Better Arms by Banquet

I think I have talked about losing 20 lbs for the last 6 years give or take a year. I will take measures to better my health and stick with it for a long time but I never seem to actually take any real steps towards losing weight. I will better my flexibility with yoga, build my stamina with interval running or try to distinguish my thighs from my butt with stairs but nothing definitive is done for my weight. I think that it just seems so elusive and impossible that I am not intentional enough or something. Then while talking to my friend the other day, she told me I need smaller goals in order to reach the larger goal. She said I should focus on losing 5 lbs and then once I achieve this I should focus on another 5 lbs. I know this concept, and have applied it to so many things before, but I had no clue I wasn't applying it to this one area of my life.

So my goal is to lose 5 lbs by our banquet in May and to have toned arms by that same time. I want to lose it in a healthy way too. I don't want to just not eat for three days before the banquet and/or run a couple miles while wearing trash bags (which I have already thought about doing). Instead I have started doing ol' fashioned push ups and will start eating healthy soon...ish.

Yesterday I tried to do a push-up and couldn't do it, so I did 6 girl push-ups and I couldn't use my arms all day and for some reason my armpits hurt and my back was tense. Today I graduated to doing 2 normal push-ups (half way), 12 girl push-ups and 3 yoga push-ups. Let's be honest here, I don't even think I am going all the way down with my girl push-ups but at least it is something.

My diet has consisted of whole grains, vegetables (thanks to the 99 Cent store for having produce!) and sometimes some protein. Though it doesn't help that I have a lot of sweets thrown into the mix. In the last 3 days I have had half of a large ding dong, strawberry shortcake (that I shared with someone), a slice of cheesecake and a slice of coconut pie. Now that isn't the norm but I do eat a fair share of sweets. I swear the Cambodian donut establishment down the road laces their donuts with oxycotton and it doesn't help that they are so cheap.

Eating out in LA can be very expensive though it can be much cheaper to buy groceries in LA using the 99 Cent store. The problem with the 99 Cent store (other than their cramped isles and microscopic bottlenecked completely congested parking lot) is that they have random shipments of food. Its very hit or miss there. So my roommate and I will buy a random assortment of ingredients and then do a web search for those ingredients and will make the most amazing concoctions out of them.

Take for instance our crescent roll pizzas (which we just made up and didn't find on the web)...


Or our bacon wrapped asparagus...



Or our pasta tossed with grilled asparagus. (They had a really good deal on asparagus.)





Tonight we found more asparagus, spinach, yogurt, beans, crackers, cheese, eggs, juice and so on. Can't wait to see what else we come up with. For the most part they seem fairly healthy items too. So hopefully I can obtain my new/old goal.