Give Blood

OK - So I did - give blood that is. Last night after work. I ate cookies. WELL! They don't exactly HAVE snacks for elimination diet people. I LOOKED for fresh fruit - but I was the last person there, they were packing up around me and I KNOW they just wanted me to eat my cookies and shut up. I did drink water though. No soda or fruit juice for me. Anyway - as a result my stomach was all upset last night - but I don't know if it was because of the cookies, or if it would have been that way anyway. I did discover another snack I could eat - peanut butter. That is an approved food, as long as it is all natural, no additives. So, peanut butter with apples is a good snack.

I have nothing else to report. I didn't exercise - I didn't get home from giving blood until around 9pm - and made dinner at that point. By THEN it was practically time to go to bed. So - that was my whole day.

I dropped my sewing machine off for a tune-up. I haven't had it done since I bought the machine - seven years ago I believe. Hopefully they will be able to replace the broken flap of the open arm part of the machine. Currently it is held together with packing tape - that seems to be doing the trick. The bobbin case cover also was behaving perfectly yesterday. It frequently doesn't release when you need it too, but yesterday it did both times when I tried to show the guy what was wrong with the machine. I also got yelled at because there was a metal bobbin in the machine. You are only supposed to use plastic bobbins - which I HAVE, but for some reason currently there is a metal one in there. I have to switch out all of my bobbins!! I have been very much back into the idea of quilting - I am sure much to Mom's relief since she is the owner of one of my unfinished projects. Katie's quilt is also slated to be finished - and I have all of the fabric and design for one for Mary (using some inheirated quilt blocks from Grandma as the center design...) I have a pattern and some fabrics for one for Connor (a VERY cute one with frogs forming the blocks...and an idea for one for Claire, but I can't find the pattern for it. However, at the rate that you all are reproducing I will never get all of the kids covered. Since I currently have no machine I think I will start cutting out squares for some of these other quilts. Sigh - Too bad I have to work for a living! I SO want to be home playing with fabrics right now!!!

Day four

OK - I have been wheat free, gluten free, dairy free, soy free, caffine free, sugar free, and I don't know what else free for three and a half days now. My stomach seems to be liking this - in that I have also been reflux free, and spastic colon free for most of this time too. I am not sure which it is that my body is glad to be rid of - but I a petrified that it is the gluten. That would TOTALLY suck having to give up most grains - but I guess I would learn to get used to it. Wheat wouldn't be quite as bad because I could probably still have oatmeal ot whatever.

I have to admit - I am tired of brown rice for breakfast. I don't know why I can't think of anything else to eat. I bought smoked salmon - but that needs cream cheese and a bagel to be eaten. Maybe I could make another rice dish with the salmon and maybe spring onions. I wonder if that would be any good for breakfast. My other issue is snacks. I haven't been snacking much - mostly because I have been eating late - but all I can think of, outside of fruits and vegetables, is nuts - and I can only eat so many unsalted cashews and almonds. Actually - I CAN eat them all night - but they aren't MEANT to be eaten in great quantities. Last night I did have 1 oz of my 73% cocoa organic dark chocolate. I couldn't find my paperwork to confirm if this was illeagal or not... The book I am reading now - Ultrametabolism - is very similar to what I am doing currently and it DOES allow this type of chocolate - but I suspect I am supposed to not be eating it - so I won't eat it tonight............maybe.

I also still have to exercise again. I was really impressed by how much I got done yesterday because I didn't read all day. I can't believe how much time I waste just reading. I got the kitchen cleaned, the bathroom cleaned, went to church, went to pick up my tents from Brian, weeded the front garden, watered and weeded the back garden, watched several episodes of Charmed, cooked, and took out the trash. That is about 17 more things than I normally get done... but no exercise.

Weight creep

I was 140 today. No matter how many times I weighed myself I was *still* 140. This wasn't really a surprise--since my two weeks on South Beach I've been on the anti-South Beach diet where I eat every carb in sight and then go out and buy some more. And no exercise. So I put on almost five pounds in, what, three weeks? Horrible.

I did get back to the gym yesterday for the first time since before Disney World, so that's a start. I couldn't run--not just out of shape, but I also left my jog bra at home! The fastest I could go without real pain was 4.7 mph. But if I keep going, no excuses, and cut back down on my food to a normal level I should be o.k. and able to reverse this disgusting trend!

148.5

Thank goodness. That's a three-pound drop from last week. But I've already run out of steam -- last night I did fine until after the kids were in bed, and then I got munchy and ate a half a bag of microwave popcorn (and not the healthy kind -- the full fat variety). Today I'm doing fine so far but it's only 1:20, and I don't usually fall apart until late afternoon or evening.

Yesterday I exercised at the gym and mostly did my usual workout -- I didn't do all of the weights because my arms and shoulders were still sore from the hike, so I figured I had had an adequate arm workout then. I did do the shoulder press, at least. I also did my 100 VKRs, and much to my surprise I was able to do them in two sets of 50 instead of struggling through 25 or 30 at a time. So the daily crunches are really doing a lot of good.

Today I don't have exercise plans. I will at least do crunches. Not sure what else.

Giraffe Wearing Lederhosen

Yeah. Totally random title. Means nothing.

I did not weigh my self today. Amy was correct that last night's food was part of the eat sensibly plan. But it was easy and fed a lot of people on a Monday night after work, and that was the main goal. I am so tired today. The last people left at 11:30 last night.

Tonight I am going to the gym if it kills me. I'll let you know how that goes tomorrow.

Ban Influence - not so bad

OK - My weight today was 225.

I did REALLY well for the most part with my elimination diet. I ate my correct food - I felt hungry when I was supposed to - but not overly hungry. I THINK I would have done really well with it all day - except JULIE was a bad influence on me!! 8-) Actually, Julie was my witness - we met for coffee yesterday and I TRIED to order a decaf iced green tea - but they only had two iced teas - neither green or decaf. So they said they could brew it for me - which would take about 5 minutes (neither Julie nor I had a ton of time yesterday) but I said OK. Then he said well, we don't have decaf green tea... So I said forget it! I will have a green tea passionfruit smoothie. Which was toxic orange - and I suspect had High Frutose Corn Syrup in it. Sigh... THEN - Julie had a party last night. I intended to be good there, but the food LOOKED so good - and smelled even better. I had a small ceasar salad, three baby carrots and mostly the meat out of a serving of pasta. YUM! Then we soaked our feet... Then I had two pieces of rye bread with dill dip... AND - the coup de grace - Julie got the YUMMIEST cupcakes from that cupcake place she was telling us about. Oh my! I had a key lime pie one and half of a chocolate fudge brownie one. Yeah - I went down in flames. BUT it was totally worth it!!!

So I am back to the drawing board today. I need to do three things:
1. Start to exercise again
2. Eat my correct foods
3. Something else that I just forgot in the time it took me to type the other two things...

Starting again... again

Last week from Monday through Thursday I ate very well, but on Friday evening things broke down. Up until then I'd been able to eat ONE tiny treat when I was desperate, but on Friday I had pizza for dinner (planned -- it was my Stampin' Up night, and we always have pizza) but I ate two slices (because the first had pineapple and chicken and the chicken sounded good to me, but the sauce was sweet and the pineapple was too sweet so it didn't feel like I'd had pizza so I had to eat a pepperoni slice), and I came home and found myself terribly snacky, and I started eating and didn't manage to stop until I'd had several chocolates (pretty big, European ones). Then Saturday I plunged into the chips and salsa like there was no tomorrow, and then on Sunday it was chips with dinner, and on all three nights I had something alcoholic (only maybe not Saturday, I forget now), and no matter how you look at it it was a lot of calories all three days.

I exercised on Wednesday (rode my bike 11 miles) and on Sunday (we took a 4-mile hike, uphill to the falls with a toddler in my backpack the first two miles, downhill with a much lighter load the other two) but that was it for the week. This week I have three exercise appointments, though, so things should go a little better.

Today I'm starting fresh on the food thing, too. That is definitely where I see the quickest results -- I dropped back to 149 very rapidly last week (but I'm still there now). So far today I've had two servings of dairy and three of grains, and one of fruit, so I have room for a lot of veggies and protein. Which is good, because I'm hungry.

New Week - new Diet

OK - I weighed myself this morning - I was 225.4. That is EXACTLY 10 pounds up from my original weigh in of 9/6/05 - but it is my official starting weight for my elimination diet. I had a lot of fun this weekend cooking food I can eat - I just hope I don't get sick of it too quickly because it is all I get for the next 2-3 weeks. Lots of brown rice. Luckily I like brown rice - so I guess I will pretend that I am Asian for a little bit. They're all skinny - excepte the sumo wrestlers. Katie, Why were we imitationg sumo wrestlers? I remember walking up the hill at Pennsic doing the stomping thing... Hummmm. I am sure it made sense at the time.

Julie - I am addicted to your India blog! Update! Update!! I just started reading a book Laura gave me for my birthday. It is called Eat, Pray, Love. It is an autobiographical story of a woman's finding herself journey through Italy, India and Indonisia after her life fell apart a few years back. So far I am only at the life falling apart phase - but Laura said I should loan it to you. It is good so far! Laura can always be relied upon to come up with well written, meaningful books. I can usually come up with good story/trashy books.

Now I'm cooking!

I went grocery shopping late last night and came up with a ton of foods that I can eat. I discovered - not rice flour pasta, I knew that existed, but - GIANT carries rice flour pasta. I bought some and made pesto today. I also made a big pot of Nyoyo with black beans in place of the corn, and a bunch of hummus. I intend to eat that with carrots, and garden grown tomatoes and green peppers.

I still haven't been weighing myself. I intend to tomorrow though, since I am starting the elimination diet then. I guess that means I should run to Caribou and get a last coffee for three weeks. Sigh. I bought some weird Indian caffeine free tea yesterday - called Roubiou - or something like that. It is supposed to have a vanilla flavor to it. We will see if it will do instead of coffee.

Actually - what I think I am going to miss most is dairy. I keep thinking that some of the foods would be good - with sour cream, or cheese. Funny - I didn't realize how much dairy I consumed until I began to plan a menu without it.

Stuck

I have been trying to come up with foods for the elimination diet... It turns out the pork is NOT one of the foods to be eliminated - but I don't see me eating bacon for breakfast each day. I don't know what to do for morning protein. I did create a hot brown rice/raisin/almond and cinnamon concoction today - which I think will do for morning food otherwise. Also - I remembered that I like the Kenyan Nonyo for breakfast. The only thing with that is that it has corn in it - which is forbidden. I may substitute another bean for the corn. I could also have that for lunch instead of breakfast.

I love my garden. Next year I think I will just plan one cherry tomato plant though. And maybe only one large tomato plant. I wish my peppers were doing better. I might take out the butterfly bush and replace it with more garden. I would like to grow onions and garlic if I can. Beans or peas would have also been nice. I wish I had the space for a garden like Sarah's. It is the perfect size. Maybe I will rip up my whole front yard and make it into a vegetable garden. We aren't doing anything else with it. I need to take that tree out.

No weight

Today was the first day I intentionally didn't weigh myself. It was hard... Especially since the last two days my weight was higher than I like it to be.

I need to start my elimination diet. I need to plan what I can eat. I most especially need to figure out what I can have for breakfast. I am supposed to eat protein for breakfast - but no eggs, cheese, milk, pork or any other traditional breakfast foods. No oranges either. I can have apples - I think - and most other fruits, but not in excess. I guess I get grilled chicken or fish with veggies for breakfast. Ugh. I need to go to Wegman's to see what foods they have that will fall within my guidelines.

Last night I didn't get home from work until after 9pm - which means Katie and I didn't eat dinner until after 10pm. This is good in some ways because then I don't snack all evening. I spent my free time last night reading Valerie Bertinelli's Jenny Craig blog. It was very inspirational. Mostly because she started at a size 14. 8-) She has lost about 30 pounds since April. I think that is incredible!! It made me want to run out and join Jenny Craig again. Maybe...

Watched Pot

http://health.yahoo.com/experts/rockertraining/5130/stay-off-the-scale

This says that I shouldn't weigh myself obsessively. So - for the next month I am only going to weigh myself on weigh-in days. I don't think that will change anything - but at least it will keep me from being quite as obsessed.

India Blog

I set up a blog yesterday regarding my trip to India. I'll keep adding, but if you want to peek at it now, here's the address: http://jas-whatsgoingon.blogspot.com/ I plan to spend my lunch hour each day putting stuff up until I get it done.

Otherwise, I am fat and lazy and eating bad. Did I forget anything? Nope. That sums it up these days.

And up again...

I didn't weigh myself on Tuesday since we were still at Pennsic - which means I also didn't weigh myself since Friday. Yesterday i was 227 - but I don't like that weight so I am not going to count a weigh-in for this week. This morning I was again 227. That isn't a big surprise because I hardly ate anything yesterday - and did no exercise, unless you count the trips up and down the basement stairs doing laundry and watering the garden.

So - food yesterday was left over Pringles from the drive home and whole wheat chicken (shrimp for Katie) quesadillas. That was it. No fruit at all - a couple of cherry tomatoes from the garden for veggies. I didn't drink enough water and I woke up way too early so I didn't get enough sleep. I did take a nap mid day and went to bed before 11 - which is unheard of for me. But that resulted in me waking up at 5:30 this morning - thus the early morning blog entry.

My back and calf muscles are sore again - which is odd, because they hardly bothered me at all when I was spending time walking on a slippery slope and sitting in camp chairs. I think I have decided that the back pain comes most often after I have been sitting a long time (like on the car drive) but least often if I am moving and changing positions a lot. The calf pain is just from walking on exceedingly uneven ground all weekend. It seems to be OK now.

It rained a lot at Pennsic this year. When Katie and I were packing up to leave we were getting probably the worst rain I have ever seen at Pennsic. I didn't have my camera - but was wishing I did, because the river running down the hill was incredible! We managed to take our group picture just before it started raining. Katie and I ran up the hill in a lull to buy a mug for Charles from a lovely British couple. While we were standing under their awing waiting for a second lull they offered us tea. We said no simply because we were running out of time. Sunday night was the night of the Circle Box party - which normally involves fire juggling. That didn't happen. We picked our way down the hill briefly but it was so wet and muddy that we gave up and went back home. Sunday day Katie and I went to two classes - and made a basket and some cute toys. At some point we did a brief shopping trip up to the old merchant area - but it was so steamy hot that we didn't stay long. I bought a piece of linen and Katie bought some tea. That was actually Monday now that I think about it... the day it didn't rain. Saturday night we went to Your Inner Vagabond for Turkish coffee and weird desserts. I was the only one who actually GOT the coffee - Oh - Katie did too, hers was iced. Everyone else got Sharbet - sorbet... You could do your own flavor blends and they had herb flavors as well as fruit - so you could get Blood Orange and Sandelwood or Pomegranate and Violet - or whatever. They were very yummy. It was fun.

And now we are back home... My next vacation will be in January to February - when I go to Folk School to learn to play the banjo. They do airport pickups from Atlanta - so I need to see if I can get a cheap flight then - otherwise I will just drive. It is 10 hours... and Emily's house is dead center. Kind of cool.

151.5

So I've finally passed the scary 150 mark. I think 153 was the "officially overweight" point so it's a good thing I'm doing something about it. Yesterday I ate extremely well all day and so far today I'm counting food as well.

Yesterday I had cereal with milk, a half sandwich with a full serving of ham in it, raisins, almonds, an apple, ten baby carrots, chicken casserole with broccoli and brown rice, milk to drink, a serving of pretzels and goldfish, about a quarter of a beer (I was helping Daniel -- I counted it towards my servings of carbs), and I think that was pretty much it. Today so far I had cereal with milk, plain yogurt, a slice of honeybread (whole wheat with only a light treatment of honey and margarine), and a dozen almonds. I was away from home all morning so I didn't have an opportunity to snack, but this means I still have a lot of food coming to me today.

I haven't exercised yet today, and I totally missed it yesterday! I wasn't procrastinating or avoiding it otherwise, but I just had a long list of things to get done yesterday so I was busy from the moment I got up until I crashed into bed. I even forgot to do crunches, which is unlike me of late.

I have noticed that in the past week the crunches are finally getting easier -- the last time I got through all 100 without pausing (or rushing!). But now I've missed two days running, so I'll probably pay for that today!

F-A-T

I haven't weighed myself in over a week -- no scale -- but I am truly reaching a crisis situation. My jeans are so tight that anything I put in my pockets is visible in detail through the denim, and today my zipper keeps creeping down a notch. I haven't had an opportunity to exercise (other than crunches, which I've been doing faithfully) since we left Georgia, and the food has been copious and not nutritionally balanced. Even my underwear doesn't fit right, and this is the stuff that fit just fine when I was 20 pounds heavier than this!! So now I am FAT, and it's all around my middle. I don't need to see the scale to know it. Ick.

Tomorrow we are headed home. The moment I leave this house I am On My Diet. I will have a salad on the road -- no greasy burgers and fries -- and I will drink just water on the trip. I am going to count foods (which means you get to hear details from me daily, sorry) and I am going to exercise Every. Single. Day. And I am NOT allowed to quit until I have reached my goal weight, or until Halloween. I get my birthday off, of course (a very good reason to go to the Ren Fest that weekend!). I am simply grossed out by my body, and it's time to get back on track. Ugh.

Still going down

I was 223 this morning. I can't remember what it was yesterday - but I think it was just at the 225-226 range still. 'Splain to me how I can drop six pounds since Monday? Is my scale broken? I am not complaining - because - you know, That is what I WANT to do - drop weight - but I just don't trust it.

I ate two not perfect things yesterday - potato chips and four chocolate graham crackers. I have been on a graham cracker kick. As far as snack foods go that one isn't too bad. Way lower in fat and sugar than cookies and higher in fiber. The chocolate and cinnamon sugar are no worse than the regular kind (in fact, I think they are both lower in sugars - I think the fact that they are sprinkled with sugar fools us into thinking they are sweet, but the regular kind aren't - so they have to actually ADD sugar to the dough to make it TASTE sweet since there is no camouflaging sugar on them). The potato chips were a disappointment. I wasn't really in the mood for chips - but these were a limited edition flavor. I couldn't see WHAT the flavor was - just the limited edition part - but once they came out of the machine I discovered they were cheddar jalapeno - neither one of my favorite flavors. Oh well.

I didn't exercise again last night. I was getting ready for Pennsic. I also watched The Nativity Story. It was horrible. Well - maybe horrible is extreme, but it COULD have been good but it wasn't. Joseph was GREAT - but the chick who played Mary just wouldn't have been my first choice to be the mother of God. She seemed sullen and shallow. I would have chosen someone who had a more innate sense of goodness and joy. Or at least someone who came across as serene. She was none of those. She seemed like a brat. Harod was good - but again, kind of shallow. There was no subtlety to him. The wise men were supposed to be the comic relief - which was OK - they weren't made to be ridiculous, which was good. However, the whole movie - instead of inspiring me, or reinforcing my spirituality made me wonder how we managed to build a whole religion around the word of a chick who CLEARLY was covering her butt. Seriously - I, for the first time in my WHOLE life, wondered if Mary was just afraid to admit she had been fooling around. I am fairly sure that was NOT the intent of the movie. All of it was based in a bad casting decision - and a bad script - which probably consisted of about 20 minutes of dialogue. Watch it only if you want to marvel at how such a sweet, pretty story can be made into something horrible. I liked Elizabeth. She was one of the few good charaters.

Sweet

I love sweet. I think that is my problem. Forget lack of exercise or eating too much - I think I am just adicted to sugar. I can eat "healthy" food - as long as it leans towards the sweet. I like granola (dried fruit) I like cottage cheese (with fruit). I think I eat too much sweet. Of course, in my mind whole grain stuff tastes sweeter than processed flour - so I don't know what that is. I just finished eating a pack of VERY YUMMY granola -but I am sure it was horribly high in sugar (6 grams protein, 6 grams dietary fiber - Huh! Only 10grams of sugar... that actually isn't too bad considering the protein and fiber levels - it tasted sweeter). I still miss sugar in my coffee - although when I have it it always tastes too sweet now, unless it is iced coffee. When I was doing Atkins, or when I do Fat Flush I cut out sugars - and pretty much have no problem doing so after the first couple of days. But I LOVE sweet.

Katie and I had a squash in our garden yesterday. It was neat. It was like the squash fairy came and left it for us. It wasn't there the last time I looked - but yesterday - POOF - there it was... Fun!!!

Me Too...

160 today. I've been eating kettle corn like crazy. You can buy the kind from Popcorn, Indiana at the Fresh Market on Greenspring and it is delicious. While I've eaten a ton of it this week, it is better than eating the same amount of other snack foods. I am in love with Fresh Market too. Not as traumatic as going to Wegmans with 5000 other people, and not as hippie as Whole Foods. Their produce is amazing--it inspires me to buy it and eat it.

Now I just need to get inspiration to go to the gym. I'll work on that for next week.

Going down

I was 225.8 today. I am glad it is going down rather than up again. I was worried when I hit the 229 that it would KEEP going up. I am hoping I won't settle anywhere above 226 - because when I do the elimination diet (just to clarify, I am eliminating groups of food from my diet temporarily to pinpoint any sensitivities that may be preventing weight loss...) I didn't want to have to count any weight loss from it towards just getting me back to where I started this month.