Hey everyone! 

As you all know I started over on my weight loss endeavors a few days ago… 4 to be exact. During those 4 days we have been on high alert for Hurricane Gustav.  My brother and his family and their dog are all here as well and we are ALL getting on one anther’s last. damn. nerve.

HOWEVER, I’ve done really well with my food intake during this time.  Even though I’m stressing out I’m keeping to my 1200 to 1800 calories a day plan.  I’m averaging 1500 a day which isn’t too bad.  I’m not feeling deprived, I’m eating well and if I eat much more per day Imma ’splode! 

It truly amazes me how WHAT you eat has a greater impact than how much you eat. 

I used to fool myself into thinking I was doing ok food-wise by eating only one or two meals a day.  Unfortunately, those meals were … well… CRAP foods.  Don’t get me wrong, they were tasty as all get out but the nutritional value was… well… Crap.    The caloric intake was AWFUL in those couple of meals. Because I was taking in so many calories and getting so litte out of it nutritionally I ended up snacking at night on MORE crap… NOT the best plan, eh?  Thankfully, I seem to have fixed that glitch for now.

The exercise portion of my plan has been… eh.  Not so great.  I overdid it the first day and could barely move the 2nd.  I did walk some the 2nd day but not enough for my taste.

YESTERDAY though was a great day of accomplishment for me.  We went to a Hurricane Fish Fry.  I brought a dessert that I really should not ever eat and a corn casserole.  I modified the corn casserole to make it lower in fat and a bit healthier and it turned out wonderfully!  There was NONE of the corn casserole left over to bring home.  What was left of the cake I refused to bring home.  I did not want it there to tempt me. Someone took it home and will return the pan when they are done with it. 

The part that I’m most stoked about though is that I managed to keep my caloric intake under control at the Fish Fry.  I got on Calorie King and found the calories for Fried Catfish and cole slaw and had only a taste of a few other things that looked healthier than the rest. 

I also walked to and from the Fish Fry. (Let me Tell you that was a major thing.  Uphill all the way there.  I was breathing like a hooker with emphysema!!!!) 

All in all, its going OK thus far.  We’ll see how its really going Friday when I weigh again.

A few days ago at Target I saw the first few displays on Halloween candy. I checked the bag, and it will theoretically last until Halloween, but not really. It will have been eaten by then, for sure.

I remember thinking, “but it’s August!” I’ve had several years to think about this, and I’m finally coming to the conclusion that it has nothing to do with the holiday, it’s just another excuse for Americans to do what they do best–consume. I wonder what percentage of Halloween candy is actually eaten by children on Halloween.

I have a big beef with Halloween for a few reasons, but mainly because it’s a holiday that encourages young children to eat unhealthy food. In reality, though, it’s not the children eating the food. It’s the mother who eats a bag of cheap chocolate in front of the TV in mid September because it was near the checkout and easy to pick up. It’s almost an unconscious action that occurs, and candy companies count on this mindless eating. They want to make money, tons of money, to the detriment of people all over the states.

I’m not saying it’s a bad thing to eat chocolate. I definately am a chocolate lover, but I choose carefully when I want to consume it and try to choose dark. If you want to buy Halloween candy for trick or treaters, make sure you buy it the day before Halloween, or the day of, and only as much as you need for the kids. When you’re buying, be honest with yourself about who it’s for, and if you don’t want to end up eating a bag of chocolate, don’t buy ten extra.

The Wonderful Wizard of POBO!!!

Hi everyone!  Long time no… nothing… really. I am back at the lake and back on program.

The dreaded weigh in took place this morning as early as I could face it.  I now weigh 423.2 lbs.  Yeah… I gained 25 lbs over the summer.  Yanno what though?  I’ll take it. Honestly, I was expecting 40 lbs. I can SO live with 25.

I am back to trying to exercise… no… actually… trying to just MOVE more.  I really wouldn’t classify what I did today as exercise.  I walked the block twice, I walked in the pool for 45 minutes.  I fixed breakfast for HusbandGuy and myself.  I did dishes several times.  I did some laundry.  This all may seem very mundane to most of you but for me it was a big deal.   My back and legs are SCREAMING but I feel good about having done that much. 

I’m also back to attacking the food front as well.  My target is 1200-1600 calories a day.  Today I have managed to get in 1155 calories.  I’ll be eating an English muffin, 1 oz cheese and some applesauce before bed for a daily total of 1495 calories for the day.  I’m tempted to post my food diary on here daily but I’m not sure you guys would be interested in that. Let me know what you think.

All in all I’m pleased with my first day on plan. Gonna strive to string a few more together with it for a successful week! I’ll let you know how that goes.

Well, not really. What you want to do is to eat more often. This is the first thing that my trainer told me when we first started out (the second thing was to drink between 70-100 ounces of water every day). See, what happens is that when we go into a starvation cycle, that is, when we wait until the hunger pangs force us to take action, our metabolism is slowing down, which as we all know, leads to the dreaded weight gain. If we spread out our caloric intake so that we are replenishing our body every couple of hours, then our body is forced to expend more energy to digest this food. This doesn’t mean you should go out and stuff yourself on McD’s 6 times a day. But find some healthy snacks to munch on between meals. I often go for a handful of baby carrots or some grapes. And go ahead and eat those carbs. Just try and make sure they are complex carbs like what you get from legumes and grains as opposed to the simple carbs found in sugar. And don’t fear the fat! Seriously, we need fat in our diet. But like carbs, we need to be choosy about what KIND of fat we consume.

Another way to up your metabolism is to simply WALK. I used to complain constantly when my partner would not park in the CLOSEST space possible. Now, I quite happily park on the far end of the lot and walk to my destination. Every little bit helps.

And give yourself credit for taking these little steps. All too often we find it much easier to beat ourselves up and then use food or lack of exercise as our punishment. Getting in your right mind and celebrating your successes, both large and small, will lead you to your goals. We’ve all heard about vicious cycles. But what I am sharing with you is how to create a VIRTUOUS cycle. I found that once I started working out regularly and seeing the results, I wanted to CONTINUE with a healthy workout schedule. I now feel off-kilter if I go any longer than 3 days without some sort of heavy physical activity. I may not really like the actual workout but I love the feeling of knowing that I am getting stronger and healthier. When you grab a handful of grapes instead of a candy bar, go ahead and give yourself a pat on the back. When you park your car a few spaces further from the door, acknowledge that this is something you are doing to make yourself healthy.

The key for success is to replace bad habits with good ones. If you can just do this for one thing in your life right now, the other things will start to fall into place too. Try it. It has worked for me.

I am the official POBO Fail Whale.

It seems like this summer has just been one crisis after another, one stressor after another, one more reason for me to NOT do what I’m supposed to be doing for my health and my weight.  First, I was in too much pain to be able to focus on anything but getting through the day.  Then I had surgery.  Next, I wound up in the hospital for 4 days.  After THAT I was trying to be careful about moving too much because I was paranoid about tearing my incision.  NOW I’m concentrating on finding HusbandGuy a place to live, expediting and facilitating his move and helping our roomie get everything ready for his move 3 states away.

I’m not sleeping.  I’m not journaling my food.  I’m not exercising.  I’m eating crap and can’t be assed to pay enough attention to what I’m eating to realize it until its too late.  BLEH.

I keep waiting for life to slow down, to stop driving me nucking futz, to gimme a fricking BREAK but those are just excuses, aren’t they?  I need to motivate myself in the face of all this overwhelming crap… I’m just not sure how to DO that.

I wanted to share with my fellow POBOffers that I partiipated in a Triathalon yesterday.

I was the only one in the field and I achieved a personal best.

Was this a “real” triathalon?  Why, yes, of course; it included three events.  I biked to the swim club, jogged from the bike rack to the poolhouse, swam laps for about 30 min, jogged back to my bike, and biked home. Technically, I think it may actually be a pentathalon, but I don’t need to brag.

› › read more…

SLWB – that’s me.  Try as I might, gaining weight and then keeping it on is a long-term up, down, up, down, up, down… similar to the other bloggers here but possibly in reverse.

About 18 months ago, I weighed myself on scales at a friend’s place.  I was 54 kilograms.  I knew for me that that was not enough.  I knew, from the daily look in the mirror whilst shaving, that I was not as heavy as I would like to be, but weighing myself in at 54K was the turning point. › › read more…

well, on payday (last thursday) i was going to go to Trader Joe’s or at least to Von’s and buy some healthy snack foods, because i work in one of those foody places. we don’t make food, we just have a lot of it around. i never bring and rarely buy lunch, i just go to work and live off the fat of the land. keyword being, fat. i was going to go to Target and buy a scale, too. › › read more…

As a fat person, who mostly hangs out with thin people, I find that they can be the most destructive part of my diet motivation, and my workout motivation.

First of all, all my friends ever want to do is go eat, or go drink, or watch a movie while eating and drinking.  Why does every aspect of our lives revolve around food and drink?  Back in 1996/97 I had a gastric bypass surgery and back then it was a MAJOR process. Five days in the hospital and 3 months on baby food, and very little baby food at that.  What I discovered, when I physically couldn’t eat, is that that is all my friends do.   Now, 12 years later, that really hasn’t changed. What bugs me the worst, is that I eat less, and drink less then any of my friends and yet for some reason I gain more weight then any of them.  I can gain weight watching someone else eat. › › read more…

yes, i’m fat. but i’m not a fat girl, not in my mind. throughout my life since approximately age 13, i’ve gained and lost at least a thousand pounds (well, i’m guessing, but probably). it doesn’t matter that i was probably closer to fat than thin most of these last 35 years, to me fat was the anomaly; truly i am a thin person trapped in a fat chick’s body. i’ve never said “i’m happy with the way i am” while fat, it’s just not in my power to be content fat. not matter how fat i am now, it’s not how i am.

crazy, huh? › › read more…