Weekends are Hard

Not having such a successful day today, though not for lack of portion control or not over-eating. The problem today is that the options have been too calorific.

Breakfast - rice chex and milk (while I cooked the kids a cheese omelette with beans)
Lunch - whole wheat bread stick with sunflower seeds (9 points!), cheese, and one slice of ham
Snack - Starbucks nonfat milk latte and a biscotti (which was 5 points all on its own!!)
Dinner - Quesadilla, for which the tortilla came in at 5 points too.

So today (so far) I have eaten my daily allowance, plus exchanged all my activity points, and eaten one point off my weekly allowance of 49. (For those who don't know, the Weightwatchers system gives you a daily allowance of "points", in my case 29, plus a weekly allowance, which I think is 49 for everyone; and you can earn points from doing exercise which you are then allowed to exchange for food points. You can either save your activity points and spend them at the end of the week, or you can exchange them on a daily basis. I chose the latter, as it seems more honest.)

Despite this discouraging total, I have to express some satisfaction at my willpower in Starbucks. They had holiday gingerbread for sale, which I really like. 440 calories per slice, with 74g of carbohydrate, adding up to a mighty 12 points according to the Weightwatchers calculator. That is more points than I have been eating for either lunch or dinner this week.

Given that I'd got into the habit of eating a cake or pastry every day, no wonder I had hit 160 lbs.

New Year, New Start

Hello again. It's been a while.

Dr Mom weighed in this morning at 160.6 lbs, again a record for heaviness. The first day of the year didn't go so well, food-wise, involving as it did a cooked breakfast, a burger for lunch, three mince pies, a Flake, pasta with cream for dinner, and a bowl of trail mix. But against that I have to mention the five hours sleep of the night before, and in such circumstances it is essential to keep eating tasty junk food in order to stay awake.

But today is the start of a brave new world. Again.

I was just watching some video of myself dancing on New Year's Eve. Tummy. Large boobies. Expansive bottom. And did I mention the tummy? Oh dear, really got to do something about that.

First step is to re-awake Weightwatchers. I logged in and discovered it had changed in my absence. It's like some perverse version of the supermarkets moving all the food around to make you spend more. Turns out that they have recalibrated all the foods so that I now have a higher point availability for each day and extra for the week (29 and 49 respectively). So it must mean that one point no longer roughly equals 100 calories - some more subtle algorithm is in play. Bah.

Hungry. Must drink tea.

Fish tendencies

44 lengths so far this week. Unfortunately, tonight is curry night. But my pounds will be healthier pounds...

Yesterday was a bad day and involved a bag of sweets.

On Friday we go to Devon, where there is no control over food at all, but on the plus side (weather permitting, and it is snowing again) there are many tors to climb and exercising opportunities of the fresh air variety.

I think I need a pep talk!

Sore and Stuffed

Foot continues sore. Hip also sore from compensating for foot.

Took the kids to the annual Children's Ball (Scottish Country Dance) in Livermore on Saturday. No dancing, of course, but a lot of standing to take photos. Foot sore. Buffet at the end. Ate many egg mayonnaise sandwiches.

Today, traditional roast beef lunch. Visit to movie theater. Naughty ice cream. Cheese on toast for dinner. Now feeling a bit bloated. Insides seem to be unhappy over past three or four days. Several tummy aches. Hubby threatening to put me on white rice diet.

Exercise and Doughnuts

I'm finally over my cold, but now my foot is hurting. I went to my Scottish Country Dance class on Wednesday and was limping by the end. Today I did half my usual walk - so three miles instead of six - which was fine until just the end. I have good intentions to increase my amount of exercise, but having a dodgy foot won't help. This evening I am going to another dance class, but I expect I shall end up walking instead of actually dancing. I'm taking Deep Thought with me. It is a special class where the teacher is offering to teach some of the local youth dancers the dances which are on the program for the forthcoming Children's Ball. They could do with the extra practice, so I'm keen to take her.

I also have to confess to having eaten three doughnuts this week. I did balance that today with a bowl of soup for lunch, but I can't help thinking that one doughnut equals several sandwiches, and that might have been the healthier option.

Rain is Bad for Your Diet

There's something about rain that makes me want to eat. I guess it's pure comfort eating. It rained a lot today. I've eaten another almond croissant today, at a business meeting in the Coupa Cafe this morning. Breakfast was modest rice chex and lunch was modest carrot and ginger soup and a pate sandwich with bread made of old ropes.

My impulse purchase of the day, at Whole Foods, was a pot of strips of fresh coconut. I have no idea what I'll do with them, but seeing coconut reminded me of the times when I was a child and we would have a whole coconut that my dad would attack with a hammer. It's funny dry stuff when you start to eat it.

More or Less Better, No Excuses Remaining

I've just finished eating a Cadbury's Creme Egg. I know I shouldn't but somehow I just don't care. I had Cheerios for breakfast and a Caesar salad for lunch; but then I got hungry and ended up eating an almond croissant with a latte in the afternoon.

I expect to be well enough to go to dance class this week, and I've arranged to go for a walk with a friend on Friday morning; so I've got some exercise in the offing this week after doing nothing at all last week. I'm finally sleeping a bit better so I don't feel so limp and washed out.

It's funny how we all swing back and forth between being "good" (i.e. depriving ourselves of the good things in life, like Cadbury's Creme Eggs) and wolfing down as much "bad" stuff as we can find. It's a disease called Lack of Willpower. I went to the grocery store and deliberately didn't buy any treat food except for Skinny Cow popsicles (which are really for Deep Thought - I don't like them). No cakes, no biscuits, no chocolate, no crisps, not even any unusual crackers. I figure that if I can resist buying them, then I'm less likely to eat them. Not buying them at the grocery store won't, of course, prevent me succumbing at a coffee shop, but should make the overall consumption fall. It's also a good thing for Deep Thought to have less sweet stuff in the house. When you're a 10 year old diabetic, it can be hard to resist.

Days of Relative Goodness, Nights of Coughing

By the time we got back from Death Valley at the weekend, I had a stinky cold. I've now had it for a week and I Am Fed Up With It. The worst part is the cough, which is pretty bad during the day, but keeps me awake at night. Hubby says I was wheezing attractively in my sleep yesterday. Lovely. So I am tired, but trying to stay in good humor. Sickness is the reason I've not been posting.

Our house remodel has also reached some kind of tipping point. This week has been ghastly - activity in every room in the house - but we also got the kitchen back! Hurrah, no more obligatory restaurant food.

For the past two days I've been very abstemious with the eating. Cheerios for breakfast, caesar salad with a little chicken for lunch, a granola bar for snack, a nonfat latte for other snack, and a modest dinner. On Tuesday my modest dinner was a cheese sandwich. Yesterday it was pasta with salmon in cream (not so uncalorific, but not a very big portion). Today I whipped up pasta with egg and bacon (again not a big portion). I did also give in to the temptation of a chocolate croissant at Douce France, though....while I was watching Deep Thought do some of her homework. I couldn't bear the idea of going back to the worksite formerly known as our house, so we hung out for over an hour. You've got to buy something, n'est pas?

Also snacked on crisps this evening. Well, I'm sick!

No exercise this week. One, I'm sick (did I mention that?). Two, it's been raining. Three, I've been crazy busy with volunteering, food shopping, moving things around in the house, and so on. Like OEM, I have every intention of getting back to the exercise, but just for now I think I need to focus on shaking off this cold.

Desert Walking

Yesterday I did a virtuous four mile walk with my family along a canyon and through the badlands along a dry gulch in Death Valley. We climbed around 500 feet and descended the same during the course of the walk which took around three hours. It was quite cool when we started out, but we were all very hot by the end. I particularly enjoyed – not – scrambling down a dry waterfall. Otherwise the walk was on rough ground: the crumbled mudstone that had fallen from the walls of the canyon and the pebbles that had been brought down the mountain by the gulch during the rainy season.

Later in the day we went for an hour’s walk across the sand dunes near Stovepipe Wells. This also had a fair bit of up and down and, while it wasn’t much of a distance – no more than a mile and a half – it was reasonably hard work walking along on soft sand.

This was the first significant exercise I’ve had since last Thursday.

This morning we spent a couple of hours walking three miles up and back down the Mosaic Canyon, which was loose gravel underfoot, plus some rock scrambling.

On the food front, the picture is mixed. Hubby is torturing me by bringing out crisps to eat by the fire every evening. I am, naturally, succumbing to them, matching him crisp for crisp. Meals have been fairly modest. The only restaurant meals we’ve eaten so far were the ones previously reported, in Gilroy and Bakersfield. I prepared a few meals before we left home, so yesterday was chili and rice, Tuesday was pasta Bolognese. Lunch is typically a sandwich (for speed), though yesterday we had a leisurely lunch involving sausages, bacon and fried egg. Not exactly a low calorie meal, but when you’re camping you have to eat what you’ve got. Notice I packed bacon and egg and not tofu and edamame beans.

Crazy for Fondue

I've had another ridiculously busy day, prepping for our RV trip and also the building work in our bedroom while we're away. After my Multi-grain Chex breakfast - which didn't happen till after the kids had gone out to school with Dad - I visited Safeway to buy 15 gallons of drinking water. Then I took popsicles to school for Little Starlet's birthday snack (she turns eight on Sunday), then it was back to the supermarket to do the shopping for our trip.

Hubby appeared back home with our rental RV at about 11:30am, after which I traipsed in and out of the house with armfuls of stuff: pans, bedding, towels, medicines, shampoo, etc etc. I employed several shopping bags, but it was still many trudging trips up and down the plywood path across our battlefield front yard. I truly think it counted as exercise.

The highlight of the day was Little Starlet's birthday dinner at La Fondue in Saratoga. OEM will remember it well, I know, as we went there during the Christmas holidays. We had the cheddar, bacon, buttermilk and beer cheese fondue first course; followed by the meaty grill second course (Little Starlet decided she liked buffalo, but did not care for wild boar or savage duck); and then the course we were all waiting for, the Decadent Chocolate fondue dessert. Yum. About a million calories, but well worth it. The children really enjoyed having a "fun food" experience in a fancy restaurant. We sang Little Starlet "happy birthday" and she seemed pleased by the whole experience.

Oh Cultural Day

Family and I went up to San Francisco today to see Swan Lake at the War Memorial Opera House. We had pretty good seats in the Grand Tier (which is the second layer of dress circle up, the first layer consisting entirely of boxes). The stage seemed a fair way away, though it must have looked tiny to the people upstairs in the balcony. The good side was that we could see all the pretty patterns that the swan chorus made. Nice costumes, minimalist but appropriate sets. Not too hammy. Good quality dancing. Surprisingly, I think Hubby and I enjoyed it more than the gruesome twosome. Deep Thought announced that she "quite enjoyed the music" while Little Starlet (for whose benefit the outing was originally arranged) pronounced it "boring" and "when can we go to see Mr Shakespeare again?"

Sitting in a theater for three hours doesn't burn many calories, but neither does it provide many eating opportunities. We did, it is true, partake of a cup of filter coffee and the cookie plate at the first intermission, but my section of the cookie plate consisted of two bite sized morsels, and the coffee was unsweetened, so I figure that wasn't bad. At least the sugar and caffeine injection helped keep my eyes open for the whole performance.

After ballet we went to Max's Opera Cafe on Van Ness for dinner. Deep Thought was desperate to have the blue cheese bacon burger but, alas, it was no longer on the menu. I had the shrimp louie salad - that's lots and lots of lettuce with cauliflower, carrots and red pepper, garnished with shrimps and avocado - with about a quarter of the dressing; then Deep Thought and I shared a half-portion of the chocolate cake. Even a half portion was enormous, so a quarter portion was just right. We scraped off the extra frosting on the top and felt very virtuous indeed.

My Virtue Runneth Over

Another fine day.

Shredded wheat for breakfast - nasty, but filling. Meeting in Starbucks in the morning, with a coffee but no nibbles. Lunch provided by my lovely friend Yin, consisting of bagel, alternative crisps containing lentils, and a bit of vegetable matter. (This was a sympathy lunch, in support of those of us who are Without Kitchen.)

Another walk in the afternoon, this one involving some uphill and downhill, at the Arasteradero Preserve in Palo Alto. Unfortunately many of the most scenic paths are currently closed due to overwhelming muddiness, but I still managed a nice loop of 2.78 miles, which took just under an hour. What was even more virtuous was that I did the last 20 minutes of the walk in the pouring rain. How devoted to personal self improvement is that? OK, I was at the top of the hill so I didn't have much choice, but hey - !

Girls night out with Little Starlet. Hubby and Deep Thought went to the school's Skate Night and ate tepid pizza. Little Starlet and I went to the local noodle bar. We shared pork dumplings, then Little Starlet had "simple chicken noodles" while I had orange chicken with sticky rice. The orange chicken was extremely spicy, so I didn't eat all of it, nor more than half the rice. Portions around here really are out of control. It had been such a virtuous day that we finished off our meal with small chocolate gelato's at the local gelaterie. Yum.

Emotional Eating

What you need, OEM, is a strategy for gaining control of your "emotional eating". I found several articles on the web about this, including this one from the Mayo Clinic. Seems to me that you are already following a number of the suggestions, such as keeping a food diary (and the no deprivation one is clearly very important).

I am also a toadal emotional eater. Eat when I'm bored, eat when I'm happy, eat when I am cross... I guess the strategy would be to reach for something that is less calorific for a start. So reach for the yoghurt not the crisps. Have a cup of cocoa instead of a chocolate bar. Plus the action of having to make something will decrease the amount of food you eat, because you have less time!

I also suffer from Lack of Willpower. Today I'm heading off to a hotel in Santa Cruz for a conference (today and tomorrow). Which means - hotel food. Large portions. Too much choice. Cooked breakfast maybe. Temptation and almost guaranteed failure. I'm thinking of going vegetarian for the couple of days, but I may have missed the boat on that one.

On the bright side, I did do my dance class last night. Any progress on that front for you? Now it's stopped snowing in good old Blighty, might a brisk walk around the park be another way to work off the annoyance?

Cake and Happiness

We did go out for pizza last night and I was sooooo goooood. I ate half a pizza, when I would normally have eated a whole one (some 1200 calories, according to the California Pizza Kitchen's nutritional menu); and I also shared a salad with Hubby. He suspects that the salad had a fair few calories in it, as he chose the "Thai Chicken Salad" which turned out to have deep fried noodley things on the top and a sweet dressing, but still - ! Salad!

The best part was that I went to bed without a headache and got up in the morning without one too. There may well be something in my mother's theory.

Today I was quite good and a little bit bad. Weetabix for breakfast. Wholewheat pitta bread with curried chicken salad for lunch.

I did accidentally eat a two egg cheese omelette mid-morning.... Well, I was teaching Deep Thought how to make one (for her own snack) and Little Starlet requested one. Then Little Starlet was very rude about Deep Thought's product (which was actually perfect) so I told her she couldn't eat it. And I couldn't waste it, could I? And WeightWatchers thinks that eggs are good - a "filling food". So that was only four points of harm done.

Then this afternoon we stopped off at my favorite coffee shop - the French one - to pick up coffee and snackerel for the afternoon. The kids had been at a dance class and I'd promised them a treat. We each had a very small chocolate cake (1" square) which was delicious, and just the perfect size. I count that as naughty but nice, and in keeping with manifesto points 2 (everything in moderation), 3 (no deprivation) and 8 (one visit to a coffee shop per day).

The thing I am noticing is that I am not wanting to eat so much in one sitting. I had got into the habit of eating till I felt a bit queasy, or had that badly stuffed feeling, and now I am able to stop when I get to the end of what seems an appropriate portion.

Tonight we are having healthy roast chicken, boiled potatoes and some other vegetable. (Hubby is cooking.)

The

Addiction is Such a Headache

My headache has continued, though not so badly today. It only came on in the early afternoon. My mother's theory is that I am so addicted to sugar, caffeine, salt, fat and so on, that my body is experiencing a "cold-turkey" reaction now that I have reduced the amount and frequency with which those items are being consumed. There may be something in that.

I was exceptionally good today until 3:30pm. I went for a walk with friends which involved up-hill, breathlessness and everything - so I've done my one episode of exercise this week. (Any movement on that front for you, OEM, if you'll excuse the pun?) As for food, it was Weetabix for breakfast, salad leaves sprinkled with parmesan cheese with a small tin of tuna for lunch, vinegar for the dressing (6.5 WeightWatchers points altogether).

But by the time I picked up Deep Thought from school I was getting a bit desperate. Off we go to jolly old Starbucks for a grande latte (decaf) and a slice of marble cake. It happens that Starbucks had a leaflet on its food values, so this is a piece of marble cake: 350 calories, 13g fat, 53g carbs (incl 33g from sugar); which adds up to 8 WeightWatchers points.

Now Hubby is on the way home and I think we are heading out for pizza.

Another Disasterous Day

I was doing so well too. We went to the diner this morning, and I elected to reject my usual Eggs Benedict (1,000,000 calories) and have two poached eggs with toast instead. All very modest, and highly approved of by WeightWatchers. Then I had an extremely Dieting Luncheon, consisting of two crisp bread, a bit of cheese, half an apple and two slices of tomato.

Then the girls got into a big grumpy mood. The only thing that would bring them round was a promise to play "restaurant". So we selected our menu, went food shopping, came back and cooked it, and then Little Starlet was the server while Hubby and Deep Thought were the customers (LS and I joined after the paying folks were served). The menu was a thoroughly British homemade deep-fried fish and chips with peas, Heinz treacle pudding with Ambrosia Devon Custard, and mugs of steaming tea. All very yummy actually - though the batter decided that it preferred to cook separately from the fish, which ruined the presentation but still tasted good - but according to WeightWatchers amounted to 19 points.

This brings my daily total to over 30 points (The injustice! After eating crispbread for lunch!) which translates into something like 3,000 calories. (Footnote: From what I can see, 1 point equals about 100 calories. It just makes the numbers smaller for the hard of thinking...? Or perhaps there's more to it than that.)

I feel nice and full, but somewhat horrified. Of course, I should have known better, and served everyone else the fish etc while I stuck with more crispbreads.

Looking on the bright side, I didn't visit a coffee shop today.

No cake today!

I think this counts as a major achievement. I'm going to say it again, I'm so surprised. NO CAKE. In fact, no treats of any kind, apart from a nonfat, decaf latte as fetched from Starbucks by Hubby this afternoon.

Breakfast: weetabix and milk
Lunch: pasta with chicken and red peppers in cream (I ate only half the pasta that Hubby put out for me).
Dinner: well, ok, we did go to the California Pizza Kitchen... But I elected to have chicken salad sandwich on herb focaccia bread, which was 995 calories, instead of a pizza which is more like 1200. So I felt very thin doing that. Had a small cup of pea soup on the side. Vegetables! How virtuous.

I had a continuation of yesterday's headache today, and retired to bed for three hours in the late morning. Feeling better now.

Chewy Bar Review

OEM and her family were staying with us over the holidays. On the last evening, after Little Starlet and the Boy Wonder had retired to bed, we had a taste test on several diet/chewy/granola bars. And here are the results...


Think Thin Brownie Crunch Bar: 60g, 230 cal. 2/10 Comments: "Dog laxative with added mud." "Bad breath after a hard day's night." "Dry and disgusting." "Foofy with disgusting crunchy bits." "Dry, with the aftertaste of used socks." "Stale, old chocolate with socks." "It's like there are little insects trapped in it."

Think Thin Chocoate Fudge Bar: 60g, 230 cal. 2/10. Comments: "Hints of third hand bubble gum." "Dry but chewy." "Chewy in a bad way." "Waxy chocolate coating."

Bumble Bar Chocolate Crisp: 45g, 200 cal. 3/10 "OK, in a very small quantity." "I'd be happy to put this out for the birds." "It would be better without the chocolate flavor." "Textured in a chewy sort of way." "Bitty."


Somersalts Cocoa Flavor: 30g, 150 cal. 1/10. "Aren't these dog biscuits?" "Doesn't taste of anything." "Like chewing a lump of stale bread."

Sticking with the Manifesto

The challenge of having a manifesto is finding a way to accomplish all its parts simultaneously. I think I succeeded yesterday in achieving at least two.

First, I ate less and in moderation: Weetabix for breakfast, soup and a slice of bread for lunch, modest homemade fish pie for dinner. Then I rejected deprivation by eating half a tin of biscuits after the kids had gone to bed.

So far so good, eh?

I also re-ignited my WeightWatchers account yesterday. I added my current weight (to be revealed tomorrow, which official Day One) and started inserting the data for the food I'd eaten. But since the tin of biscuits sent me over the edge for the entire week, I decided that perhaps I'd better start again.

Final Fondue Hurrah

OEM and I are officially beginning our weight loss challenge on January 6, or Twelfth Night, so of course we have to make sure that all the tempting Christmas goodies are out of the way. OEM and her family are currently visiting the home of Dr Mom, so we were able to support each other in the disposal of this modest chocolate fondue with dipping goodies.