Have you missed The Kim Challenge?

There’s a good reason for that.  A few months ago, the website for The Kim Challenge changed, changing the RSS feed.  Up until now, I had no way of letting former TKC readers know that the RSS feed had changed, but that doesn’t mean I stopped blogging!

If you’ve been wondering where I’ve been, I’ve been at www.thekimchallenge.com.

If you’ve been following my exploits via some sort of reader (ig: Google Reader, Bloglines), you won’t have been getting my blogs (since July!).

Please refresh your RSS feed for The Kim Challenge:

The old feed was: http://thekimchallenge.com/feed/

The new feed is: http://thekimchallenge.com/?feed=rss2

As I am not a computer genius I do not have any clue as how to fix this on my own-so I’m just going to ask ya’ll RSS followers to refresh your feeds.

Feel free to email me with any complaints or questions: kim@thekimchallenge.com

There are days when you can muster through your lethargy and do the right thing.  Go to the gym.  Feel more energized.  Be glad you went.  Then there are days you can’t.  Today was one of those days.  I think it’s our 30th straight day of rain or something crazy like that.  I went for a pretty long walk today, pre-torrential down pour, well, actually I got caught in a fair amount of an earlier storm.  Right as I was about to slip on my spandex and hit the spin room flash-flood stile rain, our second storm of the day, came pouring down.  It’s the kind of weather that makes you want to curl up in bed and watch Bridget Jones’ Diary-and well, that’s what I think I shall do tonight.

Laughing is like exercise right?

You can’t win ‘em all day, some days the rain wins.

Here’s the food:

Breakfast

Strawberry Buckwheat Muffin
True Low Fat Strawberry Yogurt

Snack

Coffee w/splenda and milk
Coconut Cream Pie Larabar

Lunch

$8 Sushi Lunch Special!  Now that’s what I call a recession special!
Miso Soup
Salad w/carrot ginger dressing
California Roll and Salmon Avocado Roll (I asked them to use brown instead of white rice-and they said yes!)

Dinner

Gardenburger w/American Cheese on Whole wheat bun
Cucumber, tomato, goat cheese salad w/balsamic vinegar

Hey RSS-Readers!

Guess what?

My website changed it’s home, which means if you’ve been following this blog via some sort of reader (ig: Google Reader, Bloglines), you won’t be getting my latest blogs.

Please refresh your RSS feed for The Kim Challenge:

The old feed was: http://thekimchallenge.com/feed/

The new feed is: http://thekimchallenge.com/?feed=rss2

As I am not a computer genius I do not have any clue as how to fix this on my own-so I’m just going to ask ya’ll RSS followers to refresh your feeds.

Feel free to email me with any complaints or questions: kim@thekimchallenge.com

Today I bought:

• 20 Hamburgers
• 12 Turkey Burgers
• 4 Veggie Burgers
• 24 Hot Dogs
• A Bajillion Buns
• 5 Bottles of Soda
• 4 Bags of Chips
• 1 Metric ton of coleslaw, macaroni salad and potato salad.

Needless to say, I had a big dinner.

I’m just kidding.

These are all supplies for my party this weekend.  That being said I felt sooooooo weird buying this food today.  It’s just so far from the type of food I have ever thrown in my shopping cart before (minus the veggie burgers).  I went to the little self-serve checkout gadget mainly so I wouldn’t start babbling to a cashier about how, “I don’t usually eat this way, I’m having a party.  I eat vegetables, a lot of them.  Just not at this party, you know, being a party and all.  Don’t want to be gassy.  Did I mention I’m throwing a party.  I’m not going to eat all of this by myself.”

Yeah, all of a sudden I felt like people were going to look at my cart and be like, “OMG, that girl totally eats Cheetos.  How disgusting!”  I’m not sure why that labelling scares me, I am indeed a girl who enjoys a good Cheeto (or 6,924) now and then.  I’m also pretty sure the rest of the world is not staring into my shopping cart judging its contents I’m just totally insane.

There’s a little food paranoia for you.

As for what I really ate today, I sort of grazed all day, which isn’t usually like me.  I tend to eat 3 solid meals a day and once and a while a snack-but today I was sort of hungry all day.

Breakfast 6.11.09

Newman’s Own Flax & Fiber Flakes w/banana and 1% milk
Orange Juice

Lunch 6.11.09

Chicken noodle soup (still feeling a bit under the weather)

After the soup I had two cookies that I didn’t take a picture of.  They were Newman-Os (Oreo-like) cookies.

Snack 1-6.11.09

Kozy Shack individual rice pudding cup. I’m big on dessert today, apparently.

Snack 2-6.11.09

Coffee and low fat banana bread

Dinner 6.11.09

Whole wheat spaghetti w/onion, asparagus, shrimp and tomato sauce.
A little freshly grated cheese on top.

As for exercise I took a 60 minute spin class and a 30 minute abs class.

Well if anyone was interested in a review of my ballet on a trampoline class, voila a review of Shen Tao.

Tonight the adventures on the trampoline continued as I took an urban rebounding class at my gym.  The schedule said it was an hour, but we were out of there in 40-minutes.  I felt gypped.  It was intense while we were doing it, but over way too soon.  I felt like I should have brought an iPod so I could have run a bit.   Sigh, unfulfilling classes are the worst.  I feel like if I’m going to go to a class at the gym I want my ass kicked across the floor and back.

Breakfast 6.10.09

Low fat banana bread
Strawberries
Coffee w/stevia and milk

Lunch 6.10.09

Multi grain Engllish muffn, Veggie burger, Pepper Jack cheese
Baby carrots and hummus
Orange juice

Dinner 6.10.09

Salad w/lettuce, tomato, cucumber, dried cranberries, walnuts, grilled chicken breast
Balsamic vinegar & olive oil

Okay, I’ve never been one of those girls that neeeeeeds a boyfriend, I like having them, if they’re worth being had, but I’m generally also content to be single and hang out with my friends and unabashedly watch stupid amounts of Jon & Kate Plus 8 without anyone to making fun of me.  But, today I realized I need a boyfriend, at least for the summer.  Why?  Because mowing the lawn is really hard!

Okay, yeah, fine I’m perpetuating gender stereotypes, but there are certainly female stereotypes I am fine with taking on.  Lawn mowing, however, is one I would like to give the boys.  The trick here is that I have a small but lush backyard attached to my tiny apartment and only a manual (meaning non-electric) lawn mower.  I happen to have let it get a bit too long, the grass that is, mainly because I used to have a male roommate and the backyard was his domain and I never knew where the lawn stuff was.  Well, this weekend I’m throwing a party and realized I needed to do some maintenance.  I mowed a bit yesterday, but having just come from a three-hour cracked-out-ballet class and no sleep, I just wasn’t strong enough to do it. The lesson I learned today is that manual lawn mowing is a calorie torcher!

I mowed and raked and backed and cut by hand for a little over an hour and according to the fitness counter at Daily Plate, I burned 408 calories.  I certainly was sweating, and I even started working a lunge routine into my pushes just to keep things interesting.  Needless to say that was my workout.

So, if you know of anyone who would be willing to be my lawn mowing bitch…err, I mean boyfriend that would be great, thanks.

Here’s the food: 

Breakfast 6.9.09

2 eggs
2 slices whole grain toast
orange juice

Lunch 6.9.09

Peach Sorbet (I wasn’t all that hungry)

Dinner  6.9.09

I had class tonight with catered dinner:
Chicken breast
String beans
Noodles

Monday was a blur, especially because I only had one hour of sleep then had to go to a three-hour yoga-ballet-pilates-esque class (I don’t really know how to describe it, that was my best shot) called Shen Tao.  The whole thing was like being in ballet class on a trampoline with 20-lb weighted pullies attached to your ankles.  I’m going to write a review of it for Social Workout later today, I’ll link to it when I’m done.  So, yeah, my day yesterday was just a blur of trampolines , lawn mowing (manual mowers can be quite the workout), and writing class, then finally last night sleep.

I had my alarm set this morning to go off at 6am so I could hit a 6:30 am spin class, but I didn’t get to bed till after midnight and figured 6 hours wouldn’t do me for 2 whole days.  It’s a rainy monstrous mess outside today so I’ll probably do an exercise video.

In all my rushing around I forgot to post food.  Here’s the Monday 6/8 round-up: 

Breakfast 6.9.09

Orange juice before class

Lunch 6.8.09

Banana after class

Dinner 6.8.09

Chicken Noodle Soup
Salad w/lite balsamic vinaigrette

Snack 6.9.09

medium skim latte-to keep me from snoring through writing class

Someone brought Godiva!

I probably could have and should have eaten more, but I was so tired my body just wasn’t hungry.  I feel like yesterday doesn’t actually count as a real day. 

I was reading HuffPo, as I do from time to time, when I came across a title that struck my fancy: It’s Cool To Be Healthy Again.  The title pretty much sums up what the articles says, so you can read it or not read it, but you’ll basically come to the same conclusion. 

I wonder, however, was it ever “uncool” to be healthy? Was there a time in life when I looked at someone eating a turkey sandwich and said to myself “puh-leez, I would never be caught dead eating  roast turkey breast on whole wheat with mustard.”  I’m thinking no, actually I have caught myself on occasion being jealous of friends embarking on diets.  Why is that?  

It must have something to do with the hope and promise each new diet holds within it’s grasps before the guilt sets in and the choice between the gym and happy hour starts weighing heavily on our minds. Or perhaps it’s the seeming self-control of the dieter in question who so brazenly passes on the bread basket.

Diets, are something I have given up on.  I eat less sometimes, more sometimes, exercise an hour or two more when my weight starts creeping up again (as I’m currently trying to counter), but no more do I feel any particular need to find the diet that will fix me.  I am not broken, I just like food.

At the end of the day, a milkshake is just a milkshake and a carrot is just a carrot.  Neither mean you any harm, neither have a vendetta against your thighs, they’re just things…they’re just food.  I may hate Rachael Ray, but I do like one thing that she says “I don’t associate food with guilt.”

All of this is completely true, yet when a friend utters those four little words to me, I get this twinge of jealousy, of comparison.  When did a diet become something to aspire to?  When did dieting become something that gets a gold star?  Deep down inside I sort of believe that diets make people fatter than they were to start out with, it’s not the food, it’s the guilt.  I was recently comparing dieting and budgeting to a friend who had spent a lot of money in one night, “budgeting is like dieting, you can only deprive yourself for so long, until you just can’t anymore.”  

Depriving ourselves is not normal, and deep down in my soul the word diet, makes me panic.  All of a sudden foods I had previously no interest in eating pop into mind (all. the. time.), “What if I never get the chance to eat an entire salami again.”  Why in gods name would I want to eat an entire salami, I wouldn’t, but just the word diet makes me feel like I do.  So, why do I randomly have pangs of longing for this prescribed insanity?

Who knows, but as things stand now, I’m still not dieting, I’m just eating food, because that’s all it is…food.  It has always been cool to be healthy, but let’s remember that healthy includes more than the number on our pants.

Happy Saturday morning Challengers!  I was all sorts of lazy and bed-ridden yesterday so I didn’t updated my blog.  I’m feeling moderately better, not 100% but not like I need to spend all day watching Netflix and taking Nyquil shots.  I’m going to try and hit up the gym today for a spin class.  I may not go all out, but getting my body moving again is a priority.  Later, I have dinner plans with some friends-they even offered to come to Brooklyn (that’s true friendship, people don’t just offer to come to a burough from Manhattan, usually they have to be forced begging and screaming.)

I also have some class work to do, so I’ll split my fine Saturday between being responsible and being alive, I feel like that seems like a fair compromise. 

Katrina: Thanks so much for you comment yesterday, I responded to you in the comments

Here’s the Friday food recap-I’ll see you all again on Monday.

Breakfast 6.5.09

Toast w/ Pepper jack cheese melted and and a poached egg
Echinacea Tea

Side note: I’m so disappointed!  I bought this beautiful loaf of 7-grain bread from a bakery.  A bakery!  While I was taking a slice out of my freezer to toast up for breakfast I noticed that their was an ingredients list on the bag, and what was ingredient #2: High Fructose Corn Syrup!  UGHHHHH.  That makes me so angry.  I expect there to be HFCS in food mass produced by evil conglomerates, but not local bakeries.  I feel a bit defeated.

Lunch 6.5.09

Whole wheat spaghetti w/spinach, asparagus, shrimp and grated cheese.

You know my food stores are dwindling when the spaghetti comes out mixed with frozen veggies.

Dinner 6.5.09

Wonton Soup

Steamed chicken and broccoli from my local Chinese restaurant.  I always order the sauce on the side and ladle a couple of tablespoons on, instead of having it drenched in sauce.  3/4 c. of white rice.

Baking because I was bored

I made a low fat banana bread.  I’d share the recipe but it wasn’t that awesome, apparently things taste better with fat.

Banana bread and tea before bed  

Ugh, I’m sickalicious.  There’s something almost indulgent about spending an entire day in bed (as I did yesterday) except of course the actually feeling like crap part.  I did leave my PJs because I had dinner plans.  Plans that I utilized to quench my steak craving, then back to bed with me.  I think today will be another bed ridden day.  Luckily I work from home, so I won’t be a complete waste of space.

I didn’t workout yesterday, but depending on how I feel later tonight may hit a spin class-or not.

Breakfast 6.4.09

Multi grain English muffin w/poached eggs
Coffee w/milk and stevia

Lunch 6.4.09

Udon noodle soup w/shrimp

Dinner 6.4.09

French Onion Soup

Hanger steak and pomme frits (I didn’t eat all of it)

Calorie Count: 1,493 (hmmm, that seems low to me)
Calories Burned: zero