Is it a conspiracy?

Yes, I am back.  I haven't lost any more weight, but I have maintained what I did lose.  Eventually I will try to lose another 5 lbs.

Aside from that, I have to say that lately I have noticed that the things that are the most fattening and bad are the things that are normally on sale at the best price.  Why is that?  I rarely find things that are low fat (with no aspartame) and good for me on sale.  Things like potato chips, sodas and desserts are always on sale.  It almost seems like a conspiracy.  OK, it DOES seem like a conspiracy. 

Not Counting

I weighed myself a day early this week and found I had lost another pound, bringing the total to 14!

I am shocked, but I seem to be losing weight easier by not counting calories.  Totally stopped counting three weeks ago and lost a pound each for the past two weeks.  I did count them daily for long enough that I now pretty much know what is full of calories and what isn't and I still avoid the big calorie foods.  The difference might be that I don't feel obligated to eat the 1200 recommended calories.

On My Fitness Pal if you don't eat the 1200 calories (or whatever the recommended calories are for you), even if it is only under by 5, it will warn you that you might not be getting enough nutrition.  Also, when it was near the end of my day, if I saw that I had only eaten 1000 calories I would feel obligated to eat 200 more, even if I wasn't the least bit hungry because I felt I was somehow depriving myself which made me feel hungry.  Eating when I am not hungry is just stupid, I don't care how few calories I had that day.

BTW, I do take vitamins because I realize that possibly I don't get enough nutrition.  However, I feel I probably get more nutrition than when I was stuffing my face with fried foods, sweets and cheese. :-D

Update

For about the last week I have not been keeping track of what I eat.  Oh, I still have been careful, but not counting calories at all.  I haven't gained anything nor have I lost anything.  Personally, I think this has less to do with my eating than my lack of exercise.  Those first couple weeks I did really well.  One of those weeks I lost 5 lbs, but I also did extra exercise instead of just the normal daily dog walk.

I can whine about how I haven't had time, but really anyone can fit in an extra few minutes of excise a day and I have just been lazy and felt unmotivated.  Actually, right now I am at a good weight for my height - I just need to body shape more using exercise.  Hopefully I will feel more motivated soon before I start gaining again.

Green Tea Fat Burner

During the heat of summer I haven't felt much like drinking hot green tea during the day and I don't really like it cold, so instead I have been taking these green tea pills that I bought a while back.  Maybe it is my imagination, but I feel like they really work.  My weight seems to be coming off better the past week since I have been taking them even though there were a couple days in there that I went quite a bit over my daily limit of calories (like the already mentioned Olive Garden dinner).  Anyhow, I only take one per day most of the time - I think on the Olive Garden day I took two, one after breakfast and one after coming home from dinner.  I will continue with them and I am anxious to see if there are any really noticeable results and be sure that I will let you know if there are. :-)

Oh my!

Britton took me to The Olive Garden last night.  It isn't our favorite restaurant, but it is really close to our house and I love the Italian Margaritas!  I had meant to order the Chianti Braised Short Ribs, but for some reason I became confused and ordered the Steak Gorgonzola, which I do not really like very much.  So I had about half of that, salad, 2 breadsticks, a margarita and some sort of delicious chocolate cake for dessert.  Oh sure, I knew I was going over my daily calorie limit considering I had eaten breakfast that day, but I had no idea by how much!  When I added it all up today using My Fitness Pal it was just a little shy of 2000 calories and I only ate half of my actual meal!  Since I started dieting I have several times come close to using up all my calories (1200) in one meal if we eat out, but never have I went over that, especially not by 800.

That said, since we don't go out that often I totally refuse to not enjoy myself because I might go over on calories.  However, I will try to do a bit better than that in the future, not even so much because I might gain weight, but consuming that many calories in one sitting must be unhealthy on many levels.

Beer and Bread

I pretty much behaved myself over the weekend except for a few tortilla chips and something that I almost never drink - beer.

We were at a friend's house, sitting outside chatting, couldn't really use the pool much because there was lightning most of the time we were there.  It was still a hot day and even though I normally don't care for it, beer sounded really good and it was some special Octoberfest beer.  As it turned out, it tasted good too and I drank two of them.

It was only later that I realized that beer and my body don't care for each other.  I feel the same after drinking beer as I do after eating some good thick white bread - like french bread.  I feel bloated and fat.  My belly actually looks fatter to me, although, according to the scale I seem to have lost a bit over the last week.  Both beer and white bread taste really good, but always end up making me feel icky later.

I think I will remember that and in the future it should be easier to stay away from at least those two things.  I will stick to my red wine and some occasional whole wheat bread (thinly sliced).

Onto something else - It is finally cooling down (somewhat) now that the monsoon season has arrived.  I hope to be back to exercising soon and provide some reviews of exercise DVDs.  I do yoga, pilates and tai chi and have quite a few fitness DVDs, some of which I have never tried.  Right now my favorite is a pilates DVD, even though I have never made it through more than 15 minutes without giving up. :-D

Review: Hungry Girl Recipe Cards

Several weeks ago at the beginning of my diet I made a spur of the moment purchase.  You know, it caught my eye and I liked the idea that instead of a cookbook (book space being sparse in our house) they were a box of recipe cards.  I didn't think much on it.

Well, when I got home and began actually looking through them I found that most of the recipes (especially desserts) were useless to me because they call for artificial sweetener.

Frankly, although there are a few good sounding recipes in here there are also no brainer recipes that I thought everyone already knew of - like hotdogs wrapped in pillsbury crescent rolls.  I have to say that I do not find it worth the $17 I paid for it.

Really though, all the recipes with artificial sweetener are the worst part, so unless you are a fan of such poison I suggest skipping on purchasing this.

Star rating only a 1 out of 5

10 Most Fattening Foods Of Summer

Pretty easy for me to not eat most of those, but I do need my fried chicken fix every once in a while. :-D
10 Most Fattening Foods Of Summer - Photos - KOAT Albuquerque

Weight-in Wednesday: Week 7 and 8

Would have posted, but nothing to report.  Nothing gained and nothing lost, yet again.  At least my floating 2 lbs seem to have finally disappeared.

Don't misunderstand, although, I would have liked some pounds lost - I am OK with not gaining any too.  Maybe next week.

Yesterday Brit and I went to Village Inn for breakfast.  Not only did I pig out on the meal, but Wednesdays are also free pie day.  Yeah, so I had a piece of cherry pie too.  When I got home I added the calories and found that I had used all except 200 in one meal!  I will be careful to not do that again.  I don't like going to sleep hungry.

Skinny Cow: Dreamy Clusters

Just tried these and I can only say YUM!

Special K Cracker Chips!

The new Special K cracker chips are delicious!  Well, at least the sour cream and onion is and only 110 calories for 27 chips!

I also tried the Special K Savory Herb Crackers, those are pretty bland, but good enough with some greek yogurt and fresh mint dip.  17 of those will give you only 90 calories.

Today I bought the Sea Salt cracker chips and the multi-grain crackers and will let you know what those are like once I have tried them.

Not making sense

Dieting is becoming confusing for me.  As I mentioned in a previous post, I seemed to gain 2 lbs for no reason - I had been staying within my calorie limit.  Last night we went out and I totally pigged out.  Seriously pigged out - potato chips, green chili dip, candy bars, mexican food, donuts, wine.  Today I weigh myself and weigh a pound less than I did the day before.  Really starting to think my scale is broken...

Summer exercise? Meh.

Well, I would like to do some reviews of my many yoga/pilates/tai chi DVDs, but as I mentioned - it is damn hot here and I can't seem to find a cool time in which I feel like exercising.

Oh, I know some out there are saying that I should just force myself whether I feel like it or not, but I have a feeling that is the quickest way to totally make me hate it and I don't want to hate it.

Basically, I feel motivated during the day (right now it is too hot even with AC to exercise).  Once the sun goes down I am only motivated to do things I enjoy doing - like writing, reading, watching movies and so on.  Things that don't take any physical motivation.

Aside from that - how did I gain two pounds over night?  Is my scale broken?  Seriously, I didn't pig out or anything, but when I weighed myself today I weighed 2 lbs more than yesterday.  Am I retaining water?  I totally don't know, but I hope that tomorrow that will have disappeared from the scale.

Week 6: Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained - or lost

As I mentioned earlier in the week - I went a bit wild over the weekend and as a result when I did my weigh-in Wednesday I had lost zero.  The good part was that I also hadn't gained anything.  So not what I would have hoped, but certainly not as bad as it could be.

Another thing I am having a problem with is exercising because it is so hot.  Even with the AC, actually exercising, cleaning or just moving around is awful.  I am hoping the monsoons will move in sometime soon and change that.

Pop goes the weekend

Once again, on the weekend I have went over my calorie limit.  Damn weekends!

On Friday we went to see Super 8 and Britton bought popcorn.  Luckily it was small, but we all know the word small doesn't mean what it used to, so it was fairly large.  I knew it would mess up my daily calories, but I couldn't resist.  I just don't have much willpower if something like that is right there.

Then there were the few glasses of wine at dinner and before I knew it I was about 250 calories over.

I have been afraid to add up my calories for Saturday.

We all go to Applebees after our monthly UFO meetings.  That was OK because Applebees has a good low cal selection.  So I did alright there, but then I went to a friend's birthday party at a local pub and had 2 glasses of wine.  Still OK, but then when I came home Britton wanted to go out.  So more food and more wine.  As I said, I am afraid to add it up.  I am also afraid to weigh myself.  I feel bloated today and fatter than a couple days ago.

So I guess I am just going to live with the assumption that on the weekends I am likely to totally blow my diet and try adding some extra exercise during the week and hope that it will all even out.

Satisfying the Sweet Tooth

Since I do not use artificial sweeteners I had thought it would be hard to find things to satisfy my sweet tooth.  As far as I can tell, all low cal/diet desserts have some sort of artificial sweetener.  So far, this is what I have come up with instead:

Jello pudding (the regular kind, not low or no cal): These only have 120 calories per serving which is the same amount in many low calorie artificially sweetened diet dessert products (such as Yoplait Parfaits).  Well, and unlike the ad we don't have to "make" jello pudding anymore.

100 Calorie Right Bites: Lots of different cookies to choose from! They are the same as regular cookies in small packets that only contain 100 calories. They are rather expensive at my regular grocery store, but Target (and I am sure Walmart) have them at a reasonable price.

Oikos organic greek yogurt, chocolate or caramel: I really like these, especially the caramel since I have cut out my caramel fraps. Only 110 calories.

Bags of miniature candy bars: Safe if you only eat 1 or 2.  This one is kind of hard for me because I have a big weakness for candy bars. :-)

Week 5

I have finally caught up this blog to now.  I did my weigh in earlier today and had lost the pound I gained back in week 4 and one extra!  Obviously, I was much more careful and stuck to my 1200 calorie per day limit, except for 1 day.

That 1 day over was Britton's (my SO) fault.  We were out shopping and he just had to have lunch at Captain D's.  The "D" in that definitely doesn't stand for diet.  I don't think there is one low cal thing on their menu and that is including salads.  I was starving and ended up getting the chicken dinner (oh yes, I do love fried chicken), baked potato (love those too!) and coleslaw.  However, I did only eat 2 of the 5 chicken strips, about 3/4 of the baked potato, 1 bite of the coleslaw and I couldn't resist the two hushpuppies.  I saved the rest and brought it home.  Just didn't have the willpower to throw it away.  I will have to be careful finishing it over two days because it could easily send me over my limit again.

Week 3 and 4

Week 3 was great!  I lost 3.5 lbs a total of 10 lbs!  When I entered my weigh in into My Fitness Pal it told me that I was losing weight much faster than estimated and asked if I wanted to reevaluate my daily calorie limit.  Even though I clicked "no" that little pop-up stuck in my head.

Because of that little message that was stuck in my head, during week 4 I thought I could eat a bit more and still be OK.  That weekend I probably went 200 calories a day over my allowed 1200 and as you probably could guess - I paid the price for it.

Week 4 I lost zero weight and actually gained back 1 lb. :-(

Week 2

Week two went well.  Although, it was during that week that I dreamt of pizza and McDonalds.  I must have went to bed hungry that night. :-)

I only lost 1.5 lbs that week, even though I did nothing differently, which made me wonder if new weight was easier to lose.  The 5 lbs I lost the previous week was new, only gained a couple weeks prior to starting to count calories.

Still, I was happy with the 1.5 lbs, every little bit adds up!

Week 1

This is what I wrote about that first week, but never got around to posting it:


I lost 5 lbs in the last week! I really didn’t do much extra exercise, mostly just my normal daily dog walk. What I did do was keep track of all my calories and stay within the 1200 My Fitness Pal suggested to lose weight. Well, there were a couple days I went over, but not by more than 100.

There were many dumb things I was doing, but for example, I thought if a package or meal said naturally low in fat it was also low in calories. What a mistake that has been! I have found things can have very little fat and yet tons of calories.

I also stupidly thought that if most of my day was spent eating the “low fat” stuff that I could have one bad meal per day and/or a bad snack or two. I bet most days I was consuming well over 2000 calories. Yeah, and there I was wondering why I never lost any weight and continued to gain.

At first I thought I would probably get tired of calorie counting within that first week, but strangely keeping track of that seems to go along with my obsessive and ritualistic nature. I am not sure that obsessiveness will last, but for right now it is working.

I kind of doubt that I will continue to lose weight at the rate of 5 lbs per week, but it would be nice.

Background

I was incredibly lucky and throughout most of my life I could eat whatever I wanted without gaining an ounce.  I am 5'6 and weighed around 102 lbs for most of my adult life.

About 7 years ago, I started gaining weight.  At first not much, the first time I remember noticing weight gain I was 108 lbs.  Didn't bother me at all.  In fact, the opposite.  I had always felt I was too skinny and I kind of liked the extra few pounds.

However, it didn't stop there.  By last Fall I weighed 130 lbs.  Part of that due to "comfort eating," which I had started doing heavily when my sister Debi became terminally ill and of course it only got worse once she passed away.  Then about 18 months later, my other sister Becky suddenly dropped dead after arriving home from work.  I hate to say I was depressed because people think that means you were suicidal, which I was not, it was just kind of a constant deep sadness for several years.

It was finally this year that I really started feeling better.  I became involved in helping organize a local UFO/paranormal conference and that gave me something fun to do, kept me around people and just basically made me feel happy.

After the 3 day conference was over, thinking that I must have lost weight because I had been walking around and doing stuff much of the 3 days, I weighed myself expecting that I had lost some weight.  Much to my horror I had actually gained 5 lbs!  Then came to mind the great buffet at the conference and especially a huge bowl of mashed potatoes and gravy that I stuffed my face with.

Something had to be done, but I never having had to watch my weight I had no idea what it was.  I did know people that belonged to Weight Watchers or Jenny Craig, but that didn't really seem for me.  I have a feeling the foods they have and suggest are laced with aspartame.  Aspartame and other artificial sweeteners are something that I will not eat.  I totally blame them for my sister's brain tumor (google aspartame and brain tumors) because she drank diet Pepsi all day, every day.

I knew there were people that lost weight simply by counting calories and exercise.  That is what I decided to try, but I had no clue how many calories I should eat or anything like that.  Thank goodness for google which led me to the site "My Fitness Pal."  I answered a few questions there like, my age, how much I weigh, how much I wanted to lose and it told me how many calories I could have per day.  So that is where I started.

More to come.