Confession

I gave up cokes for Lent (as in all kinds of cokes) and have been doing so, so good. Better than I have ever done on any Lent, ever (and it's only been, like, one and a half weeks of lent. So that should tell you how poorly I usually do). And I know it might not seem like giving up sodas is not that good of a thing to do, since a) how hard can it be? and b) isn't that something that's good for me (sodas = bad) and not a true "sacrifice"?

but you guys. I am addicted to cokes. for real. I drink one every morning at work, first thing. I walk in the door, put my purse down, turn on my computer, and head straight to the fridge for a diet dr. pepper (my drug of choice). I typically have another one mid-morning, often down another one with lunch and *sometimes* even have one in the afternoon. that's FOUR diet dr. peppers before I even leave for home at 4:00.

Eek.

So I quit cold turkey for Lent. I figured for sure I'd have caffeine headaches and withdraws on the wazoo, but really, it hasn't been all that hard. although, when the other girls in my office walk to their desks with one, I immediately have the craving. As soon as I hear the sound of the can when they set it down... it's like a bell goes off: I need a DDP! (yes, it's bad, this addiction.)

But, I've been doing really good. No DDP's at work since Tuesday before Ash Wednesday.

Until just now. Really, I have the munchies. Have I told you about the snack drawer at work? It's more of an actual filing cabinet than just a drawer. Four whole drawers, filled with snacks. Just there for the taking. Totally free. Cheez-it's, goldfish, nuts, cookies, pretzels, granola bars, candy, candy, and more candy, chips, fruit snacks. You name it, it's in the snack drawers. So really, I want to dive into a drawer and eat my way out. But instead, I keep thinking how a DDP would do the job just fine, sans all the calories.

So I did it. I am drinking a coke. I confessed to all my coworkers, because now I am feeling the Catholic guilt. But it is good. Sooo good.

Oh, hi.

Hey there Internets. It's me, Amanda. The bad blogger.

I have all kinds of things to write about, including our fabulous wedding pictures that we recently got back from our photographer. But it seems a little overwhelming to start recapping the wedding, so I've been avoiding it. So I figured why not get back in the swing of things with my oh so (not) favorite topic........ weight.

So we got this super cool electronic scale as a wedding gift (what kind of crazy would buy someone a scale as a wedding gift, you ask? well.. we actually registered for this. so I guess we are the crazies!) Mark stepped on it a few weeks ago and even announced to me last week that he's already lost 4 pounds of post-wedding-weight-gain. I, on the other hand, have been avoiding that scale like the plague. It sits on our bathroom floor, taunting me every day and just begging me to step on it with its cool digital screen and weight accuracy right down to the tenth of a pound and handy-dandy recording feature to remind you how much you weighed last time you stepped on it. No thank you Fancy Scale, I'd rather not know how many LB's I've gained in the 2+ months since the wedding, during which time my food pyramid has consisted pretty heavily of french fries and skittles.

Well I bit the bullet this past week and now have been stepping on Fancy Scale every morning (after peeing, of course). The number today (post El Chico for dinner last night and Chick-fil-a for lunch on Saturday) was a good solid ten pounds higher than the number I fill in on medical forms and at the DMV. Sigh. No wonder my pants all feel tighter and those cute green shorts I wore on the honeymoon don't even zip up anymore.

So today I start over. Get back on track. Quit eating crap every day. Visit the gym more than once every other week. I am going to loosely follow weight watchers and see where it gets me this week. And by loosely I mean I'm not paying to sign up, but instead keeping track of it all myself, on little post-it notes all over my desk and purse. Because I've paid for it for months and months before and that cute little web page with all the bells and whistles just doesn't keep me committed. My too-tight green shorts are keeping me committed this time!

I'm telling you this, dear Internet friends, to help me stay accountable. In the spirit of "if you write something down you'll stick to it" (shout out, Oprah), I'm hoping this will get me back into my non-fat jeans by the holidays. Anyone else out there have any Stick With It tips, for WW or otherwise?

Thanks for listening... I'm off to eat my Lean Cuisine.

Next up.. much more exciting posts with pretty wedding pictures :)

Post Bride Diet

Here's how my day has gone so far today:

Wake up, shower, get dressed, eat a big ol' bowl of Cheerios with some strawberries

Drive into work with Mark. Arrive an hour early, so swing by the McD's drive thru for a large Diet Dr. Pepper

Get to work. Someone brought bagels. Eat 1/2 plain bagel and 1/2 chocolate chip bagel.

Around 9ish, stroll into the break room. Oh what's this? Chocolate chip cookies? Don't mind if I do. Eat one.

11ish, grab a 100 calorie bag of shortbread cookies. It's only 100 calories, right? Hmm. I might grab this bag of Chex Mix too. And what the heck, another Diet DP as well.

Noon. There's lunch provided during that training meeting? Awesome. Get a scoop each of pasta salad, potato salad and cole slaw. Grab a bag of chips and one mini brownie.

OMG. This potato salad is fab. Add another scoop to my plate.

Head back to the food.. more potato and pasta salad. Have another Diet Coke while I'm at it.

True story. This day is only half way over too. Who knows what else I'll stuff my face with? One thing that past two weeks has not included is any trips to the gym, strolls with the dog or even long walks to the car (parking in a garage that is attached to your house officially ROCKS).

I'm not really looking forward to trying on my jeans in a couple months. Eh.

What I'm Eating (but totally shouldn't be).

Peanut M&M's, in Easter colors.

Sonic burger. And tots.

Chili's chips and salsa.

Snickerdoodles. Please note the plural.

all this is the past 48 hours. apparently i really don't want my dress to fit.

arghhhhh. motivation, where the heck are you?

Victory!

A whole basket of cookies arrived at work today and were just sitting there in the break room, staring at me with their little chocolate chip eyes.

And I did not eat one of them. I didn't even do my usual break-off-a-corner-just-for-one-bite routine.

Six months and counting!

PS. Yes, I know I've been seriously MIA recently. My excuses are coming soon.

October!

I LOVE October and have been anxiously awaiting it's arrival. As I was driving to work this morning it dawned on me that this would probably be my ideal month to get married in, except for the whole getting engaged in May and wanting more than a five month engagement.. well, and the whole college football rules our lives in the fall and between my Texas games, Mark's OSU games and my family's Tech games, we would never find a weekend that would make everyone happy! But I am excited to celebrate our future anniversary this month because it's finally really fall! (We celebrate the 10th of each month as our "future anniversary" because it's super fun and it makes the counting down to the wedding seem to go a little quicker, when every month there's a day to look forward to.) This month we'll be in Austin on the 10th for some UT football and a delayed engagement celebration with Miss Sadie Caplan.

October is also my official start of Operation Get My Bridal Booty Into Shape. My handy dandy wedding checklist recommends starting your workout regime eight months out, but since I am anticipating failing at this for awhile, I am going to go ahead and bump it back to nine months out. I certainly sent September out with a bang: we ate at Texas de Brazil on Tuesday and then had McDonalds TWICE for dinner last night. Seriously, we grabbed a burger around 7:00 and then hit it up again for a full blown meal a couple hours later. I checked the scale this morning and yeah.. it turns out its pretty easy to gain weight in a week. Let's see how tough losing it is!

To prove to you all that I am serious about this whole workout plan, I took the ultimate plunge and enrolled in a Boot Camp class that starts next month. It meets three times a week for six weeks and I am slightly terrified of it. I'm going to spend October getting ready for the pain that I know is coming (is it silly to work out in preparation for a work out?). It will end just in time for Christmas, where I'm sure I will promptly reverse all the good I did, but here's to hoping not!

October is also when wedding planning will finally really get kicked off! Yesterday Mark and I met up with the WP and her fave DJ. We went into it thinking we'd talk to the guy for 30 minutes, then maybe go check him out at a wedding later before deciding if we wanted to hire him. But, we ended up talking to him for an hour and a half and leaving with the feeling that he's our new BFF and asked him to go ahead and send over a contract because we were SOLD. He's just what we're looking for - not cheesy, totally normal, promising to build up the energy throughout the night and swearing he will not play Brick House or We are Family.

The WP gave us a fantastic calendar she made up for us mapping out what we need to be working on month by month. On the agenda for October (among some others): find a DJ (check!), look for a dress (more to come on that soon) and take our engagement pictures (so excited about this one!). Mark loved the calendar/To Do Lists (he loves a good list) and I was glad to call my mom with some specific tasks for us to start working on.

After our time with the DJ last night, we raced up to McKinney to meet with our sponsor couple from St. Gabriel's to start really discussing the results to our compatibility test. We covered the first four areas of the test and we actually scored a 100% on one of them: Friends and Interests. So Mark and I are pretty much in agreement that our friends all rock and we both feel totally good about each other's interests. It was really so interesting to look and see how our answers to certain questions differed and it really got us talking about some aspects of our relationship and communication styles that differ from each other. Nothing was a big surprise and the couple we are meeting with were really great about sharing their own experiences in their 20 year marriage and how they have learned to make their conflicting traits work well. I also had one of those "wow this is really happening" moments when they were reading a passage from the Bible about marriage and I started imagining being in the church on our wedding day, actually getting married.

We've got a lot coming up and I'm thrilled to get it all started!

Fail.

I just made chocolate chip cookies, just so I could eat the cookie dough.

Some day, I really will start the wedding diet.

I Love You, Presidents

Happy President's Day! In honor of George and Abe, this post is coming at you straight from home, on the couch, in front of the TV. Nice. I feel like I have a lot to celebrate today, besides the day off from work.

In honor of Valentine's Day and me having two days off from work this weekend, I decided to throw eating healthy right out the window. I didn't take one day off like I did for the Super Bowl, of just the weekend off like I did for my sister's birthday. I took the whole week off. Mark and I basically celebrated V-Day from Thursday night until this morning, so I went ahead and started early this week, eating bad from the get go. We had our fancy dinner on Thursday and had (the very best ever) guacamole as an appetizer, and then I ordered a GREAT BIG burger with fries AND potato cakes. I had a beer. Yum. We got Paciugo for dessert and ordered the large size cup with four different flavors. For breakfast I had TWO grands biscuits, bacon, sausage and eggs. I think I must have eaten no less than 20 Hershey's miniatures this weekend. And that's a low guess. On Valentine's Day, we had our traditional romantic dinner at the McDonald's drive-thru and got (more) ice cream. Last night, we ordered pizza and i had FOUR slices. It was a fantastic weekend, food wise. I never let myself feel guilty about any of it.

This morning I knew I had to weigh myself to log my weekly weight. I debated skipping it altogether, but the online program I am using kept reminding me that today is my weight day. So I stepped on the scale this morning and cringed, more than usual.

Something is completely backwards. I lost two pounds. How?? I have no idea. Apparently burgers and pizza and chocolate, with bare minimal exercise works for me. Hmm. This also makes 5 pounds lost so far in '09. Woo! Slow and steady. Summer, here I come. Bring on the bathing suits.

One of my favorite blogs, yourwishcake, often posts about working out and and being healthy and staying motivated. plus, she's as cute as can be and makes all kinds of fun crafts. Following the lead from her blog, I am setting a goal for myself this week (just one, not a whole list! I gotta make it somewhat attainable) to run 5 miles. In 5 days. So that's a mere one mile a day for 5 days. The only catch is I have to run these miles, not walk them, like I tend to do these days. I figure if Sara can run 2.25 EVERY DAY, I can manage 5 short spurts this week.

Oh and in case you were wondering, Mark was pretty adorable with his Valentine's plans. He mailed me a home made card inviting me to dinner with him and since I never check my mail, it sat in my box for almost a week, while he sweated it out. I finally got it the day before the invite's date, much to his relief. He was brainstorming ways to get me to check my mail without giving it away. This is our third V-Day together and our third time to celebrate our own "Fake Valentine's Day," which basically means we don't go out on the 14th, but skip the crowds and preset menus and opt for a happy meal and ice cream cone on the real day and a nice dinner out sometime else that week. It means two days to celebrate and twice the fun.

Well, I'm off to the outlet malls. Let's hope for some good sales. Big plans this weekend as well - an out of town wedding and a trip to Austin early next week for a work conference. I'm looking forward to seeing friends and celebrating some pretty big news with them :) I'm also looking forward to wearing my new black dress to the wedding. I got it at Zara on the clearance rack for 14.99, marked down from $129.99. Dear lord. You can't pass up something like that!

Notta.

Well, in the week since I last posted, I fell off the wagon (slightly). I was so good last week that I think I felt a little invinceable. I didn't go to either of my spin classes last week. Didn't take the dogs for an hour long walk with Mark. Hardly did my pushups. Did, however, manage to eat at Chick-fil-a, On the Border, Friday's and Cracker Barrel. Four restaurants in four days. AHH.

On a side note, I don't know where I've been but this was my FIRST TIME EVER to eat at Cracker Barrel. I always thought it was like Luby's. I was oh so wrong. It was amazing. I could shop while we waited for our table and then the menu - I couldn't decide! Everything sounded delicious. I was trying to be good, so I got grilled chicken with green beans and pinto beans.... and mashed potatos and cornbread, but whatev.

Anyways. It was my sister's birthday weekend and she picked the restaurants and I blame it entirely on her that I ate our four times in four days. Plus, we had cupcakes, cheesecake AND ice cream for her birthday party. And my mom always has these little dishes of candy sitting out everywhere. Oh and -- Kelly gave me a box of girl scout cookies. Everyone was against me!

So this morning I got up for my Monday Morning Weigh In and cringed as I stepped onto the scale. The number was the exact same as last week, right down to the tenth of a pound. Was I bummed that I didn't lose even a tenth this week? Yes. Was I relieved that I didn't go backwards and gain back the glory of week one? Yes. Am I back on the horse today? Eh. Yeah. I ate some mini Hershey's bars at work today, but just had a bowl of raisin bran (yuck, don't ever buy it) for dinner. Tomorrow, it's all serious. But, it is my sister's real birthday tomorrow so I took the afternoon off to play with her and my mom around town. We're grabbing lunch somewhere and then SHOPPING. Unless this ice storm really comes in. In which case, they won't drive down but I will still take the afternoon off. Yay short days at work!

Besides eating like crap all weekend, we also painted Mark's dinning room, saw Bride Wars, caught up on Biggest Loser, watched the Duggar wedding (uh. train wreck! It was so awkward to watch) and brainstormed puppy names. My parents are getting two border collie puppies! I am really excited to meet them. I've always loved border collies. They are so smart and clever. They are only two weeks old right now, so they won't be getting them for a while still.

Alrighty. TIme for the Bachelor! Jason, you suck at picking potential wives.

Biggest Loser: Solo Edition

Well today was my first weekly weigh in. I stepped on the scale right after I got out of bed (well, I went to the bathroom first. Every little bit helps!) and shut my eyes, afraid to look. I just knew it was going to be the same. Or worse, go up. I feel like I did good this week, eating carefully and thinking about portions, but I just didn't think it was actually going to work. I squinted open one eye and looked at the number. I lost one pound!

I am elated. Seeing this tiny bit of results has boost my motivation back up. So i poured my one cup of cereal into a bowl and cut up an apple to start week two. Then I got back in bed because hey, it's MLK Day and I'm off work!

Two hours later, I'm back up and getting ready to start some laundry. I need to run some errands today as well. Nothing exciting. I need some Drain-o because my shower isn't draining well and I want to get a workout in before this evening. It's just nice to have the extra day to do the things I never got to this weekend. What I really want to do is go to the Galleria and shop. But no. I am holding out. Besides, I'm down to just under two weeks before I get to buy the iPhone. So I really need to save my pennies for the big day.

This weekend my friends Stephanie and Mark were in town from California. We got together with them Friday and Saturday night, and even hit up the Loon. I can't remember the last time I was there, but it didn't take me long to remember how strong its drinks are and how very smokey the air is. While we were sipping on straight rum and coughing through all the second hand smoke, we all decided that Mark will have a Super Bowl party for the game in two weeks. I sent the Evite out last night, before he could change his mind! I'm really excited. We've been dating for over two years and NO ONE has been to his house yet. Plus, Super Bowl Sunday is also iPhone Day! The countdown is on.

Growl... says my tummy

This New Year's resolution is leaving me very hungry. I am trying to be more conscious of what I eat all day and avoid the always-dooming mindless snacking. I "practiced" over the weekend and started my for-real-eating-better on Monday. I've done pretty good so far. When we had Blue Mesa brought in for lunch at work on Monday, I partook in the sweet potato chips, but then I had a can of fat free soup for dinner. Last night, I made a salad and loaded on the veggies, and then went to the Mavs game and resisted the jumbo pretzels that were calling my name. Today I ate my lean cuisine and pear for lunch, but didn't go grab a bag of Cheez-Its from the snack drawer in our office. But now that I'm back at my desk, all I can think of is those Cheez-Its. And how very hungry I still am. I'm doing this Biggest Loser style, with a weekly weigh in on Monday mornings. I just want to see some sort of decline. A half pound. Anything. Sure it will probably be all water, but if that number is lower come Monday morning than it was this week, I think I can stay motivated to try it for seven more days.