A first proper post.

Alrighty. After my introductory post, I figured it was time to get the ball rolling. Up through this morning, I used Livejournal to track my progress and gain some readers/supporters. I'm still debating on whether or not I want to continue to update the LJ blog, so I'll try maintaining both for a while and see how it goes. I will also try and take some updated pictures this weekend. There are some previous before/after progress pics on the ol' LJ.

While I still plan on posting my daily menus here as I currently do on Livejournal, the main reason I decided to start a new blog was to sort of force myself to talk in more detail about my food and fitness choices. PLEASE NOTE: You will notice that my daily menus consist of a food item with a little number next to it; this number is a Weight Watchers point value. I follow their points tracking system and also track using The Daily Plate (part of Livestrong). Just a quick FYI I felt I should make.

Now that that's out of the way, let's jump into this, shall we?

EXERCISE

This morning I rolled out of bed at 5:20 am and grunted my way to my little workout room. Today's special? Jillian Michaels' No More Trouble Zones DVD. As I'm getting closer to the 100 pound mark, I'm in need of some strength training to build a bit more muscle and tone up. Yes, I should have been doing strength training all along (and I have, just inconsistently), but to be perfectly honest, there's nothing I hate more than push-ups, weights, lunges, squats and ab work. I'd rather attempt to run a marathon without prior training than do a mix of those aforementioned exercises.

Cardio and I are pretty tight. Strength training is currently the acquaintance. We've hung out before a few times, but our meetings usually leave me disgruntled. I know if we hung out more, we'd develop a relationship that I would eventually benefit from... But... Damn it, I hate lunges and push-ups so gosh damn much. Ugh. Anywho. So I'm utilizing the No More Trouble Zones DVD as a way to get me more familiar and comfortable with resistance training. I'll also make attempts to use the weight machines at the gym more. But honestly, this whole process is going to be like pulling teeth. There are 100 things I would rather do. This is me, kicking and fussing over strength training.

On the upside, I got it out of the way before work, so I don't have to worry about talking myself out of it after work. My goal is to do the DVD again this Sunday, so hopefully I'll follow through.

FOOD

Since I already posted my food list here this morning, I'll just leave it there for now. The only major note I have about food today (so far) is that I tried the Boca sausage links for the first time this morning. Not too shabby. I'm not aiming to become a vegetarian, but as others trying to achieve weight-loss may have noticed, vegetarian products do offer lower calorie/lower fat alternatives, while still offering fiber and protein, my two favorite things to load up on. If I can't find a comparable turkey sausage next time I go to the store, I'll probably stick with the Boca links for a while. With 70 calories, 3 g of fat and 8g of protein, I'd consider them a nutritional bargain. The taste takes some getting used to, but overall, I was pleased. I was just excited to have my own sausage/egg/cheese McMuffin this morning, sans guilt. Lunch was leftover Thai Scallops & Noodles. Dinner is up in the air. Wednesday nights is Geeks Who Drink, so I usually try to wing it as far as dinner goes (soup, sandwich, etc.), unless I can come up with something to cook in about 30 minutes or less.

RECIPES

Trying new recipes has been crucial to my success in weight-loss. You'll have to browse previous LJ recipe posts for most of my stuff, but I will share the most recent recipes I tried this week: Italian Meatball Stew and Thai Scallops & Noodles. My version of the Thai dish included Ronzoni Smart Tatse pasta and PB2 Powdered Peanut Butter (seriously, I'm addicited to this stuff and will never go back to regular full-fat PB unless absolutely necessary).

Phew! Ok. I think I'm done here. I don't foresee future posts being quite this long, just needed to throw in some extra info here and there to bring folks up to speed.