All systems - GO!

Well, I’m here to report that so far I’m pleased with the 6 Week Body Makeover program and results. I HAVE LOST 7 POUNDS so far. Now, I’m not naive, I don’t think. I’ve tried, as I’ve said before, every other thing under the sun from Atkins to Weight Watchers and get a good result the first week on anything. It is – can you sustain it?


Let me recap the last week and two days.


Observation number one: My vitamin is not making my stomach upset. Once my multiple vitamins began giving me a stomach ache, I started to take it at lunch, with food and a glass of milk to coat the stomach. I would still get the nausea. But since starting the plan I take it with lunch (2 oz. of protein, a carb and vegetables) and a glass of water and I’m good. One day I took it before lunch with my 2 oz. of protein and fruit and did get the nausea. I’m sticking with what works, I can’t explain why it works, but I’m sticking with that.


Within the first two days on plan I lost 3 pounds, but I urinated A LOT. In fact I got up 2 or 3 times the first night to empty my bladder!


We had dinner guests the second night on plan. Jon did a magnificent job cooking according to “the plan” yet making the food look and taste like an elegant dinner. I ate less than everyone else, but the same food. I did have 4 oz of wine (not on the program at all) but compensated somewhat by reducing my carb (potato). They had whipped cream on their berry dessert. I did not. It worked.


Jon is about as enthusiastic about this program as I am. You should see him out in the kitchen whipping up all kinds of dishes without fat or sodium that are exactly on plan. He’s eating it, too, though he takes his normal lunch to work and has his wine in the evening. And he still snacks on cheese or whatever he wants between meals or after supper.


Other than that glass of wine, I’ve followed it strictly. I like the fact it is laid out exactly what to eat when. It’s easy to follow. And today I went online for the first time to the website and looked over recipes. Found one for “pancakes” that I’m going to try for breakfast. It’s mashed banana with egg white. Oh, yeah, on Tuesday, I did start having a major craving for chocolate layer cake with chocolate butter cream frosting. I could not get it out of my head for two days. But it did finally go away. I’ve found a glass of lemonade made with splenda helps cut cravings.


I’ve been walking daily, and did my “program” resistance band workouts, too.


I went in to see my Dr. and told him I wanted a complete blood analysis. It’s been a year and I’m due, anyway. Want to see what my cholesterol and all that is. Then I want to check it later when I’ve lost weight. My Dr. was very encouraging. He did say, though, after I told him my intentions, that I should expect the weight loss to slow down. He said, realistically, I should only expect 1 to 2 pounds a week. He also said my goal of 125 might be too much. He said he’d be thrilled if, by Christmas, I weigh in at 140. He said he’d take me off my blood pressure medicine and give me a hug. He said I’d be very healthy.


I have a list, in writing, of things I’d like to acquire. It includes two matching bedside tables and lamps for our bedroom. Right now we have hand-me-downs that do not match. Pretty sad looking, at that. Also, I’d love to have the big, expensive art copier for my art work. I’d really love love love a set of matching dishes and flat ware. Again, what we are using are a collection of his old dishes and mine. It always bothers me a little when we have company that our table settings aren’t even remotely attractive.


So….brainstorm! With the $600 I INTEND to have as my reward after adhering strictly to the 6 Week Body Makeover, I will finally have one or more of the above!!! Now I just have to decide what is more important to me. But, I tell you, I already FEEL better, and that in itself is rewarding.


I hope to report the same is true next week. I’ll let you know!

Vegan on Hold....for 6 Week Body Makeover!

Do you recall a few posts back I mentioned I ordered Michael Thurman's 6 Week Body Makeover? Well, it arrived yesterday. I happened to be home. The post lady brought my mail to the door with a big box. Clearly labeled on the outside. She rolled her eyes and said, "Now the fun begins." I rolled my eyes and said, "Yeah, right!"

I had just bought VEGAN food for the week. I'd been eating Vegan for 2 days. I even went to the, uh, health food store for coconut water for my smoothies.

I didn't open it till Jon came home from work. He was very excited that it arrived. We opened it together and spent FOUR HOURS getting through the "set up" part. Watched a video or two, took the body type survey, found the cards with my body shape, exercise plan, etc. Jon measured me - neck, shoulders, down to my calves and we entered it onto charts. I stood in my underwear so he could see if my fat rolls matched the ones on various cards. (It is a good thing we know each other pretty well, this is not an activity for a first date. Or maybe it is....)

We looked at the food plan for my body type. My instant reaction was, well, I can do this for six weeks, but there is no way I'm gonna eat this way for life. I get a couple of ounces of protein (white meat) every two hours along with either vegetables or a few carbs. I can have some fruit at certain times of day. Just for kicks we did Jon's too. I'm a type B and he is an E. He can have red meat, I cannot. He gets carbs early in the day, I get mine later in the day. But he isn't planning on following this. But he is certainly excited about helping me stick to it. I look at as taking a course of medicine. I can "take my medicine" for 6 weeks. But unless I learn something along the way, this doesn't look like a life plan to me. But maybe it should be. The theory makes sense if you read and listen.

But the claims are big. I can loose (up to) 30 pounds in 6 weeks!?!

Besides tracking what you eat and weight, the material suggests, no - it tells you, to reward yourself every week for following the plan. Something to look forward to. Something to motivate you. It suggests a pedicure or manicure, shopping. I said to Jon, none of that will motivate me. I don't want to spend money as my reward. We thought about it and his eyes lit up. "I know what will motivate you" he said. What? What?

He said he will give me $100 every week I follow the plan. HOO HAA!!!! I'm motivated. That's $600. I know exactly what I'll do with it, too!

And I have to say I really do appreciate Jon's efforts. He cooked specially for me today. He shopped specially for this diet. It may be somewhat self-serving - like "I'm so tired of hearing you complain!" But I don't really know that. He's pretty good to me. Sometimes I test him, not on purpose. It just happens that way. I told Jon he's going to have to finish eating the tofu (which I can't have now) and coconut water.

So my beloved daughter called me tonight. We haven't talked in a bit, she's been very busy trying to get ready to start her new career, house shop, apartment shop, etc. And enjoying living close to friends, so she and Quinn are quite social.

Anyway, she calls. She obviously read my recent post. "Are you vegan now? How's it going?" I told her read my new post.

WHIPLASH!

I'll keep you "posted".

Bye for now.

Vegan ver. 2.0

I saw a program on public TV about reversing diabetes (and being generally healthy and loosing weight) with Dr. Neal Barnard. I watched it twice. Jon even watched it with me once. Dr. Barnard stresses a low fat vegan diet. I'm going to try (again) to do vegan, but a hybrid version. Meaning, it isn't all or nothing. If I'm eating out and there's no tasty vegan food, I'll eat a steak and enjoy it. But for home purposes and to the extent practicable, I'm following this:

http://www.21daykickstart.org/mealplan/index.cfm

It has 3 weeks of meal plans, recipes and shopping lists. All it doesn't do is shop and cook for you. (You can also google Dr. Barnard for more information.)

When I tried to go vegan last summer, for whatever reason, it had to be all or nothing. It did not even occur to me it was OK to, in certain circumstances, not strictly adhere to veganism. Let me provide some details.

Why I decided to try vegan-ism last summer:

I couldn’t sleep one night and turned the radio on to Coast to Coast am, my favorite radio program (and worthy of it’s own blog by me at some point). The guest was discussing why we should all eat vegan. For all I know it could have been Dr. Barnard on the air. By the time the program was over at 4:00am, I was convinced I absolutely needed to convert! I posted on Facebook that if anybody wanted to get me a birthday present, I’d be happy to get a vegan cookbook. My sister, Kathy, got me exactly that.

Why it didn’t work:

About one or two days later, I had to travel out of town for a couple of days for my job. You try eating vegan when you are out of town! There were vegetarian offerings that were mostly really nasty tasting. Vegan is REALLY REALLY difficult to find in restaurants, unless you like the taste of lettuce with no dressing.

And then, of course, the fact my husband was really, let’s say, surprised, to hear from his brother I’d decided to eat vegan. Ooops. It didn’t last long. Last summer I was out of town frequently. Also, I didn’t find a website like the one above to help me with a whole plan.

For me it is mostly about health, not a moral issue.

And this time, I have discussed it with Jon prior to posting this on my blog. He is in agreement with my intention. I’ll try to follow the vegan diet here at home. I may still do some dairy (skim milk, half and half in my coffee (until I switch to tea, which I take plain), and yogurt), but I’ll mostly be vegan. The recipes and food look really good to me. It is all stuff I like, so it won’t be like forcing myself to eat rice cakes (blah!).

And if we are at dinner out or at someone’s house, I’ll eat what’s there. At a restaurant if they don’t have a vegan choice that makes me think, “Oh, yummy!” I’ll eat something that will taste yummy to me! And not feel guilty about it! Jon said he can live with that. And as long as I have a piece of meat for him, he’ll eat what I eat. He likes the food, too, but just doesn’t think he wants to go meatless, or cheese-less.

Where is the number for my shrink?

I got a couple of magazines in the mail this week. The cover of “the Artist’s magazine” for April makes me want to cry. It makes me so depressed. Because it is such a beautiful image. It is an oil painting of a beautiful woman, very captivating, by Casey Baugh, an artist my daughter’s age. The kind of painting I have always thought I would do….eventually.

I need therapy.

The reason it depresses me is that I could have been doing that kind of art for the last 30 years and I didn’t. I can start now. But I really feel the shortness of time. At best I have 10, 15, 20 or 25 years. Maybe that’s enough. I could blame it on someone other than myself. Well, others did influence me. Or, rather, not support me. Back in college. I did not have a lot of supporters. And I didn’t have the… whatever… it takes, to go on anyway because it was something I loved.

My mother sure as hell did not support me. I give her credit for one thing, she let me go for my degree in art and not push me to do business or something. She determined in her own mind a degree in art was better than no degree at all. And in those days, it really was kind of true. Any college degree opened doors. But no sooner did I graduate with my Bachelor’s in Art, then she was after me to take the civil service exam and get a job with the government. And I did. And of course, there was Skip. My first husband made one memorable comment, “Artists all have these little egos.” No support. And, finally, there was Marvin Klavin, one of my college painting instructors. Who said, if you’re going to paint like that why not just take a photo? I think I cut that class the rest of the semester.

But, really, the blame is all mine. OK, what would my shrink have said? What does my husband say? Jon says, you had your children. Since you raised them as a single woman you had a job that allowed you to do that. You had the freedom to take off for school plays, when a child was sick. And a steady paycheck.

I’d like to be a person with no regrets. Every thing that happened in the past made me the person I am right now. (And I do like myself, most of the time.) Gave me two beautiful children. And good, intelligent, beautiful children. And a husband that loves me dearly. A husband that wants me to paint. A husband that, surprisingly, lets me be just who I am. And loves me in spite of myself, exactly as I am. Not everybody gets one of those! I know from experience.

But, I do have regrets, and fears, and ANXIETY!

Where is that number for my shrink?

I have done a little work on a watercolor this week. I don’t love it. Everything I do right now is like an exercise.

Sigh………………………………..

Starting, slowly....

March 7, 2010

I have actually found some motivation in the last few days and have made a few efforts in the right direction. I think the blog may actually show signs of serving its purpose. Thanks to you for that.

I’ve walked 3 days in a row. I’ve already got my walk in today. I even added a little distance to it. I used to be able to walk forever. It was the easiest thing to do. I could walk from 900 South Michigan Avenue to 900 North Michigan Avenue and back, then turn around and do it all over again. If I tried that today I couldn’t. I’d be dragging after the first 20 minutes, and if I finished that distance, probably be bleeding out of my butt. And legs, and feet.

Anyway, the last two days I felt tired just after a short distance and my legs felt heavy. Today was better. Of course, it was raining and somehow the rain energizes me. Maybe Portland would be a good place for Jon and me to live. Or Ireland!

I’ve picked up the free weight and have done a little arm work, too, in the last couple of days.

I have not had any drinks since Wednesday, when I had one glass of wine.

I was 180.5 on the scale this morning. : - (

However, I know it will take just a little bit for results to show up. And I know eating right has to factor in.

I think for now, I will commit to doing 90 squats a day (I do them with light weights) – by doing 30 at a time, three times a day. I’ll do 10 pushups (girl ones for now) and 100 sit ups. This in addition to my walks. I’ll throw in the arm work because I enjoy that part. Then, after a little bit, I’ll ratchet it up a little.

I’ve already done 30 squats today.

I need a full length mirror. We don’t really have any here. I would like to have a mirror to work out in front of. Talk about motivation. Maybe that’s why I’ve gotten so bad just in the last 2 years – living without a good full length mirror!!!

Hope all is well with you. Talk to you later. Bye.

YIKES!

I was surprised to see I have “followers” on my blog!! And even a comment posted!! Thank you, ladies. I hope not to disappoint! And YIKES! A moment of panic at the thought someone is reading this!

I had an even bigger surprise. Well, no, Jon had an even bigger surprise. He was talking on the phone last night with his brother and I heard Jon say, “No, I didn’t know she had a blog.” He turned to me and said, “You have a blog? What are you blogging about?” They went on talking and nothing further was said between us about the blog that night.

This morning I asked him if he wanted to read my blog. I thought I had better show it to him right now since it is very personal stuff. He read it, and said he wished I’d talked to him about it or shown it to him sooner. He said he didn’t know I was “trying” to loose weight and all; he thought I had decided to wait till after my retirement date. He said he felt like he’d somehow let me down by not helping me with my efforts, or that I blamed him for not succeeding somehow.

Neither is true. In fact, now that I think about it, one of the reasons I didn’t say anything to Jon was because since I’ve known him I’ve given him whiplash with all my starts and stops. How many times I’ve told him I’m going to quit drinking, and don’t. I’m going to get up at 5:00 and work out, and don’t. I’m joining Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, or you name it, and quit. Oh, yes, and let’s not forget when I was going to become Vegan (one of those times I posted it on facebook but didn’t mention to Jon and he found out from Jason! See below). He always does everything to support me. I’m the one that quits. So I had thought I would do this quietly on my own without telling him, so as not to cause him any grief over it if I failed to follow through.

This morning after reading my blog, Jon immediately googled Michael Thurman’s 6 Week Body Makeover and said he thought I should try that. He had seen it on TV and thought it is what I need. Well, normally I don’t believe in that sort of thing. If it’s too good to be true……But I felt badly about not showing him the blog from the beginning, so I ordered it. I’ll let you know how that works out. Has anyone tried it?

But Jon was not happy with me. He said he does not like to hear from someone else that I’ve done or said something. This isn’t the first time. There have been a few times Jason has said to Jon “Oh, I hear you and Judy……” this or that. See above: Vegan. And Jon had to reply he didn’t know anything about it. (I put things on my facebook and I’m always surprised if someone actually reads them. And I don’t usually think to mention to Jon that I’ve posted something on facebook.) Ouch, my bad. No defense. It was very uncomfortable around our house this morning. I know it will pass, but now I feel like I’m on eggshells.

Back to TV infomercial products…..last summer I came home one day and Jon had received his P90X program that he had ordered – without, let me add, my prior knowledge. We both did the workouts – Jon for about 6 weeks, and me for about 4. We both liked the workouts. They work. Tony Horton kicks buns of steel! But for me, and I think both of us, taking an hour to 90 minutes daily to work out is HARD. Jon works long days – he generally leaves at 8:30 am and gets home at 6:30 pm. Then add an hour or more work out on top of that? And then add a couple of hours to plans meals and cook. Hard. But while we were doing it faithfully, we both felt better, slept better, my skin was looking good. Jon was getting ripped! I want to go back to those workouts AFTER my retirement date.

Weight Watchers. I’ve joined and quit a number of times. I feel like the meetings are like AA meetings. (Yes, I’ve been to AA meetings.) However, at one point they had a “Fat and Fiber” system. That WORKED for me. All you had to count was fat grams and fiber grams. I wrote down everything I ate, and realized in order to get the correct number of fiber grams and limit fat – you have to eat they way you should anyway. But for me it worked. I lost 25 pounds in about 3 months. This was in 1997. I was riding horses once or twice a week, doing Tai Kwon Do once a week, and walking 30 minutes daily religiously. I did those 30 minute daily walks from around 1990 through 2003. It was when I got out of that walking habit that the pounds began their creep.

Jenny Craig. When I saw Valerie Bertinelli on the cover of whatever magazine and read how it was Jenny Craig that she used to loose weight, and that she’s about my age and had about the same weight gain as me, I decided to call Jenny. I did it for about 2 weeks. Yes I lost weight. It was too expensive for us. I knew the day I signed up it would be when the woman at Jenny said it would probably cost less than what I spent on food already. She said, “Do you eat out a lot?” I said, “No.” She looked somewhat startled and started talking about something else. The food is expensive. It cost much more than I would spend for food. Also, when I read the ingredients in the frozen meals, and packaged goods, they seemed to contain a lot of sodium and other things I prefer to try to avoid. Mostly they tasted very good. You eat their products and add your own fresh fruit and salads and vegetables. Here’s the thing I liked about that system that I think I could duplicate on my own. You have a weekly plan – everything you are going to eat for the entire week, including snacks, is written on a chart. Your entrée is very small. You add lots and lots of vegetables and salads. So, for example, you eat a tiny piece of meat, a quarter cup of side dish (potato or pasta) and eat loads of greens to fill up. AND – BEST PART OF ALL – you come home from work, pop a frozen meal in the microwave, and eat. Meal prep time cut significantly! It works.

Does any one have experiences with any products or systems you’d like to share? Love to hear about it.

Facts: I'm at 180 today. Jon and I walked yesterday. I walked today. Ate fruit and veggies. And a few too many oreo cookies. One glass wine last night.

Thanks.

Where have you been and toilet dreams

March 4, 2010

Ikus, Where have you been?

I was visiting my daughter last week. She asked me what happened to my blog. Well, I’ll answer that. I have avoided it because so far I have done none of the things I vowed to do. I’m not eating right (yet), I’m still drinking (1 or 2 glasses, though, not 1 or 2 bottles), and not exercising (even though I rearranged the furniture and bought a large mat to protect the floor for working out). Not even walking (however, it has snowed a bunch and the sidewalks and roads were buried in ice and snow).

Well, here it is, March, and I’m still promising myself every day that tomorrow will be the day…..or, at the very least when I retire at the end of April. I wrote a bit that I didn’t post a while back…..see below:

“January 5, 2010

Toilet dreams….


Just yesterday, or the day before, I remarked to my husband I hadn’t had any toilet dreams for a long time. He gave me a look. He said, what are toilet dreams?

I’ve had this reoccurring theme pop up in dreams once in a while for at least 20 years. Probably every since I’ve held down a grown up job. The dreams vary, but the theme is the same. I need to use the toilet, and it is a public place, like an airport, office, school, or other public place. All the stalls are full, or maybe there is one stall I could use, but there is always a problem with it. It might be full of…..crap. And the ….crap….has spilled all over the floor. Or maybe there is no door and I’m in full view of the whole place. Or so on.

It is obvious to me these were stress induced dreams. My husband said I must have some privacy issues. Maybe it is because I’ve spent most of my career feeling like I didn’t know what I was doing or feeling less than adequate for my job. Mind you, my performance evaluations have always been great, and as I said, I’ve been promoted up there pretty good. I just always felt like someone was going to figure out I didn’t know what I was doing. I had a little comfort once from my good friend. Her husband was an attorney. She said she heard many of the guys from his law firm say the same thing about their jobs.

Anyway, I had a toilet dream last night. Sunday night. (Sunday’s are always a little high anxiety anyway because Monday is back to work, you know.)

Just thought you might like to know….”


The other night, speaking of dreams, I had a Sting dream. Have I mentioned one of the reoccurring dream themes I have had all my adult life includes dreams of Sting. Early on, when I was slender and felt prettier, in the dreams we were always instantly attracted, but were friends (affectionate friends), but nothing sexual. Now in my Sting dreams I’m usually trying to figure out how to get his attention while he pays no notice to me. I’m sure there is some meaning there. Meaning I feel like crud about myself – how I appear, anyway.

To catch you up, Jon and I went to Portland in January for a week. Just to see what Portland was like. Enjoyed it. One or both of us had upset stomachs every night – I’m sure because of the excess of eating and drinking.

In February we booked a cruise for November – Mediterranean cruise with ports in France, Italy and Greece. Did a lot of research via internet, books and video. Still doing that. I vow to be a size 8 by then.

I’ve gained weight since the beginning of the year. I crossed A LINE!!! OK, I’ll say the number. On my scale, just this week, I’ve crossed the 180 pounds mark. Un-be-flipping-lievable!!!

I do promise to be more current and blog at least once a week. And loose 2 pounds a week. Hold me to it!! Call me on my bad behaviour!!

Thanks. Bye.

PS – I caught a few minutes of the SciFi Channel show Caprica last Friday night. I got hooked. I don’t know what the frak is going on, but will watch until I get too frustrated and stop watching. The scene that caught me was where the guy while doing a diagnostics test on the cylon/girl was making it dance. The girls expression while dancing contrasted with the robot did intrigue me . Mind you I had NO idea why the robot/girl thing was a robot/girl or that this series had anything to do with Battlestar Galactica. My husband filled me in on that part. And please forgive any spelling errors here. I could look up how to spell Cylon, if that isn’t correct, but too lazy.