I haven't written a blog post in over a week because I have been super busy with studying!! 

When I started this weight loss journey again in May I also decided to work on myself in other areas and focus on having a career that was something I am passionate about and not just finding a 9-5 job when I come home. After some soul searching I realized that in the past 10 years I have had two jobs that I loved, one was working as a manager at Starbucks and the other one was being a leader at Weight Watchers. I loved the job at Starbucks because of the amazing people I worked with and getting to interact with people all day long, I just hated the corporate aspects of it. With Weight Watchers, I loved feeling like I was helping people achieve their goals and I loved getting to know my members on a very personal level but the pay was very terrible (sorry WW). So because of this I decided that I would get a certification in nutrition counseling so that I could have my own business and do what I love best, helping people achieve their goals for a healthy lifestyle.

I also loved to workout and thought that fitness was a very important part of living a healthy lifestyle so first I studied hard and became a certified personal trainer. After that I took an online course in lifestyle and weight management, which gave me the fundamentals of doing a 20-week coaching session. Now, I am taking the hardest course, which includes 2 huge textbooks, in Nutrition and Wellness Counseling.

I have just finished the first textbook on the basics of nutrition, everything from the anatomy of the body to all of the essential nutrients our body needs. I have written literally 50 pages of notes so far. I started the second textbook today which is all about the counseling side and just the first two chapters, assignments and questions have taken me 8 hours. I would love to finish this course by the time I come back to the states on November 6 so that I will be prepared to get a job in the field or really start up my business.

So for the next 3 weeks, this will be my full focus but hopefully I will get on here to let you know about interesting things I am learning :-)

As for my exercise, I am still on track with the P90X, I started my 4th week yesterday and this week is supposed to be recovery week but after 2 days I beg to differ. The exercise today was so hard I felt like giving up in the middle but I stuck with it. I am also getting ready for my 10k run on November 1st, my goal is get in at least 3 runs, hopefully all in the 10k range.

So Yesterday was Yom Kippur, the most holy day in the Jewish religion where we are supposed to fast for 25 hrs and think about all the things we did wrong in the last year. Usually me and my family don't start the fast until we leave the dinner table and end it around 5 the next day so not a full 25 hrs, but since I am in Israel my fiance encouraged me to stop eating at 4:46 PM and not eat the next day until 5:52 PM. By the way I think the times are when the sun actually sets because it is pretty random times.

So we had our "last meal" at 4:15 where we eat tons of pasta and vegetable samosas that I made. We also made sure to drink extra water because during the fast you can't drink water either. Since I had the mind set that I wouldn't be able to eat for awhile I ate 3 servings of pasta!!! I was so sick by the end of the meal, you would think I wouldn't want to eat for a day.....WRONG! I was even more hungry then usual the next day so I literally stayed in bed until 5:00 as to avoid the kitchen!

Since I was having my fiance's family and our friend over to break the fast, I had to start cooking before I could actually eat so that was a bit tough but I stayed strong. For the meal I prepared a noodle kugel (noodles, and tons of cheese, eggs, butter, milk and sugar), spinach and feta frittata, an Israeli salad, and we had bagels, smoked salmon, and cream cheese. 

When the time came we didn't jump into the food but had a small croissant with some herbal tea. Then when everyone arrived we started the main meal. You might think that I would not eat all my points since I was only having 1 meal but I actually managed to use 30 PPV's and it might have been an underestimate. Again, I felt sick for eating so much but it's only 1 day out of the year so I am not punishing myself like I used to instead I have moved on to today and so far I am OP and even did an hour of kickboxing this morning!

Speaking of exercise, I am still on track with the P90X, I just finished the second week and will start the 3rd week tomorrow. The only thing I have neglected in the last week is my running, so this week I have a goal to run 3 times. I have the 10k in 23 days so I have to make sure I am ready.

As I was reading some food blogs for some recipe ideas I can across a site that was promoting national vegetarian month (October) with a challenge to try and eat vegetarian for the whole month. I have been wanting to go completely vegetarian for awhile now since I already do not eat red meat or pork and was disgusted with all the hormones given to chickens to make them grow larger. So giving up chicken wouldn't actually be that hard since I only eat chicken about once a week.

My problem would be giving up fish and seafood. I love all kinds of fish: tuna, salmon, tilapia, sea bass, etc... and I LOVE crabs (I mean I'm from Maryland). So I'm going to give it a try this month and see how it goes, it will actually be a lot easier doing it here in Israel then back at home because I live in a kosher house so I can't have seafood and fish is too expensive!!

If you are interested the website is: world vegetarian day.

The rest of the week on P90X was equally as hard and somehow I managed to run twice!! This week has been great on exercise and horrible on eating!! So first the good, exercise:

Day 3:
-P90X: Shoulders and Arms (1 hour) and Ab Extreme (18 mins)
-Running (1 hour)

This was a killer because my arms are probably the weakest part of my body so as of right now I am only using 3.5 lb.(1.5kg) weights but I bought a pair of 6.5 lb. (3kg) weights. Also, the ab workout did not get any easier this time around. I also ran at night and felt horrible afterwards and couldn't eat dinner. I am not sure if it was what I had for lunch or maybe I was dehydrated.

Day 4:
-P90X: Yoga (1.5 hours)

I thought this was going to be an easy day so I encouraged my fiance to do it with me. He agreed because he thought it was going to be some breathing and relaxing. Well 10 minutes in we both knew this was not going to be easy in fact I had more trouble with yoga then the rest of the DVD's. There was a point where I actually almost fell on my face, luckily the mat saved me.

Day 5:
-P90X: Legs and Back (1 hour) 
-Abs (5 mins)

This was actually the easiest of all the weight videos even though it had wall squats in it because I usually run 3 times a week and walk everywhere my legs are solid so it takes a lot to make them hurt. I was supposed to do the abs that went with it but since it has been so impossible for me I went back to my usual 5 min ab workout on my Mac.

Day 6:
-Running (1 hour)
-Walking (1.5 hours)

Today I choose to run in the AM instead of P90X because I knew we were going to my fiance's moms that night and it was more important to get in a run. Also, I didn't realize it was still a holiday so no buses were running so I had to walk back and forth from the shopping center.

Day 7:
-P90X: Kenpo (1 hour)

This was by far my favorite workout since it was kickboxing which I love. There was plenty of kicks and punches to release all of my frustrations with how I ate the last couple of days.

Now on to vent about the food:

Since Wednesday was Rosh Hashanah we went to my fiance's moms house and boy did she prepare a feast!! She told me before hand that my diet was on break for the night and since I had just weighed in that morning I thought a little indulging never hurt anyone so I had more food then I could count and figured I used around 50 points for the food and alcohol. I told myself the next day would be better but we took home leftovers and ate the same meal yet again for lunch! So for dinner I only had a small meal and said ok tomorrow is back to normal. Then my fiance's mom called and said that we had to come back for Friday night dinner because she was having a party for his younger sister since it was her birthday and to also celebrate my birthday that is tomorrow. So I don't know how she did it but yet again there was an array of more delicious, not point friendly foods and of course I indulged again. Right now I feel bloated and awful but so far today I have eaten OP. To make matters worse tomorrow is my birthday and my fiance is taking me out to a nice restaurant, so I guess this is not going to be a good week but I will try my best to redeem the last couple of days.

Day 1:
P90X: Chest and back (45 mins), Abs (15 mins)

Now I am not someone new to exercise in fact I am a certified personal trainer and this workout completely kicked my butt!!! (Not to mention it almost killed my fiance) It would have been harder if I had a pull up bar but thankfully we do not so I just modified it with weights. In this workout we had to do just about every type of push up possible and for the first time I did them the regular way instead of on my knees. The ab exercises in the end were just about impossible, I managed to do maybe half of them and my stomach hurts even to laugh today. My fiance attempted to do the first exercise but then he gave up and walked away, I'm not going to lie it made me work harder to show him I'm tougher haha.

During the day I also walked for about an hour and a half.

Day 2:
-1 hour of pilates, which just about killed me because of my sore abs from yesterday!!
-P90X: Plyometrics, otherwise known as jump training, 1 hour.
They say this is the hardest exercise and God I hope so because an hour of jumping was extremely intense!! I don't think I have ever sweated so much!!

To get in a little more exercise we also walked the 50 mins to the grocery store instead of taking the bus, we did get a taxi home because the bus stop is far away.

Tomorrow:
-P90X: 45 min Shoulders and Arms, 15 min Abs
-1 hour of Running

This will finish my week with 51 AP's and will be good to start now because the holiday of Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year) is on Wednesday night and I'm sure there will be lots of great food that I will need to burn off :-)

I know that I have been gone for a little bit now but its only because this month has been very stressful!!! Also I haven't been focusing as much on my food and exercise, luckily I have maintained my goal weight but I know if I keep going down this path it will have disastrous results.

So my Hebrew class is now over and we had to take an oral exam and a written exam. I am pretty sure that I passed both but I still don't feel confident to have a full conversation with an Israeli in Hebrew (including my fiance.) I guess it will only take time being around the language and I just need to swallow my pride and feel ok to make mistakes.

Also, in the last 2 weeks we went for my fiance's US Visa interview and thankfully after a year going through paperwork he was approved and we will be flying back to the states on November 6th!!!! I am so thrilled to be home and before Thanksgiving my favorite holiday, of course for the great food. I have enjoyed living in Israel but it is not the same as good ole' America and I definitely miss the comforts of home. In fact most recipes I see I cannot make because they don't have the ingredients here (especially the ethnic ones) so I will be thankful to be able to experiment in the kitchen when I get back.

So now the pressure is on, I am happy to be at my goal weight but I still feel pretty flabby so my goal is to increase the activity so I can tighten up. For the next 42 days (yes I am counting down) I won't have a whole lot to do so I want to workout in some fashion 6 days a week. I also need to train for the 10k I have on November 1st. As of right now I am running about 9k but that is also up some hills so it won't be like the route which is pretty much flat. So from tomorrow on I would like to be more accountable so I will write in here what I am doing for activity, hopefully it will get me more motivated. I am also thinking about starting the P90X workouts so I will need tons of motivation because I have heard its a killer!

Last night I knew we were going to my fiances moms house for dinner which is always a challenge because I know the food is not going to be healthy but I figured it would just be the night I go into a little bit of my weeklies. When we got there she told us she was having a party and the food that was going to be served was cheese, cheese and more cheese since she just came back from a cheese making vacation in France. So there was all this really good cheese, cheese quiche, salad, great focaccia bread and of course wine. So needless to say I had to try every cheese and since there was no actual substantial protein I ate lots of bread. The other part I did not mention is that I am lactose intolerant! Not only did I feel sick because I stuffed myself and didn't pay any attention to how much I ate but my stomach basically hated me for filling it with dairy!

So as a result I did not sleep at all last night because I felt horrible!! I know that we all have these days where we just let go but it actually scared me because I saw some of my old binge eating habits return and I thought I have come this far and I am not going to let one bad meal bring up horrible habits!!

Since I couldn't sleep and I was keeping my poor fiance up I decided to go for a run this morning for 1 hour!! Longest run yet! I actually made a full 10k because this run was basically flat unlike my usual run on the trail with the massive hills. Even though I still felt gross I figured I had to get some massive activity points in to combat all the bad that went on last night.

This was my first week learning how to maintain my weight and I think it went pretty well. At first it was very hard to see my target as 35 because I felt like I was going to gain 5 pounds if I ate all that food!! I was very afraid of being out of control so I pretty much ate 29 still except for on the weekend. Last weekend we had a cheese and wine picnic so I had about 20 points in bread and cheese and we finished the bottle of wine that evening so that day I had 45 points. The rest of the week I did very well. I let myself have some treats like a McDonalds ice cream cone for 4 pts. and a piece of chocolate.

So when I weighed in on Wednesday I closed my eyes because I was afraid the scale would say I wasn't at goal anymore but then when I finally opened my eyes I was still 125 on the dot, I hadn't gained or lost which I guess is the goal.

I would like to lose another 5 pounds eventually but just so I can be comfortable and not feel like a bad week could send me over my goal weight, plus I usually weigh with not much on and when I get back to the US I do want to go to meetings again so I will have to still be 125 with clothes on!

Also, last night my fiance cooked me a healthy meal (which never happens) of whole wheat noodles with mushrooms, garlic and olive oil. It was awesome!! It was so nice to not have to cook for once even though I do love cooking. This is him in picture so proud of his dish :-)


For recipe click here

So to recap my wonderful week:

On my WI Wednesday morning I weighed exactly 125 lbs. and that is my goal weight!!!!! I have not been here since early 2008. I have started back on this journey in May and I had 21.4 lbs. to lose, there is no secret how I got back here, I tracked everyday, I worked out almost everyday and even started to run (now for 8k). I also feel much healthier this time around and actually want to keep eating healthy and exercising. Before when I got to my magic number I wanted to dive back into my bad habits but this time around I am going to learn how to maintain because not even the best french fry can make me feel as good as I do now!!!

If that wasn't great enough for the week yesterday we went to Tel Aviv and I had a killer personal workout from my boot camp instructor, I could actually keep up with everything she had me do which I can't say for last year when I attended her boot camp classes.

Now it's Friday and my lovely fiance, Dor took me on a wonderfully romantic picnic with wine, cheese and fruit. He also gave me a gorgeous engagement ring and proposed to me like he wished he could have done when we actually got engaged a year ago! Since he is Israeli we have a lot of paperwork to actually make it so he can set foot in America and so we got engaged because of the Visa but now I feel like it is actually for real!! We have the Visa interview in 2 weeks from today in Jerusalem so please help me pray that everything goes smooth and I can finally bring him home with me!!

So because I have too many favorites for a top 10, this is  top 20 :-)

11. Quinoa: This a fav because it tastes great and its a great source of protein! Fun fact: quinoa is actually not a grain even though it sure look like one to me.  I use it in soup, chili, and as a great side dish with spinach.

12. Chunk Light Tuna in Water: I prefer it like this in the pouch because it feels less like cat food but this is my last packet that my mom sent me so its back to the can soon.  I use tuna in salads, as a salad and I even make tuna burgers.  It is a great source of protein.

13. Nut Butters:  I have here almond butter and natural peanut butter, these are a great source of healthy fat, just in moderation.  For me peanut butter is a weakness but I have learned to conquer it because I would rather have a little then none at all.  I pair these with celery and apple slices.  I also put PB in my oatmeal, which is yummy!!

14. Almond Breeze Unsweetened Almond Milk: Pictured is the regular but if I was in America I would be drinking the unsweetened vanilla one but since it is very hard to come across here I take what I can get.  For me I have troubles with milk and I hate the taste of soy so when I discovered this I was thrilled, it tastes great and has less calories then skim milk!

15. Extra Virgin Olive Oil:  This is a staple in our house and it is the only oil I will use (besides flaxseed sometimes).  I think that there is somethings you should spend a little extra on and olive oil is one of them (so is balsamic vinegar).  Israel has wonderful olive oil so I am all set here :-)

16. Dried Apricots:  This is such a wonderful snack because you can have 6 halves for 1 point.  I also read that of all dried fruit this is the best one for you, yay!

17. Nuts: Here are my favorite 2 nuts: unsalted almonds and pistachios.  You can have 12 almonds for 2 pts. and 27 pistachios!! They are a super filing snack and loaded with healthy fat and protein.

18. Garlic:  Great to ward off vampires and make food taste better!! In my house we put garlic on everything so that way everyone's breath smells bad and no one notices!  There is tons of health benefits in garlic, it is even considered a super food.

19. Starbucks VIA: Since I am in the land of instant coffee I might as well have some that actually tastes good :-)  I am lucky enough to have tons of friends that work at Starbucks so I was sent (2) 12-packs for free!!!  I use them for ice coffee since they dissolve in any liquid.

20. Tilapia:  This is my go to fish since it is fairly inexpensive and very low on points.  I make it fried, baked, and steamed. 

So those are my top 20, I have plenty more because I am a food-addict but I'll stop at 20 because Im tired of writing.  I hope you enjoyed!