but it was a nice 4 days off with my girlfriend while it lasted

I weighed today and came in at 212.6   I cant remember, but I think its about the same as last Sunday.  The last 4 days without the pool or much exercise to speak of made a difference I think.  At some point this week I weighed around 210, but our weight fluctuates so much during the week. I think I should just use the ones on sunday and average them out every 4 weeks to get something perhaps more accurate.

Okay, back to doing laundry now.  Didnt do much of anything for the past 4 days except sleep late, lounge around and watch movies.

Time to catch up for the upcoming week

It;s just Monday- plain and simple.

I am feeling much better today though, an attribute no doubt to my girlfriend stuffing me full of water, fresh lemons and raw garlic all of last week

I was in the water by 7 this morning. It felt good to be doing laps again-  I have somehow developed a bit of elbow tendonitis and am hoping that swimming will help strenthen the tendons as an extra added bonus to it being something I actually like to do to move my body!  Today I sat and stared at folks on the elliptical this morning and have decided that Im going to give it a shot. Looks like pretty low impact for my arthritic knee, and I can always use something to change up the routine.

Breakfast this morning- my swimmers breakfast. A piece of whole grain toast with a bit of organic peanut butter. 1 liter of water with fresh lemon and a banana.  The toast is before the swim, the water and banana after …I cant load up with a big breakfast before I hit the water. ugg.  Usually after I return from swimming I am starving and eat a house.  But today I am not feeling that hungry afterward- maybe because I have drank almost a liter of water since waking this morning.  Ill have a midmorning snack of a smoothie and then go from there.

I am just grateful that the bug seems to be on its way out and that I am feeling better.

Of course, after the swim I could use a nap

and i am finally starting to feel better.  i dont know what i had, but i dont want it again, and hopefully im immune to it now!

the bright side- my weigh in this morning was 212.2   Thats a loss of 4 lbs this week.  amazing what the flu will do for weight loss.  of course i didnt have an appetite and the only thing i did was ingest huge amounts of broths, soups and lots and lots and lots of water with fresh lemon juice ( perk of living in california- i just go pick them right off the tree ) .

i dont know if i mentioned it but i have high blood pressure, and the dr. has put me on a diueretic.  that combined with the copius amounts of water i drink per day keeps a lot of the water weight off and for that i am grateful.

ahhh….this week is thanksgiving, speaking of food.  oh wait. was i speaking of food or just thinking about it as always? 

my partner and i will be alone on thanksgiving, so we decided to go the route of roasted cornish game hens.  she makes some kind of orange glaze made from fresh squeezed orange juice and honey thats pretty darn good, and we use it sparingly- just enough to leave a light taste.  We are also having fresh green beans, fresh cranberries, candied yams,  along with a spinach salad.  This is the one night i allow myself alcohol- ( im just not a drinker- never appealed to me )  so we are making some low fat egg nog with a tiny shot of brandy.  one glass wont kill me.  And since i have pretty much cut bread out of my diet except a piece of whole grain something here and there , we will be having a bread free thanksgiving for the first time i can every remember.  But the menu sounds delightful to me- not too heavy.  We are learning to practice portion control.  The worst thing is the candied yams, but hey- im not gonna eat the whole thing!  and its thanksgiving.  And we split the cornish game because neither one of us treat meat like a main course anymore.  so in the grand scheme of things I think were good.

anyway, was going to try and go swim this morning, but after my trip to the market i realized i didnt have much energy, so instead im going to curl up on the couch and watch a movie with my friends.  but i did ride my bike to the market and back, a couple of miles round trip and that felt pretty good. it amazing how much i miss any kind of exercise when im not doing it.

so on that note, im heading over to the couch with my blanket now.

take care everyone and have a good sunday.

uggg… i am so congested that im miserable. uggg.

i miss going swimming.  I wanna get better.

i weighed out of boredom this morning. 214.2

not sure if i gained or lost since my last weigh in. probably about the same.

i noticed that when im sick, like now, what little appetite i have is seriously craving comfort food….

like the apple fritter im eating right now.

i did manage to keep some chili down for lunch. made from scratch, so pretty low fat and low sodium.

but im sick so i indulge myself.  is it my excuse for this apple fritter?  meh..it is what it is, and right now its an apple fritter.

i plan on laying low tommorow and on the weekend and hopefully monday ill be able to go swim for a little while. or ride my bike.  i miss exercising. 

will i need to say to do pennance for the pizza i just had?

funny thing about being sick…you have no appetite, and suddenly you do.  But your so tired from being sick for the past 2-3 days that you dont feel like making a dinner…AND your partner has spent all her energy taking care of you that you dont want her to have to bother…

yep…i ordered and had pizza.  3 slices, pepperoni and mushroom.

Forgive me…for i have sinned…..

okay, so while im having a lucid moment in my evening i want to say that im really liking having a journal to write in.  even though it may not seem like it due to the pizza binge, it really does help.

and really- its just 3 slices- tommorow as they say…is another day.

goodnite all.  i need to sleep again.

apparently the cure for my overeating is the flu.  i had a small amount of chicken noodle soup today, and a couple of cups of hot tea…no appetite at all.  Just wanna sleep, and all i seem to do is toss and turn…everything hurts.

dinner ??  hot and sour soup maybe…

i hate being sick.

morning all…and ugggg.

Now it all makes sense why I was so tired this weekend and why my appetite has been a little off the past few days.   What started as sniffles yesterday morning somehow manifested into a full fledged cold overnight.  I officially have the crud.  And can I say that when you work from home, well, its hard to call in sick!  So I am going to work from my warm cozy bed via the laptop and cell phone today, its much warmer than my drafty home office.  Besides, I only need to work a couple of hours.

I have realized that I am a big baby when I am sick.  I was scheduled to go in with my partner to get our H1N1 vaccines tommorow as we spend so much time in San Francisco where tons of our friends are sick…anyway, apparently you cant get vaccinated when you are sick. So scratch that little outing for tommorow.

Breakfast this morning was 1 slice of whole grain toast with a tablespoon or so of organic peanut butter.  Also my daily intake of 5 prunes, a cup of green tea with fresh lemon and raw honey….all topped off with that little diuertic known as my blood pressure medication.  Only thing missing was the cherry and the whipping cream…haha

I did actually weigh this morning, which I had promised myself I would only do on Sunday’s….but the scale was right there…looking so lonely.  Anyway,  somehow I am at 214.2 (down 2 lbs from sunday )  so I am assuming this is just part of the normal insane fluctuations.  I find it hard to believe I have lost 2 lbs in 48 hours…and really, my preference is to lose it the healthier way…a pound or two a week as my doc suggested.  Well, I will weigh again on Sunday and see what it says then.

Okay,, time to log in and do some work. Then for lunch will have some of the yummy left over home made chicken noodle soup my partner made me last night, with spinach noodles…very yummy.  See, even when I am sick and my appetitie is off I still think about food….

Hi, my name is Reese and I am a foodaholic….

kinda sucked.  Typical monday stuff….no big deal.  I work via remote desktop from home and kept getting kicked off today, so ended up logging off and calling it a day…didnt get a lot of my work done, so now I will have to work tommorow…uggg..

Anyway- my partner tried to wake me this morning at 6:30 to go swim but I just couldnt get up. I felt tired. I did wake up around 8 ish.  Grabbed a piece of whole grain toast with a bit of peanut butter, jumped on my bike and went to the Y.  I should have gone earlier, as I had to wait a bit- very crowded today. But I did end up swimming about a half an hour.

Came home, had a boiled egg and some green tea. tried to work , to no avail.  Gave up after a couple of hours.

Lunch- leftover super yummy enchilada’s and brown rice from last nite.

Then realized why I felt so tired….after the sniffling set in.

Im getting a touch of a cold.  So I have been drinking fresh ginger tea with lemon all day in hopes to thwart this little virus before it gets hold of me.  My girlfirend made home made chicken stock, so used it and made me some chicken noodle soup.  Had a couple of bowls… ( its made from scratch, pretty low fat and the only sodium is from the roasted chicken and whatever natural veggies in the sodium.  Pretty darn good.

Snacks today consisted of a tangerine, a handful of walnuts and some grapes. Not much of an appetite today…been pretty low energy, but I fight colds pretty well, and I am starting to feel a bit better.  We will see.

Drank about 2 liters of water today, and lots of hot tea. im good about drinking my water. Of course I take diuertics for my blood pressure, so NOT drinking water really isnt an option for me

So for now, Im gonna hit up one more hot cup of ginger tea…pop in a movie and call it a night…i hope to feel better tommorow for at least Tai chi class and maybe a quick swim afterwards…

Oh, the good thing I realized today…I had an unusual craving for sugar and opened one of those tiny 3 muskateers bars from halloween, you know the 2 inch long ones…( i do allow myself to indulge minimally ) i ate that and realized I just dont have much of a taste for sugar anymore.  Once I stopped drinking regular pepsi’s everything else was just too sweet. I didnt have an urge for a second one

I wrote a post and accidentally deleted it…oh no!  So here it is in a nutshell because I dont want to hash out a long post again..haha..

Im 52, and at 5′ 3″ I weigh 216.2 lbs. My doctor says thats obese. I have lost about 15 lbs since April, but feel I could d better.  I was diagnosed last year with high blood pressure - I quit smoking the next day and have stayed quit so far…knock on wood.  The only 2 addictions I seem to have picked up along life’s way was smoking and eating.  I am thinking of doing Overeaters Anonymous, but I cant say, because then I wouldnt be anonymous

I am trying to change the way I live and eat. Since I seem to live to eat , it seemed like a good idea to me!  I try to stay away from processed foods and refined sugar and grains….I am eating a diet pretty rich in fruits and veggies. Im not eating a lot of red meat these day, and when I do I try and eat buffalo meat. If your curious as to why , look it up and see why!  Its awsome!  It helps that I have a really supportive partner who helps plan out my meals for me and for the most part prepares our food each day.  I do still eat stuff I shouldnt, but have gotten better about even that.

I ride a fixed gear bike - her name is Trixie…Trixie the fixie :)  and try to spend about 1/2 hour to an hour each day on her.  I also joined the Y last week so I could get back to swimming- when I lived in SF and was a Y member it really helped keep me motivated and the swimming helped my arthritis quite a bit.

So thats it. I am hoping by keeping some kind of journal I can more or less stay accountable to myself. And it could be fun to have some company along the way

Today I ate pretty well.  It helps that I have a supportive partner who LOVES to cook.  So here is what I had today, and if your actually reading my blog bare with me…i go into lots of detail so I can keep track!

Breakfast- 1/2 cup of Kasha 7 grain cereal. Sliced up some red sweet grapes to put in it, since I have sworn off refined sugars.  1 cup of skim milk.

Lunch-  Found some whole ravioli at Safeway that was stuffed with low fat ricotta and asparagus. Had a red pesto sauce for it that was made from - well nothing from a can!  about a third cup of Olive oil,  a small amount of roasted walnuts, sundried toms, garlic and half cup of water- put in blender and oila- red pesto sauce!We make our own sundried tomatoes from organic roma’s.  Remember, only toss the ravioli in the pesto…just enough to coat. It had so much flavor that it was perfect!  Anyway….Red Pesto Ravioli served over a bed of fresh baby spinach,  a couple of crowns of yesterday’s leftover broccoli and half cup of brown rice.  VERY YUMMY and actually very satiated afterwards….

Dinner-  Low fat Low Sodium home made enchiladas!  Seriously, even the tortillas were made from scratch!  We use King Arthur Whole wheat flour , because it actually is a whole grain.  We dont add salt so its basically a low fat no sodium tortilla.  Anyway, it was made casserole style. We roast our own chicken so that we can made no sodium chicken broth at our house.  So the enchilada casserole had roasted chicken, organic black beans, home made enchilada sauce using no salt tomato sauce ( just add cumin :)  organic corn and more baby spinach.  We got low fat jack cheese and used less than 2-3 oz in the entire casserole!  Topped with green ortega chiles…you would never know it was so damn healthy and low cal for the most part.  Served with a side of brown rice ( 1/2 cup. )

Snacks today included for me a banana, an orange, and some organic prunes.  I eat 5 of these a day because they have been found to be one of those awsome foods that help lower blood pressure, and they have lots of pottasium.

Thats it for the day. Im done eating.  But as you can see, for the most part I just try to follow a diet that is rich in fruits and veggies, lower in red meat ( we pretty much have switched to buffalo meat - research it and find out why!  I have cut out pretty much all the refined sugars and flour out…I always try to eat brown instead of white and I try to include lots of whole grains.   This is how I have been eating for a few months-and yes, ever so often I allow myself to eat what I want…Its called Free Friday in my house!  If I dont then I will not succeed.  And I drink between 2-3 liters of water a day- a really important component of weight loss. I do love coke zero, but only have about 3 a week, maybe 4.  Which is better than the 2-3 regular pepsi’s I used to drink.

Today I also spent probably about 45 minutes to an hour on my bicycle. Broken up into about 3 15-20 minute rides.

Tommorow is Monday and here is my weekly ritual , that I hope I will stick to better since I am holding myself accountable in a blog *grin*

I wake up at 6:00-ish and eat a lite snack. Then I ride my bike to the YMCA and do a swim for about a half hour or so. Ride back home.  Work from home about 10- 3-ish.  Somewhere around noon I have lunch and dinner before 6.  2-3 liters of water somewhere in there. I usually stick to this.

Tuesday and Thursdays will see me adding a Tai Chi class for blood pressure and arthritic knee.  A quick swim afterwards,  and home to work again. yada yada…you know the rest.

I only weigh once a week, on Sunday’s.  I tried to do it daily, but have found that weight fluctuates so much from day to day for so many different reasons , that well, it would just make me crazy.  LOL…dont need help with that

Friday, Sat and Sunday are my days off. These are where I run into problems. No real structure, so I am hoping to develop structure with exercise and meditation perhaps. We will see.  Friday I do eat what I want, but I have noticed since eating more whole foods and developing a taste for actual food, that I am wanting less fast food stuff.  I refuse to put myself somewhere where I feel limited and restricted- I know that for me that is a formula for disaster and a slower route to success.