daily reckonings the eighth, ninth, and tenth

good lord i am behind! i got up sunday morning after not much sleep, ran through a shower and out the door to meet karen and aimee for breakfast, so--oops! no weigh-in! i accidentally skipped my first weekly reckoning. i am SURE it was bad, so maybe that is not such a terrible thing. anyway--let's see if i can at least remember the food for the last few days.

food log:

• breakfast:
  • sunday: had breakfast at the B&B. it was sliced peaches with a little sweetened cream cheese, a piece of wild rice quiche, two pieces of canadian bacon, a few pieces of grilled peppers, and two cups of tea.
  • monday: 6 oz. stoneyfield organic peach yogurt and the usual tea.
  • tuesday: 6 oz. stoneyfield organic vanilla yogurt and the usual tea again.
• lunch:
  • sunday: coastal benedict from nofo --crabcakes with contry ham, poached eggs, and hollandaise sauce with some grilled asparagus, some fruit, and an unsweetened iced tea.
  • monday: went to neomonde. had a sampler plate of chicken salad, hummus, and fruit salad with about half a pita and an unsweetened iced tea
  • tuesday: a salad from chick-fil-a with fat free honey mustard dressing, and an unsweetened iced tea.
• dinner:
  • sunday: hmmm--ordered chinese. had some dumplings and about 1/3 of an order of general tso's chicken with some white rice and broccoli.
  • monday: cooked over at jenn and harry's. i made grilled mahi mahi with lime juice and olive oil, a mango and papaya salsa, sugar snap peas, and some basmati and wild rice. we had some mint chocolate chip ice cream for dessert--i ate half of what jenn gave me and threw the rest out.
  • tuesday: ugh--two slices of mellow mushroom pizza and a blueberry soda. not what i wanted, but there was no time to cook between work and my late night conference call. hate days as busy as today was.
• snacks/other:
  • sunday: ate some watermelon after dinner while hanging out with emily.
  • monday: nothing on monday
  • tuesday: nothing today either. there was no time for snacking today
• desserts/sweets:
  • sunday: er--not that i can remember.
  • monday: the aforementioned ice cream at jenn's.
  • tuesday: not yet. :)

activities:

• sunday: fought exhaustion and shopped a little more. then i napped like a dead animal.
• monday: nope--still recovering from the weekend.
• tuesday: there was no time for ANYTHING today. went to work early and finished late--almost seemed like old times. plus i am still freakin' tired from my sleep schedule getting messed up this weekend. you guys are lucky i even have the energy to type.

daily reckoning the seventh

food log:

• breakfast: took the girls to big ed's. had 1 egg, 3 slices of bacon, some grits with redeye gravy, a biscuit, a slice of tomato, about a third of a giant pancake, and some sweet iced tea--quite a breakfast.
• lunch: a black bean soft taco from moe's, and some corn chips with salsa and queso
• dinner:
cheese and fruit plate with about 2 glasses of wine at the symphony. then a small caesar and an appetizer portion of risotto with lobster butter, morrel mushrooms, rock shrimp and asparagus at frazier's.
• snacks/other: a grande awake tea with whole milk and 3 packets of raw sugar from starbuck's and a few bites of aimee's oatmeal raisin cookie. a thrilla in vanilla martini at sullivan's, and then a cosmopolitan. girls' weekend out--what can i say?
• desserts/sweets: wow--i think i actually avoided desserts today--shocking.

activities: walked about 17 miles around various malls while shopping. the bags were REALLY heavy. also walked another 14 miles or so from the parking lot at the symphony to the actual ampitheater--jeezus.

daily reckoning the sixth

food log:

• breakfast: a yankee blueberry muffin from wellspring (i.e., a corn muffin with blueberries) and a cup of EB tea with all the standard accoutrements
• lunch: met emily at moe's for lunch. had a close talker salad with no shell and no dressing along with an unsweetened iced tea
• dinner: went to ciao with aimee and karen--had 2 glasses of sangiovese, some marinated vegetables, about 2/3 of a soppressata and provelone sandwich, and about half of a cappucino panna cotta with strawberries
• snacks/other: no snacks today.
• desserts/sweets: 3 hershey's dark chocolate nuggets with almonds

activities: not so much. does lifting your wine glass over and over count? how about your fork? i did do some running around and housework, but that was really about it.

aimee and karen are in for the weekend, so this pormises to be a weekend of running around and eating and not a lot of exercise. unless shopping counts as exercise. i am SURE there will be some shopping...

daily reckoning the fifth

food log:

• breakfast: i ate on the run, as i had an early doctor's appointment. had a grande awake tea from starbucks with 2% milk and 3 packets of raw sugar and half of a starbuck's blueberry scone--forced myself to chuck the second half
• lunch: farewell lunch for the hippie with many coworkers--we went to maggiano's, which is family style, so i had SOME of each of the following: sweet iced tea, bread with sundried tomato sauce, caesar salad, rigatoni in a marsala sauce with chicken, veal and mushroom ravioli (i ate one), chicken florentine, salmon picatta, and tiramisu and cheesecake for dessert. REALLY hard not to overeat here, but i restrained myself to single small servings and one plate per course.
• dinner: pho tai chin ( in case you are going--what's THAT??? pho tai chin is a really light chicken and beef broth based vietnamese soup with rice noodles, bean sprouts, thin slices of beef, and fresh herbs--very healthy, unlike my lunch) and 6 small fried shrimp
• snacks/other: snacks? after all that? no way!
• desserts/sweets: the aforementioned lunch desserts. thank GOD there is no tiramisu here right now, or i would so be eating it!

activities: all planned activities went down the tubes when my eye exploded into a nasty infection and sent me to the eye doctor, who dialated everything and gave me a migraine. blah.

i would write more musings, but i have to get off this computer.

daily reckoning the fourth

food log:

• breakfast: 6 oz. stoneyfield organic blueberry yogurt and a cup of EB tea with 1 tsp. white sugar (i need to get some raw sugar for work!) and ~1.5 oz. 1% milk
• lunch: turkey wrap with lettuce, tomato, sprouts, avacado, and light ranch dressing in a spinach tortilla with some strawberries and 3 teeny tiny little muffins (2 bran and one jalapeno corn)
• dinner: BAD DINNER--a 1/3lb cheeseburger with bacon, cheddar, grilled onions, and BBQ sauce, and a handful of terrible but fabulous crinkle fries. this is pretty awful, but could have been a lot worse, as what i REALLY wanted with the BIG burger and a chocolate milkshake. baby steps i guess. i even resisted the sweet tea in favor of just water--that's GOTTA count for something!
• snacks/other: met emily at starbucks for knitting--had a grande awake tea with a little whole milk and 3 packets of raw sugar and half an oatmeal raisin cookie. and let me tell you, people--throwing that second half away was an act of sheer will--i almost ate it. i don't know what it is about those damned cookies, but i swear i am addicted to them.
• desserts/sweets: the aforementioned cookie and 1 dark chocolate hershey's kiss

activities: walked to dinner to eat that horrible burger. was planning to walk to knitting, but it was pouring rain, so i drove instead.

let's face it, self-denial is just not my strong suit when i am bleeding like a stuck pig. it's ironic that i feel somehow entitled to treat myself with bad food that will only make me feel and look worse in the long run. how does that make sense?

daily reckoning the third

food log:

• breakfast: 1 lemon poppyseed muffin from whole foods (we totally slept in, so we were late--stopped and grabbed something fast and relatively OK for us) and one cup of english breakfast tea with 1 tsp. white sugar and ~1.5 oz. 1% milk
• lunch: went to a chinese buffet with coworkers--tried to focus on the veggies and not eat as much of the fried things. i also forced myself to stop eating when i was full instead of gorging. in the end, i had one plate of mixed meat and veggies (no rice or noodles), a slice of watermelon, 1 glass of sweet iced tea, and that was it.
• dinner: 1 bowl of mediterranean chicken stew, 2 slices of whole wheat baguette, and about 1/2 a glass of white wine
• snacks/other: nothing today
• desserts/sweets: 1 scoop of baskin robbins reeses peanut butter cup ice cream in a cone

activities: jenn and gabriella came over for dinner since the hippie and harry were doing a boys' night at hooters. after dinner we went on a long walk through the neighborhood and ended up at baskin robbins, where we stopped for a cone of ice cream. then we walked back home the short way. we probably walked about 2 miles all told, but not very quickly. (hard to go very fast with a 2-year-old!) it's not enough activity, i know, but it's WAY better than i managed yesterday!

man, i dread going back into the gym. i am so intimidated by it--it's such an emotional thing for me. i have a few new workout clothes, which actually helps, but i am such a chicken shit about this. ugh! once i get going, i will be OK, but man it is hard getting started! so my gym goal for this week is to make it on thursday and friday. if i can pull that off, i think i will be doing well.

daily reckoning the second

food log:

• breakfast: 6 oz. stoneyfield organic strawberry yogurt, english breakfast tea with 1 tsp. white sugar and ~1.5 oz. 1% milk
• lunch: about half of a crabcake salad from firebirds, which consisted of two crabcakes, some field greens with tomatoes and tortilla strips and a lime cilantro vinaigrette--i ate all the crabcakes, shoved the tortilla strips aside, then got bored about a third of the way through the greens, and unsweetened iced tea
• dinner: went out to ciao--had a few pieces of homemade cracker, a bit of chese with two thin slices of pear and apple, about 7 grapes, some vegetables (eggplant, zuchinni, roasted red peppers, and sundried tomatoes) marinated in olive oil and balsamic vinegar, half a prociutto cotto and fontina sandwich, and about half a glass of sangiovese--it's hard to quantify things at ciao as we tend to split and share things
• snacks/other: 1 grapefruit izze soda, which was not only fabulous, but also matched my outfit today
• desserts/sweets: 1 of those tiny tootsie rolls handed to me by some woman at the mall who was forcing these weird pro-love-between-a-man-and-a-woman leflets on us--whatever, i ate her chocolate and threw her leaflet away. bitch really should have provided me with a better quality of chocolate.

activities: lifted my arm high enough to get the advil into my mouth, then did some water glass lifts to follow it up. after i finish writing this, i will probably walk all the way to my bed.

let's just call today Cramp Day. perhaps i picked a stupid week to try to get started.

daily reckoning the first

food log:

• breakfast: two eggs scrambled with thyme, half a ruby red grapefruit with 1/2 tsp. white sugar, english breakfast tea with 1 tsp. raw sugar and 1.5 oz. 1% milk
• lunch: one and a half fish tacos made with tilapia, avacado cilantro salsa and spicy mayo, a little bit of a field green salad with a red wine vinaigrette, and water
• dinner: salmon with white wine and lime, stir fried asparagus and red pepper with ginger and garlic oil, brown rice, and water
• snacks/other: about half of a 16 oz. italian lime soda
• desserts/sweets: 1 small piece of fabulous chocolate cake (an actual single serving size, but still 14 g of fat and about 260 calories) and a glass of 1% milk. i dare anyone to resist chocolate cake during their period!

activities: went on a long walk with ths hippie. long means somewhere between four and a half and five miles. we walked to a coffee shop we both love that i usually consider in driving range only. had some italian soda, walked home, stopped for lunch on the way back. cons: i am REALLY out of shape, and every hill we came to kicked my ass. my fingers swelled up from walking in the heat, and i can't say it was the most comfortable experience--add cramps to the vaguely persistent headache i have had for 3 days... but it wasn't all bad. pros: i got to smell a FABULOUS magnolia we walked right under--that has to be one of the best smells in the world. plus it was nice to be out meandering with the hippie. and at the end, i felt like i DID something, which is also nice.

all in all--day one doesn't feel so bad, although i can feel that my legs are not too thrilled with this whole thing. i am already skeptical about my ability to get up at 5:30am to go to the gym in the morning, but i am trying to keep the faith. blah--i hate the gym. anyway--better get to bed...

starting points

ok--weighed and took all my measurements so that i have a good starting point. here they are:

• weight: 203.4 lb.
• body fat: 45%
• measurements (in inches):
  • waist: 38 3/8
  • hip: 47
  • upper arm: 16 1/4
  • bust: 39/44
  • thigh: 27 1/4

new resolution

a friend of mine started a blog about her struggles with weight loss, and i have decided to copy her. i think it will help me to have some sort of sense of accountability to SOMEONE about my own attempts to lose weight. i decided to separate this out from my regular blog, both to make it easier for me, and also so that those people who read my rantings and ravings will not die of boredom. this blog will probably be mind-numbing unless you, too, are a person who struggles with your weight. i figure, with most of america overweight at this point, at least a few of you should be able to identify.

i have tried to lose weight before, sometimes with success, and sometimes not. i am not a big fan of faddish diets, although i have had some success in the recent past with the south beach diet (SB). i read a bunch of nutrition books and did a lot of research, and found that SB is the ONLY prescribed diet i could find out there that was actually in support of nutrition research and not in utter violation of everything i learned about my body's basic needs. my only real criticism of SB is that it neglects to take salt into account. i have high blood pressure, so i have to be careful not to let my salt intake get out of hand.

over the past year, i have managed to make quite a few permanent changes to my diet that i reall am proud of. i have virtually stopped eating white potatoes--i have them maybe twice a month. maybe one of those times it's fries. i still can't resist fries with a burger if i am out, but i am working on that. i will say that i eat about half the fries when i have a burger now than i used to eat. i have also not had a single potato chip since last september, which for me, is saying A LOT. chips have been a weakness of mine since high school. i also eat less white rice now than i used to, and almost no white bread. i have changed to eating more whole grains and focussing more on lean meats and vegetables. i have thrown out anything that contains tropical oils (especially palm oil) and high fructose corn syrup. i cut the amount of sugar i eat WAY back. i changed from 2% to 1% milk. still can't quite take skim milk, but then, i don't drink that much milk to begin with.

in the food department, i really need to work on the following:

• eating at home. eating out is where i tend to lose control - i eat more food and food that is not as good for me. to this end, part of my new resolution is to try to cook breakfast at home unless it's a special occasion and to eat dinner at home at least 4 nights a week.
• portion control - i think we as americans have an inflated sense of how much food we should eat at a given meal. i am going to try to pay better attention to this, especially with regard to meat. 6 oz. of salmon should be plenty, so why am i buying 8 oz.?
• stop eating when i am full! this is probably my biggest food failing--i just love food, and i will often keep eating just for the flavor--i gotta stop that!

the other big problem for me is getting my ass into the gym. this is HUGE for me. in the ast, i have actually enjoyed the gym, but only if i had someone to go with. i guess i am just too social. motivating myself to go, when it's just me, is super-hard. it's worse, too, bcause the only time i really can make time to go is in the morning, and dude--i am NOT a morning person. NOT AT ALL. when that alarm goes off at 5:30am, i am more likely to throw it out the window or at one of the meowing cats than i am to get up and go to the gym. ugh! but well--i just have to get over it, don't i? i think if i can get into the habit of going, then it won't be so bad--but god, the first few months are going to be hell on wheels. heer's the workign out part of this new resolution:

• get inot the gym a minimum of 4 times a week.
• do something for my body at least 30 minutes a day, every day. 30 minutes is NOTHING--i should be able to manage this.
• stretch every night before bed. my flexibility is for shit--i am ambarassed to have a man with better flexibility than i have--it just ain't right.

and last but not least, here are my goals for me and for this blog:

• post a daily reckoning before i go to bed that contains both what i ate that day and whatever i did that day toward achieving my goals
• post a weekly reckoning every sunday morning that contains my number of gym visits for the week, my weight, my body fat percentage, and the number of pounds i have to go to get to my goal
• post a monthly reckoning every 4th sunday that contains my measurements
• goal weight: 160 lb.
• goal body fat: 25%

there you have it. stick with me if you feel like it--if you don't, i won't be offended. comments and encouragements are more than welcome, but please, don't berate me when i am bad--believe me, i will do that enough myself.