Wednesday Update

How're you all? The week's flying by - we are starting to interview applicants to replace the preschool teacher who leaves after this term. Juggling schedules is always fun, but the first interview went well. I hope we will be able to make the decision by mid-March, as the new term starts 17 April.

Apart from that, yesterday was a good "on plan" sort of day for me, foodwise. In fact, the last several days have been. Not a lot of counterproductive snacking going on. I renewed my love affair with SmartPop minibags of popcorn. Good golly, Miss Molly, but you do get a lot of crunch for the buck, as it were. 100 calories = a good long snacking time. Contrast that with a cookie and a half for the same amount of calories. Yeh, as if I ever eat just a cookie and a half.

Non-Scale Victories ...

OK, a little scale victory too, as of this morning. I am back at the low of 188.8.

However, on to the non-scale victories (NSVs). I've been reading a lot of bloggers lately who talk about their NSVs. Because my loss is slow and steady, it's good to focus on those moments to keep the motivation alive.

Here, for your reading pleasure, a couple of the NSVs. The past week has been a very rotten-snack sort of week. Yesterday, there were no cruddy-carb moments. Despite a highly emotional day (involving television, how I feel like the TV is invading every space in my life and that leads to how I feel like a bad parent when I let the kids watch so much television, how I'm a bad parent in general...etc., etc. [TV = The Devil's Babysitter: discuss.]), yes, despite all this, I didn't medicate my feelings with food. I processed them, talked through them with DH (OK, cried and was totally emotional about it all), but I dealt with the feeling, moved through the feeling, and moved on with my day, in a better place for having done that. That's a pretty big NSV.

Another one - this morning, I sat down with my bowl of yogurt and muesli, started eating it, thought "I'm not really hungry," and decided to put it away and finish it later. Which I did, around 10:30. How very sensible, and in tune with my hunger pangs.

This afternoon, not an hour after a really tasty lunch, I found myself heading for the pantry, thought "What am I doing here? How do I feel? I feel irritated. OK, that's not hunger. Get out of the pantry." The amazing thing? It worked! That's an NSV for sure.

I'd like to be that "in tune" with myself every day.

Friday Weigh-in

190.4. Or, as I could put it, pheh. Second gain in a month.

This has been the Week of the Refined Carbohydrate, and I need to recommit to Not Eating Crap. One good reason for that is the number on the scale this morning. Doesn't matter if I am eating a decent amount of calories if the calories aren't nutritionally valid ones.

Having a look at my FitDay stats, my calorie intake is actually up 13% this month from last month, and my protein/fat balance has gone to the dark side.

My average stats for February to date: 1549 cal, 27% fat, 51% carb, and only 22% protein.

For January: 1366 cal, 23% fat, 51% carb, and 24% protein.

Doesn't look so terribly different, except that the carbs are not the happy fun carbs, they're white-flour carbs.

Someone help me climb back up on the healthy eating wagon...

A Splurgey Evening, and How I Dealt.

So, we decided to go to Frankie and Benny's tonight for dinner. It's a Italian-American themed restaurant here in England, with a decent kid menu and kid-tertainment packets. The kids were thrilled with their magnetic Ludo games and those crayons that have 12 different color tips in one pen. Small D had a good, extremely thin crust pizza; Lily had real chicken tenders with a side of broccoli.

The adult food at this place is uneven - I've had really awful dishes and really good dishes. I ordered the salmon cakes, skipped the side of herbed potatoes that turned out to be deep fried potato chunks, and shared a MONSTER brownie dessert thing with David. Plus a double espresso.

Dinner choice: Middle of the road, but tasty. The dessert: Yummy. The calorie count: Large. The good thing? I didn't choose something completely counterproductive like Penne Carbonara. The other good thing? I logged it in my FitDay tracker, just like any other meal, and moved on. Do I want another massive brownie dessert? Nope, probably not anytime soon. In fact, next time we go to Frankie and Benny's I might just order for the kiddlies, and stick with the espresso. It was the best thing I had tonight.

I'm feeling good about the fact that I ate what I wanted, logged it, noted the high fat content, and moved on. I'm not thinking, "Aiyeeee! Lord, I've been bad. Now I'll go home and polish off a packet of bourbon cream biscuits." I'm thinking, "That was pretty tasty. Not my usual, but OK once in a while."

It's only food. Isn't that amazing?

11 Pounds...

These pictures were taken 11 pounds apart. I think I must be losing all my weight in the back - definitely an improvement!

Friday Weigh-In, Week 6

I'm up a tad from the other day, at 189.2, which is still a big drop from last week. I think the tacos from Valentine's Day are mocking me with their sodium content. Heh. But it was a good week, and feels nice to drop into the 180s, that's for sure.

Have a great weekend everyone!

A Valentine to Me, to You, to the World

Happy Valentine's Day to all you lovely readers. May you treat yourself wonderfully today, and may everyone around you throw rose petals your way as well!

I'm thrilled to report my debloating has me at 188.8. 18 pounds gone in 2 months, baybee. It's a wonderful thing. Wow, it's good. I could tell when the cravings dispossessed my body the other night. It's like a Jekyll and Hyde transformation.

Looking back at my weight graph, this Time'O'theMonth bloat is consistent. I think the lower protein/higher fat and carb ratio is the same that week as well. I'd like to avoid it next month, to see if that eliminates some of the bloat, but we'll just have to see.

Not sure what tonight's dinner plans are - I have a dinner (boring) planned, but am lobbying for a delivery of Texican food because nothing says Valentine's Day like tacos. Dontcha think? David left a lovely lovely card for me this morning, because he's a lovely lovely guy. And totally rocks. I am lucky on Valentine's Day, and every day, to have him in my life.

Lily is entranced with a My Little Pony DVD from the library; David is upstairs with a friend doing experiments and crafty messy stuff. Contentment reigns. I think I will have some lunch and put my feet up a minute.

Mainlining Oatmeal...

That's what I think I need to do after my McDonald's meal tonight. FitDay says 44% of my calories are from fat today. Yoikes! It was tasty, but that is a ratio I cannot be seeing very often. My poor, poor little arteries are clogging as I type.

Friday Weigh-in - First Gain

Not an unexpected gain, anyhow. Lots of more-toward-mindless eating of carby crud this week. Working on it, and having a much better day today, although I have a McDonald's meal planned for dinner, which is nutritionall void :)

Looking forward to the weekend - tomorrow, I take small D into London for the day, and we'll have a fun day together. Sunday's my birthday and I anticipate plenty of nothing-time!

Still Here; Not a Grand Week in Food

And how are YOU all doing? Sorry I fell off the face of the earth...DH had my laptop hostage this weekend studying for a promotion exam, and I was pretty much all kids, all the time.

Hmm, what part of this might link to the fact that I have been eating WAAAAY too many carbs? I love my kids, yes, I do. But I do not love being with them 24/7. We all need our space. Small David is showing some stress about school, life, bedtime, the universe, everything, too, so he needs even more than 24/7 from us. Trying to find a balance for him, trying to find a balance for me, trying to stay sane in the face of repeated demands to Play Cinderella and Play Take me to Ballet Class as well.

Actually, the kids' weeklong half-term break is coming up on Friday and I think we will actually be more relaxed, even though we'll be even more in one another's pockets than usual. I have field trips planned, you see. FIELD trips.

On the bright side, even with my carb overload of the last week (also coinciding with PMS; oh, there's a surprise), my calories this week averaged around 1600. I didn't competely dive over the side of the wagon. Not yet :)

Reason for Irrational Food Spree Number 4,682

Procrastinating.

Guess what? Eating 1000 calories more than your faily average doesn't make you stop procrastinating. And it doesn't make your work go away either. It just makes your stomach uncomfortably full and your mood uncomfortably snappish. Who knew? Besides everyone in the world, that is...

Week 4 Weigh-in for the Deep End of the Pool

Woo and Hoo - today the scale says 191.4. That's 8.6 down since we started 5 weeks ago, and 15.4 gone since DH and I got on track in mid-December. Very good news.

There was a small run-in today with some little mince pies...three to be precise. And I imagine there will be a further encounter with one more mince pie today, but I'm planning on that one.

A meeting at the preschool post "mince pie madness" went really well (I am the chair). I needed a good kick to get planning and paperwork back on track, and this meeting did the trick. We have assignments and suspense dates and all that targety goodness. I'm really upbeat about getting all our ducks lined up and up-to-date in the next couple of months. The OFSTED inspectors can come at any time, and they dooo like to see that things are running smoothly with paperwork. The sessions themselves are going well, as they always have since Lily's been going, but it's the paperwork that'll kill you.

Tonight's dinner - chicken with a mushroom sauce and brussels sprouts, and a movie with the kiddies afterward in the telly room. Hello SmartPop!!

Thoughts on Food

I've noticed something interesting in the waves and waves of weight-loss-blog-surfing I've been doing this past month. There are a lot of people who seem to survive on 80% carbs, and not complex carbs, out there, even some people who've gotten to goal weight. I look at some of the FitDay links or daily posts on food and see granola bar, toast, chai tea, sandwich with cheese, salad, WW cookie, popcorn, spagetti with 5 shrimp, Skinny Cow ice cream etc. (I'm totally making this up, by the by, from my assimilation of the food reports).

To me, a diet so heavy in carbs and light on protein would not be satisfying. If I start out eating toast in the AM, by 10 o'clock I'm ready for something rightnowthissecond. The days I hit 25% protein, 25% fat and the rest carbs seem to be really good days for not bingeing. Thoughts, anyone out there? Do you find it hard to stay calorie-controlled if it's all carbs?

Two Words...

Monsoon. 16 (that's a UK 16, too!). Today I had a shopping day in the nearest town. Lots of walking, errand-buying, and browsing for meee. Normally I can get...oh, earrings...maybe a scarf, from Monsoon. Today was a better day by far.

New jeans, in a new size, on sale from 45 pounds to 13 pounds? Priceless. I also got a stylin' top in a wild print. I may even have to do a photo session soon.