Willpower?

I was reminded today by my friend (should I call her that?) that she hasn't seen an update on this blog for a long time. So much for trying to hold myself accountable to the blogging world.

Maybe I'll start it up again after I finish the large bag of peanut M&M's stowed away in my kitchen.

Emotional Eater?

I had a friend write a Facebook status that she was "such an emotional eater!" I wondered if I was because honestly, I had never really paid attention before. But then yesterday & today happened, and....

...yup. And, this is just today's (+1 more rice krispy treat)

The days really haven't been bad either. I just feel a lot of stress, lack of energy and slightly blue. It's just been "one of those days." 

Meal Planning

Meal planning is generally something I'm really good at for two weeks, and completely horrible at doing for a following month. Right now, I am completely stoked that I have succeeded at making lunch & dinner plans for longer than a month, and although we did go out to eat twice, we have been pretty much eating at home together.

There are so many benefits to eating dinner together, but my drive to be better has stemmed from wanting to maintain my family's sugar intake. Although I can't decide whether or not R consumes sugar, I can greatly decrease his desire if I make sure he is actually fed. Otherwise, it's to the store with the munchies.

This week's dinner plan:
Monday- Kalua Pork with Cabbage
Tuesday- Baked crab rangoon and fried rice
Wednesday- Hamburgers and baked beans
Thursday- Homemade Mac&Cheese & leftover beans
Friday- Homemade pepperoni pizza
Saturday- Chicken Pot Pie

One memory I have of family dinners growing up, was my mom always asking me or my siblings to choose a fruit and a vegetable that was going to be served. (My favorite to chose was canned creamed corn. Haha!) I try to bring that concept into our dinners too, especially if veggies aren't mixed into the meal already.

The last few days we've ended our meals with sweet nectarine slices. That's almost like dessert, right?

Book Report

I am reading so many books right now, and am loving all of the information, opinions and the stories about sugar consumption and other nutritional advice. I haven't completed one yet from cover-to-cover. I mostly pick it up and start on a section that I'm interested in reading about (as of late, beverages).

Book #1 Eating Between the Lines, Kimberly Lord Stewart
This author takes you on a grocery store tour, as she helps explain to the average consumer how to read nutritional labels and make meaning of all of the symbols and common-phrases that plague the packaging on our food. This has been, by far, one of my favorite reads as she intertwines some personal remarks among a plethora of facts behind the labeling rules.

Book #2 Suicide by Sugar, Nancy Appleton, PhD

Written by a former sugar addict with multiple health problems, she is very passionate about educating people on the adverse affects sugar has on the body. Her biggest push is over having homeostasis. This read is all about sugar, with a very extreme outlook on staying away! She offers some recipes in the back, although I haven't tried any yet.

Book #3 Food Matters, Mark Bittman
I have only gotten a few chapters into his book, and then have opened it to specific topics as I have been gathering research. He starts by discussing the environmental impact our food choices have, lowering our meat consumption, and not relying on the government to not to tell us the healthiest way to eat. His overall outlook seems to parallel the popular Michael Pollan as he encourages his readers to eat whole foods (fruits and veggies).

Book #4 Sugar-Free Toddlers, Susan Watson
A mother, frustrated with the few sugar-free snacks for her toddler adapted over 100 recipes to be sweetened by natural flavors and not include white sugar. "Natural sweeteners" mean using 100% juice, typically in her recipes. I have made a few of them, and they have been mediocre. My favorite thus far was a peanut butter-banana muffin (I added spinach too). Michael gobbled them up. The thing I appreciate most about this book is the information in the beginning about certain ingredients commonly used in baking, and she promotes using half white/wheat flour in multiple recipes, which has been good for us!

Gram Count Check In

Well, I'd like to throw my hands up in the air and say, "It can't be done!" 15 tsp of sugar is still quite a lot, yet I only managed to stay below a few times out of the week.

July 26: 62.6g--15.65tsp
July 27: 27g--6.75tsp 
July 28: 60.5g--15.125tsp
July 29: 73g--18.25tsp
July 30: 87g--21.75tsp
July 31: 78g--19.5tsp
Aug 1: 38.5g--9.5tsp
Aug 2: 100g--25tsp
Aug 3: 86g--21.5tsp


Problem #1: Homemade goodies are incredibly hard to record properly. For example, when I made cupcakes, I just added together the amount of sugar in the batter/frosting and divided that by 12. But, I am sure the amount is still a little high (because you don't get every drop from the bowl, nor did I use ALL of the frosting) so I just adjusted the final count a bit. But mostly, it was the most educated guess I could give.

Problem #2: I am pretty good at writing down sweets as soon as I eat them. However, I don't always record the gram amount. Therefore, I'm not sure how many tsp I've already eaten--or how many more I'm allotted for the rest of the day.

Problem #3: Ice cream. I splurged on ice cream a lot this week--which would've been fine except I didn't stop there. I still ended up eating other sweets later in the day.

Problem #4: I'm addicted to sugar. I've had more headaches this week than I've had ever. They aren't terrible, but they are there which is unusual for me. But, I know it's related to the sugar.
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Good Thing #1: I'm still aware of what's going in my mouth. I don't just open the fridge door and grab something to eat because I'm unconsciously moving in that direction.

Good Thing #2: Although I'm not counting my son's intake at this time, I can already tell I'm making wiser snack choices for him. But, he's still getting much more than he needs.

Good Thing #3: My friends are super supportive and give me nice feedback, which is encouraging.

This weeks goal: I'm going to eat no more than 15tsp of added sugar/day. I know this is the same goal as last week. But, it's like 7th grade art class: I failed, so I've gotta take it again.

"Aha" Moment - Lorrie

The following story is written by my friend,  Lorrie B. She and I worked together for 2 years, and I was able to talk with her in bits-and-pieces about her journey to a better self. We would talk about the different things she was trying to do to lose weight, and I remember the day she announced that she had successfully gotten in the habit of going to the gym everyday, and was loving it! Then she endlessly invited me to go with her. (She quickly discovered that was a losing-battle). She is truly an inspiration for any young woman who is looking to lose weight, adapt a diet, and exercise more. Thanks for sharing your story, Lorrie!

   My first “aha” moment was in the summer of 2010 when I stepped on the scale at a local Big Lots. I was at my biggest, in the 270’s! I have been plus size my whole life but just kind of ignored it. The smallest I can remember being is a size 16 and that was when I was 13 years old. I started to realize the toll of the extra weight on my body. My back would go out every few weeks, I had severe pain in my feet even when I stood for only a few hours, It was harder to keep up with people, and don’t even get me started on “chub rub”.  If I wore a dress within a few hours my inner thighs would be swollen and at the end of the day they would be bleeding. I decided I needed to make a change so I could live a happier life. 

The first thing I needed to do was focus my mind and start setting goals for myself. Practicing SGI Buddhism really helped me achieve those things, through chanting. Being addicted to sugar  and cheese was a hard habit to break. I quit the sugary drinks. I was already a vegetarian at this point  but you might as well have called me a “cheese-atarian”. My boyfriend and I decided to go vegan for our health because of how addicted I was to cheese. As a result of these changes I dropped down to 258. I really wanted to lose more weight but didn’t know how to start.  This is when I saw celebrities on TV/ videos on you tube of people doing the lemonade diet and I decided to give it a try. I convinced my boyfriend to go along with me. On this diet my goal was to drink this lemonade and not eat  for at least a few weeks. Not surprisingly on day 4 I felt week and terribly hungry!  My boyfriend  came home and said that he had done some research on this diet and said that over all this was not a healthy way to lose weight. I agreed and that night we each had a giant bowl of red beans and rice. I can’t remember the last time I enjoyed food so much! I did lose 7 pounds during that 4 day period but gained it right back. Ultimately this is when I decided to find a healthy approach to weight loss that would not be a quick fix but a lifestyle change.

A few weeks later my boyfriend called me from his work telling me that he had found this free calorie counting website “caloriecount.about.com”. I wasn’t sure if this would work for me but I gave it a try. It took a few weeks to get the hang of logging everything that I ate. I learned how many calories that I needed  to eat to lose the amount I wanted to lose per week (2 pounds) based off of my personal info like my height, age, and activity level. I realized the more that I exercised the more I could eat while losing weight.  The website started me off with 2,000 calories (now I‘m down to 1,700).  For the next 21 days exercised because I wanted to make a habit of  it. I would go for 6 mile walks with my boyfriend and go to the gym on the days we didn’t go walking. After 21 days I knew I was in the habit so from then on I allowed myself 1 day off per week. Sundays became my weigh in day, I focused on my nutrition, and wrote down every work out I did on my calendar. It was so exciting to watch the pounds come off each week and reach my goals! 

It has been almost 7 months of diet and exercise. Now I am down to 200.6 (57.4 lost). No longer am I in pain and I am over half way to my goal of losing 100 pounds in one year!

Ice Cream Wars

Oh ice cream, why did I buy you two weeks ago? Luckily, Richard ate a full carton by himself (what to do with that man), but the cookie dough ice cream has been calling my name a lot this weekend, and I answered that call.

Someone told a funny story in church today. In short, this guy said his grandmother had some weight-issues, and she was trying to combat her sweets addiction. So being a religious person, she prayed about it. And the next day she woke up and announced she no longer liked chocolate. According to her grandson, she was dead serious; that she no longer cared for the taste. And from then on she found it easy to say no to chocolate.

It was a funny story, and afterwards, my friend nudged me with his elbow. I guess I know how to solve my addiction problem now! Hahaha. In all seriousness, though, I think prayer is a good tool to use when combating an addiction.

But another good idea is not buying the ice cream in the first place.