Visual Documentation.

So, I keep track of my weight by using homemade graphs.  Lately I've started marking on the graph when I have an increase in weight with the reason for the gain.  Like on May 6th, I went out to lunch and ate Chinese food.  The next day, I was up almost 2 lbs.  As the water weight left me, I dropped back down again.

Yesterday was Mother's Day so I was taken out to dinner at Bonefish Grill (one of my favorites!).  Today, I'm up 2 lbs.  On the graph, I marked it as "mother's day."

I had already forgotten about the lunch out with Chinese food, so if I hadn't marked it "Chinese Food" on the graph, I wouldn't remember the reason for the increase.

I think this is going to help me see what it is that is causing my increases.  Documentation is going to help me, I think.  I mean, I have always logged my food etc, but there is something about being able to see it on one page in graph form with the increases marked with the reasons for the increase that I think is going to help me.

Also, it's helpful to see the decrease in weight once I'm back on track and the water weight is gone.  It helps me see that just because I had a nice dinner out, it's not a disaster and things even back out again as long as I go back to my routine.

I am going to keep this up and see what it teaches me.  I've already learned that eating out is a definite cause of weight increase.  So I can now consciously try to keep that down to 1 time per month or so.  (Although I'm not going to deprive myself - that is a path to disaster!)

I'll be curious to see if there are other causes of my increases in weight - like a stressful day of court leading to overeating that night (using food as comfort after a bad day).  I'm going to start keeping track of this on my graphs.  I'll report what I find!

Easter

I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter!

We celebrated as we always do in my family - with food.  It was wonderful food, but it did me no favors!

We started off Easter breakfast with Bloody Mary's, scotch eggs and creamed egg on toast.  Easter dinner was ham, mashed potatoes and asparagus.  The day before Easter we were with my hubby's family - and again food was the main event.

Luckily for me, the Easter Bunny gave me little candy and I got some non-food things, like organization magazines and healthy recipe magazines.  I must admit, the candy is already gone, but on the bright side - the candy is already gone so it won't tempt me later on this week.

I just feel very tired and drained and not very well in general over all.  Maybe the over abundance of food will help the hunger phase.  Right now I actually feel ill at the thought of eating anything, so maybe I've passed through that phase and can get back to normal eating habits.

I'm excited about the warm weather and getting our garden planted.  That was key last year in helping plan lower calorie, healthy meals - fresh garden veggies!  We will hopefully plant this week.  The warm weather also just makes me feel better.  Something about the warm sun just makes me happy.  Looking forward to more of it this week!

I hope all of you have a wonderful day!

Hunger.

I am starving.  All the time.

I have no idea what is going on in this "phase" of things.  It used to be that an apple was a great snack that could tide me over in the afternoon until dinner.  Now I'm hungry even after I just finished eating one!  Even when I over-eat, I'm still hungry!

I'm wondering if it might be a protein thing.  With the hour of bike riding every morning and the stomach exercises every day, maybe I'm not getting enough protein.  Would that make me hungry?

And I've gained back some pounds - probably because I haven't been able to stave off the hunger and so I've eaten more than I should.

I'm baffled.  And frustrated.

Maybe I need to exercise MORE.  I honestly don't know what to do.

I guess I will just battle on through this phase and hope it ends soon.  And try to control my eating.

I did better last night.  I was really hungry after dinner so I made a big mug of hot tea with 2 pkts of stevia and a drop of milk.  I ended up not eating anything, so maybe that's what I need to do when I feel hungry.

I'm starving right now.  I rode the bike, did my stomach exercises, showered and am working on getting my youngest ready for school, but I'm feeling the hunger really strongly right now.

I just hope it is a phase.  And that it ends soon.

Reporting In.

So I feel the need to report in today!

I'm doing really well with everything and I've lost 5.8 lbs since February 1, so that's a good thing!

I am pretty focused at the moment.  I like it when I'm in these phases.  I had some rough spots this month - visiting with my older daughters for their spring break (which entailed a trip to Indiana and lots of good food and drink), and then I got the flu - totally knocked me of my butt, and then I had a mandatory seminar for my legal continuing education.  Oh, yeah, and I hurt my shoulder somehow and it still isn't right (I hate being old).

And still I'm down in weight.  Just a bit, but it's nice.

I am riding the bike in the mornings and have just started back up the meditation and the subliminal apps that I had used back in 2012 that seemed to work so well.

I added in the total gym again yesterday.  Could only do leg stuff since my shoulder is still sore, but it was good.  Oh, and I am doing morning stomach exercises right after I ride the bike.

The 5.8 lbs hasn't made me look any different yet.  I will give it time.

I'm also back to logging everything again.

I think I had just lost focus and thought I could still keep on track without making it a priority.  Obviously that's not the case, so I'm back to daily concentration.

I also made sure to do the menu and grocery list this week.  Last week was bad because I never got organized so we ate out a lot.  Which actually may be why I'm able to do better this week - because I got to splurge a bit.

I am also making an effort to have ice water at my desk at all times.

OH!  Did you guys see Good Morning America today?  There was a guy that says 20 second bursts of super intense exercise 3x per day is really good for you - including lowering the risk of diabetes.  Now, I'm not sure if he's full of it or what, but I am going to give it a try.  I ride the bike every day for an hour, so I am going to try to do three 20 second full-out spurts of riding full-tilt during that hour.  We'll see if it does anything.  I know 20 seconds is a lot longer than we think when we are full out pushing ourselves.  (That reminds me of my planking attempts:  "Ok, 1 ... 2 ... 345678910!"  counting so fast that all 10 "seconds" equals about 1 - lol).

I hope all of you continue to do well!  Keep it up!  We can do this!

Id is Kicking my Butt

I'm in an internal battle between me, myself and I.  Or more specifically - id, ego and superego.

Id:  according to Freud this is the selfish inner part of us that wants what it wants and doesn't care the consequences.

Superego:  this is the part of us that is organized and realistic.

Ego:  the part of us that tries to moralize and balance between the Id and Superego.

So in terms of dieting - the Id wants the food, is willing to indulge, and doesn't care the consequences.  The Superego is that awful critical voice that tells us we look like crap and generally makes us feel horrible about ourselves.  And the Ego is the part that tries to balance the two.

Well, in my world, Id is winning.

My Superego is apparently mute at the moment and my Ego is distracted by other things so my Id is running wild.

Since I am having such trouble, I'm going to have to go drastic for a short period of time.  I'm going back on the lean cuisine plan.  I do really well during the day, so I'll keep on with that - I eat apples, and ham wrapped in lettuce and other rational, low calorie, healthy choices for the most part.  It's dinner and beyond that wreck me.

So, I'll keep doing what I do during the day and then I'll have a lean cuisine at night for dinner.  I will still allow the low sugar snacks (since the doc says I'm to go low sugar, I'm worrying less about fat and more on making sure I have low sugar snacks available).  And I'll pump up the ice water.

Now, I know Id is going to try and balk at this.  It's going to want chocolate deliciousness while watching TV at night.  I just hope that by having no wiggle room in this plan, that I'll bust through and give my Ego a chance to come around, and a small burst of Superego wouldn't hurt, either.

I know this cannot be a long term plan because deprivation leads to an explosion at some point if it is forced for too long.  But maybe I can do this for 1-2 weeks and get myself back on track.

I also added in some more morning exercises this morning - stomach crunches, leg lifts, butt crunches - about 10 minutes worth, which added on top of 60 minutes of bike riding is a good thing.  I want to get back on that bowflex and Total Gym, too, but I'm not going to force myself to do it all or I might fall apart.  Slowly.  I'll do these things gradually.

I also used to set mini goals to keep myself from getting overwhelmed, so I'm going to concentrate on my stomach area.  I want to lose some inches there, so that's my mini goal.

I just hope I can get my Superego and Ego back on track!!

TV and Wine

I have isolated my triggers.

Watching TV at night makes the munchies set in.  And if I've had a glass of wine - it's even worse!

I enjoy drinking wine while I'm cooking and then I find I eat a lot more of what I make because the wine has lowered my self control.

And, I've had the doctor tell me he wants me to cut sugar from my diet.

So all of this has actually led me to a plan.  I'm actively planning low sugar meals for all day.  I even plan in my snacks.  So I did really well yesterday.  I had my buttermilk in the morning to take all my vitamins with.  For lunch I had 6 slices of ham - each wrapped around a bundle of crunchy lettuce.  For a snack I had a hard boiled egg.  For dinner I made buffalo chicken in the crockpot - it was sandwiches for the kids and I had mine on lettuce leaves.  My side was an apple with a scoop of the whipped peanut butter (which is lower fat and lower calories than even the low fat regular peanut butter).  For my "munchies" that hit during TV time, I had some macadamia nuts!

Then this morning I got up and rode the bike for 63 minutes.

And one other change is that the doctor has given me some sleeping pills to try.  I consistently sleep about 2-3 hours per night and with the sleeping pills I have hit 5 hours in a single night.  It is a huge difference in how I feel the next day!

So, now that I know my triggers, I have things in place for when they ... well, trigger.

So far so good!!

I will keep you posted!!

Better Today

It is amazing how doing what you are supposed to do for 2 days in a row just really boosts your morale.  I've done very well for 2 days (Woohoo - 2 whole days!), and I actually feel very good about it.  I kind of feel like my schedule is sliding back over me again like it's supposed to be.

Watching sugar intake is weird.  I found calorie watching a better say since it kind of forces you to do the portion control automatically.  So adding in the sugar thing is just different.  I've never watched for it before, so it's fascinating seeing how much sugar there are in some things.  And the differences between "added" sugar and "natural" sugar.  It's not as hard as I expected since I tended not to eat candy and cookies when I was on my calorie counting thing anyway.  Although I used to allow a splurge of a 100 calorie pack of cookies now and then.

Now I also have to watch for foods with a high GI index.  Like corn.  I love corn and since it's a veggie I thought it was a decent choice, but apparently it's got a high GI index and messes with your blood sugar.

So, in some ways, this is good.  It's making me focus again on what I'm eating like I did that first year I lost the 24 lbs.

I am cautiously optimistic!

In addition to the trying to get back on routine thing, I'm redesigning my home office.  Since I work from home and spend 10-12 hours down here every single day, it has started to feel like a dungeon.  So, Hubby and I took advantage of Archiver's going out of business sale and bought a huge table to be our joint desk and about 36' of wall cabinets and counter.  So my office will match!  We bought new flooring which we will have down hopefully by the 17th.  We have bought the paint - a light gray color to go with the blonde cabinets and black counters.  I'm going to put in an electric fireplace so I feel "homey" down here instead of like I'm in a dungeon. I'm very excited.  And super busy, which keeps me from thinking about food and eating!

Maybe changing up my work place will help me feel reinvigorated and focused on "me" which will keep me on track!