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