it only works if you talk back.

School can be stressful, that’s no surprise to anyone. Sometimes I am able to deal with the workload effectively in a manner which allows me to get a good amount of rest, and allowing time for other activities.

Sometimes. But not last night.

So I have had a busy week, small assignments due, meetings to attend, all leading up to yesterday. I knew yesterday was going to be a long day. I had planned to hit the gym a little earlier than usual, since I had a meeting at 8, but that plan was foiled by my alarm. Instead of getting up around 5:30, I slept until 7:30. This probably wasn’t a terrible idea considering I went to bed around midnight reading a book which I had to write a 7-8 page report on. I told myself I’d hit the gym tomorrow (which is now today). No big deal, went to school and about the rest of my day consisted of: a meeting about a video project, an extended chapel, a quick trip to A&W, a meeting with my pastor, choosing songs for Sunday worship, practicing songs for Sunday worship, catching up on emails, starting my paper, going to Vanguad on Ice 1am, returning home to complete my paper around 4am, and finally getting to bed around 4:20.

Needless to say I was tired when I had to get up for my 8am class and hand in my paper. My brain was not really operational until 10 or 11am.

Other than the lack of sleep, it’s been a pretty good day. It’s actually been a pretty good week. I’m also really glad that I did go to the gym today. Chest & back was what I worked… Worked them hard :)

Tonight I’m going to an Oil Kings game with my friend Aaron, to cheer on the Tri-City Americans. It should be fun; I’m going to wear my Carey Price jersey (he used to play for the Americans) and Aaron is going to bring his American flag. We’re going to be obnoxious.

While I don’t feel like I have all that much planned for this weekend, I will be fairly busy. Tomorrow I plan to go to the gym in the morning, spend the majority of my day reading “Jewish Backgrounds on the New Testament” (I have a 4-5 page paper on it due Friday), and I’m hosting Open Stage at The Carrot in the evening. Sunday I’m leading worship in the morning, I have a lunch meeting afterwards, and possibly plans in the evening.

I have 3 decently important assignments due on Friday (along with a couple easy things earlier in the week) I just need to make sure I keep on track this weekend and throughout the week, so I don’t have a repeat of last night.

At least I’ll try.

So, if you’re actually reading this (which I know some of you are) you may have noticed that I didn’t post anything over the weekend regarding my eating habits or anything… There’s a few reasons for that.

First of all: this weekend sucked in terms of eating habits, and there was no significant exercise.

Secondly: I was busy.

So anyways, this week I’m starting my program. Today I was working my arms, it was tough, but good.

So I’m calling a mulligan, technically in counselling terms it’s called relapse. Whatever you call it, I did bad, I do better next time.

I knew today was going to be a big day. I had an appointment with my trainer at 8:30, so I had a piece of toast with a little bit of jam and cream cheese (160 cal). I’m glad I did have that because my trainer was pretty ruthless.

Now I have a 3 day program that I can commit to, working different muscle groups every day. I need this to actually improve my core and upper body strength. My core strength is actually awful, upper body strength is bad, lower body is pretty ok. For the next 6 weeks I am going to commit to this 3 day program (also spending a day or two just doing cardio). I’ll post the exact program later.

I decided it would be a good idea to weigh myself again after running through my program. I’m glad I did because I was down to 216.5 (that’s 6.5 less than my initial body composition analysis). That’ll help with my weigh in at Urban Losers this week.

Running through a 3 day program in an hour is exhausting, and I needed something in my belly. I opted for a ‘Pomegranate Punch’ from Booster Juice. Delicious (400 cal).

Lunch was not as healthy, but not really that bad either. I had a small vegetarian burrito from Mucho Burrito. (which according to the limited nutritional information I have, is about 500 cal). My Community Life Group and I went there. I also got a bottle of Diet Dr. Pepper.

I had an appointment with a nutritionist this afternoon too… That was… well, a good kick in the butt. It’s not like she said anything I didn’t know: “80% nutrition, 20% exercise” “3 meals, 3 snacks” “don’t drink your calories” etc. The sad reality is that it’s expensive to eat properly, it’s expensive to buy good food, and eat 3 meals and 3 snacks per day. I want to have all the right groceries in my fridge and cupboard, but it’s hard. She wanted to set a meal plan for me and junk, which would probably be beneficial, but would cost me around $240 over 6 bi-weekly payments. I don’t know if I can afford to do that.

Dinner was fine, I had a bowl of soup and some flatbread with cream cheese, and the remaining pickles in the fridge. I seriously have no food in the fridge, there is half a container of cream cheese and a little bit of raspberry jam left. Oh and some left over chick pea thing (which I won’t buy again). I also have some tofu and ground round in the freezer, and I have no idea what to do with them. Actually, now that I think about it… I should make a lasagna with the ground round… yeah…

The only other thing that I ate yesterday was a few carrots with some dip at our film/discussion at Vanguard. Oh, and when I was watching Community with Curtis and Kristin, I did have a few chips with some salsa, and a couple of Kristin’s chips.

This weekend: grocery shopping.

Another day, another breakfast shake… this one was a little less caloric, because I finished off one thing of meal replacement powder.

Also… I had Starbucks. I had a Grande Soy Tazo Chai Tea Latte. 210 calories.

I had little control over lunch (I could have brought my own food or something, but I had a lunch provided) Thankfully though, provided lunch was Subway! So I had a 6″ veggie sub with cheese, mustard, a little mayo, and a little sub sauce. I made the wise choice to avoid the chips, pop, and cake that were also present. I made up for my lack of self-control from yesterday at lunch.

After spending a few hours doing nothing of significance at home, I decided to hit the gym prior to Creative Design. I knew I’d need to eat after, but I thought I’d just grab something quick at Booster Juice or something…

Anywho after an hour or so at the gym I leave, and remember that everything shuts down in City Centre at like 5… So lame. I end up not getting anything at all, even though my bus was late, which would have given me plenty of time to grab Subway or even run back to the juice bar at World Health.

So I didn’t really have dinner. Now, at CD I did have a bit of popcorn (it was a small amount). I was happy with that and some tea. I avoided the rice krispie squares…. For quite a while. Right before leaving, I was tempted by them and caved. I had 2 small pieces (they honestly were small) but ultimately unnecessary. I did resist further temptation though, because I had to ride home in the car with them, even carrying them on my lap.

So overall today was a good day.

Alright, well today was my session with a personal trainer… now I was hoping that it would actually be helpful more than it was, all she basically did was show me a bunch of different equipment (which was a good thing, I suppose) and a few things that I could do. What I did not get was any sort of program that I could do for the next 6 weeks…

SO… I had to buy my first session with a trainer… and of course, the one I have is “more experienced” or “elite” so instead of $70, it was $90… ugh…  I wish I had all the money in the world, then I could have a personal trainer, and a nutritionist, and I would never be fat again… maybe.

Anyways, so that’ll be Thursday morning, in the meantime I’m just going to do the things that I have been shown, and a crapload of cardio. Thursday will be a big day, setting a program in the morning, and meeting with a nutritionist in the afternoon. Word.

As for lunch today… Vanguard sucks at providing any sort of vegetarian option at Tuesday lunches. I wish I had just left instead of sticking around to eat 2 small buns with some margarine. I ended up going to Subway for a 6″ Veggie Delight sub with swiss cheese and sweet onion sauce. If I hadn’t eaten those two buns, lunch would have been perfect :)

Supper was the most troublesome of my meals today… I had stopped at home before my 3 hour class, with the intention of grabbing some soup that I could heat up later on…. I totally forgot to do so. SO instead, I went to class and avoided the temptation of getting some quick snack (chips or otherwise) during the break, with the intention of getting something more nutritious later…. well, I didn’t quite think it through. I didn’t think about the length of my travel time, and so I didn’t end up being able to eat something until almost 7, which is pretty bad if I’m trying to maintain some sort of regular eating schedule…

The second problem is that I didn’t end up going straight home to eat some soup or something, but rather I went to Lan’s Asian Grill and got the Tom Yum Fried Rice (without chicken & shrimp)… it was really good… really bad for me probably, but it was really good. Not to mention the fact that it was quite a lot of food. I tried to only eat half, and save the rest for tomorrow or something, but I just couldn’t do it in the end. Lame.