Step Away From the Cake

My last post about eating refined carbs generated quite a few comments from folks agreeing with me. So now I have a question for you all. If you know refined carbs make you crave more refined carbs , and you know they are bad for you in general, and if you're trying to drop a few pounds (or more), why the heck do we eat them?????? The only decent answer I can come up with is that I forget. I go for long stretches eating clean and suddenly I will feel like a little treat, like Starbucks, and bam - it starts. I ate pretty crappy on Thursday but was able to recover and make Friday a success. Actually, when I stop and think, that's a huge victory. It used to be that I would eat an innocent little Starbucks treat for breakfast and it would start a 3 or 4 day binge that would involve candy, cakes, cookies, whatever I could get my grubby little hands on. So the fact that I was able to contain it in one day, 2 meals really because dinner was good, is a huge, huge victory.

So yesterday I went a little tiny bit crazy with food, Starbucks for breakfast and pizza for lunch. Yesterday afternoon all the way home all I could think of was chocolate. I had to fight with myself not to stop at a convenience store and get chocolate. After dinner last night, you guessed it, I caved and had chocolate. So this morning I realized that I need to get my act together, I couldn't eat like that again. So I had my oatmeal for breakfast and a salad for lunch and some fruit and am feeling very proud of myself. Well guess what?? I have no desire for chocolate today. There's chocolate here and I don't even want it. I've been doing a lot of nutritional reading and they say when you eat refined carbs (Starbucks, pizza) your body will crave more. It's true. Also, my lunch yesterday was around 800 calories. My lunch today was around 350 calories and I'm still comfortably full. So let's review. Highly refined foods are high in calories and c

I am a huge fan of discounts, doh, who isn't??? If I can save a couple of bucks it makes my day, or week, or month....... Anyway, I just found this site that provides coupons for stores, coupons. The best part is they have a discount for audible.com. I love this place because I love to run while listening to a book. Reading is my favorite thing on earth but I just don't have enough time for it anymore. Plus with my ADD I ;have trouble sitting still for long :) Anyway, I put a book on my iPod and I'm set. I listen to my book, when I bored I play some music, it's awesome. They even have a coupon where you can save $100 off an iPod hmmm, I wonder if I could get a Nano then I could get the Nike+ system.........

I have not been sleeping well. I go through these periods and it really sucks. I must have woke up 10 times last night. I was too hot, too cold, there was noise outside, the dog was moving, blah, blah, blah....... What I do know is that is pisses me off and I can't get up to exercise. So the alarm went off this morning and I just could not get up. I decided to take another day off and concentrate on trying to get a couple of really good night's sleep this weekend. Let's hope. Yesterday was International Women's Day and I read a couple of posts that got me thinking. One post in particular mentioned the word feminist a number of times. When I hear the word feminist the hair on the back of my neck stands up and I get all defensive. Not that I don't believe in feminism. My mother taught me to be independent, self sufficient, and not to rely on any one let alone a man, long before the word feminist was coined. As I was growing I watched my mother and learned. My

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So what happens when you don't exercise in the morning and you have Starbucks for breakfast??? Why, you have pizza for lunch of course. I always say, If you're going to go, go big :) No, that's not true. I was dying for pizza so I got a microwave one for lunch. Not the best lunch, but not that bad either. Today seems to be a pretty quiet day in blog world . Either that or I'm on the computer way too much. It's very quiet at work so I'm spending lots of quality time with the keyboard :)

I've been trying to fix my archive problem for 2 days now and can not get a response from their help team. You can't email them, you have to post a question to the help center. Well there are a million people posting questions and yours quickly gets lost in the onslaught. It would probably help if Blogger didn't have so many problems. What's really annoying is that people have been posting my same problem for 2 months and not one has got a response from a Google employee!!! Hopefully I've found a sneaky way around it. On to me!!! Yesterday was weight day. I've upped my weights a little and can feel it today, oh baby!!!! That's a very good thing :) Guitar class ran late last night, so this morning when the alarm went off I said no way!!! I figure I need a rest day anyway. Of course not working out lead to Starbucks for breakfast, don't ask me how that's related but they are. Well, I don't have anything to say. I'm working on somethin

I need help. If you look to the right you will see my archives. Notice the date at the top, 2006?? And the month, February??? Okay, it's 2007 and it's March. I don't know how to change it. The date is right on my posts but my archives are all screwed up. Does anyone know how to fix this??? It's important because I'm trying to get on a site and they keep rejecting me because of this (I'll explain more later). Please, any help would be most greatly appreciated.

I am not a night owl. Not at all. I am a morning person - big time. I love to be up before the sun and to get things done. Nothing better than hitting 9 a.m. with most of my chores behind me. Maybe it goes back to my time in the Army, who knows. So most nights I'm in bed by 9 p.m. If I'm up to watch the 10 p.m. news, I'm up late!!! Monday night is my drawing class. It ends at 8:30 p.m. and it's a 20 minute drive home. Do you see where I'm going with this??? Generally when I get home I can't go to bed right away. I need to take time to decompress a little. Luckily I learned rapidly to eat dinner before I go or else I would be up until midnight ( I can not go to bed right after I eat). Wednesdays are worse because I don't get out of class until 9 p.m. Last night drawing class was really good. I'm actually pretty darn good at drawing. I got home at 8:50 and farted around for a while. Finally about 9:15 I forced myself to go to bed. Well I e

but I'm feeling very unsettled. It's almost like I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop but I haven't heard the first one. I am a little worried about Xena, the warrior moluccan . I've had her just about a month now and I think she's depressed. She has this habit of twirling her chest feathers so they all stick up, other birds pluck their feathers, she twirls them. Well, she's started doing that. She's become extremely quiet which is totally unlike her and she just seems kind of down and listless. I'm hoping she's just sad and not sick. Other than that everything is okay, I guess I'm just worried about her. The alarm went off at 4:30 a.m and I rolled right over and went back to sleep. I did get up at 5:30 but that blew my weight training this morning, so I did HIIT . Okay, nothing really to say. I'm feeling kind of antsy and just can't focus my thoughts. I'll try and write more later.

So after I wrote that post this morning I got to thinking. When I went to Africa I saw poverty that was like nothing I've ever seen before. I also swore to myself that I would never feel sorry for myself again and I would be thankful for everything I have. I hoped I would never experience poverty and conditions like that. Well, bet you can guess what happened. I got back, got busy and forgot. I got so busy living my life that I forgot there are people who struggle every single day to live theirs. That special last night really brought it back to me. I am so incredibly lucky and I need to keep that in mind. As my theme song says, Remember you're blessed!!! I am. A lot more than some, not as much as others, but still blessed!!! On that note, I've decided to make my life a little harder in order to highlight how blessed I really am. Makes sense huh?? Most Sundays I get up, workout, clean house, and go grocery shopping. My grocery shopping is usually fruit and ve

Last night I watched the special on Oprah's Leadership Academy and I really have to comment on it. It struck me on so many levels I'm not even sure I can cover them all here. I must say I have never begrudged anyone who's worked hard their money. I'm not the type to say oh they've got too much money. If you want to work you're tail off there should be no limit to what you can make. And I don't think anyone has an obligation to do anything with their money. It's their money, they earned it, they can do whatever they want with it. Having said that, I have an amazing amount of respect for people who do use their money for really good things. The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation - wonderful idea. Side note, the Gates have created trust funds for their kids and that's all they are getting - wonderful idea!!! Warren Buffet - he's donated a huge amount of money to the Gates Foundation . I have lots of respect for these people because they do