Tiny (Chicken) Breasts

{Written by Jeremy}

So, tonight I had the smallest chicken breasts ever for dinner. Seriously, they were the size of my index finger. I am very much a meat and potatoes kind of guy. I love huge hearty chunks of chicken, or pork, or beef…and Emily has this gigantic bag of frozen chicken breasts she got from costco for a pretty good deal. Alright, great. Let’s take a look at these babies…

I would love to see the chickens that these breasts came off of. They must have been guiness world record holders for the smallest animals ever to be consumed by man. I’m used to chicken breasts roughly the size of my palm, and about half an inch to an inch thick. These things were laughably small! Did I mention they were tiny? Anyways, I’ll come back to those later…

Today was a pretty good day. I’m always glad once Tuesdays are over because it’s my busiest day and the rest of the week is pretty much a cakewalk. Breakfast was a bit rushed since Emily and I slept in a bit, so I grabbed a slice of toast and a yogurt as I ran out the door to class. Emily met me after class and we went to the gym and had a nice workout. Today we stepped up our cardio just a tad and did running spurts of 1 minute and 10 seconds followed by 1 minute 20 seconds of walking and alternated that for 10 minutes. We will slowly work our way up until we are running more than we walk. After the gym we came home and had lunch together. We each had a sandwich and I had a small salad with mine since our romaine lettuce is going bad. Emily then ran off to her section.

After Emily left for her section, I cleaned up a bit while she was out (I also secured a Wii and Wii fit plus for her on Ebay, for our anniversary/xmas, which I was going to surprise her with but have since had that plan ruined so here it is, out in the open). When she got home we did some re-figuring of my budget, made some phone calls and arranged for our trip to San Jose this coming Sunday as well as our trip to San Francisco next week. I’m really excited because we’re going to see Wicked at the Orpheum theatre and I have been waiting to see that show live for years.

For dinner we had the very small chicken breasts, lightly breaded and baked with a side of mashed potatoes and steamed vegetables. Dinner was a bit heavier than usual, but it was gym day so we were really hungry. I had a (100 calorie) fudge pop for dessert.

As I’m writing this blog Emily is taking practice tests for her CSET. She has to take both the CBEST and the CSET in order to prepare for her Masters in Education program, but the CSET is definitely going to be the most difficult. Polishing her rusty math skills and learning how to read and answer the questions just right is going to take some time, but I have faith that she’ll nail this test like she nails everything else academically. She is far more skilled in test taking than I am.

I’m trying to get all of my schoolwork done by Saturday so that we can spend all day Sunday in San Jose and not have to worry about school stuff. We’ll be going to Red Robin on Sunday with my mom and a couple friends before heading to Valley Fair mall to do some clothes shopping for Emily.

We are both very excited for the upcoming weeks and we hope you continue to come by!

Struggling to lose more than our minds,

J&E

Long day…

{Written by Emily}

Hi All! I hope everyone is doing well and enjoying our blog thus far. Writing this blog has really helped to keep Jeremy and I focused on our goals and on track with our plan! So thanks for reading .

So, today is one of my two long days (the other being Thursday), in which I have all of my classes, nearly back to back. This makes it a bit difficult to eat properly, but I try my best and I think I’ve done alright. On the bright side, having all of my classes today made me walk an awful lot (close to 5 miles according to my pedometer!). I started out today by meeting up with a good friend for breakfast at a campus restaurant. The breakfast consisted of scrambled eggs (which had red bell peppers, onions, ham and some cheese), home fries, whole grain toast and a cup of coffee. Now I know this sounds like a lot, but I was strong and didn’t eat it all. Jeremy and I figure this breakfast is about 750 calories, but they do say that breakfast is the most important meal…right?

After breakfast I went to my Detective fiction class in which the professor spent nearly two hours discussing all of the phallic imagery and homo-erotocism in The Maltese Falcon (what’s a lit class without a little phallus and homo-erotic activity?). After this class I walked over to my American Popular Music course in where we listened to some Hank Williams, Rosetta Tharpe, Prince and Georgia Satellites (it’s an interesting class, to say the least, haha). Next, I proceeded up the stairs of death to get to the bus stop. Yeah, these stairs are killer…you get halfway up and look up, of course expecting to be at the top, but NO! There’s still another half left that curves around. Whoever designed these stairs is an evil menace and should be stopped! Needless to say, I reached the top, panting and wishing I was dead, and took a bus home. When I got home I had a yogurt (170 calories, with lost of protein) for a snack, relaxed for a bit, and then went off to my last class of the day. When I returned home, at nearly 8pm, Jeremy, being the sweet guy that he is, had dinner ready for me. For dinner tonight, Jeremy and I had our new found favorite healthy food: chicken pot stickers from Trader Joe’s. Along with these pot stickers we had broccoli and carrots, and a little bit of rice. Dinner was delicious and we estimate it to be about 300-400 calories.

As far as Jeremy is concerned today, he had oatmeal with a banana mixed in, toast and water for breakfast. After his section, he came home and had a tuna sandwich and a yogurt for lunch. Jeremy was very below his calorie intake for the day today, so we’re trying to really think of ways for him to eat a bit more than me since he needs more calories in a day than I do. I’m trying to make sure he’s eating right and not starving himself  haha.

We ended the night watching “The Biggest Loser”, which we love, and were perfectly happy to see Tracey go. It was pretty incredible to see how far each of the players has come and I’m really excited to see how they all look at the finale. Jeremy predicts that next week Liz and someone else will be sent home, and I wouldn’t be too surprised by that.

Anyways, that’s all to report from today. Hope you all are having a great week!!

Stay tuned as we continue to lose more than our minds…

J&E

Plowing along…

{Written by Jeremy}

Greetings all!

We apologize for not writing yesterday. We are both swamped in a lot of work, but still want to make sure that we write in this as often as possible to help record our progress.

Emily and I didn’t have breakfast on Sunday (tsk tsk) and had 2 slices of a supreme Digorno pizza and a side salad for lunch (~500 calories). We watched the Chargers-Raiders game which resulted in the Chargers 13th straight win over the Raiders. Woo hoo! Following the game I went back to my apartment and did some laundry and finished grading the mid-terms that I had as well as began reading for my readings in Modern Japan seminar. For dinner we had a chicken salad (~400-500 calories) with cucumber, tomatoes and cheese over hearts of romaine and topped lightly with ranch dressing.

Today I had apple/cinnamon oatmeal with sliced up banana in it for breakfast (~200 calories) , a homemade teriyaki bowl (400-500 calories) for lunch, 2 slices of digiorno supreme pizza for a mid afternoon snack (~400 calories) and after that I was still hungry so I went to a campus restaurant called “Joe’s Pizza & Subs” and got a small tuna sandwich and a side of fries with a medium diet coke. Emily says she’s very proud of me for not caving and getting 2 slices of pizza and a gigantic Mr. Pibb. I was tempted, briefly. Still, the sandwich was very good and the fries were great, though I wish they had a smaller size.  Emily had 2 slices of Digiornio pizza for lunch (~400 calories), a small bowl of cereal for snack (~200 calories), and a Lean Cuisine (Chicken in basil cream sauce) with a salad on the side for dinner (~450 calories) and a yogurt for dessert (170 calories).

We each have our own vices when it comes to food. Emily misses cheese dearly (though we still have shredded cheese on salads and the occasional cheese-stick as a snack) and I just miss, well, everything else. At the same time I shudder at the thought of some of the food I used to eat without second thought: Panda Express for lunch, 10 double stuf oreos for snack in the mid-afternoon followed by some Papa Johns and topped off with a Ben and Jerry’s for dessert, as an example. We are working really hard to make things work, even when we go out to eat. There are a number of tempting trips that we are going to be making in the next few weeks, including our 3 year anniversary trip to San Francisco in 2 weeks. We’ve been looking at CalorieKing and some other sites to see what we could eat that wouldn’t be too bad. And then of course there’s the daunting event known as Thanksgiving.

I’ve come to the conclusion that November and December should just be titled “The time that diets die”. I mean, how could you not want to toss your whole diet plan overboard in the face of a beautifully brined turkey, piles of mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, pumpkin pie, stuffing and ham? Who could have the nerves of steel in order to resist a stocking full of candy? Freshly baked sugar cookies topped with cake icing and M&M’s or sprinkles? Yet, in the face of such challenges, Emily and I are going to try our best to perservere.

It’s getting late, so I’ll sign off here.

Working hard to lose more than our minds,

J&E

Grocery Trip! (Day 8)

{Written by Emily and Jeremy}

Subway, Shopping and Studying…oh, my! We hope all of you are having a good Halloween. While it is a momentus occasion, especially for children who love the prospect of free candy from every house on their on their block, for college students, it’s an excuse to find out how much alcohol they can consume before passing out in their pirate/wench costume. For us, however, Halloween looks quite different…

For example, as we are typing this, we are listening to the Bing Crosby and the Andrew Sisters station on Pandora and there is not candy in sight. Jeremy has midterms to finish grading and Emily is drowning in reading (as usual). So while others are off partying, we will be here being our old, curmudgeonly selves. But all hope is not lost…

The peak of our excitement today was a downtown trip. We decided that we were going to treat ourselves to Subway for lunch, since their meal options are healthier than Burger King, Pizza or any other unholy options, all of which have crossed Jeremy’s mind in the last week. At subway we each ordered a footlong turkey breast sandwich with all of the fixin’s although you would think by the service that we got that they were serving time. After our lunch, we went to Borders and did a little perusing (every downtown trip must include a visit to Borders). Emily became obsessed with a book about puppies, while Jeremy absorbed himself into the anime/manga section. After the Borders trip, we went to CVS pharmacy for the scariest part of our day (it is Halloween after all) where we horrified each other by examining the nutritional info on all of our favorite candies. A single milk-chocolate candy bar was 1,000 calories! Many of these candy manufacturers, apparently expect their customers to promply divide their candy bar into 3 1/2 equal pieces and share them with friends, who would of course be on hand to help split a four inch candy bar. While at CVS, in proper ghetto fashion, we craftily removed a scale from the box, and weighed ourselves. Much to Jeremy’s horror, he weights 248 lbs, nearly 20 lbs heavier than he though . Emily, however, was pleasantly surprised that she weights only 210 lbs, rather than 220 lbs. Saddened, but not broken, we moved onto Safeway to do our grocery shopping…

Last night we painstakingly developed a menu for the week and drew up a grocery list based on the menu. We both agree that this is much more effective than blindly going into the store, holding out our arms and running down each aisle and randomly grabbing every other item off of the shelves (“Hon, did you buy this banana baby food?”). The grand total was roughly $67 which is not bad to feed two people for a week, especially considering that our usualy food budget is $50-$75 a week per person. We managed to buy plenty of vegetables, lots of fruit, some essentials and a few healthy treats that will help us stay committed (We got fudge pops!). We also picked up some fish fillets which coincidentally leads me to….

Dinner! For dinner tonight, Jeremy and I had three fish fillets each, with a large side salad (lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, teeny-tiney bit o’ cheese, and ranch dressing). The meal was surprisingly satisfying and delicious. Perhaps, because it was so satisfying and delicious, Emily feels guilty for eating it, but it really wasn’t bad. The entire dinner was roughly 600 calories, which fit nicely into our daily goal.

So, that was our spooky Halloween day. Hope everyone has fun and is safe!!

On the path to losing more than our minds…

 

J&E

One Week In…

{Written by Emily}

So, we haven’t posted for a few days because our busy lives have gotten the best of us, what with papers to write, midterms to grade and reading on top of reading on top of reading. All that said, we are still sticking to our plan. We have eaten well the past three days and we made both of our gym trips this week (which were killer, but satisfying). I’ve decided that I hate the gym…

The gym is a place where skinny people go to get skinnier. Oh, and have you ever noticed that those tv’s in the gym are on the Food Network!!! What kind of torture is that to be forced to watch Paula Dean in all of her buttery goodness while you’re on a treadmill. It’s sick! Jeremy was tempted today when they were making steak and mashed potatoes (his favorite and oh so manly meal) while he was biking his way to Nicaragua. On top of that, there are always too many people in the gym, so you wander around aimlessly waiting for people to get off machines…kind of drags your momentum down. Ultimately, though, I just think it’s a bit boring and monotonous. I’d much rather be out playing sports or hiking, but we have found that when we try to do these things with the idea of exercising in mind, we’re just too lazy and don’t get much done. So…I guess the gym is the only way and I’ll just have to deal. Jeremy’s a great trainer though. We start out with cardio by doing 10 minutes on a treadmill and he makes me do 1 minute sprints for every minute and a half that we walk. Then we do some weights (I’m getting tricepts!) and we end with 20 minutes on the bike. In the end it is a pretty well rounded workout, but we need to keep a closer eye on the time.

As far as eating goes, we are getting pretty skilled at calculating calories and we are using a great deal of vegetables and chicken. We’re also learning how to eat properly while out. Every Thursday, Jeremy and I get breakfast at a restaurant on campus and we’ve come to realize that they give you far too much food of a not so healthy nature. Thus, we have decided to split a breakfast meal. That way, we get the tasty deliciousness, without the guilt. This turns an 800 calorie breakfast (our best estimate) into a 400 calorie breakfast.

We just completed our menu for next week and our grocery list. We are treating ourselves to pizza on Sunday, but we will not make gluttons of ourselves and there will be a salad conspicuously off to the side. The rest of the week relies on sandwiches, chicken and vegetable combos of different varieties, pot stickers (a God-send if you ask me), and I will be making tacos on Friday (Mmmm).

We will be getting a scale soon and we’re both excited to see our actual weight, as oppossed to our assumptions. The next two weeks pose many temptations. Next Sunday, Jeremy and I are going out to lunch with friends and it will be our first real test at calorie/portion control out in the scary world. The following weekend we are heading to San Francisco to celebrate our anniversary and the entire weekend will consist of eating out. We may just be forced to avoid our usual favorites and explore healthier, hopefully tasty, options.

Until next time…we’re working on losing more than our minds.

 

J&E

Day the Fourth

{Written by Jeremy}

So, I’m still hungry. However, those hunger pains mean that my body is burning away fat! And that, is a good thing. Still, I’d be lying if I didn’t say that I dream of bad bad food. I think that’s why I’ve been drooling more in my sleep lately.

Today, however, was a good day. Started off the morning with Emily and I having a lengthy debate over what I should have for breakfast. She had decided on pancakes (a proper portion, of course), while I was really not into the whole pancake scene when I got out of bed this morning. I was more interested in some oatmeal, eggs and toast. After a whispered “discussion” (since her housemates were asleep) we decided that she would have pancakes and I would have some oatmeal and toast, since adding eggs to that combo would make my breakfast pretty hefty in calorie count. I went off to class, and she prepared for her full day of school (Tuesdays and Thursdays are Emily’s busy days). After I got back from my class, I did some work, wrote a response paper on James Scott’s book Seeing Like a State, which was interesting, and eventually made myself a tuna sandwich on toasted wheat bread (“or wheat toast”, says Emily).

Now I’ll be the first to say, I hate wheat bread. However, the wheat bread that Emily got from Trader Joe’s last week is pretty darn good (and 5 grams of fiber per slice! As a holy cow would say: “Moolelujah”). It’s especially good toasted. So, I’ll be drifting away from my standard Wonder/cheap store brand/”only picky 5 year olds eat it” white bread and moving towards a hearty wheat bread full of all sorts of good stuff for me (so they tell me…). It only took Emily three years to convert me.

Another unfortunate side effect of our new lifestyle/my hunger is that Emily thinks that there is some animal hiding in her room because my stomach is constantly groaning. It’s as if it’s asking me where the rest of the food is, and why I stopped eating properly. I think the conversation would be something like this:

Me: Hey stomach, what’s up?

Stomach: Oh not much…hey are you doing ok? You need to borrow some money or something?

Me: No, why?

Stomach: Well, it’s just you haven’t been eating enough lately…I mean you’re eating like, 600 calories in a meal, tops. I’m used to 1500-2000 calories in one sitting! You sure you’re ok?

Me: Uh, yeah…about that. Things are going to change around here, I’ve decided to streamline Jeremy Inc. and that means you need to be more efficient and I need to micromanage around here.

Stomach: I’m getting laid off?

Me: No, just reduced pay.

Stomach: Dammit…

As for Emily’s adventures today, she packed a snack for herself. Similar to the one that I brought to class yesterday. *gasp* I am just now learning that her snack pack included some cat cookies (a Trader Joe’s delicacy). The fiend, sneaking off with those sweets. Then again, I must confess that yesterday I ate a 3 musketeers (lite) bar. Sins were committed all around. Emily insists I tell you that the cat cookies “are not that bad” (~8 calories per cookie). Please note I am writing this under duress.

For dinner I made spaghetti for Emily and I. Started off with a pound of (80/20) ground beef, a green bell pepper and half of an onion. I chopped the pepper and the onion, cooked up the meat, sauteed the vegetables and mixed it all in with some good ol’ Prego sauce (of the “heart healthy” variety). Normally we’d make spaghetti from scratch, but we didn’t have the time today because…

Tonight was “The Biggest Loser” night as well. A very powerful episode to watch, as I didn’t know Abby’s backstory to this point and Shay’s recollection of her childhood left me with my mouth on the floor in shock. It’s a very inspirational series, and let me also say that Tracey is friggin’ NUTS! While watching “The Biggest Loser” Emily saw a commercial for the new “The Biggest Loser” Wii game that has all sorts of exercises and activities and she just fell in love with it. I’m planning on buying Emily a Wii for our anniversary since she told me she really wants to get Wii fit so she can exercise at home in her apartment. She’s not really big on going to the gym…

And that’s exactly where we’re going tomorrow! Yay! First gym trip! I love the gym, personally. I feel like I accomplish a lot whenever I go and I like using the weight machines and riding the bikes there etc. I’m hoping that since we’re going together we will be good coaches and trainers for each other and really push ourselves (like we did before for a brief period of time) so that we can hit our goal.

Anyways, it’s late and we have a (somewhat) long day ahead of us.

Still losing more than our minds,

J&E

Day 3

{Written by Emily}

It’s getting darker now…body weakening…vision blurring…I can’t go on…so hungry…goodbye!

…

Just kidding! Okay, so we’re not dying…yet. Today was a good day from the start. It began with a well balanced breakfast of oatmeal (with apples), wheat toast, orange juice and water. After breakfast, Jeremy ran off to class, canteen in hand (he drank 3 whole canteens of water today!!),  and I stayed home to finish up some work. Jeremy returned shortly before lunch and we had leftover tuna casserole (a roughly 600 calorie meal) and we both, of course, had our full glass of water. Jeremy had to leave, yet again, and we sent him on his way with a snack of cheese and crackers to hold him over until dinner (the crackers were 120 calories and the cheese was 110 calories). For a sort of mid afternoon snack I had a cup of coffee, roughly 150 calories. We ate dinner separately tonight because of our schedules, Jeremy having leftover chicken and vegetables stir-fry over rice and me having potstickers and broccoli. Following dinner, Jeremy and I shared a small amount of light canned pears, for a small, sweet dessert. Overall we consumed roughtly 1500 calories today, which is our goal, and managed to avoid eating unhealthy options that we may have otherwise considered.

A note on our scale: coming soon! We currently do not own a scale, but we will within the next month or so. For now, we are basing our success on our own good feelings, calorie counting, and the general feeling of hunger that we experience throughout the day and on a nightly basis at this point, haha.

Currently, we are both feeling good (accept I have a headache due to a lack of caffeine…oh how I miss tea!), not desperately hungry, happy with our progress and confident of our success.

Until tomorrow…we continue to lose more than our minds.

J&E

“The Contract”

We, the undersigned, agree to the following conditions in an effort to attain our target weight goals by June 5th, 2010:

Jeremy’s Target Weight Goal: 200 (50lbs total weight loss)

Emily’s Target Weight Goal: 160 (50lbs total weight loss)

Nutritional Goals:

• Drink more water!!!!!
• Limit sodas to 2 diet sodas per day
• Control over-eating:

1. Begin with smaller portions
2. Eat slowly (Jeremy…) and savor each bite
3. Drink a full glass of water with each meal
4. NO EATING AFTER 9:30 PM!
5. Eat 3 small meals and 2 snacks a day:

• Breakfast (eggs/oatmeal for protein and fiber)
• Snack
• Lunch
• Snack
• Dinner
• Increase intake of fruits and vegetables
• Limit intake of carbohydrates (potatoes, rice, pasta, etc)
• Get new Vitamins, take daily.
• When grocery shopping, purchase more healthy snacks (fruit, yogurt, dried fruit etc.)
• Avoid excessive snacking: when hungry, drink a glass of water.

Exercise Goals:

• 1 Hour Workout

1. 10 minutes jogging
2. 30 minutes weights
3. 20 minutes cardio (bicycling, treadmill, elliptical)

Hoping to lose more than our minds…

J&E