An apple a day...

Hello everyone!




As you can guess by the title, I am going to make a positive step in my diet- eat one apple a day for breakfast.

I went to the Korean grocery store with the intention on buying a few apples, and happened to come across boxes of about 14 big, juicy looking, organic Fuji apples (my favorite).  And they were on sale. Always a plus.


I am not a big eater in the morning, so while it sounds paltry, it fills me up for a while.  I actually find that when I eat right, I find myself eating very little without being hungry. It concerns people but I honestly feel great when I eat healthy even if it's not very large portions. You do not need to be stuffed like a turkey to get enough food. You will know when you've had enough. If you are not genuinely hungry for dinner because you had a clean, wholesome lunch and breakfast, that is OKAY. You are not starving. You would feel it if you were. Now on the other hand if you feel lightheaded, dizzy, by all means- EAT!




It's time for bed now, looking forward to that breakfast apple!

Pink Slime Makes Meat Safer?

Hello everyone!

Recently, the beef industry has been making news concerning the use of LFTB (lean finely textured beef) or as some people know it, "Pink Slime".


Pink Slime is basically scraps of beef (such as tendons, connective tissue and what not) treated with ammonia to kill E. Coli bacteria and ends up having a jello-like texture. And it has been (at least until recently) mixed in most of the non organic beef you eat. 


This stuff was originally meant for dog food and now it's in OUR food. 


The good news is that many companies  have stopped buying beef containing pink slime- McDonalds, Taco Bell, Burger King, and many supermarket chains.


I saw an article today that now the makers of this junk are trying to claim that their product makes beef safer.


A quote from the article:


"BPI owner Eldon Roth told supporters Saturday, “If your grocer doesn’t have our product in their ground beef, they don’t have the safest ground beef they could have.”"


The claim that because the slime is treated with ammonia that it kills pathogens making the meat "safer"

A link to the article can be found here: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/04/are-lftb-or-pink-slime-safety-claims-meaningful-to-consumers/

Have you heard of pink slime before? What is your opinion?

Updates Galore!

Hello everyone!




I have some updates for you! 


Over the next week or so, the blog might start looking different. I am playing around with different designs and such to make it a little prettier around here. I think the old way is boring, needs a change, don't you think?  There may be times when the site is down, or looks crazy. No worries- it's being worked on!  I might also delete some old posts, they're cluttery to me. 




If you have not read my last post, I will be starting Hipcentric as of tomorrow.  Tracy and her team have an email set up specifically to help figure out your body type and what kind of workout/diet to do for best results for you personally.  The long story short- Yes, I am Abcentric like I thought, however she wants me to do Hipcentric for 90 days and then do Abcentric Meta.  This is because my abs are too weak to do the Abcentric stuff without higher risk of injury.


As for diet- I am quite relieved in that I do not have to follow the plan that came with meta.  They told me specifically to just watch my eating for 90 days.  I was told to drink the shake in the morning and have a healthy meal for lunch and dinner. Easy! I would like to make those two meals mostly low carb, gluten/wheat-free and even more ideally, vegan. However, some meat here and there won't kill me.  It's mostly wheat and starch I really want to avoid- ESPECIALLY wheat.  Wheat these days is nothing like wheat was 100 years ago.


I did order the shake for a month's supply just to try and taste it, see how I feel, etc. Yes, it does have some evaporated cane juice in it- but that is a FAR cry from the nutritional hell I normally drink- diet coke, coffee with all kinds of stuff in it, things of that nature.  I do like how Tracy's shake is vegan and gluten free. Big plus. As I said before, I will try it for a couple weeks and review it.  If I like it, and see results, etc, then I will keep on the shake and eating plan until I drop more weight.


I have also again been a very bad, bad, naughty girl and missed a few workouts and ate horribly.  I don't know what I was thinking and there's really no excuse for it. I am hitting the mat again tomorrow, fresh and new. 


Hope everyone had a great weekend!!!

Hello everyone!

Been having more second thoughts about my dieting.  I am thinking about just plain eating clean rather than taking any extreme measure.  I had a talk with my friend about my dieting and I also remember a comment someone left a while back about my jumping into things too quickly. It has been suggested to me by not just my friend but also my doctor (which I will get to in a moment) that rather than go to extremes, I should reduce my calories and do my best to just eat clean as much as I can. No giving up animal products, however not eating too much of them either.

My diet these past couple of days more reflects these principles than veganism.

Tuesday July 26-

Breakfast:

Coffee and oatmeal

Lunch: 6 pieces of falafel with a salad on the side

Dinner: Kept it light again, didn't feel a huge appetite so I had pita chips and hummus again with a bottle of Vita Coco coconut water.  Later on I ended up going to a middle eastern restaurant with a friend and ended up having a few bites of her meat.

Wednesday July 27-

Breakfast:

Coffee and oatmeal

Lunch: Veggie burger with a diet pepsi

Dinner: Ramen noodles (soup drained off) with a bunch of added mushrooms and some chopped onion. 

So Ramen wasn't the best choice, I did pick up some Tofu Shirataki noodles from the store (Kind of like Miracle Noodles) which are made of tofu and yam flour.  

As for exercise, Tuesday I went for a walk for about a half an hour, last night I did fall asleep early but woke up at about 10 pm and got my MS done.

My water consumption these past two days has been good.  8 glasses on Tuesday, 10 yesterday.  

I know this is SORT of random but it's also SORT of relevant.

Hey everyone.

It's about 1:30 in the morning on Sunday and I have been doing a lot of thinking, especially when it comes to my diet.  I am both nervous and excited to take the dive into veganism.  Excited because I hope this will help this bastard weight to come off, nervous and scared that like all the other times before, I am going to start strong and then totally f*** myself into oblivion later by cheating day after day.

Yesterday, I took the time to go through my cupboards and fridge and find all the vegan stuff, and write down what I have and how much. I also put it all in a special area in the cupboard/fridge for them.  Unfortunately I cannot throw out all the food, living with someone else makes that rather inconsiderate of them.  I live with someone who eats junk, meat, and all the stuff I am going to kick. 

Although my ultimate goal is to be grain free, I think that has to be a weaning process.  I have 2 canisters of steel cut oatmeal to eat, a bag of brown rice, and a box of whole grain pasta.  Waste not want not, also these items do have fiber and given my digestive state, could be helpful at first.  However I am not going to eat grain with every meal.  Breakfast and lunch at the most, with a light dinner.  I know they say eat 5 times a day or whatever but I just don't have an appetite that often and I feel like it will inadvertently give my mind the feeling that I have a "license" to indulge.

Speaking of indulging, I just found out that one of my favorite coffee drinks, Starbucks frappucinos, can now be made vegan by asking for soy. 

As for drinks on a regular basis, my goal is to drink a gallon (4 liters) of water a day, with tea when I want something else.  I have plenty of good Japanese green tea in the cupboard and it's not going to drink itself.  Water intake has always been one of my weak points, usually not drinking enough and rather going for the gatorade, soda pop, etc. 

I really hope I can go through with this, I really am sick and tired of feeling sick and tired and overweight. 

As for working out, I really need to stop being such a lazy ass.  Sometimes there are times I know I have all the time in the world to get my workout in, but I don't and end up having to cram it in later all inconvenientlike. I need to get in the habit of getting it done and overwith so I don't have to deal with it later.

Random post, I know, but when I am up late, sometimes things like this fill my  mind and won't let me sleep!  Really looking forward to start meta Monday and I am taking updated measurements later today.

Making the switch

I have no idea why but over this weekend I totally fell off my wagon. I haven’t exercised OR dieted all weekend and there really was no excuse for it this time.







The good news: I ordered the Abcentric metamorphosis AND the Abcentric continuity. While I am eagerly awaiting it in the mail, I am not following the dynamic eating plan until my new metamorphosis arrives. Instead I will be eating up the frozen vegetables and other surprisingly healthy stuff I have in the fridge that hasn’t gone bad yet. Less waste that way and I’m not doing damage since it’s healthy stuff.






As for working out I will not be completely inactive. Tonight I am going to try giving Beginner DC a run through. The choreographed stuff is more interesting to me since it doesn’t always really require a whole lot of jumping, and if you don’t jump around then there’s only a limited amount of cardio to do with meta. But that’s just me. My main weakness with working out is cardio endurance. And unfortunately the only way to improve that is to do more cardio.






Also, as I said before (correct me if I’m wrong)- I am thinking of doing both the abcentric and the omnicentric metas together. I am wondering if this will be too much, or if I should just focus on Abcentric and work more on getting my cardio up to speed. Or should I do both of those things- both metas and cardio.






I hope you all had a great weekend and have a happy Monday!

After my little break... And some before pics!

Hello everyone!

It's been a couple of days since I posted because I have been studying and taking my pre-entrance exam for nursing school. I know how it went in 2-3 weeks!
During these past two days I haven't worked out or even ate well (bad me).  But enough about that.
I have actually come to the realization that I am not omnicentric! I am actually abcentric and maybe a little omni.



Most of my weight in comparison to the rest of me is in my belly. However, my hips could use a little work as well as the rest of me. I am pretty straight built, what you see as being hips are actually pure fat saddlebags. NASTY!

The solution: Do 2 metas at once- Ab and omni. Since all the arms and floor abs are the same on all levels, just add the other centric's legs unless I want to do the arms and abs again (not a bad choice either).  As for continuity, I might just stick with ab since that seems to be where my main problem area is to begin with.
I will be getting back to my workout, and I might start over when I get my abcentric in the mail. I found more things I did wrong with the diet last time and want to start over and do it right. Until then I will be still exercising, mostly practicing my cardio.  That is my major weakness.  I actually will be doing the beginner dance cardio DVD because the meta cardio is pretty hard with all the jumping and let's face it, it's starting to get boring. I miss doing choreography, to be honest. Gives the brain a little workout too.

Day 9 Boot Camp

Hello Everyone!
Day 9 went so-so, at least workout wise.   I did do my workout but something just didn't feel right in my knees, so I had to go a little lower impact than I'd have liked.  I only did 25 reps of MS (my body just was in general feeling funky, I didn't sleep well the night before so that could be the reason) Cardio sucked that day. My legs felt like lead and didn't want to dance. I forced it, but I took frequent breaks.
I did keep to my diet of course, and speaking of, I have come to a realization that being vegan/ovo vegetarian seems to be really good for my body.

1. My Irritable Bowel Syndrome problems are non-existent when I eat like this.  Meat and even grains seem to make me feel miserable later on. 

 2. The weight loss. The weight has been falling off since I gave up meat and grains.  

3. Cost. Vegetables cost money but meat is even more expensive.

Also I do not want to have any part of fake meat, like soy hot dogs and all that crap. It's vegan, yes, but it's still processed with a bunch of crap I don't want in my body.  Also I have tried a soy dog before. Yuck.
A friend of mine sent me a book called “Supermarket Vegan” by Donna Klein, which I have just begun to be looking into.

I also have my list ready for my Metamorphosis diet week 1, the list of ingredients is pretty short but the quantities are bigger.  I have a lot of Tupperware so it will be fine. I plan on cooking/blending it all up on Sunday for the week.   Are any of you doing the Meta diet by the plan?