With all the business of packing and move-planning, I have found it very challenging to remain consistent with both my diet and exercise. We have resorted to going out to eat more often in the past months because I haven't had much time to cook and I've been so tired. I must say that I'm very proud of how I have changed my food choices when at a restaurant. I have found that I can be just as satisfied with healthier choices as opposed to the fried, fried, fried items that I use to order.
Exercise, though, has been much tougher to maintain. In fact, I can't really say that I have done so. I ran tonight for the second time in a month. It felt so good. Just in that amount of time, I had forgotten how liberating it feels to run through the country. I'm not sure how I can maintain running when I am just so busy. We are up VERY early, so by the time I get home from work, get dinner ready, and do some packing, it is time for bed. I have to get sleep or I can not function. If anyone has some suggestions concerning how to maintain consistency in exercise when life is CRAZY, I would appreciate the advice.
Try getting out to the country somehow. There is a freedom there that is unable to be found other places.
That's my life these days. Answer me one thing, why in the world did I keep all this junk? I have lost count of the trash bags that have gone out of this house. Never again! Do you believe me? I'd like to believe me. Somehow I doubt myself.
Things are moving along here. We are planning to move on March 18. Just two weeks to go.
Throw out 10 items that you have no use for. You'll thank yourself eventually!
First, let me say that I'm sitting in bed as I type this post. I LOVE the laptop. With all the changes that are coming up, my husband and I decided not to take a vacation this summer. We just hate to leave the church so quickly after coming in. Anyway, we've been wanting a laptop for some time, so we used our vacation savings for the year. Too fun!
I received the e-mail saying that the laptop would arrive sometime yesterday, and someone had to be available to sign for it. I had to get a haircut, so I waited until my husband got home from work and then I left. As I was driving down the street, I passed the UPS guy. I called home to let my husband know it was on the way. About 30 minutes later, my husband calls back and tells me this story...
...He waited and waited for the truck to come. All of a sudden, my mother comes up the driveway and SHE delivers the laptop. She had been driving with a friend who happened to mention that he recently passed a UPS truck in a ditch that had been in an accident with two other cars . Being the World's Best Mother that she is and knowing that we were expecting the laptop today, she immediately requested that they turn around and go back to the scene of the accident. She said it was crazy! Traffic stopped - the UPS truck obviously not going anywhere with the front smashed in - two other cars with significant damage. After she saw that no one was bleeding, she walk right up to the deliviery guy and said, "Were you making a delivery to [insert our address]?"
He got a bewildered look on his face and said, "Why, yes. I am."
To which my mother replies, "May I have that package, please?"
...I'm not sure if it was entirely legal, but I'm sure glad he went for it. Who knows when I may have received this beautiful piece of technology?
Somethings are just meant to be.
Acknowledge that there is more to live than coincidence and happenstance.
Wow! How can three weeks go by so quickly? My life has been so crazy! My husband and I have made some very serious life decisions, and I blinked and three weeks are gone.
So, here's the deal: After five years, we are finally entering full time ministry. We are training to be pastors and will take a church on March 18. Once the decision was made to take this position, things have been happening very quickly. We will be moving about two hours away and have less than a month to get ready! AHHH! We are nervous but excited at the same time.
Thanks to everyone who e-mailed me to see if I was alright. I don't know if any of you are still stopping by my blog, but if so, thanks for not giving up on me.
I'm getting a new laptop tomorrow, so that should give me incentive to get back into the habit of posting regularly.
On the weight loss front, I'm still loosing, but slowly. My schedule in the last month has been so atypical that I'm finding it hard to really attack the weight. It's going to have to be slow and steady for a while I'm afraid.
Give someone a hug today. I'm going to go home and get one myself!
I'll try to write a proper post tomorrow, but I have a a crazy weekend planned (my birthday!), and I'm not sure if I'll be able to find the time.
I'm back to a two pound loss this week after the past one pound or less weeks, and I do attribute it to the Reverse Diet that I started two weeks ago. So, that is very rewarding.
I'm going to Olive Garden tomorrow with my husband for my birthday and then will have cake and ice cream on Sunday with my mother and brother's family. I intend to enjoy myself. No Guilt! I'm only going to turn 31 (GULP) once, and I'm going to celebrate.
I've been on the Reverse Diet for a week now, and, as promised, here is my review: I LOVE IT! I have never felt this way before about an eating plan. Before I get into the details, please remember that I have not yet read the book. I am on a waiting list at the library because I don't feel like spending money on this one. When I get the book, I'll let you know what it's like.
What I DO
I am still using the basic Weight Watchers point system to keep track of how much I am eating. Based on my weight, I currently eat "24 points" in WW lingo. (Points are calculated using calories, fat and fiber - not tough with the tools given with a WW membership.)
Prior to the RD (Reverse Diet), I ate 5 points for breakfast, 4 points for lunch, and 15 points for dinner and an evening snack; however, according to the RD, that idea is basically reversed. In an interview I heard with the author, she said you should have no more than a third of your daily intake left after lunch (this includes any snacks before or after dinner).
So, now I eat about 10 points for breakfast, 7 points for lunch, and 7 points for dinner and an evening snack. So by noon, I have consumed 17 of 24 points rather than 9 of 24.
What I Like
I am NEVER hungry - I can't believe this is true, but it is. Before the RD, I was starving by the time my lunch rolled around. I'm up early and it's a long time from 4:30 a.m. and noon. Now with a large breakfast (10 points plus veggies that are "free"), I'm not really hungry at lunch, but I go ahead an eat a good sized lunch since dinner will be light.
The metabolism gets moving quickly - I can definately tell that this is true. I feel my body waking up much faster. I must admit, at first it was a jolt to have that much food that early in the morning, but the more days I do it, the easier it is.
After dinner cravings are deminished - I'm not sure why this is, but it's true. Maybe my body is starting to trust me that as soon as it gets up, I will feed it well, instead of making it suffer half the day.
Adjustments I've had to Make
Breakfast prep - I need to make sure that I have things ready for breakfast the night before. On Sunday, I make a number of chicken breasts to get me through the days that I won't have leftovers from the night before.
My cooking for dinners has remained about the same with the exception of increasing the amount of veggies, so I can have extras for the next morning. Basically, I've just cut the amount of dinner I eat in half and save the rest for the next morning. That way, my husband can still eat his normal dinner.
Dinner is moved back - We used to eat dinner at 5:00, but that would be too much time left after dinner when I would be tempted to snack (Although, as mentioned before, these cravings are deminishing.). Now when I get home from work, I go directly to the gym or out to run for my exercise for the day. By the time I'm done with that, cooled down, and showered, it's at least 7:30 when dinner is finished - just enough time to wrap things up for the day, relax a bit and hit the bed by 9:00. (I know, it's early, but my husband and I both get up very early.)
Final Thoughts
I really can't encourage you enough to give this a try. Since I've been changing my eating habits (August), I've never had an easier week than this. I'm not hungry during the day and I have loads of energy. When I come home from work, I can't wait to go work out. Before, I had to drag myself out because I was so tired.
I've had to change my mindset of rewarding myself for a day's work with a big evening meal. I hadn't even realized that I was doing this. Now that I'm thinking about it, it seems to me that I am starting, just maybe, to loose some of my emotional attachment to food. I have begun to think about food as fuel instead of fulfillment. Is this possible? I wouldn't have thought so. Food has always been so important to me. Why? When did a huge meal become a substitute for a satisfying life? Why did food have to be the primary focus of imporant events? Hmmm. I'm going to have to think on this a bit more. Perhaps you've just happened on to an epiphany with me. Food is not my life. I eat in order to live, but it is my life that brings me joy - not the food. I have allowed food to control me for too long, thinking that if I could appease it, food would make me happy. If I'm not happy without a 1.5 pound porterhouse steak, I'm not going to be happy with it.
From what are you trying to derive the joy in your life? Food, money, momentary pleasures? These things are not joy and will never bring it. Focus on those things in your life that can bring true joy, and then put everything else in life to work for you in the pursuit of those things.
Well, I have a little extra time this morning because of a 2 hour school delay due to extreme cold. When our wind chill gets below zero they delay us two hours so kids waiting outside for busses can do so in the sunlight. It's amazing, but two extra hours in the morning really seem like five!
I was pleased this morning with the scale. I weigh daily, but on Fridays I tally for the week and do my measurements. When I figured my weight to my goal and my weight to "normal" using the BMI charts, I discovered that I have less than 20 pounds to go to be considered a normal healthy weight. Now, my ultimate goal is a bit lower than that, but I was thrilled! I really believe that I will eventually not be overweight any longer. I don't know about you, but there was a time in my life when I had totally given up on that possibility. Now it seems like a certainty. Even though my loss has slowed down, I am still loosing and beginning to enjoy exercise. It's pretty exciting.
Revisit some of your old dreams that you have packed away. Perhaps they aren't as impossible as they apear. Give them a chance again.
I've had two days now on the "Reverse Diet," and I wanted to share my initial thoughts with you. My first impressions are very posititve. I really like the feeling of having a full stomach throughout the morning. I find myself not thinking about the food coming later in the day because I'm not hungry. I've always been eating a small breakfast, but very small. I think it may have caused me more problems than good. It seemed like I woke my stomach up and then all morning it said to me, "What? That's all I get? What's next?" That has not been my experience the last couple days. Yesterday, in fact, it was 2:30 before I even thought about eating lunch. So I ate my lunch then and at 7:00 had my small dinner. Since it was a later than normal, I had no problem not snacking in the evening. After I cooked dinner yesterday, I packed up my breakfast from the left-overs and was ready to go for this morning.
So, I like how I feel eating this way. I'll let you know in about a week if the scale responds any differently.
I did break down and join a small gym in my town. We've finally been hit with snow and our icy back roads are no longer safe to run. I couldn't believe how much more I sweated running inside rather than outside. I guess that's a good thing, though.
Try a new healthy snack this week. I've exchanged some of my Snack Well Yogurt Cream Pies (Yum!) with a few whole almonds. I'm really suprised how satisfying four almonds can be.
I don't know if you've heard about Trisha Cunningham's new book The Reverse Diet Solution, but I'm going to give it a try. I've been feeling like I need to change something up in my diet, and I think this may do the trick.
The basic idea is that you eat your biggest meal at breakfast, a medium meal at lunch, and your smallest meal at dinner. I don't know about you, but this is exactly opposite from what I have been doing. I've been saving over half my allotted WW points/calories for dinner and even after dinner. Subconsciously, I knew this was not a good thing, but I was so scared of the thought of being hungry at the end of the day that I got into the habit of saving food up. Then I'd eat eat and go to bed full. After about six months of changing my eating habits, I think I'm ready to kick it up a notch. It's going to take some extra planning to be sure I have things ready to go in the morning before work, but I'm really looking forward to starting the day on a full stomach. I'm going to give it a try for a month and see what kind of results I get. I'd be interested in hearing if any of you have had any experience with this.
Ballpark Turkey Franks: only 1 WW point! - NO FAT! Put a little cooking spray in a pan and fry up till toasty, Yum! I was really missing hotdogs. Be prepared though - color, taste, and texture are different from regular hotdogs.
Wonder Wheat Bread Light (sorry they don't have this on their site yet): only 1 WW point for 2 slices! Great taste and texture.
Take a chance and make a change in your life today. Sometimes we hold on to things we don't really like just because they are familiar. Start with something small - white bread to wheat bread. You'll be amazed at how you'll gain confidence to push out and make some serious alterations in your life. It feels great!
Thanks everyone for all your kind comments.You’re the best!
I just came in from my first two mile run!I had bought a new pair of running shoes Saturday, and then it rained ALL day Saturday, Sunday, and Monday!I didn’t even know it was possible to rain that long without stopping.Anyway, I tied up my new shoes after work and hit the road.They felt so good!My old shoes were about four years old, and had many miles on them – no tread left at all.My new ones are so springy.I did really well my first 1.5 miles; the last half mile was a real push.Then, because of where my house is located, I had to finish with another six tenths of a mile up a really steep hill—but I made it!I have a fellow teacher who wants to run my first race with me this summer.We are looking at a two mile sweetheart race.It’s all women and the first that my friend ever ran in.I feel good having hit the two mile point with about five month to get it comfortable.If anyone has any suggestions for a new runner, let me know.I have no idea what I’m doing!
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I have a new recipe for you.I created it in my goal to eat more veggies.I’m not a big fan, but this is a great recipe for green beans – so much flavor!
Heather’s Green Bean Explosion
-(1 WW point per serving) Makes 2 servings
1 small onion
1 can green beans
No calorie cooking spray
small handful Salad Pizazz - (These are the best! I use them on salads all the time, and then I throw them in recipes like this. I use the Tomato N Bacon Parmeseano with Almonds)
Saute the onion in a liberal amount of cooking spray (I use butter flavored for this). Allow onions to carmelize a bit to add sweetness (about 10-15 minutes)
Add green beans and Salad Pizazz to frying pan. Allow to cook on a medium heat for about 15 more minutes.
Devour!
The beans do cook down quite a bit and usually eat the whole can myself. It is amazing how much flavor these have.
Thanks again for spending some time with me!
-Set a specific exercise goal for yourself. Having something to work towards has really energized my workouts that had become a bit stagnant.
I'd like to believe me. Somehow I doubt myself.