11/17/08

Weight 17.November.2008

185.2

I must say I have been drinking quite a bit lately. Especially on my vacation -- lots of unapproved food and drink -- but then it was vacation. Last week I was back up to 188, but this morning those extra pounds have melted away. I must have been retaining a lot of water. I'm hoping to be at 180 by December 31, but I have to work extra hard to keep the holidays from being a total blowout.

10/15/08

Weight 15.October.2008

189.4

... and holding. I've been here for about a month now, and I'm ready for the rest to go. I want to be in my final size clothing, because I'm tired of constantly having to buy new stuff. Ugh!!

09/12/08

Weight 12.September.2008

192.0

Finally through bouncing from 195-199 continuously. I seem to have broken through this week and continuing downward. According to the BMI calculation, I'm now just "overweight" instead of obese. Such an ugly word. I'm readjusting my goal; I had originally planned to be at 180 by the end of December, but now I'm going to make the goal to reach 180 by the end of October. There's quite a lot more hanging around the middle that needs to GO!

09/08/08

You'll eat it and you'll like it

I have just seen the corn industry's ads "defending" High Fructose Corn Syrup. Lame. They avoid countering any arguments people have for avoiding eating that, they make the anti-HFCS people look like rude idiots, and they only defend it by saying "it's made from corn and it's natural" damn it, it's f($*ing natural. You WILL believe.

The first one. An African American lady is serving her children something I would term "Red Drink." Now that's racist and stereotypical in and of itself. The white lady is being nasty and accusatory. People don't start conversations like this.



The second. A couple is picnicking in a park. The lady wants to put something sort of phallic down her husband's throat. He's taken aback. When he learns that HFCS is made from corn, he becomes insatiable and begs for more. He'll take corn anywhere he can get it.

09/05/08

General Updates

Well, I'm continuing to lose weight, but a lot more slowly now. Hopefully it will give my skin time to fix itself. This is one of the most frustrating things -- as well as not a pleasant subject of conversation -- so I will leave it at that. I don't think I'm doing near enough cardio, but I'm doing what I can manage.

In more positive news, I'm buying L in most shirts now. They are just a little too snug for my comfort, but will fit fine soon. I was tired of buying things that are going to be WAY too big. That gets expensive!

08/26/08

Portions

Aunt Beulah says, "Only YOU can practice portion control!"

I found this article in the Consumerist that references an article in the New York Sun that claims Whole Foods is making people fat because "the containers are too big."

As someone who learned the hard way how to visually measure a cup, or half a cup, etc, I'll tell you it can be done.

08/18/08

Under 200, Vacation Food, Old Pictures

Well, as of this morning, I'm one whole pound under 200! After some heavy drinking and late night eating on Saturday, I was up around 202 again yesterday, but it must have all been water. Being sick last week didn't help, because I got off track with my cardio. But I think things are finally getting back to normal after my vacation.

I did manage to eat a lot of the things I like from home during my trip, but ate more carefully this time. The strategy was to stick to only one heavy meal per day, and I think that worked pretty well. While staying in the condo, I bought food -- sandwiches for a few lunches and good but healthy meals for two or three of the dinners. I ran or walked on the beach every day. The last few days were difficult for exercise, because I was in a warmer, more humid place -- but I tried to do at least *something*. I didn't lose any weight during that time, but I didn't gain any either!

I found those awful pictures of myself from the winter of 2003. I almost can't believe I was so big. Almost Jabba the g.d. Hut.

08/14/08

Weight 14.August.2008

199.4

Finally under 200, yay!!

07/24/08

Poached Salmon with Hot Ginger Sauce

Here's something I whipped up the other night. I've been getting large pieces of salmon at Costco for about $15-$20 and cutting them up into 4-5 two-person meals. Not a bad deal, and sometimes they have wild salmon there. I have a Food Saver, which makes keeping it in the freezer convenient.

2 salmon filets, 3-4oz each
.5 c water (or enough to cover about .25 inch of the pan you're poaching in)
1 T low sodium soy sauce
2 T ponzu sauce (a citrusy soy sauce)
2 T plain rice wine vinegar
1 lime's juice
3 t chopped garlic
1 T ginger paste
1 t chili garlic sauce (or to taste)
1 t cornstarch, dissolved in .5 cup (extra) of water
white pepper to taste

Put the first .5 cup water in a saute pan with a tight-fitting lid, or enough to cover about a quarter inch of the pan. Add the soy sauce, ponzu sauce, vinegar, lime juice, and garlic. Place the salmon in the pan skin side down, sprinkle white pepper on top if desired, turn burner to medium-low (enough to where the liquid gets very hot but does not completely boil), cover and cook until salmon is light pink throughout and flakes easily, usually about 6-8 minutes depending upon the thickness.

Remove the salmon from the pan and keep warm. There should be enough liquid left to cover the bottom of the pan; if not, add a bit more vinegar and water. Add the ginger paste and chili garlic sauce and turn the heat up slightly. Cook for about a minute and then add corn starch water little by little, stirring continuously until sauce reaches your desired thickness.

Serve sauce over salmon. I had whole grain rice and spinach with this meal.

I haven't calculated the nutrition on this one, but salmon is very healthy. :-) The only culprit here is the sodium in the soy and ponzu sauces.

07/24/08

Weight 23.July.08

203.6

I so wanted to be below 200 before the end of this month, but with 8 days, it's probably not going to happen, and I'm okay with that.

I'm beginning to figure out that 1500-1700 calories per day at my current activity level is just not enough. Last night after dinner and a small snack I think I topped out at 1550 calories, yet I did a full hour workout with my trainer. This morning I had my normal 200ish calorie breakfast, but about 30 minutes ago I could feel myself crashing, so I had to borrow a bar from someone. I'm guessing this might be why my weight loss is stagnating -- I'm going ever so slightly into starvation mode.

Altering this is hard. For the past six months, I've been getting off 70 or so pounds by limiting portions, eating better food, and cutting carbohydrates way back. I need to re-learn how to incorporate more calories. I've *tried* the small meals thing, but I just can't get the hang of it! I'd rather eat three large-ish meals and two small-ish meals.

07/05/08

Weight 5.July.2008

207.8

It has been a while since I posted a weight, mainly because I have been fighting the scale a little. I've been teetering between 209-212, frustratingly enough. I know it's because I've been snacking too much lately.

07/01/08

Heart Rate Monitor

Because I had to spend up my Flexible Spending Account money before yesterday, I bought a bunch of things from drugstore.com. One of those things was a Polar heart rate monitor, the wireless kind. I wore it last night and this morning on my 30 minute walks; it confirmed for me that I only burned 200 calories each time, which is a bit depressing, especially when I hoofed up three sets of stairs.

It has been too bloody hot to go to the gym these few days, because they don't have air in the weight room; and, they may as well not in the cardio room, because he is a cheap bastard. I'd rather not have a heat stroke.

Trying to do things outside is rough also, because it's still high allergy season. I have not been able to sleep very well. I hate it.

06/17/08

Weight 17.June.2008

212.8

06/16/08

Eat it: it's fsking good for you!

Ah marketing, ah lobbies in this country. I stumbled upon this site this morning, the High Fructose Corn Syrup "Facts" site. It's basically an apologetics site, sort of like you'd find for some religion or another, about how high fucktose corn syrup is just like sugar and how beneficial it is to just about damn near everything.

Their argument against the correlation of HFCS and obesity goes like this: people are eating too much and doing too little. It's not our fault. We're just like any other sweetener.

OK. Fine, there's no untruth there, really. However, they don't really want you to stop consuming 3000-4000 calories a day, all loaded with HFCS. You just need to do more to burn off those calories. Like 3 hours of cardio per day, or something. Um, that won't work for me, thanks.

America is addicted to a lot of things. It's lucrative. I'm all about a free market, but I think things have gotten quite sinister. Feed the addiction.

06/11/08

Still at it...

I was looking at pictures from college last night and I got scared. I've always been pudgy. I hate that word, but I hate the look of it, too. I'm starting to wonder if I'll ever be okay with the way I look. Then I have to think that I never exercised when I was in school, other than walking to/from class and work once or twice a day. So, if I had started being healthier then... Ten years ago.

Well, it's going to be okay. I'm still going, but I still feel like I need to be doing more -- or would like to. I need to find somebody to teach me how to play tennis. I've always been interested in it, but never felt like I would be able to play -- sloshing around like a bladder on a stick out there. But now I think it would be fun and would break up the monotony of typical cardio.

Sports and me have never really been best friends, for whatever reason. I think maybe some of us are pre-disposed not to be competitive, or maybe pre-disposed to be, gasp, lazy, but I think the culture in American schools -- and maybe elsewhere -- doesn't do a lot to foster a healthy relationship with doing healthy things. I remember sports and PE in school being torturous. It always had to be damned football, but if it was too hot or too cold, then it had to be basketball. In the spring, it was baseball. Nothing different. Nothing new. I was miserable at all of those. I hated them. I was teased, taunted, and given the choice, I had nothing to do with it.

For those with no interest in competitive sports, schools should teach strength training, yoga, overall health. Something that would avoid creating the deeply ingrained association of exercise with humiliation and torture. God, something. But I could just imagine that flying. Especially in the South! HA! Gotta be a man. Yoga's not manly. Gotta play f'ing football.

ARGH.