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My niece has been staying with us for the past three days, and I’ve been eating randomly along side her… She’s not been put on a good eating schedule, but will just randomly say she wants to eat. And we have to feed her. (She’s not ours to reprogram, or I’d have her on a regular eating schedule by now.) So when she eats things, I eat things. I’ve eaten way too many baked chicken nuggets, way too many bread rolls. It’s mostly the rolls that I’ve really over indulged in, as I make them from scratch and they are SO perfect. I eat two or three for lunch, I eat one for snack, I eat two at dinner, I eat one before breakfast. They’re all gone now, thankfully, and I think I need to give that recipe a rest for a while.
I just need to get off the snacking wagon and back on the 3 meals + 1 or 2 snacks if needed plan.
I’m going to resolve to put away the scale for all of January. It’s kind of driving me crazy.
I was sitting at the bus stop last night thinking about a couple of books I really, really want to purchase, but I didn’t know if I could justify buying them. We’re trying to cut down on spending, and books are one of my major weaknesses… If I see a book I want, I have a hard time telling myself “no.” I think the same thing extends to food — I have poor impulse control sometimes! So I think that saying no to books and impulse spending might actually help train me to say no to bad food…. That’s what I’m hoping.
Anyway, I really want these books I found (we’re talking original 1st editions of my favorite author), so I was thinking of how to justify them. I decided to set up a two-tiered system of rewards for myself, as follows:
- 206 lbs: 1st 10lb goal.
- Reward: $15 treat: 1 trade paperback book or 1 CD. $25 treat: If goal is met by Valentine’s Day, I can buy a new release hardback or a moderately-priced specialty book.
- 199lbs: ONEDERLAND goal.
- Reward: $15 treat: 1 trade paperback book or 1 CD. $25 treat: If goal is met by March 15, I can buy a new release hardback or a moderately-priced specialty book.
- 191lbs: 25lb goal.
- Reward: $15 treat: 1 trade paperback book or 1 CD. $25 treat: If goal is met by April 15, I can buy a new release hardback or a moderately-priced specialty book.
- 186lbs: 30lb goal.
- 2 new celebratory outfits! If met by May 15, I get a $15 treat as well (book or CD).
- 181lbs: lowest adult weight goal.
- 2 more new outfits! 3 if goal is met by June 15!
- 176lbs: 40lb goal!
- I don’t really have a reward set up here, as this is where I want to be by the time I go to Brazil… the trip will happen either way, but the reward will be knowing I’ve worked hard and look awesome while traipsing through Rio!
The process isn’t much different from figuring out how to rationalize favorite “bad” foods — I can have this hamburger if I eat well all week and exercise afterwards, or whatever. See, it all relates :) I don’t think I’ll make all the deadline goals… I set them pretty close together. I don’t need to meet all of them, but I think if I do manage to hit them I deserve an extra reward!
Now I just have to stay OP for more than a handful of days so I can make some REAL progress….
Well, at least I did something last night, even though it wasn’t much. I got home and was antsy… Almost convinced myself to put on a workout DVD. Then disaster struck, I couldn’t find my workout pants, and that was enough to discourage me from committing to a whole work out. Instead, I held two 15-second planks (not much but I’m shaking through the whole thing), did 100 jumping jacks, and a series of deep stretches. Was thinking about doing more but then DH came home and I got distracted again.
A little is better than nothing though, right?
So I’m pretty much kicking myself for my Monday binge on cookies that a girl brought in to work. I probably ate 8 of them, and then came home to eat Five Guys, the greasiest (but tastiest) burgers and fries you’ll ever have. Monday was a terrible day. I’ve been weighing myself every day kind of compulsively, and this is what I saw:
Monday: 213
Tuesday: 217
Wednesday: 215.5
Thursday 215
I’m still 2lbs above where I was on Monday, so I think I did some real damage on Monday… I’ll be thrilled if I make it back to 213 by this coming Monday. Obviously there was a lot of water retention involved on Tuesday since I dropped those 2lbs quickly, and I was hoping for a similar result today, but alas, it was not to be. So I’m back to 215 for the moment. It won’t count as official til Monday though…. So in the meantime I just better work my butt off (literally) to get back to where I was so I can continue moving downwards!!
I never know what to title my posts, I just happen to be listening to “The Tain” by The Decemberists and that was just a lyric that was being sung… Anyway…
So far so good today and yesterday! I feel back on track, with last night’s home-cooked meal. I definitely had carb cravings after dinner and placated them with some sf/ff chocolate pudding. I don’t find that these “fake” sweet products really stimulate my desire for more sugary items; rather, it helps me feel like my craving has been satisfied and my brain calms down. I just can’t sit around eating fake sweet stuff all day (diet soda included) or else I WILL start to want the real stuff.
I feel better today than yesterday, though. My hunger is in its proper place (back to its schedule), as opposed to just being turned on the whole day (which always happens to me after I’m totally off for a few days). I still really, really want to start exercising, but I’m obviously not determined enough or I would have done so already. I at least need to start a stretching routine, all this sitting at work leaves me so stiff by the end of the day. As long as I’m losing, though, maybe I shouldn’t worry about exercise just yet. Soon, though.
So I started a thread over at 3FC about visualizing yourself at various stages over the next year, which is kind of a way of owning your goals. When I was answering my “where do you want to be a year from now” question, I recognized a total source of motivation that I haven’t yet been using… a year from now, I want to start a family. I don’t feel that it’s a good idea to get pregnant at my current weight; my sister developed gestational diabetes with her last pregnancy due to her weight and I don’t want to be in the same position. So I need to get this weight off… Even if I don’t make it all the way to goal, I need to at least be in the “normal” BMI category.
Aside from weight loss, I need to make sure I’m eating right for the sake of body nutrition… If I’m going to start growing a little kid I need to make sure I treat myself well beforehand, too. Make sure I have plenty of nutrients, make sure I’ve solidified sustainable good eating habits so I can do the best for my baby as possible. Also, I definitely want to set a good example for the kid as it grows up, which means I better change my lifestyle before I even get pregnant!
So… short term motivation: Brazil! Long term motivation: baby! Longer term motivation: health!
That said, eating plan today:
B: oatmeal, hardboiled egg
L: Thai noodles (220 cals, 3g fat), orange
S: triscuits and cheese
D: open-faced tuna melt with steamed veggies
S: sf/ff pudding
Thoughts on plan: lacking in the veggie department. Haven’t been doing too well on getting veggies in lately. I need to make a hearty veggie soup to bring for lunch, something beyond the few carrots and celery that’s in my homemade chicken noodle. I’m not good with eating veggies as snacks, I really don’t care for most veggies raw. They just become a vehicle for whatever I’m dipping them in :p
The last thing I want to blog about is this, podfitness.com. I haven’t tried it yet, but doesn’t it look neat? That’s definitely going in my bookmarks for a weight loss reward!
I notice that as I feel more off-track, I post here less. I don’t think as much about getting healthy, and therefore don’t feel like I want to talk my head off about these things. I wonder what happened to make me totally sidetrack over the past few days? I mean, it hasn’t been awful, but I certainly haven’t been where I want to be.
Let’s see… last night we had Five Guys (burgers and fries)
Sunday was pizza @ my dad’s house
Saturday was Christmas cookies and Christmas dinner @ my dad’s
Friday was Christmas cookies
Thursday was pizza
Wednesday… I can’t remember this far back but I think this string of bad eating started on Wednesday. Too bad I can’t remember what started it.
Also notice that the majority of what I’m eating that I feel is throwing me off is fast food/take out. Aside from the cookies, which were a one-time thing anyway. It seems I manage to slip out of the habit of cooking at home way too easily, and it’s hard to get back into it. Tonight will definitely be a cooking at home night, and that will help me get back on track.
Even with all the bad food around me, I’ve at least managed to keep my portions reasonable — There was only that one lb difference this week, despite everything. So that’s good, at least!
Today I WILL go home and eat those cajun rice & beans in a roasted bell pepper cup that I’ve been planning for the past few days, instead of convincing DH to go out or order in. A home made dinner is my first step to back where I was…
Well, Wednesday and Thursday weren’t so great. Wednesday I was convinced to order pizza, because I couldn’t bring myself to want to cook what I had planned. I was fine having pizza, I don’t see a problem with pizza as long as you don’t overindulge. Which is what I ended up doing. Three fairly large pieces later, I was stuffed and unhappy… Oh well. It happens, right?
But then last night DH brought home some Oreos, and we were just sitting around watching the Office. I figured a couple wouldn’t hurt, since I had about 1/5th of my dinner and then wasn’t interested in more. Well, same story as the pizza — a couple turned into 12. or 15. A lot, anyway.
I’m just hopping right back on today, no second thoughts. This sort of thing is going to happen for the rest of my life, I’m going to have to learn to deal with it and compensate for it. Hopefully it won’t happen as often as I let it now, but I know overindulgences happen. I’ll just think of it as unplanned calorie cycling, keep my cals a bit low today, and then tomorrow go back to normal.
I guess the only thing I’m specifically worried about is staying OP this weekend. It’s my family’s early Christmas, because everyone is going out of town for the actual holiday. Being at my dad’s house means eating a lot… I always graze and snack a lot, and then the meals are usually really awesome but huge. So I’m going to have to focus my energies on not overdoing it there if I want to see any kind of loss at the beginning of next week!
Today’s plan:
B: oatmeal, hardboiled egg
L: chicken noodle soup, orange
S: 1oz 2% cheese and lf triscuits
D: homemade beef stew (a lot of salt, but otherwise v healthy)
S: sf fudgecicle (NO oreos)
Finished another project at work, so while I’m waiting for a new assignment I figured I’d have a minute to post here.
I was a big fan of the book Super Foods (and still am). Food science is fascinating to me–the chemistry of it all, different combinations of vitamins and minerals, the good versus the bad–I don’t have a brain for it all the time, but when presented in an accessible manner I’ll devour it (pun… ha). So along the same vein, I’ve been reading The World’s Healthiest Foods. They have a WH Food of the Week, and I’m always inwardly pleased when I see a food featured there that I routinely make part of my healthy-eating initiative.
This weeks food, for instance, is walnuts. Nuts generally get a bad rap on the diet scene due to their fat content. However, they are amazing little energy boosters packed with protein, and, when eaten in their proper amounts, provide a generous amount of heart-healthy Omega-3s. … And I just happen to have an ounce of the little buggers in my bag to be paired with an apple as my afternoon snack!
Anyway, World’s Healthiest Foods is definitely a site to check out. It’s full of great info if you’re into what’s behind what you eat, and it has tons of recipes using those foods. Beware, though: just because the recipes use the world’s healthiest foods doesn’t mean the recipes themselves are healthy. I’ve seen many a recipe there that could easily be lightened, so just use your judgment and enjoy!
There’s a handy BMI calculator at Prevention.com for those who are in need of one. I just spent the last few minutes playing with it in order to determine how far I’ve got to go before I reach a “normal” BMI, and here’s what I found:
To hit the “overweight,” not “obese” category, one must reach a BMI of under 30. I will reach that when I weigh 191 pounds.
To hit the “normal” category, one must reach a BMI of under 25. I will reach that when I weigh 159 pounds.
It’s actually pretty convenient, I was looking for a mini-goal to add to my roster (somewhere between the 10lb mark and the 40lb Brazil goal). I have 24 lbs to lose in order to be officially considered as “overweight.” Let the countdown begin!
On a side note, I took some absolutely horrendous “before” photos in just my bra and underwear last night. I definitely look better with clothes on! I have plenty that have been taken with me in clothes, so I wanted to make sure I could see the actual difference in my body later… every fold and jiggle accounted for. There’s no way I’m posting those suckers until I’ve made some real progress.
I read in someone’s 3FC blog (apologies, I forget whose it was) an MSN article about weight loss with the standard weight loss tips such as “stop drinking soda” and “write down everything you eat.” (Why do news writers think this isn’t intuitive? Isn’t it?) One thing they suggested to help encourage you is to weigh every day and plot your weight on a graph, so you can see the general (hopefully) downward trend. Now, I don’t quite agree with the weighing every day–I find I get too focused on those little digital numbers and can easily be defeated by the smallest upward fluctuation–but the idea of making a graph interests me. I think I’ll go home, dig up some graph paper left over from high school six years ago, and plot myself a little weight loss graph. Then it can proudly hang on the wall in the kitchen to remind me not to undo my precious progress!
Finally, planning:
B: oatmeal, hardboiled egg
L: butternut squash soup, veggie patty
S: small turkey sandwich on a light english muffin
D: pinto beans and braised collard greens
Happy Tuesday!
This recipe is somewhat time consuming, but perhaps only because I have not yet stumbled upon the most efficient method of peeling a butternut squash. This was my first squash-based dish, actually, and I’m very pleased with it! I made it on a Sunday, so I had plenty of time to fool around. The result is a beautiful, seasonal, fragrant soup that is as pleasing to taste as it is to look at. Garnish with some fat-free plain yogurt, perhaps, and a sprinkle of nutmeg.
- 5.5 cups broth or reconstituted bullion; chicken or vegetable
- 1 butternut squash, 2lbs
- 1 large sweet potato
- 2 medium-large apples (choose green for distinct apple taste with moderate sweetness, choose red for subtler apple taste with high sweetness)
- 1/2 large onion, sliced thin
- 1/8 tsp each of cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg
- 1. Peel and cube squash, potato, and apples. Bring broth to a boil.
- Add squash and sweet potato to boiling water, cook for 20 minutes or until tender.
- Meanwhile, cook onion in a small sautée pan with a spray of cooking spray; when onion is translucent, remove and set aside. Cook apples in pan until tender. (The two are cooked separately so they each maintain their own flavors.)
- Strain the potato and squash from the broth (reserve broth, though) and process in a food processor until smooth. Process apples and onions together.
- Mix all ingredients back in with broth and stir until well combined. Add spices, heat until just simmering. Remove from heat and serve.
Each 1.5 cup serving has about 130 cals and about 2 grams of fat. Don’t quote me on that, it’s a rough guide. I haven’t actually put it through a recipe analyzer. It made me about 7 1.5 c servings.
I suppose if Hamlet had been overweight and Denmark a health-conscious world, he might have been pondering this question.
My problem is that during the day, I want nothing better than to exercise. I sit at my desk thinking of all the cool videos at home… or better yet, I think about how since the weather hasn’t really gotten cold I could go try out a little jogging and a lot of fast walking. This little fantasy lasts the duration of my bus ride home from work, and finally, when I step foot in the door, I’m suddenly exhausted and it’s all I can do to throw a healthy dinner together before zoning out.
Where does my motivation go?
I’ve tried eating a late snack around 4:30 so I’m not so wiped out by the time I get home, but it hasn’t helped. (The main benefit I have found from a late snack is that I don’t get home grumpy… but I’m still tired.) I know that exercise helps improve energy levels, and the more you do it the more you want to do it, but that first step is SO HARD.
Of course, the bounty of the internet soon provides: THE MOTIVATION TO MOVE. Just what I needed, a checklist! Ms. Pierson and Ms. Cloe attribute the decision to exercise to three factors: personal, program, and environmental. The following questions are helpful to think about when trying to get to the bottom of a lack of motivation:
Personal:
- How do you feel about the value of exercise?
- What is your past experience with exercise?
- What is your skill level in performing your chosen activities?
- What is your own personal motivation level?
- How do you perceive the exercise program’s convenience and enjoyablity?
- Do you feel that the activity is overly uncomfortable or difficult?
- Do you have the ability to resolve typical barriers to exercise? (i.e., travel, illness, time)
Program:
- Is your program convenient?
- Does your chosen activity require special, costly, or time-consuming preparation?
- Is the program of reasonable enough intensity so that you find it challenging but not punishing or aversive?
- Is the program varied enough to maintain interest and diminish boredom?
Environmental:
- Are you comfortable with the location at which the activity takes place?
- Have you set up some regular cues to remind yourself to exercise?
- Are you able to accommodate weather conditions?
- Do you have an ongoing support system?
For me, the “personal factors” are the biggest impediment to my exercise success. I say this because my environment is good–each of the cues has affirmative answers–and my program is even better–I have a variety of exercise DVDs that I truly enjoy, some that work me harder than others depending on how I feel.
On the personal side, though, I’m less positive. I know exercise is important, and I want to be fit and healthy above anything else. I’ve had great past experience with exercise, particularly with aquafit, when I was doing that regularly last year. My general motivation is high, as it is linked with my desire for weight loss. I think what it comes down to, for me, is my perception of my own un-fitness, like I shouldn’t even try because I’m going to end up sweaty and miserable.
Exploring that vein further… why do I think this? Experience has taught me that after a work out, I feel invigorated and proud of myself. There is nothing miserable about the aftermath of a good workout. And what better way to combat fitlessness (ha!) than with exercise?
I’m going to try it tonight. I’m going to keep in mind every positive thing about exercise I can possibly think of. I’m going to eat dinner, let that digest a little, and then get off my butt and work out. The first step is the hardest, right?
I’ve started and stopped multiple blogs, each dealing with aspects of weight loss and my own successes and failures. I’ve also started and stopped multiple attempts at gaining control of my weight-related life. I can’t say there’s a direct correlation; mostly I think I’m excusing myself for abandoning my past fledgling blogs in order to embrace this new, clean, past-less one.
If only blogging kept one skinny, huh? If only it were that easy!
By way of intro, I’m a mid-twenties part-time grad student-slash-full-time research hound, married with two cats, living in a basement and am generally trying to make something different out of my life. As of the moment of this blog’s birth, I weigh 214.5 lbs — but “two fourteen point five and… go!” seemed a little cumbersome for a title, no?
My weight loss philosophy can be summed up as “slow and steady wins the race.” I don’t believe in crash dieting, and I don’t believe in holding yourself to unfair expectations. What happens when you don’t meet your own expectations? You feel angry, defeated, hopeless… and, if you’re anything like me, those feelings will inspire nothing but the desire to eat yourself into coma.
So for now I’m focusing on bettering myself, changing my habits, making conscious decisions about everything I eat. I want to learn to respect my body and treat it as it deserves to be treated. I want to learn to love myself for who I am–even if I am continually evolving–rather than expecting to be able to love someone who I might become.
This blog is a way for me to hold myself accountable. I want it to be another tool I use in my fight against fat. I will post progress, menu planning, meal ideas, recipes, exercise routines, etc… Anything related to this journey. I’m going to try to keep the personal stuff out of here, because I feel that losing the focus of this blog is not going to help me. In fact, it would probably just help me make excuses.
So welcome aboard, those of you who read this, and enjoy your stay!
