dukkelisa

I kept track on my other blog and posting it here now, since this one seemed to be down on Sunday.

Author: myredherring

2 Mar

Today I completed a full week on my new plan. I surprised myself by being able to do it without any resentment. This time, I slid into it like it was an old well worn glove. It fits.

I averaged 1550 calories for the week, 48.1 carbs and 40.1 net carbs. The carbs were mostly from veggies, milk, carrots and a few bites of potato. I also had popcorn and marzipan, but in such small amounts, it didn’t add up too bad. I lost 4 pounds.

This week I plan on dropping my average carbs down further.

3 Mar

I prepare the same breakfast for my husband and I each Sunday. Sunny side up eggs, Jimmi Dean sausages and hashed browns. I used to really look forward to this breakfast because during the week breakfast is small and light. There was a catch, after this huge breakfast I would crash. I would feel sleepy and want to go back to bed.

Yesterday, I rationalized that I could cut back on the carbs the rest of the day in order to have the breakfast. I put perhaps half of what I used to eat in hashed browns on my plate. I started with the eggs and sausages. After two or three bites of the browns, I decided not to have any more. I was quite proud of myself for stopping there. I know now that next weekend, I will not have any and not miss it.

Dinner was the next hard one. I made garlic hotwings (no batter) cucumber slices and husband wanted fries (oven kind). I had about 4 fries. I am not by any means a person that must have potatoes. These choices seemed to be nothing more than being obstinate. My total for the day: a whopping 2220 calories and 43.3 carbs (net 38.77). This morning the scale went up 1 pound. Sodium was at 3000mg, so it may be water weight. Something to watch.

3 Mar

Oh, for the hatred of Mondays. I made it through, didn’t kill anyone, so there must be a blessing in that. I ate fine even though my mood was not good, but forgot my afternoon snack of almonds. I had to run an errand at a pharmacy and all they had to eat that was LC was jerky and nuts. I chose pistachios. This saved me. I was able to pass by all the junk foods.
Meals today:

2 slices gouda with 2 slices braunsweiger, tea

4 small turkey rollups (cream cheese and spinach), herbal tea

pistachios

shrimp scampi, simple salad, blue cheese dressing

1640 calories, 30.2 carbs (net 21.12)

I think a big key to my success this time will be that 3 pm snack. I can tell that I really need something to hold me over until dinner, which is 7-8 pm during the week because of husband’s hours. So far, this is working for me! I feel really good internally.

I know it’s only been a week, but I long to notice more changes.

4 Mar

Fiddlesticks. That’s all I have to say about that.

Meals today:

lettuce wraps (braunsweiger, cream cheese) tea

pistachios

Spinach salad with turkey, tomatoes and bleu cheese dressing, herbal tea

almonds

Chili (beef, tomatoes, onions)

1420 calories, 36.5 carbs (26.1 net)

I am not sure what my nighttime problem has been. I am waking up during the night and most mornings with a neck and should pain with a headache. My pillow may no longer be the right height. I bought a new one tonight to see if it helps. It could be the stress too. It may also be that I am not drinking enough water. I need to work on that.

So far, I am not having any major temptations. Which is strange. I was feeling better at the beginning of last week, but so far this week I am back to dragging. It’s also much easier to LC this time around. I thought it would be harder since I cook for two. I am finding ways to help myself stay focussed. Tonight I made chili, starting the beef in one pan, and starting the onions, tomatoes and garlic in the dutch oven. I then put some beef in another pan, added some of the tomato mixture and that was my chili. The rest of the beef went in with the tomato mixture. I then added the beans and corn that my husband likes. Mine stayed plain. I then seasoned both. I’ve done this twice now, and he hasn’t asked why.

Sigh. Friday is over with, so no sense in re-hashing the stupid. Today, I noticed after breakfast, I felt really good. it’s kinda a nirvana feeling when you eat exactly the right amount of food and feel satisfied, but empty. I can’t explain it well, but I felt it.

I had lots of triggers today. My mother telling me I ought to visit gramma. A young co-worker leaving early because her little puppy needed her. A boss that wanted me to make her life better. I noticed that because I am low in carbs and my appetite is at the bottom of the scale, I am not as prone to think that eating garbage will make me feel better. What will honestly make me feel better is separating work life from my personal life.

I went to the hobby store after work and browsed for 2 hours! I let my imagination fly with ideas. I drove home feeling separated from work and so much better. Husband helped even more by talking his soothing talk and I was able to relax. We have nearly perfected our retirement dream and we are now able to put it down on paper and work towards it. In three years we will sell our house. We will buy an 2008 Airstream. We will live in that for 2 more years and continue to work full time. We will then have enough money to live about 1 year traveling the country. We then work 1-2 more years part-time and have enough money to move to Italy. Our pensions will kick in then and we are happy in our little villa by the sea. Husband is the master planner, and can make all our dreams come true.

Now, if I can only let go of the effects of work, shrug it off and tell myself that there is more to life than working like an idiot. The problem after working for 35 years is that is has lost it’s meaning.

Today’s Meals:

4 roast beef rollups (cream cheese, cucumber), tea

3 ham rollups (cream cheese, beetroot, onion), tea

almonds

1 cup shrimp scampi, salad with bleu cheese dressing, 3 steak fries, 2 glasses zinfandel

2 cups popcorn (husband made it and brought me a bowl. The scent overwhelmed me. I looked up the carbs before having it). I don’t feel this was a good choice.

Calories: 1430, carbs 41.8 (35.34 net)

Today was even worse than yesterday and my mood was down and out angry. Nothing frustrates me more than chaos and last minute craziness. But this is the way my boss operates and there is nothing I can do about it but adjust to it or leave.

I didn’t feel like eating over it, but I sure did feel like a drink. After work I stopped in a used bookstore and found Dana Carpender;s HOW I GAVE UP MY LOW FAT DIET AND LOST 40 POUNDS AND YOU CAN TOO. Whew, that is a long title. It was .99, so what the heck. I remember her name from back in my previous LC days. So I will have a very hot shower and go to bed with a book.

My meals today:

roast beef rollups with cream cheese and spinach and one tomato slice each, tea

ham with hollandaise sauce

Almonds (this is my 3 pm snack as I have to wait until 7-8 pm for dinner)

beef burger with onions, salad with avocado and bleu cheese dressing, tea

1610 calories, 41.7 carbs (34.63 net)

Another one of those chaotic ridiculous days that results from others spinning out of control and trying to drag me down with it. They simply don’t make any effort to be organized and prepared.

Nothing new in that department, but what was new was my lack of reaction. I felt angry for about 20 minutes, not the whole day. I can feel the change happening within only a few days of lowering my carbs. I feel calmer, more in control of my emotions. I must be extremely sensitive to excess carbs. Interesting. I noticed last night that I didn’t crash by 8pm. I felt awake and stayed up until 10 pm. It was getting to the point that after a meal I crashed. Not lately!

Today’s meals:

braunsweiger, cream cheese and tomato, tea

fresh spinach, tomato, onion, ham, bleu cheese dressing, herbal tea

almonds

chicken breast, cream sauce, roasted carrot

48 oz water

1520 calories, 36.9 carbs (net 26.9)

Today was even better than yesterday!  I feel human again.  The fog is lifting.

Today I ate:

Braunsweiger slices between gouda slices, tea

Blackforest ham rollups (hamd, cream cream and fresh spinach), herbal tea

Almonds (raw) 48 oz water

20 medium shrimp with broccoli,  sesame seeds and garlic in a asian style sauce

This was 1430 calories and 23.7 carbs (net 18.91)

YES!!!!!!!!!

I can really feel the difference. I am almost reluctant to admit it. I have been through this before and I remember feeling more alive and my emotions seemed to be more even (instead of rollercoasting) when I low carbed. Yesterday I managed 34 carbs, net 28. My meals:

Blackforest ham rollups (cream cheese and fresh spinach), tea

Spinach salad with homemade bleu cheese dressing and ham, tea

raw almonds

chili (ground beef, tomatoes, chili powder and garlic) with 2 tablespoons of sour cream
I drink 42 oz of plain water along with several cups of tea throughout the day.

When I did this back in the 1990’s, I remember feeling so good. But the weight did not want to come off. I know some of the things I did that hindered weight loss (like too much drinking) and I know there were times I ate a high calorie range with all the whipped cream and such. I also remember that back in those days, people were becoming fanatical about food intolerances and further restricting their diets to the point of just a few low carb foods and it became difficult to truly determine what worked and what didn’t. I got all caught up in that and life became miserable. Too restrictive creates binges for me. I was on and off low carb so many times that my body I am sure didn’t know what was going on. I turned against it and the obsession and found a better path with natural eating.

I reluctantly joined a low carb group and in my intro post, I mentioned that I was monitoring my normal eating for a week, before starting low carb to see where my natural carb range was and what the foods were. I mentioned which foods my carbs were coming from and I received all these “that’s not low carb” responses. Sigh. It is one of those things that irk me so much about dieting. People are so quick to spout what they ever read and not used comprehension in the equation.

My husband will often exclaim in shock the number of calories that a food will have. It doesn’t matter how many calories a particular food has, it matter how much you eat in a full day and average over time. When he was running, he would tell me how many miles he would have to run to burn off a certain high calorie food like ice cream. This concept is so screwed up. Again, it matters how many calories one eats, how much the body needs, how much energy is used for exercise and whether there are any extra that are stored. This has to be averaged over time. Sigh.

Anyways, I hated it back in my prior low carb days when everything I ate was scrutinized and evaluated and it became such a hassle. The negativity was overwhelming. This time I will have to find a way to keep it a positive experience.

I feel downright good today! Lowering my carbs has made an almost instant change. A little more energy and a little more alertness. I do not feel as tired as I have been.

I have been looking over my normal foods and trying to see where I can cut the carbs without any craziness. I know that I am already trying to resist changes, but if I want this, if I feel better, it seems I need to give up the protest.

I drink my coffee with half whole milk. I really like coffee this way and I think I can save it for the weekend. That’s a savings of 25 carbs in one week. I can easily give up the dinner potatoes (the hard one was the hashed browns on Sunday). I won’t give up carrots. I don’t eat bread. I also don’t care much for sweets. That leaves sauces, which I do love and the occasional marzipan fix.

I re-installed my old Diet Power Software and tracked my nutrition for a week. I track how I eat normally, my usual foods and amounts. I had an average of 110 carbs a day. I then tracked trying to reduce them and averaged about 60. I need to go lower than this. It’s an easier change that I thought. Meat and veggies, something I love to eat.  I am feeling very positive today.

Wild Geese
by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting,
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

I am watching the winter snow blow across the prairie from the warmth of my home and I am feeling very peaceful. I know I am now firmly dedicated to the actions I am taking towards better health. The biggest obstacle is the resentment that overtakes my best intentions. This attitude I get has hampered nearly ever attempt I have ever done to improve my food choices and eating habits. This time I feel I have eased into it and gradually accepted it in such a way that I know I will finish it.

I find the food journal on this site tedious. I have re-installed my Diet Power software since I really like it (or I am use to it, lol). This way I can keep all my usual foods handy and not have to look them up each time. I am aiming for lower carbs on my plan, not Atkins style by any means, but I was surprised at how quickly they add up. I ended the day with 91 carbs, 81 net effective carbs. I am ok with that, as I was doing my first count, but I can see that I will have to carefully choose the carbs I really want. I know I can drink coffee with cream, but I actually prefer milk. That’s 5 carbs right there. Sigh.

I also had rye wasa for breakfast and half a potato for dinner. Carrots and the salad made up the rest of the carbs. Okay, as long as they are from good sources. Still, I know that 30-75 is a better range for me, 50 being ideal. I ate exactly as I normally do, and saw that my total calories was 1770, which is pretty average for me. Again, I have done this so many times and know that it takes a mere 1600 calories to maintain my obese weight. I hate knowing that, as it means near starvation levels to lose weight. When I last lost 120 pounds, it was on 900 calories a day for nearly a year. Double sigh.

However, I am feeling peaceful and not resentful today. I will continue to monitor as long as it provides a tool for me and I don’t let the focus rest on the numbers, but more on how I feel and if it is working for me.

In other news, my daughter is still planning a lapband surgery.  She wrote to me about it and I have so many mixed feelings, it is hard to sort out.  I support her in whatever she chooses to do, but she pushed my fat button a bit with comments about me being healthy and have I had good health care and couldn’t I consider the surgery too?  The only thing that kept me from getting worked up about the finger pointing in my direction was to feel good about what I have done up until now to prepare the way for me to do it all the traditional and hard way.  I have no other choice, we are not rich enough to pay for the surgery and we have no health insurance for the same reason.  That’s how the cookie crumbles, diet wise.

I have been so glad I stepped back from the dieting mentality and went to natural eating. It always helps me to be in-tune with myself and my eating, even if I often sound negative or moody. Being 52 years old is really far more difficult physically. I have never known my body to be this achy, touchy or exhausted.

After several weeks of not excluding any foods and eating and stopping according to hunger, I can say with all honesty that eat exactly what my body seems to need calorie wise and my weight stayed exactly the same. I am still 285. I know that I can easily maintain my weight by staying steady on and having no extremes in calories from day to day. This gives me a great deal of peace of mind, because when I tried to maintain my thin weight years ago, I did not stay steady. I overate and then starved to keep my weight within a 5 pound range of my goal weight. Funny to be learning that now, when I am still obese! lol.

I long to feel good again. This past couple of years have been really hard on me with all the job upheavals, my daughter moving away and the illness. Watching my grandmother’s decline has been hard too. I realize that it is her time to soon go and this in turn affects my parents who will then move into the elder slot and I then move into their position. Family dynamics. We all feel the aging process keenly. I am well aware than losing weight now is not about becoming a sexy thang anymore. It’s about the ability to function for a full day without crashing.  Perhaps, for the first time in my adult life I can lose weight without the intense fears that use to devour me about being thin and attractive and vulnerable.

I will ease myself back into food monitoring for awhile. Husband if off to the grocery store and I requested several foods that will keep me in the lower carb range. I am going to start with seeing if how I eat naturally will fall into a less than 75 carb range. I’ll adjust according to how I feel. Right now my priority is to feel better. I am taking vitamins, drinking more water and working on reducing the whiskey consumption.

A couple of days last week I actually took the time to wear a very light application of makeup. I polished my nails. I bought a better natural shampoo for my hair and found fantastic hair pins that allow me to have a french twist again, even with my length. I experimented by putting my hair in a french twist and slept on it all night….wow…the pins hold that well! I will have to buy more of them, as I am always leaving hair pins all over the place.

I think that I am in a good emotional place today to work on the feeling-good part.   I love how the magazine ads of my childhood always made life look so glamorous and easy.  Don’t YOU keep cans of tomato juice with your fine glassware?  Don’t YOU look like she does when you get up in the morning?  With a big fat wedding ring, it must mean that only married women need to slim.  And, oh, how cute…the glass she drinks from reminds her of a svelte waistline.  Sigh….she is even smiling with joy.

I debate about whether to write this entry.  It’s not about me and high expectations.  But I have to stay aware of how I feel about things, even if they are not warranted.  I feel a bit off, a little distorted.  My husband made a few references to Valentines Day.  I received a box of chocolates from a client and he asked me not to eat them all, he wanted some after dinner.  I arrive home before him and I half expected that there would be some token on the table.  There wasn’t.  There wasn’t anything when he came home for dinner, even though he had a bag in his hand as he walked in the door.

I had set the table with our nice china and candle light which he really liked.  I gave him his present, which he really liked.   He has remembered every Valentines Days since we were married, but this one was nothing.  Not a card, not a word.  We both work at the same school, he saw and made comments about the roses the director received.  I showed him the cards and gifts we received from the parents.

How do I feel about this?  Is it an important day?  I have already read many blog entries of women hoping they don’t get any chocolate because it would ruin their diets.  I think, geez….someone thought about you! Someone cared enough.

I know that my husband is not romantic.  I know that he finds many of these kinds of things not worth the paper they are written on.  I feel childish for having the half hearted hope for a Valentine.  He never hesitates to please me and often lets me have something I want.  He isn’t cold hearted, he isn’t careless.  This just feels so strange.

In these moments that soon can turn sour and self depreciating, I try to remind myself that  I spent most of my adult life alone and Valentines Day was something that passed me by.  To be sad now is pointless.  Yet I know the effect.   I withdraw further into myself.  I isolate my feelings and become more protective.  Eventually this affects my eating and sense of self.

So without further adieu, I promptly take myself to bed and get a good nights sleep and stop the pity party.

A fine romance, with no kisses
A fine romance, my friend this is
We should be like a couple of hot tomatoes
But you’re as cold as yesterday’s mashed potatoes
A fine romance, you won’t nestle
A fine romance, you won’t wrestle
I might as well play bridge
With my old maid aunt
I haven’t got a chance
This is a fine romance

A fine romance, my good fellow
You take romance, I’ll take jello
You’re calmer than the seals
In the arctic ocean
At least they flap their fins
To express emotion
A fine romance with no quarrels
With no insults and all morals
I’ve never mussed the crease
In your blue serge pants
I never get the chance
This is a fine romance