Happy Halloween!

How's this for temptation? Last night I made 108 hand-decorated brownies. Each brownie is baked in a foil muffin cup liner and then topped with a teaspoon of melted frosting. After that you smush a candy pumpkin on top and then pipe on leaves and vines with green frosting. (Just in case anyone is in a baking mood and wants to know! :-D ) I'm so proud of myself because I didn't even have a single taste! Now that's progress! ;-)

Now comes the real challenge... Tonight is Trick-or-Treating and by 8:00 tonight we'll be drowning in candy.

Pomegranate Seeds

Let me start this by saying that i really wanted to like pomegranate seeds. They seem like a "cool" kind of food. Expensive, exotic, different looking, really nutritious...not your everyday kind of produce, ya know?

While shopping at Trader Joe's a few days ago, I found a small container of seeds that were ready to eat for $3.49. I snatched them up and rushed over to my best friend's house so we could give them a try. YUCK!!! The initial fruity burst was nice, but that quickly turned into a taste similar to paint thinner. I tried another in case I got a bad one and sure enough, it tasted the same. My friend also wrinkled her nose after trying them too. Who eats this stuff? Gross!!!

Week 35 Weigh-in

Current Weight - 249.2 lbs.
This week's loss - 1.4 lbs.
Total loss - 68.4 lbs.
Average calories per day - 1799
Treadmill - 5.2 miles in 90 minutes over 3 days burning 650 calories.
Dance Dance Revolution - 20 minutes burning 171 calories.

Woohoo!!! I'm in the 240's!!! One mini-goal down, two to go. Maybe next week I'll see 70+lbs. gone? I'm gonna try! :-)

Lately I've been looking at where I am, and I've come to the decision that it's time to cut the calories. I've been getting sloppy with them as of late, resulting in my hitting 2100 many days. If I want to get my BMI to the level of plain "obesity" vs. "morbid obesity" by Christmas, then I must act now and step up the weightloss.

Starting last Sunday I've been limiting myself to 1500 calories per day. Now I know I can't manage that every day, but if I can do this 4-5 times a week and stick to 2,000 the other days, I think I can speed things up a bit. Here's what I've been doing on my 1500 calorie days...

8:00 A.M. 300 calories
11:00 A.M. 300 calories
2:00 P.M. 200 calories
5:00 P.M. 500 calories
8:00 P.M. 200 calories

Having several small meals a day works for a loads of people so I'm giving it a try. So far so good!

Had a doctor's appointment Monday and everything went great. They even noticed that I had lost weight. Very cool. :-) Since before I quit smoking in April of 2004, I've had a bit of a hacking cough and I tend to develop a wheeze later in the day. I've been worried that I may have developed COPD so I asked for a breathing test. They whipped out a spirometer and I passed with flying colors. No Asthma, COPD, or Emphysema thank goodness. I've had 2 chest x-rays in the past year which came back clean, too. Since reflux can cause wheezing and a little hacking cough, and I do have reflux, that's probably all it is.

Polenta!

Recently I subscribed to the magazine Eating Well, and in my first issue that arrived a few weeks ago, there was an article about Polenta. Included in the article were several recipes using it and one of them stood out...Catalan Sauteed Polenta & Butter Beans.

I actually bought a tube of prepared Polenta at Walmart soon after reading the article, but I was unable to make it until today when I finally found fresh spinach in the grocery store. The FDA lifted the ban on 9/29 and only now is it available around here. Crazy. I'm guessing the stores didn't want to stock it because they feared it wouldn't sell so soon after the recall? Cheap bastards!

So I made the recipe and you know what? It was actually pretty good! The first few bites totally reminded me of Grits, but I got over it. The texture was good, too. I ended up using red wine vinegar instead of the sherry vinegar the recipe called for since I couldn't find any locally. I'll be making this again when I find a cheaper source for Polenta...it was like $3 for one little tube at Walmart!!!

Week 34 Weigh-In

Current Weight - 250.6 lbs.
This week's loss - 1.4 lbs.
Total loss - 67.0 lbs.
Average calories per day - 2026 (for the 6 days I was on plan)
Treadmill - 5.1 miles in 90 minutes over 3 days burning 633 calories.

Not counting my bad day, I had a decent week. I can't help wondering, however, how much I could have lost had I not binged on 4,000+ calories of junk food on Sunday. Oh well, what's done is done. I am very grateful for my 1.4 lb. loss!

Went to the store today and picked up a couple of boxes of Clementine oranges. A few months ago I was losing weight at a pretty good pace while I was eating 4 or 5 Clementines a day. Is this the magic ingredient to weight loss? Who knows! :-D I am superstitious enough to give it another go and see if I can speed things up a bit.

Still doing Week 3 of the C25K program. I think I'll start Week 4 on Monday. Wish me luck!

I killed my diet! :-(

Today was my youngest daughter's fourth birthday and she had a Dora the Explorer party. I made this cake and I totally lost control. I don't even know how much buttercream frosting I nibbled on here and there. Add to that the fact that I had a big piece of cake and we had pizza for dinner, and it's safe to say I went over my calorie limit by a few thousand.

Oh well, such is life. The cake was awesome, if I do say so myself, and the pizza was sinfully delicious. Tomorrow I'll be back on course and I'm not even going to try to figure out how many calories I had today. I will just put an "X" over today in my food diary. So when I don't lose anything this week this would be the reason why. Surprisingly, I'm not beating myself up over it. I feel very satisfied and am looking forward to eating a nice healthy dinner tomorrow night.

Week 33 Weigh-In

Current Weight - 252.0 lbs.
This week's loss - 0.2 lbs.
Total loss - 65.6 lbs.
Average calories per day - 2014
Treadmill - 3.47 miles in 60 minutes over 2 days burning 431 calories.

I'm noticing a new pattern in my weightloss. I really, really hope this means I'll have a 2+ pound loss next week! Check it out...

Week 28 - 2.2 lbs.
Week 29 - 0.2 lbs.
Week 30 - 2.6 lbs.
Week 31 - 0.8 lbs.
Week 32 - 2.6 lbs.
Week 33 - 0.2 lbs.

Only did 2 days on the treadmill since Monday was a federal holiday and DH was home. I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before, but I hate exercising when other people are in the house (besides the kids).

Week 3 of the Couch-to-5K program is killing me. Yesterday was my first day on it and I wasn't able to do all of the running bits. I have a feeling that I'll be repeating Week 3 once or twice before I can move on. One of my longterm goals is to be able to run a 5K, and I've set my sights on a local one in November 2007, so there's still time. :-)

Week 32 Weigh-In

Current Weight - 252.2 lbs.
This week's loss - 2.6 lbs.
Total loss - 65.4 lbs.
Average calories per day - 2004
Treadmill - 5.09 miles in 90 minutes over 3 days burning 640 calories.

If only I could lose this much every week! :-)

So I've been doing this Couch-to-5K thing, and I've got to tell you that Week 2 is kicking my butt! How am I going to finish this thing? I have a feeling that it's going to take me a lot longer than the prescribed 9 weeks.

My walking segments are 3.2 mph and my jogging segments are around 4.5 mph. I know I could be doing this faster, but even these slow speeds push my heart rate up to the low 160's. According to the Mayo Clinic's Target Heart Rate Calculator, my target zone is between 112 - 159 beats per minute, so I'm definitely working at the upper end of that range.

My fruit, veggie, and lean meat intake was pretty good last week. Not as many salads as I should be eating, but I'll work on that this week. This diet is definitely a work in progress. It seems like I'm constantly changing and fine-tuning things.