pretzels.

Near the top of my list of favorite foods resides pretzels. I like all types of pretzels. I like pretzel rods, honey wheat pretzel twists, Rold Gold pretzels, those really fat, hard, crunchy ones, and, pretzel of pretzels: the soft pretzel.

For my midday snack today I had string cheese and yogurt. Not too bad, but definitely missing the salty and crunchiness that I really need in the afternoon. Fortunately for me, unfortunate for BFL, there was a huge bowl of Rold Gold pretzels out in the office this afternoon.

I've had several handfuls. Ugh, I miss pretzels!

inches!

Week three has been the hardest week yet. It's hard to see any visible results of all this authorized eating and exercising everyday. BFL is no longer a novelty and, it's official, I hate eating all this meat. I hate it and it's really hard for me to do it. Especially if I'm the one who has to cook it. Ground beef is about the only thing that doesn't gross me out, but raw chicken, ground turkey, steaks... *shudder* I can't do it. I can, but not without force.

But yesterday made it all worthwhile. After a particularly lackluster week of rainy mornings and saving my cardio or workouts for after work (which kind of makes me feel like I'm doing BFL wrong, which I'm not, I can work out any time during the day), I was feeling like a failure a little bit. So, while I was lifting weights at home, I decided to bust out the measuring tape and check my measurements.

I've lost inches! I've lost one inch from around my waist, an inch and a half around my hips, a half inch from each bicep and each calf! Small, minuscule inches, but still!! It definitely gave me a much-needed push and encouragement, as well as totally made my day.

As we enter week four, we should start to see more noticeable results. I think around week 5 or 6 is when they say you start to see changes the fastest, so that is exciting. And to make it even better, Skip and I started our free day yesterday with a frozen custard face off, so guess what I got to have this morning? You guessed it:

coffee.

I miss coffee. Out of everything in the whole world I can't eat while on Body For Life, I miss coffee the most. I miss stopping at Bucky's gas station, filling up my tank, and then getting a cup of coffee with vanilla creamer and Splenda. I miss the slow, rainy days at work where I leave mid-morning to go to Bread Co. and get some kind of latte. When I read books and the story leads the characters to a coffee shop for bagels and, you guessed it, coffee, I get a little sad. I miss the term, "Let's go get coffee," because even when I say it to someone, I know that really means I will have to get tea. And I used to like tea. But now I'm a coffee girl. Through and through.

Coffee is the one trendy thing I can really follow through on. I don't wear especially cool clothes. My hair makes me look like someone's mom. I don't own skinny jeans or Chuck Taylors. Coffee was the one thing I could do that made me feel like someone who has their life together. Someone who was cool. Someone who could get away with wearing that newsboy hat.

Being on BFL, I realize that I didn't eat too bad before I started the program. True, it wasn't a very well-balanced diet, but I don't think I was doing too bad. I feel confident that when my 12 weeks are over, I'll be able to pretty well stick to eating this way for a good long while (it's called body for life for a reason).

But I also know that I damn well will have my coffee with creamer every morning if I please. And if it means losing an ounce of muscle or gaining a couple pounds, so be it.

guilt and hardships.

Today, my cardio day, I woke up ready to go. I even went to bed early last night. I went to let Tucker outside before I changed into my walking/running clothes, only to find it rainy and about 40 degrees outside. Oh, and it was still dark outside, as usual. I decided not to go for my cardio. I don't like going out in the dark anyway, and the rain and cold were equally deterrent. So I felt very guilty. I'm trying to remind myself that it's ok to not be 100% perfect, but I also don't want to give myself so much slack that I continue to not workout on certain days. I need to get a yoga mat, that way I can do a Pilates DVD in our living room (it has hardwood floors, I need a mat) in case this happens again.

Also this is just getting hard. With our social life, it's really hard and sad for me to not be able to eat and have fun with my friends whenever I want. For example, we went to a huge bonfire this past Friday night and they had hot dogs, s'mores, and hot chocolate. I had a hot dog only because my strong aversion to meat kept me from eating much more than string cheese, yogurt, and peanut butter crackers all day and my stomach was hurting I was so hungry. I felt really guilty about that hot dog, too.

So, I guess the novelty of BFL has officially worn off, and I'm starting to feel like I'm about to quit or let myself down again like I did today or something crazy like that. I just really hate having to plan around what social event is going on that weekend with when I can eat something unauthorized. Like a freaking s'more.

Sigh, I guess I'm just having a bad day.

sore.

Now this is what I'm talkin' 'bout! My arms are really sore! I might sound weird, but I love this feeling. I can feel what seems like almost every muscle in my arms right now and I love it. This feeling is what inspired my blog URL to be "i hurt all over", because right now I kind of do! I don't know, to me it just feels really refreshing to feel sore. I'm not sore like I can't lift my arms or move, I'm just sore in the sense that I feel like I worked out hard yesterday and I love it.

me want cookies.

I'm blogging right now to distract myself from the Boss' Day gathering that is going on just cubicles away. Today is National Boss Day and everyone was instructed to bring some kind of wonderful goodie to eat to celebrate our Bosses. Well, I ate my Peanut Butter Crisp Carb Control EAS bar for a snack (as per BFL) about 30 minutes ago so that when this little party got going I wouldn't be tempted by the junk food. I was wrong. All I want to do is dig into that huge mound of cookies and eat one! There's also delicious cheese over there as well! I haven't let myself look at all the food because I don't want to make not eating it harder than it already is, but in plain view there sits a bowl full of Cheez-Its and Pringles. Ugh, I love Cheez-Its and Pringles!!

It's week 2, and I'm doing well, and slowly seeing some results, but damn if office parties don't just make me want to eat the delicious treats that someone brought in. I mean, if there was a huge stack of soft-pretzels over there I might have to cave.

free day!

Today, ladies and gentleman, is the best part of Body-for-Life: the free day. For 6 days a week, I exercised, ate right, ate meat (blech), and exercised some more. But Sundays... ah Sundays. I get to not work out, and I get to eat whatever I want, as much as I want. Today, my friend, is my free day.

Well, actually it started last night. Since Skip and I like to go out with friends a lot, we decided to start our free day with dinner on Saturday night (and we ate authorized all day until then) and going up through midday snack on Sunday. Then, Sunday night's dinner has to be authorized as well and the week goes on according to BFL until the next free day.

Here is the beauty of the free day: it's realistic. Thinking to myself, "I have to wait 12 weeks before I can eat the things I love," makes me want to die and give up. But thinking, "I just have to make it until Saturday night and then I can have an iced coffee, or some ice cream, etc." Waiting until the end of the week is way easier than waiting until the end of 3 months.

Last night Skip and I went to the Spaghetti Factory. It was incredible. It was amazing how much more we appreciated that dinner and savored every bite of it than if we'd, say, had pizza the night before and had eaten like crap the rest of the week up until that amazing Spaghetti Factory dinner. This morning before church we are going to McDonald's where I will have an iced coffee! For lunch I plan to eat something wonderful like maybe macaroni and cheese or Qdoba. This also makes grocery shopping a lot easier because after I've had a fill of some decent junk food, it won't be so hard to walk right past those aisles in the grocery store while I shop for next week's authorized menu.

I love me some free day.