My Third Gold Star!!!

I have now lost over 15 lbs from the time I started Weight Watchers. I am so excited! I am using the 5-Ingredient, 15-Minute Cooking Light Cookbook most of the time for dinner, and eating Baked Tostitos Scoops, chocoPerfection dark chocolate, fruit and popcorn for treats ... PLUS Weight Watchers Ice Cream and Sherbet Bars, and Healthy Choice Fudge Bars (so much like Fudgsicles!, and 80 cal., 1 gm fat!).

YAY! I have a lot more to go, but I already feel a lot better. I have lost the weight I gained on vacation plus a couple of pounds.

On the Difficulty of Eating While Knitting

Lemme tell ya, I can eat anywhere! I eat in the car, at the computer, watching TV, standing up, sitting down, you name it kid. BUT! I find I do not eat while I am knitting.

I was examining the reasons I overeat, and I realized it was mainly excess nervous energy. Not boredom, exactly, but an inability to be still. I want to become able to be receptive and still, but meanwhile, the clock ticks on, so in order to involve my fingers in something enjoyable and to be making something, I started knitting again.

So far I have made three dishcloths (see ElleCoyote blog for the latest), and I am having fun doing it and incidentally, eating less!!!! YAY!!!!

Easy, Fast and Reasonably Light

This cookbook is a collection of recipes from the magazine Cooking Light, and I have been working my way through it. It uses convenience ingredients, most of which I have never eaten in my life! Nevertheless, some are good, some are indifferent, and some are not so hot, so I am marking the good recipes and making comments.

There are at least THREE recipes for pizza! They use both Boboli thin crust and refrigerated pizza dough. Not bad, considering they are "light".

diet~life style ~stressed

I am not being good this week. I have eaten way over my points and exercised little. I've got to get back into the work cycle of working out and drinking more water. I feel like I'm caged in this body and subject to the desires of my mouth and mind. Lately pizza has been calling me. I need help! Get back you big ole greasy, salt packed thing, with delicious sauce and smelling so good. Pizza ghost be gone! I'm fighting the good fight~

Back on Track

When we went on vacation I ate so many lovely fattening things, including luscious dinners, fruits, chocolate, and so on. I gained 3.6 pounds. I have since removed .4 pounds, and I am working on carving the rest of it back off of me!

I am back to walking about an hour a day, and doing yoga three times a week. I know that helps me ... PLUS I can eat more (mmmmmmmmm that is a good reason to work out)!

fat free milk I LIKE

The other day I decided to try the Horizon fat free milk, so that I would be drinking an organically-produced milk. The surprise was that the milk is not that thin, bluish watery stuff I usually buy, but a nice white milk that tastes good in my tea!!! BONUS!!!

POPCORN

We have a Whirly Pop popcorn popper, available for $25 plus shipping at popcornpopper.com. I use 1/2 cup of gourmet popcorn and one teaspoon of sunflower oil. This popper requires turning the handle, but it makes wonderful popcorn in about 5 minutes. I have tried all the other kinds of poppers with the exception of the big theatre style ones.

The popcorn we use is gourmet popcorn from Fireworks Popcorn company in Wisconsin. They have all sorts of popcorn, some with large kernels and some with small, all with slightly different flavors and textures. My favorites are Autumn Blaze, High Mountain Midnight, and Black Hills. You can order the popcorn in assortments, or as shown here in large jugs. We order in jugs, but this whole thing began when my sister-in-law gave us an assortment. The site is http://www.popcornlovers.com/.

FAT: What No One Is Telling You

Last night on PBS I saw a 2-hour special on obesity; its causes, its solutions, and the emotional pain of being obese. The woman in the photo lost a lot of weight, as you can see by her old green jacket which fit her perfectly at one time. She is still plump, and it takes three hours of exercise for her to maintain her current weight, along with controlling her food intake.

It is hard for me to recap the program, but one outstanding fact sticks with me. That is that the Abdominal Brain and the subconscious or non-volitional parts of the brain have a lot of control over our eating habits. If it were merely a matter of eating less and exercising more, there would be many fewer fat people. For those who have been obese as children or teenagers, the fight is much much harder.

They have discovered that when they do a bariatric surgery, which limits the size of the stomach and bypasses the upper portion of the intestine, there is something that happens to limit a person's appetite as well as not having the stomach capacity for large meals. They sever nerves in the intestines that somehow hardwire overeating to the brain.

I am not advocating severing those nerves, but it is important not to be too hard on ourselves for our desire to eat. It is hormonal.

We know what we need to do, but it is not always so easy to accomplish. Watch less TV, walk more, eat smaller portions, eat more vegetables and fruits, eat less fatty foods. Even so, the body will fight back and it is subtly programmed to increase body fat as much as possible to defend against starvation. Therefore, we have to give it enough food so it does not feel threatened.

I also think we need to use visualization and reinforce whatever good choices we are making. Set a size goal and when we reach it, buy a new outfit. Look in the mirror and congratulate ourselves on having eaten well today, or this morning.

At pbs.org they have the program and more online.

Work & Hunger

Work and hunger
I work from 10 or 11 in the morning till 9 at night. I come home from work- really really jazzed then hungry. If I eat at work that food and environment usually gives me a bellyache. So when I get home I have a glass of wine to wind down. We watch a DVD and then my hunger kicks and I start nibbling saltines which then builds till I have something that will quiet down my rumbling hunger. Then I go to bed.
The benefit for starting that late in the day is my being able to exercise in the morning. The benefit for working all those hours is a condensed 4 day work week then I have 3 days off. But there is a lot of stress in my retail job and the proximity to food is tough. cooking smells waft and dance through the air and I am constantly stimulated to eat. This is my challenge.

I'm tired of being overweight and shy when spring and summer come. I haven't worn shorts in years. A few years ago I wore peddle pushers to work and a coworker took a moment to inform me that with my legs she wouldn't recommend anything shorter then full length pants. I never did it again.


So my challenge is to keep my eyes on the task at hand (a healthy life style change) and munch on foods at night that are very low in points. I've been eyeballing popcorn as a possibility.


Any suggestions or ideas?

exercising while on the phone

A big thank you to my sisters for helping me exercise while having a delightful conversation as well.