Sickness and Weight Loss

I haven't blogged in 2 weeks. I'll be honest and say the very first reason is that I still had a gain. I was a little bummed about it and had absolutely nothing to say. Of course I was only up .3 lbs, so that's a pretty lame excuse. But since hindsight is 20/20 I know now why I was eating more... why my workouts were being cut short... why I couldn't shake the last bit of the gain after that hot hot weekend where my love affair with food ran buckshot over my life. I was getting sick.

After having Mono, if I hated being sick before I really hate it now. I try my best to not let it happen, which is usually futile since if someone mentions that they're sick it takes absolutely nothing for me to catch it. We've had a cold running around our office and we're really good at sharing. Probably has something to do with the lack of proper ventilation and the fact that my office has a door which leads to someone else's office. That's kind of asking to share germs.

It started last week. I'd jump on the elliptical with intentions to do my 40 minutes as usual. I'd be about 10 minutes in and I'd drop the time. I just wasn't up for it. Couldn't do it. Last Saturday I had my gym clothes on, went to the gym... and I could feel the sore throat coming. I did 20 minutes... went home (because I didn't feel well and I didn't want to stop and stand in line at Chipotle. That's sick...) and I took a 4 hour nap. After ordering Dominoes. I watched the Superbowl the next night while sneezing into my sweatshirt and washing my hands every time I touched my face in an attempt to not spread my disease.

Being sick while you're trying to lose weight is interesting. In my head I've got a few things going on. The first is that I feel bad and I want to eat things that make me feel good. My throat hurts. That means milkshake. Ice cream. You know... the things I probably shouldn't be eating. But it takes calories for our bodies to heal. The second thing in my head is my weight loss. I shouldn't be just randomly eating stuff. That's going to make me gain weight while I can't exercise it off. Lastly, you know. Nutrition. Your calories should probably come from things far more nutritious than a milkshake. And these things are in constant battle with one another.

I called in sick on Monday. On the way home from the doctor all I wanted was Wendy's. The meal that I used to eat back when I could eat large quantities of food. I wanted a large fry. I wanted a Frosty. Instead, I went to Walgreen's and got my Advil Allergy Sinus and went home. And had soup. And slept for the rest of the day.

I did have ice cream this past week. But I portioned it like I always do, in a tea cup. And I kept up with my MyFitnessPal to watch my calories. I drank Emergenc-C twice a day. By the time I went back to work on Tuesday I could tell I was feeling better. I spent each evening laying on the couch though. No exercising until I feel much, much better. Kept logging my food (for the most part) and kept feeling better. By this weekend, I'm all but over it.

Today I went to the gym for the first time since last Saturday. I walked on the treadmill rather than kicking ass and taking names on the elliptical machine and I think that was a good plan. I just don't want to push it, especially after a week of no activity at all. Tomorrow I'll probably go back to the Elliptical, but cut my time in half. Working up from there. Being sick really sucks and it really sets me back from my exercise routine. But I guess it could be worse. There are worse things.

On the weight loss front, I stayed pretty consistent when I weighed each morning this week. But this morning I weighed and much to my delight, saw 156.1. That knocked out the place where I was hung up for the past two weeks. Of course, official weigh in is tomorrow and I still have time to completely screw that up! Okay, that's so unlike me. Let's try some optimism. I'm sure that if I finish up the day with good choices, I'll be at or around that weight again tomorrow. And then we can call it 14 pounds down since I started using MyFitnessPal.

I've already cooked some today, preparing for lunch for the week, and I made something that looks like it's going to be pretty good. It's very low in calories, so I'm hoping to pair it up with something else considering I do need calories to live.

I'm also making the Shrimp and Artichoke dish again this week, which was AWESOME by the way. Check out the only other blog post in February for that one. I think I'll have company for dinner Friday night so have some healthy things planned for that too (and some dessert... which is not healthy. Because it's dessert).

So today I made a Southwest Rice Frittata. 198 calories per serving. 4 servings total. Here's how it went down:

You'll need...

1 package of Santa-Fe flavored Uncle Ben's Ready Rice

1 green pepper, diced

1 red pepper, diced

3 large eggs

3 large egg whites

½ cup salsa

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Cook the package of rice according to the package directions. Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat and cook your diced peppers until cooked to your satisfaction.

While the peppers cook, combine eggs and egg whites in a large bowl and beat with a whisk. Stir in the rice, peppers and salsa into the egg mixture.

Spoon mixture into a pan. The recipe calls for a spring form pan, but I don't actually own one of those. I prepared a shallow casserole dish with cooking spray. It didn't stick, so I would recommend that if you also do not own a spring form pan. If you own a spring form pan... well... aren't you special?

Bake at 400 degrees for 35 minutes or until set and golden. Let cool and cut into 4 pieces.

Easy, huh? And fast. I cleaned my living room while it baked. Now it's all packaged up in little individual containers ready for tomorrow. It's a great way to use eggs that are reaching the end of their time... since you know, it uses a half dozen eggs. It's also really inexpensive per serving. $1.25 per serving.

Now that I'm better, hopefully things will get back to normal. And hopefully there's not too much Valentine's Day candy around the office.