Starting weight:  285.2
Calories/Carbs Goals (limits):  1600  / 40.0
Wednesday’s calories & net carbs:    1240  /  32.9
Yesterday’s calories & net carbs:    1135  /  12.2
Wednesday’s exercise:    6 hours cleaning / painting
Yesterday’s exercise:    12 hours cleaning / painting
Weight Wednesday:: 242.0    Weight Yesterday:: 240.4    Today:  239.6
Change today::  -0.8 lbs.   Loss-so-far:   45.6 lbs.  bmi:  45.27

Hey I was doing a happy dance two days ago, so I must be doing an overjoyed dance today!  WOOOOOOT!!!!!!!  OMG I saw two-THIRTY-something on the scale today!!!  It’s been a long, long time since I’ve been this weight.  *deep contented sigh*  I’m pretty happy with this week’s weight loss (especially after last week’s gain).

I barely ate yesterday, I was so busy.  I ended up with 1135 calories only because I ate 2 ounces of macadamia nuts in an effort to bring the total up because I was at only 729 calories and 9.4 carbs for the whole day!  What was I doing that I couldn’t stop and eat?  My sons and I pulled a “While You Were Out” on my husband!!

I’ve been unhappy with our living room for a while and I said something about it one day last week to my husband.  I told him that even after 10 years together in our house, I still don’t feel like it’s “mine.”  We (my 3 kids and I) moved into his house and he had all his stuff and it was all arranged the way he wanted it and he was, like, attached to his stuff.  About six years ago I talked him into making some changes but he still pretty much kept all his stuff.  For example, we put new carpeting in the living room, painted the walls and trim new colors, changed the window treatments, bought a nice entertainment center and put new pictures on the walls.  But the furniture remained exactly the same.  Same coffee table, same end tables, same recliner chair (ugly brown plaid), and same brown sectional sofa (uck I hate that sofa) and the fact that it’s a sectional means that you can only arrange the room one way. 

So anyway, Hubby said, “If you want to make changes, go ahead.  Make our house feel like ‘our’ house.”

Ohhhhhhh-kay!  If you say so!!!  Hehhehheh!

So on Tuesday I went shopping.  If you have read my blog for any length of time, you know that my hubby and I are thrift-store shoppers.  I don’t mind used stuff as long as 1) it’s in good shape and 2) I get a great deal!  There’s a thrift store near here that has nice gently-used furniture for good prices, so I started there.  Amazingly, I found a double-recliner sofa that was brand-new.  Never used.  Absolutely beautiful.  And guess what, it was burgundy, the same color as our living room carpet.

So I bought it.  And a chair.  And then I went shopping some more.

I went to Big Lots and bought two white bookcases, a rug and a burgundy pillow.  I went to Wal-Mart and bought a lamp and two new lampshades for my other lamps.  I bought material to cover the ugly chair and also the two end-tables.  I bought paint - bright white for the walls, burgundy for the trim.  I bought extension cords.  And spackle.  And paint brushes.  (I had rollers and pans at home.)

While Hubby was at work, my sons dragged the old sectional couch out of the house and then my 16yo son and I cleaned and emptied the room and began to prepare for painting.  When Hubby got home that night he was surprised to find us painting the trim - but far from done with even that.  We pretended that was the extent of the surprise - a new paint job.  That was Wednesday.

Yesterday morning at work I started putting the bookcases together and then as soon as Hubby went to work, we kicked it into gear.  Younger son and I finished painting the trim while older son washed down the walls from ceiling to floor in preparation for the new white paint.  The furniture was delivered in the early evening.  We ran out and bought a Christmas tree.  By 10pm we were arranging the new furniture, laying the new rug, and re-hooking up the TV.  At 11:30 when Hubby got home, the tree had lights on it (we’ll decorate it together later) and the books and videos weren’t put away, nor were the pictures hung back up, but the room looked cozy and best of all… different! 

My sons and I stood huddled in the newly-decorated room and watched as Hubby came in.  He saw the Christmas tree first and said, “Awwww,” then turned and saw the new furniture and said, “Sh*t!!!”  (in a good way, lol).

SO - my workout yesterday was 12 HOURS LONG!!

 
Here’s my new couch, rug, chair, and (empty) bookcases! 

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Starting weight:  285.2
Calories/Carbs Goals (limits):  1400  / 30.0
Yesterday’s calories & net carbs:    1229  /  27.7
Yesterday’s exercise:    1 hour shopping/walking
Weight Yesterday:: 243.4    Today:  242.0
Change today::  -1.4 lbs.   Loss-so-far:   43.2 lbs.  bmi:  45.73

*Happy Dance*  *Happy Dance*  *Happy Dance*

Woooohoooo I finally saw the scale move below where I was before Thanksgiving!  Six days.  Six whole days of progress lost - for one day of indulgence.  Now, granted, there’s no guarantee that I would have made any progress during that particular six days - I’ve certainly had thresholds that lasted longer than six days.  But the potential for loss, the possibility was there.  I’m thinking … it wasn’t worth it.

This is my life now.  This is the way I eat.  It actually felt unnatural, eating the stuff I was eating.  Unnatural and a little unreal.  Yeah, the food tasted good - but it really didn’t last long.  The mmm-yummy-omg-this-is-so-delicious-sensation while chewing and swallowing my food - it was over with pretty quickly.  Okay, take, for example, the chocolate pie with graham cracker crust that I ate three pieces of that day.  Each slice took me, oh, about five minutes to consume, only because I stretched it out and made it last that long.  I probably ate each slice in about ten bites, so that would work out to two bites per minute, or one every thirty seconds.  So for each piece of pie, I experienced the flavor for 30 seconds - approximately 10 times per slice or 30 times altogether over the course of the day.

So what’s the point of this?  Well, if my goal was to experience the flavor, did I have to experience it 30 times?  I hadn’t tasted real chocolate pudding made with real sugar for at least four months.  Would I have been less satisfied if I had experienced the flavor for 30 seconds - but only just once?  If I had only ingested one bite, would I have spent the rest of the day feeling deprived because I did not get to experience that flavor 29 more times?  10 more times?  1 more time?

When we go out to eat, sometimes my husband orders vanilla ice cream for dessert.  When it arrives, he hands me his spoon and I take one small bite.  I let that spoonful melt and I close my eyes while I experience the flavor.  And then I’m good.  I don’t need any more.  Just that one bite satisfies my desire to experience that flavor.

The bottom line is this:  If all I’m having is one bite, just to experience a flavor, I can experience any damn flavor I want.  And still be totally on plan. 

That’s good to know.  =D

CARTOON OF THE DAY

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Starting weight:  285.2
Calories/Carbs Goals (limits):  1400  / 30.0
Yesterday’s calories & net carbs:    1277  /  39.8
Yesterday’s exercise:    none
Weight Yesterday:: 243.8    Today:  243.4
Change today::  -0.4 lbs.   Loss-so-far:   41.8 lbs.  bmi:  45.99

I had to run several errands this evening and my 16yo son went with me.  Since we were out and about, he suggested that we stop by Taco Bell and order soft tacos - and then just eat the meat but not the soft tacos themselves.  Instead, we could go home and transplant the meat into our low-carb tortillas.  I thought it sounded good (no cooking required, that always sounds good to me!) but I thought there might be an easier way to accomplish the same thing.

I asked the lady at the register if I could buy a bowl of just the taco meat - the ground beef stuff.  Turns out that yes, I could do that.  The charge for such a thing is just 50 cents for each taco portion.  So I ordered 5 bucks worth, the equivalent of 10 taco portions.  What I ended up getting was two bowls of cooked and seasoned ground beef, plenty for both of us.  Kevin ate 3 decent-sized burritos but I decided to skip the tortillas and ate about a half cup of taco meat with shredded cheese and sour cream.  And a big ol’ romaine salad with it.  Whoa it was really good!

I haven’t been exercising.  I got out of the “everyday” habit and things keep coming up, stuff I have to do, places I have to go to - for whatever reason I’m just not doing it.  I need to make the time. 

I have a lot to do both at work and at home, between now and Christmas.  Some of my exercise time might just end up be housecleaning time instead.  If I can manage to work up a sweat while cleaning, then I’d be happy with that.

Edited to change “Wednesday” to “Tuesday” - I ran around all day yesterday thinking it was Wednesday, LOL!

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