Interesting Strategy to Try

I had a crazy day today from one work to the next and a morning full of meetings the home quickly to take care a few things then back on the road to my night class. In the process I figured out a little something that might be worth trying..and I am going to try it for a while.

For breakfast I had a starbucks oatmeal with everything and a nonfat peppermint mocha. I drank the coffee and at around 10-ate some of my oatmeal. I then snacked on the rest of my portion later on. For lunch I purchased a bowl of Vietnamese chicken soup from a cart (we have a lot of carts in Portland). These bowls are way to huge so I had a bit then put the lid back on. I had more at 3:45 right before I left for my night class and then finished most of the bowl up tonight at 8:30 when I got home from class. I also had some naughty snacks here and there (two small pieces of shortbread and a protein bar at 6pm) but overall I think milking the meals out over a longer period of time (kind of like what Bunny is doing I guess) just might at least make the snack choices I am making more healthy ones.

This does kind of work for me, probably, because I don't mind eating my food cold. I am not sure if it will be something I like or will do long term but for now I am going to see how it works.

The scale was up and down today..i had a 164 reading then a 161 then two 163's...who knows what i weigh but it ain't 170 and I am happy!!

Hungry and Low

This morning my lovely little scale read 162. I kind of like it. I was really working at having a mind set that I am done changing clothing sizes. This has in fact been happening a big way as I shopped for Graces bigger clothes I have purchased several new things for me.

On Sunday I bought pair of denim slacks..I love trouser jeans. I tried on the 12 and they fit really nicely...There was just a little wiggle room but coming out of the weight gain that I just have I went back and forth in my brain about whether I should try on 10's or go with these super comfy slacks as they were. I went with the 12. Well I wore them to work yesterday and found that they stretched out during the day enough that I had a wee bit of saggy butt. For once in my life the question posed to my husband was not "does my butt look big in this" Instead it was Do have enough butt to fill these out. His very dangerous response was, "It would take a surgical intervention to get enough butt these days to fill out trousers for you"...sadly I cannot kill him because he is right. I have rolls in my butt where the skin is hanging south of the border. I probably should have bought the 10 but who knows whether I would have fully filled that butt out either.


My band is very much more open yesterday and today than it was before. I am guessing this downward thing is about to come to a halt. I like it while it lasts though.

xxxooo

Poptarts!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I had a little vacation back in time tonight. I was a touch hungrier today. I had a full morning and afternoon of meetings and did not bring my lunch to work. Lunch found me dashing next door to the quicky mart for whatever lunch items i could find. bugles (yup..not so good). 160 calories but on closer inspection it was 160 calories for 1/3 of the bag. I ate the whole bag by 2pm. I also had 1.5 ounces of cheese and a boiled egg. At dinner I was off to my second job teaching at the community college. I was, of course ravenous again and did a little meal shopping in the machines with my newly discovered pound of change in my backpack. I chose...poptarts! Now you cannot read the nutrition information through the class and I frankly have never looked. I did evaluate whether they would go down ok and whether they would provide good filling for my efforts (seriously hungry at the time). I paid my 1.00 fee and they fell into the hopper. I then read the back...WHAT!!! seriously??? 410 calories for that??? (click on 410 calories for additional nutrition information). I could have a heck of a lot better tasting things than two stupid poptarts. What did I do you ask?? I ate them....

and I will never ever do so again. They tasted like crap and sat in my stomach like a rock for the rest of the evening. I did used to kind of like the things...if you could see me now you would see me shaking my head in derision at my old taste in ..can we even call it food?

and worst of all..it is 10:13 and I am very hungry and cannot eat or I will be stuck awake with indigestion if I do. All of this could have been fine if I had just packed food.

xxxooo

Bunny's Dinner Stateside Style

Bunny at Weightloss expedition provided us with the recipe and pictures from her dinner. Well it just so happened that I had those ingredients sitting right in my refrigerator. I also had no plans for dinner so viola...I reran Bunny's dinner for mine. Well..really David cooked it. He came in and asked, "so what are you making me for dinner?" yupp..very cheeky given my normal women's lib attitude towards cooking for my man. Instead of my usual..bite me response I said...well I haven't started it yet cause I'm working but I know what we are having...and then directed him to Bunny's post.

He did a little fiddling with the recipe. We didn't have as much spinach as her recipe called for and we happened to have some herb butter in the fridge and a shallot laying around. We also had half a block of cream cheese. so...our dinner was:

10 slices of American style Pepper bacon cooked crispy.
4oz of cream cheese
6 cups or so of cooked rotini pasta (what we had laying in the cupboard)
one shallot
150 grams fresh spinach
1 1/2 small onions both the shallot were chopped and cooked until translucent in 2 T of herb butter (just salted butter with garlic, sage, parsley, basil, oregano and chives whipped into it and left in the fridge to be used as we like).
grated parm. cheese when served.

so melt the butter, cook the onions while waiting for water to boil. Broiled the bacon at the same time in the oven. dumped in the pasta to the boiling water. Chopped the spinach, threw it in with the onions and cheese just as the pasta was almost done. Dumped the pasta in quickly and added a bit more oregano. served on lunch or small sized plates followed by a quick grating of parm. cheese.

David's Serving size
My Serving Size

On a side note-yesterday a bought a pair of size SMALL yoga pants while we were shopping. They are a touch tight and I would have purchased the medium but they didn't have them in that size with a rolled waistband (I love yoga pants with tall waists). The beige long sleeved shirt is also a find from yesterday. It was an extra large from the Junior's department. the pants cost 12 bucks and the shirt 6.99.

How Do You Set Boundaries?

I miss the long hot days I had last summer. Much of this is my own fault because I fail to say No-but I have yet to figure out how to fit doctor/dentist appointments, babysitting, work, home life and volunteer stuff in a satisfactory way.

Today-babysitting Grandson (we do have a good time), trading off with Cinda to carry on and pick up Grace from school while I go to a dentist appointment and go pick up some papers from work. Then home to do even more work in preparation for a meeting tomorrow.

The week stretching ahead of me is daunting. I would much rather garden or knit at this point. Perhaps I am having a case of post-weekend-itis.

How do you balance your day and commitments?

xxxooo

Back at Goal-Shopping Weekend

I got on the scale this morning and phew...all is well with my goal weight again. I am back int he fold of 164. 164.2 to be exact. We had a lovely lie in then launched out of bed to get the house clean for our weekly real-estate open house. Everyone was in a much more pleasant mood (or was that me?) and we all pitched in like a fine oiled machine to get the job done. I seems to always get the toilets (not so much fun). David took on the kitchen, living room and family room. And Grace did her room with minimal complaints followed by dusting and a general pick up around the rest of the house. Our agent said 14 people came through today (fingers crossed one of them provides us with an offer finally). My newly painted walls are already beginning to show marks (I hate flat paint for that reason) and the clutter is beginning to swell again.

At noon we left to go shopping. Grace had a growth spurt and exited the childrens department in size for womens. She is fast approaching my size now and that worries me a bit for two reasons. She is 9 and I would prefer that she stay in the childrens department as adult sized clothes are difficult sometimes to keep the child-like style that a 9 year old should wear and I don't want my child to crack into my new wardrobe (yup selfish reason on that one). We found quite a few clothes for her at Marshalls. We also went to the Pendleton outlet store yesterday for a few more choices. Grace found a skirt at Pendleton and I found three skirts and another dress for my upcoming dance (I will wait to decide which one as it gets closer). I still need to sort out what shoes I want to wear and get some black hose. At Marshalls I found a pair of denim trouser slacks and a tshirt while grace found several tshirts, some yoga pants, two pairs of leggings and a great liz Claiborne jacket for 10.00. Oh the bargains we found...I will provide some pictures when I can shift my carcass off the couch. :)

Food is still back on target-not hungry and just eating meals wahooooo 163 here I come. I am working really hard at making sure I drink plenty of fluids between meals as I still worry about the water pills.

xxxooo

Wow!! One pound from Goal in One Day!

Well I am sitting as a happy camper today! It is amazing the effect that a little (well ok maybe a lot) of water floating around in your cells can do. I am down to 165 this morning (yup after all of that one diuretic and whammo the weight comes off). More importantly I feel like myself again. It is weird how feeling out of sorts creeps up on you. It is also weird how impactful this water seems to have been on my band. Ok...first things first.

I have been peeing like crazy-I am also thirsty. I have not been thirsty or peeing for at least a couple of weeks now but with a band on board I just chalked it up to being tight...yada yada. Well This is a message to me that I am not just a girl with a band but there are other physcial ailments I can have that have nothing to do with the band. This hormone thing is a pain in the arse but apparently completely expected as a 46 year old person and there is really nothing to be done about it.

The creeping thing was odd. After Christmas I felt tired and blue but credited it to my poor eating, Winter blues and lack of exercise. Although I will not let any of those completely off the hook I think it was really this incroaching water retention. I felt a bit bloated in my tummy region but i said to myself..oh those 5 pounds are the result of your eating..that bloat is fat. I can tell you that as of this morning my clothes fit again so obviously only a little bit of it was cookie fat :) I have definitely learned that I need to evaluate how I feel a little more closely and quit falling back time and time again on the blame game we all play with ourselves. Again I was blaming myself for something physical (I think we girls get screwed with this hormone thing).

Ok..the water did something completely counter-intuitive with my band. I was actually hungry as heck and sometimes would be super tight while at others could sneak stuff past the band. I was even thinking about getting a fill. The problem with that thinking was I had wicked acid reflux at night because i was so hungry that I was compelled to eat at night (I did try in a not to successful way but the demons were really strong suckers). So i was worried i would completely mess things up with a fill. Well now that the water is gone my band is back to its expected behavior. I am perfectly restricted and my band is behaving as i have become accustomed. I can eat a reasonable amount and it stays in my pouch for a decent amount of time. I cannot fathom why being swelled up would loosen or make my band erratic and I wish some doctor could explain that one to me.

Perimenapause sucks...Did I say hormones enough in this post?

enough said.

xxxooo