Weighty Issues

I can't believe that summer vacation is half over. I spent a week in New Jersey in the beginning of June and came home about 4 pounds heavier! There was plenty of healthy food -- just too much of it available. I have lost about half the weight I gained, but I will be going to Vermont the last week in July. Hopefully, I won't gain back too much.

I can't believe that it has been 3 months since my last post. Time really flies! My weight-loss program is doing well. I have lost another 2 1/2 pounds. I am still going to the boot-camp exercise class and going to meetings. I have a great sponsor who listens to me every morning and gives me a lot of support. This week is vacation for me and it is going by even faster. Today I am making an effort to get rid of all my baggy ill-fitting clothes. It is so hard to part with them.

I went to a meeting at 7:00 this am. It was great! The woman who spoke really inspired me to keep going. It is nice to know that I am not the only person who has lost weight many times and can be abstinent again. I have been sticking to my food plan and I feel great. I will weigh in tomorrow to see if the scale agrees. I was able to go to my boot camp classes two days this week, which also feels great! I will be starting a class on Monday as well as meeting with my new boss. Hopefully, I will be able to plan my food to keep my abstinence in place.

Well, things seem to be going well for the New Year. Our boot camp started again and I am losing weight again. Most days I have still been able to walk due to the warm January temperatures. I guess winter weather is coming this week so I will probably be using the exercise bike more. Ciao!

Jeanne and Kim  Not sure why I posted this picture except my cousin Kim is a KISS groupie and knows Gene Simmons.

I went to my support group yesterday. I always get a lot from going to meetings. Each week that I have been sick recently, someone else has shared their struggles with food issues while sick. I am back down 1.5 pounds, so hopefully by Nov.1 I will be back on target. I am feeling better, but still unable to exercise at my normal level. I am also still struggling with eating all of my vegetables.

Well, I have been sick for three weeks. I just found out on Monday that I have bronchitis and the doctor started me on antibiotics. Today my weight was up 3 pounds! I am hoping that it is related to all the cough and cold medications and the lack of exercise for the past two weeks. I walked this morning, but only a little over a mile. I am still coughing, but not as much as the beginning of the week. Hopefully I will be back to my normal routine by next week.

Well, I can't believe how fast September has passed. Working full-time, exercising and staying on a food plan is definitely challenging, but this month went pretty well. This week I have a new low weight. I am down another 2.5 lbs for a total of 70 lbs given away! Cheers! I joined water aerobics and started back at my afternoon exercise class. So I have been exercising 2 days and doing water aerobics 2 days during the week and walking 2-3 miles on the weekends.  My knee hurt a few times during the week, so I have started taking Chondroitin again along with my glucosomine to see if it helps. I met a woman in class who is having the same difficulty with simple exercise due to obesity that I had 10 years ago. It really brought back some very painful memories and made me feel so greatful that I am able to do the activities that I can do today. I am still not where I would like to be(I guess I'll never be a hot babe!) , but I certainly have progressed to where I can fully particip...

Well, I've been back to work a week and my foodplan has been easy to follow. However, I have not gotten up any earlier in the morning to walk. I just don't seem to be able to get up before 5:30 am. However, I definitely am much more active when I am at work. I am walking pretty much constantly, either between classes or during class. Today I stayed home sick with some nasty intestinal bug, so I may not eat everything on my plan today. I started getting sick at suppertime, so I ate pretty lightly and as a result my weight is at a new low. However, as soon as I start feeling better I expect to be back up a couple of pounds. I ate my oatmeal late this morning and seem to be okay now, but I am going to take it easy all day. I still haven't started water aerobics as the Y was closed for two weeks. I will try to get over there this week. I'd love to hear some comments! Thanks.

Well, tomorrow I go back to work. I am certainly worried about being able to keep up my diet and exercise routine. I am feeling very comfortable with the rice diet. I made a pot of oatmeal this morning so that I have my breakfast all ready for the week. I have sprouted breads and whole grain cold cereals that I can bring for lunches. I also have some tofu cheese that I will use occasionally. Later I will bag up my veggies for my lunches. I like to make my breakfast and lunch ahead, so I can just grab it each day. I will steam my rice and veggies for supper. I am more worried about keeping up my exercise routine. For the past few days I have gotten up early to walk two miles. I am planning on walking my third mile at lunch time. But I know from past experience that the desire to sleep a little longer usually wins over my desire to walk. But I will do my best to keep up the exercise. I still need to check on the water aerobics that my doctor wants me to do. I also found out that I can...

I have been following the rice diet for 6 days now. I have lost 4.5 pounds and my blood sugar and blood pressure are excellent! I am very happy so far. I feel good and am not hungry. I like the fact that I can eat fruit three times a day. My craving for artificial sweeteners has lessened, although I haven't given them up 100%. I don't want to post my picture because I still have at least another fifty pounds to lose. I have lost(okay - given up) 68.5 pounds from my highest weight. I am also trying to walk as much as possible. Yesterday I walked 1.5 miles, today 3.4. My exercise bike broke a little while ago. Hopefully, I will be able to fix it.

I've reviewed the "The Rice Diet Solution" and I have decided to try it again. I really didn't follow it to the letter before because I went on vacation the week after I started. I have lost the weight I gained during vacation and I feel good, although I am slightly craving artificial sweeteners. Because I am missing the artificial sweeteners too much, I think that it is a good thing that I am giving them up in my tea and coffee. The program allows either 1 teaspoon of honey or maple syrup at each meal or one packet of artificial sweetener. I am also still walking 2 to 3 miles a day. My worry is that once I start back to work on August 28, the new plan will be difficult to stick to. Oh well, I will just take it one day at a time!

I can't believe that it is August 10 already! I haven't accomplished many of my list of things to do. However, I did decide that the rice diet is not for me. Even though I was eating good carbs, it was still too many carbs for me. I am back to my limit of two fruits and two or three servings of 15 grams of carbohydrate per day. I eat plenty of vegetables and the equivalent of 4 ozs of protein per meal. This seems to work the best for me to both lose weight and control my blood sugar. For the past week I have been walking three miles almost everyday and doing water aerobics two or three times a week. I saw my doctor today and he wants me to do more water aerobics and less walking. This means I need to check with the local YMCA and find out the schedule for the water aerobics. While I have been walking I have been taking a lot of pictures, so I might start some painting during the winter. Ciao!

Today I went to one of my favorite support meetings. It was a small meeting today, but I really got a lot out of it. It is so important for me to be able to talk about eating and emotional issues with people who have issues similar to mine. Most of the people at the meeting were like me in that our food and weight issues started at a young age. Some of us were overweight before we were 10 years old , but all of us had food and weight issues by the time we hit teenage years that have stayed with us our entire adult lives.

Now that school is out, I thought I would follow the rice diet from Duke University for a little while to see if I can make my body go to a new low weight. Unfortunately, I got bronchitis the last day of school, so I don't think that I am following it the way I should. It is primarily a vegetarian diet and I do think that it is healthy to eat more beans and grains. I have switched from one meatless day to 6 meatless days, so hopefully I will weigh less next week! After July 4th I will be traveling for a week and that is always challenging for following a special food plan.

Well, this was quite a week. I got very sick on Mother's Day with some sort of intestinal flu and spent the day sleeping. I woke up Monday morning to find the overflow from the Merrimack river to be two feet from our back door. Our condo association brought sandbags to put around our bulkhead, but we were told that we would definitely lose our basement. This was very upsetting as we have a finished basement full of electronic equipment. However, our condo association brought in contractors who built a sand dam at the edge of the property which kept the water from getting any higher. We never got any water in our basement! We lost power for a while and spent the week without water, but we were very grateful that we never got flooded. The best news is that through it all, I stayed on my food plan!

I got great Mother's Day presents today! My daughter and son sent me beautiful flowers and a box of organic fruits, vegetables and greens! I will be able to cook a healthy meal and decorate the table on Mother's Day. The day will be special for me even if they can't be with me.

I have lost another pound -- or I should say let go of! I have lost over 23 percent of my body weight. This week I am on vacation so I am really enjoying the weather. I have walked 2-3 miles every day since Thursday. Saturdays I go to a weight-loss support group which I find tremendously important. I also write in a diary every day. I write down my food and anything else that might be on my mind. I also find this helpful in staying on track with my food and exercise plan.

On Sunday I usually make my breakfasts for the week. I make low-fat bars with ricotta cheese, egg whites, wheat bran and splenda. Sometimes I put blueberries or other fruit on top. If anyone is interested I will post the recipe. Having these bars ready makes it easy for me to eat a healthy breakfast on the run. I try to keep some in the freezer for really busy weeks.

I was happy this week to see that I have lost inches in the past month or so. I have lost an inch from each measurement. That probably explains why people have been noticing my weight loss even though I have been losing slowly. I have been attending a boot camp at work with some other teachers and my fitness has improved a lot. I can't say that I really like doing crunches and push-ups, but it is rewarding to see the improvement. Since the end of January I have gone from being able to do 30 crunches to over 100. I went from doing about 10 very modified push-ups to 30 less modified.