Flashback…or Motivation

 

You have GOT to try this!  I don’t know why I didn’t think of doing this before, and it happened quite by accident, but boy, was it an eye opener!

Continuing the saga of the ‘warning light,’ I came up with the brilliant plan of driving my car down to the repair shop while being followed by a friend who would take me to church (and rescue me if the car quit before I got to the shop.)  I planned to get a ride home from church and just be dropped off in town, so I would have a nice 3 mile run/walk home. I packed carefully, and actually just brought my backpack, leaving my purse at home.  Somehow, more and more stuff kept getting added to the backpack so that by the time I got dropped off in town and hoisted it on my back, it was pretty darn heavy.  I knew right away that there would be no running involved that day.  By the time I got to my road (halfway home) I was sure that thing weighed 20 pounds.  My knees hurt, my ankles hurt, and my right foot was going numb, something that hadn’t happened for quite a while.

All the while I was walking, I was thinking about what a difference this added weight made in how I felt.  My back started to ache, and it was even harder to breath than usual.  I finally made it home, and was most anxious to weigh the backpack.  Can you believe it only weighed 10 pounds?  So that is what losing 10 pounds can do for you.  Or vice versa, that is what gaining 10 pounds will do to you.  Use it as a reminder of what you used to feel like, or use it as motivation to move forward with your weight loss, or as motivation to NOT regain lost weight.  It really was an eye opener.  So often, we comment that we start to forget how we used to feel.  When you start out at Weight Watchers, they have a 5 pound and a 10 pound rock that they let you hold when you get to those goals.  It gives you a good idea of how much you really have lost.  But carrying the weight around on your back gives you a better feel for how much you have really lost.

For additional motivation, I ran across these pictures on my desk.  I think they are pictures that my sister sent me, and I couldn’t believe the difference in how I looked.  I really was BIG before.  I do forget sometimes.  I took pictures of the pictures so I could post them here–sorry about the bad quality.  I thought it was neat that they were both with my dogs.

 

Before

 

After

 

 

Warning Light

Boy, its good to know that occasionally, as I age, I actually learn something.  This morning I got up at 4am, drank my coffee and ate a healthy ‘pre-breakfast,’ fixed my food for the next 12 hours, got dressed, and left for work.  Less than 1/2 mile from home I noticed a ‘warning light’ on my dashboard that I had not seen before.  It looked like a picture of a battery.  Now, in the past I would have thought, “hmmm, the battery is low(?) but the car is still driving.  It’ll probably recharge by the time I get to work.”  Even though a part of me deeper inside would be thinking “good chance you’ll have a dead battery when you get out of work, exhausted, and in the dark on a Sunday night, 12 hours later.”  And I would have gone on to work.  After all, I’ve gotten ready, packed all that food, and DRANK COFFEE.  And its not really a good thing to call into work at the last minute.

I drove for another 10 seconds, and then made myself get out the car manual and read what that light meant.  “If you drive any distance with the ‘charging system’ light on, you are in danger of draining your battery.”  So the bottom line is that even if I had the best intentions of getting to work, there was a strong likelihood that I would be stranded on a Sunday morning in the middle of nowhere (that is how I get to work 55 miles away.)  I backed the car up and turned around, came home and called in.

Believe me when I tell you that there have been many times that I have ignored warning lights on my car.  I have had to have an alternator replaced on my way to work.  I have had flat tires and dead batteries.  But finally I have learned.  It is not worth the angst and worry, or the feeling of ‘how stupid could I be,’ when taking chances and ignoring warning lights.

Now, I’m sure you can get the connection.  There are many warning lights we encounter in our weight loss/weight maintenance/fitness journey.  They can be different things for each of us.

For me, sometimes it is just that ‘over-full’ feeling (something I’ve felt a few too many times this week.)  When I first started Weight Watchers they had a chart that rated  your fullness from extremely hungry to over-stuffed.  It took me a long time to learn where that perfect in-between feeling was–satisfied to slightly hungry.  Now, even though I love food and am always tempted to eat a little more (especially at this time of year,) I really don’t like that over-full feeling.  And I know for sure you can’t lose weight if you feel like that too often.  So I try really hard to pay attention to that particular warning light.

What are some of the warning lights that you have encountered?  Have you paid attention to them or ignored them?

I Wish You Peace

I had a great Thanksgiving Day, and I hope all of you did as well.  I started my day with coffee and a pumpkin scone while listening to/watching one of my most favorite writer/pastor’s giving a terrific message online.  John Ortberg is a great communicator, and he talked about the peace that only God can bring about in our world.  He talked about the old prophets and how they talked about God’s dream.  And the word for that dream is ‘Shalom.’   He said there is a way things are meant to be.–‘Shalom’ is where things are just the way God wants them to be–emotionally, physically, spiritually, economically. That is the peace that I wish for all of you this Thanksgiving evening.  The peace that only God can bring.

Then I got ready to leave the house, which involved having 3 sets of clothes with me!  I had a plan, and it ended up working out just right!  I headed to the gym, and did a weights workout for about 30 minutes.  Then changed into nice dress clothes and headed over to my church to help serve the thanksgiving dinner.  That was really fun.  The only unplanned thing that happened was that I got really hungry serving all that food.  I had brought a snack to eat after working out at the gym, but I wasn’t hungry then, so I hadn’t eaten it.  So I ate a little more and a little faster than I had planned, but actually not that much.  Our church traditionally prepares way too much food, and this day was no exception, so I got a nice container of turkey to bring home for ‘left-overs!’  YAY!!!  I brought one piece of pie home to eat later too.

Then I headed BACK to the gym for a swim, which felt great.  No one was in the sauna, so I got to spend a little time in there–that is always a treat!  Back home, and I wanted to relax with a cup of coffee and watch a movie.  I had given away most of my videos, so it was a little slim pickin’.  But I chose an old favorite ‘You’ve Got Mail.’  Ha!  It was so interesting to me this time because that movie is about people developing a relationship completely via the computer–something I have been thinking about a lot lately.  I am working on a project that is traditionally done face-to-face, and involves people developing close relationships, and am thinking about doing it online.  And of course, part of my thinking is about how we bloggers have formed a real community that cares about one another.  I’ll let you know about this when I get a firmer plan in my mind.

I even had enough energy to take a nice walk with the doggies  (took an intermission in the middle of the movie!)

Tonight I had my new favorite way to eat turkey. “Sandwich in a bowl.”  I came up with that phrase (I’m sure someone else coined it before me) and all of a sudden I thought, I could eat all kinds of sandwiches that way.  Basically, take the innards out of the bread and dump it in a bowl.  Depending on how much you eat of this, it can be really low calorie.

I’ll leave you with a picture of Sophie enjoying her version of peace in this world:

(Can you even tell what that is?  Sophie likes to tunnel inside my robe when she’s sitting on my lap in the morning–only her butt sticks out.  Usually there is also a keyboard balanced across my knee at the same time!)  I’m pretty happy about my food intake today.  I tried not to count calories.  I tried to really enjoy what I ate, and to not get anxious about eating a little more than normal.  I am off to work for 3 days in a row now, and I think I am pretty set with lots of good veggies ready to go, and of course, all that nice left-over turkey!

Blessings to all of you!

Rambling

Somehow I don’t have a really inspirational/motivational/thankfulness post in me.  But I have a bit of this and that to talk about.

First.  I think a bear was at my house the other night.  I came out yesterday morning to get some firewood, and all three of my FULL garbage cans were overturned, and the garbage had been spread EVERYWHERE and thoroughly investigated.  YUCK.  Not only did it creep me out to think that maybe a bear was that close to my house, but it was also obviously very disgusting picking up all that garbage.  I was grateful it was not the middle of summer heat if you know what I mean.  And it was interesting to see that my garbage was pretty darn healthy, and did not have much that a bear would be interested in…

Second.  Last night, I fed the outdoor cat after dark (I had said yesterday morning after the garbage/bear incident that I wouldn’t be going out after dark) and in my hurry to get back inside, I stumbled on the stairs and fell straight forward with all of my weight seemingly landing straight on my knee.  And if you recall, I have been working on doing exercises to strengthen my knees so I can run.  So I just lay there for the longest time, saying a few bad words, and just being totally bummed out that I had done this to my knee AGAIN.  But guess what?  When I got up, it was okay!  There is a little tender spot, but nothing jangling around in there.  Maybe all the exercise helped?  Anyways, VERY THANKFUL there.

Third.  Here are a couple of links to blogs that have some great holiday helps with eating/exercising/planning.

• Shelley Making a holiday game plan
• Sandrelle Strategies for dealing with the food.  (She is the one doing the excellent series on the scale.)
• Joanna Excellent exercises for when the gym is closed!

Fourth.  My SAWHG (Super Awesome Winter Holiday Goal)  My friend Jill wrote about this a few days ago, and I have been mulling it over ever since.  Part of my says it would be wise to just make it a goal to maintain at the 155.5 weight I’ve been at (currently a couple pounds above….)  And I have to admit that I am already having a bit of trouble eating a bit too much–too many dinners ‘out of my control’  that is, not at home, prepared by me.  And, unfortunately, my ‘birthday season’ starts right after Thanksgiving and goes right up til Christmas.  Nevertheless, I am going to set as a goal to lose 3 pounds by January 7:  152.5.  I think it will do me good to have a challenge like this, and might make me think twice about the food choices I make.  I still like the idea of carb cycling, although I have not been able to do it completely right this last week.  I still think it can be helpful during this holiday time, to eat low carbs on the days in between the celebrating.  One strategy that really seems to be helpful is having a good workout shortly before I go out for dinner.  It reminds me that I am not just a fat girl out to enjoy all the food I can.  I am a health conscious, physically fit girl, going to enjoy time with friends and good food.

Well, not much more to report here.  A very blessed Thanksgiving wish for all of you.  I am thankful for so very much in my life.  God is good and kind, and He can be trusted.

 

Underexposed

Okay y’all, here it is.  The first ever video blog on debbyweighsin.  And appropriately, the lighting is not very good in it.  I had fun doing it (obviously, I like talking to myself.)  Hope you enjoy.  I came up with the title ‘Underexposed’  before I did the video.  Just my firm response that I am not going to ‘bare all’ on my blog.  But of course, there are other ways you can bare yourself.  I do always try to be very honest and open, both in my ‘real’ life and my blog life.

Some notes on the video:

My dogs do not usually swarm me.  I think they were amused that I was talking out loud.  Or maybe its that thing where your kids start bugging you the minute you start talking on the phone.

My hands constantly ‘picking’ on Oliver.  I can’t even believe I do this, although my mom has pointed it out for over 40 years.  It is the dog groomer in me…

My teeth.  Really, I don’t have one giant tooth in front.  I don’t know why the video looks like that.

Today was one of those perfect days.  I had an appointment to meet with my pastor, mostly to discuss books, which is fun.  So I fueled up with a protein pancake (put some grilled pineapple on top) and got myself out the door early and hit the gym for a great workout.  After the meeting with my pastor, I picked up a coffee at Starbuck’s and met my friend for  a quick trip to Apple Hill.  She is a weight watcher too, so we took our lunch with us.  It was a beautiful, sunny fall day up there.  Fun!  I got a bunch of different kinds of apples and pears to try, and we found out that our most favorite apple pie place had not gone out of business as we had previously thought, and so I got a frozen pie to share with my family at Christmas.  We split an apple dumpling and called it a day–we both wanted to get home before it got dark.  I got home in time to grab Oliver and get in a good 30 minute run.  I am getting better at running up the hills.

Gonna end and try to get this posted.  Have a great weekend!

Holy Moly! Who Knew Pumpkin Seeds Could Be So Good!

Yikes.  I can’t keep these things around too much, that’s for sure.  This morning I baked another ‘sugar pumpkin’ (gonna try to make pumpkin custard with it tomorrow.)  I started to throw the seeds out, and then thought, maybe I’ll try roasting them.  Somewhere or other I had seen a blogger write about making sweet and spicy pumpkin seeds.  First I googled ‘how to clean pumpkin seeds,’ and they suggested immersing them in a big bowl of water and rubbing them between your hands.  This actually worked pretty well, and it wasn’t that hard to get all of the stringy junk off.  (BTW, I bake the pumpkin by just cutting the stem off and putting the whole thing in the oven.  Seeds are easy to scrape off when it cools.)  I rinsed the seeds and left them to dry while I investigated various ‘sweet and spicy pumpkin seed recipes.’  I finally went back to this blogger’s site to see if that is where I saw the original recipe.  I don’t think it is, but I liked hers the best–least amount of work, least amount of sugar, and no oil.  We have a winner.  Of course, I adjusted the recipe, mostly because I didn’t have all the ingredients, and only wanted to do pumpkin seeds.  I used some of the spices I had seen in some of the other recipes, and added one of my own.  I followed her prep and baking instructions.  These are the spices I added:  2 tsp sugar, 2 tsp splenda, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp allspice, 1/4 tsp cumin, 1/4 tsp chili powder.

Okay.  I have never eaten pumpkin seeds before.  So those of you who are experts at eating pumpkin seeds can laugh at me one way or the other.  At first I was trying to eat them like sunflower seeds, which I have become quite proficient at.  But I ended up with a mealy mess in my mouth, and I was not sure I was spitting out the seed along with the shell.  I almost gave up, and then thought, well, just try eating the whole thing.  Bingo.  (But is this how other people eat them?)  Anyway, about 150 calories for 1 ounce, which would be okay, but since you eat the whole seed, they go down rather quickly…one ounce of sunflower seeds can last me an hour and a half!

I fixed a really great small salad for lunch.  I will do this one again.  I roasted one beet and let it cool.  Added baby lettuce greens to dressing in bowl and mixed.  Topped with the beet chopped up, one laughing cow wedge chopped up, and tossed in a few of the sweet and spicy pumpkin seeds.  Youza.  This is a winner.  Sorry I didn’t take a picture because it was kind of pretty.  And only 80-100 calories!  I can’t take complete credit for it because Vicky had this for sale and I had tried hers.  She used goat cheese and almonds, I think.  I actually liked mine better.  Laughing cow cheese wedges–people have been trying to get me to eat this stuff for 5 years.  I finally get it.  I think I’m in love, actually.

Well, its been another good food day.  I am enjoying having a good cup of coffee for my afternoon snack, and I can finally drink coffee without having to have ‘baked goods’ with it!  Dinner tonight is 2 chicken tenders, and am going to top them with sauteed mushrooms and onions, and a tiny bit of asiago cheese.  And a side of plain ol’ zucchini, one of my favorite veggies!

So far the only exercise was a pretty vigorous walk with the doggies.  Sophie has decided that she can run on the way home.  Because she thinks she will eat when she gets home.  Nevertheless, it challenges me to try running uphill.

Sophie cannot believe I am blogging while she waits for her dinner.

Full

This week on my ‘carb-cycling’ diet has been interesting.  Usually a ‘high-carb day’ is followed by two low-carb days.  But this week, because of where my work days fell, it got changed up a bit.  And that was partly because I was full.  And that is making me wonder about food choices and fueling my body.

Left to my ‘natural’ inclinations–my healthy-choice natural inclinations–my daily diet tends to be a little high on the grains and fruit, and a little low on the ‘good fats’ and protein.  And when I eat that way, I am not exactly hungry, but I am definitely looking forward to my next meal/snack.  But I noticed on my ‘low-carb’ days, especially at work, that I was not hungry for a longer period of time (4-5 hours) and I even skipped my afternoon snack in the afternoon because I felt full.  And that is on a total intake of 1200-1300 calories, as best I can count.

Now here’s how the days got mixed up.  Last Tuesday was my ‘high-carb day.’  I enjoyed it, and ate about 1775 calories.  Followed by two more days at home, where I ate ‘low-carb’ and about 1200 calories each day.  Then I went back to work for 2 days, and I had a ‘medium carb day, but was full so ended at 1370 calories.  I went to work the next day, Saturday, planning to have another low carb day (because I wanted to have my high carb day at home) but I did plan to switch it to a high carb day if I felt I needed it.  But again, that day, I was full in the afternoon and skipped my afternoon snack, so ended with only 1165 calories for the day.

So, yesterday, I finally planned my high carb day (Fun with Food day!)  I started the day at 6am with the protein pancakes, stuffed with greek yogurt and topped with cherries (350 calories total)-delicious, BTW.  Was not hungry til lunch.  At noon, I had a ‘bonza’ something Vicky concocted–homemade whole wheat dough shaped into a bun and stuffed with turkey/cabbage/onion/seasonings–delish, of course.  And an apple (400 calories total.)  Very full.  It was a nice fall day, so took a long walk with the doggies–was planning to run, but my knee was acting up, so decided against it.  At 4pm had a special planned snack of a ‘pumpkin latte’ that I made up myself, and 2 pumpkin chocolate chip bars (total snack calories 320.)  So of course I wasn’t hungry for the dinner I planned.  And if you are adding, I have only eaten 1070 calories out of the 1800 that are planned for the high carb day.  By 7pm I was starting to feel hungry.  So I fixed the ‘waffle sandwich’ that I had been waiting all week to try.  When am I going to learn?  I really don’t like sandwiches so much anymore… So I scraped the innards off the waffles, and was quite happy with what I had:  turkey, cranberry sauce, a little laughing cow cheese, and some baby lettuce.  I will be having this combo again!  Maybe I will try wrapping it in a lettuce leaf.  And I had a small serving of brussel sprouts with this.  So that was only 250 calories at most.  Again, VERY FULL.  And we are only up to 1340 calories…  I ended up having a ‘snack’ at 10pm which was less than stellar (popcorn, SF tapioca and pineapple, and a little dark chocolate,) and that brought my calorie count for the day up to 1765.

But I am mostly left pondering the feeling of fullness that I have had most of the week.  Is it because of this way of eating?  Is it because eating that much fruit and whole grains is not as efficient a way to fuel my body?  Is it just a glitch in the system and next week I will be STARVING on this diet?  Or is it a better way to eat?  OF COURSE, I tried to find the information on the latest nutritional guidelines, and couldn’t find a good quick link, but I believe it is 4-5 whole grains and 9 fruits/veggies.  Where does this way of eating fit into those guidelines?

I am interested to see if I lose weight this week.  Its hard to believe you will lose weight when you feel full this often.  But as far as I can tell, I have been as accurate and honest with my calorie count as possible.  I will report back tomorrow with my weight gain/loss…

When I took my walk, I finally remembered to take my camera.  I wanted to capture ‘signs of fall.’  And it was almost too late.  But I got a few nice pictures that I thought I’d share with you.

 

 

 

 

 

Lazygirl Soup

Tonight I wanted some soup.  Well, actually I wanted a nice steak, but when I went digging through the freezer for that filet I had saved for ‘just the right time,’ it was nowhere to be seen.  And then I remembered I had servied steak to my dad and my sister the last time they visited.  And that was the end of the steak.  So I started rummaging through the freezer–what kind of meat did I want?  The pre-cooked shrimp with the tails removed looked promising.  I counted out 12, 80 calories.  Then I noticed a bag of roasted corn from Trader Joe’s next to the shrimp in the Freezer–1/2 cup, only 80 calories.  I found a can of chopped tomatoes with roasted garlic in the cupboard, about 100 calories for the whole can.  Added a few chopped green onions (easier than a big onion,) spices to taste (1/2 tsp chili, 1/2 tsp cumin, pepper, salt,) warmed it all up, and topped with 1/4 avocado, 80 calories.  This made 2 big servings, and yes, I did scoop out the shrimp first and made sure there were 6 in each serving!  So, 210 calories for a big cup of ‘homemade soup,’ which included the avocado topping.  Yumm!  I love tomatoes, and grew up loving canned tomatoes, so I think they are an easy and good base for a lot of different soups.  You could get ‘no salt added’ if you are watching sodium intake, or you could start with fresh tomatoes, or make your own canned tomatoes.  But wait.  This was called Lazygirl Soup.  I’ll make Energetic Girl Soup another day.