Tracking in an untrackable world.

I was told to update my blog.... so I am.

I have been feeling rather low lately - feeling plump (nice word for FAT) and generally unattractive. Knowing spring would finally arrive at some point, I needed a perk, a pick-me-up, something, to make me feel pretty again. Of course, it's all cosmetic and underneath anything I do, is still this plump body... but I am sure there is a skinny person in there just dying to get out!

Saturday morning was delightfully gorgeous! Hot temperatures. I faithfully went to Weight Watchers, again, on Saturday morning to weigh in. I was very disappointed. After having what I thought was a very good week, I was up 1.6 lbs. To say I was frustrated is an understatement. Two weeks in a row - very well behaved in my eating habits. Nothing to show for it. I tried not to be overly discouraged, but how can I help that? I seriously felt like downing an entire bag of Lays Classic potato chips.... with high fat dip!! (focus, focus, focus)

I needed to get control..... Really. I mean it. So..... Let's reverse a day.....Step 1 to the "new improved" me.... Cut hair. Check. On Friday I visited my favourite salon, in Kingston, with my favourite stylist Lisa. She's awesome. She knows me inside and out. She was my confidante, my soul mate, my make-over artist extraordinaire. When I first started going to Lisa (in 1997) she basically did whatever I asked her to do. After regularly seeing her for a little over a year, I called her one day and said "Lisa, I need a change... go watch this movie (and I gave her the title) and THAT'S how I want my hair cut!" When I went into see her the next week, Lisa had a tray all set up for me and said "Heather, I am not doing your hair like that. After about a week you would hate it. Do you trust me?" Of course I trusted Lisa. Lisa then took my shoulder-length dark dark hair (I'm a natural chestnut brunette) and cut it short with incredible blond highlights. I fell in love with my new look very quickly and kept my hair like that for several years, varying the overall length, but basically hooked on blond layers. After moving to Newmarket in 2002 and trying several different salons, in frustration and bad hair, I returned to Kingston to get my hair cut - for another few years. I found someone in Newmarket, she went on maternity leave, found someone else, she quit, found someone else, she went on mat leave. Found a guy, he went on long term 'sick leave' (he's back, but I don't entirely trust him!). Bottom line, I missed Lisa. So, on Friday, as I said, I went to Kingston and had my hair cut and coloured again. I left there feeling rather perky, and very cute. Then Saturday morning struck, and the dreaded 'weigh in.' If I got all my hair cut off, shouldn't my weight go down?


I woke up Saturday to glorious sunshine. Hot temperatures promised throughout the day only bode well for my new cute look (admit it, I'm cute... he he) and perky spring in my step! I faithfully went to Weight Watchers to weigh in. I was very disappointed. After having what I thought was a very good week, I was up 1.6 lbs. To say I was frustrated is an understatement. Two weeks in a row - very well behaved in my eating habits. Nothing to show for it. I tried not to be overly discouraged, but how can I help that? I seriously felt like downing an entire bag of Lays Classic potato chips.... with high fat dip!! (focus, focus, focus)

I met my husband for breakfast afterwards at a little place in Newmarket called Spiducci's. If you haven't tried it, you should. Spiducci's uses no added salt to any of their foods and basically season with spices! Further, Spiducci's does not deep fry anything. Nothing. I had the junior breakfast - 2 eggs (poached), 1 sausage, 1 slice rye toast (no butter) and their signature home fries - THESE are worth trying! Previously cooked potatoes, now tossed on the grill with onions, peppers, a touch of lean ham, and lots of spice! *note - ask for a glass of water at the same time you order these.... and a box of Kleenex to wipe the tears! These are not for the timid taste buds!Saturday breakfast is my indulgence for the week. I was good after that. And hey, it could have been worse. I could have eaten at... *gasp*.... McDonald's! Eeewwww.

After breakfast, a quick trip to the grocery store to 'stock up' on the essentials. We've made the conscious decision lately to only buy what we need for the next few days, thus not allowing our aging brains to forget that we bought 300 pounds of spinach which is now rotting in the fridge (is THAT what that smell is?) Success at the grocery store, and a bill of $78. Not bad.

Home to work in the yard. This meant changing out of my official "weigh in" clothes (my black and now very faded yoga pants.) I donned a summer skirt - and of course had to shave my legs first.... I didn't realize how white my legs really were until I shaved!! 'Nuff said. I wiped down some patio chairs, didn't quite get the table out there yet, talked about how we were going to landscape this spring and took a break. Hey, wiping down two chairs takes a lot out of a person!
Scott needed to buy some topsoil to add to the front yard - so off we went into town to pick up dirt. Since I had a light tan skirt on, I didn't touch the dirty dirt. *Note to self: continue to wear light tan skirt to avoid messy yard work! While Scott worked away in the yard, I opened windows in the house - you can do that in a tan skirt without risk of getting all dirty!

I snacked throughout the day on grapes, yogurt, and for supper (since my husband and a neighbour went to a Jr. hockey game somewhere) I had some leftover pasta from a previous dinner (Catelli Smart Pasta with 9g of fibre per serving... ya baby) and homemade sauce made mostly with fresh veggies, tomatoes, herbs and spices... delicious! I was still in control and I made it all the way to dinner. Saturday evening, however, I began to reflect on my 1.6 lb increase, and ate two packages of weight watchers crisp thingies, and..... Helluva Dip. Who does that???? Feeling riddled with guilt, I washed it down with about a gallon of water.

Back in control on Sunday - breakfast was some high fibre cereal (2 pts) topped with 1/2 c of fresh blackberries 1/2 c raspberries) and 1/2 skim milk. Delicious and very healthy. Lunch was a bowl of Black Bean Soup from PC Blue Menu - also delicious and a whole wheat WW bagel. Now, dinner was a little different a little more challenging....

We were attending a banquet Sunday night and I was a little nervous but feeling still very much in control - soup was course number 1 - cream of leak. ARGH... CREAM SOUP, the dieter's nightmare. I ate it. It was really good! Next came the salad - green with a vinaigrette dressing. Okay, I ate it - not sure of the dressing but there wasn't much on mine so that was okay. Main course - chicken breast covered in a cream sauce of some sort. I scraped the cream sauce off my chicken, and also removed the skin! Okay, I'm good. I ate my veggies, and 1/2 of my mashed potatoes. Oh, and I left about 1/2 of my chicken too. Control level: still good. Dessert - sigh - dessert. A little pastry cup came, lined with chocolate, filled with a custard of some sort, topped with a few fresh berries and whipped cream. I removed the whipped cream from the top, ate the few berries, and about 1/2 of the custardy thing, left the edible cup.
Overall, I would said I was successful! I left the banquet not feeling stuffed, but not feeling hungry either. I basically stopped eating when I no long felt any hunger. I also ate very slowly. Maybe I'm finally catching on? Dare to dream!

So, today is Monday. I'm at work. I ate a healthy breakfast (cereal, skim milk, berries) packed a healthy lunch and a snack. Planned out tonight's dinner before I left for work. I am totally sick and tired of paying to weigh in every week - I need to do this - I HAVE to do this!

Wish me luck.... my skinny soul is screaming at my fat body to make way! My fat body better watch it, skinny me has attitude raging inside!

Easter Success!

I made it through Good Friday... no problems. My husband and I were busy most of the day, beginning at 3:15 a.m. when the alarm clock sounded! I could have thrown it through the window at that point! We were on our way to a Good Friday prayer vigil... and had to be there for 5 a.m. Yep, we made it. Went out to breakfast afterwards (at 7 a.m.) where I chose wisely: the menu listed 3 eggs, i asked for just 2, poached, and peameal bacon (low fat choice over regular bacon), with rye toast (hold the butter). AND COFFEE!!!!!

Mid day, I ate fruit and yogurt.

The rest of the day was fairly uneventful, thankfully. We did meet up with some friends and had a bite to eat at Williams Coffee Pub in Richmond Hill. I like that place. My husband and I shared a turkey club panini (1/2 each) which I did NOT enjoy. went home that evening, and ate a bowl of cereal. Ugh.

Weighed in on Saturday and I was down 0.8 lbs. Okay, I'll take it! Thank you. It did spur me on a bit to keep it up. From Weight Watchers (WW), we headed to IKEA to look for a bookshelf. Oooh, 99 c breakfast! We got into the line up and then an IKEA person told us that breakfast was done, but if we wanted to wait, lunch would start in 15 minutes. No thank you... I just wanted the cheapo breakfast. So, i saved myself the scrambled eggs and sausage and crap that you get for the 99c. Again, a little victory for me and one less dollar for IKEA. he he.

Picked out my bookcase and some other misc. shelves, etc. and headed for the checkout. The delicious and sinful aroma of cinnamon buns was beckoning me. While Scott lined up to pay for all my stuff, I thought, hm, no breakfast yet, maybe we should have a 50c hotdog!! So, I left him at the check out while I walked over to the food counter to order 2 50c hotdogs and 2 waters.... and um, a 6-pack of cinnamon buns. My $1 purchase (for the 2 hotdogs) turned in to $7.88 purchase (to add to my $300 IKEA bookshelves) It's okay. It's all okay. Loaded the stuff in the car and began the drive home. It was sunny and cool and the hotdog tasted like crap. ($1 wasted) the water was cold ($2) and the cinnamon buns dry ($4.88 wasted). I ate one bun - just one. When I got home I checked the points - each cinnamon bun was 8 points. Yikes. What a freaking waste of points! It was awful. Note: if you are in IKEA anytime soon, remember the cinnamon buns smell way better than they taste, and for 8 points, it's really a huge waste of money and points.

Feeling like I let myself down for eating and wasting those precious points, I made a healthy supper for the both of us: I call it "Heather's Pizza". I've written about it before, but here's the condensed version:
1 WW whole wheat tortilla (1 point),
1 tbs pizza sauce (0 point)
4 Yves veggie pepperoni slices (1/2 point)* (note 16 of these = 2 points)
30 gm light mozarella (2 points)
green peppers, onions, mushrooms (whatever veggies you want) (0 points)
I round it up to 4 points ea.
I made us two each for dinner for a total point value (each) of 7 pts (or 8 if you're rounding up). Try it, it's very filling.

So, back to the cinnamon buns.....My husband had 3 1/2 buns before the day was over. I literally felt ill watching him. Every time I looked at the package, another cinnamon bun was missing. Ick. Sunday morning he had another 1/2 bun before we left for church. The final cinnamon bun was shared 1/2 to Scott and the other 1/2 to my daughter's boyfriend before lunch - BEFORE lunch!

I wisely chose to have cereal and berries with skim milk for my breakfast on Easter Sunday. Success goes to Heather! Lunch consisted of a nice green salad (with sliced strawberries), Oven roasted potatoes, grilled pork tenderloin (very lean), cauliflower, asparagus. Very healthy Easter lunch indeed. Success to me again - I chose not to have bread with my lunch, nor cheese sauce on my cauliflower. Dessert, again success - I had purchased PC Blue Menu Apple Crisp - one serving is just 2 points!! I transferred the apple crisp into my own baking dish (he he) and baked it, and passed it off as "home baked", which, technically, it was! Everyone else had ice cream with their dessert. Not me. I had it plain. YES! I'mn catching on! There were also some sickly sweet Easter cookies. I passed on those and gave the leftovers to my daughter's boyfriend and his family to take home. YES!!!

In the early evening (around 5:30 p.m.) I had a Fibre 1 bar - 2 points - to hold me over while I decided what to do about supper... Supper. Supper. Did I really need it? Nooooo. Supper, therefore, consisted of a hot cross bun with 1 tsp of butter. toasted. delicous. and a yogurt on the side.

All in all, I had a very successful weekend. I recognized the cinnamon buns were not worth 8 points - although I wished I had checked them BEFORE I ate one at all!! *sigh* note to self: Check first, inhale cinnamon buns second!

Now it's Monday. How am I doing? I didn't have time for breakfast this morning before I left home. I packed my cereal. Added some berries (in a baggie for later). I bought skim milk at work (5 pts). I had my healthy breakfast, as usual. Mid morning snack - Fibre 1 bar (2 pts)
Lunch wads a tuna sandwich (4 pts... the way I make it, it's just 4 points, but WW bread is key!), an apple (1 pt) 1 fat free sugar free yogurt (1 pt). I'm on track....

Hope my enthusiasm lasts the entire week!

Oh, get serious!

Okay, so yesterday I blogged about stupid stuff. I am, shamefully, embarassed that I actually wrote that! Today - I'll get serious!

I read an article today about the five things to do to boost your metabolism. My metabolism, being menopausal, not only needs boosting it needs booster cables and a jump start.

1. The first thing is not to skip breakfast. Check. Got that covered. Love my breakfast. Hm, so far so good.
2. Eat more protein. Check. Hey, I'm good at this stuff!
3. Say "adios" to refined grains. Um, okay, no white bread, right? That's okay, I like multi grain type breads and whole wheat pasta. I think this may mean adios to cookies!
4. Watch for and stick to low glycemic index foods. What? So I had to look that up. This means eat fruits, veggies, and other good stuff (avoid white breads, pastas, rice).
5. Think green! Okay, I have my recycling under control, what has this got to do with metabolism! Ya, I know - greens, as in salad crap, er, delicious salads, etc.

This is a lot of work. I think it may be easier just to use the jumper cables! Oh, I learned something today - a large milkshake from McDonald's has half of your daily calorie intake (approx 1130 cal) and 28 gms of FAT (17 of those are saturated). This is as much as having two quarter pounders! UGH! Yet, I can really get my teeth into a quarter pounder... as obscene as that sounds. Maybe my real issue is that I'm addicted to food porn!

The bunny, the bunny...whoa i love the bunny.

So Easter is around the corner. With Easter comes delicious chocolate - better known as "The Bunny". Whether I like my chocolate in bunny form, or as an egg, or just a blur as it whizzes from a box into my mouth... there's no denying, I am accutely aware that my chocolate fixation is heightened at certain times of the year - Christmas, Valentine's Day, and Easter! Oh the bunny!

Personally, my bunny is not in bunny form but rather anything - seriously anything - that is covered in chocolate. So I'm doing my best to avoid the sweet confection. But I think chocolate actually may be stalking me - ya, that's it, it's stalking me! I was looking up recipes to cook something a little different.... beef.... ya nothing different there... but one of the ingredients was bitter chocolate! Beef and chocolate???? Yikes. See? It haunts me. stalks me, beckons me to follow it into the abyss of "I'm never leaving your thighs and butt" land. How am I ever going to be thin?

It made me wonder. Chocolate should be a controlled substance, especially for women! We all know what it does to us! Definitely controlled. Need a prescription for it. "Doctor, I'm ill, I think I need chocolate" "Hmmm, okay, I see your plight - I prescribe chocolate 3 x a day for the next 10 days, be sure to finish all your medication." Oh thank you! Sounds way too easy. The problem, of course, with controlling a substance is that it ends up on street corners being sold by punk kids trying to hook a whole new generation on the chocolate substance. Pssst, wanna fix of chocolate? Do you need to ask? Chocolate could become the drug of choice for me. I can see it now - I'd sell everything I own to get my chocolate fix. When I finally hit rock bottom, I'd be living on the street, begging on corners, please ma'am just a small square of caramilk? I'm hurtin' bad! People would avoid me, walk on opposite sides of the street, small children would point and stare while their mother's would whisper as they walked by "she used to have it all, until chocolate took over her life." Maybe I'd go into chocolate rehab. Maybe I would join a chocolate support group! Hi, my name is Heather and it's been 24 hours since my last chocolate fix. After the meeting, we'd all go for coffee and someone might slip a square of dark stuff into my pocket.... **shudder** Oh the bunny.
Maybe I could find something else to obsess about at Easter, and Christmas and any other significant day.

Okay, enough. No bunny for me this year! Apparently it completely ruins your life! Stupid bunnies! Pass the carrots (with a side of eggs!)





The Bunny, the bunny, whoa I love the bunny
I don't love my mom or my dad, just the bunny
The Bunny, the bunny, Yeah I love the bunny
I gave everything that I had for the bunny
I don't want no heath food when it's time to feed
A big bag o' bunnies is all that I need
I don't want no buddies to come out and play
I'll sit on my sofa eat bunnies all day
I wont go to church and I wont go to school,
that stuff is for sissys, but bunnies are cool!
I don't want no pickles, I don't want no honey,
I just want a plate and a fork and a bunny
I don't want a tissue when my nose is runny,
I just want a plate and a fork and a bunny
I don't want to tell you a joke that is funny,
I just want a plate and a fork and a bunny
I don't want to play on a day that is sunny,
I just want a plate and a fork and a bunny
(words courtesy of veggie tales)