Diet Works!

In my last blog entry I mentioned that I was on the Michael Thurmond 6 Day Body Makeover diet which consisted of eating meat six times a day, a difficult feat for an herbivore like myself. I followed it precisely until Thursday where I substituted one of the meat meals for a protein drink which isn’t really a bad thing but MT really wants the animal protein to build muscles. By Friday I had completely lost my appetite and skipped a meal which isn’t a good thing because that causes your metabolism to slow down. So technically I quit the diet a few hours early by eating some gorgonzola cheese and two scrambled eggs on Friday night. Miraculously, I woke up Sunday morning (not Saturday morning) to a significantly reduced muffin top. Pretty amazing I would say. It was worth the suffering. I’m going to try to keep going with more protein in small meals throughout the day.

Since this was the first diet I had ever been on in my whole life (other than my restricted eating during the time I refused to take the 3 hour gestational diabetes test when I was pregnant with Ty—whole other story), I was not used to handling lunches out with people. I got to work on Monday and realized that I had lunch scheduled with a co-worker I see about once a quarter. Fortunately, she was OK eating in the cafeteria so I could eat the lunch that I brought from home. Tiffany isn’t a close friend but is my contemporary at work (same grade level, similar type job, similar type skills, and similar type personality), so it’s good to compare notes with her every so often. We talked about our dreams to work for a company that more suited our interests. She is more interested in non-profits and for myself, I think something in the health care side of things. We will see what the lay offs bring.

On Tuesday night I went to Pilates at the YMCA. I’ve always suspected that Pilates is a great exercise for me and now I am getting addicted to it. I love doing it. The class at work on Thursdays is great and two co-workers-friends went with me. After doing the Pilates class on Thursday and then playing an hour’s worth of grueling four-man volleyball outdoors and then doing the ROM, I was really beat on Thursday. On Friday I had a pot luck at work where I didn’t eat anything because of my diet. No one noticed. Or at least, they didn’t say anything. I then when to hear our diversity leader talk about results from women’s survey they did here. They would like to get to parity with the female employees here—we are below parity in several areas. Having worked here for 10 years, I never really had a problem being the minority but I would say it gets a little more difficult as you getting into the higher grade levels and for me personally, after having kids and not being able to or wanting to work all night long. I used to not mind doing this because the work is interesting and challenging but now I want to spend more time with my kids. On Friday night, Jack and I made blueberry muffins for Ty’s 1st birthday. I didn’t want to make a cake because I didn’t want Ty to have all the sugar, plus I didn’t want the cake around because I would eat it all myself. We sang Happy Birthday and opened his presents. It was very low key but perfect for us.

On Saturday morning, Yvonne and Colton came over with their overnight bags to stay with Jack and Ty until the next day. For a Father’s Day present, I got Brian an overnight stay at the Camelback Inn and two Swedish massages. We have never spent the night away from the kids so we were very excited. We went to lunch at Postino’s where I broke my diet with a great Cabernet and some bruschetta. We went to the resort and spent the afternoon at the pool relaxing followed by a great dinner. After a full night of uninterrupted sleep, we got up and went to the spa where we had a light breakfast and spent an hour in the relaxation room before our massages. After massages we had a snack and then hung out at the spa pool. It was time to check out around noon so we checked out and went to the Nordstrom Café for lunch and bought some jeans for Brian. I was eager to get home and see the boys by then. Yvonne and Colton didn’t have much trouble with the boys. Ty is going through his stranger anxiety phase right now and cried a lot when we left. When he realized it might be a while before I came back, he clung onto Yvonne like a koala hangs onto a tree (he hooks his arm tightly around your arm). We went to the mall late in the afternoon with the boys because I wanted to try out our new Sit N Stand stroller. I’d been eyeing these strollers since before Ty was born and my sister saw them for sale at Target so I went to get one. Jack can stand on the running board or sit on the jump seat on the back of the stroller so he can come and go as he pleases. I really like it. Jack welcomed me back home by waking up 5 times last night. It will be a long day today!

Oh, they canceled the Tuesday Night Book Club TV show. I'm not too disappointed because it didn't seem like it was going to be very interesting. My book club is way more interesting than a TV show ever could be.