Quickie

Hey, get your mind out of the gutter! I'm talking about a quickie update. Don't know what YOU were thinking.

I am back to work and all is (mostly) well after the flu from hell. Yayyyyy. I also am up 2 lbs from last week due to an over-indulgent birthday dinner for my sister. I hit 214.6 that morning and the next day it was 216.6. Curse you roasted Greek potatoes in all your lemony goodness. It's still the same this morning. I had way more carbs than usual, so I'm thinking that's it. Back to plan, back to reality.

Now that I'm not coughing up my lungs, I think it's time to get back on the sweat train and start exercising regularly. Mmmm. Sweat train. Sounds like the least desirable mode of transportation ever.

It's a good news bad news kinda post

Let's start with the bad news...I am sick. So there I was, feeling all smug and invincible, convinced my immune system was kicking ass, as everyone around me dropped like stuff that drops fast, when whammo! I got it. Fever, aches, chills, frigging annoying cough.

Boo and hoo.

I started to feel off on Saturday with a bit of a cough. I still went to the park with my fiancé and his kids for a picnic in the sunshine. It was a balmy 12 Celsius and nothing but blue skies, so who could resist? I rode the bike earlier that day, and no problem. I decided to do a few laps around the field and ended up coughing myself into some nice chest pain. I stopped running. I haven't exercised since. :(

The good news is I am down to 215.6. Couple pounds from last time. I'm sure at least one of those pounds is from my lack of eating the past three days.

One thing I realized over the weekend is that I don't think I'm in danger of and carb-rebound weight-gain. I've eaten carbs a few times now and my weight has stayed the same. I'm trying not to overdo it, but I had yorkshire pudding and cake with my late birthday dinner on Sunday (a feat possible thanks to the magic of Neocitron which knocked my fever down for a few hours), and the fam ordered pizza last night. No problemos. I could only eat 2 pieces though...which was amazing. I used to eat 4 without feeling really full. Gotta love stomach shrinkage!

Anyway, that's where I am. I still have this countdown clock in my head. I'm trying to figure if I can lose over 15 lbs more in a month and a half to be under 200 by Jamaica. That would be fine, indeed.

Here's hoping this cough will bugger off soon so I can try some more exercise!

Exercise Shmexercise.

So I'm still down about 10 lbs. It's definitely hit a wall since the thrill of seeing a pound a day leave my body (ok, it was water weight, but it still felt good!). Yesterday I ate a piece of banana bread- ooooh carbs! I thought maybe that would affect some water retention. It's funny, now that I think back, I was peeing like every hour after the third day or so on the low-carb plan. Now I know why! I'm much more back to normal now, so I guess all those lovely glycogens are happy to keep their water for now. Ah well.

That brings me to the thing I dread the most: exercise. Gah, it's the worst for me. Last time on this merry-go-round called weight-loss, I had a TON of people give me advice on exercise. Nice people. Well meaning people. But nothing they could say could help me like exercise. Oh, they said, just find something you like to do that's active and do that! Uh huh. What if there is really nothing I like to do? I only exercise because it is a good way to lose weight and to stay healthy. I suppose if you put a gun to my head and made me choose some sort of exercise that doesn't fill me with dread, I would say maybe walking. I don't hate walking. However, I do hate walking in the cold and the rain, which pretty much rules out the whole area of now- it being winter and all- for walking.

I haven't broken a sweat doing any type of the dreaded exercise yet, but I'd like to plan it out. I'm thinking I'll ride my recumbent bike to start. I like to do hand weights while I ride to give my heart rate a boost and work my upper body. I also have that arm workout video I want to try still. I used to do the 30 Day Shred, but lost the DVD. I replaced it with a similar Jillian DVD, but I didn't like it as much. I keep meaning to grab another copy when I'm out and about- I think it's still pretty popular. I did Jillian's killyourlegsohmygodplankingsucks workout the first time about 8 months into my weight-loss journey last time. It was in December, and I think I lost about 6 lbs in the 30 days. I think that's pretty good considering it was through Christmas feasting and I'd already lost 40 or more pounds.  It really helped develop my core and I got some nice leg definition from all the squats. Yup, I will check her out again for sure.

Wish me luck in my foray back into sweating and muscle pain...oh, and endorphins. I hope I get some of those!

Jamaica, mon

(Before I get started, I posted my "WTF Happened" blog up here at the top to sort of tell people what happened when I fell off the blog-dar 3 years ago- sorry if the timeline is confusing!)

Did I mention I am going to Jamaica? In TWO MONTHS?!? It's only because I'm extremely lucky and have the best mom in the universe (no offense to your super moms, but, as in Highlander, there can be only one), and she is paying for my sister and I to go to my brother's wedding. The bitter in the bittersweetness of it all is that she just had a stroke over Christmas and isn't cleared to travel, so we will be going without her. Bitter bitterness, indeed. She's doing much better now, but she has blood clots- the cause of the stroke- and is on blood thinners that require her to get blood tests every three days. So on one hand, I'm excited to go to this amazing island, but on the other, no mom. I also have to leave my fiancé behind, so it will be my sister and I in a romantic tropical setting. The funny part is my brother booked a couples-only hotel, so you never know, we might even get mistaken for a creepy look-alike lesbian couple. NOT THAT I AM COMPLAINING. God, no. It's so cool we get to see my little brother get married.

Of course, heading to a tropical island does evoke a small amount of anxiety over having to expose more of my pasty flesh to the world. I have been telling myself for, oh...about six months now, that I need to get my ass in gear and lose some pounds before Jamaica. I had this little internal countdown going. If I start today, I'll have six months to lose weight! If I lose 8 lbs a month, that's almost 50 lbs! Yeah! Then it turned to, if I start today, I'll have four months to lose weight. I can lose 40 lbs in that time! Now I'm down to two months left. Not sure how much I can lose in that time, but I'm certainly going to do my best!

I'm still doing the low-carb, low-glycemic thing, and I love how I feel doing it. I think that low-GI might be the way to go for me, rather than low-carb. Although, I'm thinking they sort of amount to the same thing.

Pretty soon, I'll be off the restrictive Dr. Oz plan and I will start moving my ass with some exercise. My friend sent me this arm work out video that I'm keen to try.

I'm hoping I might get a few people reading my blog again. I'm trolling for new blogs to read since I realized that 90% of my old flogger buddies are all gone from bloggerland. Anyway, if you are joining me and have few spare moments, you can check out my old posts and see the skinny me that I want to be again! I miss that girl. Sigh.

Woah, what the hell happened?

So this is what it feels like to be resurrected. *cough* A bit dusty, a bit rusty, but here I am.

What the hell happened?

I don't have any inclination to regurgitate everything that led me to this place, but here is my new reality.

I am separated from my husband.
I no longer live in my new house.
I am in a new relationship.
I have gained about twenty lbs in the last five months.

You may now pick your jaw up off the floor.


Though I feel horrible for hurting my ex, who is a good person, he is not MY person. The only regret I have is hurting him.

I feel totally shitty for gaining weight. I just plain stopped exercising when the relationship shit hit the fan. My routine was decimated...and I have not managed to get it back on track.


I am about one size up...so some clothes still fit and others are sadly tight. It sucks a lot.

I am getting my shit together slowly here. I have a great new guy in my life...he is amazing and sweet. I have my exercise bike now, which is what helped me lose my first fourty lbs

Wait...what about water weight?

Ahh yes, water weight. I've been thinking a lot about that lately. I lost 10 lbs in 10 days with the Dr. Oz 2 Week Rapid Weight Loss plan (Not called "Kick Start to Weight Loss" as I had thought...oops), and someone uttered that oft repeated phrase, "Well, you know that's mostly water weight." That someone happened to my brother who was pre-med before he became a high school science teacher. My question back to him was, "Yeah, but do I have TEN POUNDS of water in my body to lose??" He said, "Probably!" Well crap.

I decided I had to look into it. I found, through my friend Google, a web page that seemed to explain the whole concept of water weight. You can read it here. Basically, it says that people who go on a very low carb diet, such as the one I am on, the majority of that first bunch of weight is water. It is all very scientific with words like 'glycogen' which is apparently stored in your liver. Glycogen is also known for attaching itself to water molecules, "it turns out that each gram of glycogen is bound to four grams of water.This means that when your liver and muscles are charged up with glycogen you gain four times the weight of that glycogen in water." What? FOUR TIMES!??! That's just evil.  Of course that means that as soon as you eat carbs again, you replace that glycogen and its accompanying water. Thus, you gain weight rapidly.

I always knew any weight quick to come off or quick to come back wasn't real weight. I would often go up a couple pounds after a heavy meal or a birthday celebration, but over the next few days of normal, healthy eating it would go away again.

That being said, water weight isn't the only weight I've lost on this plan. I know that some of it is real fat loss. I did go a little crazy over my birthday weekend and ate off plan with carbs and fat and sugar galore, and I did gain a few pounds back. Make that 2. So, I think that it's safe to say that I've lost some real weight here! Yayyy!

That also inspires me to try to incorporate some complex carbs in my diet after my 2 weeks are up, to see if it triggers any of the old hunger signals. Oh yes! The article explained that too!

That's because when you cut out your carbs you eliminate the blood sugar swings that cause hunger in most people. The cravings you used to get when dieting may fade out in as little as two weeks. When you stop eating in response to those nasty hunger cravings, you will find it much easier to eat a whole lot less than you used to. It is the drop in calorie intake that follows this drop in hunger that that results in the very real and often dramatic weight loss so many long-term low carbers report.

Well smack my ass and call me Betty, that's exactly what's happening to me! This diet is specifically tailored to cut cravings because it cuts carbs and processed sugar! Aha! I get you know Dr. Oz. 

Well, I did get this before, but it's just explained way better in the article. So, there ya go. I'll stay low carb for now, and try to incorporate some of the better, slowwwwww burn carbs later. Like sweet potatoes (those are the bomb yo) and whole grains. I really want to try this refrigerator oatmeal I've been hearing about. Looks seriously yummy.

I gotta say, I seriously love not feeling hungry all the time. It's like a whole new world, where I think maybe I can just forget about food for a while. Like make it so it's not a thing in my life. A constant, insistent thing. Here's to trying, anyway. ;-)

Lordy, lordy look who's forty (and blogging!)

So here I am, on the verge of turning forty, and what do I find myself doing? Trying to lose weight. Again. Go figure! Yes, weight-loss goals have dragged me back into the blogging world. I thought I might as well give it a go again. It's been an age and a half since I've last blogged, but maybe there are some die-hards out there who might see this in their blog feed and remember me from the good ol' days. If so, Hello! How are you?

I seem to be getting about 20 hits a day on this poor dusty thing despite the lack of blogging activity. I always wonder what people think may have happened to me since the last blog post so long ago. Well, I will tell you.

I gained more weight. Not a horrible, terrible, ghastly amount of weight, but basically I am back where I was when I started this whole crazy journey in 2009. If you want to know part of what happened you can hit my archives to my last blogs before this one.

 Last time I blogged I was trying out the 17 Day Diet, and I have to say that was a miserable failure. The restrictions made me feel like a grumpy, hungry bear with a head full of fuzz. I just ended up eating normally, which means poorly, immediately after and gained back the 7 lbs I lost. Since then, I've skated along, being unhappy with my body but doing nothing about it and slowly, bit by bit creeping up to my current weight. Well, not quite. Because I have started again. I was looking for a nice way to kick-start my weight loss because I have to do something. Not just for my health and happiness, but also because I'm going to freakin' Jamaica in two months! That's the land of shorts, tank tops and the dreaded bathing suit. I've been telling myself for FOUR months already that I would get started on a weight-loss plan "soon". Yes, soon. It will happen soon. Or never. Maybe never.

I had to give my head a shake. When the new year came and went and I was till doing a bunch of nothing, I stumbled across Dr. Oz's Kick-Start to Weight Loss plan. I thought I'd see if my fiancé would be into trying it with me. What I like about it was all the veggies in the plan. We were just telling our fat selves that we have to eat more friggin' veggies already. Also, it was supposed to cure cravings for sweets and carbs.  All good stuff to me! So we went out and bought a shit-ton of crap the plan had on it's shopping list (I love that it has a shopping list!). We couldn't find rice protein powder at le crappy grocery store we frequent because it's cheap, so we bought a whey-based powder instead. If I had to wait another day to start this thing to scour health food stores, I might never start. It was now or never. I am SO glad I chose now. :)

If you want to check the plan out, click here. 

It's pretty simple stuff. The first day came, and I started off with a smoothie of raspberries, banana, unsweetened almond milk, flax seed and  protein powder. I was a bit worried I would be starving a couple hours after drinking this, but it is definitely filling with some staying power. I am supposed to have hot water with lemon, but my slow-ass doesn't have time for that in the morning.

Unlimited veggie broth is on the list as well. We found some organic stuff (recommended if you don't make it yourself), but it wasn't low-sodium. We found low-sodium the next shopping trip though. I put about two cups of the broth in my trusty Costco thermos with some liberal sprinklings of pepper and sip it most of the afternoon.  I can also eat unlimited amounts of low-glycemic index veggies throughout the day as well. Veggies are not really my thing, so there are about 5 on the list I really like eating. I decided to cut up a bunch of colourful peppers to snack on at work along with some sliced cucumber. I also made a salad of mixed greens, grape tomatoes, red onion and a bit of balsamic for dressing (the only "approved" item for salad dressing). I now add a couple small grilled chicken cubes and/or brown rice to this salad to keep it interesting and more filling. I've also brought homemade hummus for my veggies.

For dinner, the first day we did chicken in a marinade of balsamic, bit of olive oil, parsley, oregano, garlic powder, basil and pepper along with brown rice and salad. We have since then also made turkey chili with kidney beans and crushed tomatoes (though we had to cheat a wee bit and add some tomato sauce), and it was delicious, and turkey meatballs which were meh.

For snacks at home,  I have some plain 2% Greek yogurt. Plain. Yuck. It was so bad I had to try some vanilla and cinnamon to choke it down. Le crappy grocery store doesn't like to stock the plain yogurt, so we ended up with vanilla after that, and wow is it so much better! I felt a bit bad as it has more sugar than the plain, but I luuuuurve eating it, and I need something that makes me happy to eat it on this plan. I also have nuts and the hummus and veggies at home. I plan on making some wicked tzatziki as well. Garlic-y goodness!

Here's what it all looks like broken down for me.

Breakfast: Smoothie


Lunch: Salad with tomatoes, onion and balsamic dressing*

Snacks: 1 cup sliced bell peppers, veggie broth, sliced cucumber, hummus, handful of nuts, yogurt

Dinner: 6 oz chicken, 2 cups salad greens, tomatoes, sautéed bell peppers and onion, 1 cup brown rice.

*I sometimes add 1/2 cup rice and some chicken, but then take that portion from my dinner.  

The result? I've lost 9.5 lbs in 10 days. I feel good. I feel energetic. I have less body pain (weird, right?), and I am less sleepy in the mornings and evenings. AND I don't have any desire to eat sugar or carbs. Not only that, but I am almost never hungry! Even when I am hungry, it feels different. I used to feel this pit of gnawing emptiness in my stomach when I was hungry before. Like this insatiable monster was screaming "Feed me! FEED ME!!" in my head constantly. And the monster didn't particularly give a crap what I put in there, just as long as it was something. That something was invariable full of sugar and fat. Now, my hunger is like this tiny little fairy lightly flitting around my stomach saying, "Oh hi! Yes, I'm a bit hungry, but it's no big deal. Feed me whenever you like!" It's the weirdest thing! Quite often if I ignore it, the little fairy just gives up and goes off to do whatever little stomach hunger fairies do.

It's like the polar opposite from my 17 Day Diet experience. So. Much. Better!

A little more about the body pain. For about a month before this, I had a very annoying pain in my back on the right side that only came after I was lying in bed for several hours. It started out I never felt it unless I was in bed for like 8 hours (like on a blissful sleep-in on a Sunday), but it gradually came on sooner and sooner. In the end it hurt after about 4 hours of lying down. I thought maybe it was my mattress, but since we can't afford a new one right now, kinda just let it be. About 3 days into this diet my back stopped hurting. Just. Stopped. No idea WTF is up with that. None.

So that brings me back to today, on the cusp of turning forty. Where do I go from here? How do I start this next chapter of my life?

First of all, I plan to stick to this plan! I like it. Dr. Oz said somewhere to add unlimited lean protein and nuts to the plan for long term. I do get a bit sick of veggies, but I am trying some new ones. We had roasted cauliflower the other night. Nope, still tastes like cauliflower despite the internet's exuberant claims it could convert me. Darn you Pinterest and all your lies. The sautéed eggplant we did last night was a bit more palatable. I also plan on addressing my old nemesis: exercise. I don't like it. I worked out every day for 4 months on my last weight-loss journey and it worked great. I don't want to do that this time. Ick. I  do want to do some sort of activity every day, but I'm thinking walks will intersperse more intense workouts. I'll let you know how it goes.

Overall, I'm extremely hopeful for the future. Losing nearly 10 lbs is extremely motivating. Not feeling hungry all the time is also extremely motivating! Maybe I can stop obsessing over what/when I'm going to eat next because my stupid stomach monster is gone.

I do have one hurdle to get through. Since tomorrow is my birthday, I'm eating off-plan. I've planned it, even. I will eat normally for breakfast and lunch, but dinner will be something else, and there will be some appies and chocolate cake for the party. I'm a bit worried the hunger monster will return after I consume a bunch of carbs and sugar, but it's my 40th freakin' birthday! I'm eating and having some dang cake. But, I will go back on the plan, and will even tack on a few extra days to make up for it.

Stay tuned to find out what happens in the aftermath of eating (ok, and if I'm being honest, drinking) "the old way" for a night!

Stats:  Day 10

Starting Weight: 228
Current Weight: 218.5

Weight lost: 9.5 lbs

Since when is no news, good news?

In the weight-loss blogging world, I'd say no news is BAD news. For me it means,  I am not doing anything blog-worthy, which means I am not doing much to lose weight. Bad bad.

So other than dipping my blog into a big vat o' Tang, there is not much to report. I am not really dieting, and I am not really exercising (in that I am not at all). There are many excuses I use to explain away this non-effort. My mom had surgery and I was taking care of her one week (she was convalescing in my exercise area, a.k.a her bedroom). I got sick another week, I lost my brand-new running shoes blah blah bladitty blah.

Basically I am lame and didn't feel like doing anything after the great 17 Day Diet fiasco. Well, fiasco is a bit strong...maybe debacle? Hmm no. Failure? Yes, good. Failure it is.

I am going to suspend my weekly trek to another town to be with my man this weekend as he and his daughter are freezing their butts off  camping at Manning Park. Terry tells me it will "only be -5 this weekend" (that is Celsius for my American readers). Only -5? Did I mention they are tenting?!?! Crazy.

I have opted to stay home, which not only saves my ass from a good freezing, but it also gives me ample time to get going on the exercise! Yay! I plan on cracking the seal on my brand new Jillian Michaels Ripped in 30 DVD. I lost my 30 Day Shred when I moved, and this one seems similar enough for me to think I will be back to cursing my nemesis, Jillian, for destroying my lax, out-of-shape muscles very soon. Ahh just like the old days.

Oddly enough, I have managed to lose 3 more pounds after the 6 I lost before the diet became but a distant, sad, frustrating memory. Cool, but not something I am going to take to the bank since I didn't really DO anything to earn the loss. Figure the weight will come back on if I keep up with the non-activity. It is nice to be back in onederland though. :)

So wish me luck getting off my lazy butt!

 Thought I'd slap on an updated picture of me for those of you 

not friends with me on the Facebook.

What's a vacation for, anyway?

I mean, we go away to "get away from it all," right? Or so I told myself when faced with my first non-home-cooked meal.
 I just got back from a weekend in Victoria, which is a lovely part of Vancouver Island for anyone not familiar. I was kinda worried about trying to stick to this horribly restrictive diet while I was away,  but actually, before I even left I had pretty much decided I wasn't going to go all 17 Day Diet-y after all. We didn't take a car over, so we were hauling our bags around with us. It was stressing me out trying to figure out how I could carry grocery's onto the ferry over to the island, or if I could buy groceries when the nearest grocery store is a 15-20 minute walk away, or if I did get groceries, I would have to eat them all there or bring the remains back, and that brings me back to hauling bags around. . so I figured I would just eat what I wanted and try not to go crazy.
I feel a wee bit bad for eating things like pizza and pasta which are so decidedly not on plan. You know what though? I had a great time, and eating didn't become a source of stress.
On the plus side, we walked for hours both days we were there. I just wish it wasn't in the snow! Brrr.
The hotel we stayed in was fantastic. It was one of those Groupon deals, and if nothing else, it introduced me to a hotel I would never have stayed at before. It was the Parkside Hotel and Spa, and it was right near the Royal BC Museum and the B.C. Legislative buildings. Also, the Old Spaghetti Factory was right down the road. Heh.  We had gift cards! What is a girl to do??

I did a weigh-in this morning, and here is what the scale gods have decreed for the week:

No change.

I guess I will take that over a gain! We'll see what my birthday does for me this week...there will be cake, after all.

Until then, I am all about the chicken and veggies. Yummmm.

Here are some pics of the hotel:

 Really cool atrium with koi pond.

 Me wanting this master bathroom. Had a lovely soak in this huge tub.

 Amazing kitchen and dining room. We got to cook ourselves breakfast an' everthang. 

 Cozy living room, and teenagers doing what they do...veg in front of the TV.

View from hotel balcony. You can see the top of the parliament buildings all lit up in the back. It's blurry because I could only stand to be outside for one shot. Brrr!

 Me and teenager #1

My Terry and teenager #2. :)

Carbs are my friends, whaddya know?

Since I have added some carbs to my plan, I have felt soooooo much better! Today I was chipper, awake and had energy all day instead of dragging my grouchy ass around. All it took was two slices of whole grain bread last night and some oatmeal today. Other than those additions, I followed the 17 Day Diet. The extra bits are allowing me to reach 1200 calories, finally.

Tonight I had diced chicken and grilled peppers with crushed tomatoes over s piece of 16 grain bread (only 100 calories and darn tasty). I actually felt like I ate something afterwards.

Of course I can't forget today was weigh-in day. Time to see if the scale gods would smile upon me as they once did. And you know what? I got a great big grin today! I am down 6 pounds from last week. Yayyyy!

I am not fooling myself that next week these fickle gods will show me the pearly whites quite so dazzling again. But I will take any loss I can get!


To recap my week...

Following the 17 Day Diet to the letter was a fail.

I was able to resist all temptations that came my way (oh, except the bites of b-day cake).

I have eaten more vegetables this week than I have the last two months combined. No kidding.


I can't wait to see what next week will bring!

Adjustments

I have had to make many changes to my life in the past year, and this past week was no different. Starting my first day back to work I said a big resounding NO to any and all of the junk food I previously happily stuffed into my pie-hole. Well, not so much pie, but anything else was allll gooood. It was surprisingly easy to stay away from my usual pitfalls. Ok, I did look longingly at the trays of warm chocolate chip cookies as I passed near the school cafeteria. Over the past year I would happily go plop down a dollar or two for these delicious morsels. I mean, do they have to be fresh from the oven and ooey-gooey soft? So far, I have managed to ignore them, along with the various pizza sales that go on at lunch time. I was sorely tempted by the arrival of freshly-baked chocolate chip oatmeal muffins in the staffroom on Friday. It was even worse when I went back in later to get something from the printer, and there was one lone muffin left on the plate. No one would know, the devil on my shoulder whispered. Just eat it. Hell with that! I gave the devil a mental flick off my shoulder and cursed the muffin out loud (something to the tune of "fuck you stupid tempting muffin!") and took a picture of it instead.

I know, due to my excellent photography skills this looks like a cookie.

But it is a muffin. Really.

Feels good to resist! But, things have not been all kittens and rainbows and uneaten baked goods with this diet plan.

I have been feeling really drained and light-headed every afternoon. I tried to eat some more protein, as I said I would, but it hasn't helped. I find it really hard to eat any more vegetables or chicken than I already am. Ugh. I was curious to see how close I was getting to the desired 1200 calories/day, so I found a calorie counting website that I liked, and plopped in the food from my week. I had to use some foods that were "close enough" on the available list of foods, and the others I entered manually with the nutrition info on the packaging. I was a bit shocked to see that I was eating between 600 and 800 calories/day. No wonder I was feeling so crappy!! And I guess it makes sense! The fruits and veggies I am eating don't amount to many calories, so the most I am getting comes from the protein. A chicken breast comes in under 200 calories for every one I could find on the lists, so you can imagine my lunches and dinners are very low-cal. Breakfast is ridiculously low-cal if I don't eat eggs- just fruit and yogurt? My yogurt is 35 cal/serving, and an apple is about 65 cal. Um yeah. Not much there. The only way I could see to increase my calories is to eat more protein, but I just can't do it. I can eat more eggs in the form of egg whites, but again, they are just so unappealing.

The other side-effect of this restrictive diet is I have come to sort of hate eating meals. Every time I think of eating more chicken or more salad or more veggies of any kind it is all just so very gag me with a spoon (sorry to get a little valley girl circa 1986 on you). I get crabby and annoyed when faced with what to eat for lunch or dinner. NOTHING appeals to me. I have tried adding the naughty marinara to ground poultry as I mentioned last post, and also salsa the other night. That does help quite a bit, and is better than just a chicken breast. But still, I am so blah about it all! It is demoralizing and making me a crab to be around. This is why I HATE diets. I hate restrictions and that feeling of deprivation. My bf and his kids are having tacos and I CAN'T EVEN HAVE ONE!??! C'mon! My inner child throws a temper tantrum and all I can do is just sit and watch them eat. I tried chicken tacos with lettuce wraps, but it was a fail. The salsa was too watery, and the lettuce was too big and it was just ick. I ended up going with a plate of shredded lettuce, tomatoes, onions, my ground chicken taco meat and a bit of salsa. Kind of a taco salad without the taco. For lunch the next day, I added salsa directly to the meat and heated it up, put that on my salad and YUM much better. That will be lunch today, too.

My solution to all this is to adjust things a little and add some healthy carbs/starches from the Cycle 2 plan into my breakfast and lunch options. I am going to try oatmeal for breakfast and maybe some brown rice or potato with lunch, or maybe a slice of whole wheat bread. I am still trying to stay lower carb, so portion sizing is important here. I am also going to toss out the "no carbs after 2" rule. I have done some research and most critics can find no scientific bases for this. Most say, it's about the calories you eat, not where the calories come from. Makes sense to me! I will stick to the old "no food after 7 pm rule" though (not a rule on 17 Day Diet). That worked for me the last go-round to avoid ingesting late-night calories. I am also allowing myself 1/2 a bag light popcorn as a snack. It is higher in sodium than is strictly healthy, but I don't get salt from anywhere else other than any processed foods I am eating, which right now is almost none. I have never been one to add salt to any dish that I am cooking or eating.

I am hoping that these additions will bring me up to the correct calories and give me some more dang energy! I haven't walked every day because I just feel like a limp noodle. Glad I didn't burn off too many of those precious calories now. 

This plan is still good for getting me back to healthy eating and saying no to bad foods again, but it is just too restrictive for picky-ol' me to be 100% healthy. I will be weighing myself tomorrow morning to see how things are going. 

Hope your New Year's commitments are going well out there! 

Rules rules rules!!

One of the things that I hate most about diet plans is all the stinking rules. When I break a rule or stray from the path, I feel all bad and guilty.

Yesterday while grocery shopping (for the second time this week- more on that in another post), I got all excited when I checked and saw I could have some low-carb marinara sauce "in moderation." I bought the one with the lowest carbs and started planning how I could use it with my lean protein. I am so tired of chicken and salad already, and that prompted me to buy lean ground turkey this time around. I figured I could do the turkey with some diced peppers and onion with a bit of the sauce. Lemme tell ya, it was delicious!

 As you can see, I still got my trusty salad in there!

(and is it wrong that I wanted to go in and photoshop out that little splotch of sauce?)

So what's the bad, you may ask. Well, I forgot the rule that I am not supposed to eat carbs after 2pm, and the stupid sauce has carbs. I felt the bad guilties. Cheating already, even unintentionally kinda sucks.

The worst part is that it was my niece's birthday dinner last night, and my mom made her favourite dinner (and mine), lasagna with a big ol' birthday cake for dessert. But thanks to my cheater-sauce, I didn't feel all that deprived watching everyone eat lasagna. The hardest part was probably just the smell of that cheesy goodness baking in the oven. My mom even tried it and said it was really good. Yay me! When the birthday cake came out I was faced with another dilemma. Should I have a bit? On this subject I am of two minds:

1. Don't eat the forbidden sugar-fest. It is not on the plan and therefore eating it is bad bad bad. If I start to eat off plan foods, it could slippery-slope me all the way to a pizza and chipapalooza.

2. Eat a tiny sliver of cake. Life is short, and what diet is completely ruined by a smidge of cake.  Complete deprivation of all foods, especially on special occasions could also lead to bad binginess at worst and a feeling of frustration that the plan is too strict at best.

Even my 17 Day Diet partner said, "Just eat the damn cake," or something to that effect. So I ate the thinnest little sliver. And felt bad all over again. Sigh. I can't win.

I did feel better that, after the party people left around 9, I still got on the treadmill to do my 17 minutes of walking. I did it on an incline cuz I am badass like that.

But, I do know that in the grand scheme of things, some errant carbs and a couple bites of cake and icing will not be the end of my healthy eating. This morning it was all about the yogurt and grapes. I have leftover turkey for lunch and my snack bags of cut up peppers and carrots and my 2nd fruit serving of grapes. 

My next dilemma is a trip to Victoria next weekend, and then my own birthday the 18th. Um, why did I start this plan now??? Daaaaaaaaang girl, check your calander!  It's just such a pain in the ass. Eating like this while away blows! I will have to bring yogurt and fruit with us, or buy it there, then only eat at places where I can get a salad and some protein. We had planned to go to the Old Spaghetti Factory for dinner while we were there, and boy do I love me some of that sourdough bread and sinfully good garlic butter. Carb heaven! So I miss that? Then for my birthday, do I eat a friggin salad and chicken and leave out the birthday cake? Blargh! This sucks a whole lotta ass. Reason number 464 why I hate diets. Restriction sucks.

Oh yes, and I stepped on the scale today and I am down 2 lbs since Tuesday, so that is encouraging. I won't weigh myself again until next Tuesday, so we will see what the rest of the week brings. If you need me, I will be over here gnawing on some chicken.

I wasn't sure if I was going to do this, but....

...here I am! It took a lot of hemming and hawing to get here, gotta tell ya. After so long away, it is hard to come back, especially after gaining weight. But I figured I should stop being a pussy and just DO IT.

So. Yeah. Um. Well. Hmmm. I guess I should just go ahead and tell you (assuming there is still a you out there to read this) how much weight I have managed to gain back in the last year.

40 lbs.

Yup. Nice eh? I was roughly 167 lbs. give or take when I separated from my husband. Now I am 207. Ugh. It sucks SO MUCH to be back above 200 lbs after being below it for nearly TWO years. The worst part is not fitting into all the awesome clothes I bought the last few years and are now languishing in storage bins. Poop. On toast.

So what am I gonna do about it? Well, I will tell you!

I was talking with my boyfriend's mom over the holidays and she told me she would love to have someone do this diet she had read about with her. She showed me the book, and I thought, what the heck! Might as well give it a go. I figured it would be a good way to motivate me and get my healthy eating jump started.

I have become very, very bad a saying no to food. Cookies, chips, pizza were all eaten with little hesitation. I was, however, very, very good at saying no to exercise. That combination made it possible for me to put on over three pounds a month for the last year. I could use the excuse that I had just separated from my husband for a while, and then that I was living part of the week with my new guy and part of the week at my mom's, so no easy way to get back into a routine. But now, the excuses have worn thin, and I have gotten fat.

Which brings me to my plan. The diet I am trying is the 17 Day Diet created by Dr. Mike Moreno. I know, I know, I HATE the word "diet" too. I can't believe I am actually ON one. But, it is something that is helping me eat healthy foods again AND giving me a structure to stick to, so I can say no to eating crap again. For those of you not familiar with the diet, I will tell you bits and pieces as I go, but I recommend you google that shit cuz I am not going into all of it all here. I will wait.

Done? Good. Ok, so I am doing the first cycle of this diet, and I am on day 3 of 17. I am eating lots of veggies, some fruit, yogurt, chicken and drinking green tea and a ton of water. And I am hungry. Well, today, so far not as much as yesterday. I have done very well following the plan the last few days, even when I cam home starving yesterday. I can eat unlimited veggies and lean protein in this cycle, so I am going to try to eat more to avoid the hunger.

So here's a sample of my day:

Breakfast:

cup of hot water with lemon (supposed to aid digestion or some such thing)
cup of green tea
container of fat-free yogurt
medium apple

Lunch:

large salad with peppers, cucumber, tomatoes and 1.5 diced chicken breasts
2 tbsp fat-free Italian dressing
cup of green tea

Snack:

2nd apple
cut up peppers (1 pepper's worth)  and baby cut carrots (3/4 cup or so)


Dinner:

More salad with grilled peppers and large sliced, herbed chicken breast (omg, so yummy!)
cup of green tea (you sensing a theme here?)

Snack:

2nd yogurt.

I can eat unlimited veggies and lean protein from a list of foods, and I am supposed to have 2 probiotic servings (I choose yogurt) and 2 servings of fruit. The fruit has to be eaten before 2pm as a part of the "no carbs after 2" rule. Eggs are also allowed, but I can't have any more than 2 egg yolks a week (I think...don't have the info here). I am also supposed to have 2 healthy fat servings (like flax seed oil or olive oil). Next cycle I get to add more foods to my list, and cycle 3 even more foods get added. The first cycle is the most restrictive, but people say they have lost anywhere from 5-15 lbs in the first 17 days. That wouldn't suck.

As for exercise, I am supposed to do 17 minutes of moderate exercise a day (I choose walking). Moderate because the first cycle is so low-cal, it will drain too much energy to do any major exercise. In the next cycles I will increase my exercise.

With exercise, I did fail yesterday. I went to my boyfriend's and didn't get a chance to walk. I felt bad about it, and I probably could have figured out a way. It is harder to find the time when I am there as we are always busy doing things. I have a treadmill at my mom's now, so it is easy to do that the three days I am there. Going to have to be stronger the four days I am at the BF's house, that's for sure.



So that's the plan, for now anyway. Despite my hatred for the "D-Word" I am hopeful that this will help me get back to healthier eating and exercise and saying no to junk food.

And if you think this diet is crap, you are worried for my health, thank you for your concern, but I think I will be ok for 17 days. I won't be eating so low-cal forever, and the plan will get me eating lots of other healthy foods soon. K? K.

Stay tuned for a weigh-in tomorrow! See if anything has come off yet. ;)

Hope everyone in bloggerland is doing well!

xo

Hockey Daze and Choco Craze

While the rest of the people around me are gripped by hockey mania and are held rapt by the Canucks quest for to bring Lord Stanley's coveted cup home, I am gripped with...what's the opposite of mania? Not that I am not happy for our boys in blue and this town finally getting a real chance at what has been sought for so long. Ok, I will just come out and say it. I just don't really don't like hockey *waits for the lightening strike*. Nothing? Ok, good. It would be hypocritical of me at this point to shed my apathy and actually start watching games. The excitement around here is pretty cool though, I will admit. There are Canucks flags everywhere, and "Go Canucks Go" and "I Believe" with the Canucks trademark hockey stick logo on it. People flock to the streets by the thousands after every game. Canucks fever has gripped every man, woman and child in this town, well, almost. ;)

While the battle for the ultimate hockey glory wages on, I am still trying to do my thing. My life is fraught with temptation...especially in the form of teenagers pushing their chocolate crack in my school. Every day some kid is at my door with this giant box o'choco heaven. Fraaaaaaack. The mint ones are especially amazing. Er...so I hear. Dang them.

I have ridden the bike in the garage a few time now. I was sick this past week, so missed two days. I was well in time to play a double-header on Sunday though. It was a lot of moving and running, so I felt like I got some good exercise. We have a tournament this weekend starting at the horrific hour of 8 a.m. Kill me now. Don't people know this is a beer league?? Eight o'clock is way too frickin serious for people who drink and smoke whilst doing their athletics. But, I will put on my big girl panties and drag my ass out there. Why? Because I kinda love it. My team is awesome. All day long I get to hear dirty ball jokes and jokes about finding holes, you know, really mature shit like that. What's not to love?

The scale says I am about two lbs down.

I will take it!


Wish me luck kicking softball ass on Saturday...ugh...morning!

Tammy Version 2.0

Challenge

My good friend Cory, who keeps kicking my lazy ass in gear, has reminded me that we had a weight-loss challenge a while back. Gee, thanks Cory, what are you some kinda friggin' elephant- you never forget anything??

So my challenge is to lose 25 lbs by August. Yargh. This will put me back to my all-time low of 165, which I reached for about five minutes many months ago.

My plan is to reign in the bad eating habits I have fallen back into and get back to regular exercise. I have my bike in my mom's garage, and I think I will keep it there. When the days get warmer, it will be the coolest place to work out. I have also joined a gym in the city my boyfriend, Terry, lives in. He and I must go at least two times a week.

One cool thing is that I have joined Terry's brother's slow-pitch team. They are a very fun bunch to play with, and it gets me moving for a few hrs on Sundays! I love playing ball again. It has been about six years since I have played slow-pitch, and 20 since I played fast-pitch. Wow...I am friggin old. I loved playing ball as a kid, and I was always our clean-up batter. It still is a challenge to hit the slow-moving pitches I get now though. It sucks to not be the batter I once was, but I am trying new things to improve ma skillz. At least I am still doing well on first base!

Wish me luck for my two games on Sunday! Goooooo Guzzlers!

Ok, deep breath, here I go to break through the inertia of laziness...

Tammy Version 2.0

The good, bad and ugly

So this is what it feels like to be resurrected from the dusty floor in the land of the lost forgotten and neglected blogs. *cough*

I will not be going into any of the gory details of what brought me here, but here are the highlights of what is new with me.

1. I am separated from my husband
2. I am in a new relationship.
3. I am currently living with my mom until my house sells and I can stop paying for half the mortgage
4. I have gained twenty lbs in the last five months.


How do I feel about all this?

1. Horrible for hurting him, but relieved to be out of a relationship that made me unhappy.
2. Very, very happy...he is a sweet, loving man.
3. Frustrated
4. Completely disgusted with myself.


I started to gain weight soon after all the relationship shit hit the fan. I was mega stressed, super emotional and had no routine whatsoever. I exercised not at all and started eating whatever I wanted. Then my cat got sick and I just had to put her down.

I feel so gross...my clothes fit somewhat, but more and more are to tight. I am about a size 12 now from a 8/10 before. I feel self-conscious and just icky.

I have my exercise bike now, so that's a start. It helped me lose my first forty lbs oh-so long ago.


So I guess what I am saying is my life is very different now, and I am slowly getting my shit back on track.

I hope that those of you who once read my blog, and I once followed are all doing well. I missed you.


Until I blog again...


Tammy Version 2.0

Sisters

I'm living in land o' boxes right now since we are moving in just a few days. I just wanted to share this pic I put together. I had this great picture of my sister and I from a while ago, and she said, "Hey, we should do a new picture now that I have my braces off!" So at my little cousin's wedding, I took a new picture of us. I thought my face looked a bit chubby in the old pic, but wow,  I can really see a change in my face with about a 20 lb weight loss. :)

Ain't my sister purty? I am so lucky to have such a great sister! We didn't always get along when we were teenagers (we're only 11 months apart), but she's one of my best friends and a lot of fun to be with. Love ya sis!

Wish me luck with the big move! Next blog will be from my beautiful new house!

Insanity anyone?

I don't get weight loss. Really. I have "lost" 2.6 lbs in the last four days. WTF??  Not to say that this is REAL weight loss or whatever, but it seems to me like my body really REALLY likes to be around 169 lbs. I have been eating better this week, and I had one nice long workout with trainer-gal...but not much else.

Oh well, we shall see what next week brings, I suppose!

Today I went to a conference for English teachers on my professional development day, and I met a P.E. teacher who has his girls' fitness class doing this workout I'd never heard of. Any of y'all heard of the PX90 peeps workout called "Insanity"? Weeel it certainly seems to live up to its name! This thing appears to make Jillian's Shred look like a day at the beach.  The P.E. dude said it kills even really fit people, but it's an excellent workout...very intense. Sounds interesting, I say! Of course it costs like 140 bucks for a 60 day program. Eeep.  So Ima thinkin' that this could be an excellent x-mas present. If not I may be able to convince hubby we should buy it and do it together...maybe. Seems to me this might give me the motivation to get my ass working out regularly again, and get me into wicked shape.

Anyway, here's the site..check it out if you dare...mwhahahahaha!

Here are some pics from the last couple weekends:

The most fabulous Chrystie and moi- and yes I'm holding her hand.

Get a gal on my couch, and look out!

Makin' faces.

My turn. Now, that's lovely.

Playing with false eyelashes and wig for my superawesomefantastic Halloween costume

 Hmm maybe this look is better?

The gorgeous Lara the night we hit the town and let loose a bit.

Nothin says classy like drinking a wine spritzer from a straw!

Lara's a classy bitch too!

I'm diggin' my shorter hair, thanks Chrystie! 

(yes, shorter- it was a few inches longer before)

Love this girl!

Flipping off lame men in general (and one particular lame man in specific!)

I like how I BEND into it. Serious flippage here. 

Just wanted to leave you with an older pic. This was...hmm...May/June of 2009 I believe. 

I had been doing this for about a month or two. I've come a lonnng way baby!

.

Reality Bites

Somewhere things changed. Maybe it was after I finally completed my 10k in July and said, "Fuck this running thing," and just half-assed running for the next two months before quitting entirely. Maybe it was after Mexico when I stopped saying "no" to myself again. My "no" muscles are weak now...very weak. I truly believe the more you resist, the more you say no to the unhealthy foods, the easier it gets. Last year I kicked ass at saying no. Junk food, baked goods, chocolate- barely a bite slipped passed my lips. Now? It's all in baby. Not to say I have reverted to my old binging ways and eating giant bowls of ice-cream and bags of cookies. But I am just not saying no.

And guess what? The scale is finally reflecting it.

I seemed to do no wrong in the eyes of the scale gods by slacking off in the exercise department. Then the food ante was upped a bit, and in the last week the scale has responded in kind. Can't really blame it, now can I? Hells no.

So I an now 172.6...which is about 3 lbs up from where I was hovering for the last few months. I would dip down to 167, then up to 169, but never did I pop over 170. Until now.

Fuck.

This is what I have been dreading. I KNOW I have more flab on me, but body composition- less lean muscle, more fat- has kept the scale level for me. Not any more though. Time to get my head out of fairy-tale land where I can eat crap and sit on the couch and not gain weight. This shit just got real.

So what does that mean? Well, mostly it means I have to move more and eat less. Huh, that sounds strangely familiar.

Doing this now before another 2 or 3 or 10 lbs creeps up is key. I could easily wait and stay a lazy ass until I can't fit into my nice, new, small clothes anymore. Been there. Done that. Bought the XXL t-shirt. I can tell myself right now that I still fit into my 29 inch waist jeans (they are low-rise, so yeah, they fit, but I don't have a 29-inch waist by any means!), and my size 8 blazer and size medium tops. Sure, right now. But gimme a few more weeks at this rate, and I will be muffin topping my way out of those clothes. Of this I have zero doubt.

I will have to fight off the hunger demons that now plague me (as they did at the beginning of my journey). Maybe I should hook up with those endless bags of carrots again. Hmm.

K, back to working out regularly and saying NO, HELL NO, FUCK OFF NO to all the sugary and fatty crap that comes my way.

Sporadic is better than never!

Hey peeps! I am here, alive and kicking. The whole house buying saga is coming to an end, and I am SO excited to say we are moving in TWO WEEKS! I am still in shock that we are going to live in such a big, beautiful house. Thanks for all your lovely comments about it!

I have worked out with my trainer girl a few times now, and things are definitely more intense. She is getting me to do 30 seconds of jump rope after each arm or leg exercise. Basically we are doing every muscle from shoulder to calf and then repeating it 3 times. At the end of it, my face was red and I was sweating like a p-i-g. I am definitely not in the same shape I was in June. Sadly, I haven't been running much at all. It got hard! I know, whiny baby, my own fault. Just slacked off and lost my running mojo. I did find a couch to 10k program I could try...but I am worried about when I can run when it gets dark so early. In the winter it's pretty much getting dark when I am done work. I suppose I could use the treadmill at work. Maybe to 1/2 outside until it's too dark, then come in and finish on the treadmill? Hmmm.

I am in a bit of a world of stress with work and house stuff...but when I come through in Nov, I am definitely going to amp things up!

Did I tell y'all what my Halloween costume is this year? Some of you will maybe remember my witchy woman costume...which I have beaten to death over the last four years. This year, I have decided to change things up a bit. I enlisted my mom and her sewing skillz to fashion me into a genuine Disney princess....Snow White. I'm oddly excited to wear this costume! I will take some pics for ya for sure.

Speaking of pictures.... 'cause there are just NOT enough pictures of me on this blog, here's one more. :)

Ahh sepia...what fun to look all antique-y ;)