An Update & Indulgences...

I’ve lost a total of 2 lbs. this week which rather surprises me with the indulging that I’ve been doing. For example last night at Mimi’s Café after ordering a small appetizer for my meal.  I, then, ordered the chocolate bread pudding. OMG! Talk about decadent! It arrived at the table with two different sauces – a rum sauce and a chocolate sauce. Then the bread pudding had chocolate chips mixed in and they were to that just melting point.  YUM!  Now I’ve never been too big on chocolate but bread pudding with a bit of a rum sauce I LOVE. But if you add a bit of chocolate on top of that and its pure genius!

Now I will admit that I did do a 23 mile bike ride before consuming the OMG chocolate bread pudding but I DON’T think that was quite a fair calorie exchange. The scale might have been slightly tilted heavy on the dessert side. I did however purposely choose to have a smaller appetizer so that I “could have” said dessert. But I was still rather surprised that I was down 2 lbs. after such rich dessert consumption. Oh, and I also had a beverage with sparkling wine with cranberry juice; called a Hibiscus. It was very refreshing after a bike ride, but that was another indulgence I probably should have forgone.

My activities for this last week to help combat the general war of weight loss and has assisted in bringing me to a total of 20 lbs less? Well, there was 110 miles of cycling, 5.75 miles running, and 1 hour on the elliptical machine. I guess it was enough to tip the scale in my favor but still I can’t help but think what I might have been down if I would stop partaking of such food items.  But ultimately, I blame that dang blackboard that listed the Special dessert of Chocolate Bread Pudding.  Talk about a sucker for a marketing ploy!

Healing & "Canned" Lunches...

I seem to be healing. If all goes according to plan, my stitches on my calf will come out on Thursday. In the meantime, I’ve been keeping to wearing skirts or shorts. There’s something about having pants or capris on that rub up against the stitches. It’s kind of like wearing that scratchy wool sweater; just a bit of an irritant.

On the running front, I managed to run 3.5 miles this last Sunday and no butt cramp. Yahoo! I want to thank everyone for their help with and suggestions. I’ve been doing a series of exercises and stretches that may be the key to beating this thing

Artwork- "Steak Out" soon to showing in the Bark-N-Art Stroll in Park City this weekend.

On the weight loss front, I’m down the 2 lbs. that I gained a couple of weeks ago. I think the new “incentive” was that I started a new journal. There’s just something about a new start of filling blank pages that can be very appealing. Though, in the back of my mind I often wonder about someone discovering my journal years and years from now. I’m sure they will be thinking,”WTF?!?” My mundane details of my diet and exercising would prove as a good bedtime story. It’ll put you to sleep right away.


In an effect to plan my lunch time food at work a little better, I’ve come up with the “canned” diet. It’s a simplistic way of planning a lunch time meal; open a can, pour into bowl, and microwave (if needed). It’s an effective way to keep the calories for lunch under 350. My work desk drawer now comprises of low sodium soups, non-fat refried beans, tuna, and sliced beets. Yes, beets! It’s the one canned “veggie” that I really like. And yes, to your other question—I limit the refried beans to just once a week out of respect to co-workers.

Weighing In & Choices...

This morning when I hopped on the scale, I was surprised to see that I was down 4 lbs. for the week. Not that I was disappointed; quite the contrary. Most of the week I had been hitting a plateau of a 1 lb. loss for the week; but BAMM! This morning, I was down another 3 lbs.! This started my Friday morning off at a pleasant place, and I felt good. I’m down a total of 9 lbs. so far and that feels good!




I will tell you though that I’ve rather been working my tail off for those 3 lbs this last week. I worked out 4 different times at the gym (all at a 60 minute minimum) and even went on a 3 mile snow hike. I’ve pretty much stuck with the 1200 calories per day plan. I did have a cleansing day this last Saturday and that was the day I lost the first pound this last week. Go figure! I did have a couple of days where I forgot to eat a meal. I got too busy and forgot to eat. This happens to me. Sometimes, I get to going 90mph and I don’t feel like stopping in to the pit stop.



What’s been the hardest thing for me recently has been making the correct healthy low cal choices. 1200 calories per day can quickly be eaten up by fattening high calorie foods, and then you can be looking at an empty plate or end up skipping a meal which is not a good thing.  It’s hard when you are eating the low cal tuna salad sandwich in the lunch room and one of the guys sits down next to you with a big juicy cheeseburger with potato skin fries. It especially doesn’t help when they offer you some of the fries and you’re still hungry after consuming the tuna salad.   Eating out seems to be especially hard and some of the salads out there are not as low cal as you would be led to believe.  I've gone to the always ordering the salad dressing off to the side.  But overall, I'm discovering that I'm best off when I plan my meals ahead of time.  This has been a bit of a challenge because I'm a "do-er" and not too much of a "plan-er", but I guess that's something I'll need to learn.



I’ve been sticking as much as I can to the healthy low cal choices, and it’s starting to show. The other day, I stood nude in front of the mirror and took a hard appraisal of what I saw. I know I’ll never have my 20 year old body back and that I need to do some work here. But I think that with a bit of work I can gain my “legs of steel” back. If I start doing some sit ups on a regular basis, I could get back my flat stomach. (No, there’s no chance of a 6 pack here—except if it’s for alcohol consumption.)  But overall, there's some possibilities to see myself looking not too bad in a bikini this summer.  I just need to get working on it.



To these means, I’m planning on doing some sit ups on a more regular basis. I’m also thinking of getting some more upper body work outs. Tomorrow morning I’m meeting Diane for a swim, which often turns into an excellent upper body workout. Now to keep up on everything and keep on track; after all there’s only 23 lbs to go….

Hockey Pucks, Mother Hubbard & Menu Planning...

FYI, you can not make baking powder biscuits with gluten free soy flour. I found this out the hard way on Sunday when I tried to make something to go with my late morning cup of coffee. I ended up with yellow orange-ish hockey pucks that had slightly burnt edges. I was out of flour, sugar, a half cup of salt, part of a jar of peanut butter, and a couple of cans of diced tomatoes.  My cupboards were in competition with Old Mother Hubbard and I was really stretching to make something out of nothing. I guess its one of those lessons best learned the hard way that you REALLY can’t make something from nothing. Later in the day I finally broke down and actually went grocery shopping. My freezer was barren, my refrig looked like a bachelor’s, and the cupboard had a few items but nothing that could really be put together to form a REAL meal. ( Photos of cupboard and refrig before grocery shopping.)

I got into my head an idea while I was putting the grocery shopping list together that I would try meal plans from a new book that I got: The 1200-Calorie-a-Day Menu Cookbook. Since I finished the Perfect 10 challenge, I have been experiencing a roller coaster with my weight staying within an 8 lbs. area. I really would like to lose those 8 lbs. and another 8 to 9 lbs. less would be nice too. So with that in mind I took out my new book and explored between the covers. Now I realize with all of the running, biking, and what-not that I do in a day 1200 calories is not enough but my thought was that it was a good healthy base to which I could add to. Ideally I would be adding healthy items like more fruit, veggies (I could try), granola bars, and sports gels to give me more calories for my workouts.

The book advertises quick easy recipes that are designed in a whole meal layout; 350 calories for breakfast, 350 calories for lunch, 400 calories for dinner and a 100 calorie dessert. The meals are well-balanced. My thought was that I was starting from scratch why not take advantage of it and get only items for the plan and force myself into eating healthy low-fat meals. So, off to the grocery store I went after putting together a list with a 14 day idea of a menu plan that included a few extra fresh fruits, fruit juice, and granola bars.

I came back from the grocery store two hours later $145 less rich and had to make 5 trips lugging groceries from the car to my third story apartment. Talk about a workout! If lugging groceries was an Olympic Event I could see myself in the running for at least a sliver.

Bright and early Monday morning, I started the menu plan. It took a little planning and prior putting together which was really counter to the way I usually operate with food. I’m normally hungry and then just grab what looks good or hit a fast food place. Planning is the key to making this work, and it’s going to need to become a habit to make this work. Here I am getting up 15min earlier to put together my breakfast and lunch for the day to take with me. I also am quickly putting my change of clothes for the office as I had planned to go to one of my early morning club bike rides. A good way to start the day is with an easy paced 11 mile bike ride.

The meal plan….

Breakfast—
Low-fat turkey bacon
Whole wheat English muffin with a Tbsp. of low-fat cream cheese
A Bartlett pear cut up

Lunch---
Curry tuna salad in a whole wheat pocket pita
A medium sized banana

Snack—
A medium sized banana

Dinner—
Spicy crumb topped chicken
Sweet corn
Non-fat vanilla yogurt with fresh strawberries

Well, I did pretty good sticking to the meal plan except for the banana. Instead, I had an organic peanut granola bar that I picked up at REI before I did the Monday night club bike ride. I was really hungry prior to the 15 mile bike ride and needed a bit more than just a banana. I was really proud of myself that after the bike ride I didn’t give into my urge to take the short cut through the drive thru for dinner. I went home instead and made the spicy crumb topped chicken with the sweet corn that I topped with a bit of black pepper and Molly McButter. It was yummy and I was on the plan; who knew that a plan could be tasty. I also want to say that I REALLY like the curry tuna salad. It has a bit of sugar, pecans, and crunchy celery. Yum!

I'm still on the plan today and heading off to lunch to enjoy some more of that curry tuna salad.  YUM!