#at least only a week and exam mont left of this semester

[sunflowersinheaven]

another wip, that i wont be able to finish for a while

[cassieminus-blog]

Monday, October 9

I worked out Thursday of last week and then again last night (Sunday). After last night’s workout I felt so good!!! It was partly that I caught up on sleep Saturday night (legit slept 13 hours) but I didn’t end up sleeping until midnight last night which is annoying cuz I had to be up at 6:40 today. But, my workout was good, I then went home and made a delicious stir-fry with veggies, tofu and rice and didn’t go over!! my!! calories!! I had been eating and eating all weekend and getting my shit together Sunday was much needed. BUT: I’ve had my shit together three consecutive Sundays. It’s a matter of keeping it together this week. Even if I just have it together like, three days this week, I’ll be a lot better off than if I eat shit from Monday till Sunday.

I don’t have any exams this week. I ~am~ stressed with all the readings I have, the paper, and especially the presentation. And I know I need to stay on top of my shit with my math classes, I have to write an opinions piece this week and I have other stuff going on to take care of. But my mentoring program got cancelled so I have a little bit of a break today that I can use to get some things done, and my room is pretty clean which makes it a more pleasant place to be so I’m looking forward to when I get all my stuff done and can (hopefully) pass tf out at 10pm tonight.

I’m feeling cautiously optimistic about the semester. I think I failed my Calc exam but I get one drop so I just need to really work hard to ensure I get As on the third and fourth exams. If I work hard enough I can still get a damn A+ in that class. 

Anyways, life is hard and I’m already looking forward to Christmas break. Fall Break will be fun and Thanksgiving Break will be super relaxing and I’m looking forward to both, but I’m excited for a clean slate with classes. I need to work really hard to get the grades I want and then I’m so lit to take a nice three week break from school (other than the online class I’m taking lol).

Anyways, the key this week is going to be to plan ahead, incorporate lots of veggies/’volume’ foods into that plan, and to have the will-power to stick to it. I’m gonna try to only spend money on Starbucks and Subway and to use my dining dollars for that; at most I might go to Target to pick up a couple things and I might get some Halo Top while I’m there (I have coupons!!!) but I need to make my groceries last until this weekend before I can so much as justify buying a gallon of almond milk. I spent almost $150 of my monthly $250 on the first day of the mont, which is fine but I have to make it last. And I ate a looot at the beginning of the month which was not conducive to making it last. I spend $18 at Aldi and literally got a $7 thing of toilet paper, so $11 for everything else: two-dozen eggs, a loaf of bread, a jar of peanut butter, a bag of like half a dozen or more peaches, and a tray of peanut butter cookies. My goal is to make that shit last. I’m not gonna eat cheesy eggs at 12am stressed, I’m not gonna pour olive oil on the bread and eat that after I smoke...I’m going to make my shit last. My parents are generous enough to pay for whatever groceries I want. The least I can do is not blow through them way too quickly because I stress-eat, sad-eat, angry-eat, whatever. 

The stir-fry I made last night was literally so good. I had a huge plate of food for less than 600 cal. The thing that people don’t get about eating healthy is that it doesn’t have to be this bland experience. It’s not like you either eat a bunch of bad-for-you, high-calorie foods or else you can eat a single carrot. My stir-fry was essentially a fuck-ton of veggies, some tofu, a tablespoon of soy sauce and half a tablespoon of olive oil + a bunch of seasonings. Plus a side of rice. You’d be surprised how flavorful half a tablespoon of olive oil and a tablespoon of soy sauce can make things; throw in some red pepper flakes, some onion flakes and some garlic salt and powder and you have yourself a super flavorful stir-fry. I used to not like cooked vegetables, but you eat them a few times and learn how you like them prepared best and suddenly they become truly delicious. Like cooked broccoli? A few months ago I would’ve said yeah ew I don’t like cooked broccoli. But now it’s 8:20 AM and I’m truly looking forward to going home and making a healthy lunch, and some chopped broccoli tossed on a skillet with a teaspoon of olive oil and some garlic powder and chopped onion sounds delicious.

Plus!!! People fail to understand that yeah, oil is high in calories and fat. But a tablespoon of oil is enough to cook a lot of food with, and it’s ‘only’ 120 calories. And I’m totally willing to spend like 60 calories on oil if it’s gonna make my shit taste 100x more delicious, which I find that it does.

Anyways, I still have a lot of celery, asparagus, broccoli and two bell peppers in my kitchen along with some fresh fruit that I need to make sure I use before it goes bad, so I’m considering making another big stir-fry for dinner tonight (and maybe indefinitely until I get sick of it). I have no problem ‘saving’ 500-600 calories for dinner, the problem is that I pick foods that don’t satisfy me and that tempt me to go back for seconds. ‘Seconds’ on a veggie stir-fry would mean another 20 minutes of work for me, so I usually pass. That’s just what works for me, and obviously it’s not fool-proof. I still have to resist the urge to overeat sometimes. It’s just a lot less present after putting a large bowl of vegetables into my body versus something with less volume.

Not eating breakfast remains the move for me. I had coffee with a tablespoon of half-and-half and may go cop a skinny latte or a doubleshot on ice from Starbucks before I go to calculus, but even with a 100 cal starbucks I’m only at 120 for the day and won’t eat my first meal until 2:00 pm. My plan is to have Subway so I can stay on campus and then go somewhere to work for a few hours. If I’m doing work by 3, I can probably call it a day at around 6 and then hit the gym. Then go home, shower and make a stir-fry around 8pm. I’d still have enough calories for my last pint of Halo Top, probably. So yeah. I’m going to keep myself busy and productive, work hard, stay committed to my goals but let myself have all my favorite things- Starbucks, Subway, Halo Top...there is no deprivation involved in this for me. 

I went from 145-->160ish. Probably not 160ish truly, but 160s according to the scale. I’m back down now to 157 (that was with clothes on though, so probably 156). I have no worries that after the water weight/food weight (like the food that was physically in my stomach that usually isn’t bc I usually don’t eat so much) comes off, and I’m back into the routine for another few days, I’ll be down a couple more pounds on top of the additional 1-2 pounds a week I’ll be losing from my caloric deficit. My goal is to be back in the 140s by the time I go visit my best friend for Fall Break, which is only 2.5 weeks away but that’s enough time for me to lose 5 pounds. 5 pounds of ‘real’ loss + 2 pounds of water weight loss = I’d be in the 140s. 

When I go home for the summer, I’m going to weigh 130 pounds or less; the fact that that’s a reasonable goal for me is crazy to me after so many years of unsuccessfully trying to lose weight. If I lose weight at a rate of a pound per week, I’d be in the 120s. That means I can plan to lose weight at a rate of 1.5-2 pounds per week, and then toss the occasional slice of meat lover’s pizza or cookout tray in there, and if it evens out to a rate of 1-1.5 pounds per week I can still go home weighing less than 130 pounds. I don’t know if I’ll feel good enough about my body to accidentally-on-purpose run into a certain guy I want to impress at the beach at 125-130 pounds. I don’t know. But I know I’ll feel and look a hell of a lot better and I’ll be able to wear crop tops, and I’ll be a lot less sweaty and hot. My motivation definitely faltered, hard, this semester. But I’m back on my bullshit. I want this so bad and it’s motivating to know that if I can back on this and stay back on this, I can have the body I want if not by summer then by sometime early on my junior year of college. I’m disappointed I didn’t make healthy changes sooner but so, so proud I made them when I did. I’m going to be in the healthy weight category (for good) by the time I turn 20, and that makes me feel pretty damn good.

Okay, this was definitely a long ass post. Have a great start to your week everyone!!! If nothing else, do one thing today that puts you a little closer to your goals whether they’re health-related or not. There’s just another three months left in 2017 and we still have plenty of time to re-evaluate the resolutions we made nine months ago and to see what we can do to put a dent in them : )