Thursday, June 30, 2011

Skinny Cow: Dreamy Clusters


Just tried these and I can only say YUM!

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

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.

Sunday, June 26, 2011

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...

Friday, June 24, 2011

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.

Thursday, June 23, 2011

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.

Sunday, June 19, 2011

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.

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

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.

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

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.