Putting Some Color in My Meals

[Cross-posted from kayedacus.com]

In my effort to raise my interest in healthy foods, I’ve decided that for the rest of the summer (and into the fall, however long it lasts), I’m going to do as much of my food shopping at the large farmers’ market in downtown Nashville. Rather than fight the crowds on the weekends, though, I’ve chosen to go during the week when, yes, there are fewer displays/sellers there, but when I’m also not having to push and shove my way through crowds to get to the fruits and vegetables that have been poked and prodded and bruised by hundreds of others before me.

Here’s what I got . . .

Tomatoes

Cucumbers

A couple of the biggest bell peppers I've ever seen

White Squash

Small Purple Bell Peppers

"Fairy Tale" Eggplant

Gorgeous, Sweet Blackberries!

Now, what I’m going to do with all of these, I’m not sure, but they should make very nice additions to the mains I already have planned for the rest of the week!

What’s the most fun/unusual fruit or veggie you’ve ever bought? What did you do with it?

Weekly Weigh-In 7/26/09

I forgot to do my weekly weigh-in post yesterday.

On July 19, I weighed for the first time in two weeks. The two weeks before that, I’d been up a total of five pounds. When I weighed in last Sunday, I was up an additional 8 pounds (272). But this week, after having been home all week and back to my low-sodium, low-fat (on program) foods, I was down 5 pounds (267). And before I went to my WW meeting, I made my meal plan for the week along with my grocery list.

I went ahead and did a three-month subscription to e-mealz.com. Each week, I log in and download a list of seven meal ideas (with recipes). I chose the low-carb option, because for me, it’s easier to substitute lower-fat items or take out what I know doesn’t fit into my plan than to try to take the carbs (breads, pastas, rice, potatoes, etc.) out of every meal on the low-fat plan. They also have plans for those who are doing WW Points, and they have plans based on specific grocery chains’ weekly specials (Walmart, Kroger, Publix, and others), for families or for two people (I got the two-person menu option and am using the leftovers for lunches).

Tomorrow, I’m going to go to the farmers’ market to get some fresh fruit and veggies to round out my meals for this week.

Something else I did was sign up for the AARP Vitality Project. NO, I am not old enough to be eligible for AARP. My mother sent me the link. But it’s worth looking into. I’ve committed to trying to get an hour of activity in every day, and . . . two other healthy living things but I can’t remember what they are and I can’t for the life of me figure out how to find them—or anything else I filled out—when I log in. Hmmm . . .

Anyway, that’s what I’m doing this week.

What are you doing to make this week healthier than last week?

Midweek Commitment Check

In my post Monday, I asked what you could commit to (or re-commit to) this week in the quest to live a more healthy lifestyle. My main commitment for this week is exercise—at least 20-30 minutes a day. I’ve been helped (considerably) in this by the fact that we’ve been having freakishly autumn-like weather the last five or six days and I’ve wanted to be outside, something very much out of character for me in the months of June, July, August, and early September when I usually stay inside as much as possible. Some people hibernate during the fall and winter—I’m the opposite. Of course, when getting overheated knocks me out for hours afterward with a migraine, I think I have a pretty good reason to avoid hot weather.

Anyway, I’ve gotten out and walked a little more than a mile circuit through the neighborhood each day this week so far (starting Monday). It’s taking me between 22 to 25 minutes to walk that mile right now (or about 2.5 to 2.7 mph). The neighborhood is hilly, with several small inclines and one large decline (about 2/3 of the way through—meaning it’s uphill leaving the house and slightly uphill returning to the house!), but still, back in the spring when I was walking every day (no matter the weather, even a couple of days where it didn’t quite reach 40 degrees for the high temperature) I was doing it at about three miles per hour . . . and my shins and calves weren’t killing me after just a quarter of a mile, either. Of course, I’m almost 20 pounds heavier now than I was then, and with as sedentary as I’ve been the past several months, I’ve lost all of that muscle tone I gained then.

But I’m doing it. Every day. And when the temperatures go back up, I’ll either go to the community center and workout there, or I’ll be making use of the variety of exercise programs on the fitness and health channel on On Demand.

How are you doing with your commitment for this week?

I Want to Be a LOSER!

Before I went to Denver last week, I proofread a book for Guideposts written by a past-season finalist from The Biggest Loser (Fat Chance by Julie Hadden, releasing in December 2009). Now, I’ve never watched the show; I have a major problem with the whole idea that they’re going to not just sequester people for four months where they do nothing but exercise for eight, ten, twelve, or more hours per day and lose ten or fifteen pounds per week but also where they kick off the people who’ve “failed” to lose an unhealthy amount of weight in such a short amount of time. It was good to read of her experiences with it (and I dislike Jillian Michaels even more now that I’ve read the book than I did before—and I didn’t care much for her before reading about how she really interacts with people). However, what struck me was the way Julie Hadden not only discovered her own self-worth during the process, she grew closer to God and came to understand her worth in God’s eyes. That, and reading about how dedicated she became to exercising and competing for the grand prize (she came in second, only lost by eight pounds in the final weigh-in—and there’s a great chapter in the book about that eight pounds and the blessing it became in her family’s life).

And as I read the book (because, of course, when proofreading for errors made in the editing process, one must actually read the book), I was forced to look at my own life and the shambles I’d allowed my emotional state to become. I’d gotten to the point where I would look at food and think, I don’t wanna do this anymore. I want to be able to eat what I want to eat. I’m tired of having to think about what’s healthy and what’s not. I’m tired of feeling guilty for not exercising. And of course, then I’d feel guilty every time I faced going to Weight Watchers and standing on that scale and seeing my weight go up and up and up—until this week, where I was back up to 272—where I was AT CHRISTMAS!!!!—because of letting myself go and indulging in whatever I wanted to eat.

Yesterday, I finally verbalized what’s been shaping in my mind since reading Julie’s book: if she, with two small children, a husband, and a grueling travel/book-promotion schedule can be committed to meeting with her trainer every day for a 75-minute workout, who am I to be sitting around on my fat bum all day long when I not only have access to all of the exercise videos available on Comcast’s On-Demand Fitness TV option, but a large backyard and a neighborhood perfectly suited to walking—not to mention a community center a few miles away where for $2 a day I could work out in the fitness center, or I could walk the indoor track for free? I have no excuse other than laziness and self-centeredness. Yep, that’s right. I’m self-centered when it comes to diet and exercise, and not in a good way. I’m self-indulgent. If I crave something, I go get it. I allow myself to sit around and get bored, and then I boredom eat. It’s instant gratification 24/7. There’s no sacrifice, no self-growth allowed or encouraged. If Julie Hadden can work out for 75 minutes every day, then I can commit myself to at least 30 minutes a day, whether it’s walking outside (while the strange, fall-like weather lasts) or at the indoor track at the community center or doing an exercise video to start toning up this flabby, flabby body.

Now, I don’t have unrealistic expectations for my long-term goals. I know I’m never going to be a single-digit size. My ideal size (which I’m focusing on more than an ideal weight, because I know that will always fluctuate) is a size 14/16. That would mean I’d be able to shop anywhere instead of just in specialty-size stores. I’d like to stick to the 14-end of that size, but if I can get down to that and maintain it, I’ll be smaller than I was twenty years ago, when I graduated from high school. And that’s my dream. To look better at age 40 than I did at age 18. But you know what, I only have 22 months left to do it in. I have to get serious, because I have about 100 pounds to go, or about 5 pounds per month—and I know the more I lose, the harder it’ll be to lose more. But I MUST BECOME A LOSER! Not just for my physical health, but also for my mental health. Because the more of a loser I become, the better I’ll feel about myself and the more I’ll be able to stick to being a loser.

Yesterday, I re-watched one of the episodes of Dollhouse that’s saved on my DVR. One of the mantras of the “dolls” is “I try to be my best.” I’m not even trying to be good, much less “my best.” But that’s going to change. I’ve already gone out for my walk today (boy, am I out of shape after all these lethargic months!), and am about to not only spend the next couple of hours cleaning the house from top to bottom, I’m also going to clean out the fridge and do my meal planning for the remainder of the week, which I haven’t done in a couple of months either.

So, I’m committing to 30-minutes-a-day exercising. What can you commit to this week (or what have you already committed to) to keep you/get you back on track?

I need NEW FOOD!

It should start being a pretty good clue that my “healthy eating plan” (a.k.a. DIET) isn’t going well when I haven’t posted here in several weeks. It’s always exciting to come home from WW and post about a loss. It’s embarrassing to have to come back and post a gain. And that’s what I’ve been doing over the last several weeks—gaining weight instead of losing. But I’ve gotten to a point where I’m tired of the whole thing. I’m tired of “healthy” eating. I’m tired of thinking about how I’m going to fix tonight’s portion of lean meat and two veggies with perhaps a piece of fruit for dessert. Oh yay. I’m tired of salads with low-fat or fat-free dressings. I’m tired of the feelings of guilt I get just for watching a commercial about fried chicken on TV and craving it. I’m tired, in short, of not being able to eat anything I want and still have a smokin’ hot body (which I’ve never had, nor probably ever will).

Yes, I’m starting to cycle down into a depression cycle.

Part of this is because I stressed myself out so much in the month of June with trying to get the third contemporary romance novel finished before deadline. I gave myself the excuse of exhaustion to pretty much forget to try to make healthy choices in eating and eat whatever I wanted to. Which reawakened all of my food addictions—especially those to high fat and sugar. And now that I’m trying to get back on the wagon and I’m faced with breaking those addictions again, it isn’t coming easy—because I know the boredom that faces me in the food choices that I have when I’m following program.

I’m not the kind of person who gets excited over spring and summer because of all the fruits and vegetables that are in season. If I were, I wouldn’t be in this predicament to begin with. I have to FORCE myself to usually get at least two or three servings of fruits/veggies every day, much less the five I’m supposed to be eating.

Doing the core program on WW—eating basically a low-carb, low-fat, whole-foods/grains diet—is much easier for me than counting points. I have the list of foods that are “free” to be eaten on the plan, and if I stick to those (in moderate portions, naturally) I know I’ll lose weight. My problem is that I’ve gotten into such a pattern with food—either eggs or cereal for breakfast, soup or sandwich and salad for lunch, and a piece of meat with a couple of veggies for supper—that I’m totally bored with it, and that’s what’s making me fall off the plan with increasing frequency and slowly regaining the weight I’ve lost. Right now, I’m almost right back up to where I was when I went to Minnesota for the ACFW conference LAST SEPTEMBER. That’s right, ten months later and I haven’t netted any weight loss, because even though I’ve been down to 256 as a low at one point, I’ve yoyo’ed myself back up almost fifteen pounds from there.

So I’ve decided to start a new project. And if you read this in addition to being my friend on Facebook, I’m sorry that you’re getting this twice. I want to start a recipe repository here on the blog where I’ll post the healthy-living recipes you love that have helped you in your weight-loss (or just healthy living) journey. I need to add some pizazz to my diet so that I can make it a life-long change instead of just a diet. And I’m sure that’s something we all need help with.

So if you have some healthy recipes you’d be willing to share, send them to me at fabulousby40 (at) kayedacus.com and let’s get this cooking party started!

Weekly Weigh-In 6/7/09

The journey of a thousand miles begins beneath one’s feet.
~English translation of Lao-tzu: The Way of Lao-tzu

When I first set out to find this quotation, I was looking for the one that says it begins with one step. However, I read in several places that the “one step” version of the quote is actually a paraphrase, that what I’ve quoted above is a more literal translation of what Lao-tzu actually wrote.

Rather than emphasizing the first step, Lau Tzu regarded action as something that arises naturally from stillness. Another potential phrasing would be, “Even the longest journey must begin where you stand.”
~Note on www.quotationspage.com

Of course the journey under discussion on this blog is the weight-loss journey—or the journey to become a healthier me, one who will live longer and have fewer health problems in the future, one who will feel more confident and more accomplished the more success I find on the journey.

I started this odyssey almost two years ago, in the summer of 2007, after a visit to my new doctor when the nurse recorded my weight as 315 pounds. That’s permanently on my chart. I can’t pretend that I didn’t weigh that much. Because someone else wrote it down. So I decided I needed to try to lose weight. And then my back went out. Many of you may not know that I had back surgery in 2003 to repair a ruptured disc (L-4 vertebra), after living with excruciating back pain for almost two years. The cause for the ruptured disc? A combination of trying to do too much for myself and carrying more than 100 pounds of extra weight around all the time. Before my surgery, I was able to stick to the Atkins plan for about three or four months and lost almost 40 pounds. Afterward, I was never able to get that momentum back (though now having read some of the long-term effects of sticking to that diet, I’m glad I didn’t get hooked back on it). Over the next four years, I managed to gain back the weight I’d lost plus another fifteen or twenty pounds, even though I tried Atkins and Weight Watchers again a few times during that span. Then, as I mentioned, in the late summer of 2007, I started having back pain again. After a week, it was so excruciating that I could hardly walk the 30 to 40 feet from the parking lot into my office at work. I went to the doctor to see if we could figure out if I’d reinjured it or if it was a flare up of scar tissue impinging on the nerves. She sent me to get an MRI.

But I never got the MRI. Why? Because I didn’t fit into the machine. When the mechanism started sliding me into the tube, it was so tight around me, I couldn’t breathe and I started having a panic attack. (I’m starting to relive it right now!) They took me to another building in the hospital to an older machine that was supposed to be larger, but it was almost as tight, and by that time, I’d entered full-blown manic mode when I felt the tube pressing my arms into my chest and pushing down on me from the top. I’ve had MRIs before. I know I’ve fit into the tube and that I can handle being in there for twenty or thirty minutes, so that wasn’t the problem. The problem was that I had gained so much weight that I couldn’t fit into the one instrument that would tell us why I was in so much pain. So the doctor put me on a seven-day steroid treatment (couldn’t give me the good stuff because all prescr*ption pain killers—a.k.a. the ones that are narcot*cs—make me violently ill) and sent me to a physical therapist. This started in late July/early August. By the time I attended the ACFW conference in late September, I was still in constant, nearly excruciating pain. By November, I’d rejoined the YMCA so that I could walk on the treadmill and start swimming again, as the physical therapist had recommended. Slowly, the pain finally went away. (And has not returned, thankfully.)

Then, in January, my dear friend and coworker Georgina and I made a pact that we would start trying to lose weight in 2008, since both of us are the same age and wanted to get healthy by the time we turn forty. We started out by doing our food plans on our own but going to the gym after work together almost every day of the week. Our friend Melinda started going with us. But none of us was losing weight. So we joined Weight Watchers in April 2008. By that time, I’d managed to take off 20 pounds on my own, giving me a starting weight at WW of 295 pounds.

In the fourteen months that I’ve been in WW, I’ve allowed myself to bounce around, up and down, sometimes seeing a loss at the scale week after week, sometimes going consistently up, as I did from mid-March until early May, when I regained almost 10 pounds.

But as that quote from Lao-tzu says, the journey begins under my feet. I took the “first step” almost two years ago, so I can’t look at myself as taking the first step on the journey of a thousand miles. And because I have already lost weight and learned the program and know what I should be doing week in and week out, I’m not “starting over.” The journey to continue losing weight is already under my feet, ready for me to keep going. It may look like it’s 1,000 miles yet to go, but all I have to do is look back to see how far I’ve already come. That’s the stillness from which action springs.

All of that to say I was down 3.2 pounds at my weigh-in today, taking me back within 2 pounds of the lowest I’ve been so far on this journey, and giving me a total overall weight loss of 56.2 pounds.

“Focus on the journey, not the destination. Joy is found not in finishing an activity but in doing it.”
~Greg Anderson, The American Wellness Project

Weekly Weigh-In 5/31/09

Getting back to my regular Weight Watchers meeting today could have meant either a disaster for my birthday, or something more to celebrate.

Well, I had something more to celebrate—even with eating out a couple of times (as well as indulging in a venti-sized Caramel Frapuccino from Starbucks Friday night), I was down 0.4 lbs from my weigh-in weight on Thursday. Yep—I managed to lose 1/10 of a pound each day since my last weigh-in! And I wasn’t really trying all that hard.

We got some really good info today on how eating more healthfully can actually help to save money on food, which I’ll blog about later in the week. But right now, I need to go in and make out my meal plan for the rest of the week. My goal is to see if I can get back down to 260 next week. Which means really watching what I eat and getting back to exercising.

Now that it’s almost June, what are your plans to keep yourself on track (or to get back on track) for the summer?

Compare-Contrast

I took new headshot photos today. Thought I’d let y’all see the difference from those I had done in March or April of 2008:

Semi-Weekly Weigh-In 5/28/09

Well . . . obviously, I didn’t weigh in last week when I was in Arkansas. With the way I felt like I’d been eating after the previous weigh in, I was somewhat scared to—after that 3.8 lb. loss the week before, I didn’t want to see that go back up a couple of pounds.

But I decided I needed to go ahead and get officially back on the scale before getting back to my regular WW meeting on Sunday—and before I go do my “big” grocery shop to replenish my very empty kitchen after being away for 17 days.

I fully expected to be up at least a full pound if not a pound and a half (after stepping on my scale here at home yesterday). But I was only up 0.6 lbs.! Woohoo. And I thought that since I allowed myself to “take a vacation” while I was in Arkansas and go ahead and eat barbecue (from McClard’s—the best BBQ in the world!), eat Mexican food, drink wine a couple of times, have ice cream, and eat fast-food on the days when I was traveling, that I had completely blown it. Yet I do remember making conscious decisions to make healthier choices more often than not, too. So the whole idea of “healthy eating” IS sinking in finally!

And I’m pretty sure I can take that 0.6 off before Sunday. Especially since I wore jeans and a sweater (short-sleeved!) to weigh in today.

Weekly Weigh-In 5/13/09

Before leaving Nashville last week, I got online and looked for a Weight Watchers meeting to go to while in Baton Rouge this week. Not having a scale here to stand on every morning to try to see if I’m making progress, I was unsure of how today was going to go—but since I’ve eaten out at least once a day since I’ve been here, I didn’t think it would be too good (trying to keep in mind, of course, that it’s been 10 days since my last weigh-in).

I was down 3.8 pounds today!!!! I can’t update the images on the side of the page until next week (I’m having to use my sister’s computer to post this, so I don’t have my files or my graphics program accessible). But that was a big chunk out of the 8.8 lbs I’d gained over the last two months, so I’m thrilled. And I’m determined to be even more careful about my choices over the next week so that I have another loss to report next week, when I’ll be in Hot Springs . . . which reminds me, I need to look up a meeting to go to next week.

Hold on . . . okay:
Wednesday, May 20 at Noon
Faith United Methodist Church
321 Nash Street
HOT SPRINGS, AR 71913