August Check-in

Well! That went by quick! Here we are in August.


Here's my progress report:

1. No more than one piece of bread or one sandwich at a meal.

Uh... yeah. About that. I'm not sure that this one is a good one for me. I've been making sourdough bread that's around 1/2 wheat, 1/2 white. Sometimes it pushes toward 2/3 wheat, but if I go past that, then it's not tasty; I really want to find a recipe for whole wheat sourdough, but oddly enough, that's been difficult. But I've had my biscuits 1/2 wheat, and the muffins -- did you know that you can use sourdough instead of baking powder? Sourdough's cool. Though it's really tough to keep in the summer if I'm not using it every single day. Whatever. I'm growing new skills, and I'm discovering some things, using this much wheat flour.

When I eat wheat like this, fresh ground and usually sourdough, my cravings back waaaay off. I've known for a while that I'm typically low on magnesium. Actually, most women are -- which is at the root of the stereotypical chocolate cravings (among other things): chocolate has magnesium, though not enough to satisfy the need. So I was taking magnesium supplements for a while. But when I started eating the whole wheat sourdough stuff, the cravings backed way off. Turns out, wheat has a lot of magnesium, too. Other things are also good when I'm eating whole wheat. I feel good. Go figure: "wheat [is] for man". So I'm amending this goal: Find a whole wheat sourdough recipe by September 1. There's plenty of time for practice in getting it right!


 2. If I have dessert, it will be only one helping in a day.

As long as we don't count the chocolate chips, I'm doing well here. I keep the chips to a reasonable quantity, and if I do them near daily, it's not much on any day, so I don't feel bad. This one, I'm doing well with.


3. Drink 2 quarts of water - every day.

 I don't know why this one is so tough. I'm great at being a sedentary water drinker -- used to actually do a gallon, when I spent more time at my computer. But now that I'm up and around more, and having tons less computer time than I used to, getting my water in is very, very difficult. I don't know what to do about this, other than just keep trying.


4. Weekly bike rides.

This one is going well, now that we've got Dragon up to speed without his training wheels. We're actually doing two rides a lot of weeks. At least for the summer and into the fall, I'm feeling pretty good about my activity level. Yoga most days, gardening and yard work, and regular bike rides.


5. Notebook tracking.

I've (mostly) been doing this, but I haven't got any huge insights,  yet. It does, however, keep me thinking about this stuff. I do better, overall, when I'm tracking. I eat more veggies, I move more, I get more water, and generally make more healthy choices. So even if it's not showing me how to fix things in an obvious sort of way, it is definitely helping. And the data is accumulating, so hopefullly I can put it to good use at some point. I definitely have a hormonal element to my weight, still, and I'm determined to ferret it out.


 I've been pondering what Emma had to say about her thin friend's family customs around food and health, and I'm thinking that I want to talk to some of my friends, and see if I can find out more about this, and discover if there are any common threads in what people do, what the family culture is, where people are successful at this stuff. If I can learn from people who are being successful, then maybe I can have that kind of success for both myself and for my kids. I'd like that.

July Check-in

I like the idea of monthly check-ins. Weight loss is not a short trip! And things are so busy right now (when are they not?) that monthly check-ins are more likely to happen.

So. How's things? Meh. I still have a long old way to go.


The various goals have become kind of mushy. I need to post them inside the cupboard where I keep my snacks or something, so that I think of them more often.

But, here they are.


1. No more than one piece of bread or one sandwich at a meal.

LOL. Bread is tasty. I suck at this. I should re-write this goal in terms of keeping up the veggie intake. Let the veggies crowd the bread. I think that would work better.


2. If I have dessert, it will be only one helping in a day.

Most days, there's no dessert. Most days, if there is, I can keep it to one, no problem. But then we go to my BFF's house and there's potluck and everybody is an awesome cook... yeah. I over do it those days, every time.


3. Drink 2 quarts of water - every day.

 I'm getting there. Most days, I'm close, if not quite there. I've got my 2nd quart sitting next to the computer as I type this, and I'm probably going to have it down before I sleep. The water thing is improving, and everything works better when well-hydrated. Including getting rid of fat.


4. Daily supplements.

I need to get some more of these; I've run out of both the magnesium and the dandelion-burdock concoction that I drink.


5. Weekly bike rides, at least for the summer.

Dragon has learned to ride without training wheels!! Which means that we can start going to the park on bikes again. I told him that he has to practice his brakes some more (funny how important stopping can be), but we made it to the park again tonight, and it was just lovely. Gardening is another summer thing that I can do to increase the activity level pretty painlessly. And my yard thanks me when I do it. And the kids are big enough now that they're not going to run into the street,if I take my eyes off them for .05 seconds.


The big development is that I've started a notebook tracking things. I write down how I feel, what I eat, the physical activities, any remedies I take, and basically anything that seems relevant. I'm collecting data, so that I can find patterns. Like, yesterday, something that I ate didn't agree with me. We had a movie day for the kids, and our friends brought over some very processed food - cheetos. I had some of those, and also some rice crispie treats. This morning I was up fully 2 pounds when I got on the scale. I suspect that it was the very processed cheetos, more than the rice crispies. Tomorrow, I'll probably make another pan of rice crispies for the pot luck we're going to, so I'll be able to compare my body's reaction. I need to find my thermometer too, and start charting my cycles again. The kids got so bad about swiping my thermometer that I got out of the habit - and my cycles are so much more regular now than they've ever been, that it's not bee a problem. But I am convinced that there is a hormonal aspect to my weight, and to why its so difficult to get rid of. Or perhaps some allergy. I know that my body hates high fructose corn syrup: 1 soda will put me up 2 pounds the next morning. I'm looking for other patterns, trying to ferret out the pieces to the puzzle that is my body.

Keepin' On

Tried a new recipe this afternoon, and I quite like it, though it wasn't a huge hit with my family. We had Parmesan-baked Zucchini. I haven't had much zucchini before, but I'm deciding that I like it. It's got a milder flavor than many veggies, almost sweet. I don't use the butter sprays, so I just melted a little butter and brushed it on. Then I dipped it in the cheese and cooked it on my pizza stone under the broiler. Easy-peasy. Next time I might add a bit of milk or something to moisten things up a bit more so I get more parmesan flavor, but for the most part, I really liked it. Dragon threw his on the floor, but Hero actually ate his with a minimum of complaints, which is unusual for green foods. He's not a veggies kind of guy! But even if I was the only one eating it, I think this recipe was quick enough and tasty enough that I'm ok with that.

I'm still struggling to get my water to level out, but my clothes are saying nice things to me. I'm also getting stronger. We're doing Pace Express workouts, and they include a number of things that build strength. There's a bunch of things to like about Pace. The program is based on heart rate and exertion, so however you get to the level that you need to be at, it's OK. It's great for starting where you're at and building on it. And it's working. It's challenging to be perfectly consistent with littles, particularly the newborn, but I'm doing pretty well! I think that as soon as I get the retaining water thing worked out I'll see happy numbers on the scale again.

Ready... Set...

So, seeing you girls post here again has me all anxious to see what my body does post-partum too. All I need now is to get there! Actually, it's not just your posts that have me anxious: I was loosing in the month prior to getting pregnant, and had a great thing going. I'd dealt with some emotional things that were holding me back and leading me to sabotage myself, I had a *great* workout routine (sadly, it's too intense to do in a pregnancy, since it hinges on high heart rates & the Dr. said no more than 150bpm), and was doing well with my food choices, and dealing with some of the estrogen dominance. There was exciting stuff going on! (And a baby is exciting too- just exciting different.) There's some exciting things still: I've gained very little in this pregnancy, even though I took forever to figure out a workable exercise routine. I actually think that a lot of it is dealing with the self-sabotage: I am maintaining healthy food choices much more often, and that is hugely healthy for both the baby and me. So I'm excited to join the two of you in the whole post-partum weight loss thing in a few weeks!

PACE

Well, we went out east, attended a wedding, visited friends and then came back by way of the Kirtland temple. Brought back lots of pictures, a few souvenirs, and 5 extra pounds. But 3 are gone already. I'm crediting the new workouts Andy and I are doing. We're using a system called PACE, and I think that my favorite thing is that I'm seeing results, and my next most favorite thing is that the workouts, at no more than 12 minutes, are easy to slip into a busy day without feeling like I need to choose between sleep and exercise or choose between my kids and my health. And it seems to be working!

Small Change, Big Help

So I finally got tired of eating the nasty school foods!! So Mom and I decided to buy some lunch meat and have me bring cold lunches to school. I started bringing my own lunches on Monday, and so far, I've already lost 3.5 pounds!! Yay!!! All because I'm no longer eating the nasty, greasy school "food." I'm so excited. Now I have to find a good workout to add to it, and then stick with it, and I'll be all set. I'm so excited!!! ^.^ I've also been snaking less after school, and the lunches I bring stay with me longer so I'm not as hungry at the end of the day. I eat less at dinner, but it doesn't feel like it because I'm eating healthier foods. :)

Weight Watchers Recipes

Hey, I ran across this Weight-Watchers recipe blog this morning, and I thought some of us might like it.

We've been so sick at my house for so long, but I'm finally getting to the point where I feel like I can exercise again, which is really nice! Happily, it looks like I haven't gained anything while I've been recovering.

Take it Outside

I'm struggling to make the kind of life-style changes that will make loosing weight & keeping it off possible. Recently, I was praying about it and felt prompted to spend more time outside.

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Once upon a time, there was a Mom who had a daughter that liked to read. (That would be me.) Mom, from time to time, would say to the young girl, "You need to go outside to play." Seated on the coziest corner of the couch, with her nose well buried in a fat book, the young girl probably didn't even hear her Mother until she'd said it at least three times. But eventually, if the Mother persisted, she would look up and say, "What?" Sometimes, the Mother was persistent enough that she would actually end up outside. Upon finding herself in the Great Outdoors, the girl commenced to search for a corner as soft as the couch to sit upon. Preferably, a corner without bugs. This was a difficult thing to find, and the girl very seldom found it. Sometimes, she would sit on the cement stairs and try to read comfortably there, but it never seemed quite as appealing as the coziest corner of the couch. In addition, there always seemed to be ants, spiders, and bees on the porch. So she would go back inside to the couch to continue her story, much to the Mother's frustration.

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Yeah. I wasn't much of an outdoorsy type. I'm better now. Discovering gardening did a lot for me. And having flowers just outside my living room window, flowers that attract big fluffy bumbles, has also helped with the whole bug thing. And doing nature study with Monkey is also a lot of fun; I'm learning tons. But I often still feel that old "What am I supposed to DO out here?" feeling that used to bring me back inside so quickly. But it makes sense that getting outside will help with increasing my overall activity level. So Maulbeere and I brainstormed some ideas for Things To Do Outside.

And today is 2 days in a row that I've been outside.

Gathering Momentum

I picked up running again, to go with my efforts at putting more veggies and less sweets in my mouth. So far, it's going really well. Today was Day 3 of that Runner's World training program. I haven't had to repeat a day to get it yet: first try all the way! I'm feeling pretty good about that, let me tell you! I think that the furthest I've been into that program is Day 8 or so, so I'm going to start out with a modest goal: Make it to day 10. Someday, I want to run a 5k, but I'm not worrying about that right now. Right now I'm working through the issues that keep me sabotaging myself. Like fear of miscarriage and gluttony. Things that happen in my head that keep the food going in the mouth or the feet off the treadmill.

I'm coming to the conclusion that weight loss isn't really so much about calories (though those ARE important) as it is about psychology or something like that. How many times have I started to loose, been making good progress, then let it all slip away and ended up heavier than when I started?? That's not a problem with my ability to loose weight: the weight loss was working. That's a problem with the things that happen between my ears. So I'm trying spending more time on my knees, asking for clarity and help. It worked yesterday. I managed not to eat more than I should.

I'm setting smaller goals: just this week. I want to loose 2 pounds this week. I'm doing that by drinking water and running. Next week will take care of itself when it gets here. I have to Pay Attention or I find myself with a fistful of M&Ms or something and then another and another... But yesterday I made it. I resisted the temptation to sabotage. And I'm not doing too badly today, though I really need to find my water.

Digging Out of My Hole

The one that I dug for myself when we went on our trip. It was not pretty. I came back with much more of me to love than there was when we left and this does not make me a happy Mama! However. I've been getting back on track since then. I've got some smoothie stuff to post (more on that in a minute) because I've been working on re-learning how to eat so that I loose weight. Re-discovering how tasty veggies and fruit are. Plain. All by themselves. With maybe some other healthy things. That and some water is working nicely. Which is good because getting the exercise to happen has really been a struggle. But I feel pretty good: I've lost 8 of the pounds I'd gained while we were out. Still have 4 to go, but it's progress. And it's loss. So I get a button.



Speaking of smoothies, they make a yummy breakfast. This one had apples in it, which my blender didn't quite manage to smooth out, so I had chunks. But the blender is known to be dieing, so it's OK. One of these days I'll replace it. But it's not all dead yet, just partly dead. Partly dead is still slightly alive... Ahem. In addition to the apple (chunky) there was strawberry. That got smoothed out. I think this one also had the end of my pineapple rings and some pineapple juice. And a little vanilla yogurt. YUM. So tasty! Sometimes, when I don't have any juice around I throw in a slosh of soy milk. For whatever reason I never seem to slosh around the regular milk like that, though you probably could. But soy milk is very easy on the calories. I've got some frozen fruit that I sometimes put in: peaches or blueberries. Both quite yummy as well. There will be bananas in the next bunch of smoothies that I make cuz I got a whole slew of bananas today. Just whatever's around. It's a tasty fruity way to start the day for not many calories! If you're feeling REALLY adventurous, a friend of mine makes a green smoothie... with spinach in her fruit. Looks like toxic waste. Tastes good. But it's a bit... oddd.... drinking that green stuff. But it'd add more veggies to the day.

Picking Up Steam

I've been talking to the Lord for some help with the fears that are causing me to sabotage myself. And while I'm not actually loosing yet, I think it's helping. My exercise is getting more important to me again: I did 2 days last week & started the week out right this morning with a bit of a walk-n-run. I listened to some Conference talks on my phone while I did it, and it felt good. That is, it felt good until I got a cramp in my hip. Andy said that sometimes happens when your body isn't used to it, so I'll take my day of rest (probably try for some yoga tomorrow, but Monkey has an allergist appointment that's going to seriously gum up the works) and then try again on Wednesday. I'm feeling pretty good.

Pressing On

Now that the wedding is done, it's time to get rolling again! Been awfully quiet around here, I'm wondering what you girls are up to these days? I'm still trucking along in the push-up challenge. We're into week 3 now, and it's going well. I did 47 pushups, divided into 5 sets, the other day. I still need to do my pushups this evening before I go to bed. Working out has been more difficult, as has drinking water. I always do better when both Andy and myself are at home. There's been a lot of one or both of us out and about lately. Hopefully that will ease up here shortly and I'll be able to rebuild my routine. I was doing so well this summer, but I've really been struggling to re-create that this fall.

I went shopping this evening and picked up a lot of fruit and some veggies to chop up. I've been realizing that my food is a significant part of the problem. I need to eat more fresh chopped veggies, more plain fruit. I need it as snacks, at meals, all the time. It's better for me. It's less calorie-filled, so it will help me reach my goals.

Today I bought pears and apples. I also picked up some bananas and peppers. They are yummy. They are things that I like to eat. Pears and apples are even more or less in season still, so they fit nicely in the Word of Wisdom:

And again, verily I say unto you, all wholesome herbs God hath ordained for the constitution, nature, and use of man—

Every herb in the season thereof, and every fruit in the season thereof; all these to be used with prudence and thanksgiving.

I've got a long way to go, but I'm working on it! One of these days I'm going to start reaching some goals!

Chuggin' Along

Did my pushups and my run this morning. I finished day 1 of the running program. Feeling pretty good. On the way to doing well with my water too: almost finished with the first water bottle of the day!

Interestingly, I'm not nearly as hungry when I work out a lot. Andy says that it's completely normal, and happens because the blood moves to the extremities and away from the stomach. So I get to be less hungry. It's a great arrangement: I'm less hungry so I eat less, then I get to weigh less after a while!

Week 1 Day 3: 25 pushups.
Day 1: Run 1 Walk 2, x10.

Building Steam

I got up this morning and did some yoga. It was pretty nice! Didn't take too long, and I felt pretty good when it was done. I'll have to decide tomorrow if I'm going to do more yoga or if I'm going to make another effort at jumping back into running, but either way I'm starting to build up some steam again, which is really nice!

Taking my measurements again for the dress I'm making was pretty frustrating; I'd lost pretty much all the ground I gained when I was running. Plus, I haven't been drinking water, so I'm also up a couple pounds of water weight. At least, I hope it's water weight! That kind is so much easier to get rid of! In any case, I'm working on things again.

Accomplished: Road to Running Day 1

I did it! I did day 1!! And it wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it was going to be when I put on my shoes this morning. I hurt So Bad after running on Monday. I thought this was going to be awful. But it wasn't. In fact, it felt good. I could already tell that I've learned a few things about running. I'm sure there's going to be plenty more to learn, but so far the first is the worst. We'll see what sort of soreness punishment my muscles put out this time. And I have to look at what comes next. I know that tomorrow is a walk and I don't run again until Day 3. But I don't remember any more than that.

One really fun thing is that with using Runner's World's workout tracker they count a bunch of cool things. For instance, I have done more than 25 hours of working out since the end of May. And I've run a total of 7.2 miles. Those are fun. But the best part is that it'll map the route that I run and then tell me the pace. And the very first time that I tried running back in May I was "running" a 20 minute mile pace. Today my pace was 16:43!! And that's already improved from Monday's 18:03 pace. And those paces include time for warm-up and cool-downs. So I'm actually running a bit better than that. I'll probably get me some sort of stopwatch to get better times. My watch isn't very well marked for doing this sort of thing and I think I could get to caring about how fast I'm going. One of my favorite parts of doing this program is that it's time based: run 1 minute, rest, run 1 minute. This works a lot better for me than other ways I've tried to run.

I Didn't Want To, But...

I did my workout. It's a nice feeling of accomplishment.

Non-Scale Victory!!

I put up the Non-scale Victory badge today because I exercised tonight! That doesn't sound like much to say it out loud, but let me tell you a little bit about my week:

Monday was a pretty normal day. Except that late Monday night I loaded all my canning stuff and my dehydrator into my trunk for the class that started Tuesday.

Tuesday got up bright at early to be at the class at 8:30, which is early in my book, (I'm certifying as a "Master Food Preserver.") and then came home & did regular Mom stuff until late. At the end of the day I did some yoga and learned that I've lost muscle since I was last doing that regularly. Bummer. But I did it.

Today, I had to be at class at 8:00. This is difficult, since it's about 20-25 min away from home and I just don't do mornings anymore. I hope someday that Andy will be on a 1st shift type schedule and we'll shift our lives back into sync with the rest of the world, but until then getting up to be someplace by 8AM is really hard! After class I did more Mom stuff and then I exercised! I did 25 whole minutes of aerobics this evening. It wasn't my best work, but I did it!

Also, a little more than 1/2 of my bloating is gone. I hope to be back to normal tomorrow if I can get in a bit more water tonight.