout? I think not. I find it offensive and extremely annoying when I am running and the smell of patuolie (I can't spell that right), peppermint and just plane stank hit me in the face because mister slick decided to chose to use a treadmill TWO down from me. OK, if I can smell you from 2 treadmills away, there is a problem! Now don't get me wrong, I understand the smell of BO at the gym. I get it, I often times get a wiff of myself and hope those next to me can't smell the wretced smells coming from me, but when it's mixed with other VERY strong scents, I want to vomit. OR at least move away, which I have done in the past.

2. I understand that there is a limited amount of space to stretch at my gym, but when there isn't anyone but me there, there is NO need to sit right next to me and proceed to place your foot in my FACE while stretching. Literally this stupid chick had her foot 2 inches from my face. I was there first, there was plenty of room for her to sit an appropriate distance away from me. And WHY put your foot in my face?! Would you like me to put my foot somewhere uncomfortable for you?! Cause I would be happy too.

3. This also has to do with the aforementioned stupid chick and a few others I noticed last night... Why wear fashion tennis shoes to work out? Don't you know how you can hurt yourself without appropriate foot wear? Dummy!

4. Why come to the gym if you aren't going to actually work out? Why come and casually walk on the treadmill while wearing moccasins? Or sipping a smoothie? Huh?

I don't understand the people I saw last night and I hope I don't have to see them again.

Christmas Challenge: Week 8 Weigh In

OK, so for the official Christmas Challenge weigh in, I lost 1.2 pounds last week. For MY official weigh in, this morning, I lost 2.1 last week!!! HOLY CRAP! TWO POINT ONE POUNDS IN ONE WEEK! I haven't lost that much since I started this whole weight loss journey. I guess my secret plan to burn at least 100o cals every workout last week did me some good! Now if I had eaten as well as I worked out, maybe it would have been a little more, but I will take my 2.1 and LOVE it!!

The plan for this week... given that we have to go to Idaho (a.k.a. hell frozen over, it's freezing there!) Thursday through Saturday for Thanksgiving, I most likely won't be able to workout those days. So I'm trying to basically kill myself for the first 3 days this week. I'm shooting to burn around 1200 cals during my workouts for Monday through Wednesday. We'll see how it goes. Obviously, I'm also going to really focus on my eating, so as to not kill the hard work I do with the workouts.

What a difference a year makes

May of 2006 I finally changed my last name, and therefore got a new drivers license. I looked awful, and who knows why I chose to wear a tan colored sweater. And one last question, where did my neck go?



October of 2007, I had to change my address on my drivers license. Sure I didn't have to get an entirely new license, but I hated the above picture, so I wanted a new one. And... drum roll please..... The new and improved Tara, one year later and almost 40 pounds thinner (37.3 to be exact)!

Christmas Challenge: Week 7 Weigh In

So last week SUCKED! I had major drama at work, so what did I do, turned to food. I know it's bad, I know better, but I did it. And to top it all off, I only worked out 3 times last week, as opposed to the 5 times I normally do. So crap. I GAINED 1.4 pounds. UGH! It's ok, I'm not too worried about it. I'll get it off this week and hopefully a little bit more.

I just keep hoping that at some point this whole thing will click in my head and I won't have the strong desire to run to food for comfort. I hope that at some point my first instinct will not be to eat when things are bad. I think with time it will get easier, but who freaking knows!

Ah crap...

I've been tagged. I generally hate these things, but I feel the pull to be a part of the cool kids club, thanks to Randi AND Adora, so here, read about me.

The Rules:
1-Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog
2-Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird
3-Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs
4- Let them know they are TAGGED by leaving a comment on their blog

About me:
1. After posting how great I did with my eating this weekend, I went to Shopko and bought butter toffee peanuts just cause I wanted them. Why do I self sabotage?
2. I secretly have a desperate desire to be liked, even by people I hate. I appear strong and in control, but it really hurts my feelings when people don't like me.
3. I'm a horribly guilty person. I feel guilty if I don't make my husband dinner every night, I feel guilty if I buy something more than 5 bucks for myself, I feel guilty about a lot of stupid stuff.
4. I want Brittney Spear's new cd, and I HATE her.
5. I have a Myspace page, I'm almost 28, I shouldn't have a Myspace page. I only got it to keep track of my nieces and nephews, it's terribly embarrassing.
6. Like Randi, I'm quite educated and smart, but I speak like a valley girl sometimes and hide behind a stupid blond act.
7. I just threw away the peanuts.

OK, since the people's blogs that I regularly comment on have all been tagged, I'm only going to tag one person, and I know she probably won't do it, cause I wouldn't do it for her, but oh well.

Megan

That's all. I'm so interesting, huh?

Christmas Challenge: Week 6 Weigh In

Since the official days for the Christmas Challenge weigh in, are Fridays, I had to weigh in on Friday, and I had gained .9 with that weigh in, BUT MY official weigh ins, are now on Mondays. So as of today, I lost .5 pounds last week!

VICTORY!!!

As I mentioned earlier, I decided to change my weigh in days to Monday, in hopes that it would help me keep control of my eating over the weekend. This was the first weekend I tried this... and it worked!!! I stayed in perfect control all weekend. I ate my snacks at the appropriate times and I didn't binge or overeat once! I'm so proud of me! HA!

Christmas Challenge: Week 5 Weigh In

Oops! I forgot to post my loss from last week. Ready for this......... .1. BOOOO!!!!! I could poop and lose .1 pounds. Oh well. Hopefully this week's weigh in will be better, although there are A LOT of left over cookies in my office from a party yesterday and I can actually hear them calling my name! I hear it, I really do. "Tara, come eat me, what's the harm, you're working out almost every day and burning tons of calories..." AHHHHH!!!!! I have to say no! I already ate 3 taffy pieces this morning. Oh well.

So things are feeling kind of crappy for me right now. I'm tired. I want to sleep and eat and not worry about my weight anymore. I'm sick of it. I want to eat what I want to eat. But the only problem with that is, I also want to be healthy and thin. Hmmmm, I don't think you can do one without affecting the other. Dangit!

I decided I would change my weigh in days to Monday from now on. Now the logic behind this is, that if I have to weigh in on Monday, then I hopefully won't overeat during the weekend. In theory this sounds like a great plan, so hopefully it will work out. My weekend eating has been awful lately.

Candy Corn

I want candy corn.

That's all, I just want candy corn.

Instead I'll have this piece of gum and bottle of water.

I get so sick of not being able to enjoy little treats. I understand it, and I don't actually want it, I just hate that I can't be like the rest of the stupid people in my office who can eat whatever they want and stay skinny and cute. And I KNOW it's not about being skinny and cute, it's about being healthy, but it gets a little old sometimes. Just gotta hold out till my next cheat meal.

UGH.

Well it's about time! - Christmas Challenge- Week 4

I FINALLY lost more than .8 this week. I lost 1.1 lbs!! YIPPY! I was worried I was going to have another 0. something loss, which is great, but it's so much better seeing a whole pound go! So, way to go me!!

Now I have to try and resist the pie my boss brought in for all of us today. I'll just enjoy this glass of water... mmm, I'm stuffed.

Nothin' Better!

I've been a little under the weather lately with a weird stomach ache, so I haven't been super great with the eating (mostly saltine crackers and soup) and I wasn't able to go to the gym on Monday because of it. Well I still wasn't feeling great last night, but knew I had to go.

Side Note: Does anyone else realize how quickly they can convince themselves that they don't have to go to the gym and how one day can easily turn into an entire week, even if you've been going everyday for the past 3 weeks?!

Anyways, I managed to drag myself to the gym and I had an amazing workout! While I was in the midst of this amazing workout, I saw an old friend from college that I haven't seen in about a year. Well, guess what the first thing he said was... "You look awesome!!" HA! I do!!! I've lost 35 or something pounds since I last saw him and it was so cool to have him rave about how I look!! If I was lacking on the motivation, that just filled my tank! I tell ya, there's nothing better.

Christmas Challenge: Week 3 Weigh In

Well thanks to it being my TOM (time of the month) I didn't get a really accurate weigh-in, but I am down .7 this week. I's hoping this Friday it will be a larger drop, but we'll see.

This weekend was tough. I ate too much and just couldn't stop. Brett bought some malt balls last week, and I have had no problem saying no to them, until yesterday. They were sitting there, next to me on the floor, looking longingly at me sayind, "Come on Tara, just have one..." Yeah right! I had 12. Sure that's not a whole serving, but it's still NOT good! Dangit!

On Saturday I went out with one of my best friends, thinking all I wanted was a cobb salad, minus the bad stuff and dressing. I ordered and as I was ordering, my friend said I should choose a certain muffin, (the meal came with one). Now, in my logical mind I said, "No, I don't want a muffin at all," BUT out loud I said, "OK! (I'll have that honey oat bran muffin, that I'm sure is at least 500 calories!!)" Stupid!! And guess what, I ate the whole freaking muffin, and barely had any of my salad! The muffin was a little taste of heaven, but still! BAD CHOICE!!

Why do weekends suck so bad when it comes to eating healthy?

Here we go!

I was getting a little embarrassed at the idea of having my friends and family read all about my weight loss efforts on my blog with my husband, so I decided to have a blog specifically for my weight loss efforts. Hopefully this will spare those that aren't interested in it from having to read all about it on BTS.

So here we are, now what...

I guess I can start with last night. I got home from work and wanted nothing more than to sit and eat M&M's and watch some good tv. But alas, I had to go to the gym. I fought with myself and called a few people for support, for a good 2 hours. Then I finally dragged myself to the gym. It was cardio night, I can't run because of my IT band injury, so I have to do the elliptical. I hate the elliptical. But I did it. Of course there was a running class going on at exactly the same time, so I tuned into it and felt sorry for myself for not being able to run. My knee started hurting about 20 minutes in, but I pushed through at got to 45 min. before I HAD to stop. Well, I HAD to stop because I wanted to leave so I could go to the store, buy some M&M's and stuff to make 7 layer dip and go home and watch the Biggest Loser (kind of ironic that I wanted to eat and watch that, but whatever). So when I got to the store, I started feeling guilty. I had just burned 600 calories, and I was going to give that all up for a moment of satisfaction. I don't think so! Instead I bought some ground turkey and made turkey burgers. I stayed strong. I did eat 2 breadsticks, that Brett brought home from work, but other than that, I stayed fairly strong. I'm totally annoyed that I can't eat chocolate right now, but I'd rather be fit... I guess. HA!