Getting settled in.....

I am definitely getting settled in here in DC.

I LOVE this place. I walk everywhere. I'm not eating out as much and when I do it's all very light. My weight is down to 138.6 from 144. I'm averaging about 1600 calories a day, if that. I'm trying to eat as little as I can at work and make a good dinner and breakfast at home. I haven't had a binge. Hurray!!

I don't think I'm going to do Leigh's program like I originally thought I would. I think at this point I need to keep working out, walking as much as I can (and really I'm forced to walk since I don't have a car), and keep my calories down. I'm busy during the day so I don't think so much about food. If I can keep this habit built into my schedule it will be great and I can get this weight off.

I normally hate running but it is fun around here. I ran to the White House, to the National Mall, etc. It's amazing. A fun destination is definitely keeping it interesting.

I'm still keeping track of my points every day and for now that's enough for me. I don't need to obsess as much as I have in the past and truthfully I just don't have time.

DC was just voted like the healthiest city and I totally get it. You walk everywhere, people are out doing things all the time. I went to the Farmers Market in Dupont Circle on Sunday and it was packed. Everyone was out supporting the farmers and buying really healthy food.

Can I tell you how in heaven I am at the grocery stores now?? Being in Mexico for 6 months really made me appreciate a lot here.

I checked out a gym across the street from me and I can't decide if I should join or not. I'm leaning towards joining it even though it's pricey. It's so convenient, they offer tons of classes, and it's not very crowded. It's a privately owned gym. I just feel like I'm spending so much more money here. BUT I always say that it's worth spending extra money on health and fitness.

That's all for now! I'm trying to update as much as I can but I've been super busy.

5/20/09 - 5/25/09 - FINALLY IN DC

I'm FINALLY in DC! It took forever. This was the longest most stressful week. It's good to finally be here.

I did so much life stuff in LA and then did a lot of family stuff in Chicago. The family stuff was really nice and I enjoyed it. I'm glad I stopped home before coming here.

My skin is out of control lately! I just don't know what to do about it. Maybe it's sun damage or maybe just all the climate changes.

I weighed myself when I got back to LA and I was 144. I weighed myself this morning and I was 140.8. It's been about a week so I'm really happy about this. I have still been drinking a little and I had cupcakes AND cake AND ice cream in Chicago. My mom made it for my birthday, I had to! But I still weighed 140 this morning. Today was a really good food day. Even though I ate out the food was very light. I did not have a drink. And the best part about this new location is all the moving I'm going to be doing. We don't have an elevator at work and my apartment is on a hill! It's awesome.

Alright, bed time! I can't get my new computer to take the picture I want it to so I can post my scores from the past couple days. I'm too tired to try any harder.

5/18 & 5/19 - Back to Real Life

It feels sooooo good to be home.  I didn't think it would feel this good to be honest.  I walked in to my apartment and you would think I was in heaven.  TiVo!!!!  I could tell it missed me.  

But just having separate rooms is amazing.    To get space away from food has helped.  Having no food in the kitchen has helped.  Preparing my own food has helped.  I've lost two pounds already! (Ok probably water weight, etc.)  The bad news is when I left for Mexico in December I was probably just below 130 and when I got on the scale yesterday I was 144.2.  Wow. But the crazy part is it doesn't stress me out.  I bought some new clothes ( I can't believe I wear a large now) and I feel good.  I know I'll lose the weight and I almost feel more comfortable in my body now then I was before.  It sounds weird and I'm not quite sure how to explain it. 

I did really well the past two days.  I have my calories at 1800 just so I'm not stressing about it for the next two weeks.  I've been eating less than that though and I've been eating so much more food.  It's amazing what preparing your own food makes. Of course I knew this but it's so good to be back to it.  I can't wait to be settled into my apartment in DC and go grocery shopping. I am excited about that!  

I like my point system.  It's pretty easy!  My workouts aren't going very well but I'm ok with it.  I went on a long walk in the hills this morning instead of going to a spin class.  I have soooo much to do.  I'm a little overwhelmed and that helped me relax. 

Last day in Mexico / Weight loss game!

It's my last day in Mexico.  I'm sad.  I'm sort of excited. I'm stressed.  I'm full of all different emotions.

I wanted to write real quick about my two week plan.  It's more of a game.  Hopefully it's simple enough to follow while I'm transitioning to a new city and traveling for the next week.

This is what it looks like.  The first day was yesterday and I failed.  Today will be better!!

The goal is to get the least amount of points.  I'm doing this till June 1st and then Fat Loss Troubleshooter here I come!

I will be back to explain it!  I need to check out of my hotel!

This is the view from my room.  The ocean is soooooo blue today. It's just beautiful. I'm going to miss it!  I leave the day after tomorrow.  I'm full of mixed emotions right now.  I'm sad to end this chapter of my life in Cancun but really excited to start the next one.

I have some catching up to do.

May 13th

May 14th

The 13th and 14th were not my most accurate days.  But at least I tracked for the most part.  I also moved around A LOT.  And went to the gym in the morning.

May 15th

Today was not so good. Infact I just stopped tracking.  This is all I'm going to say about.......  Drinking & Mini bars = DISASTER

But today is a new day and one of my last in Mexico.  I didn't hit the gym yet but I really need to.  We're going out tonight for one last dinner. Then it's more goodbyes.  I hate goodbyes!  Luckily next week is full of 'I haven't seen you in 6 months!  I missed you'.  Hopefully in return they won't say 'Oh my gosh!  You gained weight!'.  Maybe my tan will distract my friends and family from my weight gain.  I can only hope.  

May 12th - Back to Tracking

Again with the eating!  I hate when my mind is consumed by food. I just hate it.  

I know my calories aren't very accurate this week. I  hope they're close but I'm having a really hard time estimating.  I need to stop going to the buffets!  Usually I just go to the salad bar which is surprisingly light but it's just so hard to estimate calories.   I need to stop with the dessert. I think this is my 3rd night in a row with dessert.  Bad!  I'm not usually a dessert person. I mean of course I LOVE it but I don't usually order it.  I never order it because I know what happens when I do. I can't stop!!

6 more days and I'll be back in the states!

May 11th - Back to Tracking

I just wanted to eat and eat and eat today. GRRR. I hate that feeling! I tried not to but I know I ate more calories then I tracked.  I had a salad from Chili's.  I had no BBQ sauce, no dressing, and no tortilla strips. It couldn't have been that many calories but I bet there were more calories in the chicken then I tracked.  

Then I was just antsy at work and when I got back to my room. Maybe I need a change?  Good thing I'll be out of here in a week.  I've been looking at apartments in DC and I'm getting really excited about moving there.   I think it's just what I need.

I am off to bed!

May 9th & 10th - Back to Tracking

MAY 9TH

No work today.  It was great.  Unfortunately my tooth hurt, my head hurt, and my uncle died. My parents are in China right now so I had to track them down and let my dad know his brother died.  That was not fun.  It wasn't completely sudden but still sad and not something I wanted to tell my dad while he's in China.  Poor guy.  I was just in sort of a bla mood.  I stayed in my room but got a workout in and took a walk.

May 10TH

Today was very relaxing.  I slept in, I worked out, I laid out on my balcony and got some sun, I took a nap. I needed a day like this!  It was perfect.  I did not need the dessert at the end of the day though.  I should not have eaten it. 

I'm nervous about this last week here.  It's going to be so easy to just not care about what I'm eating and drinking.  I can't do that!  

Polar Heart Rate Monitor - FT40

This is my new heart rate monitor.  I LOVE it.  My old one was not working very well.  Sometime my heart rate would be in the 200's and sometimes in the 80's while I was sprinting.  I just couldn't take it anymore.  It was more expensive here in Mexico but definitely worth the money.  The price in the states is around $159 - $175 depending on where you go.

This is the transmitter.  You wet the strap before putting it on and then clip the front part in. It sticks out a little so if you're wearing a tighter shirt people could see it sticking out.  But it's comfortable and accurate so I don't mind.

Here are some more features:

Backlight

Graphical target zone indicator

Heart rate (displayed as % of maximum heart rate)

Heart rate (displayed as bpm)

HeartTouch™, button-free operation of wrist unit

KeyLock

Manual target zone (% / bpm) - upper limit

Sound volume level setting

Visual and audible alarm in target zones

Water resistant - 30m

May 8th - Back to Tracking

Today was a hard day.  I ate a bunch of crap.  Then we went out for a really fabulous Mediterranean dinner with lots of wine and lots of dessert.  It was one of the best meals I've had here.  I probably ate 1000-1500 calories.  So for the day I probably ate 2500-3000 calories.  Yikes.  

We loaded the truck going back to Los Angeles today and so I started work earlier than normal. I didn't sleep good so I shortened my workout.  I ran the stairs on the outside of the hotel and ran a little bit outside.  This was barely a 30 minute workout but at least it was something.  

I didn't go out to the clubs after dinner.  I was exhausted and the wine that I was drinking just made me want to go to bed. I'm really glad I didn't go out. I think I'm done with the clubs.  From now on I just want to really concentrate on getting healthy. I don't feel heathy.  I have 10 more days in Mexico and I don't want to go crazy. I want to relax as much as I can, eat good food, and work on getting healthy again.  I'm one of the last ones left so I shouldn't have a lot of peer pressure anymore.

May 6th & 7th- Back to Tracking

MAY 6TH



Today was a good day. I was incredibly busy at work and time just flew by. I decided to go back to my room and order room service at night. No drinking. I was tired all day and hung over and in a bad mood but I managed to control my cravings to eat everything. Keeping busy and moving hotels definitely helped.

MAY 7TH



The great thing about my new hotel is there are TONS of stairs! And my room is on the 5th floor! I never take the elevator. I didn't go out with everyone again tonight. No drinking or eating a lot for me today. Since the old hotel is shut down but we're still working there, I can't order my room service salad. So today I had chicken fajitas and only ate 1 tortilla. I probably shouldn't have had the tortilla but I needed something more. I miss my cobb salad with chicken.

I just watched Greys Anatomy and now it's off to bed!

May 4th & 5th - Back to Tracking

May 4th -




Not a great day. Two vodka watermelon smashers at dinner. I am so glad I didn't discover these till the end. They are soooo good. Basically they smash fresh fruit and mix it with vodka. YUM!


May 5th -




Once again I'm disappointed in myself. I drank too much last night. We were at the bar for the last time in this hotel (we're moving due to the hotel closing). We've had some good times there so we got drunk for one last time. Now, if I would have just drank and not had nuts at the bar or food when I got back to my room I would have been fine. Well not fine. But I would feel better about myself today.

This is what my binge cost me:

Alcohol: 450 calories
Food after drinking: 600
Additional calories I could have burned if I did my full workout today: 300
TOTAL: 1300 calories

This isn't even counting extra calories I might eat today being tired and hung over.

I did keep my calories down during the day. Think how bad my calorie intake would have been if I hadn't. I need to pick myself up so that I don't lose my way today. I had a good workout yesterday and I got up and walked for 45 minutes this morning. I finally found a good route that has a few hills and is pretty. Of course it's my last night at the hotel!

I have about 2 weeks left in Cancun and I need to stop drinking so much. I'm taking it day by day. Tonight I am NOT drinking. There is nothing that could happen tonight to validate drinking. The reason will be that we're at a new hotel, new bars. That is not good enough. I am not drinking tonight.

May 1st - May 4th: Back to Tracking

I have not been good!

BUT I was on vacation. Likely excuse, right? I've been in Mexico for almost 6 months, I'm ALWAYS on vacation.



This weekend I got away from Cancun and went to Tulum. It was BEAUTIFUL and a much needed get away from Cancun and from work. It's basically a town of hotels on the beach. They're very small hotels with only about 10 'rooms' in each.

They're all on the beach and lose power at some point during the day or night. You can get rooms priced at all different rates. We didn't have a television or blackberry so it was a great escape, especially from all the news. You would never have known there was swine flu out there.

I definitely overindulged....mostly on chips. GRRRR to me!

I didn't drink that much. Just a few beers and a couple margaritas on Saturday. Not good but could have been worse. What am I saying?! Could have been worse?! I had TWO margaritas. I don't drink margaritas!!

I made some other bad choices but I don't even feel like confessing those. I am a broken record. I'm always complaining about what I'm eating and drinking but clearly I am not changing. I might be having fun now but when I return to the states and even more stress I'm really going to wish I hadn't gained this much weight. I've almost had to buy ALL new clothes. Now I'm going from Cancun (flip flops and tank tops) to Washington, DC (definitely not flip flops and tank tops).

I will say one good thing I've discovered .....freezing yogurt! I eat it much slower and it's just like eating ice cream. I definitely recommend it!

Today I started to go a little crazy. We have to change hotels because so many people have canceled their stay here that they can't afford to keep the hotel open any longer. Now we're going to a new hotel with new bars and new restaurants to explore. NOT GOOD for me! I won't be able order the salad that I always order from room service. Plus everyone is bored out of their minds because the mall is closed, the clubs are closed, the movie theater is closed. There's nothing to do except eat and drink!! For some reason lately I have the hardest time saying no. I'm not a very social person, except here for some reason. Maybe I just like the people more? I think that's a big part of it. I never have a group of friends that I just always have fun with. It's good. We laughed all night long tonight. I just need to figure out a better balance. Which seems pointless now because everyone is leaving.

I think it's going to be hard to avoid the nights of eating and drinking. Just being honest. SO what I think I need to do is eat less during the day. I'm going to try that tomorrow and see what happens. If I end up not eating a lot at night then less calories down for me.

I need a plan to follow when I'm done with this. I'm thinking Leah Peele. I bought her books and I followed her 30 day challenge before. I need something to keep me on track.

April 30th - Back to Tracking

Today was a great day until I started drinking. Surprise surprise. We're getting down to only a few people and we can't really go out and do much due to the flu floating around here so we go to the bar at the hotel and drink. I actually didn't drink that much. I wasn't drunk. But there were nuts around and those are a SERIOUS down fall for me. They put something on the nuts that make them soooo addictive plus I just love nuts.

I got some good sleep last night though, had a good workout, and came into work late. I feel good! Much better than all the drunks from last night who are hung over today.

The hotel here seems surprisingly full. They've closed down clubs and restaurants that hold more than 80 people and are indoors. I'm totally fine with not going to the clubs this weekend. They have not been much fun lately. I've heard a rumor that someone died here from the swine flu and that there are people in the hospital with it. I feel like there are so many rumors floating around that turn out not to be true though.

April 29th - Back to Tracking

Today was great! I got up and did my workout DESPITE not getting that much sleep. If I'm going to go out and drink I need to get up and workout.

I was really busy with work so I didn't have much time to think about food. You wouldn't believe how much work this swine flu is causing me. I've had tons of emails about it and I had to check up on everyone to make sure they haven't gotten sick. Plus I'm starting a new show while finishing an old show WHILE trying to enjoy my last days in Mexico.

I've been trying to mix up my strength routines. I just hate doing them and they never get my heart rate up. So today I did supersets and between them I did 5 minutes of cardio. It was great. Not boring at all. I've stopped doing 'New Rules of Lifting for Women'. I know people love it and at first I thought I did too but I just don't think I'm burning enough calories or gaining muscle. Plus the rest time between sets just killed me. TWO minutes of doing nothing! I stopped about 6 weeks ago. Since then I've been doing the workouts in Tom Venuto's new book ' The Body Fat Solution'. They are supersets and a little different than NRLFW. His new book is really good and I'm working on writing something up about it. Stay tuned!

I recently bought a food scale at Walmart. It's a big ugly green scale that is not electronic but I figure it's better than nothing. And better late than never. I have definitely been over estimating my food.

Hope everyone has a great day!

April 28th - Back to Tracking

YIKES is all I can say about yesterday.

My excuse? It was someone's birthday. Someone I don't even really like all that much. I had cake (only once luckily, there were 2 cakes), 5 drinks, Indian food, and tacos after going out. Ugh. Usually I have a lot of fun and so I justify it in that way. I didn't even have fun last night. I ate the tacos because a boy I have a crush on wasn't paying attention to me. I was hungry but it was 2am. I didn't need tacos. I hate admitting this. But I need to keep myself honest.

Here's the damage:

April 27th, Back to Tracking

Yesterday was a good day. I had a good run in the morning and I didn't feel like eating all day long. I just remembered my friend gave me some more of the Mexican candy she bought the day before. I didn't track that. So it was probably 60 more calories. I only had a little.

Hopefully today will also be a good day!

My Week and Swine Flu

As you know I'm working in Mexico. Which is ALL over the news right now! I'm in Cancun and now that there have been cases that came from Cancun everyone back in LA is freaking out about us coming home. We're shunned from the office! If we go back we have to work from home. It's pretty crazy. I'm not really worried about it but it is weird. I'm more worried about not being able to get out of Mexico in a few weeks.

I feel like there's not much I can do to prevent it. The locals I work with do kiss me when they get to work. That's how they do things here. I feel like we shouldn't just stop doing that! But at the same time this flu thing could be bad. I keep thinking if this happened a month ago we would forsure need a doctor to check out everyone on the crew because EVERYONE was sick with these symptoms. I think it's totally blown out of proportion in the states. Yes, people in Mexico City have died, a lot of them, but no one in the states has and it's just spreading panic.


Back to tracking.....
I only tracked 4 out of the past 7 days. We had the last few days of shooting and our wrap party! Then yesterday I went to Playa Del Carmen. It was soooo nice to get away. We some great local food and some drinks. It was a really fun time and definitely worth the extra calories. We walked ALOT. I worked out in the morning so even though I went over my calories I feel good about it.


This is what we had in front of our faces at lunch! It was amazing though. They use natural sugar and cocunut to make most of these candies. Soooo delicious and sooo Mexican.

I haven't felt very motivated lately but I'm hanging in there. I'm trying to staying to about 1400 calories on my good days. I'm definitely not losing weight yet. At this point I'm really happy not to gain but I would REALLY like to lose, I hate feeling like this. I'm having so much fun here in Mexico right now that I don't want to not do things because I'm afraid of the number of calories I'm consuming. So I'm still doing things and eating out but trying to take it easy whenever I possibly can. This week is busy but I'm doing some sort of exercise for an hour every day. I have to! I must keep moving.

Thanks for listening!! I'll be back to talk about my new heart rate monitor!

Days 10 & 11 -Back to tracking

DAY 10



DAY 11



Days 10 and 11 weren't horrible. Lately I've just had such bad cravings though. Tonight I'm going crazy! I ate my dinner and I just want more. I've eaten a couple more things even though I shouldn't. I drank enough water today. I don't know what's wrong with me! I just feel like I need food!! I was hoping that writing would help but so far it hasn't. I still want to eat.

I'm not doing resistance training this week, just cardio. I had a final to take this morning so I got up at 6am, did a 30 min HIIT workout, and took my final. It was great. I just wanted to snack all day long!!! I did a good job of resisting at moments but right now I'm having a hard time.

Days 8 & 9 - Back to Tracking

Day 8



Good day eating wise. I drank more than I should have at night BUT I didn't eat at all after dinner. Only had some drinks. No drunk binging. I know, sad that this is an accomplishment for me.

Day 9



No drinking. Eating was good except that I had a lot of thai food too late in the day. It was good and light though. I was really tired from the night before but was still able to control my eating.