Positivity! (Is that a word?!?)

Cool stuff going on here. Since I’m no longer with weight watchers, I’ve changed my weigh-in day to Friday mornings (if I remember, but I put stickies everywhere). I figure if I do a little damage on the weekend, I will have all week to repair it, and Friday will hopefully show a gradual decline. My weight this morning was 265 pounds. Which is 13.4 pounds less than my last weigh-in at weight watchers. I am excited that it showed I am losing. The scale has been consistent enough that if my weight was decreasing, I’d see a difference on my scale, etc, so it does give me a fairly good idea that it’s definitely down, but I’m also definitely taking this with a grain of salt.

My scale was always a little lower than theirs (by, like 2 pounds), not to mention that it’s a different weigh-in time than usual. My normal time was in the evening, so you can see that there are several changes that can definitely have an effect. So if I remember, I’m going to try to weigh myself in the morning (mostly naked and after peeing), and again in the evening before bed (mostly naked and after peeing) I can hopefully get an idea of what my body and my scale is doing. We’ll see next Friday what its doing.

For the good news, for the last 3 days, I have been within my calorie limit, and have tracked EVERYTHING on Spark People. I even tracked my water intake. It’s been a long time since I’ve done this consistently, so this makes a big difference. I feel that I’m really back on track; my exercise could use a little work, but my eating is doing great, and right now, I feel like that’s the most important thing. I will eventually work harder at getting the exercise in.

Yesterday, I had another funeral to attend. This one, a 16 year old second cousin who was killed when he hit a drainage ditch that was hidden by tall grass with the ATV he was on, and rolled it. I barely remember Louie. When he was young, I remember that he was quite spoiled, and I always thought a brat. But everything I’ve learned in the past 5 days about him shows me that he really turned into a decent young man, who treated everyone with respect and kindness. It makes me wish I had known him. I’m finding it harder every time to attend funerals, because I’m such an emotional person. I can go to a funeral of a complete stranger, and if I see/hear someone crying, I well up. If I hear happy or sad stories about them, I well up. It’s hard for me not to. But out of respect for the person and their families, I will continue to go. I just have to bring lots of Kleenex.

After the funeral, I had a hair appointment, thanks to a gift certificate my Mom gave me for my birthday. The hairdresser was fantastic; really easy to talk to, and she knew what she was doing, AND it only cost $35 for a haircut, wash and dry and highlights! I’m so going to be going back in a couple of months. Anyways, I kind of let her do what she wanted with my hair, without cutting it too short, and she cut it into a sort of shag cut. She also did blond highlights, which really look great! I love it!



By the way, I discovered something AMAZING!!! You know those ‘green’ bags advertised all over TV, to “keep your vegetables fresh and lasting longer!”? They totally work! A couple of weeks ago, I was getting really tired of getting some lettuce or spinach and having it go bad before we really even used it. So I got the bags and put a head of lettuce into it. Through the last 3 or so weeks, I use it here and there (working on using it more) and that head of lettuce is still good! It lasted three weeks! It’s so fantastic for people like us who only shop twice a month, and have veggies and fruits go bad far too fast for our use. I’m so excited to see what else will last way longer than planned. All we need is for it to last for 2 weeks until we shop again. (So there’s my fantastic endorsement!) If I could, I’d give them 11 ½ stars.

The end of weight watchers and a challenge!

I had to quit weight watchers last night. It’s only $39.99 per month, which is pretty reasonable, and the group is really supportive; a great group really. Unfortunately as of September 1st, our rent is doubling, and we are going to be so incredible tight, it’s not even remotely funny. My weight last night was up 0.4 pounds, which yes, is a gain, but I’m recouping my efforts now. I will be weighing myself on my scale from now on, I think on Fridays.

What also doesn’t help financially is that we’re also trying to get Jeff a membership at the aquatic center, since he quit at 24-hour fitness and hasn’t had any place to go since then. And we’re going camping for both of the first two weekends of the month, so that adds things up as well. I would almost be for cancelling the camping trips, but we haven’t really had much time this summer to camp at all, so I want to take advantage of the chances we have. After all, October will be too cold to camp.

Since I will no longer have weight watchers, I am back at SparkPeople tracking my foods and exercise. Yesterday, I was determined to eat well, within my calories, and I did! Today I’ve tracked everything for my breakfast and lunch that I will be eating, and then I can work dinner around that tonight. I’m getting tired of not seeing any losses, and that’s going to change.

JackSh*t and The Anti-Jared have come up with the idea for the All Loser’s Challenge. This challenge is, for me, a little simpler because it doesn’t require me checking in every day (which I always forget to do), etc. The challenge is simple. Write down your weight now, write down what you want to weigh by December 31st, 2010 and then do it. –The Anti Jared

Simple and sweet. I currently weigh 278.4 pounds. By December 31st, 2010, I will weigh 250 pounds.

What will you do?

Alot of random thoughts

The last week has been pretty busy for me. We had three birthdays in my immediate family. A younger sister on Thursday, My 28th on Friday and my older brothers 30th yesterday. We’ve always done a special family dinner for our birthdays and decided to have one big birthday party on my birthday for all three of us. (The cakes I made were fabulous looking and soo delicious, but luckily I controlled myself and had a very slim slice of each.

But then my sister still wanted to have her birthday on Thursday, since it actually was her birthday and otherwise would not be celebrating on the actual day, so we had dinner and a dessert at my Mom’s house that night too. Then on Saturday, they got some carne asada and cooked it on the bbq which was absolutely delicious. All in all, I don’t think I’ve overeaten too much over the last week, but I didn’t track because its hard to track something you didn’t make, and you actually don’t completely know what’s in it. For the most part, I didn’t go back for leftovers at all, and did eat slowly, so hopefully stayed within reason.

Yesterday, I walked in my living room, counting my steps for a minute every so often, and walked a really good, albeit quite fast pace for 31 minutes. I’m planning on doing something again tonight, to help get back on track. I think the more often you exercise, the easier it is to get motivated to exercise. A couple of months ago, when I was exercising almost daily, I was sticking to a schedule, and after 2 weeks, it seems that getting myself to motivate and go wasn’t nearly as hard.

Jeff was gone at clinical last night, so I was bored and alone, and didn’t get more than 1 thing done on my list of things to do, and that 1 thing was only because it’s dangerous. We have a bee problem; it seems they’ve built their next between the edge of a brick wall and our house. We’ve sprayed that stuff on them twice now, Jeff from one side and me from the other, but they still seem to be coming back. So the errand last night was to get more bee spray so we could do it again when Jeff got home, which we did. Unfortunately, we’re now thinking they may have built up into the roof a little, and so now we might be really screwed. The worst part is this spot is 1 foot away from the front door, so every time I leave the house, or get out of my car, I’m saying my hail mary’s that I don’t get attacked or stung. It’s worked so far, but it’s still a really bad place for the little bas*ards. And we’ll get them some time.

I’ve decided to get a pedometer. I know that when I used one before, I was getting about 3-5,000 per day, which is low because my job is very sedentary, and that after seeing it so low, I’d take my 10 minute break walking around the building to rack up a couple hundred more. I remember my disbelief when I finally went above my 10,000 prescribed steps a few times. It was great, and probably so great for me, so I’m going to see about getting one that works.

So I have a question then. When I first got a pedometer, I put it at my waist and it was really uncomfortable because of my stomach protrusion. I tried it on my right shoe, but I don’t really think it was accurate. I don’t have pockets in my workpants, and I’m at a loss where else I can put it that will be accurate but comfortable. Do you have any suggestions?

Tonight I have my weigh-in at weight watchers. For the last two days, I’ve been debating going to the meeting but not getting weighed-in. I felt like I needed the support of the meeting, but that I didn’t want to weigh-in. Fortunately (or unfortunately depending on how you look at it) I realized that I just didn’t want to see the truth, that my weight will likely be up, and since when have I ever run from the truth?!? Never really. I’ve always been one to own up to it, accept it and change what I have to change. So now that I’m actually facing it here, I will be going to the meeting, and I will be getting weighed, to see how far off track I am. Thanks you guys!

Oy.

I have found myself really struggling the last couple of months, and especially in the last couple of weeks, while I’m trying to nip my old habits that are easing their way back in, before they cause some real damage. Over the last four weeks (sadly including last night) I’ve had 3 gains and one loss. Oh, they’ve been small gains, 0.2, 0.4 until last night’s which brought me back up to 278 pounds. That’s the most I’ve gained in probably 6 months, and it really bothers me. In fact, it kind of pisses me off, which is good, in that it (I’m hoping) will motivate me to get back on track, but it’s bad in that I’ve worked so hard at not beating myself up, that it feels like it negates all the redirection I’ve done in that area.

Either way, I really feel motivated to be healthier. I actually do. I actually have every single day for the last month. But for some reason, I can do fantastic all day long, but then get home, and despite that I have microwave dinners in the freezer, or despite that I make myself eat a cup of carrots before I can eat or overeat the bad stuff, I still do eat it. Something is making me lack control, and I want to know what it is, that weakens my ability to tell myself no.

Last night after the horrible weigh-in, I talked to my leader who gave me some help and a pamphlet that will hopefully get me back on track. I made the decision last night that I would do this day to day. I will eat well and exercise today. Who cares about tomorrow right now. I’m focusing on one day at a time. I will track everything I eat, and I will stay under my points target today, and I will exercise. Please God let this work!

Deep thoughts

My sister Lisa has been having horrible headaches and a bad fever, and the doctors are doing tests, trying to figure out what’s going on, so my Mom has been watching her 3 kids for the last several days. Hopefully they’ll get it figured out and get her back to normal soon. Please keep her in your thoughts.

Anyways, last night, I went over to my Moms for a couple of hours while Jeff studied for a test, and helped out with the kiddos. I was sitting there feeding Sienna her food, and after eating most of it, she wouldn’t open her mouth for more. So I stopped and cleaned her up, and that was it.

When I got home though, I started thinking about how little kids have the ability to tell when they’re hungry, and when they’ve had enough without getting a stomach ache. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a little kid get full, and then keep on eating to the point where their stomach hurts too much.

So, at what point did I learn that? At what point in my life did I start eating too much, even when it gave me a stomach ache? At what point did I start using food as a bandage for inside hurts?

I laid there in bed, and thought about it a long time, trying to track back to what point in my life I took this detour. I remember when I got my drivers’ license that the first place I went to was Hanks store deli, so I could buy a bunch of their deep fried deli food.

I remember when I was homeschooled for 9th grade, being home with my baby sister all day long and foraging through the kitchen for food. Eating canned frosting with a spoon or on a graham cracker, though I never had the patience to wait so the cracker would soften a little the way I like it. I ate them the way I don’t like because I didn’t want to wait 5 or 10 minutes.

I remember when I was 12, coming home from school with my siblings and trying to find something that I liked to eat, but finding nothing, so then I’d eat a bunch of something that I didn’t like as much.

I remember baby-sitting my cousins when I was 10 or so for several hours a day, and going to their store room, where they had goodies galore. I’d stand right there and open the baggies of jelly candies and eat them, and then throw the wrapper behind the shelf. (I seriously hope they never clean out back there!)

Funny thing is I can’t remember any further back where I ate like that. Age 9 or 10 is about as early as it goes. I don’t know what my trigger was, likely emotional stress, but the goodies and crap were freely provided, because that summer, the one where I remember this so well, I spent 6 days a week watching their kids for half the day.

So my thought/question, whatever, is at what point a person develops the habits of emotional eating. At what point do we go from being a little kid who stops eating when we’re full and a kid who’s told to finish their plate, to a young person who will eat anything and everything in sight, who will search the cabinets high and low, just for something to put in their mouth?

Greatest NSV EVER!!!!!

I had a real non-scale victory during these last 7 days. When I went shopping with Jeff over the weekend, most of the shirts I found were size 2X, as opposed to my old 3X. One shirt was so cute that I couldn’t pass it up when they didn’t have it in 2X, but still, I’ve obviously gone down enough on top that I finally have lost a size! And this morning, I couldn’t find my work pants. When I bought them, I got 2 pairs of the same pants, so that, basically, they will last twice as long if I rotate them out and the legs will go further before wearing out between my thighs. That is one of the main reasons I bought 2 of the same pair of pants. It’s sad that I could see that before but still didn’t change myself. Anyways, this morning, I was crawling around our closet to find something to wear, and came upon a pair of pants, that I don’t think I’ve worn in 4 or 5 years. I remember wearing them when I was 21, but I’m not sure of the later years. They’re a size 22, and I was so sure they wouldn’t fit, as I was pulling them up. But they got over my butt and zipped up, and are only the tiniest bit tight! I couldn’t believe it!

Size-wise, I weighed a lot less when I was 21 years old, but that’s when I hit size 22. When I was in 24, and was this close to a 26, I put my foot down, and now here I am, finally a size 22 and 2X. I am so excited!

I did really good tracking yesterday and tracked everything I ate, even though there were some things I shouldn’t have. They’re written down, and duly noted. I think the problem was that the2 things I ate and shouldn’t have were simply in the house. I wasn’t hungry, and was even just putting stuff away in the fridge and my gaze landed on them. Sigh, it will get better. I made my smoothie again this morning, and packed my lunch. I will do better! I am determined!

Buh bye plateau! See you never!!!

Alrighty. I finally broke through my plateau last night. My weight was (drumroll please!) 276 pounds, which means I had a loss of 1.8 pounds!!! FINALLY! I’ve gotta say this was a long time coming. After nearly 2 months of my weight hovering and then going up slightly, it’s a relief to see the loss. I’m so excited!

If I lose 0.6 pounds more, I will get an award or something from our group leader for losing 25 pounds AND another 5 pounds gone sticker. Another 5 pounds after that will be my 10% with weight watchers and 15% since I started losing weight. I’m so looking forward to these goals. Knowing that it can only help, I’ve been a very dedicated attendee of the weight watchers meetings. Since January 10th, I have only missed 2 or 3 meetings total, and now feel like something is missing if I don’t go. Pretty cool for a girl who always shied away from the kind of commitment that requires weekly attendance.

I can see so many changes in me, not necessarily physical, since I started losing weight. I’ve actually followed through on projects that in the past would have been set aside after the initial honeymoon phase. I think losing weight this slowly helps me to develop more patience for other areas of my life, and it teaches me to push through, or change something when/if I get bored. Blogging keeps me more accountable, and opens a side of me that I didn’t really know was there. I’d have never thought I’d put the horrid pictures online, or be writing some of the things I’ve written; things that I thought were so private I could never tell anyone, I share with my online friends. And because of that, I’m slowly starting to share them with my friends and family.

So keep the ball rolling, I snagged my weight watchers groups food tracker. We pass it around to those who want to track their foods for a week, etc, then it goes to the next person. The really accountable part is that other people can and will read what you ate, and if you gained weight, they can ask why, or help critique it. The woman who did it last week lost 2 pounds. I figured it will really hold me accountable for what I eat, especially since I work really hard at being honest to myself, to my friends online and to my ww group. The thought always crosses my mind; “why don’t you go have dinner at taco bell, because you don’t want to cook. You don’t have to write it down and no one will know the difference” or “you didn’t exercise at all this week, but someone might see that, so you should write it down, after all, no one will know the difference”. I do need to write it down, and knowing that others will be able to read it, makes me want to eat healthy, and not eat out.

I think having to do this will help me to eat well and plan out my days really well for a week. I hope that it will really get me back into the habit or planning and tracking every bite, even after I pass the book along to someone else.

Mustard Crusted Tilapia recipe

A couple of people asked for this recipe, so I thought I'd include it before I really forget. I got the Tilapia on a really good sale a month ago, 5 fillets for $1.98, so I got several. It made two dinners for me and Jeff, including a veggie and a whole grain.

2 (6 oz.) fresh tilapia fillets
1 teaspoon spicy brown mustard
1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
1/2 tsp. lemon juice
1/4 tsp. garlic powder
1/4 tsp. dried oregano
1/2 tsp. grated Parmesan cheese
1 tsp. fine Italian bread crumbs

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Spray a glass baking dish with cooking spray. Place tilapia fillets into prepared baking dish, and bake in preheated oven for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, stir together the mustard, Worcestershire sauce, lemon juice, garlic powder, oregano, and Parmesan cheese.
When fish has cooked for 10 minutes, spread with herb paste, and sprinkle with bread crumbs. Continue baking for another 5 minutes until the topping is bubbly and golden.
The website I found this on, http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/mustard-crusted-tilapia/Detail.aspx gave the the information below for nutritionals,

Nutritional Information
Amount Per Serving Calories: 181 | Total Fat: 2.6g |


though when I worked it up through SparkPeople, it was different, so I used theirs instead. (139 calories, 408.1mg sodium, 0.4g fiber, 3 ww points)

I've had a mental breakthrough!

I’ve been thinking a lot and hard about why I’m struggling so much with the eating part of my weight loss. I’ve been going crazy in the evenings, coming home from work and grabbing something (or a lot of somethings) on the way, which we all know is not good for you.

I’ve been slowly doing better with my exercise. On Sunday, I mowed the lawn for a little over an hour. It’s been my turn for about a month (luckily our lawn grows slow), but last week, all the weeds in our yard, that came from the field shot up. Seriously, they grew about 2 feet in a week, I kid you not. So I decided I should probably actually take my turn and get the stupid (huge) lawn mowed. Luckily it was somewhat cool outside, but for every strip I went over, I had to go over some parts of it again, because the stems of the freaking weeds were so thick, the mower couldn’t take ‘em all down on one swipe. So I got extra exercise. I did finish it, and our lawn now looks lovely. And that’s probably the last time we’ll have to mow it until the middle of September. We just let the lawn mostly die over the summer, so we don’t waste water. Saves on the chore too!

On Monday, I finally (after about a month and a half being gone) went back to my water aerobics. I forgot what a workout it was, but it was really fantastic! I just love being in the water; it’s so relaxing, and comfortable. For the first 20 or so minutes, I kept looking at the clock, wishing I could leave early. But I did manage to convince my evil less-healthy half that I was going to work-out because I’m tired of seeing myself in the mirror and averting my eyes. Boy was that ever a struggle, but I won.

Anyways, back to my starting paragraph, I do great for breakfast and lunch, but it’s always dinner that’s my downfall. The reason I think I’ve been doing poorly is that I start to get hungry on my way home from work. To get home, it’s only a half hour drive, but when you’re hungry, it seems longer. I try to take the way home that has very few fast food places for me to drive by, which helps in the temptation. But worse than that, I always plan to go home and cook something healthy, something likely time-consuming and energy-sapping. And that’s where I don’t wanna. I just want to eat, and then exercise and get it all out of the way so I can relax. I don’t want to go home and spend another 30-45 minutes preparing something for dinner, just because it’s healthier. I always feel like my evening is wasted when I spend so much time doing that.

Totally awkward transition, I know, but it does tie in, I promise. When I first started losing weight, I was eating those Michelina’s meals for lunch or dinner, whichever I didn’t feel like preparing. I know it’s high in sodium, etc., but I tracked the best ever, and remained below my calorie limit, and I lost a lot of weight doing that. So what I am going to do for the rest of the week is have a microwavable meal for dinner each day, to get the eating under control. Then this weekend, I will do some cooking, to kind of prepare some foods that are ready made. Then all we have to do is heat it up throughout the week. It’s so much easier, and I think that will really help me get back on track. See, I promised it would tie in!

I actually have that excited feeling again, the same one I had when I started on this journey to lose over half of me. I am stoked to finally know why I haven’t been succeeding, and to actually have something I can do different that will help me to get straight. How exciting!!!

I’ve also reserved several books through the library that address the mindless eating I’ve been doing. I figure I’ll read them for fun, and if I find any helpful insights, well, you really can’t go wrong with helpful insights. The book ideas come from Lyn at Escape from Obesity, where she gives a nice overview of each book. I’ve been following Lyn’s weight loss journey for a little over a year now. She’s actually the person who inspired my weight loss, and she writes really well. I love to read her blog!

Have a great day!

Positive things happening!

This is going to be a short one.

I’ve been doing better eating and tracking this week. I have, everyday so far, eaten something that was not on plan, and that I really shouldn’t have, but for the most part, I was able to work around those choices, and remain fairly well on track.

Last month, I found an excellent sale on Tilapia fillets. You get a bag of 5 separately wrapped fillets, all about the same size, and although I didn’t weigh them on my scale, they’re all fairly close in weight as well.

So then I’ve been searching for a recipe that would work with it, and I found it! You bake the tilapia for about 10 minutes, until it’s no longer pink, and make the sauce while it’s baking. When it’s cooked, you brush on the sauce and sprinkle seasoned breadcrumbs over the top of the fillets. Then you broil or bake it again until the top is crusty and lightly browned. It was absolutely delicious, especially when it comes in at only 138 calories and 3 points! And Jeff really liked it!

I’ve also been trying to make an easy cheese sauce, with my new Magic Bullet, but haven’t gotten it quite right yet. I measure the cheese and add a little skim milk, cayenne pepper and garlic salt. The first time, I added too much milk and it turned out too runny. And last night I don’t think I added enough milk, but I put it into the microwave for way too long, and it made the cheese become more solid much faster. I still plopped it onto the broccoli and we ate it; it was good, just not a sauce at all.

And of course, Aunt Flo came for a visit today, so I’m kind of down (that it bothered to show up at all!), achy, crampy, and right now, I want to eat everything in the fridge. I know as a pattern that I gain weight over this time, due to water retention, but I’m going to try to avoid that and the bloat by drinking water with some lemon slices in it. It’s helped before during my TOM, so hopefully it will help this time too.

And lastly, I actually put reminders in my phone to exercise, which was a teeny tiny step in the right direction, however I still haven’t done it. In fact, I haven’t done anything extra since we got back from camping. Why is it that if you know doing some weights and cardio will guarantee weight losses, you can still plop yourself down on the sofa after dinner and not move again until bedtime? You would think that it would be a motivator, a little extra effort and your weight goes down. What’s wrong with that?!?!? Craziness! I need to get ahold of myself. Luckily, I think my eating is making a small difference, so I just might have a loss next week.

Wow, I have more thoughts than I thought. LOL.

Have a great weekend! I know I will!

What a totally awesome weekend!

This weekend was such a great weekend! We left on Friday night to camp down at the beach with my Mom, brother, 4 sisters (2 of their husbands) and 6 nieces and nephews plus my aunt and uncle and their 4 kids. The weather was slightly misty for Friday night and part of Saturday, but that didn’t stop us from enjoying ourselves!

We went kayaking on Saturday morning, which was soo much fun! We just want sedately down the river, a group of about 10 or so. But I was consistently paddling, and my arms never got so tired I had to quit. I’ve always had pretty strong arms, as evidenced from several years ago when I was on a dragon boat racing team and we did endurance trips from bridge to bridge over the Columbia. Even as a complete newbie, (it was maybe my 2nd practice) I made it with the whole team who’d been doing that for awhile. They said that no newbie’s ever made it all the way through the endurance on the first time.

Anyways, I really had the best time kayaking, and the scenery was absolutely beautiful. At one point, my littlest sister (15) got grounded over, what I think was, the only log right under the water’s surface. We ended up having my one sister grab her kayak, and then I got my momentum going and as I went by them, grabbed her kayak and yanked as hard as I could, and she finally came undone. It was so funny, watching her on the way back, eyeballing the river, to try to avoid going over it again. LOL. I should have some pictures up any day now.

On Saturday afternoon, Jeff and I decided to walk to the beach, not realizing how far it actually was. We had to go through what felt like jungle and dessert, slapping mosquitoes off our backs (those little bastards can apparently suck through cloth, because I got a bite on my arm through my long sleeved shirt), only to arrive at what felt like a mountain. For every step I took, I lost a half step. It was EXACTLY like the stair steppers at the gym. I really felt like I was going nowhere, and actually wanted to stop, out of frustration, but I pushed on, and after 5 minutes straight of climbing, we finally got to the top where we had to go down a seriously steep embankment to get to the beach. Wow, that was some trip.

But we still had to go back. I desperately didn’t want to climb that steep mountain to get to the other side, so we decided to walk up to the jetty, about ¼ mile away and take in the view and then circle around, since the mountain ended before there, and it was paved. So we finally wound our way back, only to end up at the completely other side of the campground, and discover we had walked about a mile and a half. There’s my exercise! We brought our bicycles and didn’t even use them, which is kind of disappointing, but in the end, I still got a lot of activity in.

At my weigh-in last night, my weight was 277.8 pounds, the same as last week! I think (hoping with all possible fingers and toes crossed) that I finally caught myself and am turning it all around before the gain became anything disastrous. In the last 2 ½ months, I’ve gained 0.6 pounds, which is actually fantastic! Now if I could just get off this plateau and into the 260’s. I feel like I’ve been waiting so long. I know, patience is not my strong suit, so I have to remind myself that the weight loss slowed down because I let myself become sidetracked and start to take back my old habits. I know it’s my fault, and now, I am headed in the right direction. Next week, I just might have a loss!

Oh, and for the last and best part, (I think), my sister gave me her Magic bullet that she never uses so I could make smoothies in the mornings. I’ve always had a hard time actually eating in the morning. Even if it’s cereal, or a hardboiled egg, my stomach will usually (90% of the time) cramp up on the drive to work, and become so painful, I actually want to (A) stop and cry, or (B) find a bathroom somewhere. I’m trying to avoid that, so my thought was that smoothies are probably easier on the stomach than some other breakfast foods, and maybe I’d be able to do it.

This morning, I blended ¼ C. of oats to a fine powder, then added ¾ C. thawed unsweetened strawberries, 1 C. mostly cooked carrots, ½ C. unsweetened raspberries, 1 med. Banana and enough skim milk to make it drinkable, about 1/8 of a cup. It blended to a really nice light pink, and you could not taste the carrots at all! I was going to make it green with spinach but I discovered the bag had gone bad. So I’ll have to get another one. In the meantime, the smoothie I made didn’t bother my stomach at all this morning, AND I didn’t get hungry at all until lunch when I could kind of feel it coming on. Craziness! I also got 3 servings of fruits and 2 servings of veggies first thing. Now it’ll be easier to get to my 8 or 10 they recommended. BTW, the smoothie I made (according to SparkPeople) had 339.8 calories, 116.2mg of sodium and 19.3g fiber. It was only 3 points!