Hand-me-downs

I have a little secret.  The scale has been kind to me that past few days.  Sunday, I weighed in at a svelte 170.6.  Today, the scale said 171.  I tell you this only because Wednesday night my husband and I are going out to dinner for Valentine's Day and, although I am confident of my ability to choose well in a restaurant, my Thursday weigh-in will probably reflect that late-night dinner.  Or maybe not.

At any rate, I'm feeling strong and confident that I will eventually get out of the 170s and back into the 160s for the first time since 1991.

Oh!  And a friend of mine who lost about fifty pounds recently donated her now too-big jackets and coats to me.  When she asked me if I'd like them, she told me they were size 12 and while I am wearing size 12 jeans and pants, I doubted my ability to wear a size 12 jacket.  However, I am pleased to report that almost everything fit perfectly--two leather jackets, a wool Liz Claiborne blazer, a full-length coat, and an all-purpose casual jacket.  The only thing that didn't work was a size SMALL coat and that was because the sleeves were too short.

I could not be more surprised or delighted.  While I understand intellectually that I have lost weight, I honestly find myself surprised when I fit into smaller sizes.  Slowly, my brain and heart and body are getting aligned, just in time for me to lose the rest of this weight.

Now, Valentine's Day is tomorrow.  Be prepared to see chocolate.  But remember that just because you see it, just because you receive it, just because it's a symbol of love does not mean that you must eat it all in one night.  Taste!  Share!  And then get it out of sight . . . or even out of your house.

Today, I sent twenty-five "fun size" candy bars with my son to school for the Valentine's Day party.  (They celebrated early because tomorrow is a field trip.)  Anyway, those candy bars were left over from Halloween . . . which is remarkable if you consider that this means I did NOT eat all the Halloween candy I could get my hands on this year before, during and after Halloween.  It also means that "the kids" were not the ones eating too much candy in the past.

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Smaller People Must Eat Less

The other day, the light dawned, only it was less like a dawning sun and more like a high-wattage flashlight shining in my eyes.  ("Stop shining that light in my eyes!")  I realized that the less you weigh, the fewer calories you require.  That explains why my weight loss has slowed even though I am eating the same now as I did when I began this weight-loss journey.

I weigh over fifty pounds less now and I'm going to have to adjust my diet to feed a smaller person.

Drat.

This calls for . . . I've said it before . . . weight training because we all know that muscle burns more calories than fat.

And now, I'm returning to my recliner to watch "American Idol."  I'll think about weight training tomorrow.

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On Exercise

Once you start exercising every day, it becomes such a habit that you don't have to talk yourself into it.  And if you start a streak--even a "five-days a week" streak, not necessarily a "consecutive days" streak--keeping the streak alive becomes a quiet obsession, propelling you to exercise even on those days when you are so tired that all you really want to do is watch television until your eyelids close.

Exercise makes you feel virtuous.  Exercise burns calories.  Exercise reminds you that your body was made to move.  Exercise improves your mood, helps you sleep better and gives you energy. 

I'm up to 162 consecutive days of exercise.  (I count it if I've ridden at least 30 minutes on the exercise bike--20 minutes if I'm in a real pinch, like on Christmas Eve--but normally I ride 45 minutes.  I ride at night, sometime between dinner and bedtime.)  I need to add weight training to my routine and I've come to realize that I really need a set of weights at home so I can work-out with weights at night because going to the YMCA just isn't happening on a regular basis for me.

Anyway, if you haven't added exercise to your life, do it today!  Figure out a way to make daily exercise an integral part of your day.  Make it convenient.  And then, just do it.

You can thank me later.

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Last few days

I had to go to out of town for a funeral this week. I brought my food with me, some servings of beans & veggies, some lettuce and fruit (mandarine oranges and apples). I wasn't that hungry because of the sadness of the event. For some people, this kind of stress makes them eat more; it makes me eat less, but as you'll see, it's the happy events that make me crack. After I got home, I have been going to parties nonstop, full of sweet treats. I finally cracked today and had several vegan chocolate chip cookies. Then I decided, let's make a day of it, so I got a couple of non-Fuhrman foods at the deli at my co-op, some red curry tofu and a quinoa salad, and a falafel. It was small servings and not too far off the plan, except for the oil and salt. As usual, I didn't think it was as good as my food and realized again that I'm not missing anything. I satisfied my urge to splurge so I think I can resume healthy eating tomorrow. I think the last time I went off plan was in September so that's not so bad (though I have over-eaten on plan several times). But I would like to kick the  sugar habit completely. It just feels too much like an addiction, because it is. I never thought sugar would be harder than coffee or alcohol to give up. Pretty interesting. 

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Read the Labels

Although weight loss seems to be a main focus of this blog, it really is secondary to my quest for vibrant health. Eating clean and healthy (eating whole, unprocessed foods) is a critical strategy in achieving this goal. While I've drastically limited the amount of processed and packaged foods we eat we aren't living an organic vegan lifestyle. So, I have had to become an avid label reader.

High fructose corn syrup/corn syrup is one of the things I look for. It is an insidious poison designed to keep us fat and addicted to mass marketed junk foods, but it's also in places where you wouldn't expect to find it. I was shocked to see HFCS listed as an ingredient in many of the sandwich breads on supermarket shelves. I switched to Ezekiel bread, but I didn't want to force it on my husband, who adores sandwiches on fresh bread. Pepperidge Farm and Arnold are two companies that have stopped using HFCS in their bread so I feel confident buying bread from them. I was also amazed to see how many products claiming to be "fat-free" are loaded with HFCS. They have to make it taste good somehow, right?

Splenda, Nutra-Sweet and other mass marketed artificial sweeteners are also on the "avoid" list. If these chemicals were effective in reducing obesity and contributing to great health of the US population at large, the state of health and wellness affairs in this country would be a whole lot different, would it not?

I don't get caught up in counting calories or fat grams, but one thing I do look at is sodium content. Too much sodium makes me retain water like a cactus and my husband has a family history of hypertension so I make sure that the per serving sodium content isn't through the roof.

I tend to look for items with the shortest ingredient lists and if I can't pronounce it, I don't eat it. Reading labels has been an education for me and I highly recommend it to anyone who is on a quest for better health. Knowledge is power or in this case, knowledge is good health.

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Unexpected Squee-age

I was rooting around in the closet this afternoon, as you do when packing for a trip. I love jeans and have stacks of them in a wide range of sizes. Just for shits and giggles, I started pulling them down and trying them on. Imagine my surprise when I found that my fattest pair of mom jeans, ones that were snug when I put them away for summer, were so loose on me that I could almost pull them off without undoing the fly! Then I found two other pair that were too tight last winter and found them too baggy to wear. I can't express how good it felt to place those three pairs of size 26 jeans into a bin bag for donation. I then tried my favorite pair, one of my closet goals for early 2009, the size 20 lightweight wide legs that I wore when I first met my husband in 1999. They fit, a bit too snugly to wear just now, but not far off. And my lovely pair of size 22 Tommy Hilfiger's fit perfectly. I was jumping up and down and squee-ing so excitedly that Rob came charging up the stairs to see about the commotion. Days like these are just one of the reasons that I keep on keeping on.

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It's a Friend This Month

Got on my trusty scale late this afternoon to check my body fat %. The instructions say not to do it first thing in the morning because the scale gives a more accurate reading when the body is hydrated. The results are 48%, down 3% from a month ago. I'm feeling pretty good about that.

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