Surviving The Holidays, or The Pitfalls of Chex Mix

Well, I got through not one, but TWO Thanksgiving feasts, back to back. Did I pig out? No. In fact, on both days I only ate one plate of food and patted myself on the back for that. That one plate of food was also my only meal of the day both days as well. But did I eat carbs? You bet your mashed potatoes and stuffing I did! Not to mention apple pie and pumpkin pie. And did I pay a price for eating those carbs? Of course I did. Four pounds worth. Did I panic, gnash my teeth and throw in the towel on my whole diet and exercise program as I would have in the past? Absolutely not! I was out walking immediately and other than a couple of more slices of pie over the next few days, the only leftovers I indulged in were turkey, turkey and more turkey and some green bean casserole. No more mashed potatoes of stuffing for me. I quickly lost that four pounds, which was likely more water weight gain than anything. It's a good feeling to know that I can overcome my occasional dietary indiscretions without giving up or beating myself up over them. I more or less planned for the holiday and knew that there would be some temporary weight gain, but I also had complete confidence that it would remain just that - temporary.

The same game plan is in place for Christmas, although for some reason that is a tougher one, what with all kinds of cookie baking happening and my penchant for making and consuming mass quantities of homemade Chex Mix that I will simply HAVE to rein in. And there will, again, be multiple celebrations, so the one plate rule WILL apply each time. Wish me luck. I'm gonna need it......

Round Numbers and Other Milestones

I promised in my last post that I would keep my loyal readers updated as I reach any milestones, big or small. Well, this weekend I reached a sort of milestone. My weight loss reached a nice, round number and is almost to the halfway point of my weight loss goal. Close enough for government work anyway. I made this happy discovery Sunday morning and I really wanted to blog about it (OK - maybe I wanted to BRAG about it) but there was just too much going on that day. I had family time with kids and grandkids and then there was this little football game thingy going on Sunday night - a much anticipated football game, I might add. So I didn't get around to it. And on a side note to certain haters out there (ahem Kevin Ross) while my magnificent Chiefs may have lost to the the Broncos - their first loss of the season AND they are the ONLY 9-1 team out there, they played a very respectable game, thank you very much. They held the highest scoring offense in the NFL to the LOWEST score of their season. Take that haters!

ANYWHO.....I made my very happy discovery Sunday morning, which was the morning after attending a family baby shower with the cutest monster theme, where I steadfastly resisted an adorable cake and equally adorable monster sandwiches. I snacked on a handful of mixed nuts and maybe two tablespoonfuls of Chex Mix and I was OK with that. Really! I was! Because I am saving up the majority of my cheating for that big day next week where I will allow myself to indulge in mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing and apple pie and I will do it all guilt free. My portions will be small, and really not due to some super willpower, but mainly because my stomach has shrunken to some ridiculously small size that I can't even imagine what to compare it to. I just know that I get full pretty quickly and I have finally learned to stop eating when I am full, regardless of how tasty the food may be. That has really been the hardest thing to learn. Ever. That may be my real super-duper willpower and I hope I can keep that up for the rest of my life.

So, the big milestone is that I am 40 pounds down! FORTY. POUNDS. I am still just a little bit in shock that I pulled this off in just three and half months, and all without an expensive meal plan or a personal trainer. And although all of the amazing health benefits that I have derived from this weight loss are undeniable, I'm not gonna lie - the best part of this is completely vanity related. So sue me. I am just sooooo happy to have my face back. I look like ME again! And then there is the whole clothes thing. I went shopping with my daughter last night and bought a cute top and a cami to wear layered under it and I was shopping in the very same store and very same size section as my skinny-minny 26 year old daughter! Seriously! How cool is that? For me - very cool. Awesomely cool. As I said before in a previous post, I have totally HATED shopping in the plus size department for all of these years, so this is just huge for me. And getting expensive. I really need to cool it, because I am more than confident that in a month or two I will just have to go out and buy more cute clothes in even smaller sizes, but I felt that 40 pounds deserved a reward, so I rewarded myself at Maurices. Beats the heck out of rewarding myself with food.

The Numbers Game

Let’s talk about numbers, shall we? When dieting, exercising and attempting to get healthy there are all kinds of numbers that matter, numbers that one monitors – sometimes with trepidation and sometimes with outright glee. There’s the number on the scale, the number on the BMI chart, cholesterol and triglyceride level numbers, blood pressure numbers, waist measurements, resting heart rate numbers and the list goes on and on, ad nauseum.

I’ve read countless articles on dieting and weight loss, some helpful, some not so much. Although some say that daily weigh ins are helpful, it seems that the majority of the articles that I have read advise against this practice, some even accusing the offending weight checker as being obsessive. They say things like “don’t judge your success by a number on a scale” and “judge your success by how your clothes fit”. Well boys and girls, what works for some people doesn’t always work for everyone. Yes, I might be that slightly crazed, obsessive weight checker, but this works for me, people! I weigh myself every single morning and record my weight. It keeps me on track and it keeps me 100% honest. I keep this goofy spreadsheet and I will actually put a notation by a weight that may have inched up that says “I ate popcorn at the movie last night! OMG! I’m SUCH a moron!” It serves as a reminder to me that there are consequences to my ill-advised dietary indiscretions and somehow this really seems to work for me.

My little spreadsheet also chronicles those disappointing diet plateaus, pointing out in glaring relief the stretches of days when my weight doesn’t budge an ounce. And that can be uber discouraging. In fact, in the past I found those plateaus would often send me into a depression fueled food binge, which would then bring about a disappointing weight re-gain, followed by more depression, eventual defeat and giving up on the whole diet and exercise debacle, convinced that it was NEVER going to work for me. This time, though, I changed my mindset. I know that plateaus are all part of process and that patience is a virtue and blah, blah, blah. But most importantly I refuse to let a plateau ruin all of my progress the way it used to. I have a column to the right of my weight column, in which I record minutes of exercise. I have seen plateaus busted by simply upping the exercise minutes by 15 minutes a couple times a week and then I am off to the races again. Seeing those numbers lined up side by side help to keep me motivated to stick to my eating plan. Although I don’t log everything I eat (another long held dieting best practice that has never really worked for me) I do log those rare eating mistakes. Since I don’t like seeing those snarky little side notations on the spreadsheet, I am inspired to keep my spreadsheet pristine. OCD much?

So, I have a few magic numbers that I am keeping as personal milestone goals. A weight milestone, a BMI milestone, a blood pressure milestone, a lipid panel milestone, a clothing size milestone…….and some of these are not even my ultimate goals, just shorter term goals to help keep my motivation levels high as I achieve each of them. I am now at the lowest weight I have been in nine years, but there is a number on the scale that I haven’t been below in ten years and want to hit that elusive target before ten years becomes eleven years and I am soooooo close!

And I got the call from my doctor’s office today with one a set of magic numbers that meant I had achieved one of my ultimate health goals and made my doctor very happy in the process. My lipid panel results are in and my cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, HDL cholesterol and triglycerides are PERFECT!!!! This was a biggie, because even on a statin, my triglycerides were always elevated. No more sad eyes from my doctor! In fact the nurse told me several times just how happy he was with my results. It seems that erasing bad carbs from my diet erased the excess triglycerides and my total cholesterol is the lowest it has been in years. Pretty powerful motivation to keep up this new, healthier lifestyle.

I will keep you posted as I reach some more of these magic numbers. Do YOU have a magic number or numbers?

Happy Hump Day!

Well boys and girls, I never thought I would say this, but that killer workout I told you all about awhile back – I am surviving it more easily lately. Color me shocked! Not that it is getting to be any more fun. It still feels WONDERFUL when I stop, but I am less Jell-O-like afterwards, and sweat doesn’t start running into my eyeballs until later in the workout than it used to. It seems that my fitness level has squeaked up a notch. A tiny notch, but a notch nonetheless. And I still HATE the move that Little Miss Perky Pink Lip Gloss declares to be her favorite – the dreaded Chopper move. HATE. IT. But I am getting through it better every time. So of course, Comcast is taking this very productive workout video away from me on November 1st. Just like they did the Cardio Sculpt workout that I loved back in September. If they don’t add something new that is just as effective, I am going to stop being such a cheapskate (although Comcast is NOT cheap) and I am going to have to break down and purchase some kickass DVDs. Insert expletive here ______. I have gotten sooooo much from this workout and I don’t want it to go away! Somebody call the wahmbulance!

Anyway, I wanted to talk about my favorite workout day, which is Hump Day. Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike – what day is it Mike? Yeah, I love Hump Day just for that camel commercial in so many ways. That commercial makes me smile every single time I see it. But I also love Hump Day because it is my designated cardio-only workout day. No weights! Hump Day is the day that I give my poor, tired arms a little bit a of a break. It is also the day that I cruise around on Comcast looking to mix things up a bit and find the occasional non-traditional workout to try, just for fun. Today I did straight up kickboxing, so my arms still got quite a workout. I have done lots of kickboxing workouts in the past three months and used I to teach cardio kickboxing at the YMCA back in the day and I still love that workout. But last week, I had a little fun on Hump Day. I found one called Bollywood Dance Party. Oh my. I just HAD to try this one! Plus, I got to do this one barefoot, which is my favorite footwear state anyway. It was fun! It was sweat inducing, although not as tough as what I really like to get in a workout, but it was different and fun. And yes, I looked utterly ridiculous. I swear my cat was laughing at me. And because it wasn’t a 30 minute workout, I decided to tack on another short dance style workout in order to be relieved of any residual guilt from shortchanging my allotted workout minutes. Oh look! A short hip hop dance workout! Let's try it I say. Bring on the hip hop workout! Oh dear Lord. I have new appreciation for the dancers on So You Think You Can Dance and Dancing With The Stars when they dance a hip hop routine. I also have renewed appreciation for my niece who was a rock star on her high school dance team and choreographed a lot of hip hop routines. And I NEVER want her to see what I looked like in my pitiful attempt at hip hop, by the way. Never. Not pretty. Not pretty at all. At that point, I am fairly certain my cat was ready to pick up the phone and call 911 and report that his mom was having some weird kind of seizures. It was insanely ridiculous how hard it was for me to “get” the dance steps, let alone keep up!

So, what should I do next Wednesday? Do I stick with cardio kickboxing? I rock at this. This is in my wheelhouse, as they say. Or do see if I can find something even more ridiculous and have some Hump Day fun? I wonder if they have a Chicken Dance workout video?

P.S. - that's me on that left about to kick that tournament contestant in the midsection. Happily, I won.

Yeah, I'm a rock star

Last week I had a really good week. I lost four whole pounds in one short week. When I told my sister how much weight I had lost, she called me a rock star. A rock star! I had to laugh, but at the same time, I have to admit that it felt pretty good. By the way, I totally LOVE my sister. She is my inspiration because she has been there and done that and is one my staunchest supporters. She’s spectacularly beautiful and looks so much like our late mother that it’s spooky, and she knows most intimately what I am going through right now. Both my sister and my daughter make up my super-duper, awesome cheerleader squad and I couldn’t do this without them, so let me just get that out there.

I have found a new kick-butt workout video that combines cardio with compound weight lifting movements and 30 second high intensity cardio intervals. It is still a mere 30 minutes long, but at the end I am dripping sweat, shaking like a leaf and have arms that feel like a Jell-O mold left out on a picnic table at a picnic on a hot summer’s day. It takes a full 15 minutes for my breathing to return to normal and for me to stop sweating, sometimes even longer on the sweating. And Little Miss Perky Pink Lip Gloss Instructor even gets a bit short of breath a few times, so you KNOW this is a tough workout. Kicks my not-so-little patootie every time. I did this one four times last week with one straight up cardio workout without weights in the middle of the week. Feeling generous, I gave myself the weekend off and then hit the killer workout again today. My body is most definitely NOT adapting and getting used to this work out yet. It is NOT getting any easier with repetition. And to top it all off, I was 100% true to my Atkins diet the entire week and I couldn’t have been more pleased with the results.

My goal this week is to eat and work out in the same fashion that I did last week. I hope I can lose another four pounds this week, but will take ANY weight loss and call it a victory. I know that every day that I work out I am getting more fit, gaining muscle and losing fat. The upper body toning is visible, the inches lost on my upper arms is measurable – two inches off each bicep so far. Color me ecstatic! When you live in Florida, the Land of the Perpetually Sleeveless, this is a GOOD thing.

So I am lovin’ me some Atkins Bars, salads, cottage cheese, steak and veggies because Thanksgiving is a mere 37 days away and I must gird my loins and get myself ready for a one day carb-laden splurge. If I have extra muscle to burn calories around the clock, I can withstand Thanksgiving and all of its temptations, as I will once again be the one doing 90% of the cooking and making ALL of my favorites, including my delicious brined turkey, mouth-watering mashed potatoes and gravy and amazing apple pie. Yes, that is a blatant self-promotion of my once a year cooking skills. So sue me. I am going to be ready and I am going to enjoy Every. Single. Bite. Because I will have earned it.

Elvis has left the plus size department

I have scored another victory that I seriously thought would take much longer and many more pounds to reach. I am no longer consigned to that particular shopping hell known as the plus size department! I have hated being stuck in this fashion purgatory for so many years. Oh regular size clothing, how I love thee. Let me count the ways.

First off, one always pays more for plus size clothing. It’s not like my clothes had to be made by Omar the Tentmaker, either. My tops and pants did not require copious amount of extra yardage in the fabric department. I had not sunk to the fashion depths of muumuus and caftans. I just needed a little extra fabric in the, ahem, bosom and waist areas shall we say. So the added costs for these clothing items always seemed obscenely unfair to me.

Secondly, and perhaps most importantly (at least to me) plus size clothing tends to be UGLY AND MATRONLY!!!!! I maybe a mother and a grandmother but I am not MATRONLY dammit! Clothing shopping has been no fun at all for a very long time. Except maybe for Coldwater Creek AKA Coldwater River (inside joke that only one or two of my friends will get). They at least make almost all of their normal size clothing in plus size as well and they used to charge the same price, but even they started charging extra for plus size in the past few years. But at least they were a reliable source of reasonably nice looking clothes in my size and if I hit the outlet store when everything was an additional 40% off, also reasonably priced.

Let me give another example of the misery of clothing shopping in plus sizes. A year and a half ago my son and daughter in law got married. I was so happy and excited about the wedding until the realization sunk in that I had to buy a mother of the groom dress. Not only that, but I had to do it on a budget, since I had travel costs to get to this wedding and not just my own. I was helping other family members get to the wedding and purchase a bridesmaid and a flower girl dress and rent a groomsmen’s tux. So the amount of money I was willing to spend on my dress was limited. I started shopping and to quote my old friend Sheldon Cooper PhD., “What fresh Hell is this?” I agonized for many hours, first in the shopping mall and bridal stores and then online. It was absolutely mortifying. Although I did finally end up with a pretty dress that received numerous compliments (thank you Macy’s online) the shopping experience was complete and utter agony.

As I have been losing weight I have found that all of my very best plus size tops have gotten too big and I am running out of clothing options. Granted I work from home and spend half of my day in my jammies, but I do venture out from time to time and my wardrobe options are becoming limited. I needed to make a Target run last night for a few various household items and I thought to myself, “Dare I peruse the tops in the junior department at Target? Will I embarrass myself?” I bravely wandered over to the display of tank tops and tee shirts – on sale! I tried to look nonchalant, as if I belonged there. I glanced around nervously to make sure no one was looking and held up a tank top. It looked like it might cover me. Hmmm… they were on sale for a twofer price so I snagged two and dropped them in my cart. Then I furtively grabbed a vee-necked tee shirt and added it to the pile. I didn’t go to the dressing room and try them on. Not my style. I like to try things on at home so that when they don’t fit and I look like a sausage because I squeezed myself into something way too small, no one will hear me cry except for my cat. He is very understanding and will try to comfort me.

I got home with my purchases and dropped the bag on my bed after putting away the groceries and TP that I had been my original reason for going to Target. The moment of truth had arrived and I was scared to go through with it. Maybe I’ll wait until morning. I can be a big sissypants sometimes. I was already envisioning having to slink back to Target and return my purchases and pretend that my reason for returning was anything but the fact that they were too small. No ma’am, nothing wrong with them, I just decided I didn’t like the colors. Really???? I gave myself a few mental slaps, took my tops out of the bag and tried them on. And they actually fit without making me look like a sausage. And I almost cried.

The Double A Plan Or How to Make My Doctor Quit Looking At Me With Sad Eyes

OK, so it’s been awhile since I’ve blogged. Alright already! Truth time. It’s actually been just over 18 months since I’ve blogged. My bad. Mea culpa and all that. Sheesh! Between a bad year with my left knee and then another bad several months with a messed up SI joint, I was sidelined by both my orthopedic doctor and my physical therapist, both of whom probably took exotic vacations on the sums of money I paid for their services over that time frame. I was under strict no exercise orders and honestly, I probably enjoyed that just a little too much. When I was cleared for exercise sometime back in the spring, I just somehow never got around to it. I was much too busy making trips back to visit my family and play with grandkids to get around to exercising, let alone the dreaded D word.

But here’s the thing. Trying to keep up with five active grandkids ranging in age from just a few months old to almost six years old, I came to the painful conclusion that I was too out of shape to keep up. Getting down on the floor to play was fine and dandy, but getting up without the assistance of a forklift was another story. And I got winded entirely too easily. I was put on notice during a particularly strenuous jaunt to Chuck E. Cheese with my rambunctious granddaughters. Trying to bob and weave through teeming hoards of miniature humans and not lose sight of MY miniature humans had me huffing and sweaty in no time. All I wanted to do when we got back home was sit on the couch and binge on The Big Bang Theory and REAL pizza (read Minsky’s) and not that crap they call pizza Chuck E. Cheese!

The final straw of course, was the dreaded yearly checkup where my doctor kindly informed me to my utter shame and horror that I had gained ten pounds since last year’s checkup. TEN POUNDS!!! #mortification! I don’t speak in hashtags often, folks, but this was just beyond mortification. Time to get with it. For realz. Sadly, during my time on the injured reserve list I had actually joined Weight Watchers for several months, alas, to no avail. I dutifully counted and recorded the Point Plus value of every morsel that passed my lips and pretty much stuck to the prescribed number of points, woefully small as I felt that number was. Guess what? I was always hungry and cranky and I lost almost no weight! Of course I knew deep down it was because on WW I was allowed to eat carbs and so I ate carbs. They swore up and down that as long as I stuck to my points values I would lose weight. Dirty, rotten, lying bastards. (Pardon my French if you are offended – but that’s how I felt for the results I got for my $18.95 a month.) I should have known better. My very insulin resistant self simply cannot lose weight if I eat any kind of bad carbs at all. Can. Not.

Armed with fresh resolve, I did what I knew I had to do. I also knew in my heart of hearts that it was going to be painful and that I was going to hate it, but I did it. The old double A. Atkins and Aerobics. I’ll admit I had some pharmaceutical help. My doctor took pity on me and prescribed an appetite suppressant so I wouldn’t be starving all the time whilst I shrank my food portions and gave up my beloved carbs. He also placed extra strong emphasis on the exercise portion of my plan. Perhaps paying for the prescription and the monthly co-pay to visit the doctor to be weighed and to monitor my blood pressure would be a bigger motivation than the $18.95 a month I shelled out for WW, because this is significantly more expensive. And for some strange reason, I really wanted to make my doctor happy. Go figure. Maybe it was the sad eyes he cast in my direction when he informed me of my weight gain, like he was already scripting my eulogy in his head.

The fateful doctor’s visit was this past July 31st. I began my Double A project on August 1st. Since it was the hot, humid and just generally miserable part of a Florida summer when I started my exercise program, I resorted to the exercise videos provided courtesy of Comcast On Demand in my nicely air conditioned living room, rather than my favorite form of exercise, which is walking outdoors. Heat stroke was NOT a part of the Double A Plan, thank you very much. My goal has been thirty minutes of cardio, four to five times a week and I have stuck with that fairly religiously. Go me! I have thrown in some long, slow beach walks on the weekends as well. But the best part is that by sticking with my Atkins plan with very insignificant to almost non-existent cheating, I have made some pretty stellar progress, if I do say so myself. Did I mention that on my birthday I didn't even eat one crumb of the birthday cake that was made for me? This is me patting myself on the back.

Seventy-one days into this journey I can proudly say that I have lost thirty-one pounds, one of my chins, many inches of back fat, upper arm fat and side boob and two pants sizes. And the dosage of my blood pressure medicine has been cut in half. This has been inspiration enough to soldier on. I will not blog every day, because frankly, what I eat and the silly aerobics videos I work out to aren’t all that exciting. But I will check in from time to time to give progress reports. There will be challenges, of course. The holidays are just around the corner. Thankfully, I never get trick-or-treaters here in my condo complex, so I will not be tempted to buy any Halloween candy that would just sit around and taunt me. At least Atkins just came out with their own version of M&Ms, so life is good.