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Plateaus
Posted petra65 on April 18th, 2010 | Filed under General daily, Uncategorized | Comment now »
I haven’t written in here for a really long time but I haven’t given up either. I’ve had some ups and downs but mostly I have been stuck in a REALLY long plateau. I can’t seem to get out the 220’s. I suppose if I either did something restrictive and made myself miserable for a few days or went crazy exercising I might be able to do it but just going along doing my usual thing hasn’t worked. This seems to be one of those biological setpoints for me. I remember a couple years ago when I was trying to lose weight, this is the number I got stuck on too. Kind of strange.
I have resorted to using my private weight loss coach again. I also got a fitbit. One of those little devices you wear all the time that tracks your activity and gives you an idea of how many calories you are burning. It’s nor all that accurate because it suggests I have a calorie deficit everyday but I’m not losing weight so something isn’t adding up there. I gave my weight loss coach access to my online food journal so she can see what I’m up to. She has me trying to tweek things a bit to see if we can break this plateau but to be honest I think in some respects I’m sabotaging myself. My numbers may be perfect for the day and then I’ll eat something that will throw it all off. I am truly hungry but I just can’t seem to get past this.
I also discovered I’m running out of room for my progress pictures. I may have to go through and delete some. I had some more taken this week but now want to be careful about how many I put up knowing that space is limited.
New Year’s Resolutions
Posted petra65 on January 2nd, 2010 | Filed under Uncategorized | Comment now »
I’m not big on New Year’s Resolutions because I know we tend not to be able to stick with them. But I have been slowly trying to make some changes that are leading me to healthier eating and living in general. I had already decided that I wanted to try to eat organic sources of meat once I consume whatever is left in my freezer. I already have some organic meat in my freezer and in fact, cooked wild boar for dinner last night which I wasn’t crazy about. Not sure I’ll be eating that again any time soon. I want to try to eat more organic sources of food in general. I’ve become more aware of how our food is produced and decided I want to make better choices in what I put in my body and what I support with my money. Ultimately, this will likely also lead to my goal of eating more vegetarian and fish based meals which I had planned on anyway.
I’ve also decided I want to try to eat more soup. I like soup and it is a great way to get some extra veggies into your diet and I tend to be a little lean on the veggies. Not because I don’t like them but just because somehow they don’t make it into the menu. So I’m trying to make a plan to make a soup every week. I made Soup au Pistou this week-a French Pronencal soup. It was okay but I don’t think it will become a favorite. The goal will obviously be for these to be vegetable based. I know there are several meat based soups that I like a lot. I suppose if I decide to make them, I could make a salad and call it a meal.
I bought a Ktchenaid stand mixer yesterday. I got a refurbished one at a ridiculously good price. I hope to use that to make some of my own baked goods in the future. I’ve found a recipe for homemade pita, homemade pizza dough, and even some specialty mediterranean breads.
I got a book on Middle Eastern Food while I was home on vacation. It’s very interesting. It includes more than recipes. It includes the culture behind the recipes and then it has side notes showing how the recipes have been altered by other regions. So it may give an Egyptian version of a recipe and then tell you how it would be made in Morroco, Syria, and Tunisia as well. That’s just an example. It’s very interesting. I am trying to eat more authentic mediterranean food in general-and my overall goals work in this direction, more organic, more vegetarian and fish, more game, more homemade baked goods, and more soups. It all fits together nicely.
Lastly, the yoga studio where I go has some new classes for the new year including a new pilates class on Saturdays. I plan to try to make that today. They have a new Piyo class on Sun morning at 9 which is tight for me after church. I go to church at 7:30 but I may try that out-that’s a pilates/yoga fusion class. They will still have the usual yoga class at 11:00 which is not overly strenuous. Not all of the benefits of doing yoga come from sweating anyway.
Weekend Update
Posted petra65 on December 13th, 2009 | Filed under Uncategorized | Comment now »
I got away from blogging for awhile. Not really sure why. I’ve remained on plan and have lost more weight. I’m almost at 20 lbs at this point. I’m fitting into smaller clothes. The whole thing is feeling much more comfortable-less like a “diet” and more like my lifestyle which is the goal. I’ve been working on my Jan. meal plan in my new calendar and I love it. I will have my second set of progress pictures taken on Monday-which incidentally is my 44th birthday. I would like to be at my goal weight next year by my 45th birthday but that is still about 75 lbs away. That’s a lot of weight to lose in a year. It’s more important that I stick with the plan long term, than that I get to a certain number by a certain date but we’ll see how close I get.
I had my massage last weekend as my 15 lb reward. It was a great experience and I will probably do it again sometime. I think having those rewards to look forward to is motivational. I am already looking forward to those yoga clothes at 30 lbs. I have also gotten some game meat including rabbit, goat, pigeon, and wild boar and plan to be working that into my menus over the next couple of months. Much to my surprise, I had more recipes for some of this stuff than I realized-particularly rabbit so if I can find a few I like, I may be eating that quite regularly.
I have some planned off-plan eating going on this weekend. I have loved fried chicken and had a recipe for a healthier version stashed away for someday when I just had to have some. I decided I would try it out for my birthday. It involved removing skin, wholewheat flour, a variety of spices. It took several hours to make and I have to say, it didn’t live up to my expectations. I think it just doesn’t do the same thing for me anymore which may be a good thing. I was worried that after making it, I would want fried chicken all the time, no danger of that. I can’t see me making it again any time soon. In fact, I made a rather elaborate vegetable side dish from my Sonoma Diet cookbook which I liked better than the chicken. That’s saying something.
Nonscale Goals
Posted petra65 on November 22nd, 2009 | Filed under General daily, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
WARNING: some readers may find some parts of this post gross
I had a pretty good day in general. Went to church, went to yoga. I got an empty box out of the garage and started putting in a few pieces of clothing that have gotten too big. I also decided on my 30 lb reward. I wear sweat pants, shorts, T-shirts to yoga class. By the time I get to 30 lbs, most of the stuff I wear now will be falling off me. I’m going to splurge and buy a least 1 or 2 sets of real yoga clothes.
On the other thread where we have been talking about nonscale goals, someone suggested I think about cooking goals since I enjoy the cooking. After thinking about this a little more I realized I already have cooking/food related goals. I don’t know how well these will serve me in maintenance though. I am trying to add more vegetarian and fish dishes to my menu because that would be more consistent with my Mediterranean diet plan. For January, I have written in my calendar that I have a goal of 2 vegetarian and 2 fish dishes for the month. I still have quite a bit of red meat in my diet left over from my days of low carbing. I have also decided that once I use up my current supply of protein in the freezer, I am going to try to go organic as much as possible with my meat choices. Free range chicken and turkeys, grass fed beef and lamb, and possibly inclulding some game meats like goat, rabbit, pheasant, partridge. There are things in life that are worth paying extra for and in my opinion, good quality food is one of them. I have several authentic Mediterranean cookbooks so believe it or not, I actually have recipes for those things. I also have recipes that include eel but I can’t get past the thought of eating eel. Believe it or not, I could easily get eel here. We have a large Vietnamese population and the local Asian market carries it.
Goat is readily available down here (in MS where I live these days). I’ve never had goat but I absolutely love lamb and I have a feeling it is probably similar. I know when I was in Greece several years ago, it was on the menu in many restaurants so it is definately eaten in that part of the world. I have an online source for other game meats. I can get other things as well but think I want to stick with the stuff that is authentic to my diet. So I guess I do have a goal of trying to cook more authentic mediterranean dishes.
Weekend Update-Saturday
Posted petra65 on November 21st, 2009 | Filed under Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
I haven’t blogged for a few days but I’ve been doing fine staying on plan. Sorting out some issues in my personal life. Despite this, I haven’t used it as an excuse to eat off plan.
The other day I bought a new calendar for next year to do my meal planning. The way I have been doing it, it’s kind of crowded on the page, this will give me more space, I can write in side dishes if I want and I can make notes to myself about stuff I want to try or stuff I liked, etc. It also has a little pocket in the back for recipes. I think it will work well. I also realized that I really now have no excuse not to eat this way forever except laziness. I now how to plan meals effectively, I know all the other stuff I wrote in my “Pearls I learned along the way”, I like the food, I’m enjoying the cooking. If I don’t get to goal this time, there is really no excuse except laziness. But never underestimate the human capacity for laziness. I actually have no doubt I will get to goal this time. This really does feel different.
I went to a baby shower today for a friend from work. Once again did fine with the problem foods. I ate a good lunch before I went so I wouldn’t be hungry. There was a fruit salad and some roasted pork which was meant to go on sandwiches but I just ate plain. That worked fine. The cake looked good but I didn’t have any real longing for it. I’m not sure if I’ve just accepted that I can’t eat it without paying consequences or I just think about how far I’ve come and think “a piece of cake is not worth going back over.”
I have also reached my first 15 lb. lost mark. I have decided that I will reward myself for every 15 lbs and my first reward is going to be a massage. I plan to call on Monday to schedule my massage. I haven’t decided what the reward for 30 lbs will be yet but for 45 lbs I plan to go on a 3 day trip somewhere. 45 lbs will also get me to onederland so its a biggy. I’ll have a few weeks to think about the 30 lb. reward.
Several pairs of pants are getting very baggy and probably won’t be able to be worn much longer. I plan to put them away and start hanging up my “skinny clothes”. I’m not getting rid of them just yet. I did that before with the idea that if I didn’t have my “fat clothes” I wouldn’t gain the weight back and you see how well that worked. I just ended up having to buy new fat clothes and that really pissed me off. I didn’t get rid of my “skinny clothes”. I just packed them up and put them in the garage. A few weeks ago, I brought them in. They are still packed up but they are on the floor in my closet. I will start trading them out as my current clothes get too big. It will be awhile before I get back into those but at least I’ll see where I’m going. Unfortunately I own clothes in about 4 sizes so it will also be awhile before I need to do any major wardrode shopping.
Something else that also came up on another thread where I post is about making nonscale goals so that when you reach goal weight you aren’t lost because you feel like there is nothing left to accomplish. I have a fear that maintenance is going to be much harder than losing weight in part for this reason. I do have one nonscale goal-to lose enough weight to get off my high blood pressure medication. I figure when I have lost 10% of my body weight I’ll see where my blood pressure is and see if I might be able to get it reduced or even discontinued. I do think it is a good idea in general so it is definately something I need to think about. I certainly have personal goals but no other health/fitness goals to accompany this journey except the one I mentioned.
Tuesday
Posted petra65 on November 17th, 2009 | Filed under Uncategorized | Comment now »
Really nothing all that notable about today. I’m still on plan. I’ve discovered another dessert I really like-Tunisian orange, date, and pistachio salad. I’ve made it a couple time already. It’s easy to make a single serving. I have some clementines so I’ve been using them for the orange part. It’s also nice to know I can have something dessert like once in a while and still be completely on plan.
This morning on the news they were talking about some new study which showed that the reason for all the childhood obesity is NOT a lack of exercise but because of all the junk kids eat these days. I’m wondering how long it took for them to figure this out. If you’ve read my pearls-you know I realized this a long time ago. Exercise is a small piece of this puzzle. People get so hyperfocused on it and I don’t quite get it. I used to say stuff about it on this site and irritate other people. I just mind my own business now unless someone asks for help. I know on shows like Biggest Loser it makes for great television. Going over their eating plan in excrutiating detail would bore the crap out of people and no one would watch. But that’s what is making the bigger difference.
TheYoga Sutras
Posted petra65 on November 15th, 2009 | Filed under General daily, Uncategorized | Comment now »
I love to learn new things, try new things. It’s a part of my personality that I like most of the time but it is one of those things that sometimes gets me into trouble with my diet. However, today, it turned out to be a blessing. I went to a yoga workshop. This is one of the nice things about belonging to a yoga studio instead of taking yoga at the YMCA or a local gym. There are lots of different kinds of yoga classes, and even other classes available (pilates, hoop dancing, belly dancing, piyo, tai-pi) and they have workshops on a regular basis where teachers from other areas come and bring new ideas.
The lady who came today was from New Orleans, not far but I really liked this workshop. This was my first introduction to the Yoga Sutras. The Yoga Sutras is actually an ancient Hindu religious text which is written in the form of poetic verses. Its a very short book. There is a lot of mythology that surrounds the book. Although I was very inspired by this workshop and I plan to read this book, I wouldn’t recommend running out and getting it for most people. Unless you happen to be into reading philosophy or theology for fun, you probably won’t enjoy this. You have to remember I’m a shrink. I spend my life contemplating the inner workings of the human mind so this stuff really turns me on. Anyway, Yoga literally means-the union of body and mind. Today was a day where I had that experience.
I will try to summarize what I learned about this book from the workshop and tell you a little about how this teacher then tried to integrate the physical part into the teaching. The four chapters of the book are titled 1. Meditation 2. The Way 3. The Practice 4. How to Become an Angel She described the first chapter as being about learning to close your eyes and allowing yourself to experience the darkness inside your own mind. We all have things in our minds and in our lives that we don’t like and we would like to change. The first thing we have to do is to learn to be quiet and allow ourselves to acknowledge it. The next part is about how to go about fixing the things you have just seen that need to be fixed. She described it as “putting on your cosmic tool belt.” One of the tools we all have to learn in our lives is balance. She used this as a segway into one of the physical parts of the workshops.
She warmed us up with a bunch of sun salutations. I won’t bore you with that because that is basic yoga that most people are familiar with but I probably spent a half hour in downward facing dog today and I’m gonna feel it tomorrow. She then got us to start trying some really wild balancing postures. I’m not very strong so most of these were way out of my league. She also had some crazy floating triangle pose I couldn’t even find a picture of on the internet.
So after this section we talked about the second two chapters of the book. The chapter-the Practice is supposed to be now that you have the tools to fix the problems in your life, you need to go out and become a well grounded individual. Shed yourself of your old bad habits and sow new seeds like farmers to make the world a better place. Something along those lines-remember this is religion/philosophy. The last chapter is about becoming a transformed individual (or becoming an angel).
She used the becoming grounded and sowing seeds them as a segway into some hip opening exercises. Now I may not be strong but I am reasonably flexibly so I could do most of these. I don’t have pictures of all of them because I didn’t even know the names of some of the poses we did. But here’s a sample.
And something else I had never experienced. She did some chanting at the beginning and the end of the workshop. I have certainly experienced chanting in other settings, but never in a yoga class. I enjoyed this much more than I expected. I sweat my butt off but had a great time and I think this may even make me a more serious yoga student.
Weekend Update - Saturday
Posted petra65 on November 14th, 2009 | Filed under General daily | 1 Comment »
I spent a little time today adding some things to my blog but I still haven’t figured out how to add pictures/images. I’m not sure why it seems so complicated. At any rate, it is nice the site is back up and running again.
The turkey in the crockpot worked out well. I made turkey enchiladas today which is off my favorites list. It makes a huge amount so half will go in the freezer for when I’m on call at the end of the month but I will have half for meals during the week. There is also leftover turkey for some other use at a later date. I have responded to several questions on line here and also on the Sonoma diet site about menu planning this week. It seems I’m not the only one who has struggled with this. It’s sort of strange because I figured a lot of other difficult stuff out a long time ago and I really didn’t even realize what a problem this was for me until this time around. I understood the part about this had to be forever, and I couldn’t eat sugar and all that stuff years ago but I couldn’t make the meal plan work until now. I actually hired a private weight loss coach for a couple months to help me sort it out step by step. That was a nice luxury that I could afford. I realize not everyone can do that.
Something else I realized the other day about what is making this experience different than my previous ones. I’m a big Jonny Bowden fan. Don’t know if any of the rest of you get his daily emails. He’s a big proponent of low carb or at least lower carb diets but a lot of his stuff is more general. Anyway, he has a program that he calls Diet Boot Camp. It includes stuff about overcoming psychological obstacles to weight loss as well as nutritional information. He sent out an email the other day that was straight out of his Diet Boot Camp program so it was something I had seen before. He tells a story about a conductor (the orchestra kind, not the train kind) who is asked to fill in at the last minute for the Boston opera. He has to learn a whole new opera in like 5 days. Jonny asks the conductor how on earth he is going to manage to learn such a complex piece in such a short period of time, and the conductor responds calmly “I’m going to learn it like I learn every piece of music. One bar at a time.” A reminder that every task we undertake we have to do in small steps and if we think about how big the whole task is many of us would never do anything-we’d never have children, we’d never go to college, we’d never build houses, etc. Many of us would never get out of bed in the morning.
A lot of people look at their weight loss journey that way-they think to themselves “I could never lose 50 lbs or 100 lbs” or whatever it is they have to lose. But the truth is, not matter how much we have to lose, we all do it the same way, one lb at a time. The other times that I have done this, I think I never allowed myself to think of this as a success unless I reached goal. There were no rewards, there were no pictures. This time, I have decided to reward myself for every 15 lbs along the way and to take a picture every month. I am going to celebrate every step of this journey. Every lb is a success. Perhaps that is a big part of the psychological shift that has taken place. This is no longer a great big chore to get to the finish line. It’s a celebration of a lot of successes along the way.
Turkey in the Crockpot
Posted petra65 on November 12th, 2009 | Filed under Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
My scale said 230.0 this morning so this appears to be real and not a fluke. I’m also staying on plan without much difficulty. In fact, we had a baby shower this afternoon for one of our techs and I really didn’t have much trouble staying out of the inappropriate foods. There was a veggie tray and a fruit tray and I had a few things off each and was happy with that. I really wasn’t hungry and wasn’t tempted to eat things I knew would derail the progress I’ve made so far. This is another strange psychological change that has happened with me with this attempt at weight loss. I don’t feel deprived or even like it is a challenge to give up things I know I shouldn’t be eating. For Halloween, I had leftover candy in my house for several days and I actually forgot it was even here! That is unbelievable! I didn’t have a single piece of it and in fact, really didn’t even want it. It almost feels like someone has replaced part of my brain.
So what’s with the Turkey in the crockpot. I am planning to make Turkey Enchiladas this weekend. This is a Sonoma Diet recipe (from the website, not the cookbook). I’ve made it before and it is fantastic. It also makes a ridiculous amount so I am planning to freeze half of it for when I am on call later this month (are you starting to see the method to my madness). I am cooking the turkey breast tonight. I was talking about this at work today and one of the nurses was telling me how convenient it is to cook it in the crockpot so I decided I would try that. I cut up some onion and celery in the bottom. Seasoned the turkey breast, put it in the crock pot and set it for 8.5 hours on low. I hear it will be amazingly juicy and tender. It will also be more than I need so I will freeze the leftovers as well and then next month I will make soup or a salad out of the leftovers. Maybe I’ll make turkey more often if this turns out to be this easy. It already smells good and I just put it in about an hour ago.
Wednesday
Posted petra65 on November 11th, 2009 | Filed under Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
For all the nice people who have read my posts and commented, thank you. This is my first experience with blogging and I have no idea how to respond to comments. I can barely remember how to write a new post each day. I’m hoping I’ll figure out all the neat tricks as I go along.
I’ve recently been really frustrated because my scale has not been moving. I’ve been at the same weight-232.something for about the last 10 days. My clothes were getting looser but that scale would not move and then this morning………the scale said 230.8. I’m not sure how that magic happens but it does. I know from my previous dieting experiences that if you just stick with it, eventually the scale moves. I’m really anxious to see a 22-something on the scale and we are getting really close to that.
Today seems like a good day to talk about some more mundane things. I’m following the Mediterranean diet/lifestyle. I use the Sonoma books among others and try to incorporate a fair number of those principles. I’ve lost large amounts of weight twice before. In 2002 I lost 50+ lbs on weight watchers and in 2006 I lost 65 lbs on a low carb diet. I never made it to goal either time and obviously I was not successful in maintaining those losses. One of the major lessons I learned from those experiences is that all diets work if you follow them the way they were intended. The real trick is to find something you can do forever because guess what happens when you stop eating that way……..you gain the weight back. I’m example number 1. I think I can eat this way forever. There’s really nothing that’s not allowed except junk, the food tastes great, I get to have a glass of wine almost every night for dinner, and I will never get bored. That’s actually a major issue for me. I can’t eat the same thing every day. I know lots of people do that and it works really well for them but I just can’t do it. I’d go out of my mind. I’ve been on and off this way of eating for a couple years cause I just couldn’t quite get the hang of it. It’s almost too permissive if you know what I mean. Most of the diets I’ve tried have a lot of restrictions and suddenly I could eat almost anything healthy so trying to figure out how to mix and match and make it work was kind of overwhelming. Also the cooking was a challenge for awhile. I also love trying new things and would overwhelm myself with novelty. I think I’ve ironed a lot of that stuff out.
I now make meal plans a month in advance. I know that probably sounds really obsessive to a lot of people but because I take call-I have to plan ahead for that. I like to have stuff in the freezer already made so I don’t have to cook that week or I have planned things that are really quick to make. I’ve made a list of all the things I know I love to eat and are consistent with my plan and I use them as the main things for my meal plan and then I allow myself 1 or 2 new things a week so I don’t overwhelm myself with novelty. So far this seems to be working pretty well. I think I’m finally getting the hang of it. Am I going to have to do it this way forever?-probably. I’m not sure that’s such a bad thing. I have found I can improvise a little bit. I’m now working on trying to add more fish and vegetarian dishes to my menu as this would be more consistent with the mediterranean diet and healthier for me. Okay, probably way more than anyone else ever wanted to know about my dieting issues. I’ll try not to be so boring all the time.