P 6

I felt the need for a change, so after looking at the plan and talking to my doc,  I am doing P6.  Actually this is the perfect week to start this.  I have a meeting at the end of the week,  so I will be sitting in lectures rather than on my feet at work.  It will be a good time to be eating a limited amount as just sitting there I sometimes find myself eating junk and I won't be this week.  I did my shopping on Sat and bought a blender jar with a whip like ball in it and an Oster smoothie blender(it was a mother's day gift).  Today went pretty well until I tried to do some liquid vitamins......almost lost it!  Tried diluting them with grape drink which helped the taste,  but not my stomach....will visit with my doc tomorrow to see if she has an idea......I'm thinking maybe chewable vits?  I've never done well with vitamins and try to eat a lot of veggies and as I'm sure they aren't there to make me sick will try to figure out how to get my vits without getting sick.  I've had lots of fluids...back to my original liquid level plus today and lots of bathroom trips.
Blender review....it worked well,  added some ice tonight and got a nice  texture to the mix......but there is no way I can drink from the drink lid to the container. If I get a long straw I will be able to use it for drinking, but I had to take the lid off to use it at work this morning....will pour into a lidded cup tomorrow. I put tonight's mix into a mug I had put into the freezer to chill.

Here's to tomorrow.

shopping

I went shopping this week........in my closet and storage boxes. About 3 years ago I took a number of things out of my closet as i kept trying to put them on for work and they would be too small. I also moved some things to the end of the work rack. Now I have other things that are smaller in the back but these were the clothes that I had been wearing and now they didn't fit. It was after my kitty died and I fell off the weight loss wagon and just started to eat junk again and just kept going and gaining.  There were brief periods of loss but they were followed by gains until this past oct when I finally got my head straightened out about my food.  Unfortunately a lot of this weight gain is in my abdomen and less is coming off from there so that even though I now weigh less than I did 5 years ago some things don't fit yet....but lots and lots do. So i now have more pants and tops to wear to work this spring and summer than for the last 3 years. i have also bought a bunch of inexpensive tops at walmart that are a little too tight still so that I will have to work on getting into them in the next month or so. 
Size is a very interesting thing. The clothes that fit vary in size from XL to 3X and from 16 to 24. The shirts that are still too tight from walmart are an 2X and yet many XLs fit in more expensive tops from Saks and Niemans.  In other words I can wear a top in size 16 if I pay $150. but need a 3X if I pay $7.  Once when I generally wore 8's I tried on an outfit that I thought was too old looking from me at a store that I shopped in.....it was also more than I wanted to spend but it fit fine in a 4......at the time I remember thinking that some woman would probably pay extra just so they could say that they wore a 4.  I'll settle for the 7 dollar 3X right now as I plan to be giving it away in a few months, but it's really nice to have more clothes to wear without spending a lot.

funerals and weight

I was frustrated with my weight this past week, but opening the paper and seeing that someone i know had died at 57 kinda of put it in perspective.  It doesn't mean i should stop my diet...if anything it should make me keep to it better so my son doesn't lose his mother like his friend lost his dad.....but it does put the importance of what I will post later in it's place.  His friends dad was never heavy in the 25+ yrs i knew him...he used to be a lean busy man......and then he developed a chronic debilitating disease and then other systems began to break down and give him problems.  The last time I saw him he was on the thin side and with his muscle wasting he did not look good....if only we could convince the anorexics that thin doesn't always look good....forget you can never be too thin, you can.
I need to continue on the straight and narrow, eating right and tracking my food, cal, and fluids...I also need to get going and exercise to the limit that i can without injuring my hurt joints while I am still healthy enough to.....but whether I lose 3 to 4 pounds this week or 1/2 to 1 doesn't matter as long as I'm doing the right thing. The end will be reached with consistency and then I will know that I did my part to stay around.

Now the saga of my weight:
i started with the low carb days from P5 at 242
and the following week i was 239
i then rtnd to the higher carb days and on tues i was 240.5
i was on plan  and on water.  i then cut the carbs down some
and on thur i was 238
but in looking over my tracker i realized my water was low......
so i increased it and on sat was 239
and on sun 238.5.
I am now using a mix of the days and eating 3 fruits but keeping the carbs such as pot, rice, crackers, bread to complex choices and to 2 servings. I am back to a min of 18 glasses of fluids and picking days with more protein from among all the various menus we have.  Continuing to weigh and measure and will restart the exercise program and will see how this week does. I have 23 weeks and 80 pounds to reach my goal by my birthday.....so I need to average 2 pounds a week....and as I know that the loss is slower closer to goal, i need more than 1/2 or 1 pound now....

carbs

I increased my carbs this week and immediately the scale went up a bit even though I was eating on plan.  I have rearranged the days again as I want more food at lunch which wasn't a problem last week using the low carb days.  It was better this morning but had a pretty high carb lunch and tonight it looks like tuna and salad...so I did my salad and will have my tuna later and maybe add some cherry tomatoes, baby carrots and cucumber to fill me up.  I feel for the people who are guineaning phase 6. I have to decide if I want to give it a try....I may not be able to do it but I would like to at least be able to consider it so I need to get my eating under better control.  I think I will finish out this week as I bought potatoes and things but i think I may go back to the low carb days next week. Maybe eat more fish and sub some meat in one night so I don't feel like there is so so much chicken....I know some is turkey but it tastes the same.


Now if I can just kick the no exercise bug and get moving I should be set for this last month. Funny even on my bad days my cal are pretty good....figure that even if I'm off slightly in my counts I'm still doing well and I  measure and weigh everything I can except for raw vegetables.  I didn't get fat eating  some extra lettuce or cabbage......it was that that second serving  or that giant potato.

Phase 3/4/5

Happy Easter, Passover, whatever, or nothing...whatever makes you happy.
Allan posted the people that started in phase one and where they are today.....I hope more of them are still on their journey down even if not in the program...I know a couple that are still trying though they couldn't do the program anymore. I didn't start with Allan even though I started about the same time. I jumped in a few days late in Phase 3....on 8 Dec 2010 @ 276 pounds. As of this morning I weigh 239 for a loss of 37 pounds in these 3 phases.  Since starting  on 18 Oct 2010 I have lost 56 pounds  for an average of 2 pounds a week.  If I can continue to average this I will be under 200 at a year...even if I slow(I don't want to but I am aware that my body may do this to me as it did in the past when I did WW) to a pound a week I would still lose more than 80 pounds in the year. Mir spoke about consistency and this is what I am aiming for....to consistently move downward and reach my goal. I've become convinced that I will get there and would like to be there by my birthday next year. To do that I will need to average 2 pounds a week.....will try but I refuse to beat myself up if I can't do it as I want to continue to be positive on this downward trip.
My week of low carb will end today and I will be returning to the earlier meal plans. Chicken is on the menu for tomorrow night but we are eating with friends for the holiday and while healthy the meal will have some more carbs and I will be using some of the other meals to make dinner work. Monday I think will be a day with Tuna....I miss the tuna from the earlier meal days and will definitely be doing a steak and mushroom day.

Egg or Fly

I know its been a while since I wrote anything bu try as I did I couldn't seem to be able to access this site while abroad.  I did try to make good choices from what was available but 15days of eating out is different from being at home. I did have to drink less as the minibus only stopped at planned times and our whole group noticed that the food was salty. I gained some bloating and fluid weight after the flight over that stayed during the trip and took about 48 hours to disappear when we came home...but in the past it has taken me much longer to shed my flying bloat..so not too bad.  I was hoping to continue to lose about a pound a week but only managed to lose one pound overall. Lots of fresh fruits and vegetables to eat at most meals so that generally helped but sometimes there was no choice on what we ate and the only thing I could do was eat only a fairly small portion.

Since i wasn't here for the lowcarb week and only downloaded it when I returned I have been doing that this week.....I think between the chicken and turkey I have eaten I am ready to either lay an egg or fly away. I am looking forward to redoing some of the original days so that I can have some steak and mushrooms. When i first read about the salad with the chopped celery, pepper, cabbage and carrots I thought I wouldn't like it .....now I make almost all my salads that way. I enjoy the texture variations and find I need little dressing to enjoy the salad.

It's been a crazy busy week at work after being gone almost 3 weeks and I'm just catching up on some of the blogs......I'd like to do P-6 but I wonder if I will be able to.  Will decide after more info is available. part of me wishes I had know about P1/2...but I am glad to have joined in P3 and even if i can't do 6 I have gotten lots of good ideas to continue on with over the next year.  Lets see...chicken and salad and brown rice for dinner tonight....big surprise(lol)

NSV

I know...its been a while since i posted...busy at work and home and managing my food.  I'm continuing to lose weight even if i had to do 2 high cal days in a row.....didn't do 1900 but only because between bk and lunch i didn't eat my whole dinner or snacks......i should probably have spread out those days but that's how the cookie....no cookies how about the tacos crumble.  i probably ruined the diet by adding a little sourcream to my tacos but i always liked the ones with that at Taco Bell.

Okay it says nsv as my title.....I can now fit into the booths  when we go out to eat.  I can bend over way easier. My arms are getting flabby and my abdomen is getting soft(less fat maybe someday it will shrink and then get toned and firm but i may need to be reincarnated for that to happen).  I can fit into some of my older clothes.  I was able to buy a few things in a size smaller.  I feel full with smaller portions. I thought of others the other nite in bed....knew i should have gotten up and written them down then.

Thanks to everyone that has encouraged me and sent me happy comments on reaching 50 pounds. On ward and downward.