Up a pound, down a pound

Last week I lost one pound, but the week before that I gained a pound and a half. It would have been worse, but I talked to a friend that helped shed some light on me... and a dose of reality. So I'm back on track. My turtle track, but hey it's a track!

Last week - Down 3.2 pounds - Total 21.2 pounds

Wow, looking at that title, I thought it said I was down 212 pounds! I'll never lose that much, but it will be nice to see 100, anyway.

This past week I've been sick. I hate that a 3 pound loss had to come to that, but it did. Which really worries me - I don't know what was wrong - Salmonella? Some other virus? I tracked my calories all last week and I had 1300-1600 a day. Plus food ran right through me, and I still only lost 3.2 pounds. If I'm not sick, how much will I lose with 1300-1600 calories. Not very encouraging. And I was hungry about the entire week.

Ok, gloom aside - let's look at the positives. My stomach has shrunk over the last week. Many of the calories were natural apple juice. Supposedly the pectin helps the liquid absorb better, and helped retain fluids instead of letting them rush right through. So I've definitely gotten used to smaller meals. Sticking to less calories will be easier. I've been eating 1800-2000 and seeing practically nothing happen.

Also, the majority of my food was simple carbs. Bananas, rice, toast, apples, apple juice. That was the majority of my food for a week, with a few other things tossed in like vegetable soup, tomato soup, macaroni. But it was mostly starchy. And with insulin resistance that's not a good thing, so I'd be curious to see how much 1300-1600 lower carb and not sick will get me. It could actually turn out even better than last week. Now wouldn't that be nice!

Fatty Liver

I learned recently that my cousin has just been diagnosed with Stage 4 Liver Cancer. She's about 20 years older than me. Considering my son just turned 18, I can say that 20 years flies right by. The doctor said that she had fatty liver, and that it probably contributed to the cancer. It's hereditary, and her mother also had fatty liver, and I was also diagnosed with it a few years back.

So as I sit here with pain in my liver and my fourth day of diarrhea, I truly have a new outlook on weight loss and a REASON to lose weight. I was losing so well, and then after Dad died, I just didn't care. I self-pitied for months, and I've been trying to get back on track for weeks now. I just don't seem to have a lot of get-up-and-go. I guess a little bit of it is depression, grief... With some stress added in, considering I lost one business last year (and even worse, lost my business partner/sister in the process), and have spent this past one working so hard to get another business off the ground and stable....plus my son graduated and is now a college student! Yes, the baby is in college! It's all just a little overwhelming and my brain is all over the map. I really, really need to regroup my thoughts, and get my health in order. Top of the list is weight loss, lower fat, a good supplement regimen for a healthy liver, and exercise. I'm 43 and would like to live another 40-50-60 years!

Back to the liver pain I mentioned above - I don't automatically think that because I have liver pain that I have cancer. It's just a health reminder being sent to me ... maybe by Dad!?



Oh, I lost a pound last week.

Ok so I forgot about the blog

It's ok - nobody reads this anyway! Just a journal with slightly more motivation to continue it in case of the possibility of somebody reading it. Long story short, I quit going to Weight Watchers because I couldn't afford the meetings, and I was losing .2 pounds a week. So I was counting calories but I will confess that I've been eyeballing it lately, and have been eating the 'same meals' over and over a lot which made it seem like the easiest thing to do... and I have nothing to show for it. So yes, measuring every single bite out DOES make a difference. And so does exercise. I've got to quit nursing my tailbone injury and get back on the stick!

Ah yeah exercise news - we have a spare room in the basement that was just emptied out and is ready for me to make beautiful exercise in it! It's small - so I don't know if I'll move the elliptical in it or not. The elliptical is in the grungy side of the basement. Right between a cinder block wall and a water heater, and directly under saggy air conditioning vents. Nice and dungeon-y. But if I move it in to the shiny new exercise room, I might not have room to Zumba and Walk Away The Carpet. So I guess for now, it stays where it is.

I am down a couple of pounds since my last entry - but should be down about 10 pounds!

Lets see, what will I do to make that better. I need to clean out the fridge and make a salad bar in all my pyrex containers. That will make it more convenient. I also need to make some delicious yogurt baja sauce for fish tacos - fish tacos are light, and the baja sauce is great! And delicious on salads, and lower calorie than salad dressing. And I need to find a lower calorie replacement for dried cranberries. Oooh I love something chewy on a salad. No clue how to fix that one!

Next, I need to make more soup. The only thing nice about the end of summer is soup season!
And last, I need to go through cookbooks and get rid of what I'm seriously never going to eat from again, and put post it notes on good, low calorie recipes that I might eat from. And on a cold, rainy day, that sounds like fun!

Ok, so things aren't really going anywhere

I had a big slap in the face, so I'm moving again, though! I'm really sick and darn tired of slow-no weight loss. This week I had SO much to do, I said to hay with it, and just did the best I could with eating, but not counting. I just didn't have enough hours in the day to do everything, so of course since my meal planning isn't paying off, that was the first to go out the window. Boy was I wrong. I gained a pound or a pound and a half, depending on which weigh in I go by. So I'd rather have that measly half pound loss any day. So then last night after weighing in, I have a really embarrassing dream. Ok, part of it is embarrassing.

In my dream, I was Kate Middleton's personal assistant. She and Camilla Parker Bowles hated each other, and it was a big scandal. So I'm wearing unflattering clothes and no makeup and having a big happy convo with my new bestie Kate, (she really liked me) and all the sudden up walks Camilla with smiles and an outstretched hand. So Kate opens her arms to hug her, and this was the photo of the century and hundreds of cameras pop up out of nowhere and I slinked off and sit on the couch with all the other assistants. I say to the really handsome one, "I sure hope I don't wind up in the background on the cover of People" and he asks "why", and I said "because I look like a cow" and he said 'Then why don't you do something about it?' I actually felt that TADAAAA moment and heard the bells ring in my dream, and did I mention it was a very real dream...so real that it felt like I may be in a parallel universe type of dream? I mumbled 'blah blah polycystic ovaries...' and I knew instantly by the look on his face and the actual words streaming out of my mouth like drool, that my issues are stumbling blocks, not excuses. There really aren't any excuses. I am not excused from lack of weight loss. If I excuse myself, I probably die early, and even if I don't, I'm sure going to miss out on a lot of fun and experience more misery than I deserve. So there. Thanks handsome guy, even if you probably are Camilla Parker Bowles assistant in another universe, you found me and made me think.

Today, planning comes first. I will learn to make better use of my time, and I will try to stamp out procrastination. Oh heck, here comes my list. I'd also like to organize my life and my home. And clean, and mop and dust and file away everything on my desk and so on and so on. This is where I get overwhelmed! So I have to back up and just get to the planning portion. Meal planning and exercise planning. That's key.

Weigh In, July 15

Yes! I finally lost 2 pounds! Last week I was also the same, so finally this week showed some progress. Thank you God, there is hope for me after all!

I'm looking for quick, easy, low cal recipes. While doing it, I came across McDougall's site, and I watched his Starch Solution video. In short, he says that the arguments that mankind lived a heavy meat diet is all wrong. Animal bones last longer in the dirt than orange peels, so we found all that was left. He said examinations of the hair and between the teeth of the human skeletons from thousands of years ago show that they lived primarily on grains. The 6 Fuels of Civilization are barley, corn, millet, potatoes, rice and wheat. He also said that gladiators were known as The Barley Men, because they lived almost primarily on barley. Caesar's army was also not allowed to eat meat before battles, because grains gave them more strength. Anyway, that's just a touch of what he talked about It's a really interesting video all about how our body breaks down starch (not carbs, just starch) and I think I may watch it again. It's about 90 minutes, but very informative, and Dr McDougall is a very entertaining speaker. I am interested in how a diet like this affects me since I have PCOS.

Right now I'm going to enjoy my favorite breakfast. Mangoes, bananas, and fat free Greek yogurt with agave.

A big fat STALL

I lost nothing last week. Actually, according to the nice lady at WW, I gained a half pound. But my pre-meeting naked weight was a push. Must have been the padded bra that pushed me over!

I know there are a few factors that could help me lose weight better, but honestly at my weight - I should still be dropping some pounds by counting calories alone!

I don't exercise - well I do a little. Just not much. I have zero energy because I'm always working and trying to get our new business up at 'cruising altitude'. I also have too many sticks in the fire. And I have little room to exercise. But we're moving our home business in to a legit location over the next week and I'll have my exercise room back! Yippeee!!! I can zumba and yoga and walka again.

Also, I'm eating too many carbs. They're cheap and easy. Which is helpful because of that new business thing sucking up our time and money.

Both of these issues are big for me because I have PCOS and I'm insulin resistant. Carbs are not my friend, and neither is a sedentary life. It's weird, because I LOVE to exercise and I LOVE to cook. So why can't I find time to do either one?

21 Down, 119 To Go!

I lost one pound. Could have been better! I only exercised 3x last week, and was a terrible water drinker. I should add that whenever I say I'm a terrible water drinker, I'm admitting that I'm a big diet coke drinker! I'm drinking one or the other. I'm also trying to drink a lot of green tea. Not for it's trace weight loss effects, but because it's healthy. And all that water doesn't hurt!

We're having a big family reunion this weekend. My mom says it's the last one she'll ever do - but she's said that before. I hope for at least one more, because at this one, as usual, I will be substantially overweight. I would really like my cousins to see me, without a blanket of fat around my body!

The shop is really slow right now, and it's hard to not stress eat. Although things are slow, we're working really hard - so there's no opportunity to take it easy focus on exercising and making meal plans. It just makes it harder. But it's a bad time of year for the store, and a good time of the year for warm air, sunshine and farmers markets, so I have to squeak out the good part and sprinkle it all over the rest!

How I'm Losing Weight

I will have to tweak this on an ongoing basis. My body will get the idea that it's actually burning fat, and it will resist! For now, this is what's working the best for me:

Calorie counting and exercise. Also, I'm going to Weight Watcher meetings every week. I was losing weight with calorie counting, but after Dad died in the fall, I joined WW to go with my Mom. We thought it would be something nice for us to do together. She is a lifetime member, and has been attending meetings regularly since she hit goal 7 years ago. WW just wasn't working for me - we'll talk about that another time - but I love the meetings, the food discussion is still low calorie, and it's good to have a group to weigh in with, and cheer each other on. I might go back to WW again in the future. We'll see!

I'm a pescatarian. I'd be vegetarian, but I take fish oil daily for heart health. If I'm going to take fish oil capsules daily, I'd be a hypocrite to not just eat the fish too! I'm allergic to shellfish, so I only eat boring old fish!

I am insulin resistant, and carbs are not my friends. I try to eat a diet rich in fruits and vegetables, a little bit of whole grains, and lighter on processed grains like pasta and bread. I also eat fish, eggs, and fat free Greek yogurt. I don't really drink milk and I eat very little cheese.

My weapon of choice is an elliptical!

20 down, 120 to go!

I can't believe it took me an entire year to lose 20 pounds. Actually I lost about 45, but 25 of them have been repeats of little yo-yo regaining. I have no excuse for the regains, other than getting off track for emotional reasons - which makes things so hazy, it's hard to see the track to get back on it.

One thing I've learned, is that feeding my emotions just ONCE will never happen. Once starts the feeding frenzy in my brain, and then I want more, more, more. I have to find something else to console me when I'm stressed, scared, or sad.