New Weight Loss Method.

My son Jarrod is off school this week as the grade 8’s went on a trip to Montreal, which he didn’t want to go on.

Jarrod put his name on a list for a paper route years ago – we got a call Tues around noon, that there was one available if he was interested – only it isn’t extremely close.

 

So on Tues, he and I decided to walk down to the new paper route to see how far it was. It is 1.5km from our house, then a 63 house route, then 1.5km back home. For the couch potato that I am, that is quite the trek. Much soreness and painkillers were involved.

He decided he wanted to take the route because he can potentially make approx. $340 every 3 weeks (it is an optional payment of $6) Once he accepted, the job started on Wed (yesterday). He has to deliver Wed, Thurs & Fri.

Wed morning I was down a pound. Guess the walking helped.

So I again made the trek with him on Wed, this time with papers & Sears catologs – it first took us 45 mins to stuff and rubberband the papers, then 1.25 hours to walk and do the route as the route was new to us and not all houses get delivered to. 

Again I near died. Every part of me hurt. How does walking hurt your shoulder? My feet were throbbing all night long. Even my butt hurt!

This morning I was down 2 lbs!

Today is “flyer” day which means 2 large bunches of flyers to be stuffed into the paper and because of the chance of rain, we had to put the papers into plastic bags.

They wouldn’t all fit into the bundle buggy we bought, so we had to also borrow a wagon – trek the 1.5 km there with us both pushing/pulling papers.

I survived the walk much better today with only profuse sweating – started getting really tired much closer to home then previously.

So if you are keeping track – I have now walked at least 9km this week and still have tomorrow’s delivery to do.

Sounds like nothing, but seriously, I don’t walk much. I'm hoping for another pound or two tomorrow.

In the weeks to come, most of the stuffing of the papers will fall to me since J will be back to school (at least for the next month), and only gets home at 4pm and the papers have to be delivered by 6pm

Right now, J doesn’t want to get a friend to help him, because he would have to split his earnings with them, while with me he doesn’t.

It is good exercise, so I will continue to help until I either get work or it gets to hot for me to tolerate that long of a walk. Oh ya, and we are supposed to have thunder storms tomorrow - that should make for a fun walk :)

Works For me Wednesday - Starting Over with Weight Loss pt2

So to continue with last week's WFMW post, I am getting back on track with losing weight.

I have decided to go with The South Beach Diet. It is kind of like the Atkin's Diet, only healthy :)
No copious amounts of fat and red meat. I know many people have been successful with Atkin's but that doesn't make it healthy. The amount of people who also acquired health issues while doing Atkin's cannot be ingored.

Anyhow...off the soapbox.

South Beach Diet Phase 1. (Basics - if you want specifics, get the book)

• No starches (bread, rice, pasta, potatoes, cereal)
• No sugar (I usually add sugar to my coffee, so will be using Stevia in powder form instead, not crazy about it but...)
• No fruit or fruit juices
• Nothing high in fat (no full fat cheese, no skin on chicken, no bacon etc...)

So what WILL I eat?

One of the key things to achieve is to really UP your veggie intake. Eat as many as possible.

This is my plan.

Breakfast

• 1 egg, 2 egg whites, scrambled with green onion & mushrooms in PAM-like spray
• Sliced tomato
• Ham bacon, or lean Canadian bacon - 2 pcs
• Coffee, 1% milk & stevia

Lunch

• Mixed greens - 3 cups
• grape tomatoes
• 1/2 tin tuna in water, drained
• 2 tsp olive oil
• 1 tsp red wine vinegar
  
• 1/4 avocado diced

Snack

• 2 ribs celery
• 1 wedge Laughing Cow Cheese
  

Dinner

• Grilled chicken breast
• 2 cups Roasted veggies - mushrooms, cauliflower, broccoli, onions, zucchini, garlic

I can probably add stuff to this if I needed to, but I eat far too often right now, one of my bad habits, and I have to get over that. Being home is a challenge too, I can constantly be noshing.

Of course, I will need to drink my kazillion gallons of water as well. I do ok now, with probably a liter or a liter and a half per day, but I need to drink more.

Hopping on the treadmill or taking Peanut out for a walk won't kill me either.

I'll keep you posted as to how it goes. Anyone want to do it with me?

For more great ideas, pop over to Shannon's place (this week only then back to Kristen's place)

P.S. If anyone has any great dieting tips or inspiration, I would LOVE to hear them!

Plans for the week

I haven't yet really started The South Beach Diet. But I am making small changes heading in that direction.

This week I will:

• Drink more water - aiming for 3 liters total

• Use less sugar. Usually have 2 tsp in my 1 cup of coffee each day, now at 1 tsp

• Aim for less bread overall

• Take my Omega 3, 3 times a day

• Get on the treadmill a couple times this week
  

Unrelated to weight loss, I also intend to do the following:

• Read a couple books I have bought but put aside (The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown, & The Ultimate Happiness Prescription by Deepak Chopra)

• Start quilting my sister's pink quilt

• Tidy my office and craft area - it is getting hard to see the table

• Plan meals for the week (only have to do 3 nights and K is out of town on Tues night and tonight we are scrounging (each getting our own thing))

• Plan a couple day trips next week with kiddo. It is March break and we are planning to do The Ontario Science Center one day and the Art Gallery of Ontario another day.

Happy Monday!

Works For me Wednesday - Starting Over with Weight Loss pt1

Starting Over - with weight loss that is.

It is time....again :P

It is time to get serious about weight loss. I have no more excuses, the holidays are long over, (even though we did have tons of stuff left over that took us into January), Valentine's Day is over (even though we really don't celebrate it), and it is finally getting nice enough outside to take walks again (ah here comes that massive snowstorm!).

Although I am very overweight, it is not because of yo-yo dieting. I actually haven't done that much dieting in my life. I plan to diet ALL the time, actually doing it...not so much.

I did Weight Watchers a year or so ago and was successful for the 1st week then yo-yoed for the remaining couple months I was a member. Down a couple pounds one week, up a couple the next. I think when I quit, I was up 2 pounds from where I started. This is not WW's fault, but I didn't like paying the $17 a week for half hour meeting that was half WW product pushing.
If I had stuck with the program it would have worked.

Back in 2004 I did The South Beach Diet and I think that is what I am going to do this time too.
I was decently successful with it - I lost about 17 lbs. After the initial 2 wk phase that is quite challenging, I felt SO much better it is hard to describe. I felt lighter mentally! Dh also kind of did the program and lost about 12 lbs.

But then my Mom passed away and I slid right back into my bad eating patterns and have been there ever since - habits are so much easier. No thought required.

I have been thinking about vegetables a lot lately, I think my body is craving them since it hasn't had them in so long :)

In phase 1 of the SBD you cannot eat ANY fruit or fruit juice. This really shouldn't be an issue for me as I am not currently eating many fruits anyhow (I know I should be). I also have to cut out ALL starches:

• Bread
• Potatoes
• Cereal
• Pasta
• Rice

This will be the challenging part! I love pretty much all of these with the exception of cereal.

In Phase 2 you can reintroduce some of these but in healthy whole grain format.

I am at a point right now where I crave an unhealthy food, go eat it (sometimes in copious amounts) and afterward still not feel satisfied or even enjoy it while eating.

I sometime eat something salty, which needs to be followed with something sweet, which in turn needs something salty again...and so on... I don't think I know what I am looking for.

For anyone out there reading thinking I am trying to fill an emotional void...stop right now.

I probably should have lead with this - I have NO self esteem issues. Sure I'm fat, but I am still a great person.

Half the time, I forget that I am fat until I see a mirror, then it is like "Wow when the hell did THAT happen?!"

I don't put myself down. I state the facts. I AM fat. Mostly because I AM lazy. Just the facts. I KNOW I can do anything if I set my mind to it - it's just the Setting part that I am not so good with :)

So I don't necessarily eat because I am sad, mad, lonely, depressed etc... I eat because I like to eat and because it is a habit. Watching TV? Must have munchies. Even if I just finished dinner. Reading a good book, must have snacks.

These are all habits - habits that MUST be broken.

Wow this became much longer than I planned - I'll continue this post next week...but for now...Starting Over with Weight Loss Works for me!

For more great ideas, pop over to Shannon's place (this wk & next only then back to Kristen's place)

P.S. If anyone has any great dieting tips or inspiration, I would LOVE to hear them!

Changed my mind again :)

So I told you I had decided to stop going to the Weight watcher's meetings and just follow the plan online. Well since I activated my 2 week free trial of the online plan, I have come to realize that you really aren't getting much for your money.

All you get over the free member is the online point tracker. All the boards are open to the public, and therefore you cannot discuss the program or point values in great detail because you will be disclosing copyrighted info for free. There should be a member only board where paying members can talk freely, but there isn't.


So...

I have decided to just use SparksPeople.com. It is a completely free site. I can track my food and exercise daily (only in calories not points), I have access to all message boards and there are tons of useful articles as well as user blogs.

I have been doing ok eating properly on my own. I am down 2lbs today for a grand total of 10lbs lost!

SparksPeople even has several Weight Watcher themed message boards, so I can continue on with that plan if I want to.

It's a great site - check it out!

Changed my mind

I'm allowed :)

I have decided to stop going to the Weight watcher's meetings. I am beginning to really dislike them. Since the new Momentum plan was released, all the leader seems to be doing is reading from the weekly handouts - I can read them myself thanks. So all I was really going for was the weigh-in, and I ain't paying $17 to be weighed! Nuh uh!

When I joined WW, I was given a 2 wk free trial of their webtools. I have activated that and will see how I like it. It is the same as their WW online, so if I do like it, I will continue with WW but online only.

At first glance, the online part is pretty decent. The whole tracking points bit is made a bit easier as you can do it online and save your favorite foods instead of looking them up all the time. It also calculates your remaining points, so it simplifies that somewhat.

There are also message boards and recipes available. Now I didn't realize at first, but the message boards are public, so even non-paying people can access them. So really all you are paying for is the computerized points tracker and a few more recipes that then non-paying person has access to.

One thing that kinda annoys me, is that, because the boards are public, you cannot discuss the program or points values of foods in detail, because then you would be giving out proprietary information out for free. So even if you are paying for the online version, you can't be specific about the program. Sound strange to you? Why don't they just make member only boards where you can actually discuss point values? Who knows?

So I will decide in about a week and a half if I will continue with WW online or just try to go it alone at home. I am not going back to the meetings though.

Meetings are $17 per week, and the online version is $22 per month (after registration fee), so that will be a big savings.

I have also checked out SparksPeople which is a free weight loss site and it offers pretty much the same thing as WW does but doesn't track WW points, obviously. I can try following their program and just stay within their calorie limit instead of within my points limit.

Whatever I decide to do, I am not giving up on losing weight. I need to do this and I need to do it now.

I was up a couple pounds last week and I think I have got them back off and maybe a bit more now. I will stick to Tuesday weigh-ins, but now weigh-in in the morning.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Anyone else having any success at weight loss?

Disillusioned

I have been going to Weight Watchers for 11 wks now (I actually missed two of those weeks (not consecutive) during the holidays) and my results are not what I had hoped. Now of course that is completely my fault for not staying on program, I won't lay the blame anywhere else.

However, I am finding it harder and harder to pay $17 a week for a weigh-in, a 30 minute (repetitive & basic) meeting and constant sales pitches.

First of all - the program works if you work it.

I am getting SO tired of at least 10 minutes of my already short 30 minute meeting being used to push Weight Watcher products on us. When you arrive, there is a big table set up with all their products for you to see while you wait in line to be weighed.

They sell food items such as crackers, pretzels, drink mixes and snack bars. These are all overpriced. A box of 6 mini granola type bars is $10! A box of 6x28g pretzels is $5! Am I the only one who hates to throw money away? I see bunches of people each week buying this stuff - it must be nice to have money to burn.

They also sell non-food items; a food scale, measuring/serving spoons, a pedometer, a points calculator etc...

I understand that Weight Watchers is a business and they are out to make money, but is my $17 per week not enough? I am supposed to also drop my hard earned cash on their other products? And it is constantly being pushed.

Also, Weight Watcher's new Momentum plan is anything but new. They really didn't change anything at all - but they are constantly making a big ta-do about the NEW plan.

What used to be called Core foods, are now called Filling foods. They now recommend 30 minutes a day of exercise (they didn't before?). All liquids now count towards your goal of 6 8oz glasses - which I find stupid; coffee and pop are not the same as water.

I guess they have to change it up a bit or things get stale, but don't try to snow us and call it a new plan when it isn't.

One of the new features of the Momentum plan is a little graph area at the bottom of your food tracker. You are supposed to graph your level of hunger or satisfaction at each meal. This is supposed to aid you in knowing when you are truly hungry or not.

I'm sorry - but do I look that stupid? I know when I am hungry and when I'm not. I am not fat due to a lack of intelligence. I am fat due to a lack exercise and healthy eating!

Sometimes during these meeting, the topic discussed by the leader and members is so elementary that it blows my mind. What? You didn't know pizza was fattening?!

I sometimes feel I have read more diet/health books then all these members combined. I have not learned one new thing at WW. It is all common sense. But as I have said before, common sense isn't all that common anymore.

I don't think I will quit WW (yet), I like the accountability of the weigh-ins, but with my budget being tight and my having to bite my tongue so often (telling a group of idiots that being fat is the least of their worries, probably won't make me popular), I'm not sure how much longer I will last.

I'm getting tired of the leader telling us we are fat because we do too much for others and don't think of ourselves. Nope I'm fat cause I'm lazy - no two ways about it! I don't need an excuse or crutch, I need motivation!

Having said all that (if you are still reading :)) I watched the latest installment of The Biggest Loser last night and that has got me remotivated somewhat. I will rededicate myself this week and hopefully have a nice loss next week.

Thanks for letting me vent :)

Goals today
- drink lots of water
- get on treadmill
- stay away from junk

Some recipe sites with WW points (or just lowfat)

Gina's Weight Watcher's Recipes - Tons of really yummy looking recipes that won't make you fat. I think I am going to try the Banana bread soon, as I have a bunch taking up space in my freezer.

Diet recipes Blog - Where all the recipes are less than 200 calories per serving. It also has great pictures. I plan to try the Greek Shrimp recipe.

Halfmysize.com - Lots of recipes. I want to try the Sour Cream Chicken Enchiladas.

Weight Watchers

At my weigh in tonight I was up 0.8 lbs. I lose one week and gain the next. I am down a total of 7lbs.

At tonight's meeting a new Weight Watcher's plan was announced. It is called The Momentum Plan.

They have kind of combined the Flex Points and the Core Plan. I was doing Core because I didn't have to track points (which I hate). Now on this new plan, I have to track points...blah.

Tonight I worked out a sample day menu to see how I would use my points. Based on my weight and a few other factors, I am allowed 30 points per day.

Breakfast------------------------------Points
Coffee---------------------------------0
Sugar 2tsp ----------------------------1
Milk 1/4 C ----------------------------1
Whole egg ----------------------------2
3 Egg whites---------------------------1
PAM spray----------------------------0
3 slices ham bacon---------------------1
sliced tomato--------------------------0
1 Slice whole wheat toast--------------2
1 Tsp light margarine------------------1
_______________________________
9

Lunch
Broccoli soup (non-cream, non-fat)-----2
Celery 2 ribs---------------------------0
Laughing Cow Cheese Lite wedge------1
Lettuce salad--------------------------0
Eastside Mario's dressing 1Tbsp-------2
Tuna (water-packed) 1/4 C ----------1.5
_______________________________
6.5

Dinner
Chicken breast------------------------3
Salsa 1/2 C --------------------------0
Lentils 1/2 C--------------------------2
Brown rice 1/2 C ----------------------2
Lettuce salad--------------------------0
Eastside Mario's dressing 1T ----------2
Asparagus or broccoli 1C --------------0
_______________________________
9

Snacks
micro popcorn light (5 C)------------1
2 clementines--------------------------1
tea w/1T honey & milk---------------2
Banana----------------------------------2
________________________________
6

Grand total of 30.5 points for the day and that certainly seems like a LOT of food.

I also get an extra 35 points per week to use on anything I like. A couple drinks or desserts maybe.

The only problem I see is that I will soon tire of the same food and I will have to check out the points for a whole bunch of new foods - did I mention I hate having to keep track :)

Random Babbles

I apologize for not posting more often. I think I have blogger block - either that or my life is just really really boring right now.

At my weigh-in on Tuesday evening I was up 2.4 lbs. I'm not sure why, I pretty much did the same as I did the week before. However, once I got home that night I realized I had forgotten to take my blood pressure meds that morning - it contains a diuretic and could account for why I had extra water weight.

I have been doing my best this week and I think I am down 2 of those pounds - only one more pound and it will count as an actual loss for me :)

Out of the blue today, while grocery shopping, the word badminton popped into my head. And then along with it, my annoyance with the way some Americans pronounce it. While on vacation in Bahamas many many moons ago, my sister and I befriended several people from Buffalo. They asked if we wanted to go play batmittin. My sister and I didn't have a clue what they were talking about until the described it to us.

It is pronounced bad min ton.....not bat mittin! Sheesh.

Another often mispronounced word that drives me batty (oh it really really does! I'm weird that way) is centimeter. I have often heard it pronounced (on childbirth TV shows) as sonometer. What the heck is a sonometer?

And it makes me wonder....why do they even use centimeters to describe dilation when they haven't adopted the metric system in the US. I guess it would sound weird to hear that a woman is fully dilated to 3.9370079 inches.

When I first met my husband, he used to pronounce Michigan as Mitchegan. He no longer does that - I fixed it :) There is no T in Michigan.

Ok I'm on a role, yet another thing that bugs me (are you feeling a theme here?) is when someone incorrectly says a common phrase. Such as "You have another thing coming". The actual phrase is "You have another THINK coming"

You usually start the sentence with "If you think.....then you have another think coming". Similar to "Think again"

I am sure if I thought long and hard about it, I could probably come up with more (it really is a weird pet peeve of mine).

So do you have words/phrases you hate to hear butchered...um mispronounced?

Hi I'm still alive

I have been having blogger block. Have nothing to blog about. Can't think of anything...nadda.

The diet this week is not going as well as last week. Doing pretty much the same thing but I think I gained a pound. My body has decided it doesn't like to lose weight - after one meesly week! I've not giving up, but I don't expect much from tomorrow's weigh in.

I have been Stumbling the interweb this evening (finding ALL kinds of cooking websites with delicious looking food that is making dieting difficult...I should probably stop that huh?).

Anyway, this is one site I found that I found interesting? weird? both?

Canned bacon - they'll put anything in cans these days!


I read another couple books recently.

All we ever wanted was everything by Janelle Brown.
A decent book, easy to get into and held my interest. I little predictable at times, but I'd still recommend it.

The Bone Garden by Tess Gerritsen.
A woman finds a skeleton in her garden. Flipping between 1830 and current day, the mystery of whose body it is, unfolds. Easy read, lots of details, lots of twists in the plot. I'd recommend it.

Until next time :)

Weight Watcher's Weigh In

I had my first Weight Watcher's weigh-in tonight...


I lost 6.4 lbs...not bad for noshing on a few Halloween chocolate bars this week.

Usually the first week is water weight and somewhat easier to lose. Let's see how it goes next week.

I didn't find the Core program too difficult at all really. I didn't eat much bread because it isn't core...I have to count the points of any I do eat. I had half a whole wheat tortilla twice - that is it for bread.

I am supposed to cut out sugars as well, but I can't do artificial sweeteners (they do strange things to me) so I have been counting my 2 sugars in my coffee (1 point) and the honey in my tea (1 point).

I have to come up with more creative dinners, I am already getting sick of chicken breasts.

And does anyone have and good veggie side dishes that aren't smothered in butter? I'm not a big fan of salads in the winter either - I need warm/hot veggie dishes.

Another good thing is that my rings now fit properly again. Since the summer, I had been taking them off often as they were getting too tight and leaving them off for several days. They actually feel odd now since I have had them off for so long.

Tuesday

So far today I have had one coffee, with stevia, 1% milk and some coffee creamer. 2 cups of water. 2 cup of mixed berries (strawberries, blueberries, raspberries) with honey & lemon juice.

We have two weeks left to sell this house.

ETA: 4 more cups of water. 1 cup of leftover lentils & rice, 2 pcs whole grain bread, mayo, fried egg (in EVOO), 1.5 slices ham bacon sandwich, rice crispy square.

Holiday Monday

So not a lot happening today - I have laundry to do, as usual.
So I did my 15 mins on the treadmill yesterday. I still have to do it today, but the boys have gone to the school to practice soccer so I will wait until they get back - I don't like getting on when no one is home in case the phone rings or some other stupid reason.

So I have been reading all these weight loss blogs and one says that I am supposed to be drinking half my weight in ounces of water - I thought I was doing well when I managed to get in 3! So I still have a ways to go. (For my non-Canadian readers, there are 4 cups in a litre - so I need to drink 20 cups of water each day!)

You know one thing I noticed while browsing the many many weight loss blogs out there? While dieting or trying to lose weight, we focus WAY too much on food - I mean as soon as I decide I am going to attempt to lose weight, I start planning meals. The entire time I am trying to n ot eat as much, all I think about is food, what I should eat next, what I shouldn't. Way too much attention and focus on food. I wish I could focus on exercise instead but I am just not there yet - I will do my treadmill time but not sure what other exercise I will be incorporating.

So, so far today, I have eaten, 1 cup of taco rice & lentils (reheated from last night), a handful of tortilla chips (ya I know), and a choco banana muffin. Oh and a coffee, I used stevia and coffee sweetener instead of sugar (there is sugar in the sweetener but less then if I just used sugar yanno?)

I have downed only 3 cups of water so far - and it is 11am. Gotta get gluggin! Wow to drink 20 cups of water each day I have to average 1.7 cups of water every hour - either that or I have to get up earlier :)

ETA: 4pm I am now up to 9 cups of water. I have also eaten another muffin, had a homemade cafe mocha, a cup of edamame, and about a dozen bites of sausage spaghetti sauce. Now I am feeling full and will save the spaghetti sauce for dinner tomorrow night instead.

Treadmill

Ok so I got on my treadmill tonight for the first time in several months. I did 15 minutes and burnt only 61 calories - what the heck is up with that? Can't I burn that much just watching TV?

Shouldn't a 250 lb woman burn more than 61 measly calories in 15 minutes? I wasn't going very fast, about 2 miles per hour, I didn't break a sweat but did do some jog/dance/wiggle/walking to Pink's "U and Ur Hand" I put it on repeat.

Ok random thought - shouldn't carrying around an extra 100 lbs on my 5'1" frame count as lifting weights?