lose 17 pounds

This had been on my goal list since June 2006! Weight lost averages out to about a pound a month—& it wasn’t exactly slow & steady; there were a lot of ups & downs. But I’m finished at last.

I’m going to adopt a new, small weight loss goal so as to dovetail with my SparkPeople goal & fit into all my “skinny clothes.” As a last hurrah on this goal, below are some tips I put together recently for some SparkPeople friends who wondered how I managed to eat out six times last weekend without gaining any weight.

1. If one meal is a bit hefty, keep the other one small. Examples:

(a) Lunch of Chicago-style barbecue (baby back ribs), with green beans as my side dish instead of potatoes. I ate a couple of pieces of bread & (just a little) butter too. That evening I had just a bowl of soup at a little Thai restaurant—it was exquisite & perfectly satisfying.

(b) Lunch of two slices of spinach/mushroom deep-dish pizza, with some salad & a beer. Supper that night was a Mediterranean hummus-feta cheese appetizer plate & a beer. The hummus was too dry & the other spread wasn’t very interesting, so I ended up eating less than half of that dish.

(c) Lunch of grilled chicken sandwich, steamed veggies, & an orange. That day’s supper of Ethiopian food was mostly vegetables & lentils, but we scooped them up with soft injera bread (no fork or spoon) which provides a kind of primal satisfaction (& fun).

2. Mustard instead of mayo on one’s sandwich! SP mentions this in a couple of articles I have read, but my taste had already made the switch years ago.

3. I also added a little green Tabasco sauce to my grilled chicken—I love spicy food. If your stomach allows you to eat spicy food, it’s a blessing, because hot spices stimulate endorphins & you feel satisfied with less.

4. Light salad dressing or vinaigrette, & always on the side so I can use just a small amount.

5. Water as the beverage of choice, with one glass of beer or wine on occasion. No soft drinks.

6. As noted above, veggies or fruit as the side dish instead of potatoes or rice. If others order potatoes or fries, I can take a few bites of theirs!

As of this morning I’m yet another pound down. Yay for me! It’s a big deal since it comes right after Thanksgiving week.

I did enjoy Thanksgiving dinner—& took small helpings. Generally I’m having rather intense experiences with food, savoring every bite. And I’ve invented or tweaked some recipes recently. I’m especially proud of a Thai-style mussamun curry with sweet potatoes, tofu, & light coconut milk.

SparkRecipes.com has a “recipe calculator” that allows you to figure calories & other nutritional values of your own recipes. What a great tool!

I have just ONE pound to go now before I can check off this goal. Yay!

another pound. Only 2 to go for this goal. Yay!

I’ve been tracking my eating at Sparkpeople.com. I’m normally within the recommended 1200-1550 calorie range for each day & the recommended ranges for carbohydrates & fats. However, I’m consistently low in protein. I always drink milk at breakfast & usually have peanut butter, which has some protein. Usually the only meat I eat in a given day is one slice of turkey or ham in my lunch. Sometimes I also bring a hard-boiled egg for lunch; it adds protein, but less than I expected. Often we eat beans, lentils or garbanzos for our main dish at supper. Still, not enough protein according to the experts.

Does anyone have suggestions for high-protein foods that wouldn’t also increase my carbs & fats a lot? Or do you think the protein recommendations are inflated?

EDIT: One member of our household is a vegetarian, & the rest of us prefer to eat mostly vegetarian, so adding meat at supper is out.

Just three to go for this goal.

I’m amused to think back to our Weight Loss Sprint here & how it turned into a long, drawn-out Trudge for me. Now, by contrast, I’m shedding pounds at a nice steady pace.

Both the Sprint & Sparkpeople have been experiences of solidarity & accountability with others working on their health & weight. I guess the difference now is that Sparkpeople (if you use it as intended) is daily, methodical, & solely focused on slimming down & getting strong. I’m part of a small team there, & we keep in touch with each other daily & are in friendly competition with other teams.

The important thing is that it’s working for me!

so I have only four to go for this goal!

It’s partly because I’ve been under the weather the past few days. But for about three weeks I’ve been logging my eating, water consumption, exercise, & sleep at Sparkpeople.com, & that has helped to keep me conscious & careful. I’m not doing drastic dieting or anything. My clothes are fitting better, & that’s really nice.

I’m sleeping well.

I’m getting to bed before 11:00 as of late.

Which means that I get up early to exercise the next morning.

And I lost another pound. Six to go for this goal!

I’ve just been through a couple of difficult weeks. My prescription for the medication that helps me sleep through the night ran out over Labor Day weekend, & when my doctor finally replied to the pharmacist it was to say that she wouldn’t renew unless I scheduled an appointment.

I am due for a physical in October anyway, but I don’t want to return to her. In my physicals she doesn’t ask me about my lifestyle or open discussions about the changes my body is going through. At my last physical I wasn’t even weighed! And she uses my prescription as a weapon to make sure I come in.

I miss the doctor I used to have in the suburbs. She knew that I had struggled with insomnia for years & had tried to find solutions (over-the-counter sleep aids, melatonin, valerian, exercise, etc.). Because she kept up with research, she was able to propose my current medication, Amitriptyline, before anyone else I knew had tried it as a means to address insomnia. Once we found that it worked beautifully for me, she wrote me a prescription for a whole year at a time. We discussed other health issues too, & she was always informed & sensible.

Being without the medication for two weeks was hard. I slept poorly most nights (4-5 hours, then lots of tossing & turning). Day by day my energy ebbed; I got very little accomplished outside my job. I had a freelance project to finish, & I really struggled to focus & persevere with it.

It brought back memories of the pre-2001 years of my insomniac life. I can’t believe how well I generally managed to function despite (sometimes) weeks on end of insomnia, with the world fuzzy around the edges, my spirits drooping, my body constantly craving sleep. For sure God was carrying me along.

Earlier this month I scouted among friends for doctor recommendations; I will schedule my physical on October 1, once I’m officially a patient of the medical group where my newly chosen doctor practices. In the meantime, yesterday I saw a different doctor in the crummy doctor’s medical group, & she gave me a prescription to tide me over for a couple of months.

I slept hungrily last night; tonight I’ll make sure to allow a full 8 hours.

And now I’m going to return to exercising several times a week, instead of just on Saturdays as I’ve been doing the past few weeks.

left to go for this goal. My objective: to shed them before snow falls in Chicago. That could be as early as Halloween or as late as sometime in December.

for a total of 6 so far.

11 left to go.

It’s fascinating to me how much easier it has become to go without sugar, honey, etc. Only rarely do I crave it.

The weather has turned beautiful & springy, but I haven’t started jogging yet because I’m having a bit of pain in one knee. I’ll work on some exercises to strengthen it (lunges & bends) this week.

without dieting, just avoiding sugar/honey/syrup except on Sundays.

13 to go.

How are you doing, teammate?