unexceptional week

Long week this week, and I was just exhausted all week so it felt longer. Mom had her cataract surgery on Wednesday, which involved a lot of driving around — first to drop her off, then to pick her up, then to bring her to her eye doctor's office, then back home — while I was also working from home. We also had contractors at the house blowing insulation into the walls, which basically involves removing clapboards, drilling holes, running the pump thingie into the walls, then (I assume) filling the holes and putting the clapboards back. That is not a quiet process! They took three days, so I had to get up early each day. Really glad that's over with. But hopefully that means we'll be warmer and will pay less for heat this winter.

Social stuff: P and I got a late dinner after my weights class on Friday. That's it, other than work chatting. Too tired for much else.

Workouts:
Tuesday: Nothing
Wednesday: Nothing
Thursday: Stationary bike 30 mins. (MAN did I have to force myself to go, felt good after I did, tho)
Friday: Weights class 45 mins, stationary bike for 15 mins (had to meet P for dinner so I cut it a little short)
Saturday: Rowing machine 15 mins, weight lifting 15 mins, 5 min elliptical (lunchtime at work)
Sunday: Rest day!
Monday: Rowing machine for 30 mins, weights class for 45 mins

That's only 4 out of 7 days. See prev re: tired. Glad it's over. This week will be better!

Sunday was mostly nothing much. I slept late, got up, did a few chores things, then after chatting with a friend determined that I should buy SOMETHING on tax-free weekend, so I went to Newbury Comics and bought a few CDs. I probably saved $3, but at least I contributed to the economy, right? Then headed over to the local farm "stand" — it's really more like a supermarket, but their stuff is really good. Found a few native tomatoes (yay!) and some native corn so I made BLTs with corn on the cob on the side for dinner. SO GOOD. I finally watched the rest of the opening ceremony for the Olympics, fast-forwarding through the parade part. Macca was not very exciting. I wonder when I'll watch the closing ceremony? I didn't record it, so I guess I'll only have the On Demand option.

Today was my annual checkup with my primary care doc. Seemed to go well. I am down 11 pounds since I saw him last (although that was April, I think, so that's not GREAT, but it's still good). Blood pressure was 107/70. I will learn the rest when my 8 vials of blood come back — he sends me a results letter usually about a week after the appt. EKG was normal, too, I think. At least they didn't wave their hands in the air and push alarm bells, so I am assuming all was well. The woman taking my EKG hadn't seen me since last year and freaked out about my weight loss. So that was nice. I've been going to the same doctor for so long I know all the people who work there. Pretty satisfying.

I have to fast before I go to see my doctor so they can get a fasting blood sugar, so I was pretty ravenous afterward. I stopped at the cafe in my doctor's building before I left for my next appointment to catch a quick lunch. I was sitting there playing words with friends and eating my salad when I heard my doctor behind me. "Hi Laurie!" I got a little laugh out of the thought that, after all the discussions of my weight loss, at least I was eating a salad and not a hot fudge sundae. How often do you see your physician at a restaurant? I still felt a smidge ... caught? I dunno. It amused me, anyway.

Appointment number two was my gynecologist. So perhaps you are male or from outside the U.S. and you don't know this about the medical world here: there are tons of women who don't actually have primary care physicians, but because they want birth control they have to have gynecologists. As a result, the GYNs have stepped into the void and become de facto PCPs for most of their patients. So my GYN is very chatty and full-medical-history-taking and involved, spends a lot of time taling to her patients about their whole health, etc. Yelled at me the first time I went about my overall health, my weight, the whole thing. Reinforced that with subsequent visits. It was sorta irksome, because I actually HAVE a PCP, but I understand the driving force behind it, anyway.

Today she didn't actually recognize me. I only see her once per year, so she hadn't seen me since the weight loss. Anyway, she gushed at me and told me to keep doing what I'm doing, and I was her patient of the year, and all this silly stuff that felt really good to hear. She said that the current advice for exercise is 150 minutes per week to maintain decent health, so I feel good about exceeding that by a lot, almost every week. She also thought that if I continue down the path and get to my goal, it's possible insurance would pay for some of the plastic surgery I might need, since it would be medically necessary. (I gots lots of extra skin already. TMI, sorry! It's what I'm hoping the weights and gym will help with, frankly) It's weird to be having that conversation with someone who is also giving you a breast exam, but there you go.

And then I did all my usual Monday stuff, including weights class, which was hard today! But in a good way. I went up in heaviness today on almost everything. My triceps are still wimpy bitches, though, and the "head-knockers" are still tough for me. I tried the 30 pound barbell, did seven reps very shakily, had to go back to the 20 pounder. Wimpy triceps!

I probably overdid it a bit by then hitting the rowing machine after class, but I *like* the rowing machine, and I can't say that about any of the other cardio options (other than swimming). I think the rowing machine is my new friend. Although I am not sure I'm doing it right. My back is a little sore. My guy at the gym told me to keep my back straight, but how the heck do you do that when you're on the recovery part (the scootching forward)? I will have to practice more. Thank god for youtube videos, seriously.

I need a day off. Oh, right, I just had two. Doesn't feel like it!

menu

I was thinking about the memoir I read a few months back about the girl who talked all about her own weight loss, all the struggles and the funny bits and so on, but never talked about what she ate. So I thought I'd detail the kind of things I eat. It's not really restrictive. I'm eating around 1800 calories per day. I always eat three meals and a couple of snacks, often several snacks.

I start the day usually with one of two breakfasts: either cereal (multigrain cheerios or fiber one honey clusters) with fresh fruit in and a half cup of milk, or I make some kind of egg scramble with some cheese and sometimes some peppers and onions, sometimes none, and sometimes with a slice of Arnold 12 Grain toast with some butter and jelly. Cereal breakfast is around 250 cals, whereas egg breakfast with toast is about 450. I try to adjust based on that for the rest of the day. I do not fuss with egg whites or whatever.

Lunch I try to stick to 550 cals or less. Often it's a sandwich (220 for the bread if I have actual bread, 60 if it's a pita pocket (with flax!), 90ish for the meat or tuna, maybe 50 if I have cheese, use mustard so nothing there, lettuce and tomato are negligible cals), a pickle spear (1 cal), and a piece of fruit (60 to 100 cals, depending), or occasionally Baked Lay's BBQ (140 cals if I eat the whole single-serving bag, which often I don't). If I haven't brought my lunch, I'll sometimes go to a local supermarket and raid the salad bar. The mall is just next door to my workplace, so I sometimes go to the food court there. It's hard to find a lunch under 550 cals there, however. I stick to D'Angelo's, Au Bon Pain, and the salad place, pretty much. And generally it's more like 650 cals. Sigh!

I save some daytime cals for snacks, too. Usually I bring some fruit or yogurt or nuts, or someone brings something delectable to work. I indulge in the delectable, but try to eat half of a normal serving. Depending how filling lunch was and how late I ate it, sometimes I skip after-lunch snack.

Dinner is varied, and pretty ordinary—a meat/veg/starch kind of thing. Sometimes meat/veg/salad, or meat/veg/veg/fruit. I just often double the veggies and halve the starches. Mom's a fan of pasta, so we have that more than my calories would like, at least once per week. I am mostly pretty careful with portions, and I keep up to date in my app throughout the day I can figure out what's left for the day. If I'm at the grocery store and I'm buying something prepared, I always read the package and usually go with the lower cal option.

If I walk for an hour, it usually earns me about 260 calories back, but I try to only eat half of that back (I fail a lot there, though). Other exercises earn me more calories (that's how I think of it) so it means I can have an extra snack or two if I want to. Basically whatever is left for the day after dinner and exercise I tend to use up in snacks. Snacks vary, but I like grapes (3 cal per grape, so count!) and a couple of "cracker cuts" cheese (110 cal for three), or a yogurt, or five Ritz crackers (80 cal). If I have hundreds of calories left, I might have a slice of multigrain bread with some peanut butter and jelly. I am a total obsessive freak about it. I'll plan my snack from my bedroom, calculating what we have vs. what I have left and decide before I get out of my chair. Else I'd eat the whole kitchen, see? I measure or count out stuff into a bowl or onto a plate, leaving the rest in the pantry or kitchen so I'd have to get up to get more.

There are a few snacks that are hard for me to resist, so I've had to only have them in the house when I feel really strong. Nuts are the worst. I buy a container of nuts and actually divide it up into single-serving Ziploc bags the minute I open it. Sometimes even THAT doesn't help, as I'll somehow rationalize two or even three servings. Better than eating the whole can, but bad! Also anything chocolate. If you combine the two, like those dark chocolate sea salt almonds from Trader Joe's? Fuhgeddaboudit. I can resist ice cream, sorta. I can now just have one spoonful, and that is somehow enough. Fiber One Oats & Chocolate bars were awesome for a while, but suddenly I just need to eat them all if they're here, so now they're on the Restricted list.

I try to drink enough water, also, although I mostly fail at that, and I've cut back on my diet Coke intake. I keep vitamin water zero in my minifridge, partly as pill-taking beverage and partly so I don't drink caffeine late at night. Water isn't appealing later at night for me right now.

There are two danger times for me. One is about a half hour after I exercise. Then I am RAVENOUS (and I dunno if it's physical or mental). And the other is 9:00-10:00pm, for some weird reason. Often those two coincide, so that's better. Then it's only one really dangerous time. But sometimes I walk on my work lunch hour, so that leaves the whole night after dinner wide open for trouble. By that I mean that I stay up pretty late every night, and I finish dinner by no later than 7:30pm (Mom likes to eat fairly early). That gives me at least five hours after dinner that I'm conscious. That's a lot of snacking potential, right there.

Eating out could be a dangerous time, but thankfully I was already in the chain restaurant habit, and with very few exceptions they ALL have detailed caloric info on their websites. So when I know where we're going I do my research. I usually know what I'm going to have before I go in, which makes it stress-free and simple to order. My only real dangerous eating out time is if I go to a non-chain place and have something unusual. Then I just call it a cheat day and move along.

I don't allow myself too many cheat days. They're hard to recover from, really. When I was on vacation on the Cape I ate whatever I wanted, and I snacked way too much. When I got back I kept thinking about snacks for days. If I could just cut out the sweets-craving and think-about-food-all-the-time parts of my brain I'd be a LOT happier. Why don't they do lobotomies for that? I'd sign up.

In reviewing my app numbers, it looks like currently I eat on average the following breakdown:

Carb: 49%
Fat: 34%
Protein: 18%

According to stuff I've read, you should aim for:
45% to 65% of calories eaten should come from carbohydrates
20% to 35% of calories eaten should come from fat
10% to 35% of calories eaten should come from protein

Sparkpeople suggests approximately 50% carbohydrates, 30% fat and 20% protein.

So I'm pretty much on target. I could dump a little fat and increase a little protein. Most of the carbs are reasonable.

So that's what I eat. I have to pull all my data from LoseIt and see if I can figure what I am eating the weeks I don't lose anything. That might be helpful.