So, I have my goal of running a half-marathon. And I’m not really concerned about that. Well, I’m concerned about running it but I have no doubt about getting through it. I just gotta keep going. And I KNOW I can do it. The human body is amazing and awesome – and I’m training my brain and my body.

What I need a goal for right now is dietary, I guess. I can eat relatively poorly (please note that this means eating out one day a week and eating >1800 calories a day) and still slog through bootcamp and run. But I need motivation to get more ripped. I want to have Sarah Connor in T2 arms, darnit! However, to look like that, some more subcutaneous fat needs to go. So – anyone have an awesome dress/outfit/goal for me? I’m just not having the movitation to look for motivation (which means, essentially, that I don’t WANNA *insert big whine right here*). Or better yet, does anyone have a challenge for me? Anyone need a partner in crime?

Yeah, I forgot to blog yesterday. Oops. This whole week off of bootcamp thing is really throwing me for a loop.

I went into work early today and then left early. It’s swell. I’ve been home since 1630. But I’m still tired and still restless. I’ve been restless for over a week now and I do not know what my problem is. It used to be, back in the midwest, that I’d feel like this in September/October – just have the urge to just throw all responsibility to the wind, dive into the forest and disappear for a week or two or ten. I’m not sure if I’m having that same urge (which I haven’t had in about four or five years) because the weather is miserable right now and I want to run away to the mountains where it’s nice and cool. Or if my job (like grad school before this) is just making me uber-stressed and wanting to run away. I’m not particularly unhappy — I just WANT something. I just don’t know what I want right now.

So, cooker-type people – I want to try THIS recipe.

It calls for apple cider vinegar which I do not have. I have white vinegar, balsamic vinegar and red wine vinegar. Can I substitute or should I buy the new kind of vinegar? And if I can substitute, which one should I use?

Yeah, that’s really all I’ve got for today I think.

I’m about ready to head out to Martinis and Manicures – one of the fun things I do on occasion. Of course, it revolves around food (and booze, in which I will not partake). I’m looking forward to a nice manicure and a pile of fondue — the raspberries dipped in chocolate are my favorites!

On account of reeeedickulously hot weather, a really heavy monthly flow and some gratuitous grumpiness on my part, there really won’t be much to this blog. I didn’t go to the gym. I ate like shit and I didn’t even take the dogs to the dog park. I spent a considerable amount of the day on the couch and I ate three Skinny Cow Ice Cream Sandwiches.

This was not productive but I’m not actually feeling terribly guilty. I haven’t really had a day off of doing nothing in I don’t remember how long. However, tomorrow I am back to normal – eating clean and healthy and going to the gym. I do have a week off of bootcamp, so I will be on my own with workouts. I always feel a little freaked out during these weeks, but I have my Oxygen magazine and will be coming up with a routine for Tuesday and THursday. I’m going to run MWF and yoga on Saturday. I don’t know what for Sunday yet….

I am in the process of pitting cherries. I bought 16lbs of Rainer cherries via the co-op. I have finished 6lbs so far. I plan to eat  a couple of pounds and I gave a few to the dojo where my husband trains. I still have 5 more to go. So my question to you is – if you had 10 or so pounds of frozen pitted cherries in your freezer, what would you make?

I am currently mostly planning to use them mixed in with my afternoon-ly yogurt. Right now I’m using frozen blackberries that I bought at Costco.

I’ve considered making some jam, pies or maybe tarts. Thoughts? Recipes? Ideas? I suppose I could do smoothies?

I’m bleeding from my vagina and my titties hurt. That’s really all I have to say about today.

I don’t normally track my calories. I write down everything that I eat but I don’t normally bother with the calorie look up – I know I have pretty decent wiggle room. I know my BMR (basal metabolic rate, what you burn just to breathe and lay in bed doing nothing) – I had it calculated – and I’m at about 1536 calories that I burn just to exist. I exercise an average of 500 to 800 calories off every morning. What I don’t actually know is how many calories I burn by walking around/sitting in my chair/working/playing with the dogs, etc, etc. However, I know that I can in theory maintain on 2000 calories a day. Which, frankly, isn’t bad.

Of course, these past few days especially as well as last week, I’ve been eating poorly. Like half of a freezer pizza and 6 fresh baked cookies…that’s naughty. Not that I really forbid any food – but in general I avoid both pizza and cookies because I have ZERO portion control with those foods. If I lived in a world where I could only get one cookie and one piece of pizza, then I could eat them. But I don’t, so I can’t.

Anyway…since my eating has been so poor lately, I’m actually tracking calories. I haven’t added my dinner on yet, but this is an approximation of my food/calories. Be warned, I eat a lot. A LOT.

0500 – Larabar – Cashew Cookie flavor (220cal)
0800 – 2 eggs with bacon bits, 1.5 slices of turkey bacon, 2 slices of toast with ICBINB and 2 plums (430cal)
1230 – sausage casserole soup stuff, zucchini bake with tomatoes and pepp/onions, roasted broccoli and cauliflower, jicama, carrots, cukes and peppers with dip (400cal)
1500 – fat free plain yogurt with blackberries (90cal)
1700 – 2 plums (50cal)

I’ll be eating dinner when I get home but thus far today, I’m looking at about 1200 calories. Dinner I am shooting for a big salad with romaine, jicama, carrots, peppers, cukes, onions, sliced turkey breast, feta and 3T of balsamic vinegarette. I will also be having my current favorite – bean burritos. I am a bean burrito FIEND. Luckily, beans aren’t too bad – but the tortillas are brutal. So tonight I’m aiming for ONE burrito – the tortillas are the Wal-Mart ones we buy (114cal), I will be having ~100cal of fat free refried beans and topping that with onions, taco bell sauce and 14g of cheese. (Yes, I weigh my cheese. It’s on of the few foods that I still have to weigh, like dip. I have willful portion blindness with foods like these.). I’m shooting for about 300 calories worth of burrito and I will approximate 150cal for the salad as the dressing is light (60cal for 3T) and there isn’t much turkey left. The feta is great because I use such a small portion.

I am planning to have my favorite cookies tonight too. 4 cookies = 200 calories. But they are entirely worth it. I buy these Late July Chocolate Sandwich Cookies. I have to buy them in small packages because I would eat them all if I bought the big bag but WOW – best chocolate cookie ever. I like them better than homemade chocolate chip cookies!  So, if I follow my plan, I’m looking at a total calorie intake for today of 1850 calories, give or take.

Now, I wear my heart rate monitor everyday during my workout. I live for those numbers. I play with those numbers and massage that data and it gives me a happy. This morning was my short workout – I only run 3 miles during my fartlek days, so I only burned 462 calories in 37 minutes of warmup, run, cooldown. Sooooo….

Math time! (With rounding to make it easier for me!)

1500 calories BMR + 460 calories of tracked exercise = 1960calories burned NOT counting all other activity (like going to the dog park, emptying the dishwasher or mowing the lawn – which I still have yet to do (I will when I get home, I promise!))

Approximate intake – 1850calories

Leaves me with a 100 calorie deficit or so MINIMUM. Sadly, we won’t talk about the fact that I would have to maintain this for 35 days to lose one pound (though, my bootcamp typically burns 700 to 800 calories an hour, so I would see more like a 300 or 400 calorie deficit those days)

I love data. I really do. I’m such a dork. And I’m really looking forward to the cookies tonight. Unfortunately, that’s why I have to mow the lawn. Yeah, I bribe myself. It’s the only way sometimes certain things get done – like mowing the lawn when it’s over 100 degrees outside!

So I dick around on the interwebs a lot. In this day and age, it’s expected anyway, right? I xanga, I facebook and I even occasionally twitter. I am fond of chatting to people on my gmail account too – sometimes I even chat a little dirty with my hubby, it makes the day go a little faster.

But aside from my “social” sites, I have other things I do everyday. Cuteoverload, the whole family sites of icanhascheezburger style and of course, dailypuppy all come to mind. I read my favorite comic on MWF. I also definitely have some favorite blogs to read. Five biggies that I try to check everyday come to mind – A Merry Life, Roni’s Weigh, Pasta Queen, Mizfit and my new one – 344 pounds. Most of these are weight loss and/or fitness blogs but that isn’t why I read them. I read them because they’re often about things OTHER than weight loss, fitness or how to look good. They are insightful and meaningful and often help me find my motivation to keep on truckin’ not just with my weight loss goals but with my fitness goals and with my general motivation to be the person that I want to be.

A bit of an aside right here – Tyler of 344 pounds just reached 100lbs lost this morning. So stop by his site and give him a big huge hello and congratulations. That’s a pretty amazing thing to have accomplished. As well, while you’re there, skip on down to the third entry called “10 reasons why losing weight is hard” – I was extremely impressed and may print it off to keep a copy around to remind myself that it really is difficult sometimes.

Now, I do also read yahoo and msn for my news blurbs. And I cruise the Runner’s World website and the Oxygen Magazine website occasionally – with some sidesteps to Fitness, Shape and Prevention as well as Women’s Health.

That’s pretty much all my favorite sites though. What do YOU read? Where do you go for entertainment? Do you have favorite bloggers?

I’m waiting to leave work and to pass the time, I thought I’d write my daily post.

I’m happily EXTREMELY chicken pox positive. Go for my freakin’ AWESOME immune system!

I had my second TB test. That will get read Thursday – and that should just about complete the health stuff for applying to school.

This morning’s run on the treadmill went poorly due to some poor dietary choices the day before – suffice to say that runner’s trots are really real — and really suck. Aborted after 3 miles instead of the targeted 4 miles. This puts me a week off on my training schedule – which really isn’t a big deal. I just wish I had more co-operative, less sand-blasted bowels.