THANKS FOR NO GAIN THANKSGIVING!

I managed not to gobble gobble, as planned.  I have lost another 2 pounds this week.  I did get very silly on champagne and had a great time on Thanksgiving!  For dinner I ate only the broccoli rabe and the turkey with a little gravy, one small whole wheat roll and one bite of my sister's luscious lemon cake. 

I have still been avoiding the gym - which is strange.  I was there today and I was completely enjoying myself.  I was thinking about what has been holding me back from getting back into going daily and I honestly don't know what it is.  So I am just going to get up and go every morning - no excuses, no delays, no I'll go later with Ally - because then she doesn't want to go so I don't go...

That is my number one goal for this week.

MY HOLIDAY PLEDGE

Sarah over at Low Stress Weight Loss is hosting another "No Gain Holidays Pledge Group" for this holiday season and I have joined up!  She and I are both hoping to not only not gain - but to lose during the next 7 weeks of merry making. 

My Goals

1.)  I have already determined that I am going to minimize my usual Christmas cookie baking frenzy.  I am going to make some biscotti to give as gifts and make only a couple of single recipes for my family at home.  (When I am being honest - my daughter and I are the ones who eat most of the cookies and the ones who need them the least!  No gingerbread this year...)

2.)  I am going to forgo treats at events I attend.  So far that will be a work party and my family gatherings and they understand and support my efforts.  My allowed treat will be the cocktails I will drink with my family.  Usually champagne!

3.)  I will increase my gym attendance and start taking some classes.

The info is on Sarah's blog.  Basic rules :


No Gain Holidays is a commitment to yourself to hold the line on your weight from before Thanksgiving until after New Year’s Eve.


Runs 7 weeks (November 22nd – January 3rd)


You can join anytime


This is self-reported : you can post your weight or your weight loss or keep it totally to yourself. Your pants will know even if we don’t.


Join by linking up your blog (or leave a comment) on Sarah's blog!

Come on - join up we will feel so good in January when everyone else is trying to get the holiday weight off and we are ahead of the game!

UPDATING MY STATS

I realized that in addition to neglecting my blog I have been neglecting my statistics.  So I had to post that weight gain.  I am not a math person, but even I know that was a statistically significant amount to have gained back.

Today, though,  I could post the loss (again) of some of it. 

I have not been particularly diligent with my food journal.  I have been spotty at best in my gym attendance.  I am headed in the right direction and with additional effort I will pick up steam and be back to where I was in the next three weeks and then I will just have to hold on through the holiday season - as we all do.

My extra incentive is that I have a uniform to wear for my new job at a small hotel front desk.  (A blouse and vest with my own black pants or skirt.)  The blouse fits fine but the XL vest they had does not button.  It is fine to wear it open, but with my big tummy, I would look better with it closed - so...that 10 pounds I put back on would have made a difference.  Actually I am  just soo relieved that the XL blouse fit! 

HUNGRY ALL THE TIME

I had a good weekend.  Ally was out of school for a long holiday  break and we went to the gym together a couple of times and went  grocery shopping one afternoon.  Ally is also trying to drop some weight.  She is confused about how to approach it.

 She is a bit resistant to making an effort to become educated about nutrition and different approaches to weight loss.  She just wants to know what is "good' and "bad" and gets mad when I won't labels things that way.  Ally is like me, she is carb carb sensitive and more of an emotional eater.  Unlike me, she has a limited palate.  (Or perhaps she still needs to grow into it.)  With her limited likes and stubborn nature, it is hard to direct her easily to a good weight loss plan. 

We went through the grocery store aisle by aisle talking about options and choosing foods to buy and how to fit them into her schedule and not look weird at school and if she should try to count calories or cut out fat or carbs or what to do.

And she said to me "But eating this is not going to make me full, I am going to be hungry.  So I am just going to have to be hungry all the time?"  That made me think of those actresses who talk about being hungry all the time to stay thin.  It made me feel so sad and helpless because, yes, we can alter our appetites.  Our stomachs can "shrink" and we will feel full with less. I know that there is a difference between mouth hunger and stomach hunger.  Between wanting to eat and needing to eat.

 But really?  During most of this year that I have been losing weight, I have been hungry.  I have done things to distract myself because I don't think I should be hungry.  I ignore the feeling.  I try to embrace the feeling . But I am hungry.

So how do I tell my child she has to feel hungry to get healthy?

STALKED BY SPARK PEOPLE

I really like the convenience of online food journals.  I started a long time ago using one that charged per month.  It is still the one I like the best, but I have gotten to the point that I don't want to spend my limited resources on that when there are free options.

Unfortunately, you get what  you pay for.  All of the sites I have tried have downsides.  I was using Fitday for quite some time but suddenly it won't let me log on and won't send me an e-mail so I gave up even though it is full of my personal data.

The latest one I am trying is SparkPeople because I saw that a favorite blogger, Cammy, uses it.  But geez Louise!  In four days I have gotten , and I counted them up, 15 e-mails from them.  I have gone back in and readjusted some of the preferences that I missed the first time in, so it should get better.

Also, it is hard to find the content through all the ads.  I am sure my eyes will adjust to that, too.  When I have a month worth of entries I will evaluate the site and see if I like it.  At this moment, I am thinking that paying the $9.00 a month for myfooddiary.com isn't so bad!

Anyone else using online journaling?

SURPRISE! ...not in the good way

My absences from blogging here run pretty much along with my absences from the gym and complete adherence to my diet program.  I weighed in at the gym last week and was not thrilled but not too upset to see I had gained 7 pounds.  It seemed reasonable considering that I have been slip-sliding for about 2 months.  I am feeling very jiggly and out of shape, my legs hurt like they did before I started working out regularly.  I really am back to a starting point.

So I started back on program on Monday and finally weighed in again today.  Surprise!  I am actually up 14 pounds!  When I thought about it I recalled 2 things.  1.) I weighed in on a different scale than I usually do, and 2.) I was naked.

I usually use the scale upstairs on the gym floor fully dressed, including shoes because that is where and how I was weighed when I first started last February.  So, I guess the difference between adding  my clothes and the different scale is double!  Oh, my.  (No wonder the locker room scale is the one my daughter likes to use!)

So it is going to take a bit longer to get back to where I left off than I originally thought.  I am back to the weight I was in June.  Yikes.   If it was just the 7 pounds I thought I could be back on track by December 1, but 14 will be tough to do even by Christmas because I am going to be realistic. 

So, I am back.  Climbing up the slide I slid down!

WHAT'S IN A NAME?

We have all heard a lot of negative talk about high fructose corn syrup.  Companies have been removing it from their products and advertising that their products do not contain this ingredient because of the public perception of high-fructose corn syrup as unhealthful,  including Hunt’s Ketchup, Ocean Spray Cranberry Juice and Wheat Thins crackers.

However, the food industry is now attempting to get around the bad publicity of HFCS by asking the FDA for a name change to corn sugar.  Why is the food industry so intent on using this product? 

Compared with sucrose, high-fructose corn syrup doesn’t mask flavors, has a lower freezing point and retains moisture better, which is useful in making foods like chewy granola bars. And because the corn crop in the United States is heavily subsidized, high-fructose corn syrup is also cheap. As a result, it’s now used in so many foods that it has become one of the biggest sources of calories in the American diet.

The reality is that HFCS is not any more unhealthy than other sources of sugar, it is unhealthy because it is possible to put it into so many different food products, often in addition to sources of  sugar.  It is found in products where we don't think to look for sugar.  Like Stovetop Stuffing, Cough Syrups, salad dressings,  canned soups and  tomato sauces and  virtually every cereal, cracker and bread product. 

At least for those tings there is a label to read, the problem gets worse in restaurants where the use of "layered" flavors has become state of the art in attracting diners and getting them to return for more.  The use of fat and sugar in combination is known to become "irresistible"  for some people and restaurants and fast food outlets rely on this unhealthy combination to keep customers coming back for more.

The F.D.A. has six months to respond to the name-change petition. If the agency accepts it, the decision on whether to allow the name “corn sugar” on food labels may take another 12 to 18 months.