Slacker

I've been pretty bad about updating my blog lately.  In fact, the last week, I've not been on the computer that much.  I know, shocker right?  So what have I been up to lately?  

My latest hobby is calorie counting.  I know, stupid huh.  I'm very aware that counting calories is retarded and I have had the most success losing weight by exercising regularly and by eating healthy and not like a pig.  Since I haven't been motivated to exercise lately, I decided I'd try calorie counting.  I've pretty much limited myself to a pretty aggressive 1200 calorie diet.  At first I thought I'd be starving myself to death (1200 calories is not a lot!) but I've pretty much got it down now.  I'm on my second week and have lost 10 pounds.  Hurray!  So what do I eat?   I pretty much eat what I normally do but in lower calorie versions and by sticking to the actual serving size.  

Example Breakfast:

Muffin (not those giant ones) & Yogurt

homemade breakfast sandwich & yogurt

cereal & yogurt

Example Lunch:

tuna sandwich, string cheese, fruit cup

chicken spinach salad, string cheese, fruit cup

turkey roll, string cheese, fruit cup

Example Dinner:

Fish & Corn on the cob

Lean Cuisine Dinner

Salmon burger (on low cal bread)

Example snacks:

Low cal popcorn

string cheese

fruit cup

pudding cup

You get the idea.  So, not really starving right?  I've been eating 3 meals and snacks and only feel hungry when I'm bored and sitting around the house.  One thing it really taught me is portion control.  Since I've been measuring things, I've realized that I was eating way too much before and was just eating it because I dished it on my plate.  Also, since I eat out of boredom sometimes, calorie counting has really made me think twice about eating and won't eat unless I'm really hungry so that I don't waste my allotted calories for the day.  I don't really feel like I'm deprived, which is good.  I've even had a piece of cheesecake one day cause I didn't use my calories up earlier in the day.  After all this calorie counting, I am shocked when I look at the amount of calories I was consuming before.  No wonder I was a fatty!  Calorie counting is not for the picky eaters.  The bread I get is 45 calories a slice which is significantly less than other bread, but is not very substantial.  Things I've also given up is mayo, 35 calories a tablespoon.  Since I can eat a yogurt at 60 calories, I'd rather eat my turkey sandwich with mustard instead.  Since they are building an In N Out Burger in our parking lot, I decided to look up what I typically eat there, double double, chocolate shake and fries, practically 2000 calories!  Yikes. It definitely puts things in perspective.  

Enough about diets.  What else has been going on is I've been seeing a dermatologist for my skin.  I've been getting crazy breakouts lately, thanks in part to birth control messing up my hormones.  He gave me a pretty aggressive regimen and it was so aggressive that I had some sort of reaction after a few days.  My face felt like it was on fire cause it was so itchy and dry and when I woke up Saturday morning, my eyes were pretty puffy.  By Saturday evening, my whole face was swollen pretty badly.  After looking around on WebMD, I came to the conclusion that it was some sort of allergic reaction which happens sometimes when people use benzoyl peroxide.  It recommended taking benedryl, a cold compress, and hydrocortisone cream.  I ended up calling in to work for 2 days and it eventually calmed down.  Thank goodness!  Now my face is so dry, it's like sandpaper!  Yikes!  I went to the dermatologist again and we decided to try everything a step at a time instead of all at once, and gradually introducing another step a few days in between each other.  The idea is to see if it was one thing in particular that was causing the reaction or if it was just the shock of getting it all at once.  Well, I just hope it doesn't make me look like Quasimodo again!  We will see what happens.

The only other thing going on is that we are going to Vegas next month for a few days.  We are boring and never go anywhere and Chris still doesn't have any vacation days yet so we can only go for a weekend which is why we are going to Vegas cause it's close and we like it there.    I just hope it doesn't disappoint and is warm.  It was raining all day and at one point tried to snow.  The dogs had a little slush on their backs when I let them in and had to dry them off.  I'm not looking forward to it!  Most the time they like to hang out with us and nap all day when I'm home during the day but today Mockie had a huge attitude problem and wanted to be let out several times cause she was getting cabin fever.  At one point she wanted out just to trick Hugo to go outside so she could run back inside to steal his stuff.  Sheesh!  They are so much like fighting siblings sometimes!