weight loss

GM Diet Day 4 – Bananas and Milk.

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I made it thru Day 4. It was pretty easy. I love bananas.  I made myself 2 banana shakes, each of them had 2 bananas mixed with ice and soy milk (vs. regular milk).  Super yummy.  You are supposed to eat 8 bananas, but I didn’t need anymore than the 4 I ate.

I had a banana shake in the morning, a banana shake in the early afternoon, and a bowl of the soup for dinner.  I drank a lot of water today … I marked 9 glasses officially, but I know it was way more than that.  It was a warm day today and I did a bunch of stuff around the house…  I was just thirsty and I love water.

But get this, I GAINED weight!  Yes, only an ounce, but seriously?!?!?  I have no idea why, I felt good, didn’t feel hungry, stayed on target/plan..  just boggles my mind (maybe the soy milk vs. regular milk? not eating all 8 bananas?, the alcohol from the day before?).  I keep thinking to myself, why am I doing this?  I’m doing this to lose weight, not gain weight..  surely something is up.  I eat pretty healthy as it is, and cutting out carbs hasn’t been that big of a deal..  but cutting back on alcohol, and thus my social life, is a BIG DEAL.  So I’m now tinkering with the idea of giving up..  Below are the stats:

Day Date Day Morn Weight (lbs) Daily Loss/ Gain Total Loss # glasses of Water
1 29-Aug Mon. 126.1     8
2 30-Aug Tues. 124.1 (2.0) (2.0) 8
3 31-Aug Wed. 123.6 (0.5) (2.5) 7
4 1-Sep Thurs. 123.6 0.0 (2.5) 9
5 2-Sep Fri. 123.7 0.1 (2.4)  

 The only craving I had was for fruits, and specifically the organic grapes I have sitting in my fridge.  It was hard to not grab a handful every time I opened the fridge.  I’m looking forward to eating some meat on Day 5…   I have dreams of a hamburger.. I might make some ground beef and season with taco seasoning, mix it with lettuce, tomatoes, avocados, onions, a bit of cheese.. yum! 

What I miss the most is not sweets (I don’t really have a sweet tooth), but tortilla chips and beans.  I eat mexican food all the time – I love it, the chips, the beans, salsa, cheese, etc.. it’s a staple in my life, along with soft toilet paper. 😉

Wish me luck on Day 5… if I don’t lose weight, I’m NOT going to stick with the plan…

GM Diet Day 3 – Fruit and Veggies.

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Summary for Day 2 – 1/2 a pound down … not as much as on Day 2, but hey, its something!  

Summary of Day 3 – zero gain, zero loss.   Day 3 was fruits and veggie day – yeah!!  I had a great breakfast and lunch…  however, the afternoon and evening took a turn for the worst.  I went with a friend golfing and had a glass of wine afterwards.  I also had a date on Wednesday night, had a great Greek salad and took a few bites of my dates skirt steak. The big no-no was the glass of red wine…  This is why I cannot go out while I’m dieting, I have zero will power…  drinking has more to do with socializing than it does with drinking…. 

Oh, and my period started..

Given all of this, I’m actually shocked I didn’t gain weight.  But I didn’t… so its o.k..  I’m interested to see how this affects the rest of my diet.

Day Date Day Morn Weight (lbs) Loss/ Gain # glasses of Water Daily Activity
1 29-Aug Mon. 126.1   8 10 min walk
10 min abs
2 30-Aug Tues. 124.1 (2.0) 8 40 min run
10 min abs
3 31-Aug Wed. 123.6 (0.5) 7 60 min golf
4 1-Sep Thurs. 123.6 0.0    

Thursday, Day 4, is all about bananas and milk.  I had debated whether to do another day of fruit and veggies, but decided to just continue with the plan…  Wish me luck – I’m crossing my fingers that I didn’t derail myself.

GM Diet Day 2 – All Veggies and a Potato For Breakfast.

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Summary from Day 1 – down 2 pounds!  I woke up this morning, hopped on the scale, and just smiled.  Thank god Atlanta didn’t get the better of me.  I’m almost down all the weight I gained…  Yeah for me!

Day Date Day Morn Weight (lbs) Loss/ Gain Total # of glasses of Water Daily Activity
1 29-Aug Mon. 126.1   8 10 min walk
10 min abs
2 30-Aug Tues. 124.1 (2.0) 8 40 min run
10 min abs

Today is Day 2 – all veggies and a potato for breakfast.  So after making my coffee, I cleaned a potato and stuck it in the oven.  An hour later, I had a potato with 2 pats of butter and a bit of salt and pepper.  It was delicious.  I felt full, but not too full until late afternoon.  For dinner I made myself some baked eggplant with homemade chunky tomato sauce and a big salad.  I cheated and added some cheese to the eggplant and I think that was a mistake.  About 30 minutes after eating, I got really bloated and my stomach hurt for about an hour..  the same feeling I get all the time.  I’m wondering if I’m allergic to cheese?   I’m going to eat the rest of the eggplant minus the cheese tomorrow and see how I feel.  If I don’t feel bad, then I’ll know that I don’t feel good when I eat cheese.  It would be an absolute bummer because I LOVE cheese.

I went for a run today – the first one in a month. I was slower than usual but it felt so good. The weather was perfect – it was warm out, there was a slight breeze, the sky was clear and blue.. the sun on my skin felt glorious.  I feel so much better when I exercise I don’t know why I don’t “just do it” when things get busy/crazy….  seems backwards.

I ran errands tonight after dinner so I wouldn’t be tempted to relax with a glass of wine.  It worked… and now I’m home, blogging, and getting ready for bed. 

Tomorrow, Day 3, I can have both fruits and veggies except bananas and potatoes.  I’m looking forward to my berry shakes, more mango (yum!), and the grapes I just received in my organic care package from Farm Fresh To You.  It came at the perfect time as it contains a bunch of grapes, two containers of heirloom tomatoes, an eggplant, some broccoli and lettuce. I used the eggplant and a few of the heirloom tomatoes for dinner tonight…  I’ll use the tomatoes with my beef on Days 5 & 6, and the broccoli for a stir fry on days 6 & 7…   Yum!

Alright, I’m tired.. off to bed I go.  Have a great Wednesday everyone.

GM Diet Day 1 – All Fruits Except Bananas.

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Today is the 1st day of my 7 day diet (GM Diet).

I weighted myself first thing in the morning as the diet suggests.  I’m at 126.1 lbs. 

I started the morning off with a stong cup of coffee (always cleans me out) and a large berry shake. I spent most of the day in front of my computer frantically trying to get work done because I have jury duty tomorrow (and potentially the rest of the week).  I did get outside for about 10 minutes and it was absolutely gorgeous – sunny and cool..

The day went by quickly –  I’m glad I was working from home.  I ate fruit all day – berry shakes, oranges, mangoes..  delicious.  I did begin to feel fuzzy/shaky/weird around 6pm, but I ate a bowl of the GM Soup and all was good. I do not miss drinking tonight – didn’t crave it like I thought I would.  Instead, I watched Millionaire Matchmaker while unpacking my suitcase and doing laundry.  It felt like a productive evening. 

Being Type A, I’m keeping track of everything in a spreadsheet ….  I can’t fit everything into this blog (I’ve documented everything I’ve eaten so far) so here is the important stuff:

Day Date Day Morn Weight (lbs) Loss/ Gain Plan # glasses of Water Daily Activity
1 29-Aug Mon. 126.1   All fruits except bananas.  8 10 min walk
10 min abs

Tomorrow is all about vegetables…  It  makes me miss My Mr. Big.  He was the best salad maker ever (among his other many talents).  There was something about the way he made a salad that made it over-the-top delicious.  As I type this, I realize that it’s not really about the salad, but about the way he took care of me.  He took pleasure in making me happy, as I did him.  He was generous in so many ways…  and salad making was just one of them.  I’ll be thinking of him all day tomorrow (not that I don’t every day.. but it will happen even more so tomorrow)…

O.k.. no nap for me today so I’m tired… I’m off to bed, get a good nights sleep and begin Day 2 with a bang!

Trying The GM Diet.

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My month in Atlanta was brutal, especially on my physique.  The 3 hour time change made it almost impossible for me to work out.  I know this sounds like a lame excuse, but getting up at 7am pst is about all I can do…  If I wake up any earlier than that, I feel sick to my stomach and have on many occasions, thrown up.

I also felt bloated and uncomfortable the entire time .. I don’t know if it was the weather or what I was eating, which for the most part was the same – oatmeal in the morning, salad for lunch, low carb dinner), but I just didn’t feel good.

Anyway, the long and short of it is that I didn’t work out and I drank too much…  which has resulted in a 3 lb gain.  Of course I’m not happy out it, I had 5 lbs to lose before I left for Atlanta a month ago.  So, I’m going to try the GM Diet.  A few friends of mine have done the diet one week a year for years (they do it once a year for cleansing purposes)… and have consistently lost weight and have kept it off.  So I’m going to give it a try.  I’ll blog my progress …   

I’m actually looking forward to it because I do love fruits and veggies..  and I can substitute chicken for the beef days if I want to..  I went shopping today and purchased a bunch of fruits and vegetables… the bill came to $68… which is very low for me.  Normally its close to $100, and that’s because it usually includes alcohol…. And honestly, after all the drinking I did in Atlanta, I’m looking forward to an excuse to NOT drink.  I know, shocker. 

Wish me luck.  I’ll let you know how day 1 goes tomorrow.

Tracking My Activities.

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So, I’ve got a new goal: drink less and lose weight.  Yep, I know.. I’m doing it again.

I’ve done well with drinking less in general – I no longer drink on airplanes which is HUGE for me…  now I’m used to it, seems weird to have a drink on the plane now.  Didn’t take that long or was it that painful to make this healthy change in my life.  And in general, with work being so busy, I’ve not had as much time to “cut loose” as I used to.

But after Friday, being wildly hung-over I was (and quite possibly legally drunk until noon or so) at the Atlanta Airport, I’ve decided I’ve got to cut back on the booze for a while.   On Friday I decided to not drink at all for a week.. but that changed on Saturday, when GFP came over and had a few glasses of wine, and had a pomegranate martini with C-Licious on Sunday.

Anyway, I thought that while I’m at it, why not ALSO do what my doctor recommended… which was to eat before I run/exercise.  When I went to the doctor to get my IUD inserted, he told me to eat breakfast.. I let him know I don’t usually eat breakfast… and we had a great conversation on how that is not good for me. He said that if I ate a small bit of protein and carbs before I work out, I could lose up to 5 pounds.   I told him I’d do it (it was on my New Years Resolutions this year, and my weight hasn’t budged down or up), he weighed me before I left, and the bet is on!!

So,  my goal is to:

  • take two sobriety nights a week AND
  • eat before I exercise in the morning. 

And I’m going to document all of my activities (time with friends, dates, goals, etc) on my new fancy  Calendar Of Activities.  Its how I was able to achieve so much last year..  keeping track of it via calendar. Keeps me honest.

Almost There – 9 Pounds Down.

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I have two weeks to go until my vacation with my mom – the one where we reveal our new beach bodies.  My goal was to lose 10 lbs before this vacation.  Seemed like it would be easy to shake the 10 lbs, but it has NOT been.  BUT, the good news is that I am now officially down 9 lbs. 9 lbs!!  I have broken the 120 mark (finally consistently below it).  I have exactly one more pound to go ….   but with a lot of veggies and water, I feel confident that I will be down the full 10 pounds by August 23rd.

I am so excited about it – last weekend I unpacked all my “skinny clothes” and tried them on.  To my delight,  most of them fit!   I kept the ones that were in style and got rid of the rest.  I NEVER plan to go back to the heavier weight again.  I feel so much better,  more confident now. I can only imagine I how I will feel when I loose another 10 pounds!!

As I lose the weight, I do feel better, mybody feels better, and I have more energy. However, its my thoughts that have to change most … I do still feel like “the fat kid”…  and I am very conscious NOW of how my weight effected me.  And it is not how people treated me, its how I treated myeslf; the way I feel about myself.

I’m working on it, changing my mental thoughts will take a while.  In the meantime, I am making progess by wearing clothes that fit me better, more slender/slimming clothes vs. the clothing that I was wearing to “hide” my body.   I will also work on walking a bit straigher, more upright, and with more confidence.    My lesson learned so far is that weight loss is as much of a mental shift as it is a weight shift…

Weight Watchers Is A Scam.

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So,  I do feel badly about this.. but thought those of you in my boat would understand (those trying to lose weight and struggling with it).

I go to Weight Watchers every Friday for my weigh in.  I have been completely dedicated to my weight loss – tracking the food I’m eating, working out once, if not 2x a day…  I’m ON IT. The scale – the WW scale – showed I gained weight.

I asked the very nice 60+ year old woman who had the unfortuante responsibly of performing my weigh-in on Friday, how in the world was weight gain possible on her scale, but showed weight loss on all other scales I use (and use regularly I might add).  I had gone to the doctor and was weighed-  a great number.  My home scale showed almost a full pound of loss…   and the WW scale… weight gain.   I went WWF on her (in a calm, but very focused way).  Its so frustrating – how is it possible?  I asked her about the scale…  and how its possible that every scale in my life shows positive results…. EXCEPT WW.

She had no answer…. just stammered on about results are not always what we expect…  I was so mad my friend walked me out of there and talked me off the ledge.  Its been 48 hours since the weigh in, and I have decided to cancel membership.  I’m doing all the right things – and I would prefer to put the cost of my weight watchers membership towards my new gym membership.

So, I’m sure others feel differently – my mom is having tremendous success.  Its all about portion control for her. For me, it’s portion control AND exercise.  I want to be stronger, get healthy.    I’m running, i’m stretching and strength training.. …    and I’m loving the gym membership. 

All those that have reached out to me about similar goals – I hope you all are doing well and making progress!!