Brrrrr.......

I'm not sure I needed to watch my eating yesterday because it was so cold I nearly froze my backside right off. Wouldn't that be nice and easy? Alas, I have to lose my derrierre the way everyone else does, one conscious food decision at a time. Here are yesterday's choices:



1/2 cup General Mills Fiber One
1 large tangelo
Midday
1/2 cup snow peas
1 Tbsp Hellmann's Light Mayonnaise
1 tsp mustard
1 average serrano chile
1 cup lettuce
1 cup onion(s)
1/2 cup grape tomatoes
2 slices ww double fiber bread
can of tuna
Evening
5 oz cooked trimmed pork loin
1 large cooked sweet potato
Snack
4 cups Orville Redenbacher's Gourmet Microwave Popcorn 94% Fat Free Butter, Popped
1/4 cup canned garbanzo beans
1/2 cup General Mills Fiber One
6 oz Dannon Light 'n Fit Nonfat Yogurt Strawberry-Banana Yogurt

It was Monday, Need I say More?

Kind of a blah day here on Monday. Rainy, slushy, Jim's gone, the guys are all working. I didn't let my blah mood force my face into the cookie, though, and for that I am thankful. I am also thankful that the further you get into the weight-loss 'groove', the easier it gets. I didn't have any real trouble today. I stayed within my points allowance and actually exercised both at the Y and with my new exercise ball (although I have to admit that my 6-yr-old daughter outdid me with the crunches.

Here's my daily list of what I ate and what I did:

1/8 cup salsa
1 item egg
1 item egg white(s)
1/8 cup onion(s)
1/4 cup mushroom(s)
1 small jalapeno pepper(s)
1/4 medium zucchini
1/2 pbj
Midday
1 large orange(s)
1
1 large potato(es), baked
3
1 tsp vegetable oil
2 clove garlic clove(s)
1 small jalapeno pepper(s)

1/2 cup onion(s)
1 tsp dried rosemary
Evening
3 oz raw farm-raised tilapia
1.5
1 medium carrot(s)
1/2 cup sugar snap peas
2 clove garlic clove(s)
1/8 cup beets
1 medium green pepper(s)
Snack
3/4 cup blueberries
3 cups plain air-popped popcorn
2 tsp vegetable oil
pbj

Exercise
30 min walking, treadmill
20 min strength training--free weights

World Travelers - I Need Your Help!

Yesterday I dropped Jim off at the airport for Part II of the certification training he's attending. Since I was down in that area, I popped over to my favorite place to get produce, Joe Randazzo's. The place was packed when I was in there, and I was probably one of very few caucasian people in there. That's why I love the place! You'd think you were halfway around the world every time you visit. The people are so diverse and the produce they carry is as well. So, here's where I need your help. I picked up or considered picking up a few different vegetable items that I have never heard of. They are the opo squash, boniato, and eddos. I think both the boniato and eddos are root vegetables, so I will cook them accordingly, but if any of you REALLY know what you're supposed to do with these, give me a shout!

I always try to buy something that is new to me every time I go in. I wait until someone else is getting one out of the bin, and ask them how it is used and prepared. Unfortunately, more often than not, the person doesn't speak english so I end up tracking stuff down on the internet. I've found some info on the boniato but I'd love to hear from someone who's experienced these 'new' things.

I will have to post pictures of Joe's. I come home with a trunk full of produce for about a quarter of what I would have spent on sale at the grocery store.

What did I eat on Sunday?

Here's what:


1/2 cup General Mills Fiber One
1/8 cup blueberries
6 oz Dannon Light 'n Fit Nonfat Yogurt Strawberry-Banana Yogurt
1/2 homemade burger
Midday
1/2 Tbsp Hellmann's Light Mayonnaise
1 Tbsp onion(s)
1/2 tsp mustard
1/2 can tomato soup w water
1 slice whole wheat bread
1/2 can tuna fish

Evening
22 items Tostitos Baked! Scoops tortilla chips
5 oz cooked tilapia
1 medium jalapeno pepper(s)
1/4 cup cilantro
1 clove garlic clove(s)
1/8 cup onion(s)
1/4 cup grape tomatoes
1/2 tsp canola oil
Snack
1 large tangelo
1/2 cup mushroom(s)
1/3 of a pummelo

Over the lips and past the gums, look out stomach, here it comes!

My dearest took me out for breakfast this morning since he'll be gone all week. : - ( It was an extremely high point breakfast so I had to take it easy the rest of the day. Here's what today's menu ended up looking like:


2 large whole poached egg(s)
4 oz center slice ham, lean only
2 slice rye bread
1 Tbsp jelly

Midday
michelina lasagna lite

Evening
1 cup cooked cauliflower
1 1/2 cup spinach
3 oz cooked tilapia
1 small sweet potato(es)
Snack
6 oz Dannon Light 'n Fit Nonfat Yogurt Strawberry-Banana Yogurt
1/2 cup General Mills Fiber One

Sorry to bore you with these food lists, but it keeps me from stuffing something in my face if I know I'm going to have to tell ya'll about it!

Friday's Intake

I didn't get around to posting yesterday, but this is what I ate:




1 Tbsp peanut butter

1 medium grapefruit

1 cup black tea, without sugar

ww bread

Midday
11 items Lay's Baked Original Potato Chips

can of chicken noodle
Evening
1 cup beef stew

Snack
1 medium banana(s)

There was something I ate later in the day worth 5 points, and I can't for the life of me remember what it was. I looked it up but I didn't record it.

Another successful day!

Back to Basics

When I started blogging my weight loss back in August, I had tremendous success for the first four months. No cheating. NONE! I didn't lose the weight as quickly as I had hoped but it had nothing to do with my lack of adherance to the program. Since the holidays, I've had a harder time sticking to it although I feel like I'm 'back in the zone' again now.

I decided that I needed to think back to what I was doing that was working so well and how I was staying motivated. I realized that I wasn't doing any of those things anymore. They were little things, but all together, they were helping a lot. Here are some of them:

When I get up in the morning (I get up around 6:30 to make Jim's lunch for work and start my day) I eat a healthy breakfast and follow it with LOTS of tea. The tea helps to keep me full and is REALLY good nutritionally.

Keep lots of fresh veggies available. Cut them up in the morning in bite size pieces and use them like chips! Sometimes it's the motion of eating that we miss, rather than the actual food itself. Yesterday I had a big bowl of celery. I know....sounds exciting, but it actually did the trick when I was rooting around the kitchen looking for a snack. Carrots, snow peas, sliced up raw turnips, radishes, green pepper, raw mushrooms. broccoli,.....the sky is the limit. Then there are all those delicious fruits ......oranges, grapefruits, strawberries, blueberries, and blackberries. (My apologies here to Pam as I know these things aren't available to her)

I need to stay on my feet. I moved my laptop to the kitchen counter so that whenever I use it (I do everything on the computer - pay my utility bills, make grocery lists, you name it), I have to stay vertical! Once my derriere hits the couch, it tends to stay there for a while. This way I get more done, and I'm using up just a bit more energy than if I'm sitting.

When I'm done eating a meal, I brush my teeth right away and use some perfumed hand cream. It might sound silly, but if you're a person that's still fixing meals for your family all the time and spend a lot of time in the kitchen, the toothpasty taste can keep you from plopping something in your mouth that you don't need, and who wants to pull chips or cookies out of a bag and have them smell like Japanese Cherry Blossom hand cream? Silly? Maybe. Every little thing helps.

I need to make sure that I don't run out of the things that work well for me. In the beginning of January, I would find myself always looking around for something to eat and would grab something that was high sugar, fat, or both. Then I realized I was out of carrots, my oat bran jar was empty, the eggs were gone, I didn't have a can of garbanzo beans in the pantry, and I always wanted ice cream because my Dannon Light N Fit yogurt wasn't in the fridge. These are foods I love that also happen to work well with Weight Watchers.

I've gone on and on here but I will post one more thing for accountability's sake. Below is a list of everything I ate yesterday. All of it. I will be doing this every day.


Morning
1 medium orange(s)
1 Tbsp peanut butter
whole wheat toast 1 slice

Midday
1 medium carrot(s)
michelina salisbury steak - yeah, it was a pre-made lunch -lame- but low WW point
Evening
2 cups homemade beef stew
6 oz Dannon Light 'n Fit Nonfat Yogurt Strawberry Yogurt mixed with...
1/2 cup Kellogg's All-Bran Extra Fiber
Snack
1 medium orange(s)

Taking out the Garbage

In honor of Thursday being 'garbage day' here in Milford, I think I need to carry that thought into my pantry, refrigerator, and my mind.

I'm fairly good about not buying 'junk food' because I know how tempting it is when it's sitting around. However, I grew less vigilant around the holidays and some of that stuff is creeping back into our food supply. My dearly beloved has been working ridiculous hours due to just starting a new position, as well as taking a certification course that only 60% of people pass the first time through. All this to say that he's been coming home exhausted and stressed, with not a speck of energy left to be watching what he eats and definitely looking to eat some 'comfort food'. This is all well and good, except that I tend to eat what he eats and stock some things in my house that he wants to eat that I know I can't eat. Case in point, ICE CREAM!

Today I need to identify those things in my house that are less than great for me, and encourage my 19-yr-old-son-with-the-fuel-guzzling-capacity-of-an-suv to have fun eating and get rid of it all for me.

After cleaning out the fridge and the pantry, I then need to clean out some things from my mind. Things like, 'it's just one piece of cheese.....', 'I don't need to log this, it's just a little (insert food item here)', or ' I don't look so bad right now, I've got a whole year to lose this weight'. That kind of garbage has to go. Period.

It all begins in the mind, doesn't it? Battles in our life are won & lost in that mass of grey matter. Luke 6:45 The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks. What we have stored up in our mind, is what will spill out into our actions. If we've told ourselves that sugar and fat will satisfy, we will eat those things when we're needing comfort or stress relief, or whatever it is that we think we need. Sometimes we don't tell ourselves these things consciously, but we don't fight vigilantly to "take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." (from II Cor. 10:5)

Eating a bowl of ice cream isn't always a sin issue. Killing myself slowly with foods full of fat and sugar is.

Today I'm taking the garbage out!

Welcome

Phillipians 4:12......I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. 13I can do everything through him who gives me strength.


This blog is taking the place of my former blog, ChristmasCriscoChallenge, since we're now well past Christmas.

The challenge this year is to get to goal. I'm so close. I'm motivated. I'm ready. I turn 49 in March and I am NOT going to go into my 50's overweight. SO.......this is the year!

I believe I've learned how to keep the eating under control and I've been able to sustain that fairly well. The missing ingredient has been consistent, vigorous exercise. I have rarely been able to sustain that for more than a month at a time. I'm having trouble getting rid of those last pounds without engaging a little muscle, so the time has come. I am convinced I will never reach my goal without it. Like I've mentioned on my other blog, I am starting pre-training for a marathon that will be run next fall. If doing that doesn't start pulling me closer to my goal, I don't know what will!

So, here's to a healthy diet, plenty of exercise, and being losers!

Karen