Sympathetic wives and saboteurs

I figured something out. I need to cut about 500 calories per day and exercise off about 300. Wow. It sounds like so much, but it will help significantly.

I also figured something else out . . . I wondered why I have not really been motivated. Right now, I am still finishing up fall quarter (they are a little strange) at the private college - ACR - where I teach AND have started the winter quarter at UC. I think I am just stressed right now. The finals at ACR are on Monday & Tuesday. I will have 1.5 weeks off from there, and HOPE to be working for winter quarter there on Tuesdays and Thursdays. So, I am not going to be too hard on myself until next Tuesday. I will be done there at 10:30 on Tuesday morning, and at that time, I will start to hold myself more accountable.

I look at it this way. If these are truly resolutions that I want to make a permanent part of my life, then I need to start thinking long term. So, these are bad habits I acquired over a period of time, so is one more week really going to kill my chances for change? Or am I acknowledging WHY I am the saboteur? Or am I making excuses?

Here is a bit of logic that I was thinking about while doing last night's dinner dishes. What did our ancestors do? Did they eat like us? Oh, my no! Even recent ones! They did not have cake daily, nor meat, eggs, ice cream, and all of those other things which make our lives so (calorie & fat) rich. What if we went back to eating turkey only on Thanksgiving, ham (not that I eat it) & eggs on Easter, cake & ice cream on birthdays, and so forth. The rest of the time, reserve it for foods rich in vitamins and minerals. Veggies. Fruit. Complex Carbs like grains and rice. Wow.

I am thoroughly convinced we are meant to eat like cavemen. How often did they get meat?

Yesterday (yeah, I know I skipped a couple of days, but Husband and I had a little tummy flu and it was hard to record what actually "stuck")

Breakfast: Oddly, I truly don't remember eating one, which may account for the rest of the day

Snack: handful of pecans, two Hershey's kisses, 3 small jawbreakers

Lunch: spring roll, Szechuan Tofu and Rice, Veggie Tempura with a fabulous ginger/wasabi sauce, one fortune cookie

Snack: Three Cheese Calzone (UGH! I KNOW) with whole grain crust & 2 T Smart Balance with garlic powder (for dipping)

Dinner: four coconut shrimp with 1 T mango chutney, 4x6 square of rutabaga pie (sounds strange but it's DELICIOUS! Email for the recipe)

But, I know yesterday wasn't the best, but I skipped breakfast for the first time ever that I can remember - at least since the 80s. And I normally don't go out to lunch on campus, but the Chinese restaurant is cheap and good. All the Chinese & Asian students go there (it's Pan-Asian), so it must be authentic. I also felt I was led there for a reason. My fortune from the cookie read: "The best gift for a husband is a sympathetic wife." Tim's schedule has been insane, and I haven't always been kind the last few weeks. I think this really brought it home for me. This may help with the crabbiness factor!

Best things I have heard all week: in an email from Jenna (whose blog is glamarama.net/blog - check her out!) she called Sarah Palin "Caribou Barbie". Hadn't heard that one! The other best thing I heard is the results of last quarter's student evaluations. I was literally crying when I read them! I knew I had a good rapport, but TWO of them said I was the best English instructor they had EVER had, and one said I was their best instructor at UC PERIOD. Mixed with other lovely comments (and one negative person, but I know who she was, and in statistics we throw out the outriders like that), it really made me feel like I am getting through! They are going in my portfolio :)

(PS Today's photo comes courtesy of Triathlete.com - it's a real photo of a real sign that one of the triathlete marathoners left on a trail ~ TOO funny! I am not using it for sales, so I hope they don't mind I am using it for its giggle factor.)