Discussion Board

Thanks for stopping by, sksamboots! It's a crazy mixed-up thing, to get excited by being overweight, but labels are what they are! I know ETeSelle is going nuts over her decline to a BMI of 29.7!

Today was weird for me because I knew I was going out to lunch, but I forgot to wear my sweater, so I was in a pickle. Why, you all ask? Well, because restaurants are cold, and I usually am getting a salad at restaurants now, and I was freezing, so I had to order warm food (it was a business meeting, so I couldn't leave). And for some reason they went to a Greek place (instead of an Italian) because they thought it would be easier for me. I had hummus which probably had oil, and spanatirakopita, which had fat in the phyllo, and feta. Oh well.

For the last part of the day, I just had baby carrots, cherry tomatoes, and orange peppers with a little bit of salsa. And now it's time for bed.

I did about 12 minutes of yoga today and did a little stair-stepping (5 m.?) on my landing.

Thanks, Deb! I wonder if there's something magical about those mid-70s! Since they are so hard to get out of, I mean...however, they are very new to me--I haven't hung out in this decade of pounds since, maybe, before 1989, so perhaps it just wants to get to know me well

Well, this morning I am becoming convinced that even my tiny 15-minute workouts were valuable--I feel out of shape! Back to basics--make time for the Wii Fit! 10 minutes is a rock-bottom minimum--15 is a daily ideal, with more when I can. No skipping!

B'fast will be oatmeal and cherries. Lunch is still sitting at work--1.5 cups of Int'l Rice Stew and yam, and fresh tomatoes, peppers and carrots. I may take 2 small taters to microwave, in case I stay late to finish the financials. (176.6)

I say any workout you can do is wonderful!! When I first started out, I could only do about 15, if that. I say you did the best at the restaurant that you could, I probably would have made the same choice. Your doing great

Good morning! Good to hear from you, Debbie and sksamboots!

I did better on exercise this morning--18 minutes, mostly step, with the 3-minute run in the middle. It's not that I get winded or tired. I have time limitations to get ready for work and all. My problem with exercise is in WANTING to do it, not that I can't do it. And for the first 6 months, I just got up and DID it, and then I gradually started to give myself more days off, days (like before I started on McD) when I'm too tired to get into my workout clothes (pitiful!).

(176.0)
Yesterday I had LOTS of oatmeal and some cherries at B'fst, lunch was the rest of the salsa, carrots, tomatoes, and pepper, and dinner was a big lettuce salad with white and sweet potato and 1.5 T balsamic, and 1 1/2 cup of the Int'l rice stew--very flavorless for some reason.

This morning: oatmeal and blueberries. Lunch: more Int'l and the veggie mix I made. Carrots and salsa, and a pepper. Karaoke tonight, so no dinner!

I can say most days I don't want to exercise. I would rather sleep in or spend my time doing something else. But one day I started to change my thinking and told myself that exercise was not a choice. Just like I woke up and did my morning routine, it's not a choice, something I have to do. It took time to adjust but it does work. It's just apart of my life now. Take the choice out and it become a little easier

Quick post this a.m.: 176.6, 2 pound gain over the travel weekend, but not too out of line for most Mondays. 13 minutes on the Wii this morning--dragging my unwilling butt all the way.

Speaking of butts--my hips are down (from a high of 52) to 43", making everything about me but my waist a size 14! What's with my waist? It never lagged in the past, as a matter of fact, that's where I lost the most. Oh well, TGFE (Thank God For Elastic)!

I tried to make the trip work, but I obviously am not ready for prime-time restauranting. The first dinner place, in North Pole, had an acceptable salad bar, but small, and my cheap bone said no way am I spending $9.95 on a 3-part salad bar, so I ordered spaghetti with marinara and dinner bread. It was, of course, white bread, and white spaghetti, but I asked for marinara without meat--probably prepared with oil--but they served it with Parmesan on top!!!

Then they brought garlic bread, covered in not just butter but cheese--I ate it and regretted it all evening.

Well, I'd better go and I'll finish my saga later today. I have to record the good the bad and the ugly about my choices and how the weekend went. It's no wonder I hate travel--$800 to $900 gone, and a 2-3 pound gain. The things we do for love!

OK, to continue my detailing of the perils of the Fairbanks weekend: breakfasts were fine, Sam' Sourdough offered oatmeal and I had raisins, as a serving of canned fruit added $4.95 to the bill, and no fresh fruit was available (I asked)! Lunch Sat. was at a Thai place, and I thought I did REALLY good with a curry (broccoli, carrots, baby corn, onions, over brown rice, in coconut milk--no oil used. It wasn't until after lunch that I searched the McD site and saw that coconut milk is high in sat fat! I had no idea! Dang--I had really thought I did well.

So I did fine at Sat. dinner! We went to the Chena Pump House and I had a salad with mango and tomatoes, no prosciutto or parmesan, and asked for just balsamic on the side. It turned out to be a delicious balsamic "infusion" and we asked to see the bottle. The ingredients were balsamic, sugar, and xanthan gum, so OK. I also had a baked potato, which was overcooked, and there was salt sticking to the sides, so I didn't eat the skin, because it had to have been oiled, right?

I'll finish this later...Oh, 174.6 again so I may make the week without a loss at least.

Looks like your doing good. Keep on keepin on

Yeah, Debbie, Alaskan restaurants are tricky, especially the ones farther out of Anchorage. Roadhouses on the Alaska Highway and our other more remote highways have the food they have, and that's it. It all has to be either shipped in, or someone has to make the long drive to Anchorage or Fairbanks. So prices are high, and choices are few.

There are a couple of roadhouses which still charge $69.95 for a Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich! It's a joke, of course--they don't HAVE PB&J, but it's from people with kids traveling up and the kids demanding PB&J, even though it wasn't available. They set the price high enough to discourage folks from asking for it!

And so on to my last restaurant of the weekend. A roadhouse. We had high hopes for it and it disappointed us mightily--DH got a hamburger, and it was probably a frozen patty, and fries that were obviously also frozen pre-cut. There was NOTHING for me, but when you are the only people in the restaurant, it is rude to not order anything. I got the soup of the day, hoping that it would be the one item that had been made from scratch. Well, fat chance. It was split pea, and I have been McDougalling so long I forgot about the ham it would have in it! I just set them aside, under my napkin. I asked for a side of toast, knowing it wouldn't be whole grain, but it came slathered in soft margarine! I was hungry enough that I wiped it off--it took 2 napkins for that! At most restaurants, I expect that toast comes unbuttered, with pat of butter on the side, for pete's sake.

So that was a sad end to the trip, which was otherwise quite fun. When we got home, though, I had two glasses of wine, and ended the day having a bowl of peanut butter with raisins. And that was the end of that spate of eating. It's over and I've been on plan since Sunday night was over!

At work, since we can't eat in our offices right now, I have been only able to eat my salad, and no cooked food. I eat in my car, if I drive in myself, because we are starting to have volunteers in the break room a good part of the day. I mean, where can we go to eat? Grrr. And for dinner I made spinach, peas, canned tomatoes and brown rice. Yummy, comfort food!

Weigh-in on the MWL board tomorrow--we'll see!

This morning I got in a lousy 10 minutes of exercise. I can't make myself get ready any earlier--I'm not sure what's happening.

Sunday 7:10 am. Yesterday I did 20 m. of step and yoga one the Wii, and then Ted got up. I had slept in till 7:30, but it felt so good to get 8 hours--I don't care what Dr McD says about depression and sleep! I've never been depressed, and I need my sleep!!

Today I managed 30 min. of Wii step and yoga, scoring higher than I have in months! I really don't get my energy levels in the morning, but of course sleeping until 6 makes a huge difference (some times). In any case, I took what I could get (yes, I took what I could get, and then she looked at me with her big brown eyes and said, "You ain't seen nothin' yet, b-b-b-baby, you ain't seen nothin' yet"...)

My hip flexor/knee pain lasted all day yesterday and through most of my night's sleep, I am not sure why. Tried ibuprophen twice, can't tell if it had any effect at all. It twinged this morning, but felt better after the warrior pose, and I was going to do the 30-minute hip opener video, but I was too shaky after the exercise. And no time later (there never is) because we are having company at some undetermined time today. I'm really looking forward to it!

Besides the usual bratwurst in beer grill, we'll have small red potatoes, cole slaw with carrots, and grilled onions, summer squash, and peppers. Goes without saying the bratwurst is for everyone else!

The rest of my day will be Oatmeal with blueberries, and some of yesterday's SNAP with the stir fry snap peas.

Yesterday's food: Oatmeal with blueberries (too watery--Ted fail--make his without anything added--he hated the vanilla!)
Lunch: 7 tiny red potatoes, spinach/snap pea/tomato/garbanzo salad (1/2 c. beans) Dinner: 2 big bowls SNAP, 1 toasted w/w Thins, 1 apple

Work today: wash kitchen dishes, counter, and floor, laundry, and make cole slaw, clean bathroom, take shower.

Well, I have a really clean house, cole slaw in the fridge (wasn't as great as it smelled), and bean dip and baked chips for me. Kevin and Turi didn't make it, but boy, I'm so glad I cleaned as if folks were coming over. I never clean that well otherwise!

I seemed to weigh 1.6 pounds more this morning - both scale and Wii--but I am not discouraged. I have been totally on plan, and exercised well. I am convinced at this point that my body is just trying to become accustomed to this new level of weight--I have not been at this weight for 22 years, and I think it is boggled--like, what is this new thing? And where did my cushion go?

Yesterday's food: steel-cut oats and blueberries, 4-bean salad (Costco) and 2 c. SNAP with Teriyaki sauce (frozen spinach needs to be cooked--tastes pretty yukky without it!), 4 tiny red potatoes, 1/2 c. bean dip & salsa with 10 tortilla chips (baked corn tortillas), 1 c. cole slaw.

This morning I did 18 m. of step, adding some big arm movements where they clap ("well, if he's gonna do big arms, I'll do big arms, too. Guys, we can't all do big arms!"). I can tell by how it feels that it'll be really good for my arms! It felt good, exercising this morning, which makes me wonder why some mornings are such a drag. Oh well, I was not born to exercise, obviously. I've never been a fan. Walking, yes--I walked everywhere as a kid. But with gravel, weather, dust, bugs, etc, I am not in a place I can get out on any regular basis. I am a sidewalk lady, and I neither live nor work at a place with sidewalks. So indoors for me!

Food today: oatmeal and blueberries. Lunch--better take the cole slaw, but add baby tomatoes, and the baby potatoes, and I can eat in the car. Dinner--finish the SNAP--cook it some more, and add something to make it palatable. Have bean dip, salsa and chips.

Looking great Frozenveg!!
lfwfv

Your doing good

Hi lfwfv, skssamboots, and debbie, and thanks for stopping by! You guys are more faithful to my journal that I've been, lately!

But I'm in audit prep mode at work--2 weeks until I have to have the info to the auditors, and have the financials ready, and 3 weeks until the field work, and it takes 9 - 10 hours of intense concentration every day. In a workplace of 28 people, that takes a LOT of concentration, which is exhausting. So I have almost no spare time right now--if DH was out of town I'd be at work today, no mistake!

Well, at the MWL weigh-in yesterday, I had lost .2 pounds, and I've been trying to figure out, since I've been on-plan for two weeks (well, 12 days), why I am stuck. I am going to try a week of very plain food. Maybe it's salt, who knows, but I just feel like my body needs some clearing out. So I'm eliminating my dressing for my salads, and I'm going to have very plain food for a few weeks. Yesterday I ate a SNAP that had very little sauce stuff added to it, plain brown rice, fresh tomatoes, snap peas and carrots, and an apple for lunch, and for dinner I had several boiled red potatoes and nuked Normandy frozen veggies (broc-caul-carrot), with 1 teaspoon Dijon and 1 tablespoon sweet pickle relish. It felt good!

AND, most important of all, I resisted the urge to get "a little something" when DH went to do the same. He gets me every time, and even tho it's plan food, if I don't need any more, I shouldn't go get some, just for noms!

So this morning I was 172.8. Now, I always weigh less when I get up later, but I'm just sayin'. !!!!!!!!!!

Still can't remember when I weighed this little before. Now it's becoming a bit of an obsession--has it been 1977? I can't remember what my weight was in the summer of 1988 when I was on Weight Watchers, but I'm pretty confident it was in the 160s. I think when we went to New Orleans in March of that year I weighed 187.

I am starting to obsess about clothes. I'm discontented wiht everything I've got--it is all slightly too big. I have no good idea where to get them, now that I'm not queen size. I love the fit of my Lane Bryant jeans and trousers, and my Cacique bras and panties, and their smallest sizes are too big. Where do I go? I'm not used to buying clothes in stores, and I haven't gone anywhere but Old Navy, which has a very limited selection, no sleepwear or underwear to speak of. I haven't had time yet to spend on the long slog of trying on a million things. Also, I do NOT need summer clothes, and that's all they have out right now. I want sweaters and turtlenecks! And cute jeans and better-fitting bras. The biggest hurdle, of course, is that I am in the middle of this decline, and can't afford to be buying clothes all the way down another 50 pounds! I want to look good when I go down to Corvallis, but maybe what I should do is wait until I get there, and then spend a day at the outlet mall....Ooh, good idea, if slightly off the point of the trip...

Oh, forgot to say...I did 17:20 on the recumbent bike this morning. I always forget to record this stuff on the Wii on the day I do it. Wish you could record previous day's activities!