Friday, April 8, 2011

Friday!!...

THANK GOD IT'S FRIDAY!!! I am STILL not caught up from the power being out on Monday!! I really should go in for a couple of hours some time this weekend, but I don't know if I can face those 4 walls when I am off. Took Christina to Christian's house last night after practiceand she will be home tomorrow. Christian is bringing her home and then she and Isabella are staying and spending the day with me. We will be dropping Christina off at the mall so that she can spend some time with her boyfriend. Yikes!! They like each other a couple of years ago and then they had a big fight and broke up. She was really hurt and he has been trying to get back together off and on for a while now. We'll see how it goes. She is 16 and has not had a first date yet. She made the purity promise when she was 12 and swears that she will keep it. I will be trying Zumba at my gym in the morning. I really hope I enjoy it and can do it. I used to love to dance but it has been years. I know y'all will think I am crazy, but I loved disco!! I was in jr high/middle school when it was popular and adored the Bee Gees, Diana Ross, Peter Frampton, Abba...those were the days. I remember going to a birthday party and we danced for hours!! Been very diligent with the diet and following the plan, I just hope I don't blow it this weekend. Weekends are my downfall. We tend to eat out a lot and I don't always make the best choices when we do. I have told my family that we have to stop doing this. They have said that they will stop pushing me to take them out or if its me and the girls, we will go somewhere that I can get a salad or something else plan friendly. With the last couple of weeks of meal that Allan has given us for the challenge the calories have been different on each day. He said something (paraphrasing) about helping us to be flexible but still keep losing weight. Having a high calorie day and then a low calorie day so that we can learn to adjust. In keeping with that, I have been reading a lot of label and oh, my gosh!! I had no idea the calorie content of some of my favorite foods. I have been looking at label with the phase 4 food plan in mind...basically 3 meals at 300 calories and 3 snacks at 100 calories for a total of 1200 per day. Easy to remember. I looked at mac and cheese and me and Christina would split a box and have that for lunch on a lazy Saturday. The way I made it, with a whole stick of real butter instead of margarine, it was about 2000 calories for the box, I would eat about 2/3's of it. A bologna sandwich, 2 slices of bread, 2 slices of bologna, 1 slice of am cheese and mayo and mustard. Easy 500 calories, my husband would eat 2, with chips. Dear God, what we were doing to ourselves?? It is really scary when I look at what we were eating and some of my family still does. I stopped buying snack food 3 months ago. My husband will go and buy him a stash every now and then, but I am realizing it is not always what I would consider junk food that is making us fat. It is the ungodly amount of carbs that we were eating and I don't mean all carbs but the bad ones. White bread, starchy veggies breaded foods, sugar and pasta. I realized today that I have never been on a diet for this long before in my life. It will be 3 months tomorrow since I started. I took phen/fen for a few months but that doesn't really count because I didn't change the way I ate, I just ate less. I didn't learn anything. I pray that this time is different, it feels different, it feels like I could do this for the rest of my life. I pray that this is a permanent change in my life, my attitude towards food and my health.

6 comments:

  1. Isn't it awesome when you finally "get it" and see the amount of junk we were eating. I'm with you on the mac and cheese, we'd add tons of hotdogs to ours to make it even worse. Frozen pizza and mac and cheese night was a regular thing around here years ago. I shiver when I think of it!

    Eat well if you go out this weekend! Don't blow it! Remember, the food just isn't worth it. :-)

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  2. Oh, and to answer your question about the baked oatmeal? You can use any kind of fruit. Dried cranberries would be great! I've used strawberries too. Thanks!

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  3. What a great post! I love those "light bulb moments" when things start to click. You are definitely on the right path. :)

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  4. Epiphany. I'm always amazed that folks don't realize what and how much they're eating. I guess cause I always have been great at estimating calories and I read a lot of diet books (which always talked about calories, protein,f at, etc). I knew I ate it, but I ate it knowing. So, yeah, I'd eat 3500 and 4000 calories at my highest weight...and when I was 'watching it" 2500+.

    This is why people who criticize labels need to get a clue. Americans are nutrition ignorant. They simply can't seem to understand that fruits and veggies and haelthy proteins,e tc = good. That too much salt, processing, sugar, etc = bad. And that calories add up fast.

    Me, my problem wasn't knowing nutrition--shoot, I raed nutrition books and even took courses in nutrition and microbiology for teh fun of it--but my problem was CONTROL. Binging and out of control eating. I needed strategies to contorol portions and avoid triggers. I already knew what was good to eat. :D

    Let's keep learning, improving, and becoming wise consumers. For everyone's sake.

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  5. When you learn and figure it out, it's just about doing and you're doing. Good job. You keep it up and you'll be where you want to be in no time at all. Keep up the great work. Have a great and blessed weekend.

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