Who said biking was a good idea???

My success of yesterday with the bike went to my head... and has quickly gone to my aching body this evening! I needed to go visit a church member this afternoon, who lives about 2.5 miles from our house, and I- full of (as it turns out false!) bravado - decided it would be an easy bike ride, and far better for me than driving. Of course, what I didn't take into account in that thinking was the fact that the route is far, far, FAR more hilly than my little route to & from work! I made a valiant effort, though, and only ended up walking the bike for about a third of the round trip distance... Needless to say, though, I am both pleased to have done it (and got through it!), and am tired and aching from having done it!

But the best part of it is that before I got on the bike, I was HUNGRY - even though I'd had a perfectly acceptable portion size of chow mein hot dish and salad for lunch not an hour earlier. I could quite happily have devoured every warm / hot thing in the kitchen (and was doing my best to avoid doing so...). Yet when I got home from the ride, I was thirsty, but my hunger had pretty much gone. What was left of it was quickly dispatched with a couple thin slices of home-made banana nut bread - far fewer calories than everything else I had wanted to get my hands on before the ride!!

Tomorrow it's back to work. There is a strong wind blowing tonight that is forecasted to continue blowing through tomorrow - and which did not help my ride this afternoon by any stretch of the imagination! - so it will depend on the weather in the morning whether I ride to work or not. Watch this space for more details!!

ugh ugh ugh

So, so far this diet plan has not been working for me. Ever since we started there has been one thing after another after another that has served as "distractions" to my plans. First the death of Ethan, then the Women of Faith weekend, then the Kairos Outside weekend, and then the death and funeral of Amy. So, maybe, well probably, I have been using all of that as an excuse, but for whatever reason, I have not been doing well, and would not be surprised this week if I am back up to my beginning weight. So I need to start over and get my head into the game....it is, if nothing else, costing me too much!! I am starting back tomorrow with no soda. I think I did better when I gave it up cold turkey right at the beginning of this whole thing, so as of today, there will be no more soda.
So....Heiffer International will likely get more money from me this week....but that will be the last of it....
Eileen

I DID IT!!!

For the first time since getting the bike, I have managed to ride it to and from work for the full 4 miles - i.e., I rode it to work at the start of my shift, came home on my lunch break, rode it back afterward and then rode it home again. Yay, me!! :0)

Having said that, I am BEAT tonight - I was very busy at work for the 2nd half of my shift, and riding the bike home was almost torture... I actually considered getting off and pushing it instead of trying to pedal it up the (very shallow!) inclines! I am, however, extremely proud that I finally managed to do it, and am looking forward to doing it again on Wednesday!

Foodwise, it's been a good day - thankfully, since I let Mom lead me astray yesterday! I confess we shared a medium double-pepperoni pizza - not too, too bad on its own... except that we shared it at 9.15pm last night!! It was, however, absolutely heavenly. I'm a sucker for good pepperoni, and I was hungry for pizza, so it all worked out well - it would just have been better had it not been so late in the evening!

Anyway, today: banana nut cheerios with a glass of milk for breakfast, spicy honey orange chicken with mashed potatoes, sweet corn, carrots & a lemon ginger pudding for dessert; a yogurt & an apple on my break, and another yogurt & apple I got home tonight - again, late (it was about 11pm), but I figure that riding the bike for 4 miles - and walking a LOT at work tonight (I got a real workout at work!) - means I can get away with it! :0)

I guess week-ends are not for me - yesterday was a terrible day! I started out all right with oj and cereal, but it was all downhill from there - a mini-donut, FOUR chocolate chip cookies, bread and honey (just to assure my self it was GOOD honey - HA!), pizza, two diet cokes - oh, woe is me! But I am back on track this morning and relishing the fact that my clothes still feel a little looser. I do so hope I will be under 200 lbs when I go for my physical next month!

I THINK I made it through the church picnic - at least I avoided the dessert table until the very last minute when I ate three crumbs off the brownie plates! I kept telling myself - a minute on the lips, forever on the hips, a minute on the lips, forever on the hips, a min - well, it kinda sorta !worked! I did have one and a half hamburger patties without a bun and spoonfuls of six or eight of the other dishes, mostly cole-slaw type salads, but also mac and cheese and a jello/whipped cream/marshmallow concoction. Oh, and I did have a mini-muffin off the dessert table that EM brought me off the dessert table, but it turned out it wasn't very good - kind of the wages of sin! I did have two large glasses of lemonade - I've no idea if it was calorific or not. I had had oj and corn flakes, vegetable soup and two diet cokes earlier. Okay, okay - I probably did NOT do so well! It won't help today that EM bought me a jar of HONEY!!!!!

No fries, but..

So I behaved myself today, and did not give in to my (strong!) desire for a large plate of seasoned french fries - more than anything else because I couldn't remember which restaurant does the REALLY good ones! (TGI Friday's, as it happens... I remembered too late!)

However, having had a very low cal count day (banana nut cheerios & a glass of milk for breakfast, and a small bacon & egg roll for lunch), I kinda lost it at the church picnic this evening... A hamburger (no bun), a hot dog (with bun), one slice of cheese, a few doritos, but the fruity "salads" (little wonder Americans are so much heavier than the rest of the world when a "salad" is jello, whipped cream, grated cheese, and mini marshmallows!), the cake, the brownies, the banana bread (baked by mom!).... I gave in and ate too much! Actually, I didn't give in: it was a conscious decision before I got to the picnic that I was going to enjoy the food and not worry about the diet for one night. And that was exactly what I did - especially when my friend Anna offered me the icing from the slice of cake she took, and icing is a REALLY big weakness of mine... I can buy the containers of Duncan Hines icing and eat the whole thing in one or two sittings if I'm not careful! Hmm... Little wonder I need to lose weight!

Tomorrow, resolve returns and I will be back on track - and back at work, which means back to getting my exercise running up & down & round that 10,000 sq.ft. store!

Looking in the mirror this morning, I thought my face is beginning to change shape. Great - EM loses off her middle, and I lose off my FACE!! More svelte her - more wrinkly me!! It's no doubt due to the fact that I ate a rice krispie bar after my lunch yesterday and a hunk of cheese when I got home last night, TOTALLY breaking my vow not to eat in the evening. I wonder how Eileen is doing at Kyros this week-end. What with that and then the funeral of her friend's daughter on Monday, she is facing a tough week. My heart goes out to her - all of this is so much harder for her than it is for EM and me. We are two people working towards the same goal; she is one person with a family to feed, a business to run, and a hundred and other demands on her time and resolve. Dieting takes the energy to make sensible choices, and I suspect that at the end of the day she is just too exhausted to do anything more than just fill everybody up and get them into bed at a somewhat reasonable time. I remember those days so well!! I will try to do better today than yesterday, though with a church picnic to go to, I know I will be sorely tried!

Oh for a large plate of french fries....

I could just kill for a large, large plate of hot, fresh, salty french fries... Forget anything else - just give me the fries and nobody gets hurt!!!!

So instead of satisfying that urge, I came home like a good girl, and ate a very good, delicious, crisp green apple. It was very tasty... but it was NOT a large, large plate of ... oh, you get the idea!!

I'm excited today to realize that my "new" blue jeans - bought about a month ago - are too big for me, and that the belt my nephew gave me for Christmas last year can now be done up on the last hole and not have me turning blue for lack of being able to breathe! All exciting stuff! It's also a good incentive to keep on going with this challenge. I haven't fit a size 12 jeans (or anything else for that matter!) since I was a teenager - give or take 14 - and while I certainly don't believe I could ever get back into a size 12 anything and still be alive, it would be very nice to get down to a size 14 - from my current 18 / 20 / 22, depending on the manufacturer.... That WOULD be exciting!!

I think I need to buy a slightly more expensive pedometer though, as I'm not sure how much I trust the one I currently have. If it is to be believed, then I walked approximately 4.5 miles at work today, and about 6 miles at work yesterday - and that without cycling to work. Plus that doesn't take into account the non-walking physical work at my job - things like pushing / pulling carts, lifting 50lb vanities etc etc... I certainly won't get FIT doing this job, but I definitely am getting exercise doing it!

Now I just need to get serious about riding the bike and about trying The Biggest Loser work out video... Stay tuned for more news!

(PS And I STILL want those french fries!!!)

Well, I put $14.50 in the bank today. Heifer is doing very well out of these Heffers! We weighed in this morning, and I didn't have to pay anything - I made the goal! Esther Marie had lost 2 lbs and Eileen - well, she paid the most! We've set our next goal at 4 lbs. I made a chicken salad for our lunch, and we had half a cantalope each for dessert. I had my one coke of the day with Eileen when she came back this morning for a game. I have to admit that I licked the chicken salad spoon after work this evening when I was transferring the leftover to a smaller container. That's the first time I have reneged on my no-eating-after-my-main-meal vow. But I haven't been struck by a bolt of lightning yet!!!

Ugh.. weigh-in day tomorrow...

Well, tomorrow marks the end of our 2nd two-week challenge - and hence the end of the first month of our diet challenge. It'll be interesting to see how we've all done, given our weekend away in Philadelphia last weekend!

I'm concerned that Mom really isn't eating enough - I think she should be getting at least 1200 calories a day, but there are many days when she's barely hitting 800. I know she thinks she should eat less because she's older & it takes more for her to lose it, but the answer to that is exercise - even mild forms thereof - not eating less. And getting her to do any of that is nigh on impossible....

As for me, I have to admit that my exercise plan has been woefully lacking this week too. I thoroughly enjoyed Philadelphia - it was a great conference, and exploring the city was very, very interesting too - but somewhere I lost my energy and my voice, and I'm still trying to find both. My voice went out on Friday afternoon & still hasn't come back - very depressing, given that it's barely a month since I recovered from my LAST bout of it, which lasted 2 long weeks. As for my energy, I feel like I've run a marathon (which, in fairness, I've never done) and haven't slept in a month - although I've actually been sleeping straight through the night. I'm not sick per se - just totally energy-less. So needless to say I have not ridden the bike at all this week (but fair shake - it was raining yesterday too...). I'm hoping the rest of this week goes better than the beginning & that I'll be able to ride it tomorrow & Friday though!

So we shall see what the scales tell us tomorrow... Hopefully the news won't be all bad, although if it is all bad for us, that means it's all good for Heifer!

I think I am back on track for weighing in tomorrow. Esther Marie upbraided me yesterday when I told her I had left my weight as 220 on my new driver's license. But I'm worried that if I am stopped 3 years from now, I might really BE 220 lbs! Yesterday I had a dish of orange/grapefruit compote and then cornflakes for breakfast. We had spaghetti for lunch - lots of sauce, not too much pasta - with one slice of bread and butter (fake!), carrots and a small dish of peaches - but I didn't have the syrup they were canned in, which is all sugar. I was good Monday, too, though I can't remember now what I ate! I know when I recounted it to EM in the evening, she scolded me for not eating enough! Tomorrow will tell the tale. I don't think the girls realize that it is that much more difficult to lose weight once you pass 50 - even more so pass 60 - and well nigh a miracle when you're pushing 70! Egads - can that really be ME?!!!

Well, we made it through a WONDERFUL week-end without being TOO bad. We stopped for something to eat when we got gas Friday morning and decided to cheat just a little by buying something for our breakfast. I got a piece of pound cake, oj and some 2% milk, which wasn't too bad - but not as good as a bowl of Cheerios! We got box lunches Friday and Saturday at the Conference - a sandwich, chips, a piece of fruit and a cookie of some sort plus a small bottle of water. Again, not too bad, but heavy on the carbs. Friday night I had a bowl of French onion soup and two pieces of a chicken quesadilla. Saturday night we drove around Philadelphia (what a beautiful city it is!) and I had a delicious spinach/smoked turkey salad. So far, so good. But then, oh then, come Sunday we took a tour of the city on an open-top bus and decided to hop off and have our lunch at the City Tavern. A fatal decision for dieters. I had beef pot pie with cabbage and assorted summer vegetables, delicious varied breads with real butter, and a berry cobbler WITH ICE CREAM. Oh, groan! I was still thinking that, since it was at noon, I could not eat the rest of the day and not be too horribly off my REP, but then Eileen announced that Alan was making dinner for all of us - steak, sweet corn, and fresh baked bread. Suffice it to say, I am NOT going to makethis fortnight's goal - I just hope I won't have to pay double for weight GAINED!!! I am back on track this morning, though - oj and cornflakes for breakfast, my one diet coke of the day (hey - I cheated on that, too, all week-end!) at my side as I type this. Whatever I eat before I go to work, it will be minimal and probably green! Watch this space for further confessions!!

And the results are in.,..

So week three, it's 7am, and we're just about to leave for Philadelphia and the Women of Faith Conference. Before leaving, however, we weighed in - a day late, since I had to start work at 5.15am yesterday morning. The results are:

Mom 206.5 - a loss of a 1lb
Me 224 - a GAIN of 1/2lb!!!
Eileen 255.5 - a loss of 2lbs - YAY, Eileen!!

So now we're away for 3 days - hopefully the weekend will not adversely reflect our diet attempts!!

Back on Sunday nigh t/ Monday morning - watch this space for more updates!

I TRIED to blog yesterday, but this #%*/* machine (sorry, computer) ATE it before it was finished! Let's hope I - WE - do better today! As EM blogged, Tuesday was not a good day. I'm not sure I ate too much, but I know I ate all wrong. Chocolate cookies? Steak fries? CheeseWhiz? I think not! I did have a very good Asian salad when we were out with Eileen's, however, so I kinda sorta redeemed myself - I did NOT eat the cornbread OR the doughknots. Today has been better. Two slices of toast with minimum butter and minimum raspberry jam and a small of milk for breakfast (I was feeling fed-up with cereal). I had a 100-cal. bag of cookies for a midday snack, then the scrambled eggs/ham/cheese at 3:00 followed by a 60-cal. dish of peaches (I threw out the syrup) and a no-sugar tapioca pudding to end it. No more toast. So I don't think I even had 1000 cals. today. No exercise - EM is twitting me about not skipping, and that rope stares me in the face so often that I have begun not even to see it! We are weighing in tomorrow instead of today since EM started work so early. The three of us are off to Philadelphia tomorrow for the week-end. NOW our diets will REALLY be tested!

No exercise, but no food, either!

(Posted by Esther-Marie, who is obviously too tired to realize that she was logged in under Mom's login for the blog instead of her own - must be time for bed!!)


Well, yesterday was not a good food day for us - Mom & I had lunch at Carroll Lutheran Village with Charlotte, which for me was a small salad, a philly cheesesteak type sandwich (ground beef & melted cheese on a hotdog bun) and a small portion of steak fries. Which in and of itself was not dreadful - but the HEAVENLY double chocolate chip cookies (2) for dessert probably put me way over the calorie count on their own!

Then yesterday afternoon there was a fund raiser for Eileen's best friend's son's scout troop (could I get any more apostrophes in that sentence??) at a fast food restaurant near her church. Dinner there involved a delicious chicken caesar salad - with a slice of cornbread (yum, but boo...) - and Eileen, wicked child that she is, ordered a half order of cinnamon sugar Dough-knots with icing, which she then proceeded to tempt me with. And as Oscar Wilde once said, "I can resist everything except temptation...." so you know how well she tempted me!

Today has been a different story, however. A cup of banana nut cheerios and a glass of milk for breakfast, a rice krispie bar for a midday snack, scrambled eggs with ham & cheese & two slices of whole grain / whole wheat toast for lunch / dinner, and a bowl of orange / grapefruit compote with a jello sugar-free chocolate pudding for dessert. All told, maybe 1000 calories today - but, sadly, no exercise, as I stayed up WAAAAAAAY too late last night (2.45am, when I had to be up at 7.15am for work!) - I was writing baby shower invitations for a girl at work - to be safe riding the bicycle to work!

Tomorrow will be a different story, though: I'm off to bed now, as I have to be at work at 5.15 tomorrow morning, and I will DEFINITELY be riding the bike in the morning (weather permitting, of course!). Sweet dreams, everyone!

Get on yer bike!!

I have sounded sooooo British all day today, it's been really quite astounding... I know I generally sound at least a little British at different times (believe me: if nothing else, the customers at the store won't ever let me forget it!), but today has really been something else... Hmm.. Wonder why?? Of course, I made the FATAL mistake of using a very English word - trolley (for cart) at the store recently, and my line manager / boss will never ever let me forget it, but even so... !

My resolve has held well today, and I even got to ride the bike again tonight, so I'm feeling very virtuous tonight. A glass of OJ, a cup of multi-grain cheerios and a glass of milk for breakfast, the nachos & pecan-crusted chicken salad for lunch (ok, I confess... I also had a half-order of french fries - TGI's does SUCH good fries... but I didn't eat the whole order, so that has to be worth something, right?!), and I've just had a bowl of the orange & grapefruit compote for a night-time snack. The real bonus was that I got called in to work this afternoon to cover someone who'd called out sick, so I got to ride the bike to / from work - 2 miles of heart-pumping exercise to help work off the calories. Yay! :0)

Monday - and I think I am still okay. For one thing, the prunes have worked yet again after five days of lying dormant! For that reason if no other I KNOW I have lost! Esther Marie and I went to the Outlet Mall at Gettysburg today ostensibly to get her some more knee highs, but the unspoken ulterior motive was to have lunch at TGIFridays. I suggested to EM that we could probably order her socks on-line, but she immediately took it to mean that I didn't really want to go to TGIFridays; nothing could be further from the truth! We had a coupon for a free appetizer and, having perused the choices carefully, we chose nachos. The cheese was the only no-no, but how do you get cheese off a nacho?!! The chef came out and talked to us all about nutrition, and the waitress was so kind - she never even suggested we have dessert!! We both ordered a Pecan Crusted Chicken Salad, which is delicious for a minimum number of calories. That, with my cornflakes and orange/grapefruit compote for breakfast, has been the sum total of my intake today. But if I hadn't sworn off eating in the evening, I could go in the kitchen and have one of everything right now!!

HAH.,...I was lost because I had no computer, not because I was doing badly or anything. Actually, I think the weekend went fairly well. I had a KO meeting on Saturday which is always full of YUMMY food and LOTS of chocolate. Well, I had no chocolate, and only had one serving of breakfast and one of lunch. I did have two small cups of Diet Dr Pepper, and then I stuck to water for the rest of the day. Sunday, I had a very lazy day, and only actually ate lunch and dinner....so that was a good day in all.....Today I had my milkshake....I have decided that I will have one a week....better then the one a day that I was doing.....I have had no soda other then what I mentioned before....oh, and one can of Diet Coke at moms....I think it is unfair that they keep it in the house!! Lets see....I really feel as though I am losing....and hopefully the scales will agree with me this week....we are not weighing in until Friday, so I have one extra day to work on it....
Off for now.....Eileen

New week, new beginnings, new resolve...

Well, the weekend was challenging... I spent most of it hungry - and had a lot of food on Saturday to prove it, but not enough on Sunday, consequently having to eat late in the evening yesterday. Saturday morning I had @ 1 1/4 cups of Cheerios for breakfast - it made no sense to leave that little bit in the bag, after all - a whole grapefruit, and a (70 cal) chocolate jello along with a small glass of milk. Then I had a pecan-crusted chicken salad (YUM) from Applebees (definitely my favorite!) for lunch - along with 2 slices of their garlicky bread - I just really wanted some bread.... By the time I got home from work, I was hungry again, so I had a slice of bread with a little butter....

Sunday morning I had a large bowl of orange & grapefruit salad, 2 slices of multi grain wholewheat toast and a glass of milk. Then for lunch one slice of bread with the last 2 slices of processed American cheese and another of chocolate puddings. On my break, I had a banana, a small can of prune juice & a bag of (100 cal) fig newtons. By the time I got home from work, I was very hungry... I kept trying to ignore it, but gave in finally and had a peanut butter sandwich (VERY light on the peanut butter, as it is SOOOOO high in calorie & fat content!), after which I felt much, much better & slept like a baby!

So now today it's back to more sensible eating plans... I've had a glass of orange juice so far, and am now going to have a bowl of cheerios & more of that orange / grapefruit salad. I also intend to try the Biggest Loser Workout dvd that Eileen has lent me today - I've not ridden my bike at all this weekend, and NEED some exercise if I'm going to lose any weight this week!

So high-ho, high-ho... it's onward that we go!

Okay, okay, okay - I cheated yesterday. Not a TOO bad a cheat, but still a cheat. I had two little chocolate chip cookies when I was with Mrs. Bush last night. I'm sure calorie-wise I could afford it, but I still shouldn't have eaten them. I had had cheerios and oj for breakfast, soup and a rice krispie bar for lunch, a fountain diet coke and a can of diet coke and an apple, so calorie-wise I was no doubt alright. But I still should not have had those cookies. Ah, well, hopefully I'll do better today.

-Posted by Mom / Carol (I forgot to sign in under my own name to do this blog!)

Grocery shopping was actually fun yesterday - well,, I always enjoy it, but yesterday was funner! Esther Marie and I examined the nutritional labels on everything we bought, and were we surprised by some of the things! I thought we could buy some of the Ben and Jerry mini-cups of ice cream, but even the little two-spooners had 220 calories. And those snowballs that I so love? Three hundred and twenty calories EACH - and I always ate BOTH of them. By the time we got to the check-out, we knew full well why we're in the shape we're in! So nose to the grindstone - on to the minus five!

I'm HUNGRY!!!

Actually, if I'm honest, I'm not really - I suppose I'm a little peckish, something that a piece of fruit would take care of, really - but my brain is telling me I'm hungry, and is practically begging me to go into the kitchen and devour everything in sight. Which I'm working very hard at NOT doing!! It doesn't help that we went grocery shopping today and consequently have a kitchen full of good things (low cal!) to eat...

But I must be strong... We had a good lunch at Bob Evans' today - mom had soup & a loaded baked potato, while I had a rather large salad and 2 buffalo wing sliders (just the meat, no bread) - although I have to admit I did also devour the french fries that came with the sliders! Still, BE does bottomless fries - you can have as many as you want - and I was very good, and did not order seconds on the fries. Although I would have loved to!

I have done a lot of running around today, but all of it has been in the car - we've had pretty much torrential downpours all day long, and several parts of the area are under flood warnings / watches, so the bicycle has stayed locked up, I'm afraid! Tomorrow is back to work, though, so hopefully the weather will have cleared up & I'll be able to bicycle to / from work again!

Meanwhile, Mom has just come home, so hopefully she'll be able to distract me from my wicked-wicked-wicked urges to go graze like a cow (or a heffer!!) in the kitchen!!!!

We lost, we lost, we lost!!

The first two week challenge is over, and we ALL managed to lose weight - we're off to a good start! None of us made the 12lb challenge - we really were reaching for the stars with that target, we can see with hindsight! - but it gave us all something to aim for, and we all managed to lose something! In the first two weeks, Mom has dropped 6.5lbs, Eileen 5lbs, and - much to my amazement & delight - I have lost 9.5lbs!! I know Eileen is disappointed with her loss this week (as was I last week), but at the same time in the last two weeks she has had to deal with a death in the family & traveling to Ohio for the funeral, the start of the new school year with her children, and a sleepover at her barn for 16 kids, complete with s'mores, sodas, etc etc. With that much distraction going on around her, she's done great for the first goal!

So now starts the new 2-week challenge. Mom thought we should go for 4lbs, while I felt 6 would be better, and Eileen diplomatically stepped in and said, why not split the difference and aim for 5? So that is the new goal: 5lbs by September 24th. This is a much, much more realistic goal for all of us, so fingers crossed that 2 weeks from now, we'll all be jumping with joy! We will have a challenge in the middle of it, as next weekend sees all three of us in Philadelphia for the Women of Faith conference, but hopefully being there together will help us all to stay strong and not stray toooooo badly from the path!

Meanwhile, Mom paid $20 (it was supposed to only be $15, but she didn't tell the teller that until the $20 had already been deposited!) into our Heifer account, so she decided it could just stay there!

And on a further note, we decided what to do in the event that any of us actually GAINED weight in any given 2-week period, instead of losing. In addition to paying the $1 per lb not lost, we will pay a double indemnity of $2 per lb gained - so, if the goal is to lose 5 lbs, but I gain 3 lbs in the next two weeks, I would have to pay $5.00 (for the weight not lost) + $6 for the weight gained - a total of $11. Hopefully none of us will gain!

BLAH

Repeat after me....A pound lost is a pound lost. Yes, I only lost one pound this week. I knew I had not done great, but with the extra walking I am doing I did expect to lose more then just 1lb. So, I have had my pity party with a wonderful peach milkshake, and now I am over it and will be back on track. Now, this week will be my first week where I don't have an "excuse" to cheat, so maybe it will go better at the next weigh in......Also, maybe my body will hurry up and get rid of this period that is threatening me, and that should help too...(sorry to be personal, but it is a weight issue.....)I really think I am making MUCH better choices on food, and so do not feel as though that is the issue, but we will see. Maybe I will need to keep a journal for a week and have Kathy and Heather help me figure out where I am going wrong...I do know that if you don't eat enough calories, then you will not lose, as well as if you eat too many obviously....Anyways...I will see what happens this week of being good all week, and go from there. Meanwhile....A POUND LOST IS A POUND LOST!!
Until tomorrow....
Eileen

Well, the deed is done, and all three of us lost - whoopee! I was down 2 lbs, Eileen was down one, and Esther Marie lost a whopping six and a half pounds! Of course, none of us made the goal of 12 pounds, which means that this morning I will deposit a sum of $15.00 to our Heifer fund. I think Eileen and I were both disappointed we hadn't done better, but EM was ecstatic, having felt very discouraged with only a 2 lb. loss last week. She's off to work now, Eileen is off to her horses, and I am facing housework - groan, moan! But first things first - I'm off to the bank right now! More blog later!

My resolve holds!

Yay, day two of riding my (sister's) bicycle to work - and it felt GREAT! Admittedly, I didn't ride home at dinnertime - I was very, very hungry & we have no quick, easy & healthy food in the house right now, so I took myself to Applebee's for the pecan-crusted chicken salad (YUM!) instead - but I did ride there and back! I bought lights for the bike today (just as well, since it was pitch black when I came home), as well as a neon yellow vest, so no driver can claim they can't see me on the road! Ah, nothing like the height of fashion to make a real statement!

Foodwise, it's been a bit of a not-so-good day for me. I was HUNGRY at breakfast time, so had a cup & a half of cheerios instead of just a cup. Then I had a can of spaghetti-o's for lunch with 2 bread rolls (all told about 700 calories, I think), and for dinner the salad at Applebees. Oh, and I've had a 3-diet-coke day today - very unusual for me, as I generally try hard to keep to two. The flip side of all that food is that I have run like a maniac at work all day - I ended up doing a full shift instead of a short one, as the original Head Cashier is at the hospital with her niece, who went into labor today. While the store wasn't particularly busy, I seemed to have a particularly needy team today - constantly calling me for one thing or another, which worked well for me, as it kept me running from one end of the store to the other - great exercise (and no, I wasn't LITERALLY running...) So between that & riding the bike, I'm estimating that I've covered about 4 miles! Unfortunately, I forgot my pedometer today, so I don't have a more accurate guess than that, but that's my feeling...

And now tomorrow we weigh in. I'm curious to see how I've done this week - hopefully at least as well as, if not better than, last week! The 12lb goal was overly ambitious, as we all recognize, but we had to start somewhere! Watch this space for the results & for the new 2-week goal!

Day 14 and I am really looking forward to tomorrow's weigh-in. I know I haven't lost 12 pounds
- that was a silly goal to set - but I'm sure I have lost some more, anyway. And that's in spite of cheating today and drinking a carton of chocolate milk with my lunch when I was with Charlotte. I know it is helping that I don't eat anything once I get home from work at nine. And that the prunes continue to work, even if only every three days (this being the day!). I must go and skip now, since I promised EM I would if she was going to ride the bike to work, which she did. And then I have to go to work and hour early, so I will take my one diet coke to work with me. Roll 8am tomorrow!

Exercise wears you out!

I finally did it... I rode my (sister's) bike to work and home today! It was exhilarating... It was fun.. It was TIRING!! Of course, part of that could well be the fact that I was up at 4.35am, as I had to be at work at 5.15 /5.20 - so I got up at 4.35, showered, dressed, had a bowl of cheerios & a small glass of milk, then peddled my little out heart out to get to work on time! And considering that I hadn't been on a bike in oh... about 19 years (if memory serves.. there may have been one or two times in between, but nothing that stands out in my mind!), I think I did pretty well! Of course, by the time I actually got to work, my knees were KILLING me (I'm so old... LOL), and I was shaky as all get up - but it felt GOOD!

I biked home again at lunch time, and promptly fell into a deep nap on the sofa for 30 minutes! My plan had been to cycle back to work again after my break, but I overslept, so sadly had to drive back. Still, it means that I got a 2 mile bike ride in today - and discovered that I can both do the ride & survive it! So tomorrow will be my next attempt! It will again only be a 2-mile ride, though, as I'm only working a 5 hour shift tomorrow, so will only have a 30 minute break - not enough time to come home, even if I were driving.

Foodwise I continue to do fairly well, although I'm going to have to get more fruit, as we're almost out! Thank heavens for 100-cal cookie packets, though... I had my cereal for breakfast, a banana on my lunch break, then Mom made us baked potatoes, 3 small sausages each, and veggies for lunch, with a 70-cal rice pudding for dessert. I got home from my Trustees meeting tonight REALLY hungry... So I ate an orange & a bag of cookies! I'm feeling somewhat less hungry - although truth be told, I could still very easily eat everything in the kitchen!

Anyway, it's now 12.20am, and I've been up for hours and hours and hours, so I'm signing off & going to fall into my bed! Good night!

No too bad, hopefully

Well I had a great beginning to today. I ate a yogurt for breakfast, a chicken sandwhich for lunch, okay so it had a small milkshake with it, and then we did go out to the Chinese buffett for dinner. I did, however, have water to drink. I limited myself to one plate, where as usual I would have had at least 2, and maybe three helpings, and then I had a serving of banana pudding, and then resisted the urge to eat more pudding etc by eating water melon. It was good and refreshing. So, I probably ate too much today overall, but I am working more on changing my eating habits at this point, making better choices when we go out, and that I think I have done. THE BIG NEWS....I have made the cut. NO soda today, and I will not have anymore, period. I even had water at a restaurant which is HUGE for me. Also, as advised by my dear friend, I am changing from Powerade Zero to Gatorade 2, which is low calorie, not calorie free. Apparently the chemicals in the PZ is worse then the calories in G2, so I will work with that. Even though I don't like the taste as much. Really, I only need that kind of drink when I am hot and working at the barn, and other then that I will be drinking just water.

I am happy with it all at this point, I feel that I am making good overall choices. I have not had fries since I started, and I don't even really miss them. I would like a chocolate bar every once in a while, and maybe I will allow myself one after this weeks weigh in. I am not sure that I will make the goal, but even if I don't, I think I will still be happy.

I take it back - the prunes work WONDERS!!!

I've had two good days, quantity-wise, though probably not quality wise. I don't know why I am so averse to eating fruit - I certainly don't have that problem with chocolate! I did cheat and eat a small chocolate chip cookie yesterday, but I don't think I have eaten anything I oughtn't to today. I don't feel hungry now, but I still want to go in the kitchen and rummage around for something. Good thing there is somebody here keeping a watchful eye on me!

Eating healthier, but still not healthy...

It's been another good food day for me - a bowl of cheerios, small glass of milk and a whole grapefruit (YUM - it was delicious!) for breakfast, then a Stoffer's macaroni & cheese microwave meal for lunch/dinner (I know it sounds bad, but it's only 340 calories - of course, 140 of those are fat calories, but even so...), and now this evening I was HUNGRY, so I've had a punnet of raspberries, a banana and a non-fat raspberry yogurt for an evening snack. Oh, and 2 diet cokes to drink... All told, I don't think I've hit 1000 calories today.

Which brings me to the title of this particular blog. I am soooo eating far more healthily than I think I've EVER eaten in my life, but at the same time, I still don't think I'm eating very healthily. My fruit intake has easily tripled (but that's a simple fix - even one piece of fruit a day is better than the 1 - 2 pieces a week I was eating before!), and I am taking a multi-vitamin daily (primarily for the iron content, as I think my iron count was low even before I started this diet thing..), so in that regard I'm doing much better now than I was. Also, my calorie intake is down by at least 1500 - 2000 calories a day - no more cookies, potato chips, candy, icing (one of my big weaknesses...), french fries... in short, no more JUNK - and much, much less milk (I was drinking 2-3 tall glasses / day), all of which adds up very, very quickly - I think I'm averaging between 1000 - 1500 calories a day now. But it's not balanced, which it needs to be, and that I think needs to be addressed....

Still, I'll put that on the "for the next step" list!

Meanwhile, thanks to my sister & her husband, I now have a bicycle to try riding, and I even bought a lock for it this evening, so tomorrow morning I shall try it out and start biking to work this week - exercise, here I come! Someone warn the drivers on the road... !!! :-)

a fresh start

Okay, so you probably think that it is too early for a fresh start. But it is needed anyways. I was doing great until Friday, but on Friday we had a sleepover at the barn. I crashed, big time. There was soda, pizza(three slices), brownies(1-yes really), s'mores(only 2), and sodas....that was the killer. And then in the morning we had Donuts. I think I had three throughout the morning, and did I mention soda? I did not have any lunch on Saturday, I am sure my stomach was in shock, and I had a very healthy (not) peach milkshake for dinner. So, it was a big mess. Believe me, my stomach let me know just how badly I had messed up. So, today, I am back on track. I had a bowl of cereal with no sugar for breakfast, and then went on a long relaxing trail ride on Bella (yes mom...this IS exercise for me as well as the horse) then walked her out to the back field when we got home. I need to measure how far that it, but it could be a 1/4 mile there and back, and today I did it without resting and without huffing and puffing, so that was good. So after our ride I was treated to Salsaritas for lunch. My very healthy friend was with me, and she helped my pick a healthy chicken burrito, with black beans, rice, lettuce and a tiny bit of sour cream and a then also a black bean and rice side. It was surprisingly good, and very filling. I also drank water with it....so I am feeling much better. I do think I can make that 12lbs by Thursday. I have decided to stop "stepping down" off of the salad, and am just going to quit. So I am drinking the last one now....and that is it. I feel as though I am in a good place with this diet now. Also...I am going to walk out to that back field at least once a day. It is a good walk, not straight but not overly hilly. I will also go and get a pedometer so that I can see exactly how much I walk in one day, as I think with lesson and such I must walk at least a couple of miles a day. I also am going to start riding more, as this is good all over exercise....cardio, muscles the lot....

So, that is it for now...I will post more later....

Eileen

The prunes are not working!!!

The fruit salad is gone...

... long live the fruit salad! I made a HUGE fruit salad at the beginning of the first week - who knew 2 pieces each of apple, pear, banana, nectarine, peach, some strawberries & a kiwi would make SUCH a big salad?? - and finally finished it for breakfast this morning. And amazingly, it was still delicious - the apples still crunchy, the banana still looking / tasting fresh... Shall have to make another one soon!

I'm feeling good about food today - although it's just as well I had no cause to go to the supermarket, or I wouldn't be feeling quite so good! I did go to Target for a few things, and found that the cookies were just JUMPING OFF THE SHELF to get at me - those soft-baked, Peppermill Raisin Oatmeal cookies were just crying out for me to rip them open and devour them... and the bags of potato chips (of which I've had exactly none in the last 8 days...) were begging me to give in and munch on them! I resisted though - with great difficulty and greater will power - and managed to escape the store without turning it into a feeding frenzy first!

So food today: fruit salad & half an orange for breakfast, chicken salad (1/2 chicken breast, 1/4 of an apple, 1/4 cup of pasta, 1/2 handful of raisins & some slivered almonds held together with 1/2 tbsp of salad cream & 1/2 tbsp of mayonnaise), a slice of buttered bread & a sugar free rice pudding (70 cals & quite edible!) for lunch, and 2 diet cokes... My entire calorie intake for today has to be about 1200 calories. Not bad!

Oh, and I bought a pedometer this afternoon - and discovered that I walked the equivalent of 1/2 mile at work this evening. Nowhere near enough... REALLY have to start exercising (hint, hint, Eileen - bicycle?? Please???)

P.S. I do have to confess... I was so disappointed with the weigh-in results yesterday that in a fit of pique I went to McD's and chowed down on a large portion of their fries... Tasty, but disappointingly not as satisfying as I had hoped - probably because I felt my guilt level grow with each one I put in my mouth... !!

Bank

Well, we have created a bank account for our venture - or competition, as Eileen insists on calling it! We had $75.00 from the sale of the tv and had to add twenty five more in order to start a savings account. Much as I want to help Heifer, I sincerely hope it doesn't grow too fast, cause that would mean we were meeting our goals all the time! I think it probably will grow next Thursday, however, as I think we set this first goal too high. Time will tell!

Paying the Piper

So after much thought, we have worked out the "penalty" side of this challenge - aka the money-raising side of it. Whoever doesn't meet each 2 week weight loss goal will have to pay the pot $1 for each lb not lost - i.e., if the goal is 12lbs, and I only lose 7lbs, I will then have to put $5 dollars into the pot, but if Mom loses 10lbs, she'll only have to put in $2.

We're going tomorrow to open a bank account for this venture - we sold a TV this week that had been given to us for free, so that money ($75) is our "seed" money for the bank account. We decided to go with a bank account so that none of us would be tempted to spend the money (which would be a big temptation if it were just sitting around the house somewhere!)

Henceforth we shall be putting money in (on an honor basis - no-one's going to be checking to see whether we're keeping our word & putting it in!) every couple of weeks. At the end of the challenge, the money will be used to buy an animal through Heifer International (see the link on the right) for a 3rd world family -thus helping someone else to benefit from our loss!

4lbs lost....8 more to lose before weigh in day...

It is the first weigh in day. I lost four pounds on this first week. I had honestly hoped to lose more, but then I remind myself of the travel last weekend, and think that it probably is not so bad after all. This week I need to stay focused more, and cut down again on the sodas. I have been good about sticking to just one bottle of soda a day, but starting tomorrow I am going to change that to cans of soda, as that carries less, and then I will quit completely next weigh in day. So....can we make the 12lb goal in two weeks? I think we probably can....but the others are thinking we cann't....pessimists!! So yesterday I finished my day with a grilled chicken ceasar salad WITHOUT croutons, and a apple and yogurt dip for dessert. Today started with a peach and a yogurt. I have to fight the urge to NOT eat....so now I am going to go and see what I can scare up some lunch....for some reason I really want some oatmeal, so that may be what it will be....

Hurrah - losses!

We all three lost this week - what a wonderful feeling - that's ten pounds of ugly fat GONE-GONE-GONE! Now next week we just have to keep this up and maybe even increase it by a pound or so. I will definately add some kind of exercise and encourage Esther Marie to do the same. Eileen gets plenty of exercise with her horse business. My grandkids suggested this morning that I join them out at the barn. NO WAY!! But that jump rope keeps staring me in the face!

The results are in....

And for me, at least, they suck! I am very disappointed by this week's weigh-in, having lost only 3 lbs - I was sure against sure that I had done better than that. I am especially disappointed since I "cheated" on day 3 and weighed myself then - it showed I'd lost 4 lbs, so to end the week with a loss of only 3 lbs is a BIG disappointment. Still, if nothing else it shows me that I really shouldn't cheat if I don't want to be upset on weigh-in day!

Mom lost 4.5 lbs, and Eileen 4, so we're all pretty much in the same area - we're beginning to think that perhaps 12 lbs as our first goal was a bit of a reach!!

I think for me the big thing HAS to be exercise. I've cut my calorie intake by at least 1/3 if not 1/2, and have DRASTICALLY increased my fresh fruit intake - up from basically nothing to at least 2 - 3 portions / day with the fruit salad. Eileen has agreed to lend me her bicycle (which she doesn't use anyway), so I'm going to start cycling to work - it's 9/10s of a mile each way, and I figure that if I ride to & from work, and ride home on my (hour-long) lunch break, that would give me all but 4 miles of bike riding exercise a day - a start at least.... I will definitely need to do more, though, if I'm to meet my goals for this challenge...

Day 6 and I feel I am doing okay. As a matter of fact, today I feel I haven't eaten enough. Cereal and oj for breakfast, a cup of soup with half a bun with sloppy joe on it and a dixie cup of ice cream for lunch, a diet coke and a small container of cottage cheese before I went to work at 4:30. This is really my worst time, when I first get home at nine fifteen or so - I'm not hungry, yet I want to eat everything in sight. I haven't had any evening snacks since we started this, and I do not want to go back to it tonight. No exercise today - I may have to drape that jump rope around my neck to remind me to use it!

half way through today...

Well I am going to blog now, not for long, but so that I get back on track. I did okay this morning, but then at lunch it was Cecelias birthday and there was pizza, cake and lemonade and apple sauce...mmmmm....I did not do as badly as I would have if I was not on this blog diet though...I had two slices of onion and mushroom pizza, a big tablespoon of apple sauce, half a cup of lemonade and a SMALL sliver of cake...which was OH so GOOD. So....now I want more and more sweet stuff.....but I am typing so I cann't be eating....and I am leaving the house soon and will be away from temptation. Weigh in tomorrow...I know I have lost some, just probably not as much as I wanted too....hopefully enough so that I don't have to pay up!!! I will write more tonight on how I get through the evening....

The day before the first weigh-in....

Hmm... tomorrow is the first weigh-in, and I have no clue how I'm feeling about it. I THINK I've lost weight, but I'm not sure... And if I don't start doing some exercise soon, losing weight is going to be pointless, as I'll just be LOOSE flabby skin instead of just flabby!

As for my mother's comment that I'm just doing it to be "beautiful", I hate to disagree with her, but... Part of it is that I just don't like the way I feel at this weight. I've always joked that when I can see my belly under my boobs (and given the size of those, it would be a pretty impressive belly..) it's time to lose weight - and while I'm not QUITE at that point yet, I feel like I'm not too far off it. Another part is that doctors have been saying for years that I'm clinically obese (ridiculous thought if you just look at me), but with a BMI of 30.4%, I am technically obese. Another part is support - we all know that if you do something alone you are less likely to succeed than if you do it in partnership with others, if for no other reason than moral support. On my own, I'd likely do nothing whatsoever about losing weight other than ask on occasion if my clothes make me look fat. With my mom & sister involved, I'm likely to do more - as are they. So we support each other and hopefully we'll all reach good goals. And yes, part of it is wanting to have a slimmer figure - I can fully admit that there are fewer & fewer photos of me that I like as I just think I look too big in them! So yes, part of it is beauty related, I guess!

Having said all of that, yesterday was not a particularly good food day for me. I had my cereal & milk for breakfast, then went to the first picnic with Mom at lunchtime. One sloppy joe, a little couscous (is that really bad for you?) a few tortilla chips, a banana bread & cream cheese sandwich, a little salad, a little pasta later... I managed to avoid the desserts (peach pie, coconut pie), but to be absolutely honest, if I'd had to go into the gas station I stopped at one the way home to fill up, I'd have bought one of EVERY sweet thing in there and gobbled it all up quickly! Instead, I paid at the pump (thank heavens for the convenience!), came home and attacked the fruit salad...

Then I went to work, and found that boredom really is a very big hunger-manufacturer. It was a very quiet afternoon, and by the time I came home on my break at 5pm, I was HUNGRY - so I finished off the poor man's stroganoff (with 2 slices of bread) and a Diet Coke - and a slice of sugarfree angel food cake for dessert.

I did, however, count the number of steps it takes to go from one end of the store to the other - something I do a fair bit when I'm in my Head Cashier hat. It's +/- 225 steps - which I did at least 3 times yesterday. I wonder how many steps you take to cover a mile? I really need to get a pedometer - then I'd know how far I'd walked each day!

So now today it's back on the wagon. I've had my cereal & milk this morning, as well as a good large serving of fruit salad (it's a really good salad!). I go to work at 2pm again today, but I'm in my Customer Service hat today, so won't cover anywhere near as much ground.

Which brings me back to really needing to start exercising... Hmm....

I am going to sit here and blog, blog, blog until my wicked urge to go into the kitchen and get something to eat goes away! No doubt a natural reaction to having eaten rather badly today. I'm not sure I actually CHEATED, but going to two picnics , both of them pot luck, really boogles a diet! Both picnics were great fun and the food was yummy, just too much of it! I tried to take just a spoon of everything, but my self-discipline was sorely tested! AND I haven't skipped rope at all today. Ah, well, tomorrow is another day and then it will be weigh-in day. Much as I want to lose weight, I really hope both the girls lose more than me - I'm the only one that can afford to feed the Heifer fund!! I want to lose for health reasons, my daughters want to lose to be more attractive - I already think they're beautiful, both of them!

good day...

I started the day with a yogurt and thought, oh oh, now I am in trouble-that will never hold me over. Luckily, my morning was busy so I didn't have time to think about food. But then, I start worrying because everyone says you have to eat to lose....I hate that concept even though I totally understand it. Anyways...for lunch I ate a hummus sandwich again, it is amazing how satisfying that is, and a yogurt. And then for dinner, rushed and crazy but thanks to Brendan for cooking...I had a fish finger, a little broccoli and cheese, and about a cup of white rice with Ketchup(I know but I love it...). And then I had a piece of fat free angel food cake and a peach for dessert. I must confess that I did again have a diet soda....it is easier to get through the day. I am going to continue to have a bottle of soda a day for this week, and then next week I am going to switch to a can a day, and then I will be done. As long as I am controlling it, and not the other way around, I think I am okay. So I am feeling overall happy with today. I also cleaned all of my stalls, which is a great workout. Now that September is here, I also have to start working towards my "BIG" goal, of being fit enough to walk a half marathon next Spring....we will see how that goes....I also need to work more on drinking WATER....I am drinking Powerade Zero, but I think I need just good old fashioned water...

Exercise - now that's a biggie - and oh! how I I need it ! I had decided I would skip rope for my main exercise - after all, that's one of the ways boxers keep fit, isn't it? Esther Marie very kindly bought me a jump rope at the dollar store last week - the first couple of times I tried it, I found out that I have forgotten how to use the darn thing - after all, I haven't skipped rope in probably 50 years! But yesterday I managed FOUR skips - whoopee for me! I plan to add at least one more skip each day until I reach 100 a day - let's see - that will take well into 2010! I have been good so far, but today will be a challenge - I am going to a picnic at noon with my Red Hats group and another in the evening with my church ladies group - I will have to be really, really vigilante and discipline myself to only eat the salads - and I am SO bad at self-discipline - which is why I am so overweight now! Ah well - better a late start than none at all! I'll confess in my next blog!