Check This Out!

So if you don't post and entry to your blog in, oh, FOREVER, then your weight may have changed significantly since your last diatribe. Hopefully, this change is for the better. And for me? I noticed I'd lost nearly 7 pounds!

This is such a good thing, because I need a boost lately. Not so much to my eating and exercise plan, but to my mood. A big change to a weight ticker is a nice little nudge.

I've gotten a few comments lately from friends, which has been gratifying. It's kinda funny to watch them struggle. The skinny ones always have a harder time with this. "You look great! I mean, have you...um. You look really good!!" This is where I can choose to help them out and volunteer, "Thanks, yes, (to answer the question you couldn't bring yourself to actually ask) I have lost a bit of weight."

The pastor at our church has gone on a big diet, which he's posting details about on his Facebook page AND a blog. Last month the man lost 25 pounds. This morning I told him that I'm happy for him and all, but it's just not fair. I kill myself (odd, I put it that way, since I'm treating my body better than ever before, eh?) to lose 7 or so, and he peels off almost 4 times that. But I'm glad he's posting about his success, because I try not to make comments about men's appearances as a general rule, so he's helping me side-skirt that by talking numbers. Numbers are good.

Now to something that has me really optimistic: a friend I've been sitting next to in a Bible study for months now (and who is funny as all get out, and has such a good heart), just sort of blurted out that she has had an eating disorder in the past, and is so stuck trying to lose weight now. She and I are the only two in our group who need to drop weight, and I assume that's why she opened up to me about it. But I'm SO excited! Not because she struggles as I do, but that we know about eachother now, and can support eachother. We've already planned to go walking a couple of times a week together. Now we can chat and burn fat. What more could a woman want? That was a stupid question now that I think of it: a size 6 swimming suit that looks good on, calorie-free chocolate, and my BFF local instead of 7 hours away...those would be nice too :)

I'm Here, I'm Here!

So you may think that I've fallen off the face of the earth, but I haven't at all :) I just took a very long Christmas break. And I had house guests galore during this time and didn't want my dad peering over my shoulder asking all about this blog I'm writing.

SO, here I am, just a wee bit heavier than my status bar shows, but stronger than ever, eating healthfully and Wii-ing (Wii Active) my way back to my former low. I have a new toy in my arsenal, and I LOVE it. It's my favorite weight loss gadget so far, and on this long and often painful road, every little thing helps, right?

I received an iPod Touch for Christmas. It's much like the iPhone, but without the cell service (and the whopping fees that come along with it). I can browse via WiFi in my home, and around town at various hot spots. One of the many joys of this little computer gizmo is an Application (can't say, "App" because that word annoys the heck out of me) called Tap and Track. For a couple of bucks, I now own a walking food, exercise, and weight tracker with thousands of foods from home and restaurants stored in the memory. I don't have to be connected to the internet to use it, so it's always available, and I must say, it's been awesome to use. I used to track with Weight Watchers online, but I couldn't stand paying the monthly fee, and when I went out, I had to remember everything in my head to track when I got home. Forget travelling.
Now, my iPod goes everywhere I do, and so does my tracker. And no one looks at me funny as I enter my food. For all they know, I'm checking email!!

Although the month of December was tough food-wise, things have been going very well lately, and I'm as determined as ever. I changed my new goal to 170, just so I have something shorter term to look forward to. Hopefully I'll be back here before then!

The Chocolate Mousse Diet??

I am a Clean Eater, hear me ROAR. Or, watch me shrink? Or be healthy and peppy, and obnoxiously optimistic???

Even a veggie eating freak needs a treat here and there, right? So mine is usually scheduled for Wednesday night when one of the ladies in my group brings a dessert to share. Last night, I was the chef, and I am glad to state that I will not be doing that again for a very long time!

I made a chocolate mousse pie. During the process I probably ate about half a serving just by licking various cooking apparatuses. (Aparati?) Note to self: cook with fewer utensils and bowls and notice how much less you must clean up with your tongue as you work.

It was a lovely creation/heart attack in a pie plate, and the ladies loved it. I had a slice and ate all but one bite of it. I normally never do that, but I was proving a point to myself; I do not have to be a card-carrying member of the Clean Plate Club.

By the time I got home I felt sick. Almost throw-up sick. I couldn't force down my daily salad because I felt so sick, so I went to bed, and decided I'm not making that again, and I may need to cut my weekly dessert portion down even smaller, if I even have one. What's the sense in enjoying five minutes of a sweet, creamy taste, if I'm going to feel so nasty afterward?

So what did the scale have to say about my affair with the mousse??????? I lost that last pound, and I saw an 8 on the tens place, WOOOOHOOOO!!!! I'm in the 180's, I'm in the 180's. I'd be cheering this around my house loudly and wildly, if I weren't trying so hard NOT to give my young daughters a body-weight complex.

Do I credit the mousse with my loss? Heck no. It was all that salad I ate last week :)

Almost Thirty!!

Just one more pound, and I will have lost 30 whole pounds :) The first 20 came off several months ago, and I have fought the recent 10 like a mad woman. But it's worth it, and I'm so thrilled to be coming upon the 180's!! I haven't seen the 170's in a couple of years or so, and I am READY to sail through those and keep on trucking.

What has struck me as interesting since I started my Clean Eating Campaign, is that I am free from having to track, count, calculate, etc. I don't count points or calories anymore. I don't count servings. I really don't have any use for counting. And I love this, because it was getting pretty tedious. I had to do it, or else I'd have gone nuts trying to figure out if I'd eaten too much that day. But now, I eat when I'm hungry, and because the food only tastes good if I'm actually hungry, I naturally stop when I'm full. I do force myself to eat a big salad every day, and I never have done that before, but it's ok. I'm learning ways to dress up my greens so they're palatable.

One of my favorites is a huge, and I mean HUGE, heap of baby greens and romaine. (I literally had to buy an extra large bowl to fit my salads in. If that's not clean, you might catch me eating one out of my Kitchen Aid Mixer bowl. Yes, that big.) The greens are covered with carrot shreds, chick peas, grapes, pine nuts, and cilantro. If I have tomato or avocado around, I'll use that too. Then I use a couple of TBSP of Bolthouse Farms Yogurt dressing, or Newman's Own light vinaigrette. Then I crunch away until I have a clean bowl.

One of my new favorite quick meals for just myself is the Kashi brand Veggie Bake. It's whole grain, with lots of fiber and veggies, and it's pretty tasty. I've lost my desire for cooking, so I'm going for what's fast and healthy, and this hits the spot when I don't have pita with hummus in the house.

To those of you who held the intervention on my behalf the other day, THANK YOU!! I need the encouragement, and you all stepped right up and helped me out. I hope I can be there for others in their time of doubt, need, weakness, and celebration!

Stretch marks, Butt Eating, and Bread Sticks, Oh MY!

Thanks to some wonderful comments on my post yesterday, (and God, of course), last night was a lovely, non-weight-gaining or diet-trashing, dinner with my friends. I was tempted. I waffled back and forth. I looked for a good reason, anything at all, to truly justify poor choices rather than healthy ones. But the health nut in me won, and I was down .6 on the scale this morning!!

I also had a wicked headache this morning, which I haven't faced in a couple of weeks. Food additives, anyone?

So I opened my menu and saw several dishes that I've loved in the past. They were loaded with cheeses, cream, and white-white pasta. Mmmm.

I watched as people picked out what they were going to order. Many were obsessed with what everyone else was having. Could it be that I'm not the only one at this table who is fighting an internal war right now?

I'd read somewhere that I should order first, before I could toss around others' choices and let that influence mine. But that backfired, because one of the other ladies, who is usually very restrictive in what she eats, ordered a bowl of Alfredo sauce as an appetizer to go with her bread sticks before we even got to dinner orders. If she's throwing all caution to the wind, maybe I should too...

In the end, I opted for chicken breasts (not a usual part of my daily fare) with asparagus, tomatoes, and broccoli. I also asked for my salad with the dressing on the side, and pick off all of the croutons. And when it came time for one of the ladies to pass around slices of her homemade chocolate raspberry cheesecake, I accepted a very small one and enjoyed every last little morsel.

I left comfortable, not stuffed, and was hungry by bedtime. Which, reminded me of a couple of conversations that went around the table during dinner:

Somehow we ended up discussing our stretch marks, and other lovely aspects of mothering (we were there for a baby shower). I am not alone in the road map all over my abdomen, apparently.

Then one of the ladies mentioned how she tries to go to bed hungry every night because Oprah said that if we go to bed hungry, our bodies eat our butt's fat cells while we sleep. This was said by one of the thinner ladies in the group. Hmmm, maybe she's thin for a reason??

This struck me because so many of us food-a-holics like to think that we're heavy because of our genes, or bad luck, or a misalignment of the stars. What I'm finding over and over again, is that thin people work at it. Even my ridiculously skinny husband intentionally limits himself on a daily basis.

Above all, I'm patting myself on the back for realizing (FINALLY!) that eating out does not mean that I should gorge myself. And that no food is so special, or "free", or so limited in availability that I must eat it "now or never". So here I head, into my third week of 95% clean eating, and I'm feeling very, very good about it.

Big, Huge, Stinking Bum(mer)

Did my 'weigh myself only once per week' backfire? I stepped on that glorious wretch of a device this morning to find a .2 GAIN!!! What the heck is up with that?

My food was so clean this week. I exercised, I drank water, I ate like a rodent on a rampage. And I was expecting a least a couple of pounds to fall away....Now I'm wondering if I shouldn't just go back to weighing every day; and here's why:

We went to dinner last night at Ruby Tuesdays. I poured over the menu, looking at all of those lovely entrees loaded with cheese, creamy sauces, and tender meats. And I chose the salad bar. THE SALAD BAR. I had 2 or 3 plates loaded with romaine, spinach, chickpeas, soy beans, olives, carrots, peppers, mushrooms, and drizzled with LIGHT dressings. I also ordered their guacamole appetizer, which, by the way, was incredible.

After I was stuffed with salad greens, I ate some of the guacamole. It came with corn chips (I had a couple of hand fulls), salsa, and pico de gallo. It was fabulous, but everyone else was stuffed by the time it came (our server must have thought we wanted it for dessert??) so I probably ate more than I should have, hoping to clean my plate. That darn club won't let me go!

There was just no way I could finish it all, so I ended up packing away about half of it, and they sent us home with a refill of chips.

So the chips were a little salty, and so was the pico. My salad dressings were too, but nothing like the Amy's Tomato soup I had the other day. So, do I get to blame the gain on more salt than I usually eat. Some crazed magnetic pull that effects scale readings in my neighborhood (was there some sort of lunar event recently?). I need something! Anything. To justify this nonsense. Humph. If I had been weighing myself all week, perhaps I would have seen a bit of a loss prior to the salt-scepade.

The worst part of all of this, is that I have a fabulous dinner to go to with my Bible study ladies tonight at the Olive Garden. My plans (prior to my evil-scale-reading-rebellious-thoughts) were to order soup and salad, and then enjoy a small slice of the cheesecake one of the ladies is making for us.

Then I weighed this morning. What do I want now? 10 baskets full of bread sticks all for moi, 3 or 4 bowls full of salad dripping with dressing, the creamiest, cheesiest entree they have, and a HUGE honkin slice of that cake. I obviously need some help. Some prayers. An intervention. A one on one with my Creator. That would be nice :)

I Will NOT get on that scale!!!

I always sleep with some water on my bedside table; thirst can strike at any time, right? Or a fire, or a coughing kid, or insomnia which requires a little squirt of melatonin followed by a good rinse.

My water is serving another purpose now. If I drink some before I get out of bed in the morning, then I render any scale readings (should I lose my resolve to wait until Wednesday mornings) inaccurate. And this, my friends, is perfect for the OCD person in me who won't settle for an off scale reading.

I had to guzzle that water this morning, because I WANT TO KNOW!!!! I tried on some pants I am hoping to wear without looking like a streetwalker. Not yet. I looked in the mirror. Still puffy. I am hunting for encouragement here.

So I am sitting here trying to come up with some NSVs. It turns out there are quite a few:

• When I get out of bed in the morning, my feet don't hurt anymore. It used to be quite painful to start walking around for the day.
• I can wear something other than this one pair of black stretch pants that would fit an elephant (if an elephant so desired).
• I am not hiding as much as I was.
• I was able to traipse all around Disney World while we were there last month and fit all the rides, and enjoy the fun with my kids. This is a priceless memory for me.
• I have been eating out and ordering healthy foods. I have been eating salads galore, and fresh fruits. I haven't touched a hydrogenated fat, artificial color or flavor, or nitrite. Nearly 98% of my calories the last two weeks have been life-giving, disease-fighting foods.
• I still have hope.
• I am exercising reasonably.

I can wait to weigh another 48 hours, right? And although I'm hoping for a nice, big loss, I can cope if it's not, because I know that each day that I live and eat this way, is one more day and another step toward lifelong fitness.