Frick

Gained 3 pounds at WI last night.

Yes, I had an eating frenzy on Tuesday...but I was up the 3 pounds already. God only knows what next week's WI will be.

Went to the gym today. Did an hour strength training session followed by an hour of cardio.

Food 100% on target today.

Horse.

Debby.

Back on.

:-)

The pebble that started the avalanche

It was a banana bar.

An innocent enough, quite small, banana bar.

I had to work today. V, the lady I work with, occasionally brings treats in. Oh yes, though I walk through valley of the shadow of pizza, fried zucchini, garlic bread, cheesecake, cheesy sticks, chocolate pudding, blue cheese dressing, & other good things, I managed to resist temptation until today.

I don't know why. I went to work with a plan. I had my dinner ready for when I got home. I had my gym bag packed for after work, the whole 9 yards. I got to work at noon and I was starving already...that's probably the crux of the problem. I had oatmeal for breakfast. I love it, but it does not fill me at all. I'm hungry when I'm done eating it...but I do love it! I won't be having it on a work day again I can tell you that much!!!

I popped one of those banana bars into my mouth. They're small you know? Oh it was heaven on my tongue. Moist, bananaey, just wonderful. Did I quit then? Nope. Oh if only I had! I had 2 more. Yum.

My favorite pizza, ham and mushroom, came up on the pizza buffet line. I put one aside. I ate that. Yum. Did I stop there? Nope.

Break time rolled around. I fixed a salad. Somehow cheese, croutons, seeds, and blue cheese dressing ended up on it. I'm not sure how it happened, but a plate with cottage cheese and chocolate pudding appeared too. Unfortunately, they joined the basked of fried zucchini! It was awesome dipped in the homemade ranch dressing we make at work.

I worked a long day. Pizza buffet rolled around again at 5pm. Sighhh some of the hot, buttery, cheesy sticks ended up down my gullet.

I finally got to punch out a bit after 8pm. I sat down with a piece of cheesecake and some potato chips and chatted about.....WEIGHT WATCHERS with a few of the girls!

Laughing here....gotta laugh or cry. I choose laugh.

So, home from work. Gee I'm hungry! I had a homemade chocolate chip cookie and a glass of milk when I got home. My daughter in law makes gooooooood cookies!!! They had walnuts in them...that's a healthy nut right?

So, I'm off to have dinner now. I'm thinking half a pig perhaps? Maybe a leg of cow? Not sure how to top what I've already eaten today!

I did walk home from work. I got 13,500 steps today. I'm pretty sure that's not enough to cover what I ate.

Do I feel bad? No. Kind of wish I did...and kind of glad I don't.

Weigh in isn't going to be pretty tomorrow night.

Ah well, lifetime journey and all that.

That damn f'ing pebble got me this time. I think I'm prepared to hold strong next time. The time after that? I'm not too sure. I'll just take one avalanche at a time!

:-)

A Pixie with a plan

Good morning boys and girls.

As most of you know, I despise veggies. Gag me. I eat them, but I hate them. This has caused pretty nasty dining experiences for me of late. I miss enjoying a meal! I don't enjoy a meal when I don't like what I'm eating. So, I've taken a cue from a few of my fellow bloggers that plan their meals out a week in advance. I've planned 4 meals that I like! Yes, 4 in a row. They all contain veg...just not a variety, and not perhaps the best veg to choose. So shoot me. I'm on veggie vacation!

Here's my plan.

1. Hamburger steaks stewed in brown gravy with sauteed baby portabella mushrooms, a serving of niblet corn, a serving of Ronzoni Smart Pasta rotini tossed with olive oil, herbs, and perhaps a shave of Parmesan. Nothing green....ah well, life goes on. I don't like green.

2. Taco salad. Romaine with ALL the ribs cut out. Hate white core and ribs in lettuce. Fresh, crisp, red onions. I'm going to make a pureed dressing with Greek yogurt, salsa, and fat free french dressing as I want my salad to be sweet. I'll have lean ground beef with taco seasoning in there too and a bean or two. I was going to make homemade re-fried beans...but I'm thinking of just whole beans in the salad for texture. I'll toss a quarter of an avocado on the top. I'll have baked Tostito scoops on the side for crunch. I was going to add shredded cheese...but you know with all those strong flavors the cheese just gets lost anyway and I can use the points for something else.

3. Almond crusted chicken breast, baked potato with Greek yogurt and light butter and sea salt, baked acorn squash with brown sugar and cinnamon. Maybe a small salad with baby spinach, romaine, diced prunes, toasted almonds and sugar free (still lovely and sweet though) raspberry vinaigrette. Yes, definitely that. It sounds good. Oh and it's GREEN!

4. Bean soup and ho cakes. I thought I'd make bean soup from dried navy beans, onions, carrots, celery, broth and use Canadian bacon for the meat. Probably a little liquid smoke and definitely garlic. Nothing goes better with bean soup than cornbread and I love my ho cakes. I can have the soup in the crock pot while I'm at work and it'll be ready when I get home. I'll probably use the immersion blender to puree some of it.

You see, I love to eat. I love to enjoy what I eat. Since adding veg and cutting out fat, I've really not enjoyed my meals much at all. So, this week I'm adding a bit of fat to my meals (I didn't cut out healthy fats, just butter!!!), I'm having veg that I do like. I don't think a few meals without something cruciferous or green is going to kill me.

I might even put honey on my ho cake!

Ohhhhh somebody stop me!

:-)

Cut me some slack!

To the powers that be,

Please leave me alone. I'm working too hard for you to keep dicking with me. I exercised 6 days last week and I ate OP 7 days. It wasn't fair of you to send me a .8 gain.

I worked 7 hours yesterday, on my feet. I got 9000 steps at work alone. I left work and went to the gym. I did a very hard 37 minutes on the elliptical. I fought all temptation at work and that wasn't easy. I did the same on Friday, since you asked. Oh yes, Thursday also saw me totally OP and at the gym.

Why are you showing me a 4 pound gain since my weigh in on Wednesday night? Do you really think that's fair? Four pounds in four days? I don't think so Tim.

Just because I'm 50 is it really fair to screw with me this way?

No, it's not. Piss off.

Sincerely yours,
Still Puffy Pixie

:-(

OMG do you ALWAYS think about food????

Um yes.

That was a question asked of me the other day. I guess it wasn't until that exact moment that I realized everyone doesn't.

I've been reading articles about what restaurants do to lure us in. Food manufacturers too. It's the layer of 3 rule. Sugar, fat, salt. Put those three things in a product and it'll sell. It'll keep butts in the seat of your restaurant. What do they mean? Oh, I've got a few examples.

Buffalo wings. Oh God I love them. What are they? The fattiest part of the chicken, deep fried, smothered in a sauce that has tons of sugar, fat, and salt. Start with fat (chicken wing) fry it in fat, smother it in fat, sugar, and salt. Heaven on a plate.

Chili cheese fries. Start with a relatively harmless potato. Comfort food at the max. Deep fry it at the manufacturing plant and ship it off to the restaurant. First layer of fat. Restaurant gets it, fries it again. Second layer of fat. Loads it up with ooey and gooey cheese and chili. Sugar, fat, salt. Could I have a side of sour cream with mine please?

Things like this just set off a part of my brain. A very pleasurable part. That's what the restaurants and manufacturers are counting on. Should the restaurants and food people be blamed for giving us what we want? What we crave? It's hard for me to say this, but nah, they're just out to make a buck. They shouldn't have to quit making things I like, or want to make it easier for me. Is it bad for us? Heck yes. Would it be bad in moderation? Not so much.

This is what Weight Watchers is trying to teach me with the 35 flex points and the activity points they give me each week. Hey, you, fat girl! Here's some extra points so when you want something, you can have a small amount of it so you don't crave it so much you binge. Ya, you know who you are! Key word here? SMALL amount. I need to learn to be satisfied with 1 ounce of potato chips and not the whole super size bag. Oh don't think I'm kidding. I could demolish a whole bag of potato chips and then have lunch. A pound of bacon? Not a problem in the world. I could easily eat two. A super sized bag of cheese Dorito's with a bar of cream cheese to run the chips through? Burrrppp and there won't be any left either. I just need to get my stopping mechanism to work correctly all the time.

So, back to thinking about food. I wake up thinking about food. I think about food all day long. When I work, God help me, I work in a restaurant that makes really, really, really, good food. I come home from work and think about what I'm going to eat. I go to bed wondering what I'll eat the next day.

How has Weight Watchers helped me with this 'problem'? Well, now I use my thoughts to plan my food for the day when I wake up. I plan how I'm going to get in my 5 fruit and veg. I plan how I'm going to get in 2 servings of healthy oil. I plan how I'm going to get 3 milks a day in. I plan how I'm going to get adequate protein in for all the exercise I'm doing. I write about food in my blog. I read other peoples blogs about food. Yep, I think about food all the time!

I plan a 'treat' or two every day. It's usually my FAF. I love it. It's creamy, sweet, tastes rich and fattening, but it's not. It's high protein. It's got a fruit. It's love in a bowl. It's 2 points also which helps a lot.

I plan ways to have food I love in a different way. For example. I love fried food. I bet you didn't know that about me! So I've learned to pound my meat thin, dredge it in a bit of flour and fry it in 1 teaspoon of olive oil. Holy moly it's good. I feel like I'm having country fried chicken or pork or whatever.

I love pasta and sauce. I've come up with a pasta sauce recipe that I just love. I use Ronzoni smart pasta. It tastes like the not good for me white pasta, but it's not. Total point damage for a big size serving? Four. Not too bad at all. Leaves lots of room for other things to be added to the meal.

I have a very dear friend that follows the Weight Watcher program and planning, thinking, tracking, weighing and measuring, isn't her bag. It makes her crazy. We're polar opposites in that regard. If I don't plan, track, and think about what I'm going to eat, I just mindlessly eat. She rocked the Core program when WW had Core. Man I just couldn't do that at all. It was a free pass for me to eat all I wanted of some things. I can understand how she has problems with the 'new' WW program.

I'm off to plan my food for the day. Then I'm off to work..hmmmmm I wonder what I'll have for my break? Then I'll be home to eat dinner. Oh oh oh gotta get a snack in there somewhere!!!

:-)

Butter, bacon, pork fat

Hot buttered popcorn. Homemade bread slathered with cold, fresh butter. Cheesecake. Potato chips. Fried zucchini. Just to name a few.

Gloria Gaynor spoke to me at the gym today. I am sure she wasn't thinking about all my favorite foods. I was though. I was pumping away on the elliptical and thought how perfect her lyrics described what I was thinking about my love for fatty foods.

Sing it sister!

At first I was afraid, I was petrified. I kept thinking I could never live without you by my side. But then I spent so many nights thinking how you did me wrong, and I grew strong! I learned how to get along.

Now go, walk out the door. Just turn around now cuz you're not welcome anymore. Weren't you the one that tried to hurt me with goodbye? You think I'd crumble? You think I'd lay down and die? Oh no not I. I will survive.

I've got all my life to live. It took all the strength I had not to fall apart, kept trying hard to mend the pieces of my broken heart and I spent oh so many nights just feeling sorry for myself I used to cry. Now I hold my head up high and you see me, somebody new. I'm not that chained up little person still in love with you and so you felt like dropping in and just expect me to be free but now I'm saving all my loving for someone who's loving me.

So, go away fatty food.

I love myself more than you.

My elliptical loves me more than you.

I don't need you any more.

:-)

Can a gain be a loss?

Well, I gained as I expected. I gained .8 I want to try to take that gain and turn it into a loss of something that isn't good for me.

No, I didn't eat bad or slack off on my exercise and expect to gain. It's just that I hopped on the scale Tuesday and it was up. Why? I have no earthly idea. Did I remain 100%OP all week? Yes I did. Did I do my 35-45 minutes of cardio 6 days last week? Yes I did. Did I do my 3 days of strength training last week? Yes I did. Obviously I need to do more. If it's hormones causing these gains, I need to find out what's going to break those little buggers.

What can I do this week to shake things up? To make a difference? I can move more. I can lose some of my 'sitting on my hiney' time. Yes, I go to the gym and I work hard there. What do I do the rest of the day if I'm not working? Not very damn much. So, this is how it's going to go this week.

I must earn my computer and TV time. Every day I must move the same amount of time I want to sit and enjoy those things. If I want to spend 30 minutes on the computer, I must move my body 30 minutes. If I want to watch an hour of TV, I must move my body an hour. So, I spent 2.5 hours at the gym today. That's my total computer/TV time unless I move more. I've been online 22 minutes already. Time really does fly.

Going to the gym for an hour a day doesn't mean I'm not living a sedentary lifestyle. I can't just sit on my fat butt the other 23 hours and expect the health benefits, or aparantly the weight loss benefits!!!

So, for this next week at least, I'm on the clock.

Gotta go now!!! Got other things to do on here!

:-)