Wedding survival guide

I attended 2 weddings in the past 2 weeks. I actually stood up in one of them, which was even more difficult. So here are my suggestions for wedding survival without blowing your diet.

• Don't starve yourself before the wedding. Yes, there's going to be a lot of food at the wedding, but that doesn't mean you should go all day without eating. You will end up eating more at the wedding to compensate. 
• The cocktail hour can be your friend. Just be sure to focus less on the alcohol, and more on the appetizers. Some good choices include raw vegetables, and cocktail shrimp. Stay away from anything swimming in sauce or covered in cheese. 
• Limit your alcohol consumption by drinking a glass of water between each drink. 
• During dinner stick with mainly proteins and vegetables. Watch out for anything swimming in oil or butter. Also be sure to watch out for salad dressings, because they probably aren't low-fat or low-calorie. 
• If you don't love it, don't eat it! Is the chicken dry? Can you make a better cake from a box? Then don't eat it! This is not a time to be part of the clean plate club. 
• When it comes to dessert, stick to just a few bites. The first few bites are the best anyway. 
• It's late in the night, and they bring out coney dogs, pizza, or something else. You don't have to eat it. If you really want it though, go for it. Just be sure to follow the "if you don't love it, don't eat it" rule. 
• Get out on the dance floor! Do the Hustle, the Cotton-Eyed Joe, or just dance your own way. You will burn off some of the calories that you ate.

On one hand, regrets... on the other hand, no regrets

When I stand naked in front of my full-length mirror, I am filled with regrets. Despite the fact that I now weigh roughly what I weighed my freshman year of high school, my body does NOT look like it did back then. To start with, there's the flab on the back of my arms. What a friend refers to as "bingo arms". If I could cut it off, and just leave the muscle, I would be happy. Then there's a little flab on the inside of my thighs. It's not as bad as the bingo arms, but it's still there. Next is the fact that my boobs are not where they were in high school. Gravity has taken over, and it's kind of scary. Then there's the stomach. I actually mentioned my stomach the other day to some coworkers, and one said "Where do you hide it?" I said "Under my clothes." I'm sure that most people don't realize how much of a stomach I really have. Due to a combination of being very overweight for a very long time, having one pregnancy, and having a c-section, I have a flabby stomach. It's like a half-deflated balloon. Finally, there's the stretch marks. Lots and lots of stretch marks that I don't think will ever go away. I regret the fact that I didn't realize back in high school that my weight was healthy. I regret that I gained more than 130 pounds. I regret that I didn't learn healthy eating and exercise habits when I was young. I regret that I waited so long before joining WW. I regret that I allowed myself to develop hypertension & type 2 diabetes.

On the other hand, I have no regrets. My body may be far from perfect, but the experiences of being overweight and successfully losing all of that weight have made me the person that I am today. Not only have I learned a lot about nutrition and exercise over the past 2 years, I have also learned a lot about who I am as a person. If I had managed to maintain my weight in high school, I would not be the same person that I am today. I think the experiences have made me stronger. They have taught me things that my previous methods of starvation & extreme exercise to lose weight would not have taught me. They have given me a sense of accomplishment & pride. So while I'm not happy that I endangered my health, I have no regrets.

30 day challenge day 20

This is for my WW friends, since I can't ever post pictures on that sight. This is me, my hubby, and my daughter. It was taken last Thanksgiving.

Dancing with myself

I've taken up a new "sport". Dancing in my living room. Almost every morning this week I have danced in my living room to one song. It started on Monday with a video on youtube, and has continued from there. I'm doing it partly to get a little more activity into my day, and partly just because I like to dance. I haven't actually gone out dancing in a very long time. This will help to curb that itch a little bit until I can actually go out dancing. Plus it counts as activity, and it helps my mood.

Do you dance by yourself?

Pic of me doing something silly

My sister and I at a Weird Al concert last summer.

MIA

Sorry I've been MIA lately. Between not feeling well, and having a lot on my mind, I just haven't felt like blogging much.

I have come to the realization that working for WW just isn't going to work out. I'm feeling mad, frustrated & depressed about the entire thing. Part of what kept me going on my weight loss journey was the thought of some day being a Leader. That probably won't happen now. So I'm looking into alternatives. I want to be able to help other people lose weight, so I'm looking into other ways to do that. I'm also looking into career counseling at the university that I attended. Hopefully that will help me find a career that's fulfilling.

I'm also thinking about our upcoming camping trip, about vacation next year, and so many other things. Plus my ears and throat have been hurting. So much fun!

Planning for a healthy vacation

We're going on vacation in just over a month. This year we're going camping. For the most part, it will just be a relaxing family vacation. We're planning to do a little fishing, and possibly going canoeing. We're also talking about going to a nearby amusement park.

I've started thinking about what we're going to eat while we're camping. Cooking on a little two-burner stove can be a little tricky, and not always healthy. Plus there's trying to keep food fresh in a cooler. I'm up for the challenge though! I'm planning to buy some of my favorite things here, that way I don't have to worry about whether or not I can find them in the small town that we're going to be in. There's a grocery store about 7 miles from the campground that we can go to for everything else. Maybe we'll even get lucky and find some fruit & vegetable stands.

I can't wait to go on vacation!

Surviving Easter

Major holidays can be a major form of stress. There's the preparation, the whiny kids, the overabundance of food, and the change in your normal routine. I'm lucky that I don't have a whole lot of preparation to do, since I don't do the cooking. I provided a turkey for my mom to cook. I did cook some asparagus at her house, but that was the extent of my actual cooking for dinner.

The day started out with breakfast, made by me. I've mentioned a few places now that I made blueberry pancakes, bacon & scrambled eggs. I REALLY love Weight Watchers! I can eat anything I want to. The pancakes that I make come from a whole wheat mix. It's really good, and is a favorite new food find.

After breakfast, my daughter and I went to church. It was my first time going to an Easter church service. There were a lot more people there than on a normal Sunday. The kids stayed with the adults, instead of going off to their Religious Education classes. My daughter drove me nuts throughout the service. I threatened several times to take her home & not let her participate in the Easter egg hunt. After the service she got to go on the Easter egg hunt, which was set up outside since the weather was beautiful.

After that, we attempted to find some food & gas. The only thing that we could agree on was Taco Bell, which was closed. The 24 hour gas station was also closed. Luckily I was able to find another gas station open, or we wouldn't have made it to my mom's house. In fact, we wouldn't have even made it home because I was so low on gas. Talk about stressful! Amazingly, the giant mall that we have to pass on the way to my mom's house was open. In what world does that make sense?

We had some snacks at my mom's house, while waiting for the turkey to be done. It took forever! I guess my turkey was just stubborn. The good news is that it comes from a local company. My mom made way too much food. In addition to the turkey & my asparagus there was salad, deviled eggs, rolls, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, cranberry sauce, stuffing & pineapple upside down cake. Way too much food for 4 people. (My daughter doesn't count since she won't eat 90% of that stuff.)

I had a good size serving of turkey, some of my asparagus, some salad, 2 deviled egg halves & a sweet potato. I also went back later, after a walk, for some pineapple upside down cake. I didn't even put gravy on my turkey. I was able to ignore the mashed potatoes, corn, stuffing, cranberry sauce & rolls. I can get all of that any other time, so why stuff myself?

That has to be one of the most powerful things that I've learned on this journey. In the past I would have stuffed myself. I would have eaten at least one serving of everything, even though for the most part they are ordinary foods. It's not like I can't get mashed potatoes any other time of year. But I had to eat them. No wonder I was over 250 pounds!

Writing my weight loss story

I've decided that I'm going to write my weight loss story. I started it last night. My goal is to write 50,000 words in a month. That's roughly 1,667 words a day. Last night I wrote 1,680 words. Those words are my story in a nutshell. Just the basics of how I lost my weight. My job now will be to go back and fill in the details. I'm going to use my WW blog for that. I'm now grateful that I use it. I may have other information somewhere. Oooo... I think I have a few posts on Livejournal. Plus I did have another blog here that I may have to recover. I know I'll be able to fill in the details.

I don't know if my story is something that will ever be published or not. Being an author is one of my goals in life, so who knows, maybe this is how I'll reach that goal. If not, at least I'll have fun with the process.

Being Me

I'm currently reading The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin. Throughout the book she reminds herself to "Be Gretchen". I'm inspired to start reminding myself to "Be Dee." I don't know about anyone else, but I often try to be who other people want me to be. Instead, I really need to focus on "Being Dee." Who am I? What do I value? What do I want out of life? What would Dee do? What is authentically me? What are the things that I love to do?

So here are some random things that are just part of me "Being Dee":

• Going for walks outside.
• Listening to my favorite music a little too loud.
• Reading books.
• Reading magazines.
• Leaving a pile of my "stuff" within arm's reach.
• Drinking coffee every morning. 
• Loving to chat & email (and starting to like texting), but hating to call. 
• Googling random facts. 
• Having alone time in the morning. 
• Wearing silly t-shirts. 
• Being easily sidetracked. 
• Being organized at work, but disorganized at home. 
• Going dancing.
• People watching. 
• Having a new-found passion for being healthy. 
• Talking too loud, and probably too much. 
• Watching horror movies. 
• Watching TV shows about ghosts and the paranormal. 
• Constantly buying cookbooks. 
• Multi-tasking while watching TV. 
• Cooking for my family. 
• Trying new foods. 
• Traveling to new places. 
• Having a passion for just about everything Disney. 
• Coming up with new recipes. 
• Learning new things. 
• Going to my Weight Watchers meetings on Saturday mornings. 
• Being a little Goth. 
• Dressing nice, completely at random. 
• Not wearing make-up or doing much with my hair on a daily basis. 
• Spending time with my family. 

I know that I could come up with a lot more things. What are some things that are just part of "Being You"? 

Hello warmer weather!

I am so happy to finally see some warmer weather! I am so not a person who should be living in a state that gets cold for several months each year. One of my goals in life is to buy an RV when I retire, and travel the country... to warm states!

Now that the weather is getting warmer, I'm enjoying more time outside. The weather was perfect on Sunday, so I went outside 3 times. Since then, I have moved my daily walks outside, and have started walking my daughter to the bus stop again. It's helping me get in more exercise every day, and being outside makes me feel so good. I have loved being outside since I was a kid, which is part of why I moved out to the country. The other morning while walking to the bus stop, my daughter and I saw a doe with twins. It's not very common for a doe to have twins, so that was exciting to see.

I'm going to enjoy the warmer weather while it lasts.

Reclaiming my body

At the UU church that I sometimes attend, we had a guest minister yesterday. She is an older woman who has to ride a scooter, and who has a speech impediment. Her sermon was about reclaiming your body. The message was powerful, especially coming from someone like her. Today I am going to reclaim my body. Here is what I'm going to do:

• Reclaim my body from everyone who ever touched it inappropriately, or pushed me into having sex when I didn't want to.
• Reclaim my body from every medical professional who ever hurt me during a procedure. 
• Reclaim my body from the food, alcohol & drugs (including prescriptions) that I used to numb the pain. 
• Reclaim my body from the self inflicted pain that I used when I became so numb that I couldn't feel anything anymore. 
• Reclaim my body from everyone who ever made a rude remark about my weight. 
• Reclaim my body from the hypertension & type II diabetes that I developed. 
• Reclaim my body from the second hand smoke and other environmental pollutants that caused me to develop bronchitis, pneumonia & asthma. 
• Reclaim my body from all of the abuse that I subjected it to over the years. 
• Reclaim my body from all of the negative self talk. 
• Reclaim my body from the birth defect that I didn't know about until I was trying to get pregnant. 
• Reclaim my body from the tumor that was growing on my right fallopian tube. 
• Reclaim my body from the PCOS that I suffer from. 
• Reclaim my body from years of dealing with pain that doctors weren't able to figure out. 
• Reclaim my body from all of that... and anything else that I haven't thought of. 

Living with an ulcer

I've been told in the past that I probably have an ulcer, and my trip to the doctor's office on Tuesday seems to have confirmed it. They may do a scope if I continue to have stomach problems. I can pretty much guarantee that over using NSAIDs is the cause of my ulcer. If I had known when I was younger that they would cause stomach pain later in life, I wouldn't have popped them like they were candy. We won't get into that though.

The doctor gave me a prescription, and told me to cut out caffeine, alcohol, spicy foods & tomato based foods. I think the caffeine is the reason that I'm constantly in pain lately. I ran out of decaf tea at work, and have been drinking caffeinated tea. My body is telling me to stop. But did I listen? Heck no! I drank a ton of coffee in Chicago, ate spicy food, and ate tomato based food. My stomach responded by making it feel like an alien was trying to escape.

I'm trying to be a good girl now. I bought some new herbal tea for work, which should definitely help. I'm trying to cut back on the spicy foods, and haven't touched anything tomato based in a few days. This is going to be difficult, since I bleed salsa. I love to use a combination of salsa and Greek yogurt to dip veggies in. The no tomato based foods rule is also going to be tricky. My daughter's favorite food right now is spaghetti. I have to figure out a way to still eat spaghetti, without the spaghetti sauce. Her second favorite food is pizza. Yeah, this is going to be tough.

Thanks to my efforts so far, the extreme pain is gone. It has been replaced by a dull achy pain, and feeling like there's a bowling ball in my stomach. I guess that's a little bit better. Hopefully the medication & watching what I eat will get rid of that also. With any luck, I will be able to resume eating my favorite foods, in moderation. Especially since I often crave spicy foods.

As I've looked through my fridge and cupboards this morning, I'm completely lost when it comes to what I should eat for lunch. Buffalo "chicken" patty? Spicy Black Bean Burger? Thai Spiced Tuna? Southwestern Vegetable Soup? Yeah... there's nothing in there that isn't spicy. I may have to go get lunch today. Wish me luck!

Former Fat Girl goes to Chicago

I went to Chicago over the weekend with my sisters. My time in Chicago was definitely too short. I was kind of glad to get home though, because traveling with both of my sisters was... interesting.

The best part about Chicago was that I did a lot of walking. I walked over 7 miles on Friday, and over 9 miles on Saturday. The walking on Friday was pretty much just shopping. We hit the Magnificent Mile, and a few other areas. I was amazed by how big the stores are. Saturday was a little more shopping, and then a trip to the Lincoln Park Zoo. The zoo was great! I had a blast there.

Aside from shopping, we also did a lot of eating. We had lunch at the Artist's Cafe on Friday. I got a veggie burger, served with rice and hummus. Dinner on Friday was at Ra Sushi. I got a Tropical Roll, and a Vegetable Tempura Roll. We also split some friend Pineapple Wontons. The food was really good, especially the Vegetable Tempura Roll.

Saturday was a quick trip to Dunkin Donuts for breakfast, a Cranberry Turkey Sandwich at the zoo, and then dinner at Chicago Pizza and Oven Grinders. This place is dangerous! The menu is not exactly healthy. There are basically 2 options, pizza pot pie or an oven baked grinder. The pizza pot pie is available in half pound or full pound, either sausage or vegetarian. We ordered a chef salad (which was just vegetables, no cheese or meat like I'm used to a chef salad having), a Mediterranean bread, and each had a half pound pizza pot pie. I didn't think I would eat the entire thing. I was wrong! It was amazing! Thank goodness I walked so much. Here's a pic of the wonderful pizza pot pie.

Sunday was a quick breakfast at the restaurant in our hotel. Then we packed our bags for the train station. I grabbed a salad for the train ride, and then also grabbed a veggie burger on the train. BTW... I'm not a vegetarian, but I do like to limit my meat intake.

While my choices may not have been the healthiest while I was in Chicago, I take comfort in knowing that in the past I would have done much worse. I also know that one indulgent weekend won't be the end of the world.

Getting ready for Chicago

I'm heading to Chicago this weekend with my sisters. We're celebrating my youngest sister's 21st birthday. I can't believe she's 21 already!

I have a feeling that this trip is going to be challenging. First, there is a 7 hour train ride, which starts at roughly 6:30am. I have packed a package of Trader Joe's Seaweed Snack, a package of freeze dried apples, and a Weight Watcher's 3 Point bar in the totebag that I'm taking. I'm also thinking of packing a Thomas' Bagel Thin, and an actual apple. Then as long as I can get my hands on some coffee, I should be fine. I know that there's a dining car, or a snack cart on the train. So that might give me more options.

When we get to Chicago, we're going to have about 3 hours before we can check into our hotel. It will be about noon Chicago time when we arrive, so we're going to go get lunch. My sister sent me a link for a place that we can eat near the train station. They're really known for their breakfast, so chances are I'll be getting eggs of some sort. Their omelet menu is crazy! Broccoli and cheese, salami and cheese, cottage cheese, sour cream, ham and cheese, apples and cheese, smoked salmon and onion, vegetarian, mushroom... the list goes on and on.

I've got even more snacks packed in my suitcase for running around Chicago. I know I'm going to need them. I'm also going to pick up fresh fruit whenever possible. My sisters are going to think I'm crazy, but it will keep me from overeating at restaurants.

Friday night we will probably go out for sushi and drinks. I love sushi! I already know where we're going, so I've started looking at their menu online. I love the fact that most of these places have their menus online! We've also kicked around a few ideas for drinks, and I've looked at their menus also. I'm not sure where we'll end up, but at least I'll know my options ahead of time.

Saturday is going to be about shopping. My one sister is meeting up with a friend, so us other 2 will be on our own. That means breakfast, lunch, and dinner out. There are tons of restaurants in the Magnificent Mile area, so I have no clue where we'll end up. I normally like eating at chains, because I can find the Points values in either my dining out guide, or I can look up the nutritional values online. We're going to be in Chicago though, so I want to try places that are unique to Chicago. Which means ordering carefully, guessing at the Points values, and hoping that I get in enough walking to make up the difference. I think we're going out dancing on Saturday also, so that should help.

Sunday we head home. I'm sure we'll have breakfast before we check out. Our train leaves at noon though, so lunch will be interesting. I'll either have to grab something at the train station, or hope for good options on the train. Hopefully I'll have enough snacks for the trip home also. I might be too tired from Saturday night to really care about eating, which might be a good thing. When we get home Sunday night I'll have to go find some dinner, unless I eat dinner on the train also. We'll see what happens there.

This trip is going to be interesting, and challenging. Hopefully I'll get through it without a gain on the scale!

Oatmeal banana pancake

I wish I knew who to attribute this recipe to. I saw it on someone's blog... I think on the Weight Watcher's website, but now I can't find it again. It's really a simple recipe.

1 mashed ripe banana
1 packet instant oatmeal, any flavor
1 egg white

Mix the ingredients in a bowl, and then cook in a pan sprayed with cooking spray. You end up with a huge, very tasty pancake. You could even make it into several small pancakes if you like. Unfortunately, mine fell apart a little when I flipped it, or I would post a picture.

Salad potluck

Every now and then we do a salad potluck at work. Someone brings in lettuce, and everyone else brings in their favorite toppings. The results are always fun and interesting. Sometimes we get a nice variety of vegetables. Other times we get a lot of meats and cheeses.

Today was one of these salad potlucks. We definitely got more vegetables today than we do at other times. There were tomatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, cucumbers, summer squash, etc. It's certainly a great way to welcome Spring!

An introduction

Two years ago I weighed 262 pounds. That's a whole lot of weight for someone who is only 5' 1". I was unhealthy, and battling Type 2 Diabetes, and Hypertension.

I have lost over 130 pounds, and have gotten off my medications for both conditions. I am much happier and healthier these days.

Going forward, I will discuss the things that I did to lose weight, and what I do now to keep the weight off. I hope you enjoy my blog!