Obsession

Why is it that food is on my mind so often?  I'm either planning what I'm going to eat, worried about what I ate, or anticipating when I will be hungry again.  I would like for food to stop being the important part of my day.  But, the thing is when you have had blood sugar problems, you can't just not think about it, you have to plan out your day according to when you can eat.  You have to pack some eats with you no matter where you are going.  You have to be sure that you have enough water and take your vitamins on time.  Its crucial because without that kind of planning you eat the kind of food which is fastest to absorb (simple sugars.) and gain weight or you forget to eat and your blood sugar crashes and you have a seizure or pass out.  I don't know if you have ever had a seizure but it really hurts alot.  I work really hard to keep my blood sugar in check.  I am always analyzing what I'm going to eat so that I don't eat mindlessly.  I can't just eat what I want to eat.  My natural tendency is to eat lots of sugars and the kinds of fats that make me gain weight.  I need to watch myself as thought I were a child and make sure I tell myself to eat healthy food.  

I want to be more normal but I"m not.  How do I shift my focus to other things and still be smart about taking care of myself?  I guess having a little 3 by 5 card with the day's eats on it might help.  How do you set this aside and still be effective?  I don't like eating poorly because it makes me feel so badly.  I am really good about avoiding processed meats anymore because the nitrates give me migraines.  I am really good about what I put in the shopping cart.  I'm also good about using my small kitchen scale to weigh nuts and chips or the natural cheetos.  I just don't know why the tendency to eat that stuff is still there.  Why is that urge there?  

Exercise for your well being

There has been some recent press regards the efficacy of exercise for weight loss.  I find that it helps dramatically with my sense of well being.  I don't start out feeling good.  About half way through my workout, I start to feel better.  It really helps me deal with my mental dementors.  Cardio is so helpful.  Also, yoga helps me with my sleep.  So, we know that it takes a lot of mental work to get through the difficulties of weight loss.  For me, my mental out look is dramatically improved with exercise so therefore, my ability to stick to my healthy eating plan is improved through exercise.  It is tough enough to lose weight, why would you want to do it without the free, once a day, dose of exercise?  While the research is probably true, I don't think its wise to just drop your exercise routine (unless you are over training!) if you find that it helps you deal with life.  Also, it helps your body to stay fit.  There are many aspects to fitness but cardiovascular fitness is one of them.  You need to exercise the heart muscle to keep it fit and able to do what you want it to do.  You also need to exercise your other muscles to keep them fit.  I prefer a once a week circuit workout and to use yoga for the rest of the week.  Thats just me.  Thats just my personal preference.  Do what works for you.  

Treat physical activity the same way you treat your diet.  Keep a careful and honest journal of what activities you have performed.  Watch how your rotation has an effect on your ability to live life.  Pay attention to things like duration, time in THR, whether or not you did intervals, and how many calories you burned.  Correlate this with your diet journal which details carbs, protein, fats, and what kind of foods you were eating at what time of day.  Again, correlate all of this data with how you feel at what time and also keep track of sleep and stress level.  These things matter.  This is how you can learn what the right balance for you really is and how to maintain that.

Coffee Mug Cake

I had some cake for breakfast.  It was not bad.  And the cool part is, I'm not experiencing any additional cravings because I did not use hardly any sugar in the cake.  Awesome!  It was my post workout carbohydrate.  I am happy with the result.  

The only thing is, after my jog this morning I feel really worn out.  I'm still recovering from a virus and being sick for two days.  I just feel like I've been run over by a train.  My bones hurt like hell for two days.  I had a nasty GI problem for two days.  And, I've been looking very green for a while now.  On top of that, I feel tired.  I don't feel like doing much. I hardly want to eat.  I get hungry and I eat but I don't actually want to.  There is no real joy in it.  Sigh.

The rest of the day will be spent reading/studying.  I might spend some time with my cameras.  

I really want to get back into weight loss mode, upbeat, high energy mode, and into my high energy business mode.  Its important to me to continue to progress with my weight loss goals.  I want to be a healthy size.  I've been in this plateau for about 8 months now.  I'm ready to move on.  Literally, this morning I jogged farther.  I'm increasing my distance on the road.  I'm back into making all my own food.  I even was smart about being sick, I only allowed myself 4 saltine crackers and 1/8 cup of sprite the whole time.  I made sure I stuck with organic soup.  Unfortunately, that is higher in carbohydrate than I like to eat but as soon as my tummy gets back to normal I will be just all over my healthy diet like white on rice or in my case brown on 1/8 cup of cooked rice!

Lets do it!!!!!!

Fish Pants Part 3

It only worked for a little while.  They are stinky again.  I think that I am going to give up.  And put the pants in the trash.  This is sad.  

Fish Oil Pants Part 2

I have washed the pants in goo gone and extra detergent according to the goo gone bottle directions.  Yahoo!  It worked!  The dawn did not work.  The baking soda did not work.  The vinegar did not work.  The detergent alone did not work.  The enzymes for eliminating cow elk odor did not work.  But, the goo gone did!  Now they smell like orange!  Awesome!  I still have to work on the dryer.  Perhaps, the goo gone on a rag and dried in the dryer will work.  Can anyone tell me why dryer is spelled with a y? and not an i?  It makes no sense.

The Power of Yoga

Thanks to the power of yoga and green tea I have lost 1.4 pounds of water weight.  Yahoo!!!!  Its nice to see the scale go in the right direction.

Feeling foolish

I went out to lunch yesterday.  I put on 4 pounds.  Dagnabit.  That just confirms that I really can't eat out and lose weight at the same time.  Forget it.  I don't like eating out that much.  I don't.  I feel bad.  I don't want that feeling anymore.

I want to feel good.  I want to be naturally slender.  I want to be comfortable in my own skin.  When I eat out, I'm none of those things.  Forget it.  I don't want to be liked that much.  I don't.  I only go out to eat to be social. I hate that I feel comprimised.  I am going to just say no from now on.  If they want to hang out they can find me.  Or, I can cook and bring food that does not sabotage my weight loss plans.

The cheap way to go organic

I have a garden.  I love it.  I get to have tomatoes and peppers.  I had more peppers before the wild rabbits ate the entire plant.  Its trying to grow back.  Its a good thing that I picked them before the bunnies got to it.  I think a dear had some of my roses.  Those are growing back with red leaves, its really neat looking.  

Some people find that eating organic is too expensive.  For me, knowing that the lipids in organic milk are different than in non-organic milk is enough.  I always buy organic milk.  I use it in recipes.  I have not switched to completely organic produce, yet.  I eat vegetables everyday and I guess it would make a difference over time.  I used to know a guy who said that the regular vegetables have less bugs than the organic.  That was my point.  The body needs to have friendly flora and fauna in the gutt.  Its critical to your health.  If you can get to eat something thats alive, so much the better.  

I have not switched to organic eggs yet.  I buy cage free/hormone free/anti-biotic free.  I will switch as soon as I have the capital to do so.  I like the idea that the chickens who make the eggs that I eat are not pissed off because of over crowding.  Sad/mad chickens would have a higher level of stress hormones and I don't need to eat stress hormones, my body makes plenty of it on its own.  I don't need any help in that area.

Someone posted the question, "When is it important to buy organic?"  I said, "When you can afford it."  

fish oil pants

I left a fish oil capsule in my pants.  I forgot.  They were laundered.  The capsule exploded in the drier.  Yucky.  I am so sorry, I promise that from now on I will never leave pills of any kind in a pocket.  Ever.  I had to buy new pants.  Those were my work pants.  I googled it.  I searched.  I asked on forums.  I searched K-mart, Wal Mart, and the grocery store.  I bought a bunch of products.  I am starting with coca cola and then today I will use dawn in the bath tub.  Oh my.  How sad I am.  I hope that if any body has had success that they tell me about it.

August/ Sept. Challenge

Here is my rotation for the next 4 weeks starting on Sunday.

Week 1:

S Jog (Road steady state, 60 min.), Yoga Today (advanced)

M off

T LIC

W Jog (off road), Yoga Gary Bromley (easy)

T Power Max

F Jog, Yoga (easy/intermediate)

Sa Low max

Week 2:

S Jog Yoga

M off

T CW

W Jog Yoga

T Step Fit

F Jog Yoga

Sa Imax 2

Week 3:

S Jog Yoga

M off

T SJP

W Jog Yoga

T SB

F Jog Yoga

Sa Original Imax

Week 4:

S 4-DS

M off

T 4-DS

W off

T 4-DS

F off

Sa 4- DS

FOCUS! Episode #2

Just eat healthfully.  Don't eat what has a bad effect on your body.  Don't eat processed food.  Do interval workouts.  Get your mind off of food.  Hard for your cooks and gourmands lol!  Do your yoga, its important.  Eat plenty of high quality calories.  Vary your calorie intake.  Be smart.  Take your weight daily.  It all makes simple sense.  

Low Carb, Clean Eats

I am not always successful in eating only low GI fruits and avoiding the wrong fats/lipids/hormones in foods.  Todays weigh in showed that.  It was also a reminder that I need to weigh in more often.  Sigh.  

So, low carb eats are often high in fat.  I did the higher protein diet for a while and that did not work for me, it worked against me.  I need to watch the base in my diet and aim for alkaline foods.  I got a nasty kidney/bladder infection earlier this year on a protein diet and after that I decided to embrace the high fat lifestyle.  There are many people who believe that fat is evil.  I do not.  I ended up with PCO from eating a low fat diet.  I ended up morbidly obese eating a low fat diet and exercising.  Boo hiss!  I used to only do cardio and never did any stretching work well now I know that yoga is key.  So, everything I used to know I have thrown out.  

The method that has worked in the past is as follows:

1. Weigh measure foods

2. Only eat foods from the safe list (in other words never eat from the do not eat list)

The only way to determine if a food is safe is to eat it.  Weigh yourself the day before.  Way yourself the day after.  If your weight went up then put it on the do not eat list providing everything else was the same (time of the month, calorie intake, exercise, stress level.)

3. Yoga everynight

4. Cardio most mornings

5. Daily weigh in.

6. Affirmations, gratitude/goals journal, re-do, and pod casts for mental/spiritual strength

I don't want my meat suit anymore

I put on 5 pounds over two weeks.  I'm working so hard.  I skipped dinner last night.  No popcorn or ice cream at the movies.  No dinner at all.  I had fish for lunch.  I just can't take this upward swing of the scale anymore.  I did have dim sum but that was over two weeks ago!  I'm skipping dinner at least ever other day.  I'm eating nuts, vegetables, lean meats, and abstaining from much fruit.  I did have some grapes on Thursday.  I am increasing my mileage.  Why is this happening!  Oh help.  Maybe its stress.  Or water.  It might be 1 pound of water but not 5.  I"m not puffy at all.  I've had so many nights where I was so hungry I could cry, why aren't i thinner?  Why is this happening.  I just feel like giving up.  Why bother with all the work when all I do is getting more and more frustrated?  I just don't see the point to me at all.  I'm just a resource sink.  I don't provide any money around here and all I did was have a failure business, twice!  I can't even get a job as an office assistant.  There is no point to me at all.  God I hate it here.  I had a small piece of home made pizza yesterday.  My belly feels awful.    

ok.  back to the drawing board.  

1. cut out nuts

2. cut out fried fish

3. cut out cat's cookies

4. cut out raisins/fruit

5. cut out flax muffins (did not work)

6. cut out meals out until I'm at my goal weight.

7. cut out weight training

8. Cut out organic cereal.

9. Cut out people who stress me out.

Add:

1. more oil/small amount of juice

2. use only fish oil instead of eating fish (can't have fish in the house)

3. have chicken bites instead of cat's cookies

4. have cucumber medallions instead of higher glycemic index fruits

5. go back to just using oat meal and taking magnesium

6. how the hell am I supposed to network?  Just have a salad and ice water?

7. do yoga instead of weight training

8. just 1/2 cup oat meal

9. The person who stresses me is a blood relative  I don't know what to do about that. 

God I'm so frustrated.  it sucks to hell.  

The Adzuki Challenge

In anticipation of my next foray into new-to me foods, I have purchased some organic Adzuki beans. I will soak them over night then cook them tomorrow. Today is a lower calorie day, so I'm really not hungry anyway. I will use the basic cooking instructions on www.adzuki.com

They recommend soaking them in "ample water" I'm guessing thats probably 2-4 cups of water, then drain them the next day. I will use the 1/2 cup of beans to 2 cups of water method and simmer it on the stove. I will also add some salt and then do at as listed on Maternity Now (I'm not a mother just a cook btw.) for the Adzuki chili, I will skip the added onions as we don't eat those in this house. I will post a picture over at foodpix.