Monday, Jan. 24th, 2011

A new year, a new and open road.

Still stuck at 168 lbs.

Last week I got to Curves 3 times, this week I am aiming for the same.  I realized I wasn’t pushing myself hard enough during my workouts and so I really stepped it up last week.  I’m hoping that my increased efforts will produce some results.

I made a concerted effort to cut back on carbs and fats last week.  Trying to increase the servings of fresh veggies and fruit I eat throughout the day this week.  I do not snack in the evening other than a piece of fruit and a cup of tea, during the day I have yogurt in the morning with some trail mix or a piece of fruit, then during the rest of the day I may nibble on a granola bar or eat a handful of nuts.  I’m just not getting why it’s so hard for me to lose weight.

I am getting a little discouraged, but I refuse to give up — yet!

My plan of getting up at 5:15 has not been working — I just can’t seem to drag my sorry behind out of bed at that time.  So, I’m going to try really hard to get a walk in after supper at least twice this week.  I realized that once upon a time I used to walk every day, no matter how cold it was, but for the last couple of years I’ve wimped out.  Granted, I am much busier now in the evenings, but on those days when I can be at home I’m going to make a supreme effort to get my boots on and get some fresh air and exercise.

Here’s hoping for a 2 lb loss by next week!

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Day 20

Okay, so I’m a little miffed.  I haven’t lost a single pound since my last post!

But, I think I know what might be going on. . .

although I’m no longer eating desserts I believe I’m compensating by eating more ‘real’ food.  and not ‘good’ stuff, either.  I noticed this week that I’m eating a lot more bread than I usually do, and I’m, of course, putting butter on it.  As I’ve been quite busy the last couple of weeks I’ve eaten a lot meals in restaurants and from take-out.  Not great.  I try to choose healthy meals, but I think I’ve been ‘rewarding’ myself a bit too much with things that contain creams, cheeses and the like.

So, I am my own worst enemy!  Like I didn’t already know that.

With awareness, however, comes the power to change.  I am going to carefully watch what I eat from this point on — there’s no point in going through the agony of denying myself dessert and goodies if, in the end, I replace them with other bad-for-me types of food.

On a positive note:  having rid my diet of 90% of the sugar I was consuming I feel more energetic, less frenzied.  I am not craving sugar, I’m finding other ways of getting sweet tastes — spices, fruit, dried fruit — all can help curb my desire for a piece of candy or chocolate.  I won’t deny that there have been many evening when I wished to have a few cookies with my nightly cup of tea, but grabbing an apple or a handful of grapes has worked to satisfy my sweet tooth.

One thing I don’t want to do is replace the sugar in my diet with sugar substitutes.  I’ve used them once or twice but find I don’t really care for the taste.  Also, it’s not really teaching me change my food habits — I’m just replacing one ‘bad’ thing with another.

We have ‘muffin morning’ once a month where I work.  It’s a chance to socialize and well, eat muffins.  This month I wasn’t going to indulge, but someone had thoughtfully brought  some really healthy, hearty type of muffin and so I did.  Since then I’ve been wrestling with the idea of whether this was ‘cheating’.  I think I’ve come to the realization that I’m going to have to incorporate things like muffins into my diet, or pretty soon there won’t be much for me to have in the way of snacks.  And I’ve still got 11 and 1/2 months to go.  The granola bars I’m eating aren’t a particularly good choice either — they have 10 grams of sugar each — I think I’m going to have to find a recipe to make my own.

It’s the snacking that’s hard — eating more fruit isn’t the answer as it’s too high in sugar — I limit myself to 1/2 cup of vanilla yogurt/day.  I’ve incorporated dried fruit and nuts into my diet, but that’s high fat, high sugar as well.  So, I’m kind of getting concerned about what else I can eat.

I’ve explored different variations of rice cakes and although I like them they get pretty boring.  So, if anyone out there has any suggestions for snack foods I would appreciate hearing about them.