And it goes on …

“I have gained and lost the same ten pounds so many times over and over again my cellulite must have déjà vu.” -Jane Wagner

I have, by my scale’s account, lost nine pounds so far on my weight loss endeavor. I think that’s pretty good, considering that I really only started trying to lose weight less than a month ago. When the average recommended weight loss is one to two pounds a week, I consider nine pounds in three weeks to be a major triumph.

But what I’m really pleased about is that I can already feel the results in my clothing. Right now, I’m wearing an old pair of pajama bottoms that I was pretty sure I would have to retire because they were bordering on uncomfortable when I would put them on. They are by no means loose at this point, but they are comfortable. I no longer feel like they’re trying to squeeze the life out of me. And I’m noticing it in my dress slacks too – they feel a little looser every time I put them on lately. That’s quite a switch from them being a little tighter every time I put them on.

As I’ve said before, I look at this as a lifestyle change; I have changed the size of the portions I eat, and a good deal of what I’m eating on a day to day basis. But I refuse to give up everything that I have enjoyed in my lifetime. I know that “eating clean” is the big thing these days, and I support anyone who wants to do that – more power to any one on their diet, so long as they aren’t eating small children and domestic pets. But I am finding the “clean eating” group to be a very preachy set of folks, which I find both annoying and amusing. Many of these people aren’t on a dieting website to share their knowledge of what they’ve been doing all their lives to maintain their perfect physique and unquestionable ability in the gym. Most of them are there for the same reason I am – they needed to lose weight. Some of them needed to lose a LOT of weight. I need to do that myself, so I am not throwing rocks at anyone in that position. But the reality is that anyone trying to lose weight should do what works for them, not what a bunch of uneducated folks on an internet website says someone should do.I think a lot of fear-mongering takes place on the internet, and it causes people who don’t educate themselves to run around either giving bad advice, or following the bad advice others have given.

For me, I am living the life I feel most comfortable in. I doubt that I will give up things like buying my meat at the grocery store, certain convenience foods, a soda or two a day, and sugar. I like the convenience of some items, and the taste of others. And cutting portions and counting calories is working for me – nine pounds lost in a little more than three weeks proves that.

One thing I have begun to realize – but not yet ready to fully embrace – is that I need to cut back somewhat on the carbs. And there’s a simple reason for this – they are very, very tasty, but they are very calorie-laden. One cup of pasta has at least 200 calories, whereas one cup of most vegetables, without oil or butter, has about 50 calories. If you do use some oil or butter, that would double the calories to 100 per cup. I can eat a lot more veggies for 200 calories than I can a pasta side.

That said, I’m making spaghetti for dinner tonight. I ran my recipe through a calorie calculator and found that half a cup of my sauce has about 100 calories, so dinner consisting of one cup of pasta, half a cup of sauce, a slice of garlic bread and a salad will have about 450 calories, and it will definitely fill me up. Who can ask for anything better?

Plan for the coming week:

• Continue to track what I’m eating every day, even if it’s not the best thing for me to eat.
• Do a better job of meal planning for lunches, and have it packed up and ready to grab before I go to bed every night.
• More water, fewer sodas. I have been drinking, on average, three sodas a day. I would like to cut it back to two. I am thinking of replacing one soda with club soda – I have a SodaStream machine here at home, and I love it. Club soda has no calories and no sugar.
• Join a gym (!)

Have a great weekend, everyone!

 

Weekend Recap – Weight Loss Edition

I woke up this morning and stepped on the scale to find I’ve lost another 2 pounds over the weekend. At first I wondered if I should be concerned – I mean, I am trying to lose weight, but I’ve lost more than six pounds in less than two weeks. It just seems like a lot to me. But then I realized that there are probably a few things driving this rapid weight loss – I have a lot to lose, I’ve become fanatical about portion sizes, and I’ve cut back my soda consumption by half or more. I am pretty sure my body has been shocked into losing weight just through portion control and a lack of almost constant soda consumption.

On Friday night, Chris and I decided that we’d like to have shrimp for dinner. I went to the grocery store where we usually buy seafood, and found shrimp to be $12/lb! W O W. I don’t know why it’s so expensive, but it floored me. Last time we bought fish from this same store, it had a musty taste to it – in two years it was the first time that had happened, but it sort of turned me off to buying fish there. My dad (the consummate fisherman) tells me that fish gets a musty taste when it’s been improperly frozen. And the fish wasn’t exactly cheap – $8/lb. We could only really afford to eat it once a week or so. I’ve never really been a fish person – it’s only been in the last couple of years I let Chris talk me into trying it, which is odd considering I’ve spent my entire life on the Texas Gulf Coast. Don’t get me wrong – I’ve had more than my fair share of fried fish when I was young, but my dad really likes catfish, and I really do NOT like catfish. We’ve been buying “fresh” tilapia and I like it, whether it’s grilled or pan seared or lightly sauteed, or even broiled. Still, it wasn’t my favorite meal, but I could eat it, and I know that fish is good lean protein that helps with cholesterol issues. But … $8/lb for the cheap stuff! Wowza!

It occurred to me that we live fairly close to a good source for seafood – the Texas coastline. I called my parents, who live much closer to the water than we do, and arranged to go over. My dad took Chris and I to Seabrook, a sleepy little town down old 146 headed toward Galveston. Most people in this area are familiar with Seabrook’s cousin Kemah, a booming touristy area right across the waterway. Seabrook was more or less annihilated in Hurricane Ike back in 2008, but they are back on the map now. I was so happy to see all the seafood places rebuilt down there. My dad directed us to a place at the end of the street (I wish I could remember the name, but at least I know where it is) which carries all sorts of seafood – red snapper, tilapia, shrimp, squid, clams … the list is practically endless. And the prices! If only I could convey my delight at finding tilapia for just $2.49/lb. And red snapper at $2.99/lb (which at the grocery store mentioned above, runs right around $13/lb). And shrimp – any size you could want, in any state (head on, deveined, deveined and peeled, etc) all for less than $6/lb. We bought 2.25 pounds of shrimp, four huge red fish filets, and eight nice tilapia filets – for our family, about six meals – for $25. We brought it all home and that night, we had shrimp and pasta in a garlic butter sauce. Last night, we had tilapia. I cannot tell you the difference in the taste of the tilapia we get at the grocery store and what we bought at Seabrook. The fish from Seabrook was incredible! It was so good and flaky. It was everything I never knew fish could be, since I’ve never really liked fish to begin with. The rest of the fish and shrimp we froze “the right way” and will be eating over the coming two weeks.

We have also decided that we’ll make the drive to Seabrook once every couple of weeks to get fish, and try to eat it two or three times a week, because it’s moved from being the most expensive protein we purchase, the being one of the cheapest. And honestly, the taste is just amazing.

Frankly, I was a bit skeptical about buying tilapia in Seabrook because I’m pretty sure I’ve never caught one in the Gulf (and I do love to fish even if I didn’t like to eat them). But the proof was on my plate last night. Fish is back on the menu, and more often than ever now.

 

Success!

This morning I stepped the scale to see that I’ve lost 4.6 lbs since last Friday. I cannot tell you how thrilled I am about this. Even though I decided when I started this (again) that I would not obsess over it, I will admit that I’ve been weighing myself every couple of days to see if I was making any progress. I chose Friday to be my official weigh in day because a) I wanted some motivation to keep going through the weekend, and b) if I’m going to do any cheating, it’s most likely going to be on the weekend, which gives me time to make up for it the next week. Yes, I’m bad and I know it. But like I’ve been saying, this is not a diet for me; it has to be a new way of living and relating to food.

I’ve known people who give up just about everything they find tasty when they make a “lifestyle change” and if they can live like that, I applaud them. I know that I can’t do it. I enjoy the flavors that life offers – cheesecakes, steaks, sodas, etc. But I also am quite happy to eat steamed broccoli, chicken, fish and other foods that are supposed to be better for me. It isn’t that I necessarily disagree that these foods aren’t good for me – it’s that I don’t believe any food is truly bad for us, unless consumed in excess. I suppose that even eating too much broccoli may have some sort of downside.

Earlier this week, I read about Stacey Irvine, who at 17 years old, hasn’t eaten anything but McDonald’s chicken mcnuggets since she was 2 years old. Not being a big fan of most British foods, I can sort of see how something off a fast food menu might have its appeal to a young girl, but at the same time I am repulsed by mcnuggets because they are not very tasty in my opinion. This girl has been eating them for 15 years, which of course means she’s seriously lacking the vitamins needed to keep herself in good health. I don’t think anyone can look at her diet and say she’s eating well. But if you look at her picture, she isn’t overweight; she looks reasonably healthy. I would never ever recommend anyone eat a single nugget, let alone base their entire diet on it, but this girl is eating crap every day and her problem isn’t being overweight. In moderation, and in conjunction with a mostly healthy diet, one could conceivably eat a mcnuggets meal once or twice a month and probably not suffer any long term effects (though why anyone would want to do that is beyond me). The same principle would then apply to virtually any food or restaurant – when it isn’t your main source of nutrition, one can eat virtually anything on occasion and not suffer long term effects, least of all weight gain.

Where most people fail in this scenario is that they give themselves a “free pass” to eat whatever they want once, then again. And again. And again! I’m guilty of it. If I go on a business trip and I have no choice but to eat out, I will have a steak three nights in a week because “I don’t usually do this.” But then I’m also having a dessert every night because “I don’t normally do this” and a couple glasses of wine with dinner because “I don’t normally do this.” In a week, with that mindset, I can easily gain five pounds. And I’m weak; if I do gain that five pounds, I’m much more likely to decide that I can’t lose weight and it’s not meant to be than to admit that I’ve been eating crap all week and it’s my fault. Who wants to admit they made stupid choices?!

The things that have worked for me over the past week:

Not obsessing over whether or not I stay within my calorie limits. If I go over by a bit, I don’t really care. If I go over a lot, I take a look at what I did and what I could have done better. I’m trying to learn from my mistakes.

Measuring everything, either with a kitchen scale, measuring cup or measuring spoon. In fact, it’s worked so well I’m going to buy some measuring cups and spoons for the office.

Preplanning my meals. Knowing in advance what foods I plan to eat so I know about how many calories I will be eating. If it changes (as it did once or twice this week for dinner) I’ll adjust, but I found it incredibly helpful to write down what I intended to eat then checking to be sure I stuck to it after each meal.

Having some low-calorie high impact snacks around. I thought I didn’t care much for peanut butter, and when I tried the off-brand they offered at work, I was right. My husband encouraged me to try something from the grocery store (he loves pb) so I did – I tried Jif Reduced Fat and Peter Pan Honey Roast. I really liked them both, but the Honey Roast was the best. It has only 5 or 10 calories more for the one tablespoon I ate than the Jif, but the taste is oustanding. A regular serving size is two tablespoons, but when I’m pressed for calories, one tablespoon and some crackers or a banana really does help fill the void. I also really enjoyed the Special K Chocolately Pretzel bar this week – it’s 90 calories and totally satisfies my sweet tooth, though I must admit it didn’t do a whole lot for me when I was hungry. Coupled with some fruit, though, or maybe some Weight Watchers String Cheese (the best string cheese on the market, in my opinion), it was pretty good.

What I haven’t given up:

Dr. Pepper – at least, not entirely. I will admit that I was drinking way too much every day. Some days I would drink six cans. I’ve cut back considerably to two or three – three on the two days I had a migraine. I can’t really help it – I crave them when I have one. I would like to cut back to one or two, but for now I’m happy with the way things are.

Good food. My husband has jumped on the bandwagon, and we are looking for ways to maximize flavor without sacrificing calories. Last night, we sauteed three cloves of garlic in half a tablespoon of butter and a tablespoon of olive oil. Once the garlic was soft, we removed it from the heat and added two cups of steamed broccoli, half a cup of steamed carrots and a whole large steamed onion, sliced into big pieces. It was sooooooooooooo good. You cannot imagine! A cup had just about 115 calories, and it went very well with our grilled chicken and rice. I walked away full, satisfied and happy.

Ice cream. OK, so I happen to like the Weight Watchers and Skinny Cow ice creams – who cares?! For 140 calories,  I can have one (giant sized) Skinny Cow vanilla ice cream sandwich or a WW Giant Fudge Bar (mmmmmm) or a WW drumstick. For 200 calories, I can have TWO of the WW English toffee bars, which means one is only 100 calories.

I’m still not really exercising much – in fact, I really only exercised in the form of house cleaning on two days. But still, I lost 4.6 pounds! Yes, I know that much of that might be water weight, but it is STILL nearly five pounds gone. It’s five fewer pounds that I have to drag around with me everywhere I go. I’ll take that!

So, for the coming week, my goals are to make some things over the weekend for lunches and breakfasts for the week (have you tried the Fiber One Muffins? So good, and only 140 cals if you make them with applesauce). Try to move my body more in the form of some sort of exercise. And continue logging my food – I cannot tell you how helpful www.myfitnesspal.com has been for that. There are lots of “free” websites out there that you can use to log your food – I also like www.fitday.com – but I don’t think they are as user friendly or as helpful as MFP.

I may start posting some of my recipes here too … I’ve found that some of my recipes are surprisingly low in calories, and others I’ve tried that are low cal are fabulous. I might just have to share those …

 

Even the Best Laid Plans Backfire Sometimes

I bought a talking refrigerator that said “Oink” every time I opened the door.  It made me hungry for pork chops.  ~Marie Mott

Last night, I had a team dinner to attend. I knew that there was a good possibility that I would eat more than my allotted calories, but I was determined to stem the damage as much as possible. We chose to go the Yard House, a spot that’s popular with the after work crowd, so I took to their website to look at their menu. I was happy to see they also include full nutritional information as well, so I took a look at that too. All I can say is, WOW! You just never realize how much fat and calories a menu item has – and what’s so shocking is that usually the things you expect to be the best for you are actually the worst. Salads are often hotbeds of hidden calories … some of the Yard House entree salads were well above 1000 calories!

I thought about getting an entree and immediately boxing up half of it to bring home, but once at the restaurant, the problem with that idea was that we just didn’t have enough room on the table for anything extra like a box. So instead, I ordered a Roast Beef Dip with a cup of french onion soup. There was a whole lot of calories in there I know I didn’t need, but I still count this as a victory for a couple of reasons. First of all, I didn’t eat any of the appetizers being passed around the table, and trust me, it was very hard to resist. My teammates ordered onion rings, truffle fries, hummus, and bbq wings. Second of all, I didn’t order fries with my dinner; I opted for the soup, and I only ate half of that. I did eat the entire sandwich, at nearly 900 calories, and I wish I’d only eaten half of that too. Live and learn. This journey is all about small steps for me, and I felt like I made a couple of huge strides last night. Even though at the end of the day, I was over my calorie count by nearly 400 for the day, it was still much better than anything I would have done in the past. I did manage to eat quite sensibly for both breakfast and lunch. I realize that every once in a while, I’ll have a meal that isn’t perfect, and last night was one of those meals. But one meal doesn’t have to completely derail me, and I refuse to let this one ruin what has otherwise been a fairly decent week.

One thing I thought about this morning is that I didn’t adjust my starting weight from my last attempt at weight loss, so I started this time three pounds higher than my tracker states. However, when I stepped on the scale this morning, I was down 1.6 pounds from where I was last week. I will call that another victory.

The rest of the week should be fairly straightforward, if I can remember to pack my lunch for the office. I had a horrible headache this morning, so pulling together something to bring from lunch was the last thing on my mind. I had a bagel for breakfast, and I have a banana and some peanut butter for a mid-morning snack. For lunch, I’m not sure what I’ll do, but I’m sure I can find something that will work in the cafeteria.

My goals for the coming week are to get up and move more, something I’m seriously lacking most days. Whether it’s taking a walk in the evening or climbing some stairs at the office, I want to log at least 1.5 total hours of exercise this week. At some point in the future, I plan to get a gym membership going which will improve my exercise motivation considerably.

 

Results Not Typical

Have you ever seen a commercial where people are touting a weight-loss method, claiming to have lost 50, 60 or even 100 pounds or more by following the diet? You’ll notice, if you are observant, a note in small print at the bottom of the screen that says “Results not typical.” The reason why the results aren’t typical is because most people don’t realize that in order to lose weight, they really do have to change everything about the way they look at food and the role it plays in their lives. Honestly, I am one of those people.

I have a problem with food. I love it. I enjoy eating out with my husband, or cooking at home for family and friends, and I like eating whatever it is I want to eat. I really haven’t wanted to change the way I look at food because I didn’t want to know that my love affair with it was over. I don’t usually eat a lot of super fatty foods every day – I’m not chowing down on hamburgers and fries every day, but I don’t always make the best choices either. Long ago, I started moving away from fried food, but I can’t seem to shake the sweet tooth I was born with and have nurtured for years. If I could kick, or at least vastly reduce my Dr. Pepper habit, though, I could probably lose a considerable amount of weight. And after three weeks of tracking what I eat, I have come to a realization … I don’t really need to change what it is I’m eating, I just need to adjust my portions. And I need to exercise.

For years, I haven’t understood how anyone could get away with eating only 1400 calories and not be starving. To some people, I suppose 1400 calories might be a lot of food, but I am not one of those people. I have found, by tracking my food intake, that I’m pretty comfortable eating between 2000 – 2200 calories a day. The trick is being able to eat enough to keep me from being ravenous while losing weight. I will never be one of those people who can eat 1200 calories and not end up going stark raving mad one day, eating everything in the kitchen in a fit of hunger that cannot be satisfied. I started doing some research, looking for answers, because it doesn’t seem possible that eating 1200 calories could be healthy for anyone over a long period of time. The answer, it seems, that one should be tracking the “net calories” one consumes. Suddenly a lot of things started to make sense to me, when I found this.

Let me back up just a little bit. I can lose weight, I’ve done it in the past, but I’ve never been able to maintain it for an extended period of time, because I would get discouraged thinking about the next “level down,” i.e., the next time I would have to lower my caloric intake to continue to lose weight, instead of plateauing. Or, I would be so hungry I would binge eat and then feel so bad about it, I would abandon my weight loss efforts completely, telling myself that clearly I’m just meant to be overweight, because who can survive on so few calories? I would eat tons of vegetables, fruits and high fiber foods to feel more full, but most of the time it didn’t work. I would drink a lake’s worth of water, but I wasn’t thirsty, I was HUNGRY (for the record, I think I know the difference between being hungry and being thirsty; I have never bought into the theory that if you feel hungry, drink a glass of water first because you may just be thirsty). I would work out at the gym for an hour, eat my 1600 calories, and never lose any weight at all. But, if I worked out at the gym for an hour and ate 2000 calories, the weight would melt off. I was told that was the wrong way to do it, though, so each time I tried to lose weight, I would try to follow the conventional wisdom of eating a certain number of calories and exercising. For me, it just didn’t work.

What I was doing that worked for me, but seemed “wrong” to most people (including myself) was eating my net calories. It’s very simple really – your body needs a certain number of calories to keep it going when you get out of bed in the morning. This is what you need to sit around the house, doing not a whole lot of everything. Everything else you do – laundry, playing with the kids, grocery shopping, etc – adds to the number of calories your body needs to maintain its current weight. This is called your basal metabolic rate, or BMR. I am using this site to calculate my BMR because it allows you to plug in the level of your activity over a 24 hour period to see how many calories you need to eat to maintain your weight. The important thing to remember is that you have to be honest about your activity level.

Most people agree that for weight loss, you should eat 80% of your total daily estimated expenditure (TDEE). For me, that’s currently about 2200 calories. I’m shooting for about 2000 a day. Now, here’s where people get lost. Say you exercise for 30 minutes and burn 200 calories. If I’m trying to get in 2000 calories a day using net calories, I will need to eat an additional 200 calories to replace the 200 I burned exercising. So, in effect, I’m eating 2200 calories that day, not 2000. But it works out to a net of 2000 calories because I burned 2000 calories exercising. Seems simple right?

Except that it’s not so simple for a society that’s had it banged into their heads that they have need to eat fewer calories and exercise like mad people to lose weight. I have become convinced through watching my friends, doing my research and testing out every weight loss theory under the sun that this is the right way to lose weight and find an eating plan one can stick to for the rest of their lives. I think that what makes plans like Body for Life so popular – and so successful – is that they don’t focus on your caloric intake. Instead they focus on making sure you’re eating enough of the right foods to fuel your body and adding in exercise to burn the “extra” calories you eat. I am convinced that the reason why our recent ancestors didn’t have the problems with weight gain that we did is because they didn’t sit at desks all day. They were out working with their hands (and usually their entire bodies!), which burned a lot of calories. So while their diets may have been full of fried foods and sweets (at least in my family; I didn’t sprout a sweet tooth without decades of family history), they were burning those calories off by working hard. Nowadays, we have to go to a gym to get a tenth of the work out our forefathers got every morning before breakfast!

Now, to test the theory, I plan to spend the next several months tracking everything I eat, as well as the exercise I get, to find out if I’m right. If I am, I should see a pretty decent weight loss in that time. And, I should also finally have an eating plan I can live with for the rest of my life. At no time should I really feel deprived or hungry or otherwise ready to eat the entire kitchen. Wish me luck!

 

A journey of a thousand miles …

Begins at McDonald’s. Nooooo, that’s not right. Or is it? I don’t know if I started gaining weight with a trip to McDonald’s or if something else brought it on, but I’m pretty sure this journey didn’t necessarily start with a single step. I think many mis-steps brought it on. But that’s ok. I’m on a path – albeit a path I’m scared to walk (because of the very real potential for failure) – and I am doing my level best to stay on it.

My last post brought comments that suggested I check out myfitnesspal.com, which I forgot about before I made it home that evening. Yeah, I’m good like that. But knowing that I need something to keep me focused on my goal (i.e., a tracking program), I remembered this morning that I have something I downloaded on my phone, which was pretty impressive. I got back to my desk and checked it out. Would you care to guess what it is? Yeah, it’s myfitnesspal mobile app. So, I already have an account there, but I’d never logged in on the computer, and I hadn’t used the mobile version but maybe once or twice since downloading it. But today I’ve logged my food in to the program, recorded my weight (lost one pound since my last check in two weeks ago; progress!), and toyed with the site. It’s a slick site; if you want to track your fitness goals, it’s the place to be, I think. And I like the fact that I can carry this with me on my phone and have it anywhere. THAT is handy. It took the goal I have, asked how much I want to lose every week, and calculated my calories to get there. Impressive.

Before I even looked at myfitnesspal, though, I decided that I don’t want to overwhelm myself by making too many changes, so I thought I would focus on one meal – lunch – and make changes. I packed a lunch today, and it was pretty healthy, and was about 400 calories. I felt pretty full, actually, which I was happy about. But sitting there looking at the calories of everything I ate, I decided that maybe I don’t really WANT to eat two pieces of toast and two pieces of sausage in the morning. Maybe I’ll just cut that in half. And the fried chicken for dinner really wasn’t horrible, but in the future, maybe I’ll cut the rice in half and add a salad.

I’m reminded of Fly Lady. If you’re not familiar, Fly Lady is a woman who started a housekeeping revolution. She starts off her followers with one simple task – clean your sink, and keep it clean. Her theory is, if you see that one always-clean spot in your home, you will be compelled to clean the rest of the kitchen and keep it looking nice, because who wants a clean sink but a dirty countertop? Even though I told myself I would only focus on getting my lunchtime habits under control for the next two weeks, once I saw the difference between my calorie intake for lunch versus the other two meals, I began to think of ways I could easily make changes to breakfast and supper. And honestly, it made me think about hunting up my body for life book to get the exercises, which I can do at home, and get started on that again.

So maybe my journey began in a McDonald’s, or a Pizza Hut, or maybe my own kitchen. But it’s going to culminate in a slimmer person at some point down the road. It won’t be easy, I know, but now I know I’m ready. Bring it.

 

No One Ever Wakes Up “Fat”

This weekend, I came to a startling conclusion. I am fat. I need to lose weight. This is a very serious issue for me, both health-wise and otherwise. You may be wondering why this is a startling conclusion, because after all, no one wakes up suddenly and finds that they are fat. Do they?

Well, maybe they don’t, but let’s be real here. You may not suddenly become fat, but realizing that you have gained the weight can be sudden. It can be shocking. It may even be startling. I’ve known for a while that I’ve been gaining weight; but it was truly evident until I stepped on the scale this weekend and saw how much I weigh that made a true impression on me. I. Am. Fat.

I’ve made half-hearted attempts at losing weight, but for one reason or another, it hasn’t worked for me. I’m not making excuses about the weight gain, nor the reasons why I haven’t lost weight. I’m sure it’s my fault. I cannot deny that drinking Dr Pepper has contributed to my weight gain, nor can I deny that I’ve eaten too many steaks and not enough salads. No, my excuses are not that my genetics are pre-disposed to being overweight, because I wasn’t when I was young. Nor do I believe I have some as-yet undiagnosed medical condition that prevents me from losing weight (though my mother insists that with all the thyroid disease in our family, it’s possible that does factor in). My problem is that I like good food – emphasis on food.

I know all the reasons to lose weight – diabetes runs in my family, as does heart disease. Cancer isn’t uncommon in my mother’s paternal family either. I don’t want to have a stroke, a heart attack or otherwise cut my life short because I couldn’t resist that one last enchilada. But frankly, I don’t want to give up every single food I enjoy, either. I don’t want to give up sodas or Mexican food. And yet, I have the worst time enjoying those things in moderation. And honestly, I don’t know why. I can eat ice cream not more than a handful of times every year and I’m fine. I love to have a margarita, beer, or glass of wine – but don’t feel the need to do it more than once or twice a month. Why is it my will power works on some things, but not others? This is a mystery to me – a mystery I cannot at this point, begin to unravel. But I want to understand and to make changes. Changes that will result in a healthier lifestyle not only for me, but for my family as well.

So today, I make this one small step toward a healthier lifestyle. Instead of vowing to lose a certain amount of weight, I promise to make small changes toward the healthier lifestyle I need and deserve. Starting with weaning myself off the Dr Pepper over time, I will incorporate more water into my life, not to swim in, but to drink. I will skip the hamburger/beef stew/pizza lunches and have something more sensible – like soup, salad and/or a sandwich. I’ll make other changes as I go, after I make these two things habits instead of desires. If I need to post everything I eat here so the whole world can see it, to keep myself accountable, that’s what I’ll do.

And if I lose my will power, I need only to think about the number on the scale this weekend. That alone should keep me going.

 

The Well-Stocked Kitchen … and another lesson

Well, it wasn’t really a lesson. It was a reminder – to check the dates on the meat you buy at the grocery. And when the label says “Sell by” that really means “Use by” or “Freeze by”. Last night when I got home, I had visions of chicken brilliance – I had been inspired, after all, and I was ready to put my inspiration to the test. I pulled out a (rather large) package of boneless skinless breasts we bought over the weekend. Fortunately, they were on sale for less than $2/lb. I say fortunately, because it was only $8 worth of chicken I had to throw away last night, not $20. *sigh* When I slit the package open, I smelled it – the fragrance of rank chicken. I was irritated; the package said it was to be sold by the 26th of January. Yesterday was the 27th. If the package was to be sold by the 26th, why wasn’t the meat still edible on the 27th?! Into the trash it went and I scrambled for something else to cook … and since I had nothing else thawed, I reached into the pantry and pulled out my last jar of spaghetti sauce and made spaghetti. And chicken nuggets. I’m embarrassed to admit that, actually. But yes, I made frozen chicken nuggets with spagetti and marinara sauce last night. And then I put my nuggets on top of the spaghetti, added cheese, and called it a pseudo parmesan. The Pioneer Woman would likely hang her head in shame, or laugh at me. But … I wasn’t going back out last night and that’s what I had available. I figured using the nuggets wasn’t that different from using the preformed chicken breast patties I have used for parmesan … but I was still pretty embarrassed.

At least I haven’t started my “no box foods” week yet – that’s next week. I just wasn’t prepared this week to start.

Oh well, onward and upward!

Even before this incident, I realized that I need to take an inventory of my pantry, clear out my freezer and stock up on those items that are needed for no-box cooking. I have expanded “no-box” to also mean “fewer jars and cans” … like the jar of spaghetti sauce last night (though it certainly DID save my arse). I’ve been scouring the internet for a list of items that are essential for a well stocked kitchen, and I’ve come up with several, though I don’t think any single list fits my personal needs. I mean, I really have no use for anchovies, though Chris certainly likes them, and I don’t intend to use them for cooking (he can eat all of them he wants, but I’m not kissing him after he does!). I asked a couple of friends about their “well stocked kitchen” and I got several suggestions for things I should always have in the pantry. I thought I would share my personal list with you and see if there are any suggestions – either to add or take away.

Fridge
eggs
butter
milk
sour cream
mozzarella
cheddar
parmesan
mayo (not for me; blech! but for Chris)
dijon mustard
ketchup (for Travis)
pickles
salsa
jelly
bacon
yogurt

Freezer
ground beef
chicken (breasts and whole)
pork chops
sausage
ice cream
frozen fruit (things not in season, and for smoothies)

Produce
potatoes
onions
lettuce
apples
oranges
lemons
garlic
bell peppers
mushrooms (in small quantities)
tomatoes
carrots
celery
limes
bananas

Dry Goods
all-purpose flour
self-rising flour
cornmeal
granulated sugar
brown sugar
confectioners sugar
baking soda
baking powder
cornstarch
unsweetened cocoa
unsweetened chocolate
Semi-sweet chocolate chips
Cereal
Crackers (various varieties)
Dried breadcrumbs
Pasta (elbow, spaghetti, lasagna, etc)
Egg noodles
long grain rice
wild rice
barley
couscous
beans
bread, buns
tortillas, flour & corn

Canned
tomatoes
tomato paste
tomato sauce
chicken broth
beef broth
cream of mushroom soup
cream of chicken soup
worestershire sauce
steak sauce
soy sauce
olive oil
vegetable oil
canned chicken
green beans
corn
black beans
kidney beans
sweetened condensed milk
peanut butter
canned chilis
corn syrup
maple syrup
honey
vanilla
peanut oil
cooking spray
balsamic vinegar
white wine vinegar
rice vinegar

Dried herbs/spices
parsley
oregano
basil
rosemary
thyme
sage
marjoram
pepper – black & white
peppercorns
tarragon
onion powder
garlic powder
minced onions
kosher salt
table salt
cinnamon
mustard seed
cayenne pepper
chipotle pepper
bay leaves
minced garlic
paprika

Whew … that’s a lot of stuff! Fortunately, we already keep much of this in the house. I only really need to purchase a few additional items to have all of this (as I have said before, I may not be much of a cook at this point, but Chris is). I’m trying to get Chris to plan a menu of sorts for next week so we can make a shopping list for the grocery store. Thing is, he’s always really resistant to making a “menu” but we stand in the middle of the grocery store deciding what we’re going to eat for the coming week anyway. We don’t assign the meals to specific days, but we don’t have to do that if we plan in advance either. At least if we planned it at home, we’d know what we have there so we don’t buy stuff we don’t really need. I think that’s going to be something we need to work on, too.

 

TGIF!

So much going on right now … I’m just not sure where to start. Hmmm …

Well, I’ll start first by saying that so far, my Weight Watchers effort is going fabulously. I’ve stayed on plan all week, and even if I haven’t lost a lot of weight (and I don’t think I have) it’s been nice to be aware of what I’m eating again. I think that as time goes on it’ll get even easier to stick with it. It certainly helps that Chris is doing this with me, so I don’t have to worry every night about whether or not he’ll want to eat something off plan.

The upcoming wedding is on my mind as well. I think that we have the major decisions just about ironed out – we know what kind of wedding we want, and we have a couple of venues in mind. What I like most about our plan is that it will be an intimate ceremony with those who are most important in our everyday lives invited to join us. No big poofy dresses or 300 guests … just a small, intimate ceremony with my wonderful husband to be and our family. Later that evening, we’ll host a reception for friends – beer and BBQ all around!

With the wedding, even a small wedding like ours, comes all the planning, though. Right now I’m working on our gift registry. At first I was against it, since I’ve been married before. Chris hasn’t been married, of course, but I have. Anyway, some friends suggested we register anyway, or possibly receive the dreaded chili-pepper lamp as a gift. I’m not so worried about gifts as I am about people having fun, but if some folks are bound and determined to bring a gift, I suppose we can give them some items from which to choose. The problem with that is, when we went to do our registry, we found a LOT of things we’d like to have. So our registeries (we’re registered at four different places – one main, one that has a lot of our “fancy” stuff, one online and one that … well I dunno why we registered there LOL) look really huge. But the fact is, most stores give you “completion discounts” after the event. So we will get 10% most purchases made from the registry lists after the wedding. And at BB&B, if you get a 10% registry completion discount AND use their 20% off coupons … well that can be a lot of money saved. I just hope people don’t think we’re being greedy, because we don’t care much if we get a single present. This is just a discounted way for us to buy stuff ourselves.

Oh well. It’s Friday and I’m in a fabulous mood! Let’s get this weekend started!

 

Monday, Monday

I really don’t like Mondays. I think they should be outlawed, but somehow I think I won’t ever get my wish. If we could, however, do away with Monday mornings, life would be good.

Things are looking pretty good, despite the Monday notation on my calendar. My mother and I came to an understanding about some things this weekend, as did my fiance and I. I guess it was just my weekend to set things straight with the people in my life. I am, for the most part, happy with my life. There are things that I would like to improve, things that I want to change, but I am mostly happy right now, and that’s a good thing.

I went back to Weight Watchers on Sunday, to start again in my quest to lose weight. I hate trying to lose weight, but after gaining so much over the last few years, and getting to the point where I feel like it hinders me a bit in the things I want to do, I think this is the best plan … It isn’t so much that I need to learn what to do, it’s that I need to put it into practice. Do you have any idea how difficult that can be? And how much planning it takes? Let me enlighten you, if you don’t already know.

We weren’t really ready to start down this path yesterday, but we plunged down it – if not altogether enthusiastically, then certainly with determination. I dragged Chris along with me, kicking and screaming along the way … well, he may not have been kicking and screaming, but I do believe there was a bit of a pout about him. See, I need to lose a lot of weight, but he needs to lose more. I love him dearly, and his size doesn’t bother me at all, except that I’ve noticed lately he has trouble breathing and he’s slowed down a lot because he’s gained a lot of weight over the last year. He was a big guy to begin with, but now he’s even bigger. I’m concerned about his well being, and my own at this point.

We spent yesterday planning for dinners, discussing the WW system and how to make it work for us, together and individually. We take turns cooking, so at the very least he needs to prepare his night’s meals in a way that will not sabotage my weight loss plan. We went shopping for the things we’ll need this week to stay on plan, we ate on plan all day yesterday. It was going pretty well, until I forgot to get my lunch together for today. See, normally if I’m bringing my lunch, I will pack it up the night before so all I have to do is grab it from the fridge (and the counter, for stuff that shouldn’t be cold) and run out the door. I forgot to pack it last night, and was nearly out the door before I remembered. I did turn around to go get it, but I didn’t put a lot of thought into it, and I was out the door before I realized I’d only packed about 2/3 of what I wanted to bring. I WANTED grapes and carrots for snacks. I forgot them. Instead I brought a Lean Cuisine frozen meal, some cereal and yogurt for breakfast, a couple of sodas, and a yogurt for an afternoon snack. Not very filling, is it? Especially not filling when the LC meal sucks and you end up throwing most of it away (what in the WORLD did they do the beef pot roast? It was once one of their best meals!). Fortunately, my friend Juanita called me first thing this morning and said she wanted to stop by and see me for a minute.

She is a big fan of WW, having lost 50 something pounds several years ago, and maintaining the weight loss ever since. She is now training to be a WW leader, so I know I can count on her when I hit rough spots, but I never thought she’d come through for me like she did today. She brought me a bunch of WW snacks to try out and a cookbook. I tried a couple of the snacks after my failed lunch – some BBQ pretzels which weren’t too bad, and a couple of 1 pt candies. I wasn’t so crazy about the peanut butter crisp but the pecan crown was to DIE for. Just one and my chocolate craving is gone, but it was WONDERFUL. I’m having to exercise extreme self-restraint to not dive into the bag and find more of them. LOL

Anyway, my lesson was learned … from now on, I need to pack my lunch the night before and I need to be sure I have back up plans in case a) I forget to pack it again, or b) my chosen lunch sucks and is inedible (I’m thinking a trip to the salad bar would be in order at this point, but I’m not sure).

Today’s Confession: I need to lose about 100 lbs … 110 lbs would be better. *sigh* /cry