Happy Anniversary!

Today is my seventh wedding anniversary. Yay me!  Yay Harold!

I told my cubicle mate that it was my anniversary today and he mocked me with (and I do quote) "Amazing Harold has lasted this long."

I replied (and I quote) "You're telling me!  I'm no catch that's for sure."

I'm lying of course, I'm the best thing that's ever happened to Harold and he knows it.

We don't have any big plans for today, I'm not a big celebrator of anniversaries, and I didn't want to ruin my streak of healthy eating by going out for dinner so Harold prepared a positively lovely dinner at home.  Also, I met Kim for lunch today and we both ate healthy.  Yay us!

Daily Meals

Breakfast
2 oz of mixed nuts
2 apricots
1 plum
cherries

Lunch
1 veggie wrap (Whole wheat wrap, cucumbers, lettuce, alfalfa sprouts, green peppers, carrots, tomatoes, and hummus)
1 garden salad (lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots) with a dash of ranch dressing

Supper
6oz steak
roasted green and yellow beans with a bit of parmesan cheese and bacon bits

Snacks
banana
1 package of pop tarts

Cups of water:  8
Eating after 8pm - No
5 servings of veggies and fruits - yes

Stir-Fry

Harold made a stir-fry tonight; it was a little different because we chose not to put any of the usual carbs with it like rice or noodles.  It was still delicious and he really went to town with the vegetables!  I definitely made my five servings of veggies and fruit challenge today!

Daily Meals

Breakfast
1 boiled egg
grapes
cherries
apricots

Lunch
1 cup of chickpea salad with lemon juice, fat free miracle whip, celery and dried dill
10 vegetable crackers
2 cups of raw carrots, celery, cucumber, broccoli and cauliflower
1 tblsp of smoky tomato hummus
1 cup of raspberries and blueberries

Supper
Stirfry with:
chicken, broccoli, cauliflower, orange pepper, purple cabbage, onions, garlic, mushrooms, carrots, green onions and yellow pepper

Snacks
1 banana
2 clementines
2 oz of nuts (almonds and pistachios)

Glasses of water - 8
Eating after 8pm - no
5 servings of veggies and fruit - yes

Weigh-In

When I started this weight loss journey a few weeks ago I weighed 348lbs.  Last Monday when I weighed in I was up to 351.  Hmm...not exactly the direction I was trying to go in.

This Monday, after a week of following the challenges, chugging my water and really trying to eat only when I was hungry I stepped on the scale and held my breath.

Weight - 344!  Hurrah!  A 7lb loss in one week.  I'm thrilled!!  All of us have had a great week, our combined weight loss total is nearing the 20lb mark after only 3 weeks.  We.Are.Awesome.

This week's challenge is brought to us by Jess.  She suggested a challenge of eating 5 servings of vegetables and fruit per day (originally she said 5 vegetables but after a quick phone call, we've changed it to the food guide recommendation of 5 vegetables AND fruit; mostly because we quickly realized we didn't have the stomach capacity to eat 5 servings of vegetables plus fruit plus protein etc.).  It's a great challenge and one that I will find easy I think. 

Daily Meals

Breakfast
1 boiled egg
grapes
plum
apricot

Lunch
lean pork chop
1/2 cup beets
raw veggies (carrots, broccoli and cauliflower)
1 yoghurt
cup of blueberries and raspberries

Supper
4 slices of turkey bacon
2 eggs
1 cup of hashbrowns
1/2 avocado

Snacks
2 clementines
2 oz of mixed nuts

Glasses of water - 9
5 servings of veggies and fruit - yes
Eating after 8pm - no

Happy Veggie crunching everyone!

Seventh Day

Well, I did it.  I completed our seven day challenge of no starchy carbs.  Yay me!! 

Daily Meals

Breakfast
leftover fajita chicken
golden plum
grapes
grapefruit (which I detested... no more grapefruit for me!)

Lunch
chicken sausage
carrots and cucumber
1 tsp of smokey tomato hummus
2 oz of mixed nuts
cherries

Supper
1 lean porkchop
garden salad with cucumber, mushrooms, grape tomatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, peppers, almond slices
cooked beets

Snacks
2 small clementines
1 grande white chocolate mocha from Starbucks

Glasses of water - 8
Starchy carbs - nope
Eating after 8pm - nope

Here's hoping the scale shows good results tomorrow!

Farmer's Market

This morning Harold and I woke up early and went to our local Farmer's Market.  It opened at 8, we got there at 8:30 and it was already well on it's way to being packed full of people.  By 9:30 we were loaded down with our goodies and heading back to the car.  We picked up peaches, blueberries, spinach, carrots, cucumbers, beets, garlic, fresh farm eggs, eggplant, a giant head of broccoli, golden plums, grape tomatoes, a small container of smokey tomato hummus, giant green onions, cherries, chicken breast sausage (no hormones or antibiotics added), and apricots.  My favourite vendor was the man who sold us the blueberries, beets, green onins and apricots.  We were standing there mulling over the selection of blueberries when he approached us

Market guy - picking up some fresh apricots are we?

Me:  Well, some blueberries.

Harold:  And we'll take some beets and the green onions as well.

Market guy - Excellent!  Now, about these apricots, these ones are the sweet ones, these ones are a bit more tart.  If you like the sweet, go with these ones here.

Harold:  Well, the thing is, she's never actually tried apricots before so we're not sure if we're going to get them.

Market guy:  *a look of shock crosses his face and sticks there* Never tried a - ?  *shakes his head*  Here.

He reached behind him into a small bowl and handed me a small apricot.

Market guy:  Go ahead, try it.  It's one of the sweet ones.

I bit into that sweet, juicy apricot and was instantly smitten.  It was so sweet and delicious.  The market guy took one look at my face and packed up one of the containers of apricots.

After the market we headed to Walmart to pick up some groceries we couldn't get at the farmer's market and then took it all home and packed it in to our embarrassingly empty fridge!

I was worried about meeting the challenges this weekend.  Friday night, Saturday and Sunday are typically my weak days; the ones where my resolve to live healthier, wavers and I end up eating out at fast food places and stuffing my belly full of chocolate and chips (and cheezies!!).  I'm happy to say that today has gone really, really well.

Daily Meals

Breakfast
2 eggs
2 small beef sausages
1 cup cantelope

Lunch
1 chicken breast sausage
green salad with grape tomatoes, cucumbers, mushrooms, and peppers
1 apricot
1 golden plum
1/2 cup cherries 

Pictures of our delicious lunch!

Supper
Fajita salad - chicken breast seasoned with cumin, paprika, pepper and onion powder, grilled peppers, garlic, onions, fresh tomatoes, green onion, romaine and spinach, mushrooms, mozza cheese
Fresh carrots with a couple teaspoons of smokey tomato hummus
1/2 cup grapes
1/2 cup blueberries

This made me giggle.  Crazy farm carrots!

Snacks
1 yoghurt
4 oz of nuts (walnuts, almonds, hazel nuts)
1 reese pb ice cream thingy

Glasses of water - 8
Starchy carbs - no
Eating after 8 - no

I bet my ladies are doing just as well!  Go ladies, go!!

Friday!

So glad it's Friday!  It's been a really good week but I'm not going to lie - tonight and last night in particular have been very difficult in terms of not snacking after 8pm.  Not sure why it was so difficult last night but tonight it's just because it's Friday and I've programmed myself to snack on treats on Friday night.  Especially when we watch a movie and guess what?  We watched a movie tonight.  Nice.

I managed to resist the snacking however and I'm fairly impressed with myself for that.  Tomorrow we're going to the local farmer's market to look for some fresh fruit and vegetables and today we purchased some chicken, steak, pork and halibut.  All of the meat we purchased is grass fed and not injected with antibiotics and hormones.  We're trying to make the switch to meat that is better for us (and had a better life before they became our dinner).   It's more expensive but my conscience feels better and I think our bodies will thank us for it too.  Also - thank goodness we're going grocery shopping tomorrow!  We have maybe a cup of cantaloupe left and half a cucumber for our veggies and fruit and my food choices today reflect our lack of food!  We definitely need to go grocery shopping!

Daily Meals

Breakfast
10 vegetable crackers
3 slices of provolone cheese

Lunch
leftover shepherd's pie (about a cup and a half)

Supper
grilled chicken breast
1/2 cup of shepherd's pie
1 cup of corn

Snack
reese pb cup ice cream thingy
1 banana
Glasses of water: 8!
No snacking after 8pm - Check!
No starchy carbs - Check!!

Shepherd's Pie

Today has been a good day with only one intentional treat.  We celebrate birthday's in our office and we have two birthdays in a row.  Today it was ice cream cake for the birthday; tomorrow it will be regular cake.  Keeping our challenge in mind, I chose to have some ice cream cake today and tomorrow I'll skip the regular cake.  It also helps that I love ice cream cake much more than I do regular cake!

Harold made a very interesting supper tonight.  He decided to make a shepherd's pie but instead of the traditional potato "top", he made it with cooked turnips and carrots.  He chose lean ground beef as the filling with shredded carrots, peas, celery, mushrooms and garlic.  It was delicious!  In fact, we both decided we enjoyed the turnip and carrot crust more than the traditional potato one. 

Daily Meal

Breakfast
8 vegetable crackers
2 slices of provolone cheese

Lunch
1/2 cup of spaghetti squash
1 homemade chicken meat ball
3/4 cup of homemade tomato sauce with mushrooms, garlic, onions, etc.
1 tangerine
1 yoghurt
1 banana

Supper
1 1/2 cups of shepherd's pie

Snacks
1 cup watermelon
1 no sugar added chocolate pudding
1 slice of ice cream cake

Glasses of water - 8
Eating after 8pm - Nope!
Starchy carbs - Nope!

Chubby Dog

Today we took our oldest dog, Hannah, to the vet for her annual check up.  Turns out she's a wee bit chubby.  A bit of a brain teaser as we're very strict with her food and she gets only low fat hypoallergenic treats (2 per day) and raw veggies for treats.  We thought she was getting chunkier (not looking quite as svelte as she used to) and weren't completely shocked when we saw that her weight had gone up by nearly 3 pounds.  The vet advised us not to decrease the amount of food she was eating but to instead incorporate more (gulp) exercise.

Since I need to exercise as well, I decided I would start making a concentrated effort to walk 30 minutes every night (I'm a bit of a hit and miss with that) and Hannah would be my walking partner.  I would start tonight - Hannah and I would be skinny bitches in no time.

Mother Nature had other plans for us.  It's been hot and sunny (and hot, did I mention hot?) for the last two weeks.  Tonight we're in the middle of a loud and very rainy thunderstorm.  It's a doozy!  Flash flooding and lightning caused fires have already been happening all over our fair city.   Since Hannah despises any type of moisture touching her and half the time refuses to leave the deck when the ground is just damp I knew she would not appreciate going out in the downpour.  Exercise thwarted.  And frankly, it doesn't bother me that much.  I kind of hate exercising.  Oh well, we'll try again tomorrow night!

In conclusion - I am fat.  My dog is fat.  We both need to exercise. 

Daily Meals

Breakfast
8 vegetable crackers
2 wedges of laughing cow cheese light

Lunch
1 homemade chicken meatball
3/4 cup of homemade sauce (peppers, onions, mushrooms, garlic, tomato sauce etc)
1/2 cup of spaghetti sauce
1 cup of raw broccoli and cauliflower
2 tblsp of three cheese dressing
1 yoghurt
1 banana
1 cup of watermelon

Dinner
6 oz steak
fried mushrooms and onions in margarine
1/4 cup fat free sour cream
shredded broccoli, cauliflower and carrot cole slaw with fat free miracle whip
1 cup of corn

Snacks
10 slices of cucumber
2 tangerines

Cups of water - 8 (yay!)
Eating after 8pm - No sir!
Starchy carbs - Negative!

Yay me!

Veggielicious

Yesterday and today have been great days!  Yesterday I achieved all three challenges - drinking eight glasses of water, no eating after 8pm and no starchy grains.  Today I've achieved two out of the three and fully expect to pass the third one (no eating after 8). 

Last night I realized just how difficult it is not to eat after 8pm.  Even if I'm eating well, I tend to snack at night on good things - fruit, vegetables etc.  I'm not sure if I'll continue the no eating after 8pm or allow myself the occasional night to snack on good things like grapes or some carrots.  I think it will depend on how the weight loss goes this week.  If it's a big loss, I'll try another week of no eating after 8.

Daily Meals

Breakfast
8 vegetable crackers
2 light laughing cow cream cheese wedges

Lunch
2 boiled eggs
cup and a half of raw brocolli and cauliflower
2 tblsp of three cheese salad dressing
1 cup of watermelon
1 vanilla yoghurt
1 banana

Supper
2 homemade chicken meat balls
about a cup of spaghetti squash
homemade spaghetti sauce with peppers, mushrooms, garlic, onions, celery

Snacks
about 15 almonds
2 tangerines

Water - 8 cups
Exercise - walked up the stairs at work?
No eating after 8pm - check!
No starchy carbs/grains - check!

Challenge #3

We've decided that this week's challenge will be focused on cutting out the starchy grains we eat.  Examples are potatoes, pasta, white bread, white rice etc.  No starchy grains of this type for the next seven days but we are allowing ourselves 4 smaller servings over the next 7 days of whole wheat grains such as quinoa.

I love this challenge!  I think we, as a society, eat way too much of the bad carbohydrates (like the ones found in white bread, baked goods, buns, etc.) and I believe that this challenge will be an excellent demonstration of how we can help ourselves to feel better just with the choices of food we consume.

Today's meals:

Breakfast

8 vegetable crackers
2 wedges of light Laughing Cow cheese

Lunch

1 and 1/2 cups of brocolli and cauliflower raw
2 tblsp of three cheese dressing
1 and 1/2 cups of watermelon
1 vanilla yoghurt
1 cup of raspberries
1 banana (slightly overripe...yuck!)
2 tangerines

Supper

Garden salad (lots of fresh veggies, including cucumber, mushrooms etc.)
Salad dressing
Green beans
Grilled turkey

Snacks

12 almonds
1 single serving Aero bar (those 100 calorie things)
3 tangerines

Glasses of water - 8!

It's not the end of the night so I can't say that I've achieved the no eating after 8pm challenge, but I'm planning on it!

Stepping.Up.My.Game.

I realized this past week that I'm a lucky girl.  I'm considered obese.  My BMI is way over 30 and I'm sure most normal sized people are mildly grossed out when they look at me.  Yet, all things considered, I'm pretty healthy.  I have the fat people issues that most obese people have  - exercise induced asthma, sore feet, bad back and the inability to get up gracefully from the floor.  But my health is generally pretty good, no high blood pressure or skyrocketing cholesterol.  I'm lucky.  This became even more clear to me this past week when Jess started having some serious health issues and she (along with Kim) would only be considered mildly overweight.  It occurred to me that I am wasting this luck and letting my ladies down by not committing fully to our weight loss program.  I spent all of last week not meeting any of our challenges, not really caring and then Jess had those serious health issues brought to her attention and a light went off in my head.

I have wasted 36 years abusing and neglecting the only body I'll have in this life.  And I need to grow up and quit ruining my own body.  If I want to be healthy and happy, it requires a committment to proper eating and daily exercise.  It's time to stop the excuses and the whining and just do it.  I have a problem, I'm addicted to food and it's time to stop ignoring that problem or complaining that it's too hard to change and just change.  My life depends on it.

So, here I am.  Ready to fully commit to a lifestyle change with my ladies so that we all end up happy and healthy and becoming the three saucy old women, sitting at the bus stop making inappropriate comments to the hot men who pass us by, that we are destined to become.

It's funny, Kim was mentioning that she is obsessed with the scale, that she can't stop herself from hopping on it, sometimes a few times a day, and being elated or disappointed by what she sees.  I seem to run the opposite way, I like to avoid the scale, especially if I know I haven't been following the program the way that I should.  I don't want to see the numbers, to know that I've gone up because I couldn't follow a simple program of eating healthy and exercising for 30 minutes a day.  So I avoid it and it makes it easier to not care about what I'm eating or if I'm not drinking my water.  That ends today.  I'll be stepping on that scale every Monday morning, regardless of how my week has gone, to keep myself accountable to my actions.  I owe it to myself and to my ladies. 

Not sure what our challenge is this week, the ladies and I will discuss that tomorrow morning and I'll post about it tomorrow night. Regardless of what it is, I'm vowing to follow it every single day for seven days, as well as continuing with our previous challenges of drinking 8 glasses of water every day and not eating after 8pm.  It's time to take control.

Finally a big shout out to my girl Jess - down three pounds this week!  Way to go girlie, I am SO PROUD of you!!