OH My December 26, 2007

December 26, the day after Christmas and I have eaten my way up to 212.3.  Twenty pounds up from my lowest. What am I thinking – or not thinking.

 Anyway I feel like crap, back hurts, have a zit right smack in the middle of my nose, tummy is bloated.  Must get back to healthy eating and I am actually rather excited to do it!

My Birthday is in 89 days, or 13 weeks.  At 2 pounds per week that is 26 pounds or 186.  How about a goal of 179, 2.5 pounds per week – very doable.

 Enough with the diet crap – Christmas was very nice and quiet as always.  Surprised DH and DD with a playstation2 and guitar hero.  They had a good time playing and let me spend some time napping and knitting.  My plan is to get 36 inches of the Crocodile scarf done in the scale pattern then begin the tail.  I will do photos of both that and the Lizard/Gecko scarf when I get them finished.

I am planning to start Jeanie from Knitty as soon as I get the scarfs for the niece and nephew done.

 Well this entry is very incomplete but an entry all the same!

Craisins are YUMMY November 7, 2007

And with 130 calories per 1/3 cup, they could get dangerous real fast.

197.5 this morning – how I am unsure.  Ate breakfast and lunch as planned but went shopping for some groceries before dinner – I was STARVING so I decided to nibble on the way home – I chose cheese, my greatest problem food. 8oz later the Monteray Jack was gone.  I kid you not, I ate 8oz of cheese in less than 10 minutes.  As I ate I kept thinking of constapation( a problem with cheese, but I are it anyway). 

So for dinner I went light though not LC.  A small toasted provolone sandwich, lots of celery and I started with a 1/3 cup of craisins for fiber (to avoid the dreaded constipation) and I probably ate another 1/2 cup after that. 

Sometimes I really do wonder how much I can eat – how big is my stomach?

Knitting – I did focus on getting 11 rows done on Candle flame which brings it to a giant 2 1/2 inches- only 67 more to go!

Out of Control November 5, 2007

Healthy eating has flown the coop!  I have been gaining and losing the same 10 pounds for the past 2 months. Why I wanted to get back on track I discussed a month ago.  I guess the bigger question would be why am I willing to maintain this 190-200 weight. I am almost afraid to go there!

Anyway i was reading about people committing to blogging everyday for November.  I am off to a slow start but that is my commitment and each day I will post my weight

201.3

That will help me to focus.

Knitting – Finished Rogue and have started the KnitPicks free Candle flame shawl which I intend to complete as a Christmas gift for my mom.

Enough for today – time to shower and get on with life

Getting it back November 4, 2007

197.9

 Huge improvement – I am committed to NEVER seeing 2** again.  That said I must admit yesterday was a bit difficult – I was hungry~

 Plus I started the shawl Candle Flame out of the worst possible yarn – a vintage Boucle.  Not a great choice for Lace, more splitty than mohair plus it was BLACK.  Got through almost the first repeat and saw a huge off size yarn over– love the weight and the look but it would never do for a christmas gift for my mom.  I may have to make a road trip to the LYS for yarn for this project in that it is the only project I am feeling right now – plus knitting is a huge factor in being strong when food is calling me!

Why am I stuck! October 16, 2007

Why can’t I stick with this diet?

Why have I lost my motivation?

Why am I overeating and not even trying to maintain my lose?

I think the last question – Why am I overeating and not even trying to maintain my loss? Is the most troubling of all the questions.  Again I have fallen into the trap, “Well I still have more to lose so what the heck – I might as well eat the ^*)^^.” And I have been doing just that!

No I am not over 200 again but I have gone from well under 195 (191.7) to 197.2 today, all from eating too much a saying – “I will diet tomorrow.”

I CANNOT keep doing this – my health is at stake!  I have lost almost 40 pounds and though that is great, it is not enough!  I have goals.  I want to be able to run!  I really believe that I would enjoy being a runner.  The freedom, kind of like swimming, but there will be no running at this weight!

I want to be off all these meds for asthma!  I will be off these meds if I get to my goal weight!

I want to borrow my Daughter’s clothes.  I will be borrowing her clothes!

I can do this.  Today I planned my meals.  As I sit here right now I have food in my tummy and can make it til dinner.  I must plan and record my food everyday!

Why would I NOT want to reach my goal?  Not one calorie of the crap I have eaten through out the past 2 weeks has been that memorable, so it isn’t taste.

Part of it has been frustration – I have been feeling some frustration with everyone and I have been eating my way through it.  But I believe that the food has created an even bigger need for more food in me – a vicious cycle.

It is time to knit, to enjoy my family, to achieve my goal!

*** On the knitting front – Sunday I discovered I made a mistake on the second sleeve of the Rogue hoodie– Did I mention I made a mistake on the first sleeve and had to rip back 60 rows.  Anyway this time I ended up ripping back 70+ rows.  I have re-knit this yarn more times than anything I have ever done.  And I keep smiling and going back to it!

 Promise photos of the WIP soon

Over 40 pounds September 12, 2007

Yeah!  After skirting around 39 pounds for about a week and a half, finally I took the plunge and dropped to an alltime low (at least for the last 6 years) of 192.9.  Of course the past week or so hasn’t really been diet focused – I think I was close to being satisfied with the weight I had lost and wasn’t excited about the work involved to get to goal, or at least to the next milestone. I had been eating to much protein and FATs and very few veggies and I was drinking NO water!

 Yesterday though I got a bit closer to being on track – Salad with a bit of Chicken with Wishbone spritzer for ‘brunch’, a bland chicken breast for mid afternoon and a delish pork stir fry for dinner.  The Pork was really easy. 

Pork cut into strips, mixed with 2 tablespoons of Zesty Honey Mustard (6 carbs) and a teaspoon of thyme.  Saute until done, remove pork then add 4 oz of white wine , let cook down, add 1 tablespoon of marge until melted, then add pork back in with a cooked package (16oz) of frozen cauliflower.  Toss until well coated and heated through, then serve – about 4 servings

 The recipe is a modification from the Saving Dinner menus for last week.  If you are unfamiliar with Saving Dinner, it is a subscription service that provides 6 menu plans, recipes and a grocery list for each week.  I subscribe to the LowCarb service and the recipes are not bland, most are all amazing.  They are not particularly low fat, but aren’t high fat either.  There can be a fair amount of carbs but they are almost all veggies.  If you have problems figuring out what to have for dinner for your family, do go check it out www.savingdinner.com. Best part for me – no more sitting at the table trying to figure out what to feed the family and then compiling the grocery list – it is done for me!

I also had a major insprirational moment last night – I was flipping channels in bed before hubby came up and passed Wayne Dwyer on PBS, stopped for a moment and listened to him explain a bit about (how I heard it) how goals are made up of small steps and accomplishments, that focusing on the big picture may have us forgetting to do the small things we need to do to get there.  He analogized it to a world ranked tennis player.  The tennis player has a goal of winning the tournament, BUT they win tournaments because they focus on the steps it will take to get there and they keep the focus on the step directly ahead of them, the next point, the next game, not to many points ahead.

 I think I was doing that with my weightloss, I had started thinking about maintainance, about life at goal, about everything but what I needed to do TODAY to make it a step closer. I was thinking only of LONGTERM goals versus the short term. 

So with a day of good on plan eating and new weight I am re-energized!  I realize I have a monumental weight so close , the 180’s.  So that is the more immediate goal and the points I have to win is keeping to healthy eating, little more exercise (I haven’t been doing the firm) and letting some water pass my lips

 Keep playing those points and it will be GAME, SET and Match!

Flashing Lights September 9, 2007

Wrote this on Friday..

Today,  I caught a glimpse of myself as I was leaving the house and thought, “You are actually getting close to that visualization your have of yourself”.

 

One of the visualization I use frequently while I am driving is one where I am wearing black, slim through the hip slacks, wider legs, white blouse, tucked in, short blonde hair, high black heels and a fair amount of 14kt gold jewelry.

Today the hair looks good, I am wearing a red pants suit (you know the one – jcpenney Sag Harbor, oversized long blazer) white tank and a nice amount of 14kt gold jewelry and some fake, plus my high heeled black sling backs. I am not exactly the size of the visualization, but the feel is getting closer.

So as I am driving along to work, I start my visualization and then I start thinking of my hair and actually considering having my hairdresser actually color and highlight it for me – More my natural dark base color with a more platinum highlights, rather than this strawberry blonde ish color I get no matter what color blonde I go and normally I am too cheap to pay to have my hair colored– Anyway I am deep in thought when what do I see behind me – Flashing lights.

I pull over and so does the trooper – AACCKK,  Had no idea what I had done wrong, only to find I had not come to a complete stop it seems, at a Stop sign!  Guess I visualized myself right through the sign- OOPPSS, first ticket in 30 years!

So off I go with my fresh ticket sitting next to me, I am trying to be careful, but am still really feeling rather good about myself, ticket hadn’t fazed me, but what appears behind me – FLASHING LIGHTS,- I pull to the side and so does the state trooper!  OMG! And it looks like the same trooper as before!

The woman Trooper walks up and I am about to have a stroke!  I am clueless on what I might have done this time, and then she just looks at my inspection sticker and says “ I couldn’t make it out, it is rather low and the same color as your car”  by then I am manically laughing – and I try to explain I had just gotten a ticket only 10 minutes earlier! She was surprised by my reaction and story until she actually saw the ticket, then realized I wasn;t a complete lunatic!

Anyway, as I drove off from the trooper for the second time in a 30 minute commute I turned on NPR and decided that I was no longer going to use drive time for extensive visualization exercises.

Me and my ‘diet’ September 8, 2007

I do clearly remember the day I found Kimkins – June 9, 2007. That Saturday morning I announced to my husband my weight, 233.3 and told him that was it, I was going to go back to good old fashioned Atkins, lots of chicken and meat and pork.  Then I went off to the grocery store to stock up, at check out I saw the Women’s World and decided to purchase it.

 Brought the Magazine home and read the Kimkins Article and it made complete sense, a lower fat, low carb was what I needed, so I joined immediately and kind of followed the program.  I say kind of because I have a long dieting history and A LOT of diet knowledge.

 Guess a little history of me is in order.

• Mom put me on Weight Watchers when I was in 6th grade, I weighed about 120 and was 5′3″
• Joined weightwatchers at 16 for the first time – weighed probably 150-160
• Senior year of HS did the nasty liquid protien – remember that cherry tasting stuff- OMG
• Bought about every diet book and magazine for about – oh ever-
• Got really slim after college on the “Date Diet”, coffee and an bagel at break, Tab/Diet Coke and Popcorn for other meals, drinks after work if going out, and real meals with even dessert if a “date” was paying.  I was dating alot then so this worked and I maintained about 132 until I met my husband.
• Knew I was obese when I got married – 5′4 and 148
• Joined WW again after wedding – got nowhere
• Gained to 158ish then went to work for WeightLoss Clinic International as a sales consultant and later director.  This was a 500-800 calorie a day program, low fat, and higher protein- I actually got down to 130 again, but I ate as I wanted on the weekend and followed the 500 cals on the weekdays
• Left WLC, had a baby, and settled back into the 150-160 range still considering myself obese
• Moved a couple of times and fluctuated back and forth between 150-180.  Dieting was easy, maintaining impossible, probably because I never considered myself slim, always thought- when I gained a pound or six, “Oh well, I have ?? pounds to lose anyway, what will this -fill in the high cal food- hurt.
• About 9 years ago I really discovered Atkins and with the help of the internet I also learned even more about diet and also how food worked for me.  I went from 184 to 149 in about 4 months.  In the end I was eating an ultimately healthy diet, proteins, veggies, natural fats, no dairy, no caffiene.  I was also walking an HOUR a day.  I was amazing! but I still thought I had more weight to lose …
• Went back to school and discovered this level of careful eating and intense exercise was difficult/impossible, slowly the scale went up, and up and up.  Graduated 3 years later at 202 (never had been there before except when pregnant)
• I had gone on a diet almost each day from that time forward, I kept trying to go straight back to the intense eating plan I had been following years before.  Each daily failure added a few more – “Why bother” calories and pound and I each year another 6-8 pounds.

So the day I choose to go to normal Old Fashioned High Fat Atkins was a turning point.  I had accepted that all or nothing dieting was not going to work – Atkins was a good program that worked for me in the past and if I needed to tweak it, well I could do that down the road. 

So I took on Kimkins – the biggest differences between “My Atkins” and how I practiced Kimkins was

• the use of those Wishbone salad spritzers – YUM!  That has made such a difference, no more drowning salads ( or anything else slightly low carb) in Ranch Dressing
• Veggies – Cauliflower, broc, brussel sprouts, cabbage – cucumbers, salad stuff are all somewhat free foods for me, I really don’t count veggie carbs
• I stay away from ‘white foods’ you know the bread, potatoes, rice, and sugar
• I don’t really count carbs

So now exactly 3 months later, I am down 39 pounds to 194.3.  I feel great, less joint pain and much more energy.

Kimkins has been great primarily for the forums and support.  With all the fussing going on about this program I am seeing alot of forum changes which is a shame, I will still post into our little challenge group  but also expand my thoughts over here and hopefully this little blog will keep me going

Writing all this out has been quite an experience – made me think about alot of things in my life and realize that I need to think about maintenance of this weight loss starting TODAY!  What I have accomplished so far must be maintained!

 Thanks for reading!

Someone Found this blog September 7, 2007

I was soooo shocked to see a comment to this blog – I figured I would be writing privately for quite some time – wow and HELLO world.

 Diet wasn’t anything special yesterday,  still up a bit and I ended up eating 2 rolls last night.  I was crampy and miserable and I made a concious decision.  Looking back at some notes, I have succumbed to carbs before my period at least once, each time my period has come.  It has probably slowed me a bit but I have always been able to get back on track easily so the two rolls aren’t that big a deal. 

I tried on a button front skirt last night and it is almost wearable- the buttons at the abdomen area are pulling just a little.  Two weeks ago when I tried it on, it wasn’t even close.  I have lost only a pound or 2 since then, so must be inches.  I took a quick hip measurement and compared it to the measurement I took just Monday when I started the Firm DVD’s.  I have lost an inch off my hips in just days!  WOW

 Baxter’s birthday was nothing to special.  He went to the groomers then had a playdate with the little girl shihtzu up the street.

I did finish the first front side of Rogue, will get the other side done tonight and be able to try it on then.- Picture to come.

 That is all for today

Hi there! September 6, 2007

Hello and Good Thursday Morning!

I am starting a blog because I have found that sharing some thoughts each day has really been helpful in my weightloss journey.  I have been entering a small entry on a Kimkin’s diet forumn each morning and it has really helped me keep going, but sometimes I would like to branch out a bit, beyond just diet so I decided it was time to start a blog!

 Yes – I have been doing Kimkins, or at least my style of Kimkin’s since June 9 and I have lost 39 pounds! If you are unfamiliar with Kimkins, simply is is a website that promotes a LowCarb, LowFat, LowCal diet program.  Best way to learn more is to Google it.  Some people love the program, others think it is evil and then there are people like me, I have made it work with a few tweaks and I think has been a good choice for me.  In the past years I have failed at every program I have tried! Plus gained a few more in frustration!

 I started my journey at 233.3 and yesterday weighed 194.3.  Yes I have lost 39 pounds in 13 weeks.  The weight loss has been very fast compared to some programs but reasonable when you consider my starting weight.  Kimkins can be very low cal but I have been adding healthy veggies freely and been somewhat liberal with fats!  When I have kept a Fitday food journal I have found my calories to be around 1000, lower than the magical 1200 but reasonable in my opinion.  Because of the fair amount of lowfat protein I have really not been hungry, which is why this program has been successful!

 Of course the scale was UP today, due to the period being a day away, eating WAY to much of a yummy ground beef and veggie sautee last night, and having completed my second day of the FIRM Tranfirmer Work out.  Not as stiff this morning and I would swear my lower abs are a bit tighter!  Will let you know how the inches work out for the first week when I measure on Sunday!

On the knitting front, I have finally begun a sweater I have coveted for ages.  I am knitting Rogue from girlfrom auntie.  It is a fabulous hoodie with amazing cable detail! (tomorrow I will add the link).  Almost 2 years ago a was given the yarn I am using.  My old boss and his wife bought it on a trip to Ireland.  I immediately thought of Rogue when I saw it but given my large size, a) the pattern wasn’t large enough for me and b) if I enlarged the pattern to fit – I certainly wouldn’t have had enough yarn!  But now the slimmer me fits easily into the largest size  measurement and the lower should be just a bit snug if I were to finish it today.  I am just finishing up the body, so two sleeves and a hood should take me about 2 weeks – Between diet and exercise it should be a nice fit and as I get slimmer it will be an ideal sweater to throw on when I take the dog out.

 Speaking of the dog, today is Baxter’s first Birthday!  Need to buy him a gift or two and figure out a way to make his kibble special tonight!

 Think I have probably gone on enough today – Look for me here tomorrow

 Thanks for Reading

Baxter’s Mom