Saturday morning

It's a gorgeous Saturday morning here, and I can't wait to (hopefully) spend most of it at home doing things. Somehow it's much easier to be energized when it's nice outside, even if part of my day will be spent indoors doing laundry, dishes, and general household duties. I need to mow our yard too, but that's not a chore to me. For some odd reason, I love doing it! Weird, yes, but also quite handy. Might as well love something that has to be done!

I can't say I've been doing so great in the dietary department. I've been faithfully taking a lunch to work that includes some type of fruit and an approximate 100-calorie snack for mid-morning. Sometimes that's 1 oz of cheese, sometimes it's a handful of crackers, or sometimes a serving of chex mix or rice cakes. Usually whatever is handy. For lunch, I take a salad, or leftover veges with a little meat, or a sandwich. I then try to take a 2nd fruit for lunch as well. I think I need to start tossing in some mid-afternoon healthy snack, though. I end up craving something sweet every day, and most days cave in on the way home and grab something to "snack on" at the grocery store for the ride home. This is just not good! Often, it's not a piece of fruit or a serving of anything, because I'm also trying to watch the budget and hate to pay 65 cents for a single snack of whatever it is when I know I can get a box or package with multiple servings for just a dollar or two more. So, I end up with granola bars, or chips or something unplanned. My ride home from work is long so I end up mindlessly eating more than one serving. Once I cave in to the temptation, it seems to be shot for the rest of the evening, and I often have some type of dessert after dinner also. I'm my own worst enemy!!!

So, the new plan is to incorporate this need for something mid-afternoon, and start taking it with me. I'm not sure what that will be yet, since I wasn't planning to do any more shopping until next week. If we don't wipe out the stash over this weekend, I think I can come up with enough to help me make it thru the first day or two and I can plan my purchases based on the sale flyers for the rest of the week.

Later....

A nice day for a walk

I resumed my lunch-time walks again today. Four laps on the track is a mile, so I spent about 20 minutes at lunch and walked my mile. It was beautiful out, and it's just so nice to get away from my desk for a little breath of fresh air. I think I might need new sneakers soon, though. I have some gel inserts, but they still don't feel all that comfortable. And I know it's important to have proper footwear for walking!

It seems like every day there is something that gets in the way of my plans to cut back. I ususally buy light bread, with just 40 calories per slice. The store was out of my usual brand that I get for $1.59, or $1.09 when they have it on clearance (which is normally when I buy it). Other brands were $2.79 or something totally ridiculous, so I bought some regular wheat bread for $2 minus a 55 cent coupon. It's yummy! But each slice is the same number of calories as 2 slices of my light bread. So, theoretically, I should just have a 1/2 sandwich each time. It makes sense, but I haven't been doing it.

Not so much in control

I'm not having a very good day. Finances are stressing me out, two of my dogs got in a fight, and it's raining. I should be able to suck it all up, but it's not happening today. I tend to fall back to my old ways when I get too stressed out, and my old ways involve mindless eating to relieve the stress. Ugh!

It's getting late in the day, though, so I'll just try to make it thru dinner without doing further damage, go to bed, get up and start tomorrow on a brighter note.

Good blood pressure

I went to my doctor toward the end of this week, just to check in and refill a prescription. Nothing new, nothing exciting. I swear he was only in the room with my 5 minutes at the absolute most. I must make it too easy for him, with no questions at all. The nurse was in before him for about 10 minutes, so I guess it really will be worth the $125 or whatever they charge. The bad news? I've gained weight since I was there a year ago. The good news? My blood pressure is very good - 102/60. Can't complain about that!

I've had some delicious salads this week, and I got all of them on the reduced rack at the grocery store. One day I found a bag of broccoli coleslaw for 50 cents. They might have been worried it was getting close to past date, but it tastes just fine. I can't really tell the difference between it and regular cabbage coleslaw. They also had a bag of fresh spinach for 99 cents. I was planning to cook that one night, but just a day later at the same store, they had bags of Dole complete Caeser salad mix (lettuce, croutons, dressing, and parmesan cheese) marked down to 99 cents. There were coupons right near them for $1 off, so I bought two of those free. They are still plenty fresh, and I've been having those with the fresh spinach mixed in for lunches and filler for dinner for several days this week. Yum! It makes me feel SOOO healthy when I go up to the checkout and I have all this green leafy stuff! (They probably look at me and wonder where I buy all the junk food that I must eat, because I sure don't look like I just eat salads!)

Walking, walking

After some lousy weather that got in the way of my walking, I've been able to go the past two days. Yesterday I "hit the track" in between jobs. It was my last day at the 2nd job, at least until next year, so that won't get in the way of my walks anymore either. I had about 45 minutes to spare, so it was nice to take that walk and clear my head during that time.

Today I went out at lunch time. It was just a gorgeous day! Birds chirping, freshly mowed yards, and all that good stuff.

I haven't really been losing pounds in the past few weeks, since I started this up again. I don't know why! I've cut way back on the sweets, except for the last few days (since Easter). I'm trying to ignore the fact that the scale isn't budging, and focusing instead on how I must be replacing fat with muscle since I began my exercising. I mean, c'mon...SOMETHING good must be happening! I do find that the walks give me energy, so that's positive. I finally updated my weight tracker on the sidebar, but unfortunately it's up from where I was last time I tracked it. I didn't reset everything when I started up again. I just left the info like it had been so that I could have that positive reinforcement. But, when I logged on today, it told me it had been 80+ days, and I had to update it. So I did, but it went up a few pounds. Boo hoo!

Post-Easter greetings

I hope everyone had a nice Easter. Mine was great! Lots of good food, and I don't think I overate. I did allow myself to eat some of everything, including a wonderful chocolate cake that one of our guests made. But, even with eating that, I didn't feel miserable, like I have at some other holidays.

I had some delicious steamed veges. I don't think anyone else was thrilled with them, but I was! They are Pictsweet Steamables, Oriental Seasoned Asian Vegetables with Sugar Snap Peas. One cup is just 35 calories. Try it, you'll like it! The leftovers went with me for lunch today. I may stop by the grocery store again this week and pick up more bags on sale.

A little spluge

I splurged a little tonight, and I probably shouldn't have. DH was in the mood for Chinese food, and I wasn't in the mood to cook, so I gave in and picked some up on the way home. Then we had some ready-to-bake cookies, so I stuck those in the oven to finish off the meal. It was all really delicious, but now I am super thirsty! Chinese food always does that to me.

I'm determined to make this just a little blip in the radar though. It's supposed to be nice tomorrow (finally! it's been rainy for 2 days), so I'm planning to get up in the morning and go for my walk first thing. First, that will get it out of the way so I don't get too busy and run out of time, and second, that will hopefully kick start my metabolism for the day. Who knows, if it stays nice and I get the urge later in the day, I might go for a 2nd walk!

I'm working on ideas for Easter dinner. I found a lower-fat recipe for scalloped potatoes, and I'm leaning toward having at least 2 dishes/desserts that are low-cal or healthy. Maybe fruit salad and/or a sugar-free jello whip. The rest will be normal things to please all the guys, but that way I can fill 1/2 my plate with the healthy stuff, and not overeat on the rest.

National Start! Walking Day

Today was the American Heart Association's National Start! Walking Day. I didn't "start" today, but I continued my progress lately of walking about a mile a day. Sometimes I go at lunch at work, and ironically today, even though they had an event to promote the Start! Walking Day at work, I couldn't go because I had a doctor's appointment. I would have liked to. They probably had some type of incentive for people that showed up too.

Oh well, I didn't need any incentive. I just made sure to go when I got home from work. Me and 4 dogs! We live on back roads without many neighbors, so I don't need to put them on a leash or anything. They stayed with me part of the time, but then took off into the woods after a rabbit. Yesterday, it was deer they were chasing. That was comical. I saw the tails of the deer as they jumped a fence up ahead and went bounding off into the woods. The dogs gave chase, barking and yipping. Well, about 5 minutes later, here come the deer back across the road further ahead of me. A few minutes later, here come the dogs! Of course, they never did catch up.

I'd love to hear if you started walking today...

Fruits and veges

I shopped so healthy today! Canteloupe, carrots, celery, onions, bananas, skim milk. This is in addition to purchases yesterday of lettuce & tomatoes. I think I'll be having lots of salads! I also might make a batch of stir fry some night with either beef or chicken.

I was hoping for strawberries too, but I missed a great sale on them, so I didn't purchase any. It was just a 3-day sale and I didn't know it. Oh well, the canteloupe is fine by itself too. I thought the strawberries & canteloupe would make a nice fruit salad. I just finished the last of the salad I made last week with canteloupe, grapes and kiwi. Yummy. The canteloupe isn't quite ripe yet, so maybe I'll find some other fruit on sale later this week to add with it. Most of our stores have sales Wednesday to the following Tuesday, so a new ad should be coming out soon.

What will I look like?

I survived the auction yesterday without buying ANY food from the concession stand. I brought a sandwich and fruit salad and diet cokes, and that's all I ate for lunch. I had an apple later in the day that I'd brought too. I didn't end up going for a walk during the auction, but I did a lot of back & forth walking between the two sales that were in progress. My feet and legs ached by the end of the day, so hopefully the walking back & forth was enough to do me some good!

Here's a neat tool for motivation. It's the Weight Loss Simulator tool by Prevention, so you can see what you'll look like after weight loss. http://www.prevention.com/mvm/main.html Try it! It's pretty neat. Of course, if you're like me, you can just look at pictures of yourself from several years back and see exactly what you'll look like after weight loss...except the face has a much younger appearance in those pictures! LOL

Going once, going twice, sold!

We are heading to an auction today at one of the local high schools. They have an annual FFA auction, where you just never know what you'll find. There is usually a ton of farm equipment and vehicles, and then just a bunch of you-never-know-what. I would actually rather not go, since I know if we go, we'll spend SOME money, but it's like an annual tradition.

While I head outside to chore this morning, I'll have to think about how to handle the eating part of the day. Usually, I just buy from the cook shack that they have set up - hamburgs, hotdogs, chili, chips, snacks, etc. I think I might try to bring some stuff today instead - sandwiches and fruit salad and drink are all I can really come up with in my head right now. We don't have a lot of other grab-n-go food, since that's usually not a wise diet choice. I may give it more thought though. If I run out of time to pack stuff, there is a McDonalds down the street. I LOVE their grilled chicken ranch salad more so than any hamburger that I've ever gotten at McD's. So, I have that as one option. There is also a grocery store just a mile or so away. I could always go there for other healthier choices. Just saying that gave me a brainstorm. I do sometimes get bored at the auction, even though they generally have 2 auctioneers set up at once in different areas. I could always go for my walk to either the grocery store or McDs. It's supposed to be a beautiful day, so I just might do that!

This is not an April fool's joke

Ok, I fell off the wagon there for awhile, and I think I must have gotten run over by it too. Not that I'm any flatter, just fatter. Ugh, ugh, ugh. But, I am back, and it came about in a strange way.

I was watching Wife Swap last week, and one of the couples were very into visualizing their success. They were maybe a little overboard with it, as is everyone on that show of course, but something about it struck a chord with me. It's the whole "secret" theme, power of positive thinking, etc. etc. Something clicked, and I thought to myself, I CAN do this. So, on April 1st, I started to change things. I've been walking both at lunch at after work several times this week. I looked at my normal breakfast, and trimmed it back a bit. I've started paying attention to calories and reading tips and hints to give me a new perspective on eating healthier.

Then, last night, Suze Orman was on Oprah, and she was insisting that people need to quit looking over their shoulder (to what they used to have) while they are trying to move forward. Of course, her advice was for finances, but it seems like great advice for losing weight. I have to quit thinking about where I was just a few years ago, several pounds lighter, and focus on how to move forward.

So, my new motto is: eyes on the prize! I need to visualize myself as a success, and focus on the end goal.