Day 4 of My 30 Day Countdown

Another fabulous day today!

Quick post today because it's late and I really should be sleeping! Anyway...i feel like the seconds and minutes and hours of the day are just flying by!! I can't believe it's already Friday tomorrow. This was one of the fastest weeks of my life and it was awesome!!

Jiu-jitsu class was amazing and tough, and hot and hard!!! I was drenched in sweat after!! Sensei Derek seems to take pleasure in inflicting pain when he teaches! He's good - really good! Today, he had us do a drill of kicks all while putting our arms up to the sky...we had to keep our arms up for the whole thing as he walked around taunting and teasing us, saying things like, "who's gonna be the first to drop their arms? who? Joania, is it you? who? C'mon?" I thought to myself, NO WAY IN HELL I'm I dropping my arms, they're gonna have to fall off....YES, i am a bit stubborn!! The thing is, if you dropped your arms, then it's push-ups...can you imagine doing push-ups after holding up your arms in the air for what seemed like an hour????? HELL NO!!! I kept 'em up and so did the rest of the class - he was proud of us!! Then we learned some amazing self-defense moves! I'm telling you, if any of you live in the Ottawa area, and you're looking for a great, challenging workout that teaches you skills as well as gets you fit, you need to check out Therien Martial Arts. Check out the website here http://www.therienmartialarts.com

Today at work, there was some celebration of some kind and wouldn't you know there was left over CAKE!! A huge slab of half chocolate/half vanilla cake with thick icing. It just happened that it was placed directly in front of my office where me and that damn cake had a stare down ALL DAY !!! I watched the whole day as colleague after colleague walked by and stopped suddenly, smiled and got almost giddy as they cut a piece!! I have come so far because Joania of the past would have probably (okay, definitely) eaten 3 large pieces and taken and extra piece home for later!!! That cake was calling my name!! There were moments when it was screaming at me!!!

I felt like I was going nuts!! Just kept telling myself, "you can do this, this cake is garbage, I'm not throwing away this fabulous week of clean eating and workouts for a stinking piece of cake." I drank so much water today just trying to fill my stomach!! At one point, I couldn't take it anymore, I wanted a piece....I started to rationalize in my mind, "I've been good all week, a little piece wouldn't hurt", or "I'm going to Jiu-jitsu at lunch time, I will work it off!!" NO!!! I dug around in my lunch cooler (which is huge and FILLED with nothing but HEALTHY options). I pulled out a small bowl - tuna and spinach. "NAH, that won't do right now!!" Pulled out another container - two boiled egg whites. "Nah, that's not what I want!!" I stared at that cake again - maybe if I just swipe a little bit of icing, maybe that would satisfy the urge, "NO WAY, there's is no way I'd stop at a "swipe" of icing once that sugar hits my tongue!!"

I looked up at that cake, pushed my swivel chair away from my desk and walked out of my office, straight to the cake and said "f- u, u sweet bastard!!" LOL!! I really did!! I walked back to my cooler, grabbed a small sweet potato and went to the kitchen, stuck it in the microwave and 5mins later, I was eating a warm and delicious sweet potato! It really hit the spot and was exactly what I needed to get through the day! This was definitely a test and looking back, I'm glad it happened. At first I was going to give the person who put that cake outside my office a piece of my mind but tomorrow, I will thank him because this made me stronger and showed me I CAN DO THIS!!! I WON"T LET FOOD WIN ANYMORE!!! I feel good y'all!! Really good!!

Food and water consumption was awesome today

Breakfast - small bowl of unsweetened steel cut oats with 2 egg whites, water

Morning snack - small baked potato (saved me from the cake!!)

Lunch - curried shrimp and cabbage (last night's dinner left-overs), water

Afternoon snack - Protein drink (vanilla whey protein, water)

Dinner - baked chicken breast with steamed asparagus

Evening snack - green tea

Awesome day

Wow....Incredible Support..Thanks

I had a FABULOUS workout earlier!! Today, I did very well with my meals...all day!! I had eggs for breakfast, with two turkey sausages...yummy...for lunch I had an almond and feta cheese-stuffed chicken breast with steamed carrots, cauliflower and turnips and a side of tomato and cucumber salad. It was delicious!! Dinner tonight was roasted chicken, spinach and a baked sweet potato...tasted wonderful. I also had lots of water throughout the day!!!

Now, gratitude.....You guys are absolutely awesome!! Thank you so much for all the supportive comments and encouragement and understanding regarding my previous post!! I TRULY APPRECIATE IT FROM EACH AND EVERYONE ONE OF YOU!!!! THANKS!!! IT REALLY DOES HELP!!! Also, thank you to all of you who sent me personal emails and messages on the facebook group as well...

Okay, so the message I got from all the comments is that I need to dust myself off, RE-FOCUS and move on. Don't let all my hard work go to waste by sabotaging the progress thusfar. There were many of you who've been down this exact road before and understand exactly what I'm feeling and going through (especially Kimmy and Kimberley)...thanks for your wise and encouraging words and for those going through the same thing and/or on journeys of their own (like my "twin" NIA, Crys, Lisa), we will get there!!! Steve and Joy, thanks so much for the great advice and encouragement.

ROB - you are amazing...you always know what to say to get me thinking and wanting and just to get that whole "eye of the tiger" back!! I am so pleased about having a cheat meal every two weeks...I know to some it might not seem like much but for me I think it will help greatly. You are right....my body is a CASTLE and I AM THE QUEEN!!! :) I love that :))) I will CREATE in the NOW!!! Thank you Rob....I don't say this enough, but I know that I couldn't get through this without your support....THANK YOU!!!

So here's my plan. Tomorrow morning, I will wake up, weigh-in, then get my workout done first thing in the morning. I will then have a nice healthy egg white and spinach omlette and be on my way.

Today is my 5th wedding anniversary and tomorrow is my husband's birthday so we will be going out to celebrate over dinner and a couple of drinks!! This will be my very first cheat meal and then back on track!! I will post details of my first "official" cheat meal and how the day went!!

It is time to RE-FOCUS!!!

Until next time...
Joania (2KMINE!!!)

Food Pix

Here are a few shots of some of the food I ate when I was away. Again, I didn't find it difficult to make healthy choices because it was always available.

This pic - steamed veggies (broccoli, cabbage, onions) and beef on the grill (yum)!!

This was from an all -you-can-eat sushi restaurant in Vancouver. Great atmosphere. I DO NOT LIKE SUSHI so thankfully there were lots of other items on the menu that I could eat. There was a grill in the middle of the table so that we could grill/cook our own meat/fish. Now although this may sound like a cool concept to some - I have a sneaking feeling that the owners are in the back laughing at everyone, thinking to themselves," look at them, they pay us money to come here and cook their own food!" :)

It was great though and the food was quite tasty.

This was one of my breakfast from the hotel. Fluffy scrambled egg whites, some veggies and a side of fruit (strawberries & pineapples).

This was pretty tasty and very filling!

This was a spicy shrimp and veggie strifry.

It came with rice but I just ask the server to substitute with extra veggies. She did one better and substituted with roasted veggies. It was delicious, so flavourful...so good!

Now, I didn't take pictures of ALL my meals - on some days, I just grabbed a quick lunch while working from the cafeteria like a tuna and veggie wrap on whole wheat tortilla) with a bottle of water....or a quick soup. I did have some sweet potato fries one day..just couldn't pass them up - they were shared though!

Anyway just a few shots....

Joania (2KMINE!!)