in sickness and in health...?

Geez, it feels like forever since my last post. To be completely honest, I haven't really felt like posting. Or keeping in line with my diet for that matter. I know there is no excuse for stuffing my face with chocolate chip cookies, white bread and Burger King, but that's exactly what I did the past week. Sure, I didn't miss a single workout, but who was I trying to kid, after everything I had eaten the cardio at best kept me around the same weight. 

And why on earth would I do that, one might ask. Well, I went to the doctor two weeks ago, due to this constant headaches that just won't leave me alone. He told me I produce excess adrenaline, which could possibly explain the searing pain in my head, but that I needed to get an MRI just to be sure. After all, headaches could be a symptom of brain tumors or aneurysms, so we needed to be certain. So of course I spent all that week acting like an anxious, nervous little girl that couldn't get her hands on enough crap food. The anticipation was driving me crazy, and it still is. I had the MRI done on Saturday, but I won't know if there's anything seriously wrong with me until next week. Talk about suspense.

This week I'm trying really hard to stay away from temptations, but I've always struggled with my eating habits the most under severe stress and anxiety. And the fact that I may or may not have some giant foreign mass in my head is the MOTHER LOAD of all things stress-inducing. But, I have committed myself to changing my bad habits and eating properly cannot be dismissed under any circumstances. So I've forced myself to talk about this and post it for the world to see (bahaha yeah right...at least for my one or two readers to see) so the sheer peer pressure will make my cravings quit. So that everytime I want to take a bit of that delicious fudgy brownie, my mind will come back to this post and I'll steer clear. 

Hopefully that will be enough. Otherwise I'm going to have to resort to hand-slaps everytime I even consider eating something I shouldn't. Like a Pavlovian conditioning of sorts.

So on to brighter topics, yes? This is today's outfit and hair, the latter inspired by Pinterest. I've seen the bottom-up braided bun around a lot, and I decided to give it a try. Here's the original inspiration:

Looks harder than it actually is, trust me

At first, I had a hard time braiding with my head upside down, but once you get the hang of it, it's easy peasy!!! Plus, it gets your hair out of the way and has people oohing and aaahing at it all day, so it gets extra points in my book. This is my result:

Oh, and I'm going to take this time to shamelessly promote my Pinterest account: Cristina R. YOU SHOULD ALL FOLLOW ME.

Thank you, and that is all :)

these are my confessions

Owning up time. 

I stepped on that scale yesterday, and low and behold, the number blinking up at me wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. I'm at 71.8 kgs., which is more than last week, but I'm still down from 72, so I can still hope to reach the sixties by the end of this month. Just maybe. 

And yesterday night I killed it at the gym, where I did half an hour of a paced walk at the treadmill and then 45 minutes of crazy-intense elliptical machine, and then my regular 100 ab crunches, so this week is off to a good start!!!

This is me at 71.8 kgs. That muffin top is one stubborn bastard, and refuses to quit. Although it seems like my thighs are beginning to give up: do they seem a tad smaller to you? Or is it just my hallucinations?

 Eck, I hate looking at myself in those pictures. Especially when my cheeks are so puffy, and it seems like I have a dimple on one side of my face. But it's not an actual dimple, it's just my cheek doing what it can with all the extra layers of fat.

It has been rather chilly these past few days, hence all the  layers of clothes.

And on the left you have today's work outfit. I don't like how this top looks with a sweater on (correction: I don't like how I look in this top when I put on a sweater too) but it's been raining nonstop since last week, and my office feels like the inside of a walk-in freezer. If you don't carry around a sweater, an extra coat and a scarf, you could end up with hypothermia. I am not even kidding. Oh and just ignore the hair, I'm having a bad hair day month, as a result of postponing a much needed haircut. 

My babies

I simply couldn't resist posting a picture of my babies. They are the newest addition to my wardrobe, and it was love at first sight. They hate feet and at the end I feel like I'm walking on glass, but it's worth it!!! Having these beauties on makes me feel like I'm walking the runway of a fashion show, and they make my legs look so much longer and thinner. Don't you just love heels? I know they are terrible for your spine and posture and end up messing your feet, but honestly, screw the side effects, we're all eventually going to suffer from something or the other. Let's take advantage of our young bodies while we still can. 

Anyone have a favorite pair of heels that makes them feel like royalty?

falling off the bandwagon

Shameful puppy eyes 

This past week, and especially during the weekend, I have to admit I fell off the bandwagon. Not only did I stray off the path in terms of what I ate, but I also skipped my workout twice, and I only made up for one of the two missed sessions. 

So SHAME on me.

I guess this has happened to a lot of people, and I'm definitely not going to give up just because I had a bad week, but geez I feel like such a failure. I've only been at this whole blogging experience for a week and a half, and I've already done exactly what I was preaching you should avoid. Darn it. 

While there is no excuse for eating like crap and skipping out on my workout, I must say most of the fatty foods I had over the weekend can be traced to my emotional state. I crashed for the very first time on Saturday morning, and it was awful. I've only been driving for a couple of months, and had been feeling like Superwoman for the most part. Then this bastard had to ram his car into mine in the most stupid way possible, and completely throw me off guard. Thankfuly, it wasn't anything too serious, and neither my spine nor my darling car suffered any damage, but the entire thing made me run late for an extremely important meeting. 

I was so angry and upset over the whole thing, I ended up bursting into tears back home, and my roommate took me to a late brunch to try and cheer me up. Instead of ordering the ham and spinach omelette I should have, I ended up having Eggs Benedict. The orchestra of flavors swirling in my mouth could not make up for the guilt I felt as they took the empty plate away, and I ended up feeling even worse. That night I practically finished a bowl of popcorn all by myself, and Sunday was chicken-wing and greasy blue-cheese dip day. 

SO, all that nasty eating topped with my lack of exercise scared the hell out of me and I skipped my weekly weigh-in. BAD CRISTINA! Yesterday I panicked and avoided the scale like the plague, but after visiting a couple of my inspirational blogs (particularly Mama Laughlin's) and reading my older posts, I've garnered enough strength to face reality, and I'm going to weight myself before lunch. There's no better way to deal with the consequences of a bad week than to know exactly where I stand. I've also rescheduled Friday's workout, so today I'll do both Friday and Monday's sessions. 

I'll post an update later today. Hopefully, the scale won't be too bad and I can get back on track quickly. Sorry if I let you guys down :(

inspirational friday

Jordin Sparks in 2009

Jordin Sparks today

 Friday at last folks! After such a crazy week I am SO looking forward to sleeping in and watching reruns in my pajamas. Today's inspiration to avoid binges is none other than the very talented Jordin Sparks. According to the Huffington Post, she lost 50 pounds (YIKES!) in about two years, and can now rock a tiny blue bikini on the cover of a health magazine. What better inspiration than that? She confessed that her trigger to changing her nasty habits was realizing she was always feeling sick and tired. That is SO relatable! I got to a point where I was falling asleep all the time and getting these nasty headaches every single day, and I'd be all cranky and annoying; it sucked. And to think that so often you don't associate all those symptoms with your lifestyle, you even start thinking its normal. 

BUT IT'S NOT.

Changing your diet and exercising is not just about fitting into a smaller pant size or being able to flaunt a bikini body, it's also about treating your body the right way to live a better life. Feeling exhausted can be directly related to how how much exercise you do, and the probability of you ending up with a serious disease can be greatly reduced by eating balanced meals. Committing yourself to exercise and a healthy diet will make you beautiful on the outside AND on the inside. 

So how about it girls? Hop on the healthy lifestyle boat and begin your journey to a sexier, healthier you. I hope you all have an amazing weekend, and remember to keep yourself constantly motivated! We'll meet again for Weight In Sunday, you should all keep your fingers crossed so that scale delivers good news, I'll need all the help I can get to bring that bastard down at least 1 kg...

...and breathe

JESUS, this has been one crazy week. Being the master procrastinator that I am, I ended up delivering all my paperwork for this contest I'm entering at the last minute yesterday, leaving me with no time to eat or exercise. I KNOW, I KNOW, I SUCK. Trust me, I've beaten myself up enough over it, but what's done is done. I finished the essay in record time and even had my grammar-nazi roommate review it before sending it on its happy way to win me a place at the 67° General Assembly of the United Nations in October. Yes, you read right! I want to be one of the two Youth Delegates that get to accompany the Mexican Mission to United Nations at the General Assembly for two whole weeks. Deadline was yesterday, and I basically spent the two and a half weeks before yesterday pondering over the list of reasons I didn't feel like writing anything, let alone a five page essay on poverty. 

So as usual, yesterday morning I panicked and realized I only had a couple of hours to write something somewhat decent and get all my paperwork in order. Damn. Thankfully, my boss is on vacation and things are slooow at the office, so I had enough time to brainstorm and write the thing in one day. And at exactly 11 pm I sent it through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs website. And so begins the three-week waiting period to find out if I made the cut. Y'all should keep your fingers crossed for me :)

That's me, Tuesday evening.

Anyhoo, let's move on the the more exciting news shall we? On Tuesday I had my very FIRST workout since I began this whole dieting/blogging experience. YAY. It was fun actually, and made me realize just how much I enjoy working out once I'm actually there. Sure, I wheezed and felt like I would die a slow, painful death, but after seeing 350 calories burned on the machine, I forgot all about the pain. I mean come on, 40 minutes of intense cardio and I've shed 350 calories?! WHAT SORCERY IS THIS!!! I'm regretting not having started sooner! 

Yesterday I had to skip the exercise so I could finish that damn essay, but today there's no excuse! I even downloaded the MiCoach app from Adidas to help me, and it is awesome. If you haven't tried it yet, you must go to their website and create an account, YOU MUST. Then you just download the app on your phone and it will guide you through your workouts, sexy trainer voice and all. After typing in your statistics, you can select a plan that works for you, beginning with the objective you have (lose weight, build muscle, etc.) and then moving on to the workout length you think can endure and how many times a week you plan to exercise. For example, I'm going to workout five days a week doing 40 minute cardio, and then three times a week I'll be working on some strength exercises to tone my muscles. That sounds like a lot of work, but once you get the hang of it, it's a breeze. And you can keep track of how many calories you've burned, how many workouts you've done, etc. Click here to go to the MiCoach homepage.

This is my miCoach home page

All the MiCoach workouts are based on different zones, and each zone has a certain pace or heartrate assigned to it. Blue is the lightest pace, and red is the most intense. The trainer's voice guides you through each transition, and the cool part is that you don't do the same thing everyday. In my case, I selected level 6 which means I believe I can resist a 40 minute workout, but I won't be doing 40 minutes every time. Some days I will do 25, others 35, others 46, and so on. That works amazingly for me, because I get bored easily. Also, you can choose which activity you want to do as cardio, the predetermined one is running but in my case, I prefer the elliptical machine. Once you're done, you can type in the statistcs of your workout (usually the machine will give them to you at the end) as far as calories, distance, heart rate, etc. 

So if you, like me, have run out of excuses to exercise, start today! I know just thinking about it makes you want to drop dead, but not only will it help you achieve your weight loss goals faster, it will help you feel better eventually. And seriously, who doesn't want to flaunt a fit booty? I can't wait to try on a two piece and  make all those mouths drop, to be honest. So let's get cracking people!!!

yes you can!

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I used to be a competitive swimmer, but once that was over I did so little exercise you could say I developed an allergy to it. Sure, I took some pilates classes during high school and I was a cheerleader for a while, but nothing really struck my fancy to keep at it, and so here I am, at twenty four, with the athletic condition of an eighty-year old woman. My complete and utter lack of physical condition never really bothered me until one day, about two years ago, when I was at the subway with my best friend. A little backstory on the guy: he's thinner than Nicole Ritchie at her worst, smokes about twenty-twenty four cigarettes a day and hasn't exercised a day in his life. Yes, you read correctly, EVER. 

So you can imagine my surprise when we decided to take the stairs instead of the escalator because it was crammed, and by the time we went up the three flights I was wheezing so hard I thought I had developed asthma. He, on the other hand, was breathing normally and was staring at me with a strange look on his face. How was it possible that a hardcore smoker that had never seen the inside of a gym in his life could do the three flights of stairs without so much as a deep breath at the end, but I was practically dying of a heart attack? That's when it really hit home, and I began to wonder my body was so out of shape the day a broken elevator forces me to take the stairs I'll collapse. 

I've been in and out of gyms, pilates and zumba classes and even do-it-at-home workout routines for a really long time, but after a while I find a perfect excuse to quit and never look back. Right now, that excuse is work. I am at the office from nine to seven, which means I get up at 7:30 am and arrive back home somewhere in between 7:30 and 8 pm. Anyone that wondered if I was doing some sort of exercise (my family mainly) would get a well-practiced response consisting of 'Oh no, I don't have time! Hell will freeze over before I get up earlier than 7:30 to exercise, and honestly when I get home at night all I want to do is eat some dinner and sleep. I just don't have the time nor the energy...bla bla bla.' 

When I started this blog, I made a commitment to not only change my diet, but my whole lifestyle (hence the name of the blog), but up until now I had limited myself to avoiding unhealthy foods and counting calories. Alas, the time has come ladies and gentlemen. I have finally made up my mind to workout EVERY DAY, and I'm starting today! What made me come to my senses, you may wonder. Well, to be honest, I realized that I waste at least an hour of my time, every single day, trying to find a parking space when I get home. I live across the street from a college campus, and school just started last week, so my street is always packed to the maximum with vehicles. Seriously, they even do two and even three rows frequently, and it doesn't change until around 9:30 or 10 pm, when all the students go home. My building doesn't have parking spaces, so every day I have to drive around the blocks around my building, desperately trying to find a parking space. So then it hit me: instead of wasting my time driving around, I could go to my aunt's house, workout there (she has a fully equipped gym in her attic) and then go back home to be greeted with lots of available parking spaces. 

HOW GENIUS AM I?!

No seriously, I'm surprised it took me this long to figure it out. So anyway my goal is to do some cardio and a few resisteace exercises for about an hour, an hour and a half, from Monday to Friday. Hopefully that will also speed up my weight loss, but I guess it won't be as instant as it is when you change your diet.

So wish me luck you guys, I'll post all about my first session later today or tomorrow morning. 

Let's put that elliptical machine to good use!

weight-in sunday

I know today is Monday, but I had the most hideous weekend and was unable to post until today, I'm so sorry!!! But I'll try to keep all my weight-in posts strictly Sundays, as planned. Anyhoo, on to the good news!!! I stepped on that scale yesterday not really expecting positive results, since last week I didn't strictly adhere to my diet plan. On Tuesday I dined out with my best friend and had a baguette (white bread!) with duck paté (fatty fat), and then on Wednesday I went to Starbucks and had an oats-and-honey muffin, which I thought would be alright, but turns out it had like 400+ calories!!! So yeah, not the best week diet-wise. 

So you can all imagine my surprise when I stepped on that scale and realized I had lost almost 1 kg! I went from 72.1 to 71.3, which is major for me. I am so close to reaching the 60's, I can practically feel it! To celebrate, I decided I would give two no-bake healthy cookies recipes a try. I am a cookie monster, so having to restrict myself in that area has always been a challenge, especially when my mother bakes the BEST chocolate chip cookies you will ever try. I had found these two no-bake cookie recipes on Pinterest a few weeks ago, and they looked rather yummy despite being flour and butter-less. 

I must warn you, they definitely do not look as tasty as the pictures on the original websites, but trust me, they turned out so darn good!!!

On the right- the frosty chocolate oatmeal cookie, on the left PB + chocolate chips cookie

The first recipe I tried can be found at the Oh She Glows blog (which has lots of awesome healthy recipes), and while mine didn't turn out nearly as pretty, they are just as tasty and perfect for a chocolate fix like she promises. I left out a couple of ingredients (like the chia seeds) and used semi-sweet Hershey's chocolate chips, but otherwise followed the recipe to a T.

Frosty No-Bake Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies 

(adjusted to what I used)

Ingredients:

1/2 cup rolled oats

1/4 cup non-dairy chocolate chips (I used semi-sweet)

1 large banana

1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract

1 tablespoon cocoa powder

Directions:

1. In a microwave safe bowl, melt the chocolate chips for about 60 seconds. WARNING: Be extra careful not to burn.

2. Stir the mixture until all the chips are melted, then mash up the banana and incorporate it into the chocolate.

3. Stir in the oats, the vanilla extract and the cocoa and mix well. 

4. Line a plate with parchment and drop around seven cookies onto it. Freeze for about one hour or until firm. 

Yields: seven small cookies at 80 calories each.

The second recipe I tried used a lot of the same ingredients, but added peanut butter. I got it from the Fitsugar website, and while I pressed mine into a cookie shape, while their pictures show more bite-sized pieces, everything else was unchanged. Oh, I also substituted the cup of sugar for Baking Splenda, to avoid all that sugar.

Healthy No-Bake Cookies

Ingredients:

1 banana, mashed

1 cup Splenda

1/4 cup cocoa powder

1/2 cup nonfat milk

1/4 cup peanut butter

pinch of salt

1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract

3 cups instant oats

Directions:

1. Place all ingredients minus the vanilla and oats in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring often.

2. Let the mixture boil for one minute, remove from heat and let the mixture cool for one minute.

3. Add the vanilla and oats and stir well to combine.

4. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto waxed paper and cool to room temperature.

This recipe yields around 15 small cookies.

My mid-morning and mid-afternoon snacks for today!

The result was so yummy, I was forced to leave several cookies behind at my aunt's house -they all loved them! And now I have a yummy snack for the office today, one I won't feel so guilty about.

Next weekend I'm visiting my mother, so I'm thinking about making a new recipe. This time I'll have an oven and expert hands (aka my mum) around, so perhaps I'll give these babies a try. Don't they look incredibly amazing? My mouth is watering just from looking at them! I'll have to skip out on the powdered sugar of course, but I'm thinking Splenda will make them just as good.