Weigh-in Wednesday

No change this week.

I'm a little bummed about that, but I suspected that would be the case.  I had two successful fasting days again, but my half days were more like normal days, and one of my normal days was a little on the excessive side.  And then there was an evening of snacking... Not a whole lot of "moderation" was exercised around here this week.

I blame the sleep-over birthday party on the weekend.  :)

This coming week will be a bit of a challenge, too, since we'll be spending two days out of town on a little family get-away.  Which means, of course, eating out and cleaning my plate.  You know how it is.  You can't really get a "doggy bag" because you're not going home, but you can't bring yourself to send a good portion of the meal to the restaurant dumpster...  I HATE that feeling of wastefulness.  So I inevitably eat more than I need to.

My 11-yr old virtually never orders from the kids menus anymore, so maybe I can convince her to split meals with me.  (wish me luck with that ~ that kid eats like a horse!!)


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Wednesday Weigh-In

Well, I was certainly hoping for a bit more, but a pound gone is a pound gone!

I stuck reasonably well to my eating plan, though my "half" days were a little closer to "normal" days than they should have been...  :P

My two fasting days were successful, but I think my main problem now is that because I work most of the day, 4-5 days a week, I don't have time for my customary, daily 2-mile walk.  Even when I technically have time after work and before the girls get home from school, I'm flying around, catching up on things I couldn't do during the day.  In the mornings, it's still far too dark.

And, of course, this week, it's been just a little too cold ~ even for this hardy prairie Canadian!!

I walk in virtually any weather (I avoid wet roads though ~ ours are all gravel roads and they get really mushy and disgusting and wreck my runners after a bit of rain or in the spring thaw), but I draw the line once the windchill factor pushes the temperature lower than about
-30C/-22F.  This week, it's been hovering in the -37C/-35F range, so I wouldn't have been out there even if I'd been home all week!

So I'm still not quite sure what to do about the walking, but I know even without that, as long as I stick to the eating plan, I will continue to lose.

Just maybe not quite as fast as I'd like to!


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Weighing In

Woo-hoo, down another 2.2!  For REALS!!  You can bet I am pretty excited about that.  It puts me a third of the way to my Feb 28th challenge end goal.

I guess some of those ch-ch-ch-changes are working!

♪ Ch-ch-ch-changes ♫

I had intended to post about some goals I have for this New Year, but I get easily distracted, so it never happened.  Oh, and I don't really have any goals, other than sticking to the eating plan!  BUT, I have made a few changes and am planning to make a few more.

I have been doing the Sisterhood's "Fab Ab" work-out every day.  I can't do REAL push-ups though ~ my lower back just won't allow it.  I have to do the girlie ones.  For the same reason, I struggle a little with the plank, but somehow that seems more do-able.  At least for now.  We'll see as the time continues to increase!

I don't work out at all, but I was looking forward to resuming my daily, 2-mile walks now in the New Year.  I had resolved to make sure it happened EVERY weekday unless I had to leave the house early, but with Mack (my almost-11-year old daughter) being so sick last week and not returning to school until Thursday and then Friday being a bitterly cold and windy snow day, I think I've only walked twice so far this year!

And now I've accepted a part-time that will have me out of the house for a minimum of 6 hours almost every day from now until the end of Canada's tax season (April 30), so I'm not sure how that plan will work now!  I could go after work and before the girls get home, but four years of experience has shown if I don't go right first-thing in the morning when they leave on the schoolbus, I'm quite unlikely to go at all.  So I will need to work on figuring out a "new normal" here, too, I guess.

Another thing I've started doing is buying pre-made fruit and veggie platters from the grocery store, as well as 100% fruit juice or fruit/veggie juice.  (such as V-Fusion)  I HATE that I'm too lazy to get my fruits and vegetables otherwise, but I just am.  I always buy a cart-full of great-looking produce, but probably half of it ends up in the compost because we just didn't get around to eating it.  Either we forgot about it, or we opted to eat something else. 

Click to visit Canada's Food Guide

As tough as it is to part with the extra money that I now pay for the convenience of having all the prep work done for me ~ or drinking my produce ~ I still probably end up saving a bit in the long run because it ALL gets consumed.

AND, the real benefit, of course, is that we have all been eating WAY more fruits and veggies each day as a result.  I won't tell you how far short we fell of the food guide's recommendations, but suffice it to say, we're considerably closer now!

I have also just started taking 3 Tbsp of raw, organic apple cider vinegar throughout the day.  Now, for those of you who know me in real life, you KNOW I'm totally NOT the organic/clean-eating/whole-foods/crunchy-granola-type AT ALL, but having read about its many benefits so often and in so many different places in recent months ~ both online and off ~ I decided it was something worth trying.  I went with a brand that seemed to be one of the most widely recommended and got a bottle of Bragg's from Well.ca.

But man, that stuff is NASTY!

I don't care what drink mix recipe you've found on Pinterest or anywhere else online, you CANNOT convince me you've found a way to make it taste GOOD!  I've tried a few different things already to no avail.  It's just horrible.  But I understand it may be something of an acquired taste ~ like hard liquor ~ so I figure if people can drink THAT vile stuff after a while without puking or even grimacing, I should be able to do that with ACV eventually, too.  (which also burns quite considerably all the way down!)  I tried taking a straight-up 1 oz. shot, followed promptly by a large fruit juice chaser, but the acidity burned my throat. Like, for REAL. I could still feel the raw-ness two days later! So I've resorted to gulping down the tablespoon diluted with half a cup of water, which tastes every bit as horrible, but at least it doesn't LITERALLY burn! I can still get it down in one big gulp and after a swig or two of juice or water, the taste and fumes are gone.

If the ACV proves to be noticeably beneficial, I MAY switch to the more expensive alternative once the bottle's empty and purchase capsules instead!!

So there you have it ~ just a few little changes.  But HABITS are changing.  Slowly but surely!

Weighing In

Well, wouldja look at that.

Despite having a bit of a dismal week (which included dealing with child suffering a rather nasty case of tonsillitis), I'm down 1.8 lbs ~ woot! That's the first time the scale's gone down that significantly in a very long time.

Under any other circumstances, my
10-yr old would've loved to extend her Christmas holiday, but she's been wishing for school more than usual, and I am HOPING I will be able to send her today.  She also had a bit of trouble with insomnia last night though, so we shall see.

So the "exception allowance" for my modified eating plan has been extended a little longer than originally anticipated, but having a loss nonetheless is definitely encouraging!

Confession

I may or may not have eaten WA-A-AY too much butter- and salty seasoning-laden popcorn the last two evenings.

But it was creamy dill.

And I am weak.

Here I Go Again

Oh, I can SO relate!!
Well, to the Boston Cream part, anyway...

 It's like a bad 80's rock song, this "eating in moderation" thing and me.  Since I last posted here at the end of August 2011, I've managed to seesaw my way back up to 179.0 lbs.

Gaining 10.6 lbs over 16 months is bad enough all by itself, but the knowledge that HALF of those pounds were gained in the last two months ALONE is just plain shameful.

I blame my sister-in-law and her Ukrainian-style cooking at Thanksgiving for exponentially accelerating my downhill spiral.  I'm sure it's her fault.

So, here I am again at the beginning of another year, once again having NOT lost the weight I said I was going to at the beginning of LAST year.  This is getting old.  I'd planned to reach my goal weight by my 40th birthday in August, but that momentous occasion came and went with no change in my eating and exercise habits.

God has really been at work via my consience lately about my general lack of self-discipline, though, and I find myself viewing my many bad habits in a different light.  I am hoping planning this will be a pivotal year for me; a year to begin to stem the overwhelming tide of self-indulgence and laziness and fight back.

I have determined to go back to a modified version of the eating plan I had the most success with in the past.  My friend and I, while working through the A Woman of Moderation Bible study and following the prescribed eating plan, both agreed it was actually the easiest "diet" to stick to because you don't actually cut any particular food or food-type out.  You just conscientiously eat significantly less some days, and some days you forego two meals.  It sounds daunting at first, but it's not as difficult as you might think.

Basically, in my modification, I've swapped one fasting day for a "normal" day, giving me three days where I will eat normally (the NEW normal) and four days where I eat only half of that, or less.  My aim is to lose just over 14 lbs by the end of February so that when my tax time job starts up, I can treat myself to some new work outfits and comfortably wear what I bought LAST year.

I'm not sure how often I'll post and whether or not I'll link up with anything, but I'd like to at least do a weekly weigh-in post.

Here we go!