So I was sewing a dress yesterday from a pattern I’ve used before and that fit me fine then and I could barely get the dress on yesterday. I do not want to take a chance with Weight Watchers when I know that Atkins works for me and that I like Atkins and just have trouble when busy and not able to plan meals or when the dishes are piled up and need to be cleaned before I can cook. Unfortunately my sweet family has been eating all me Atkins friendly veggies (murder) so I may just offer to cook for the rest of the week and give my Mom a gorcery list since I have not been paid yet and she is frequently paid and paid so much more than I am. Anyway, so It’s back to Atkins for me.
I did the crunch cardio dance party video this morning and it was quite inspirational. Now I know just how out of shape I am, I made it barely halfway through before I had to sit down.
Posted on August 5th, 2008 by anabolina
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So my sister,’s tried it (M)and it was good for her for awhile before she stopped it. I also hate their commercials and have yet to hear anything really complimentary about the company who runs it. I know they have to protect their product, but I get he impression of heavy-handedness from them. Anyway, so I want to try out the plan, but don’t want to support the company. Hmmm, an issue. My Mom wants to try it with my Dad and one of my sisters. Dad has high cholesterol and needs to watch what he eats better. Yes, both my parents are really bad at making healthy food decisions. When in doubt, they will always pick the less healthy item. I’ve been supervising some teenage boys for the past 2 months and my parents sort of remind me of one of them. The one who will do something until you tell him to do it and then he gets rebellious. I think the more my Dad especially is told to eat healthier, the less chance it is that he will do it. But then, my Mom sort of enables him since she buys the groceries and its her who buys the cheesecake, high fat dips, ice cream, and highly salted and fatty frozen foods since she hates cookies and would rather just stick premade lasagna in the microwave. Anyway, my sister(S) is planning for her mission and she wants to eat more healthily and get in shape before she goes. Another sister (A) wants to lose weight, but her husband doesn’t make it easy. He is a very picky eater and will only eat certain things that are not healthy and mentions her need to lose weight sometimes(not in an abusive way), she also has a 18 month old and is taking grad classes online, and she hates counting carbs, calories, points, anything like that. I wonder if the Core program would be a good one for her to try.
Anyway, some since my family is starting Weight Watchers (not the in person meetings type, but we borrowed the other sister(M)’s books and will have to do without since my Mom and sister hate socializing and meetings. Dad is a lot more socialble and I like talking to most people too. Most people, lol.
We start on Monday. I like the idea of the flex points program and will try it for 2 weeks to see if it will work for me and if I lose any weight or my clothes feel better. I like the idea of the flexibility, so we will see how it works out.
Posted on August 2nd, 2008 by anabolina
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Yum, so my desert today was a chocolate orange shake that tastes really good. I just made up the recipe and thought i might share it. It’s based on the Atkins Shape up shake.
Ingredients
2/3 cup half n half
1/3 cup water
2 cubes of ice
2 tbsps of dark chocolate powder
1/2 tsp of sugar free orange jello
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp salt
Mix all ingredients in blender and mix for 30 seconds on high. Then just enjoy 
Food for the day
Omelet with ham, cheddar cheese, and muchrooms (4)
Grilled chicken breast, bacon, swiss, lettuce, tomato, ranch dressing, mayo (6)
Steak, lettuce, ham, cheese, ranch dressing, shake (11)
Total for the day= 21 (1 over, but I will just not eat anything else today, maybe just drink water)
Continuing the think through what to do a various restaurants brings up McDonalds.
- Eat bunless burgers and side salads. The chicken is flavored with sugar and should be avoided.
So what about Taco Bell.
- Bowl version of tacos, avoid ground beef
And Jack in the Box.
- Bunless burger and side salad
These are my favorite fast food joints. I love getting a Diet Dr. Pepper with vanilla added from Sonic, but the vanilla has sugar in it and so I’ll need to avoid it for quite awhile. They can also make a great breadless patty melt, but sound surprised whenever I order it. lol. Wendys is similar, nothing special.
Btw, I just found this really great low carbing website that is really motivating.
http://www.sugarfreesheila.com/RecipesPage.html
Posted on June 27th, 2008 by anabolina
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So today, I have to go to chick fil a for lunch, I tend to like chickfila, but I think it helps when on a diet to plan out what you will eat in advance and thus not get stuck with just whatever tempts you at that moment.
So today I will order the grilled chicken sandwich and and the side salad and a drink. I’ll just not have croutons and get rid of the bun and tada, a healthy low carb meal suitable for induction.
Off to work now…
Posted on June 27th, 2008 by anabolina
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So I was pretty good today. I posted the omelet for breakfast and then had creamy mushroom soup and marinaded beef for lunch. Then I had basically the same thing for dinner. After work I ate a small portion of ice cream and after dinner I have a couple of ounces of pepperjack cheese and then I was hungry again at 9 and made that Atkins shape up shake. It’s diet lemon lime soda with sugar free lime jello and half n half and some ice. I shared half with Dad and drank the rest and was full. Then I took Luna on a 30 minute walk. Yay and got back. Hmmm.
So I weighed myself (drumroll please) 180. Yep 180 pounds, just 15 under my all time high of 195. Buggerbear. I suppoe that month spent eating and laying on the couch was NOT a good idea. lol. You know, its not the weight that has given me this motivation, it’s feel rolls on my back. Like I stood up straight a couple of days ago and arched back a little and felt skin touching itself on my back. Ugh and totally needing to be taken care of.
Current weight: 180 lbs
Goal Weight: 135lbs
I need to lose: 45 lbs
So I need some goals, right? Most revolve around sewing because I can’t exactly sew when I WILL lose weight and need to take them in again if fitted. Until then I can sew stretchy pants and skirts and shorts from jersey and suchlike.
- Lose 10 pounds and at 175 I will allow myself to sew a new dress with jersey.
- Lose 10 more pounds at 165 I will sew a fitted dress with cotton.
- Lose 5 more pounds at 160 I will sew a retro Butterick skirt with fitted jacket and jean skirt
- Lose 5 more pounds at 155 I will sew a fitted suit and a new sewing machine if not living with the parents still.
- Lose 5 more pounds at 150 I will go out for a weekend in a hotel away. By then I should hopefully have a permanent job and live elsewhere and a nearby weekend destination will vary. Right now, I will just say San Antonio.
- Lose 5 more pounds at 145 I will allow myself to sew with my true vintage patterns and vintage vogues.
- Lose 5 more pounds at 140 I will allow myself to buy a serger.
- Lose 5 pounds at 135 I will have a spa day with a pedicure, eyebrows, tinting, facial, manicure, massage, spa type food.
- Maintain 135 pounds for 6 months and I will give myself a pink PSP or DS
- Maintain 135 for a year and I will go on a cruise, 5-7 day-long in the Caribbean.
Hmm, so some nice goals and rewards. Right now I will just focus on the losing the first 10 pounds thing. Hopefully it will be gone afte ra week of induction or so and I can sew this dress I am picturing in the new teal and white stripped jersey I bought at WalMart for a dollar a yard. I like it so much, that I bought 10 yards of the stuff, almost the entire thing. I know they have announced that they are closing the fabric department at some yet-to-be-determined date like the fabric departments in other Walmarts, but I also know they buy their fabric at Golden D’or which just happens to have an outlet here in town with similarly priced fabrics and a much better selection, but it’s in downtown or there-abouts and has somewhat inconvient hours during the week and I never get around to going there on the weekend and for now Walmart has everything I need, oh, and Joanns and Hancocks. I spent some 30 bucks on fabric today, but I got a lot of fabric for that, the jersey and a green linen blend and some denim and some black fabric with shiny squares on it (an accent fabric only), a stretchy olive polyester mix, and a sweater knit. Hmm nice and I can sew with them only after I lose some weight and finish my current ufos.
Posted on June 26th, 2008 by anabolina
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Hmm, so last night I had a nagging headache and felt really tired. Could have been the pressure systems, or maybe dehydration, or maybe allergies, or maybe not enough sleep. I feel much better now and I think it could have been the sleep thing. I went to bed at 10:30 last night and had a lot less trouble getting up this morning then in past nights. Hmm.
So breakfast this morning was a ham, onion, mushroom, and italian blend cheese omelet. This is a great combo and tastes great. I spent a little more money to get already chopped ham and frozen chopped onion, but it was so worth it because I don’t have to get out the cutting board and just plop all the ingredients except the cheese and eggs in the pan to saute for a few minutes, the take it out and make the egg portion and wait until it is mostly cooked, but still a little wet on top, then I plopped the ingredient on one side and and the cheese, then folded over and voila, 5 minutes later a delicious and healthy omelet.
Posted on June 26th, 2008 by anabolina
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So it occurs to me that lifelong healthiness probably relies more on healthy habits than healthy thoughts, so I want to take up some more healthy hobbies. Right now my only really hobbies are watching tv, reading, and sewing.
Today at a presentation, the speaker mentioned that if you aren’t sure what you want to do, you should try everything you are interested in. He was talking about different types of engineering, but I think that applies to other things as well, esspecially hobbies. He also mentioned that there are lots of people who talk all the time about what they want to do, but they spend so much time talking about it, they never do it. So I propose to make a plan for all the hobbies and interests I’ve been interested in, but never done. When I finish trying them all, I will know better what I want to spend my time doing. I will give each one a month, but will try more than one in that month. As a librarian, I’ve gone ahead and organized the list of things I want to try. Of course, I will not only try these things in the month assigned, but plan to focus on them for that month.
Outdoors/ Athletic
- Biking Tours
- Hiking
- Canoeing
- Rafting
- Jogging
- Soccer
- Camping
- Horseback riding
- Rock Climbing
- Swimming
- Diving
- Swing Dancing
- Motorcycles
- Gardening
- Backpacking
- Caving
- Triathlon
Arts/Creativity
- Piano
- Photography
- Painting
- Singing
- Writing
- Crochet
- Fashion Design
- Attend music performances and go to museums
Other Stuff
- First Aid (strange I know)
- Astronomy
- Shooting a gun/marksmanship
- Spanish
- Cooking
- C++
So to what month are these hobbies/interests assigned?
July
- Horseback riding
- Spanish
- Attend Musical performances and museums
August
September
October
- Bicycle Touring
- Fashion Design
November
December
- Crochet
- Shooting a gun
- C++
January
February
March
- Rock Climbing
- Caving
- Hiking
April
- Motorcycles
- Astronomy
- Triathlon
May
- Swimming
- Canoeing
- Rafting
June
Whew, some of these sound more interesting to me than others and I know they will all take time. I don’t plan to devote more than 5-8 hours a week to these special hobbies. I will spend the rest of my free time on my current hobbies of reading and sewing. The time devoted to it will be time in which I either do it, train for it(aka classes), or research it. I had no idea how many active hobbies I’ve always wanted to try and never gotten around to most of them.
So my hobbies for next month are Spanish, muscial performances/museums, and Horseback riding. I plan to take a class for the Spanish here at Cedar Valley. It’s 3 hours a day, 4 days a week. For the museum/musical performance, I will go to one museum or watch one musical performance in person each week. For the horseback riding, I will call around to some stables and find a reasonably priced trail ride and do 2 trail rides.
For August, my hobbies are jogging and singing. They are easy and cheap hobbies since I’m not sure what job I will have then. For the jogging, I will jog 5 days a week and for the singing, I will try to relearn sight reading and the sound of the different notes and learn to sing a new song through the music rather than listening to it.
Now for September, I have soccer and photography. I will watch at least 2 soccer games on the tv or computer and buy a ball and try to get random family members to kick it around with me once a week. For the photography, I will take my camera everywhere and take many shots and organize the photos on my computer.
I suppose planning my activities 3 months out is enough.
On the diet front, my body is sort of in withdrawl for its carbs since I’ve been good all day. I had an omelet with a few onions and ham and cheese and cilantro for breakfast and a chicken bacon ranch salad from Subway for lunch (no choice since we were out.) So far, so good. I will be hard to resist some of the bad stuff when I get home, but I will make my ice cream and cooking the beef that marinaded overnight and hope that will help. For now, I feel sort of listless and tired and have a bit of a headache. I reckon some of this is dehydration. I am resolved to drink at least 3 20 oz of water per day. I think to do that, I will get 3 water bottles and writing, morning, after work, and night on them and drink them at that time. I’ll also get one and writing work on it and just drink it while I am here.
Posted on June 25th, 2008 by anabolina
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So I didn’t try to start the diet during breakfast or lunch, bfast was leftover hamburger and lunch was one of the free disd lunches, a salami sandwich, baked cheetos, and vanilla pudding.
Then I went to Kroger and picked up a few things. The current state of the meal planning is this:
B- Denver omelet (onion, green pepper, ham, cheddar cheese) and tea or a shape-up shake
L- Creamy mushroon soup, salad, roast beef and cheese cubes, and soda
D- Creamy Mushroom soup, salad, steak, earl gray ice cream
I made the earl gray ice cream mix, but it needs to be refriderated overnight and then I will put it through Mom’s new ice cream maker, the custard does taste really good though, its interesting. Yum so far.
Posted on June 24th, 2008 by anabolina
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Hmm, as I say in my title. I do enjoy recomitting to my diet. The family (except bro) is going out of town next week, so I’ll be able to resist the prodigious amounts of fast food/unhealthy snacks that come into the house. I restart Atkins tomorrow and will cook or start several dishes tonight after work. Yum. I’m still looking forward to the arrival of my bento. I think good proportions for a low carb lifestyle and a bento is 3 veggies/fruit to 2 meat to 1 cheese and leave the grains for later and only a certain time of day. Now, when I eat a lifestyle heavier in fats, I do feel a bit slower since I suppose it takes more energy to digest it all, so I’m also going to stay away from heavy cream and too rich sauces. I’m usually happy to just eat lighter fare and focus on good fats. I’m simply going to eshew grains and fruit for the next 2 weeks. I’m also going to have to drink more water, a 20 ounce in the morning and at night and another duing the day in addition to other drinking and I should take my multivitamin and once in awhile take airborne just for fun to make sure I’m getting enough of the good stuff. I’ve also been taking Luna on evening walks and will continue that for 2 weeks and after induction, I will take on more exercise.
My menu for the rest of the week:
W-F
Breakfast
- Shape Up Shake
- Spinach omelet
Lunch
- Marinaded grilled chicken breast
- mushroom soup
- salad
Dinner
- Grilled steak
- mashed cauliflower
- salad
- lc decaf earl gray ice cream
Saturday and Sunday
Breakfast
- Southwest omelet
- defaf earl gray
Lunch
- chef salad
- grilled chicken
- jello
Dinner
Posted on June 24th, 2008 by anabolina
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Whatever else I think about Korea, I do admire their portion control. One of my last days of work was the school field day and all the kids brought bentos and I thought they were so cute. Now there are a lot of really cute ones, but I just bought a more sensible one on ebay. It’s more plain then I would like, but contains the pieces I want. I do like the pink color and the bag is frankly horrid, but I’ll replace it with something more fitting when I get the chance, maybe something with insulation or I’ll sew something. A benefit if I sew it is that I can get exactly what I want and use the extra fabric for napkins and a placemat like I saw with some other sets on ebay. I do have to wait awhile for it to arrive (bummer), but hopefully it will come soon. I start working at Cedar Valley next week and will hopefully get 30 minutes for lunch, the program director was unsure as of last week as to how everything would all work out.
Now I’m wondering about possible lunch menus with mt soon-to-be lunchbox set. I suppose they should be healthy and balanced. So each meal would contain a lot of veggies, some meal, and maybe some whole grains, and some fruit. I’m thinking that I would pick 2 meals for the week and prepare at least 2 meals worth of each.
Meal #1
- Thai-style dumplings
- Tortilla-less Tortilla soup
- Raw broccoli and ranch dressing
- Cherry tomatoes
- Cilantro-lime dipping sauce
- Lettuce
- Cheddar Cheese
- Fresh strawberries and peach slices
Meal #2
- Garlic Rice
- Red Curried Chicken
- Green Beans
- Sweet Potato soup
- Sliced Bananas and orange slices
Meal #3
- Stir-fried noodles with beef and broccoli
- Babyel (sp?) cheese slices
- Cherry tomatoes
- Lettuce
- Ranch Dressing
- Creme’ Brulee
Meal #4
- Mini-quiches
- Lettuce
- Tomatoes
- Ranch dressing
- Brownie
- Asparagus
Yum, these sound good. I’ll probably eat Subway this week or some of my tv dinners until my bento set arrives. While, I’m at it, I can plan some other meals. I do like to low carb, so here are some Atkins-friendly bento menus. Hmm, can I keep the spirit of the bento and Atkins?
Atkins Menu #1
- Tortilla-less tortilla soup
- marinaded chicken fajitas
- fajita veggies
- dollop of sour cream
- dollop of guacamole
- lettuce
- ranch dressing
- jello
Atkins Menu #2
- Mini-crustless quiches
- brussel sprouts
- babyel mini cheeses
- lettuce
- cherry tomatoes
- ranch dressing
- jello
Atkins Menu #3
- broccoli-cheese soup
- grilled chicken breast with rosemary
- garlic butter cauliflower
- salad makings
- blueberries and strawberries
Atkins Menu #4
- Curried yogurt chicken
- faux cauliflower rice
- vegetable soup
- garlicky green beans
- creme’ brulee
Hmm, I do like to think about food. A definite benefit of these bentos is the portion control and separation of components so you can mix things together when needed and not before. Hmm. So lets see how the bento thing goes.
Posted on June 15th, 2008 by anabolina
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