Not Your Mama's Pizza

A little birdie (Ok, Billie, over at BillieSueLou's Blog) told me to use salsa instead of pizza sauce for pizza. Much healthier AND, not surprisingly, delicious! Seriously! It's like a mexican song in your mouth.... orwhathaveyou.... anyway, here you go:

Step 1: Despite knowing this should probably be step 4 or something, throw shrimp into a pan with Tony's Seasoning and simmer until they're cooked. Set them aside to get cold and soggy until you're ready to use them. :]

Step 2: Chop half a jalapeno, a few mushrooms, and some garlic then throw it all in a pan to smother, or whatever the correct terminology would be, until your house smells awesome.

Step 3: Put salsa on 3/4 of your crust and pizza sauce on the 1/4 your child will refuse to eat anyway, despite your attempts to make that part "normal" and then bribe her, as she will say, "I can't like it. Buy a good pizza, please."

Step 4: Add the stuff you smothered to your 3/4 of the pizza and pepperoni to the 1/4 your child will, again, refuse to eat and pretend to gag on while you watch.

Step 5: Finish adding all remaining toppings. This is what your pizza should look like pre-oven.

Step 6: Take pizza out and proceed to burn your mouth on the hot-ass, amazing pizza you have just brought forth into this world. Also, begin process of bribery.

Lamey McLamerson – Mayor of Lameville

Yes, I will claim the title of Mayor of Lameville. In week 4, I pulled/strained/terrorized a muscle in my chest by “breaking the plane” while doing pushups on the nights that I did upper body. I know, I know. Big-time sadface here.

Anyway, I was basically told to suck it up and be held accountable for my lack-of-posting, so here I am! Updating the masses (ok, like 3 of you) on what’s been going on since week four, so here it goes:

After four weeks into the p90x program, I had lost 11 pounds. 11 POUNDS!! The workouts were a bitch and I wanted to make them pay for making me simultaneously feel so shitty and great. But I digress; we all know whose fault it is that the program was even needed. Anyway, after I pulled the muscle, I decided to stop for the time being, but continue on with a modified version of the nutrition. Obviously I wouldn’t be taking in as many calories since I’d put a hold on the high-intensity workouts, but since stopping p90x, I’ve maintained my healthy eating.

Last weekend, I drank for the first time in two months and the morning after, all I wanted was a giant bucket of diet coke…. like, if elephants could drink diet coke, I’d want whatever size bucket they got. This has always been my go-to, morning after drink. So I sulked all day, sipping on water, and argued with myself over the diet coke. “Just one… no, not even one, just a few sips, and I’ll be right as rain…. No, you’ve worked so hard. No diet coke!!!” Well, desire won over reason and I bought a diet coke.

Here’s the interesting part: three sips into it, and I was disgusted. It didn’t have the same pull, the same fullness, the same biting taste I remembered. It just wasn’t satisfying. And so, I am now… officially…. done with Diet Coke. I am simultaneously happy and sad.
Anyway, other than that milestone, I’ve been eating lotsa lean protein, especially salmon (ZOMG delicious), and trying to work veggies into my regular diet. This is kinda’ hard since I’m trying to make them palatable for myself and my dy-no-mite kid, but it’s working out so far. :]

Anyway, enough with the novella. I’ve been walk/jogging 3 days a week just to maintain, and I’ll probably be starting p90x again within the next few weeks. I’d love to just run for a little while and lose more weight so that I would REALLY be able to see the effects after I’ve completed the program, but we’ll see.

Oh hello Week 3...

Ah yes. Today marks the beginning of week 3 of p90x.

I'd like to say a quick "F you in the B" to all the folks who said I wouldn't even last three weeks. :] It's a bitch, isn't it?

So week three is starting and I'm feeling good. I haven't checked the scale, I don't care. I've come to the conclusion that even if I only lost one ounce of my fatassedness, I'd be ok. I don't feel GROSS anymore. I don't feel like a complete asshole for not doing anything about the aforementioned fatassedness.

I feel good mentally and am on the road to physical well-being and THAT makes me feel great.

Anywho, I won't say that I've "slipped" once or twice, but I had a few moments in the last couple of weeks that felt as though I wasn't giving it my all. Yoga is the devil and I want to punch Tony (Tony Horton - p90x guy) in the face for making me do it, but you know... I want to punch MYSELF in the face more for having gotten to the point of even needing Tony. So yeah. I'm not gonna' be Hector the Projector here. I know whose fault this is.

The diet has been pretty easy so far. I haven't had any diet coke since this started. Nor have I had any processed foods, anything other than whole wheat breads, and I've pretty much given up beef entirely. All recipes that call for ground beef are now done with ground turkey. I feel like I'm made up of 100% water now, I drink so much.

I discovered Michi's Ladder, which is on the beachbody website, that lists tiers of food to eat. I think I'm going to try to stick to buying those foods from now on to make it even easier on me when I'm cooking.

Speaking of, tonight I'm having bellpeppers stuffed with shredded chicken and brown rice that's been crock-pot simmering in whole tomatoes and tomato soup. Omnomnom. I hope it's good. Sounds good. Also, last night, I mangled a recipe into a great low-cal snack! It was freaking amazing. Recipe is as follows:

Skin and dice an apple (I used granny smith)
Throw into a bowl with 3/4 cup of sugarless apple sauce and a big dash of cinnamon. Mix well.
Put a wheat tortilla in a pan, throw the mixture on top and sprinkle with a small amount of low-fat shredded cheddar. Cook like a quesadilla.

Take 3/4 cup of lowfat yogurt (I used vanilla) and mix with a tsp of applesauce and small dash of cinammon to dip your appledilla in.

This snack is freaking ridiculous and tastes like angel wings, I swear. Half of that concoction is something like 140 calories and IT IS FILLING.

Anywho, just a little something until next time. Keep pressing play.

Day 4/I'msuchasadsack

Wow. So It's day four and I'm feeling it.

Last night was Shoulders and Arms along with Ab Ripper X. The Shoulders and Arms dvd wasn't too incredibly bad, as it gave my aching gams a reprieve, but Ab Ripper X owned me. 15 minutes of ridiculous, embarassing ownage. (Or pwn, in webernet lingo.)

That's ok. I can give up an hour a day. An hour a day isn't too much for me to sacrifice for my health, which is probably in the shitter.

Here's a little story that keeps me motivated. Last year, my Aunt died. She was an AMAZING woman. She was funny, and loud, and had this laugh that was exclusively hers. I'm talking, southern-purple-hatted-lady laugh. When she and my mom got together, it was infectious, and my mom's laugh sort of started to take on qualities of my Aunt's.

Anyway, my aunt was morbidly obese. Her husband (who died from meningitis when I was in the 9th grade) was also morbidly obese. Their daughter, who was 5 years younger than me, picked up their genes. Although they lived far away for most of my life, most of my younger years are filled with memories of them; they were all such amazing people. My aunt eventually moved closer to home, as her obesity-related diabetes had affected her life to the point that she started having to have toes cut off. So she moved home to be closer to family.

One day, after she'd already had her entire foot surgically removed, she had a seizure at home. They called me to the hospital to see her one last time before she passed away. What I saw in her hospital room is now what keeps me going. My aunt, in the hospital bed, was in a coma. Her 19 year old daughter was stroking her head saying, "I love you mama. I love you mama. It's ok, I'm here, I love you." Just typing this now takes me back to that time and place; typing it is living that sadness over again.

She passed away not long after. It was hard on everyone, especially my mom. The reason that tragic situation is a motivator for me, is that it was all weight-related. I don't want Emma, my 3 year old, to have to say good-bye to me 17 years from now as I lay in a hospital bed all because of something I possibly could've prevented. I'm not blaming my Aunt for what happened, not by any means. I don't know her medical OR family history - but I know mine. And I know that that future is one I can prevent for myself and my awesome, wacky kid.


Tonight: Yoga X

Also, I switched from the p90x Lean program to the p90x Classic and last night I got the Body Fortress protein shake for post-workout muscle recovery. Tastes like vanilla ass, but sacrifices gotta' be made.

New schedule:

Weeks 1-3:
Day 1 – Chest & Back, Ab Ripper X
Day 2 – Plyometrics
Day 3 – Shoulders & Arms, Ab Ripper X
Day 4 – Yoga X
Day 5 – Legs & Back, Ab Ripper X
Day 6 – Kenpo X
Day 7 – Rest or X Stretch

Do your best, forget the rest.

1/04/2010

And so it begins... I'm not making this journey out of fatassedness a 2010 Resolution. I've never come through on resolutions, and this is too important to make it a symbolic gesture instead of a real venture.

I'm not going to blather on about doing a blog for accountability. More than likely I'll be the only one reading it, but that's just what I need. I need to see that I've stuck to it. My father.... MY FATHER laughed at me today when I said I was about to start p90x. I can't blame him, really. I've always been the type of person who hears something new and amazing and wants to climb on board. Not so much because of gullibility, but because of hope and dreams and all that other stuff that doesn't count in the real world. I can't hope to lose weight with p90x. I have to WILL it to happen.

I will not quit.
I will not fail.
I will not give up.


Weeks 1-3:

Day 1 – Core Synergistics
Day 2 – Cardio X
Day 3 – Shoulders and Arms, Ab Ripper X
Day 4 - Yoga X
Day 5 – Legs and Back, Ab Ripper X
Day 6 – Kenpo X
Day 7 – Rest or X Stretch