Dec. 18: Saturday Morning Edition

Do you have any idea how much I love my morning coffee?  My favorite, most luxurious weekend mornings are spent with my entire pot of iced coffee, puttering around the house and getting small, non-strenuous things accomplished.

Today was just such a day.

Saturday Morning Perfection:

The kids slept in.

I had an entire pot of coffee.

I cooked brunch of BBQ chicken pizzas.

I had an entire pot of coffee.

I cleaned the kitchen from top to bottom and now it sparkles and shines.

I had an entire pot of coffee.

I watched 4 hours of decorating shows without listening to anyone whine, "Can I pick the next show?"

Oh, yeah - I had an entire pot of coffee.

Okay, enough of the Saturday morning joy-fest.  Let's get down to the nitty gritty now.

Weight loss.

My recent gain has put me at 18 pounds to lose.  I'm really terrified of gaining it all back and that is the direction I'm going.

At 170, I still have boobs and I don't look like a Shar-pei from all of the loose skin.  At 165 the opposite is true.  So 170 is the new goal.

Clearly, 1800 calories is too much for me to be losing weight.  It shouldn't be making me gain weight, but the fact remains that it is.  So 1600 calories a day with an off-plan day of 2200 calories is the goal. 

That means I've gotta cut out my salty crunchies completely.  Goodbye, beloved buttery microwave popcorn.  I'm also cutting out the Diet Coke and switching to water (after the morning coffee is over, of course).  I flatly refuse to give up my coffee.  Diet Coke is tough to give up but it can be done.

Finally, I have to find a way to get some exercise that doesn't aggravate my back.  I keep saying this but I'm not coming up with anything.  Any suggestions will be welcome.

Dec. 16: The Opposite of Success

I really seem to be incapable of doing anything except losing weight or gaining weight.

I had started out with new resolve to love my curves and stop trying to turn myself into some kind of skinny Victoria's Secret model.  I really felt like this would be the key to success for me - loving myself.

Unfortunately, I've actually put on three pounds over the past week and a half. Please imagine my delight to discover that I didn't just need to drink water and have a big poop.  Three official pounds adhered directly to my belly.

It seems like if I am not weighing every single bite, saying no to everything but one meager off-plan meal a week, and drinking only water, I'm gaining that weight that was so hard-lost.  If I'm not seriously dieting - hardcore, just-say-no dieting, I'm gaining.

I had gotten to my initial goal weight but as soon as I started trying to maintain, the pounds didn't just come creeping back, they jumped on and held on with the ferocity of an attacking pit bull.

So, today, I'm whining.

Accountability, despite my extreme displeasure.

Calories:  1761
Carbs: 197
Fat: 74
Protein:  77

Reality tells me that my calories cannot be as low as I think they are, otherwise I would not be gaining weight.  You need an excess of 2500 calories per week to gain one pound. 

My mistakes:

~ I haven't been weighing everything - some of it has been eyeballed
~ I've allowed myself a nibble here and a nibble there of some holiday goodies - likely more nibbles than I thought I was having
~ I am nearly sedentary because of my back injury.

So yes, today I'm whining, but I'm also getting it all out there and blasting through my excuses.  If I truly want to look good and be fit and healthy, clearly, I have to try harder.  I can worry about maintenance when I am at a weight that I'd like to maintain.  Right now, I need to lose and that is what I must focus on.

Dec. 4: The Plan

Ahhhhh....I love Saturdays, especially when I get to hang with my girlies in my PJs until noon.  Is there anything better than a lazy morning, slowly sipping coffee for hours and just hanging out with the people you love?  This morning, my friend's boy came over and hung out with us.  He is a little darling, so polite!  It was fun having a little one in the house again (he's 4).  We decorated Christmas ornaments and had lunch with him and his Mommy in my cute little kitchen.

I then did some shopping for our family that we have adopted through work this Christmas.  Since I work with guys, I mostly got money instead of gifts for the family.  Hey, I can always shop, especially when all the money does not come out of my bank account!

I've made a plan.  It isn't earth-shattering or anything.  I'm simply going to do what works - and I know it works from successfully doing it before.

I'm going to weigh, measure and count. Simple and idiot-proof. I just have to do it.

My kitchen scale is out on the counter with new batteries in it.  My measuring implements are washed and ready in a bowl.  Tomorrow I will map out my meal plan, cook and pack my lunches, all nicely measured out.

I've also determined a couple of other things.  *'s comment in my post "Have You Ever Felt Beautiful?" really got me to thinking about my self-esteem.  Instead of shooting for a body like the models in Oxygen, I'm going to be inspired by people like Christina Hendricks.  I'm going to put real effort into my appearance now, instead of waiting to be skinny before I do something to my hair besides scraping it back in a bun.  I deserve to feel beautiful whatever my weight, and I intend to put forth real effort to do so.

I'm going to try really hard not to sweat the actual pounds.  I've always liked myself voluptuous, but felt pressured to be thinner.  I remember a day in my late 20s.  I wore this clingy navy blue dress and men flirted with my all day long.  I was about 170 pounds at the time.  When I met my ex-husband for dinner, he criticized what I was wearing and told me that someone my size should not be wearing something fitted like that.  Of course, despite the 10 people that thought I looked great, the one that mattered caused my self-esteem to come crashing down.

I guess the lesson I (we) can learn from that, is that we can't please everyone.  The first person to please is ourselves, and then the rest, the really important people will follow.  In the immortal words of Dr. Seuss, "Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind."

Another picture of Christina for inspiration:

Who inspires you and makes you feel like you can be beautiful?

Oct 12: Day One Success and Turkey Recipes

Today was Day One of being on-plan.


It was a big improvement, although not dietarily perfect.  I was happy because I refrained from eating crap all day.  I can't really pinpoint the last time I made it through an entire day without eating some junk: chips, a donut, a drive-through cheeseburger.  Even though it was a bit unbalanced, I was pleased with the junk-"freeness" of it.

m1: Whole Wheat English Muffin w/ natural pb, iced coffee with skim milk
m2: Low Fat Organic Yogurt, 1/2 a banana, granola, protein powder, sprinkle of pecans
m3: turkey breast, leftover stuffing (fairly low fat - no butter, not actually stuffed into the turkey) and roasted veggies
m4: chicken breast, Kashi honey puff cereal
Microwave popcorn nibbled on to help deter the potato chip cravings

Calories: 1595
Carbs: 188
Fat: 46
Protein: 118

TURKEY PITA PIZZAS

leftover turkey breast in bite sized pieces

bbq sauce of choice

whole wheat pita

veggies of choice (I use onions, hot peppers and mushrooms)

shredded low fat mozzarella

Preheat the oven to 400.  Place the pita on a baking sheet and spread with bbq sauce - my favorite is a spicy honey garlic bbq sauce.  Top with turkey and veggies, then sprinkle with cheese.  The lighter you go on the cheese, the lower cal your meal will be.

Bake in the oven until pita is crisp on bottom and cheese is bubbly, about 10 minutes.  Let it rest of a couple of minutes before you slice it into 4 pieces.

Tomorrow I'm experimenting with sweet potato soup to use up the last of the mashed sweet potatoes. 

Here's looking at another successful diet day tomorrow.

Thank you so much for the warm "welcome back" you gave me!  My meal planning is not spectacular this week, but it revolves around using up the Thanksgiving leftovers!

May 29: Evolution

Charles Darwin said,

"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”

Nowhere is that more true and less believed than in the world of weight loss.

Most people find a plan that works for them and that they are able to stick to.  Then, they grimly stick to it, through ups and downs, ins and outs, and plateaus that seem everlasting.  If they stick to the plan and work the program, they hope through sheer force of will, they will get to their goal.

That's not always true. Just as different journeys may require different modes of travel, weight loss is also a journey in which you need to be flexible.

So far, I've followed three plans.

1.) Tosca Reno's Eat Clean Diet - this was good for the first 20 pounds.
2.) Basic calorie counting at a reasonable deficit - this dropped another 5 pounds.
3.) Lyle McDonald's Rapid Fat Loss Plan - this has taken off 11 pounds.

Different things have worked at different times.  Let's go a little deeper into this.

I began my weight loss journey following the Eat-Clean Diet.  At the time, it was exactly what I needed.  I learned a lot about basic nutrition, the additives in food, and the overall ick factor in processed foods that had made up almost the entirety of my diet previously.  Because it was such a drastic change from my original eating habits, I lost weight very quickly and was extremely motivated.  After about a month and a half, though, my weight loss slowed almost to a halt.  I slogged through another two weeks and then began to research other plans.

I found some excellent websites after my weight loss on Eat Clean subsided.  I've recommended many of them before, but here are the two where I got the most information.  The first is Oxygen Forum.  Many of the participants here are extremely knowledgeable.  It can be a little intimidating, because it's not really a lovey-huggy kind of place in the training and nutrition sections.  People will tell you like it is, and, honestly, we all know, like it or not, that's what we need.  The other is Lyle McDonald's website, Body Recomposition.  This is another place you won't be coddled.  But deal with it, because you won't get better information anywhere.

At this point I switched over to counting calories.  I kept a fairly high deficit, but wasn't really losing much.  Then I began weighing my food on my handy-dandy food scale, which helped a little.  But still, I was on a plateau that just wouldn't quit.  Finally, people much wiser than I convinced me to go on a full diet break, which is technique described by Lyle McDonald on his website.  I will say right now, those two weeks were the hardest weeks of this entire journey.  Letting go of the control I had worked so hard to gain was mentally painful.

The full diet break is designed to bring your body's hormone levels back in line after a certain length of time dieting.  The plan is to eat at or close to maintenance calorie intake for two weeks.  I only hit maintenance a couple of times, and I only stayed on the break for 12 days - it was honestly all I could handle.

After the full diet break, I was astonished to see that I had actually lost a pound over those two weeks. I was now ready to move on to something different.  I was completely determined to break out of this plateau.

And this brings us to my current plan, which I've been blogging about over the past couple of weeks, Lyle McDonald's Rapid Fat Loss plan.  So far this plan is working amazingly well.  The past few days, the scale has been unfortunately still, but I have faith that it will start moving again.  I intend to stay on this plan another 3 and a half weeks.  At that point it will be time for another full diet break. (Eek!)

This may sound like a lot of disjointed rambling, but there really is a point.  You have to be willing to experiment.  Every diet will not work for every person.  That doesn't mean that you can't lose weight.  It means that you've chose a plan that's inappropriate for you at that given time.  Find another sensible plan and keep plugging away. 

Moreover, the thing that works for you at first may not work for the entire time you are dieting, especially if you have a lot to lose.  As your body changes, your needs change, your metabolism changes, and your mindset changes.  Sometimes you have to evolve to continue to be successful.

I'll leave you with a quote from a man much smarter than I, that I know I've posted here before .