Friday, May 27, 2011

WW Weigh-In, Week 12

Start: 150
Week 1: 147.25
Week 2: 150.25
Week 3: 148.12
Week 4: 145.25
Week 5: 146.5
Week 6: 144.25
Week 7: 143.25
Week 8: 143.99
Week 9: 142.66
Week 10: 142.33
Week 11: 141.125
Week 12: 140.7

Unfortunately, I let myself hope for the 130's even though I knew it was a bad idea. Four tenths of a pound is something, but it's obviously not quite what I wanted. I guess we'll go with the whole "Slow and steady wins the race" concept. It's not like I have much choice in the matter. My eating is on point. I've averaged right at 1200 calories (+/- 30) for the past five weeks at least (email me if you want a link to my food log on SparkPeople -- I believe there's a version I have shared somewhere out on teh intarweebs), the food has for the most part (*koff* oreos *koff*) been of good quality, I've walked a minimum of 10,000 steps a day.

I'm looking at it and there's not much more I can reasonably do at this time. I'd like to run, but my body has been very clear that any response to running -- even sprints, dagnabbit -- will be along the lines of "Excuse me? What do you think you're doing? I'm taking you down, toots," so we're just not going there.

Some parts of getting old pretty much suck. Just so you know :P

Good news is, it's still trending downward. Yay!

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Lentils By Request

In the comments to my last post, Sarah at Thinfluenced asked about my lentil recipe. As many of you know, this year I've been on a mission to lessen my hatred of The Vile Legume. I started with chickpeas, since I already knew I didn't hate hummus or falafel. After mastering the chickpea, I moved on to lentils. Why? People, I have the attention span of a gnat. The "why" for the lentil could be anything. Best I can figure, there was a random nutrition/ fitness/ cooking article out there that mentioned the virtues of the lentil and my ADD-esque brain grabbed onto it, causing me to research nearly every lentil recipe extant. Finally I figured I'd just go with soup. I'm a kitchen slacker, what can I say?

I finally found a recipe I liked, but it's been severely tweaked since reading the comments that followed it (reduced oil, went with broth/ stock instead of water, added curry powder, more carrots and onions, etc), so this is what I've finally come up with:

2 TBSP olive oil
2 medium onions, diced

4 carrots, sliced

2 ribs celery, sliced or diced

2 bay leaves

1 TBSP garlic powder (original recipe calls for 2 garlic cloves minced -- see "slacker" statement above for justification)

1 tsp dried oregano

1 tsp dried basil

1 TBSP curry powder

1 lb dried lentils

8 cups/ 64 fl oz. chicken broth (or stock, or vegetable stock if you prefer)

1 can (14.5 oz) diced tomatoes (I like the ones with basil, garlic, and oregano)

1 package thawed and rinsed frozen spinach (optional)

1/8 tsp crushed red pepper (optional)

2 TBSP balsamic vinegar

Salt and pepper to taste


In a large soup pot (I don't know much about sizes – mine's about 8inches high and 10 inches around maybe?) heat olive oil over medium heat. Add onions, carrots, and celery and cook until onion is translucent. Add bay leaves, garlic powder, oregano, basil, curry powder, crushed red pepper, and salt and pepper. Cook for two minutes. Add rinsed lentils, broth, and tomatoes and bring to a boil.


Reduce heat and simmer for at least one hour (I usually take about 2). Check periodically and add additional salt, pepper, and crushed red pepper to taste. Use caution especially on that last one. After at least one hour, add the balsamic vinegar. If you're adding the spinach (which I haven't lately, but it's harmless), this is where I'd do it. Then continue to simmer until done, where "done" is measured by "Are the lentils still crunchy? If so, continue to simmer until edible."


The base recipe over at Allrecipes says this only serves 6, but I get at least 10 1-cup servings out of it, and consume it over the course of a week or so with occasional nibblings by the offspring and Choreboy. My favorite thus far is to top it with some shredded parmesan, but I have a feeling avocado would also go nicely on it. Might have to give that one a whirl.

If you try it, let me know how it turns out!

Friday, May 20, 2011

WW Weigh-In, Week 11

My comments never came back from the Blogger outage -- rats!!!!!!!!

Start: 150
Week 1: 147.25
Week 2: 150.25
Week 3: 148.12
Week 4: 145.25
Week 5: 146.5
Week 6: 144.25
Week 7: 143.25
Week 8: 143.99
Week 9: 142.66
Week 10: 142.33
Week 11: 141.125

Yes, those decimals are accurate :P

I'm so close to the 130's... but I'm going to try not to dwell on it because that way lies insanity. And it would probably stress me out too, which would make me retain water, and that would Not. Be. HELPFUL.

I'm just going to keep on with what I've been doing and see what happens.

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As for what I've been doing? Well, my basic day of eating is pretty dull:

Breakfast:
1 egg
2 egg whites
1/2 oz. cheddar
1 cup fruit (usually berries)

Lunch:
1 hard boiled egg (I like eggs a bit)
1 oz. 2% cheddar
1 pitette w/ 1 TBSP Dark Chocolate Dreams peanut butter
6-8 apple slices (depends on how many I grab from the bag)
1 cup grapes

Dinner:
1 cup lentil soup
1 TPBS parmesan cheese

Snacks:
Range from ice cream and Oreos (in fixed amounts) to apples and cheese.

I tend to stick around 1200 - 1300 calories per day (yes, even on Weight Watchers I'm still counting calories), and on the weekend this varies a bit more; for example I'll bake some fish for dinner, or hit a restaurant for a meal. And for special events I'm admittedly perfectly happy to throw caution to the winds. I've also got a pretty kick-ass black bean soup recipe I've been alternating with the lentils, so that's brought in some welcome variety too.

Tomorrow morning, I fully intend to indulge in a raspberry white chocolate scone for breakfast. Sure it'll cost me some points, but believe me it's worth it.

Points-wise, I stick right around 29 points a day. Sometimes it's a little more (and is covered by activity) and on rare occasion I might end the day with a couple of points left over. Thanks to the 10K a Day (in May!) walking challenge I've been getting a good 3 activity points per day, and that adds up nicely during the week.

I'm not pushing myself severely on the activity front because my body does not like to be pushed, and shares that with me via stress fractures, my knees acting up (I've got a lovely case of chondromalacia patella, if I spelled that correctly), whatever it takes to get me to ratchet down the stress to my joints. So after being sidelined repeatedly with my attempts at running and more intensive physical goals, my goal at this point is to just keep moving consistently.

So far so good. 41 years down, hopefully more than 40 to go.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Friday, May 13, 2011

GRRRRRRRRRRRR

Stupid Blogger. My last two entries have been eaten, along with entries of thousands of other bloggers.

Anyway, in case they don't restore entries, Week 10 WW Weigh-in was 142.33 pounds, down 1/3 pound from last week. I'd thought I might gain due to water retention but the Scale Gods were on my side.

Also? I wear rubber bands around my wrist sometimes.

That is all. Have a great weekend!

Edited to add: the posts are back (Hooray!!!), but alas, not the comments!

Thursday, May 12, 2011

WW Weigh-in, Week 10

Subtitled: Quitcher Bitchin'

Start: 150
Week 1: 147.25
Week 2: 150.25
Week 3: 148.12
Week 4: 145.25
Week 5: 146.5
Week 6: 144.25
Week 7: 143.25
Week 8: 143.99
Week 9: 142.66
Week 10: 142.33

Well color me floored. After yesterday's weight (a "monstrous" 143 -- yeah I know but it was moving in the wrong direction) and the continued increase in size of certain, erm, body parts due to that lovely cyclical water retention, I'm pretty surprised to have netted a loss of any kind. But hey, I'll take it! This also puts me at my 5% weight lost goal for Weight Watchers.

It also caused the WW e-tools severe alarm, because according to their records (inaccurate due to my absence from the "real" scale last week) I've lost more than a single pound at a time. Danger Will Robinson!

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In other news, I'm currently wearing a rubber band on my right wrist. Why, you might ask? Because I'm a complete dork would be the answer. And a creature of severe habit.

I almost always wear earrings. Usually the same pair of gold hoops.
I almost always wear a necklace.
I always wear my wedding ring on my left hand.
I almost always wear my maternal grandmother's ring on my right hand.
I almost always wear my watch on my left wrist.
I almost always wear a bracelet on my right wrist.

And when, for some reason, one of those items is missing, I spend the whole day looking at whatever part it's missing from and clutching it until I remember "Oh yeah, I didn't wear that because..." and today's reason for failure to wear the bracelet is "I got distracted mid-jewelry assembly and forgot." Hence the rubber band, so I don't freak out.

Please tell me I'm not the only weirdo person like this.

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

More Miscellanea

Weigh-in for Week 10 of Weight Watchers is tomorrow. Truth be told, I'm not looking forward to it and it's not because of my eating. I've actually done rather well with that; even on Mother's Day I was careful, and didn't break 1300 calories. The pound cake went to the office Monday morning and was gone by midday Tuesday. My activity has also been good -- I'm still on track with Jenn's 10K a Day (in May!) challenge, and so far I've walked a bare minimum of 10,000 steps per day this month.

No, no, what's stressing me out is the lovely hormone fest. We're midway through the cycle right now and that's when things start to get fun, if they're going to. So this month, after a couple of months of things behaving themselves, I'm already retaining a lake's worth of water. I weighed myself this morning just for fun and I'm already easily up to 143. Add in to that the fact that Choreboy took me out to lunch today (I didn't overdo, but the sodium will nuke a weigh-in faster than anything) and I'm pretty sure I'm hosed.

Oh well. We'll see.

On the plus side, I just discovered these:

They're Godiva Pearls, and each pearl is approximately 3.25 calories. I use chocolate like medication at certain times (like this) and it cracks me up that these actually look like little pills! Now I can feel even more honest about medicating myself. For the record, a serving is 8 "pearls" for 25 calories, or 1 PointsPlus value.

I can live with that.

They come in dark chocolate, dark chocolate with mint, white chocolate, some sort of coffee variation (I only know that because I saw it in a picture) and milk chocolate. Needless to say, I have the dark chocolate... and it is good.

We'll see what the scale says tomorrow. All I know is that a bra that fit me fine on Monday now has me spilling over the top, so like I said, I'm not holding my breath.

Friday, May 06, 2011

WW Weigh-in, Week 9

See, I did manage to get this up faster than last week's results! Let's cut to the chase, shall we?

Start: 150
Week 1: 147.25
Week 2: 150.25
Week 3: 148.12
Week 4: 145.25
Week 5: 146.5
Week 6: 144.25
Week 7: 143.25
Week 8: 143.99
Week 9: 142.66

Hah! Take that, scale! I'm below 143, and in utter shock because I am now, arguably, in the low 140's as opposed to mid. It's been well over 10 years since I've seen a weight this low.

No words of wisdom/ shrieks of doom from the Weight Watchers e-tools, though. For one thing, it's barely over one pound, and for another, I didn't have my actual weigh-in scale for my official weigh-in yesterday because I was still at home with the sick Elder son, so all I could do was get out the little floor scale we have at home that has the spring-loaded dial and everything (yes, we're complete Luddites) and try to read it from a standing height.

When you're 41, in denial about your need for bifocals at the minimum, and are admittedly past due for a new glasses prescription, these visual things can get tricky.

Anyway, after moving the scale from its upright storage position -- because there is truly nowhere in our house we can put it down and leave it down -- making sure it was level, and then hopping on that sucker, it said 143.5...ish? Maybe? It was the best I could figure with all my squinting and moving about trying to gauge where the pointer actually landed. So that's what I entered into Weight Watchers. Then today, after winning mother-of-the-year for shoving my potentially-malingering adolescent out the door to school, I made it to my parents' house for my official weigh in on their medical-style scale, which is where I've formally been weighing in since back in 2006 when I started off at 200 pounds.

And that scale, my dears, is what netted me this lovely number in the 142 range (and yes I totally taunted the scale with glee once I realized I was below 143).

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Moving on, in comments on my last entry Tony Van Helsing said: "I'm not sure what pound cake is but it sounds like it would be disastrous to dieters." Okay, Patsy, Marie, anyone who's over in Great Britain, do we not have pound cake on your side of the pond? Yipes!

It's good. It's heavy. And no, it's not diet food -- not by a long shot. As for disastrous, well that depends on how much of it one crams down one's gaping maw, I'd say. One slice isn't going to do a dieter in, assuming the dieter in question is capable of stopping at that one slice.

Since I know myself well, that would be why I am a) leaving the pound cake at my parents' on Sunday rather than taking it back home, and b) will be delivering it to the office on Monday so my coworkers -- most of whom are males and have never seen a diet they didn't scoff at -- can consume it at will. I'm not worried about eating it before I take it over to my folks' because my ego is tied up enough with my baking that I'd rather have a perfect, whole cake to hand over for the celebration than something with an obvious slice removed. Sure, I could argue I was just doing quality control (and have), but, uhm... they know me a bit better than that.

Here's hoping we aren't there long enough for me to lunge for seconds.

Wednesday, May 04, 2011

WW Weigh-In, Week 8

Subtitled: OMG I have two free moments!!!

Sheesh. THAT took long enough. It's not like Week 9 weigh-in isn't tomorrow or anything. Good grief. Anyway:

Start: 150
Week 1: 147.25
Week 2: 150.25
Week 3: 148.12
Week 4: 145.25
Week 5: 146.5
Week 6: 144.25
Week 7: 143.25
Week 8: 143.99

Yeah, it really was point-ninety-nine, not 144. 144 made the nice little weight arm dip down and hit bottom. Sometimes it's fun weighing in on an old-style doctor's type scale. The visual and the mechanics of it all work for me. There's just something satisfying about that "thunk" when the weight arm hits bottom at a weight that previously made it top out.

Clearly, that didn't happen this week. As we all know, Easter kicked my ass. Specifically, baked goods. I did as much damage control as I could the rest of the week, calorie-wise, but it wasn't enough to completely erase the indulgence. On the plus side, seeing this (and the fact that at this point it doesn't look like tomorrow's weigh-in will even have me back down to Week 7's weigh-in number) will make it a bit easier to moderate myself at our family Mother's Day luncheon on Sunday.

On the minus side, I'm bringing the pound cake. Fortunately, I have a plan: I have hungry coworkers I will foist it on the following Monday. I don't think they'll mind. My leftover Easter candy has been amazingly popular with them.

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In other news, the reason I have a free moment is because the nurse at the Elder's school called me. Child was feeling sick to his stomach, so we're now both at home. And now that we're both home, I'm not feeling that awesome myself. I'm still going to work to make my 10,000 steps though, for Jenn at Watch My Butt Shrink's 10K a Day in May challenge:

(click on the image above for the link -- I can't believe I figured out how to link through an image!!!)

I started the challenge WAY early, actually -- back in mid-April. So far I've made it over 10,000 steps each day with the exception of last Monday and Tuesday, the two days after Easter. The challenge didn't officially start until Sunday, May 1st, though, and my numbers thus far have been 11,693 for Sunday; 10,511 for Monday; and 11,156 for Tuesday (yesterday). Today I've only got 4,816 steps in so far, so I need to get moving! Fortunately, I walk 150 steps per minute at 3.5 MPH, and 125 steps per minute at 3 MPH, so even if I'm moving a bit more slowly I can make my goal in under 45 minutes.

I am such a data freak.

Speaking of which, I need to bond with my treadmill while I have the opportunity. I will do my level best to get up the results of tomorrow's weigh-in much sooner!