Fruits and Vegetables for Weight Loss... and Other Wonderful Things. Who Knew?

In my last post I walked you through my intro to green smoothies.  Now it's been a few months and I'd like to point out a few things that I've noticed.  I took a green smoothie break over the Thanksgiving/Christmas holidays and I ate pretty darn much whatever I wanted.  Enter 8 pounds - stage right.  That extra 8 pounds that I had seemingly *just* lost was making me miserable.  I felt like a sausage stuffed into my clothes, I was irritable and tired and just yucky overall.  I decided it was time to get back on track.  I didn't really notice so many changes when I first started drinking smoothies, but I noticed a lot of things when I stopped..

I noticed my nails.  While on smoothies my nails were strong, healthy, and were able to grow out longer than I can remember them ever growing (well maybe that one time I was on Slim-Fast).

My hair has grown and it was shinier, but I noticed it starting to get dull any dry again.

I was tired.  When I drank smoothies I didn't need caffeine.  I kicked it without a second thought.  I didn't drag my feet all day at work, I walked with purpose and dodged and weaved around slower walking people.

They also helped to regulate my bowels and control stomach bloat.

That's pretty big right there.  At first they did make me feel sick and gave me headaches, but that only lasted about the first week.  Now, even after not drinking them for a month I've had no problems returning to drinking them.  I crave them.  I crave fruits and vegetables.  That's *insane*.  All my life, I've never particularly been a fan of salads - the other night I ate one with a vengeance, it just tasted so good! I thought I had lost my mind, truly.

The past two weeks I've been eating a truckload of fruits and vegetables.  Well, at least what I consider to be a truckload.  I get at least 5 servings if not 8 or 10 or more.  Typically I can get at least 4 or 5 of those servings just from my morning smoothie.

I know it sounds like I'm trying to sell you on these things... but well I am.  If you try it, just for two weeks you just may love it.  Not to mention, it the last week and a half I've lost five pounds.  My cravings are greatly diminished and I've consistently been able to walk past the glass candy dish full of chocolate truffles without even wanting one.  That's flipping amazing.  I can't deny chocolate, who am I??

Now I did have a bit of a stumble one night that included way too many frozen mini eclairs (darn my brother for bringing those tiny temptations in the house) but I had planned that day for a higher calorie dinner.  I tracked everything I ate, every darn one of those eclairs.  I've learned that you have to balance things out.  Yes I had a glass of wine and three biscuit pizzas and (cough cough unsaid number) eclairs, but I also had a salad which kept me from eating even more.  I also planned lower calorie meals earlier that day, and had a lower calorie day the next day as well as adding in a little exercise.

I'm getting there.. one step at a time.

Now, it's off for a mushroom and spinach egg white omelet.  I save my smoothies for work days (they're super fast to make and portable woot!) to make sure I don't get burnt out, but I may still have one later for a snack.. they're just darn tasty.

What a Shotty Blogger...

Ok guys, so true to form - like my weight loss took a hiatus, so did my blogging.  Let's face it.  I'm a shotty blogger.  Guess what though?  It's a new year, so I suppose I get another chance at blogging.  .... Right?

Well here it goes..

This year's resolution.. drum roll please...

Save more money on my groceries.  Yes, you read correctly.  Nothing in there about eating less, moving more, losing weight, getting healthier.  Because those are goals I'm keeping to myself right now.  I want to save money on my groceries by buying more fruits and vegetables and less pre-packaged, pre-made foods. I want to save money on my groceries so I'll have more money to spend on *gasp* a gym membership.

Truth be told the only way I've ever truly been successful at losing weight has been when I was a member of the gym.  I do plan on running outside once the weather tames.  We've had more snow the past two winters than I can recall in a very very long time.  (Here in NC snow and ice bring everyone to a standstill, even the city government closed for a day).  I'm also hoping that my work schedule will soon become more like that of a "normal" person.  This is the second big hold up in me joining a gym (first being cost).  We do have a 24 hour gym right down the road, but it's ridiculously expensive ($50 a month plus a joining fee) for a teeny tiny little gym.  We'll see.  While it's been hinted by my boss that I should have no worries at all about getting this new position, I do in fact have worries.  Quite a few worries, mainly because it's taking so long to get an answer from the board (It's been almost a month).

In lighter news, I've lost 8.8 pounds in the last week and a half!  Yay for that!  Amazing what drinking water can do... and cutting out bacon... and bacon grease in cooking... and candy bars from the vending machine.  That 8.8 pounds even includes a lovely little "cheat day"  Which included a healthy breakfast of oatmeal and raisins followed by lunch with the girls at Olive Garden.  I had unsweetened tea, soup salad and breadsticks (I did have two bowls of soup - the chicken gnocchi) and dessert.  Dessert consisted of one of their mini dolce thingies.  Then I had dinner with a different set of "the girls" at a place called Pastabilities, where I had a vegetarian pasta dish.  They had beautiful serving sizes, normal serving sizes not these plates that are three times bigger than your head.  Even though it was delicious, and I had a "normal" serving in front of me, I still could only eat about a third of it.  Later that night we had some multigrain chips and fat-free sorbet.  So while I did indeed have a cheat day, I still felt pretty good about my choices.

I'm still nervous about going back to the doctor for a second check on my cholesterol levels.  I went for a physical maybe a month or so ago and got a call saying my cholesterol was too high.  How embarrassing.  I've let myself go so much that it's impacting my health as well as my happiness.  Then a few weeks ago I hurt my knee.  I worked two extra shifts and apparently the extra work and my extra weight didn't get along.  When I went back to the doctor they said I had patellar tendonitis.  Neither time I visited the doctor did anyone mention anything about my weight.  I attribute this mainly to the fact that everyone I saw was my weight or heavier.  I know, however that the added weight has a lot to do with my joint problems.  The nurse who called about my cholesterol levels told me to take two fish oils a day (yuck) and "try to move around a little more".  She didn't say you need to exercise more, or you need to get off your lazy bum and do something other than hang out on facebook.  What happened to doctors giving you the cold hard nasty truth?  What happened to the scare tactics?  What happened to the "if you continue on this path you'll send yourself to an early grave" speech?  Huh.

Maybe I'm just too melodramatic about it.

The Beginning of a New Ruler... er.. Scale

I think it's time for a new scale.

I'm tired of the one I have now playing it's silly games with my heart.

Yesterday (I'm a daily weigher - yeah I know but it helps keep me on track) I stepped on the scale... "SWEET!  I lost two pounds!  I even had full test soda AND ate dinner at the pizza buffet!  AWESOME!.... That can't be right.  I wonder what I weigh with my clothes off!"  You know what happened?  I took off all my clothes, all my chunky jewelry, and I gained three pounds.  I used the bathroom, gained another pound.

So I proceed to step on the scale about twenty gajillion times over a period of about five minutes.  In those five minutes I weighed six completely different things.  Now I'm wondering how for the past month my clothes have fit better, my stomach is flatter but yet due to some magical evil I have stayed at the exact same weight - to the tenth of a pound.  Damn evil scale.  It lies.

Once I told dearest he snickered at me.  I told him to try it, and what was uttered out of his mouth??  "That can't be right.  There's no way I gained seven pounds in two days!"  Uh huh. "Try it again" I said.  Nudge it with your toe, then get on.  "Yeah!  I just lost four pounds!... Oh wait.. found it".

Uh huh.

The evil scale's tyrannous reign has come to an end.  Today it gets tossed and replaced by it's new, shiny, sweetly (even if painfully) truthful successor.

Rock Bottom: A Moment of Realization

I've had a weight problem ever since I started third grade. I used to stay with my grandmother after school and she would feed my brother and I, because that's what grandmothers do. Then my mother came home and would cook us dinner, when we had just eaten meal sized snacks two hours before. She recognized the problem and would tell us to eat less, and ask us every day what we had for 'snack'. That's when I started feeling guilty about food. I'd either conveniently forget to tell her everything I ate, or fib about my proportions. As I grew up I became a "sneaker" I'd sneak food when no one was around, or I'd sneak into the kitchen for a snack. If no one saw me eat it... it didn't count.