This week our regular WW meeting was canceled because Monday was Memorial Day. Jenny wanted to go to Brandenburg for their meeting on Wednesday so we could weigh in and stay accountable. Kim, Joanie and Melissa decided to go, too. We all made the trek over there and I am happy to report that I lost another 1.6 pounds, for a total of 12! I'm one quarter of the way to my (personal) goal of 165!
Another big thing to me this week... it was on Entertainment Tonight that Melissa Joan Hart lost 42 pounds after the birth of her last child. The big deal was that it took her 14 months to lose it. YEA! I hated the fact that when Marie Osmond lost 45 pounds, they said she did it in, like, 4 months. For Pete's sake! Losses like that really deject someone like me. But 42 pounds in 14 months -- okay -- that's real. That's 3 pounds a month -- that's really real!
I think our walking group has decided to do the Lapping Park 5K on July 11. Jenny told Donna that I might be able to do team shirts for us, maybe with the new WW mascot, Hungry, on them. I'd be thrilled! But naturally, I'd get Jenny to help....
Friday, May 29, 2009
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Another aside
I had dinner with several classmates from school last night. Linda Elsler, Sandy Sherman, Joy Kirchgessner, Mary Allen, Sharon Franks, and my best bud, Debbie. We ate at Tumbleweed. I was pretty good, bypassing the margaritas and having a 1/2 serving of chicken quesadillas. They were mostly meat with very little, if any, cheese. Good for me!
Debbie and I got to talking while the others were talking about other things, and I found out that she's doing WW too! Little bitty Debbie! She says she's having the same problems I am with the weight gain around the middle. At our age it's no doubt related to "menopot", but in my case it's way more -- it's FAT. She's always been small (5'-2") and petite; never more than about 130 pounds. She always loved to exercise, too. I remember in one reunion yearbook, she wrote that exercise was one of her "passions". We were on the opposite ends of the spectrum on that one! I hated exercise and avoided it as much as possible! Jenny and I have been walking 4-6 times a week for 1-1/2 to 2 miles at a time, only for the past 6 weeks or so. That's a major shift and achievement for me! It's still not "fun", but with Jenny, it's enjoyable. Back in high school 30+ years ago I was naturally thin, but after 25 years of eating whatever I wanted and hanging out on the
couch, I got to this. Yuck...
Well, Debbie said she's kind of lost motivation, but I've definitely picked some up over the past couple of weeks. So I told her I'd share this blog with her. Even though the thing is posted on the world-wide web, I'm pretty darn sure no one has ventured to look at it. It would be too damn boring to peruse at length anyway. I just started keeping it for my own benefit, as a kind of diary to chart my progress, so I wasn't trying to interest anybody else. If it might help motivate anybody else, go ahead and take a look. Hope you can stay awake...
Debbie and I got to talking while the others were talking about other things, and I found out that she's doing WW too! Little bitty Debbie! She says she's having the same problems I am with the weight gain around the middle. At our age it's no doubt related to "menopot", but in my case it's way more -- it's FAT. She's always been small (5'-2") and petite; never more than about 130 pounds. She always loved to exercise, too. I remember in one reunion yearbook, she wrote that exercise was one of her "passions". We were on the opposite ends of the spectrum on that one! I hated exercise and avoided it as much as possible! Jenny and I have been walking 4-6 times a week for 1-1/2 to 2 miles at a time, only for the past 6 weeks or so. That's a major shift and achievement for me! It's still not "fun", but with Jenny, it's enjoyable. Back in high school 30+ years ago I was naturally thin, but after 25 years of eating whatever I wanted and hanging out on the
couch, I got to this. Yuck...Well, Debbie said she's kind of lost motivation, but I've definitely picked some up over the past couple of weeks. So I told her I'd share this blog with her. Even though the thing is posted on the world-wide web, I'm pretty darn sure no one has ventured to look at it. It would be too damn boring to peruse at length anyway. I just started keeping it for my own benefit, as a kind of diary to chart my progress, so I wasn't trying to interest anybody else. If it might help motivate anybody else, go ahead and take a look. Hope you can stay awake...
WW Week 11
Well, something worked! When I weighed in this past Monday evening at Weight Watchers, I was FINALLY down to 198! That's a 3.0 pound loss this week! I'm definitely realizing that this carb-cutting thing is the way to go.
The guys are working on a new portion of the pool deck at Mom's. Today I went up with them to get started with the post hole digging. When they ran to Longbottom & Hardsaw's to pick up lumber, I went to Mom's house to wait for them. I happened to see a couple of books that she's had for probably over a year, sitting on a table by the door. One is "Bottom Line's Super Foods Rx" and the other is "Food Cures: Breakthrough Nutritional Prescriptions for Everything from Colds to Cancer" by Reader's Digest.
I've been scanning the Reader's Digest book; especially the sections on Smart Carbs and Insulin Resistance, and so far it says pretty much the same thing that the Carbohydrate Addict's book said. It talks about the Glycemic Index (GI); pure glucose has a GI of 100, so the closer to 100 the GI number is, the more it raises blood sugar. Naturally, the lower GI foods don't cause spikes in blood sugar. Low GI foods are those with GI numbers of 55 and below. Anyway, there is a good list of GI values for LOTS of food to be found here. You can also google "glycemic index" and find many more.
I'm learning....
The guys are working on a new portion of the pool deck at Mom's. Today I went up with them to get started with the post hole digging. When they ran to Longbottom & Hardsaw's to pick up lumber, I went to Mom's house to wait for them. I happened to see a couple of books that she's had for probably over a year, sitting on a table by the door. One is "Bottom Line's Super Foods Rx" and the other is "Food Cures: Breakthrough Nutritional Prescriptions for Everything from Colds to Cancer" by Reader's Digest.
I've been scanning the Reader's Digest book; especially the sections on Smart Carbs and Insulin Resistance, and so far it says pretty much the same thing that the Carbohydrate Addict's book said. It talks about the Glycemic Index (GI); pure glucose has a GI of 100, so the closer to 100 the GI number is, the more it raises blood sugar. Naturally, the lower GI foods don't cause spikes in blood sugar. Low GI foods are those with GI numbers of 55 and below. Anyway, there is a good list of GI values for LOTS of food to be found here. You can also google "glycemic index" and find many more.
I'm learning....
Saturday, May 16, 2009
WW Week 10-1/2 -- is it an epiphany?
I'm getting really frustrated with the fact that I can't get below 200 pounds, especially when I just started a little over 209. At my 8th week, another girl was celebrating her 16th week and had lost about 25 pounds. As a matter of fact, Jenny did the same thing! Geeze! At this rate it will be a miracle if I don't quit first!
But this week something happened. On Tuesday I went to the funeral home to see Jack McGraw's family. On the way out I saw Irma Eschbacher pull in to a parking spot, so I waited to talk to her. She has lost a tremendous amount of weight -- so much that last summer I even asked a friend if she had had gastric bypass surgery. I waved her over, gave her a big hug and told her she was my hero -- and she most definitely is! I asked her what she did to lose so much weight. She said that her husband had been diagnosed with diabetes three years ago, so she decided to change the way they ate. They have nurse/dieticians that helped set up a diet to control his blood sugar, but basically they went low carb. She said it took her about a year to go from a size 18 to a size 6. She said she didn't know how much weight she lost, because she never weighs. Buck's sugar is now under control at around 123. They walk about 1/2 an hour a day.
Now to Sandy Puckett... she's lost about 30 pounds in about 6 months. She said the only way she can lose weight is to cut carbs.
I have a book about Carbohydrate Addicts by Drs. Richard and Rachel Heller. I picked it up a yard sale and it has sat on my bookshelf with my other weight loss books for a year or so. I happened to take a look at it for the first time this week. So much of what it says relates very closely to what I've been experiencing.
One week, right after Easter, I gained 5.2 pounds. When I went back over my WW tracking booklet, I saw that that week I ate so many carbs! I stayed within my WW points allowance, but I STILL gained over 5 pounds in one week! For lunch one day I had Chinese, with the related MSG and soy sauce. I didn't have any fried stuff (well, maybe 3-4 bite-size pieces of General Tso's chicken...) and ate mainly vegetables. But this book says that MSG and soy sauce stimulate your body to produce insulin, which in turn causes it to store fat.
The next night for supper we had spaghetti and bread. More carbs. The next day for lunch I had Campbell's vegetable soup, with its carrots, potatoes, corn, and little alphabet noodles, all of which are high in carbs. The soup was just veggie soup with very little protein. Two Special K protein bars because I was so hungry from the carbs that stimulated my appetite. Supper that night was more spaghetti. I remember this evening particularly -- Leonard was so tired that he laid down on the bed for a while to rest. I was so hungry that for the whole hour and a half that he slept, I ate. I counted my points and somehow stayed within my 24-point limit, but I ate carbs and more carbs! A Weight Watcher's brownie (only 2 points, but made with real sugar and flour), Puffcorn, an orange (fructose), a Weight Watcher's fudge bar (even if is IS sugar-free, it still stimulates your cravings to eat more!), AND another orange! Nothin' but carbs all day!
The next day I went to Noni's to take her some daylilies and hostas. Lunch was a spinach salad with grilled chicken from Applebee's. It was, I now realize, good for me in terms of carbs. But fried potatoes for supper. Saturday evening we went to El Nopalito. I'm sure we had chicken fajitas, but I'm also sure I had a margarita -- alcohol which turns to sugar! Sunday was pizza for lunch (carb crust), and a veggie grill burger with bun for supper. Veggie soup (carbs and salt) for lunch on Monday, a WW cookies and cream 1 point bar and a Hostess cupcake 100 calorie pack -- all carbs! I'm beginning to see that this might be my problem -- that carbs might be stimulating my appetite to just eat more and more.
So I'm going to try to follow this low-carb book, at least for a few weeks, and see if it makes a difference in my weigh-ins. I know I won't lose any huge amounts of weight (like 5 pounds a week), but if I can at least lose SOMEthing every week without going up and down, I'll be a believer in this Carb Addict idea.
I'm starting to realize that what you eat does affect your entire being. Food is medicine in a way. It can do bad things to you, or hopefully, it can do good things. All you have to do is realize it's power and potential and use it to your benefit.
But this week something happened. On Tuesday I went to the funeral home to see Jack McGraw's family. On the way out I saw Irma Eschbacher pull in to a parking spot, so I waited to talk to her. She has lost a tremendous amount of weight -- so much that last summer I even asked a friend if she had had gastric bypass surgery. I waved her over, gave her a big hug and told her she was my hero -- and she most definitely is! I asked her what she did to lose so much weight. She said that her husband had been diagnosed with diabetes three years ago, so she decided to change the way they ate. They have nurse/dieticians that helped set up a diet to control his blood sugar, but basically they went low carb. She said it took her about a year to go from a size 18 to a size 6. She said she didn't know how much weight she lost, because she never weighs. Buck's sugar is now under control at around 123. They walk about 1/2 an hour a day.
Now to Sandy Puckett... she's lost about 30 pounds in about 6 months. She said the only way she can lose weight is to cut carbs.
I have a book about Carbohydrate Addicts by Drs. Richard and Rachel Heller. I picked it up a yard sale and it has sat on my bookshelf with my other weight loss books for a year or so. I happened to take a look at it for the first time this week. So much of what it says relates very closely to what I've been experiencing.
One week, right after Easter, I gained 5.2 pounds. When I went back over my WW tracking booklet, I saw that that week I ate so many carbs! I stayed within my WW points allowance, but I STILL gained over 5 pounds in one week! For lunch one day I had Chinese, with the related MSG and soy sauce. I didn't have any fried stuff (well, maybe 3-4 bite-size pieces of General Tso's chicken...) and ate mainly vegetables. But this book says that MSG and soy sauce stimulate your body to produce insulin, which in turn causes it to store fat.
The next night for supper we had spaghetti and bread. More carbs. The next day for lunch I had Campbell's vegetable soup, with its carrots, potatoes, corn, and little alphabet noodles, all of which are high in carbs. The soup was just veggie soup with very little protein. Two Special K protein bars because I was so hungry from the carbs that stimulated my appetite. Supper that night was more spaghetti. I remember this evening particularly -- Leonard was so tired that he laid down on the bed for a while to rest. I was so hungry that for the whole hour and a half that he slept, I ate. I counted my points and somehow stayed within my 24-point limit, but I ate carbs and more carbs! A Weight Watcher's brownie (only 2 points, but made with real sugar and flour), Puffcorn, an orange (fructose), a Weight Watcher's fudge bar (even if is IS sugar-free, it still stimulates your cravings to eat more!), AND another orange! Nothin' but carbs all day!
The next day I went to Noni's to take her some daylilies and hostas. Lunch was a spinach salad with grilled chicken from Applebee's. It was, I now realize, good for me in terms of carbs. But fried potatoes for supper. Saturday evening we went to El Nopalito. I'm sure we had chicken fajitas, but I'm also sure I had a margarita -- alcohol which turns to sugar! Sunday was pizza for lunch (carb crust), and a veggie grill burger with bun for supper. Veggie soup (carbs and salt) for lunch on Monday, a WW cookies and cream 1 point bar and a Hostess cupcake 100 calorie pack -- all carbs! I'm beginning to see that this might be my problem -- that carbs might be stimulating my appetite to just eat more and more.
So I'm going to try to follow this low-carb book, at least for a few weeks, and see if it makes a difference in my weigh-ins. I know I won't lose any huge amounts of weight (like 5 pounds a week), but if I can at least lose SOMEthing every week without going up and down, I'll be a believer in this Carb Addict idea.
I'm starting to realize that what you eat does affect your entire being. Food is medicine in a way. It can do bad things to you, or hopefully, it can do good things. All you have to do is realize it's power and potential and use it to your benefit.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
WW Week 10
This just sucks! Back up 0.8 pound to 202.0. I'm never going to officially get under 200 pounds. I've been going to WW for 10 weeks now and have only lost 7.4 pounds! Now I know why my mom said she can't lose weight. I think I can't either. Plus I'm walking 1-1/2 to 2 miles a day, at least 4 times a week.
This week I'm going to try to follow the WW "good health guidelines" AND stay within the points values. But first and foremost I'm concentrating on eating my 5 veggies a day, 2 proteins, 3 dairies, 6 glasses of water, etc.
I ordered the book Donna told us about -- Eat Right for Your Type, about eating food that gets along with your blood type. Who knows... I'll see what it says about eating for type O.
This week I'm going to try to follow the WW "good health guidelines" AND stay within the points values. But first and foremost I'm concentrating on eating my 5 veggies a day, 2 proteins, 3 dairies, 6 glasses of water, etc.
I ordered the book Donna told us about -- Eat Right for Your Type, about eating food that gets along with your blood type. Who knows... I'll see what it says about eating for type O.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
WW Week 9
Down a little more -- minus 0.8 pounds this week. A loss is better than a gain! My "official" WW weight is now 201.2. My at home, naked weight has been below 200 for several days in a row now -- maybe it will stay that way.
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