Being Reassured by Skinny People

I had a skinny person over for dinner last night, and she reassured me that my hubby and I were not too skinny. Flabby bellies are a sign of being over weight. Losing a bit more weight on my part is not a bad idea, and my hubby is a picture of health. Though he may look small in his current surrounding, if he goes to practically any other country in the world, he would look large.

Not Counting and Losing Weight

After abandoning counting I have lost 3 more pounds. Making healthy choices is working. Looking at my goal board, it looks like I wanted to lose 20. I am down 11 with 9 to go. If I lose 5 pounds, Weight Watchers will weigh me in for free. I will be in my weight range and healthy according to the BMI chart and the doctors, and the charts Weight Watchers uses. I will be rethinking my ultimate goal after I lose those 5 pounds because I don't think my belly will be gone.

More and Less

Healthy choices don't have to be constant. I plan to still eat cream sauce, with shrimp instead of steak. I just need to remember to eat more salad than I do the pasta. I am also going to eliminate foods that I don't like that are high calorie. I will be in the minority on this one, but steak, burgers, and hot dogs are not going to see my plate. If there is a food that I like, but for some reason is not prepared the way I like it, I will pass. Maybe eat a little be to be polite, but why have a full portion, or extra of something that isn't very good and high calorie. I might as well eat veggies or salad then something than get fat over something yucky. So now if I can just stay motivated and take small portions of high calorie food, pass on high calorie foods prepared subpar, and eat plenty of low calorie foods.

LIFE STYLE CHANGE.

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When I listen to the radio, I hear lies about calories and cooking and it makes me want to scream. One of the light beer commercials claims that you will burn all the calories that you just ingested by throwing the can into the recycling bin and giving everyone a high five on your way to get another beer. You have got to be kidding. Don't believe it. It is a lie. Another commercial on the radio claimed that adding eggs to a cake mix is making the cake from scratch. Huh? Really? I know that they are supposed to be funny jokes, but I have kids in the car that don't get the humor and think that it is true. I already ditched the TV, I guess it is time to lose the lying radio too.

Floating Foods

Feeding the ducks becomes very difficult when processed foods are eliminated. You search your house for something that will float. There isn't any bread, there isn't a bagel, no English muffin, no Cheerios, no Rice Crispys... You think to yourself: Rice Crispys float maybe rice will float, but you forget to check first, and you take it to feed the ducks, and discover that it also sinks. How do all the processed food makers get everything they make to float? Everything I make seems to sink. I can and do make bread, but it is so much work that I wouldn't want to give it to ducks anyway. I guess the ducks will have to wait for other people to bring their processed foods to the lake. I haven't got any.

No More Counting

I hate counting. I am over it. I don't want to count anymore. It is discouraging, and if you miss something (if you don't write it down) then you don't lose any weight. This blog is no longer named correctly because I am not going to do it anymore. I would say that the pointsplus experiment was not a complete waste of time, and it wasn't a waste of energy because I am 8 lbs lighter than I was when I started. However, I am not really counting anymore. I can't remember the last time I managed to write everything down for a whole week. But most of all:

SKINNY PEOPLE DON'T WRITE IT ALL DOWN!!!

At Parties:
They have one or two drinks.
They only take one plate of food.
They take the lower calorie options.
They do not take the high calorie things.
If there are only high calorie options, they don't eat.
They cut a dessert in half and eat that.
They don't come back for more.

At Restaurants:
If they have an appetizer it is a salad with a clear dressing.
They have a glass of wine not a bottle, OR a bottle of beer not a pitcher.
They split an en tray.
They split a dessert.

At home:
They have healthier options available.
Snacks are veggies not chips.
Drinks are water not soda, and coffee lacks cream and sugar.
I have never seen a skinny person drink a diet soda. If they have a soda, it is the real thing, but it is only one.

This blog will now be about me trying to make healthier choices like the ones listed above. I will still be weighing in periodically, but I will no longer be counting. I will be avoiding sugar, dairy, fatty meats, alcohol, and packaged foods.

"No Thanks"

That is a phrase the skinny people have down cold. It doesn't matter how much they would want the item offered. I don't know what they are thinking, but there are only so many calories they have left in the day, and the calories you are offering them were not included in their plan for the day. "No Thanks." I must learn to master this phrase.

Another Party; Too Many Beers AGAIN!

I really need to start deciding before the party begins how many beers I am going to have. Maybe that is the solution. "Okay it is a two beer night and that means I have already had one too many, so I should really stop now."

I didn't use to like beer. What happened to me?

and only up .6

So I weighed in this morning and I was only up .6lbs. This is much better than I thought it would be with all the parties and the lack of counting. I guess all of the healthy choices have been making a difference.

Whoa, whoa is me. Beer is double packaged. Growlers. Are they the answer to my beer problem.

The best laid plans...

So about my plan of just not drinking beer at parties.... I will need to rethink that one. At least I got to plan the one last night. I invited a vegan which was an excuse to ask two of my most health conscience friends to bring a vegan dish if they knew how. Two people who wouldn't blink when asked that. Neither of them had to ask if that meant that ________ was out. They just knew and had everything they would need to make such a dish. Great news about having vegan dishes at your party: Low calorie, low fat, and usually no white fats and most certainly not double wrapped anything. So I at least had those choices on the menu.

Now what to do about all the beer? I must figure out how to go to a party and not consume as much beer. Just saying, "I am not going to drink so much beer" is not going to cut it. I must figure out something.

I must go weigh in today, and every week for the next few weeks. This is something I have been avoiding, but now is the time. July is the month.

Skinny People Split Entrays

I finally did it yesterday. For years I have known that the truly thin people will find someone to split a meal with. I knew it when I was 15 and thought it was silly. They had to still be hungry after eating half a portion I would say to myself. They must have an eating disorder, that isn't enough. What I didn't know at the time was that the portion restaurants give you contain about twice the number of calories that anyone should eat in one sitting. Not always, there are the rare exceptions to this rule, but generally speaking it is a good rule of thumb. The thin people knew it. I didn't know it, and now I am trying to lose weight. They aren't. So yesterday when we went to the restaurant, I split a meal, and afterwards I didn't feel hungry. I noticed that I didn't feel stuffed and too full to do other activities. The kids and I rode our bikes several miles, and other than the heat I was fine. Had I eaten the whole thing, I would have felt too bloated to do anything, I would have wanted to sit around for a long time, playing cards or a board game. Instead we went outside and played in the park for hours, riding bikes and other adventures.

Self Control at Parties

A party can mess up 2-3 weeks of careful counting and self control. I seem to be going to more and more parties, and having more and more parties at the house, so I think it is time I get serious about maintaining the healthy habits through the party. Maybe the beer is the problem. I think I need it to loosen up and talk to people. Once I have that 2nd or 3rd to lessen my inhibitions, then my inhibitions have been lessened and I lose that interest in being thin and just eat anything that looks good. I revert back to my old ways. (Potato salad, coleslaw, and tuna salad still don't make it on my plate; I guess items with mayonnaise still look gross.) Now the beers are a real issue, as they are packed with calories. So I drink 2-3 beers which by the way are 10-15 PointsPlus points. At this point anything I eat will put me over my daily limit. And there are always desserts at parties. This is a major weakness of mine. I will also have to be mentally ready for the desserts.

New party policy: Skip the beer, have a normal helping of the food, and only have a dessert if it was actually made from scratch. Nothing that came out of a box and a bag. The party last night had 3 desserts, confetti cupcakes which had to have been a mix, Black and Tan Yangling brownies -*- I can't imagine there is a mix for that -*- and fruit filled puff pastries that I saw come out of the box and a bag. Now just because I am not the one making it doesn't mean I should back away from my rules for when I cook in the house, so the Black and Tan brownies would have been the right choice. Better luck next time sans the beer.

Ingredients and Cookbooks

When did cookbooks give up on calling for ingredients? Graham crackers crumbs, refrigerated pie shell, refrigerated pastry. When did these get promoted to ingredient? I thought ingredients were flour, milk, and sugar. A pie made with a graham cracker crumb and butter crust, and chocolate pudding as the package directs, and cool whip topping may be good, but it is not cooking and we shouldn't need a cookbook to tell us how.

Where is the dividing line? How can we know before we buy a cookbook that it is or is not going to call for something prepackaged or pre-made? I feel like there should be a warning on the books that aren't really cookbooks.

Perhaps I have it backwards, and the real cookbooks have some word on them to let me know that they aren't going to call for one package marshmallows. Gourmet, epicurean, connoisseur, foodie.