The Journey Continues - through another holiday

When I jumped (okay stepped cautiously) upon the scale this morning, it said that I am about 14 pounds down since I began this journey.  I managed to make it through another weekend (and holiday) sticking to the plan.  I am not sure if I can see a major difference yet, but I plan to keep going.  As long as the scale shows me going down, something must be working.  I told Mark that I crossed another decade threshold, which is also good.  This weekend we traveled out to western Kansas to see Mark's dad.  While we were out there, I did some climbing around when I was geocaching.  We climbed out onto the chalk bluffs by Castle Rock and walked into some others.  No where was really far, but I did get out of the house and walked around.  I plan to find time to do more walking.

In the past few weeks, I have tried a few different recipes.  I pureed up cauliflower a couple of times with cheese to make "mashed potatoes".  It really wasn't bad and fills my craving for the potatoes.  I made a recipe called "oopsie bread" and it worked too.  Recipe - http://recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe-detail.asp?recipe=259930.  This recipe was pretty good too.   I even tried using zucchini as hashbrowns and making cheesy potatoes.  This would have been better had I let the zucchini dry out a little bit, or maybe put it in a skillet and let it brown up for a little bit first.  I bought avocados and a cucumber last night to try to make salsa from it.  It will be my next experiment.

I will admit that it isn't always easy, but then no journey always goes smoothly.  Last night I came home from the grocery store and Mark was drinking a beer on the porch.  I really wanted one but held out and didn't have one.  In the future, I could have one occasionally without doing too much harm. But for now, I plan to keep on the straight and narrow path.  Diverging from the path hasn't worked in the past. 

Which leads me to another topic.  I picked up a First magazine at the grocery store and an article talked with Dr. Oz about the Eat to Live plan of Dr. Fuhrman.  I went ahead and ordered his book to see if it might be an eating plan that would work better for me and not be so much meat and fat.  In a quick glance at the Eat 4 Your Type book, my blood type would work best on a vegetarian diet.  I am okay switching to mainly fruits and vegetables and not having the meat.  What I read in the article was a focus on healthy nutrition rich fruits, vegetables and beans.  I have already cut out the starchy and sugary foods, so that won't be a problem.  So another thought as I travel down this road to becoming slimmer and healthier.  

Slowly but surely

Well today I jumped on the scale this morning and I am officially over 10 pounds lost since I started this journey.  It doesn't sound like much in the almost 6 weeks that I have been doing this, but it is something.  It is more than I have been able to do in a while, so I need to be proud of that.  A week ago yesterday, I turned in my last qualifying exam and so that pressure is off.  If I need to rewrite parts of it, in the instance that I don't pass, then it will be easier than writing it the first time.  The information that I included is good.  With that pressure gone, and my eating doing okay, now I need to focus on adding exercise to my plan.  I am not sure if it is my imagination or not, but some of my clothes feel like they are fitting looser.  I have not taken my measurements, but I need to do that to begin tracking them.  So my next goal for this upcoming week is to find ways to add exercise to my life by doing things that I like to do such as walking to find geocaches, swimming, walking in general, riding my bike and maybe trying to do some frisbee golf.  So, next week, more movement here I come.  I hope to be seeing more results in the future.  As to eating low carb, it really hasn't been that difficult.

The Journey Continues through Temptation

So I have to say that I am proud of myself at this moment.  I hope the saying "pride goeth before a fall" isn't true in this case.  I got on the scale yesterday (my weigh-in day) and I was down about 3 pounds more.  That makes a total of 10 pounds since my weigh-in on the Monday after Easter.  So not too bad for 4 weeks.  I can do better by adding exercise, which is my next step.  I have been trying to get through my qualifying exams and I am on the last one.  My goal right now is to get through the next 2 weeks and turn my last exam in to the readers.  

But onto the temptation that I journeyed through this weekend.  On Saturday, I helped with the After Prom event at the HS.  No, Derek is not a junior this year.  They wanted some of the sophomore parents to help with the event.  Which was actually good, because I know what they had planned, what worked and what didn't work so well.  So that when I help plan for next year, I have that knowledge.  At the event (which ran from 11 pm until about 3 am), I was assigned to watch one of the entrances (exits) and to help serve pizza and keep the "candy bar" well stocked.  The "candy bar" had little candy bars, Twizzlers, M&Ms, marshmallows, pretzels, and little graham crackers.  A lot of "red light" foods available for grazing.  But this is what makes me proud, is that the only touching I did of that food was to stock the containers for the kids.  Granted, we were really busy for about an hour serving pizza to the kids, but after that rush died down there was a lot of free time with the candy staring me in the face, especially those Twizzlers.  It was late at night, I was tired, and the candy was readily available; all were the makings of the perfect storm or a chance for me to fall off the wagon.  But I held strong and just drank water instead!  Actually, following this eating plan is not too difficult.  I do miss rice, potatoes, tortillas and fruits, but if I can use this to jump start my weight loss, then in July I can rejoin Weight Watchers and keep up the success. 

Beyond that, most of my weekend was spent reading and working on the research to begin writing my qualifying exam.  I hope to get stuff on paper this week, at least a start.  
 

Two weeks

Well, it has been two weeks on this low carb plan.  I have lost some weight (about 5 pounds) although I hoped that it would be more.  I just need to stick with it and see what happens.  I still miss the carbs a little bit, but it has been easier than I thought it would be.  I have noticed though that my plate is meat and green usually.  This weekend we went camping and I ate according to plan.  I also took time to do some walking.  I know that I just need to stick with this and results will happen.  I didn't gain overnight and so I won't lose it overnight.  On Friday, I received a card of encouragement from a friend.  It will be something to reread when I need more inspiration to be able to continue.  Each day is a new struggle, but I have had lots of victories so far and hope to continue.  Also, if I happen to have a bad meal, then I just need to continue on and restart instead of quitting. 

New Eating Plan

I've decided that with the big 5-0 looming in my future, at the end of the summer, that I need to take better care of myself.  So one of the first things that I need to do is to lose the weight that has been hanging around for a while.  I believe that by making this journey more public, it will help me to be more accountable and therefore be more successful.  A friend of mine has been doing a modified Atkins diet - low carbs, and has lost about 30 pounds in about 3 weeks.  So I decided to try the same thing.  I was going to wait to start something until after I finished my PhD qualifying exams, but seeing Art's success spurred me to try it now.  

So here I am four days into this new life.  The first day (probably not a good day to start) was Sunday.  Now that in itself wasn't bad, but the fact that we had the EHS Basketball banquet that night, was hard.  But I did pretty well and only snuck a couple of bites of cheesy corn and cheesy potatoes.  So maybe you could say that Monday was the real first day.  Breakfast is eggs, meat, and cheese.  Lunch is meat, salad and vegetables.  Dinner is the same.  I do get to have dessert, sugar free jello and whipped cream.  Three days in and I have done really well.  I want to get on the scale to see if anything is happening, but I am trying to wait until Sunday and the end of one week.  

Tuesday, Mark and I went out to dinner at Chili's.  I went ahead and ordered chicken without the mango salsa, without the mango vinaigrette, without the avocados and without the rice.  After taking to Art, I could have probably had the avocados.  Oh, and I ordered extra broccoli and grilled shrimp.  I have discovered that Subway and their salads are a good way to eat lunch which is why I ate there the last two days. 

My plan is to eat this way without changes until at least the 1st part of July.  Now if I reach my goal before then, I can modify it.  I am going to try to blog about my experience, my successes and challenges that I may face during my journey.

Day Before Our Flight Leaves

Well, I think that I am ready. I went to the store and got my travel size stuff along with snacks for the trip. I think that I have everything packed and my passport ready to go. My flight leaves KC at 7 pm tomorrow night, so the trip is about 24 hours away. I weighed my suitcase and it is about 35 pounds, so we are doing okay at the moment. I think my nephew wants us to help bring back his books from Denmark, so it may get heavier on the way back. I bought some cute Green Eggs and Ham jammies to take too. I have been reading my Denmark book and hope to have things planned, or at least know about more when I get there. I meet up with my sister, her kids and my Dad in Chicago and we travel the rest of the way together. Just a few last minute things and then I am off tomorrow for my "native land".

A year later and another trip

So it has been a year since I went to Europe. I didn't expect to be going back so soon, but when the opportunity came up, I jumped. So, I will be heading to Denmark on Sunday with my sister Vicki, her kids (Blake and Mikaela) and my Dad. This will be another trip of a lifetime and a check on my bucket list. I am not sure how many more of these trips my Dad will be able to do and so I am looking forward to this one. My oldest nephew (my child from a different mother, LOL)has been studying in Aarhus Denmark since January. He will be done with his studies on Monday. We are going over to see him and where he has been, but to also follow our roots. My Dad is 100% Danish. His father, my grandfather, came over from Denmark as a young man in the early 1900s. He is from Norre Vissing (a spot on the road in Denmark). My Dad's maternal grandparents also came over from Denmark and their original home is near where my grandfather came from in Denmark. So we will be tracing family roots along with viewing a beautiful country. It has been 27 years since I have traveled in that beautiful country and I look forward to this trip. I plan to keep people updated while we are gone through this blog.