Another Monday

Monday, March 21, 2011

Weight Lost: 1 pound

Breakfast: Mix of cheerios and frosted flakes, milk.

Snack: none

Lunch: Rest of my Philly Cheesesteak from last night with sweet potato fries with dip. Propel water.

Snack: None

Dinner: Pasta with chicken

Exercise: It was raining like cats and dogs this morning. My DH might do the rain thing but not me. I don’t really have the proper raincoat but maybe I should get one. Right now it’s cold but the sky is blue and it’s very cloudy. If it stays this way, I will probably try to walk around 5 or this evening when we take the dog. I’ll just make it a longer walk. Don’t care if they like it or not. Yeah, team.

Thoughts: The rain made the roof leak again today and that bums me out a lot. The DH says that it will all be okay and that they might have to change the roof to something easier to maintain. I like the tiles but have always hated the color. This really isn’t a tile type house at all.

I also just found out that I won a spot in the NASA Tweetup competition. You compete for a slot at the shuttle launch. I thought I’d try since this is a historical event. The last of its kind. Gotta talk to the DH tonight and see what he thinks. I have until Friday to confirm one way or another. Still, whether I go or not, it is very, very exciting.

I’ve also decided that Monday is going to be weigh in day and will post my weight loss at the top of the post before breakfast is even listed. I figure that this will keep me honest and start my week off. Bad or good, it is something all of us who are losing weight needs to do. It will also give me a moment to reflect on what I’ve done good or bad to make it happen.

Well since I lost a pound, I know I’m going in the right direction. Still, I had days when I couldn’t exercise, like today, and for the first time in a long time felt guilty I couldn’t do my walk. Exercise needs to be a part of everyone’s everyday life. Walking is best for me with a little free weights and that’s something I haven’t added here. I hate my arms and every other day, lift five pounds weights or do a workout with a shake weight. Don’t laugh, they seem to be doing the job as my arms are the biggest regret I have. See, they used to be Angelina Jolie arms; firm, smooth, just the right amount of muscle. Then bang. I get fat and they get horrid. Sigh. At least this is helping.

Lynn

A Silver Anniversary

Today is my silver anniversary and a very interesting day. The Ides of March. The day Caesar was killed but a very special day for me and my husband.

Lots of things went wrong that day. We forgot the license, I cussed in the church but overall it went off without a hitch and we’ve been blessed ever since.

Yes, he still does drive me crazy but considering the alternatives out there, I’d say I have a keeper. Need I say more?

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Breakfast: Piece of pepper jack cheese, bowl of honey nut cheerios and about a 1.5 c of milk. Yum. Large cup of coffee.

Snack: Geez. I had a whole other breakfast as I was starved. I had a scrambled egg bowl from Jack, 3 of the hash browns and an orange juice. I shouldn’t be hungry for hours. Sigh.

Lunch: Left over chicken salad from last night. Couldn’t eat but 2/3 of the stuff as some had gone bad.

Snack: None

Dinner: Baked Italian bread with oil and balsamic, sautéed mushrooms, pasta fagoli soup, penne with chicken and a vodka cream sauce. Again, I couldn’t finish all the dinner so I brought half of it home. Coffee and water to drink.

Exercise: The walk was a little long today than expected. I actually thought I would take less time but it seems like I took a little more. Or I didn’t start when I thought I did. Supposedly we started at 6:40 and I got back at 7:45. But the songs that played only tallied up to only 46:32, which means I must have left a lot later than my husband. Oops. LOL!

Thoughts: Felt terrible as Gordon came home earlier bearing gifts. For some reason, I didn’t even feel good enough to go out and get him a card today. Told him what I plan to do for his gift, fix his expensive watch, and get him a belated card. It was a wonderful day full of remembrances.

Lynn

Ugh – Here We Go Again

How many times have I talked on this blog about losing weight? How many times have I started and then stopped?

Well, last time, I was doing the HCG diet and I did really well on it. I lost over 30 pounds on the 30 days I was on the program. As of this date, I actually gained back almost 20 of those pounds. Why? I think it was a variety of things. One is that I got back to regular eating. For those who don’t remember, the HCG diet involves a very low calorie diet of about 500 calories a day. I would actually adjust mine is needed but stayed within the 500-800 calorie range.

It was a good thing for me to do as it got me to thinking about how I needed to really do the whole mind-body-spirit thing. Everything must be in sync for a program to work. Period. Eating very little isn’t necessarily in sync with world view. Don’t get me wrong, I have enough fat to sustain me for the short haul but over the long term, it probably isn’t a very good thing.

This time, I think it will be different. Again, you may ask why when you look at my history. Well fuck history. No, I’m not talking about history the big picture but history the personal picture. I know that those who disregard history are destined to repeat it. And that’s just it. I’m not disregarding it at all I’m embracing it.

Yes, I’m fat right now. Get over it. Yes, I want to lose weight starting right now. Get on with it. Yes, I’m basically a healthy person. Get on with improving that aspect. I need to do, not talk. I need to embrace that diets don’t really work and work on what works for me. I am a unique individual with unique needs. I know me and my body best. I know what works for me.

And some thing miraculous happened. Recently, I went on a trip to Vienna, Austria with my husband. Vienna works on the premise that most people use public transportation or their feet to get around. So every day I was walking to all my destinations or to the public transportation. Also, every morning, I got up with my husband and went down to the gym to walk 30 minutes on the treadmill.

I ate differently in Europe. For breakfast, I would have scrambled eggs, bacon, a small bowl of cereal and tons of water and juice. For lunch, if I ate it would be soup or a sandwich. When we’d go out to dinner, we’d walk to a resturuant and walk back. The only thing I wanted and didn’t get would be salad. I didn’t get as much as I wanted at all. Otherwise, I ate just until full and no more. I also ate anything and everything I wanted. Desserts were special while I was there. Most of the time I couldn’t finish it at all because the sweet stuff would get to me. But I would also trudge back to the hotel room once we were done.

It was amazing. Because of the change in diet and the added exercise, I lost about ten pounds. Right now, you can’t really tell because a lot of that was transferred into lean muscle mass and my body didn’t shift in how it looks very much. But it feels a heck of a lot better.

So what I’m going to do with this blog daily is include what I ate, estimate how much it was, how much I exercise and when, and maybe a paragraph or two on how I felt. We’ll see as one of my major, and I mean major, problems happen to be is I get bored. I get bored with most things I do, which is why I need to do a lot of things. That way, I can shift from one thing to another.

If I survive a week doing this, I really will have a great chance this time. Here goes:

Monday, March 14, 2011

Breakfast: Bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios, 1.5 c of milk, coffee

Lunch: Chips & Dip, Taco Burrito with sauce and sour cream

Snack: Garlic Salsa & 1 serving of tortilla chips

Dinner: 1/3 of a chicken salad, dressing on the side, with avocado, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes and olives.

Exercise: Today I walked 46 minutes along the streets of the town I live in. It was brutal in the beginning as it was uphill. Once at the top the rest was flat or downhill until the last block that had a gentle rise. I put on my wrist weights and iPod and off I went. Yeah.

Thoughts: I’ve said all I’m going to say above.

Lynn

Making A Decision

I know that many people will say that I’m copping out and doing something crazy. I’ve done crazier things will less motivation.

After reading all the documentation, I’ve decided I’m going to try HCG. Along with this comes a very low calorie diet (VLCD), which is the only thing scary about this at all. The HCG product does not stay in your body after 44 days in the form it will be taken. You also are not recommend to take the drops or do the diet for any longer than 26 days with two loading days at the beginning and two weaning off days at the end. I can do anything for 30 days, anything at all.

Sure, the movie Supersize Me shows what can happen to one when eating nothing but fast food. Most fast food is laden with bad fat as well as other questionables. It’s no wonder that you could do horrible damage by eating nothing but fast food for a month. I would probably die doing something like this.

With this VLCD, you are eating good food and I’ve looked the plan over and over again. I will adjust it as needed and will stop immediately if I notice a problem. I will not, nor cannot at my current weight, starve. But my body might rebel because I’m not eating much. But unlike anorexics I will be eating. I love food and I just need to get to a reasonable weight before I can enjoy it again.

This whole program has to be done in steps. Each losing phase is approximately 30 days, though one can do a 15 day increment if they just want to try it out. After those thirty days, you must go on a maintenance plan for 2-6 weeks to stabilize your weight as well as show your body you have no intention of starving it.

I will also be taking a whole regimen of vitamins I’ve taken for years and blogging about my progress every day.

I know my body and I know when too much is too much. But the weight has got to go because I honestly think it will kill me before this diet even has a change. I’ve ordered my drops from the local GNC today instead of going to one of the many clinics who use this weight loss method. The main reason is cost. The clinics are much more than I want to spend right now and with my medical knowledge I feel confident in knowing what I’m doing.

Plus my family is in on this with me. I had to tell them otherwise it would have been a useless journey as I will need their help. I’ll still have to go to family Sunday lunches, I’ll still need to go to parties I’m invited to as well as have holidays roll around like July 4th which will be during my first week.

I don’t think this will be easy but I think it will be enlightening. I'll see how I do this first leg before I make any decisions to move on to another 30 days.

I’ll start blogging daily the moment I start which should be within the next few days.

Lynn

Updating My Story

I have a weight loss motivation problem right now and thought if I shared my story from the very beginning and what I'm doing to improve my lot, I would get the zing back.

When the phen-fen thing was going on, I found out I have a true imbalance of some kind as I was in their clinical trials of when the pharmaceutical companies put them together. With little effort, except 40 minutes of exercise daily, I lost 80 lbs in 6 months. They did weekly blood test and the meds actually changed my blood chemistry. They were going to do some more with some special testing, basically testing my brains uptake inhibitors and various other brain things to see why it worked for me, when everything was pulled from the market by FDA. I was one who never had a problem but the meds apparently fixed the chemical imbalance problem I was having. I still remember reading the doctor's book regarding it all and seeing myself in it on almost every page. As with any medication, I was able to keep that weight off for a period of almost two years when everything became very unbalanced again and I started to see my weight slowly go up. My regular GP tried to control things will anti-depressants which bombed miserably because it wasn't the right stuff and she has tried to tell me to this day it's all because of depression. I wish it were that easy. At that point, I mentally gave up and started eating what I wanted again and no exercise. When my youngest son turned diabetic I gained another 50-60 pounds due to stress. I had never gained weight in stressful situations and was shocked. When I realized just what I really weighted, as I'm at my highest weight ever, I knew things had to change. So I'm trying to change them just one thing at a time.

Food has never been my problem and frankly, I wish it had been. See, I eat all the good things just my portion control is out of whack sometimes and even with larger portions, I tend not to overeat. My problem has always been exercise. I hate and will do anything to avoid it if I can. Basically, I have just pared my calories back to about 1200, I watch the portions and carbs. And I only eat when I'm hungry again which has been a huge thing this past couple of years as trying to learn to live with a diabetic is interesting. In September, I got a puppy because our older dog, which was my DH's anyway, died and I knew if I had to walk the dog, I would get out and up. And bless his heart, the dog is relentless as he won't let me do anything without walking him at least once a day, most times two as well as actually playing with him and just moving around in general. This is very good.

I started to go to a naturopath to see what she could do for my menopause which was causing sleep issues. Then there was the part that there were some days I knew I was going crazy...LOL! Once we got those under control, she is helping me tackle the rest like allergies and weight loss. I finally seem to be on a regime with the allergies that is making life better all around. When allergy season starts, it used to be I would swell up like someone having an allergy attack. It would take months to get rid of the extra fluid and drive me nuts. Now it's only for a week max in spring and fall. Next we're going to tackle just why the phen-fen balanced all the brain chemistry and to see if anything will work naturally like the pharmaceuticals did. And overall, I think we're making a lot of progress.

And to be frank, my only problem with how things are going, is just how very slow it's all happening. So far, since September 6 when we got the puppy, I've probably lost around six pounds maybe a little more. I've got to start charting it to make sure. This is a decent weight lost but much too slow in my mind. When on the phen-fen regime, I lost a whooping 14 pounds a month without trying much at all in my opinion. So right now, my biggest issue is keeping motivated. I'm reading all I can regarding weight loss and motivation as well as talking to people like you to stay on top of it. Still, there are days I really want to chuck it all because my waist is too big, my arms are flabby and 17 yo diabetic son makes all the wrong comments in his quest to achieve this goal. And bless his heart, he's had to change everything about how he operates with the diabetes knowing that if he eats what he wants, he has to exercise his butt off with at least 1.5 hours of hard exercise for every fast food meal he has. Which he does but he doesn't get that saying to me various things just makes me sad and want to give up. He's so typically a young, unknowing male I frequently have to tell him to zip it.

Which is why I plan to stop here weekly and vent in a positive way. I know there are many authors, readers and just general people who struggle with weight daily. I'm hoping if we all support each other, we can get it off and keep it off!

Lynn