Fat Tuesday

I am still focused on my February challenge of actually tracking every single thing that I eat. I did go over one day, but I am still happy that I tracked it. I had plans for a girls night out with one of my best friends. I knew we would be drinking and eating so I made good decisions (but still ate) throughout the day. I even moved my scheduled runs around so that I had a few extra "earned" calories that I could eat. I ended up being over by close to 800 calories! I don't know if that is completely accurate because I tend to overestimate whenever I eat anything in a restaurant. I had two beers at a local brewery, we shared hummus with pita chips and artichoke asiago dip with bagel chips and ended the night with a huge Miller Lite. I did not make the smartest choices while out, but I rarely get to go out with her so I wanted to just enjoy it. I did enjoy, track it and started fresh on Monday. I have tracked AND stayed in the correct range every day since then.

Even today, fat Tuesday. Growing up I remember every year on fat Tuesday my grandparents would bring over a huge selection of paczkis to choose from. We would have our pick and inhale it. I don't want my lifestyle to rob happy food memories from the hubby or little lady. (Not that you have to indulge in fatty foods to be happy and alive. I think the occasional treat is fine though. It was a tradition that I enjoyed and a day that reminds me of my grandparents now.) Little lady and I made a special trip this afternoon to the hubby's favorite bakery when he was a kid. We bought a few paczkis and waited for hubby to come home. After dinner, little lady and I split a paczki. I had looked up the calories for a paczki on a few different web sites and they all seemed to agree that it was 400-500 calories. I planned 250 calories for my half and enjoyed it. I am still 100 calories from the maximum calories for the day so even if it was a bit more, I feel covered.

On another note. At the end of the summer, I actually took a few "before" photos. I know that I should have done it sooner, but they are always devastating to look at. I figured even just seeing the progress from 175 pounds down would be fun. Since I spent the past few months maintaining, I have not been able to use the pictures. I am finally down 10 pounds and am ready to share some embarrassing photos. Before you feast your eyes on the prize I feel that I should warn you I am wearing some tight pants. I figured if I wore pants that were tight it would show a loss easier. Plus, I could continue to wear the same outfit for pictures as I lose weight. I figure every time I lose 10 pounds, I will take another picture. Here is my official weigh in pictures.

Front view

Back view - in REAL tight pants

side view

Hopefully you aren't laughing to hard at my "work in progress." I could not get the lighting the same in the pictures. It could be my lack of skills with a camera and camera timer, but I decided that it wasn't my skills and it must have been sunny in August when I took the first round of pictures.

The back view scares me the most because both pictures can be a bit disturbing. The fact that my pants are so tight in the first picture that my underwear is very obvious is awkward. In the second picture, what the hell is going on with my bra?!? Still work to be done. The "plus" on the latest back view is that my arms are positioned in a way that shows some muscle definition.

I am happiest with the "progress" on the side view. During both pictures, I tried to keep my stomach relaxed and not "sucked in." Believe me, I wanted to suck it in, but figured it would be better to see the progress of the real thing. I am very happy that it appears most of the ten pounds came from my stomach.

I am hoping the next 10 pounds will be much more dramatic!

Cooking and running, one day they will balance out

So with all the fun in the kitchen, there has been a downside. I struggled with my eating yesterday. I am proud to say that I ate well on Monday and Tuesday, but something snapped on Wednesday and I derailed. It happens and I started over today. I did manage to stop myself mid binge with a cracker heading to my mouth and stopped the craziness. Before the crackers though there was that frozen yogurt (only about 1.5 servings left though so I managed to spread out the joy for a few days), frozen taquitos, biscotti, and A LOT of crackers. It wouldn't have been so bad if I could have had one servings of each, but I didn't. I did however not let that binge take over the rest of the day. Usually, if I have an afternoon binge I let myself binge for the rest of the day. I got back on track and had a light dinner and unfortunately a serving of homemade pierogies. A serving is 8, right? sure.But more importantly, I said "homemade pierogies!"

We rarely (as in once before with my grandma) make pierogies and have been wanting to for awhile. It is near impossible to pass up fresh pierogies so I cut myself some slack and have been good all day today. Back to the pierogies though. My grandma makes the absolute best pierogies ever! She is obviously Polish and if the family could get her to make them more often we would all be in heaven. She has no recipe for them and everyone always asks her for it. I actually convinced her to let me make them with her twice now. The first time though she had already made the dough and filling so I can't really count it. I did get to work with her once from beginning to end and took notes (this has been about 2 years ago now). Although looking at them last night they were very quick notes and not quite complete. Between me and the husband though we got it mostly figured out.

no one ever said making pierogies wouldn't be a mess.

We rolled out the dough and cut out circles. These are my perfect circles.

Here I am filling my pierogies. So glamorous.

Our beautiful products.

Hubby dropping the pierogies into the boiling water.

We actually made pierogies that tasted pretty good. We were proud! They are definitely not as good as my grandmas, but I will get there. Ours were a bit to doughy, but all around not bad. We ate our generous servings last night and quickly froze the rest. My mom and grandma are actually coming to visit us this weekend and we want to surprise them with our homemade pierogies. I don't know if anyone has ever made my grandma's pierogies for her. I am guessing not since she doesn't share the recipe so I am excited to surprise her. I will have to get a picture of the batch all cooked up then. Our kitchen was such a disaster by the time we were enjoying ours that I didn't even attempt it.
 

Our little helper who kept checking on us in the kitchen.

Today I did manage to get my 2.5 mile run done too! It felt good. It was one of the longest runs I had to push little lady on. I have to get used to it though since my weekly runs are 2-3 miles. It went surprisingly well. I always start out rough and promise myself to at least run 15 minutes before taking a break. Usually once I hit 15 I trick myself with a few more minutes here and there. Today I did 26 minutes and then stopped to walk for about 30 seconds and then ran the rest. I finished my 2.5 miles in 29:46. I am definitely not a speed racer, but I am fine with that.