Exercise and A New Plan for Eating

Exercise has always been my problem, or maybe since kids and work have gotten in the way.  I am proud of myself because I am really making an effort this time.  Yes, I didn't get up today to go walk like I said that I would, but I am trying to find ways to put at 30 minutes a day into exercising.  Yesterday I went to the pool to swim laps.  I probably overdid it because I woke up at 3 am and my whole body hurt.  But that is the pain of working hard.  It didn't seem that hard when I was swimming because I love to swim.  Tonight we have tickets for the theatre at 7:30, but I might try to get a swim in early, maybe around 6.  Otherwise I need to find a way to exercise sometime today, even if it is just 30 minutes of walking or the wii. 

Eating meat and vegetables without carbs has been relatively easy for me.  Although I can live without all of the eggs and meat.  I have been reading a book by Joel Fuhrman about switching to a vegetarian lifestyle.  I am considering it.  I think that the weight might come off faster by making the switch.  The lifestyle change is focusing on fruits and vegetables.  I will see about it when I finish the book.  But it sounds like something that I could live with and do.  I just want to get the weight off and looking at losing more than 100 pounds seems daunting.  When I got on the scale the other day, I am close to 20 pounds down, but I have been doing this for about 3 months too.  I had hoped to be down more pounds by now. 

The other day I went to have a pedicure done.  Amber mentioned that she could see that I have lost weight or at least shifted some of it.  It was good to hear, because I don't feel that it looks or feels like I have lost anything.  That is probably the most frustrating, the speed of the weight loss and the feeling that I am not getting anywhere.  But I will keep going.  Right now I have good momentum and I need to just keep moving forward.  Setting small goals for myself might be useful.  Something small for me to attain and keep going. 

A treat for myself

So, I have been on this journey for about 2 months now and I hope that there are results.  At times I think that I can see results, but then I wonder if I am just fooling myself.  Some of my clothes actually fit, so then I wonder, have there been results and my clothes were really tight before I started this?  Or am I fooling myself, and the scale is wrong, and there aren't results.  I guess I will need it to be a drastic change before I am convinced.  I have been sticking to the low carb menu and it has worked well up to this point.  I did have some ice cream yesterday, which was the first ice cream that I have had since April.  I am trying new recipes and staying low carb.  I got on the scale on Monday and it showed no change since last week which is 16 pounds total gone.  Then I got on the scale today and it showed that I was down 3 more pounds.  So we will see what happens as the week goes on.  The only change I have made recently is to add green tea tablets to see if that helps.  I have also added exercise.  I put a Couch to 5 K app on my phone and have been using it.  But I wonder about it since my knees are hurting a little bit.  So I am wondering how good it is to run on asphalt or concrete, which is what I have been doing.  Tonight I am going to swim and see how that works.  I can also go to the Middle School track to run which is a little more giving on the knees.  Finally, I want to get my bike out to ride.  Adding exercise to my routine is something that I have been trying to do. 

A treat for myself, was to buy a couple of new shirts this last weekend while I was in Stillwater.  The size hasn't gone down yet, but it was nice to be able to have something new to wear.  And the treat of clothes is better than a treat of ice cream or food, which I need to move away from.  My next treat is to buy a better pair of shoes for walking and running.  My tennis shoes are all at least 5 years old.

So the journey goes on....

So this is not a good week for me, or it has started out bad.  I got on the scale yesterday and for some reason I was up 3.5 pounds.  I have been following the eating plan, so I am not sure what happened.  Maybe I just need to stop eating all together.  This is one of those humps that I have to get over or get past.  It is kind of defeating though if I let it be.  I know that it has put a damper on my excitement.  I did a lot of walking on Saturday and then I cleaned house yesterday for my exercise.  I am going to try to go to yoga tonight and get started with it again to at least improve my flexibility.  I did try a new recipe yesterday, Jalapeno Popper Chicken.  It was pretty good and low carb.  I am also reading a book about low carb eating.  Will let you know more as I move forward.  I am just not in the mood to write today.

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.