Wednesday, January 31, 2007

The Stone...

...It is gone now. I am down 14.8 pounds as of this morning. Wheeeee!! Oh, regarding yesterday's high-calorie afternoon, I nipped the calories in the bud by having clear soup and light toast for dinner.

Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Good Things, Food Things

That SHOULD rhyme, shouldn't it? But, noooooooo.

Anyhoo, the Good Things: First, the upward bounce has bounced back off me, thanks to drinking more water and helping things flow through. Ahem. Now to get to that freakin' stone lost. Second, I have taken to wearing a belt, because my jeans were slithering down my butt. Not that they're really too loose, but the belt is anchoring them. Of course, I stole David's belt that he's just grown too small for again, but since I belt around my hips, I'm not feeling too demoralized :)

The Food Things: Yesterday, I was so un-hungry that I ended up at 881 calories according to FitDay. Today, I've already exceeded that by 300 calories and haven't even had dinner yet! So I've had four days like this - too little, tooooo much, way too little, too much. What's up with that? On the first undereating day, my fat was way low, at 14%, but on the second day it was a bit high, at 30%. So that's not it. Both over-caloric days have seen a snack attack of pure sugary goodness in the afternoon, although I made a lame attempt to head it off today with knitting. Not so much. Hot tea helped, though.

It's not PMS time, so that's not it. No conscious stresses today. Hmm. Oh, well.

It's darn nice to wear a belt; I haven't in years, and it makes my jeans fit completely better.

Monday, January 29, 2007

A Good Food Day

Today was a good food day...especially compared with yesterday, which FELT like a rotten food day. Yesterday was Sunday, I was feeling a bit stir-crazy with the kids and wanted to be alone. That wasn't happening, I felt guilty for not wanting to be with the kids, and I found myself eating sugary crud. I finally put an end to the sugary expedition into the cabinets by eating a string cheese (thank you, protein) but I ate probably 400-500 calories in junk in addition to the sensible food I ate.

Today I just wasn't hungry or interested in eating the junk. I did a grocery shopping, took Lily to a 3-hour playdate at an indoor playplace (kids ate lunch, I had a coffee although I had an orange handy if I wanted anything), and then I picked up David and his friend from school for a playdate here. We made our own pizzas for dinner, which was successful all around, and I got to talk to other grownups for long actual minutes of time.

Who knows what tomorrow holds? Maybe a bit of walking, I don't know. I have a boatload of paperwork to do for school/squadron volunteer stuff, but we shall see.

Friday, January 26, 2007

Friday Weigh-In; Back from Disney

Hello, Everybodeeee :)

Today's weigh-in number is 193.8. Pretty flippin' good for having spent 5 days away. I tracked my food in a paper food diary but because Disneyland Paris does not believe in having WiFi in the rooms, I did not even attempt FitDay. No idea of calories and fats for several things I had. When I came home I created a New Custom Food called "Special Event - see day's journal for food list" or something like that, and I retyped my foods into the diary portion of FitDay.

We did a TON of walking, both at the Tower of London and for the 3 days and a bit of Disneyland. Sadly, my pedometer had a relaxing week at home, on the sneakers where I tied it, because I left the house in a different pair of shoes Saturday morning. What can I say? It was early. Fortunately they were my supercomfy ergonomic clogs.

Kids had a blast, and so did we. Foodwise, Disney is both cruddy for choice and cruddy for price, but we kinda knew that already. Breakfast had lots of good options, there was one buffet dinner that didn't derail me too much (amazing!), very little water got drunk except in the room (too cold out), and too much coffee was consumed (again, cold out). We packed many portion controlled snacks, and ate a few, but really ate very few snacks in the park.

In actual fact, the weather was pretty darn good for January, with only one really chilly day. Of course, that would be the day Lily had to wear her Princess dress and didn't want to put her coat on over it. That was fun. Thank heavens for a rain/windshield on the stroller, and for occasional willingness to wear said coat.

Super time, but great to be home with my beloved FitDay and normal food choices.

Friday, January 19, 2007

What's Good; What's Bad

What's good? Today I needed to refill my lovely (instant) coffee canister, and I made the move to all decaf from my training-wheels 2/3 decaf blend. Yes, all decaf. I am so proud of myself! It's taken less than a month...I will still drink caffeinated coffee but now I'm not loading it in all day any more. So that's good.

What's bad? Finky water weight making this journey to One Stone take longer than I want. And finky pedometer NOT working right...it shows 1277 as of 5:15 PM here, and that is waaay not right. I've been on the move a lot today. I think I will try clipping it to my shoe tomorrow. If that's not a success, I will need a new pedometer.

Back to what's good - tomorrow we leave for our little family trip. London tomorrow, and then EuroDisney (or Disneyland Paris as I understand it's called these days). There'll be LOTS of walking, and we are packing lots of backpack-totable sensible snack foods. Here's hoping the other food choices won't be too craptastic...

Friday Weigh-In Week 3

Today's number is 194.8, boys and girls. I'm pleased enough with it, BUT. I was 1.2 pounds lighter two days ago before the Days of Water Retention hit. I know rationally exactly why it's up a bit, and it's still down from last Friday, but grrrrr.

YEsterday's pedometer count - just over 5400 steps. However, I think there were more than that - at one point I looked and was at ~3000 and then after walking halfway down the High Street again, it was only a couple of hundred higher. I know that's not right. In any case, better than 4000, right?!

Thursday, January 18, 2007

Vitamins and All That; How to Up Your Pedometer Stats

I was looking at some of my FitDay reports this morning, and was momentarily worried about my lack of various vitamins, etc., until I remembered that it doesn't log in my multivitamin. Maybe I should look into that, and log it, but I know I take it, so that's the important thing.

I have a cute little pillcase that makes me feel about 85 years old. Every morning, I take a multivitamin with iron. I also take a baby aspirin (as part of my heart health 'strategery'), codliver oil capsule (because there IS no sun in wintry Great Britain), and an evening primrose capsule (I fondly call this my antipsychotic because without it I get demonically hormonal; perimenopause sucks because it takes PMS and multiplies it 5-fold for me).

It's a good thing I am supposed to drink a lot of water because I go through a good 12 ounces just getting the morning pills down.

On to pedometers, and how harsh the truth can be! So, we can all agree that yesterday proves what a couch potato I have become. Onward and upward from 4000 steps is my motto. Heh. Shopping on the High Street today should help with that. Or I could just jump up and down a bunch of times. Walking and windowshopping is more fun, however, or it will be if the nasty windy rain outside will stop.

I have a secret plan to whip the pedometer, however. This weekend we're taking the kiddies to London to see the Tower of London (crown jewels, yeomen warders, arms and armor, all kinds of coolness) and stay overnight in the city. Then we shall surprise them mightily when we get on the Eurostar train next morning and end up at Disneyland Paris! We'll be there 3 nights. Only my husband has ever been to a Disney park before so we should all have an amazed and amazing time. And do a ton of walking. So take that, pedometer!!

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

Just a Pebble to Go.

I have now lost 13 pounds from my start weight on 16 December. One. More. Pound. until I have lost a stone. I just love the sound of that....a stone gone. A honking big one, as well!

I'm wearing the pedometer today, to affirm that I am a lazy, non-exercisin' fool who must add more steps to her day. I'll update with my final numbers tonight, or tomorrow.
Edited to add: Well, the pedometer was a shade under 4000 steps when I took it off during my meeting a couple of hours ago. Why, yes, yes I AM a complete chair potato. At least I know my starting point now...






Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Checking in a Bit Late...

It's late evening here in HealthSpaLand, and I've just come back from an evening of Bowling with the Girlz. I also ran a multitude of errands, but no real exercise was had today. The Deep End challenge for the day was to find your pedometer and wear it for the day to see what your baseline is, then start trying to add 2000 steps a day. I'll be doing this tomorrow. Stay tuned!

Foodwise, it's been rather a craptastic, if not high-calorie, day. I ate a good breakfast and good (late) lunch, but all I had during my outing was most of a small latte, a 100-calorie pack of Oreo Crisps (dang, are they good!), and a cupcake at the bowling alley. Oh, and a diet cola. So now I'm home, prepping for bed, and enjoying one more pack of the Oreo goodness. The rest are being saved for a little trip we have planned this weekend (more on that soon). So....no protein after 2 PM. Hmmmm. Tomorrow is a new day!

Edited to add: Wonderful husband that I have, he made me two toasted cheeses with light bread and low-fat cheese. Delicious, proteiny, and did I mention delicious?

Monday, January 15, 2007

Another Nice Day...

Yep, it's been another nice day foodwise. I got to enjoy the second half of my fabulous Pizza Express Padana pizza for lunch. Dang, it's tasty. Caramelized red onion confit, goat cheese, spinach and a little dash of heaven. I ate half last night when we ate at the restaurant, and took the other home for today's lunch. I can tell my appetite is re-set to normal proportions now, because it was easy to do that! Each half is about 380 calories, so a reasonable main dish.

Tonight's dinner is my carrot-coriander sauced chicken with lentil/rice pilau. Easy peasy and tasty at that. Lily the bean ate early (chicken and cauliflower) and seems to be headed for early bed, too. D. is out at a friend's for a playdate and tea, so he will have eaten when I collect him. Grownups around the dinner table tonight! Woohoo. I may light the candles..

Sunday, January 14, 2007

How Weird Is That?

I nuked my lunch 45 minutes ago, as I was making lunch for Lily. And then I forgot to eat it. So unlike me! Now I am going to RE-reheat it (last night's leftovers) and eat it, right now this minute. Because I'm kinda hungry now!

Another One Bites the Dust...

Woke up to another pound gone this morning. Go, baby, go! I also have noticed a sort of pattern since I started weighing daily, about 2 weeks ago. I have a loss, a very small gain, and then a bigger loss, then a very small gain, then a bigger loss...and so on. I've lost a total of 11.2 since I started last month. I can't wait until I can say I've lost a stone (14 pounds, and how one measures weight in the UK). One big boulder gone...

Saturday, January 13, 2007

Happy Saturday!

I've had a pretty nice day - got to sleep in, thanks to lovely darling husband of mine. I actually got up for a bit, and then decided to take advantage of the Free Sleep Offer and took my coffee, toast, and book up to bed. Got a 2.5-hour nap AND a half-hour chat with a great friend who called as I was waking up. Good times.

The odd foody thing about the day is that I slept through lunch and find myself at 700 calories or so as of 8:15 PM. I think I will go for a larger evening snack, but not worry if I come in low on the day. No point forcing the food...I do that too often as it is.

Random thoughts: whole wheat pasta really IS more satisfying. It is denser, takes longer to chew and thus eat, and seems to fill you up more. DH and I had 2/3 of a serving tonight with the chicken parmigiana I made, and didn't want seconds. How freaky is that?

Hope you are having a great weekend, Gentle Reader!

Friday, January 12, 2007

A Little Chocolate...

...is a beautiful thing on a Friday evening, along with a lovely fresh cup of coffee. It's been a good week, all in all. Today's calories and fat were a bit higher, even before the chocolate (half of a Cadbury Bourneville, which is nice dark chocolate), because I used 2 T of oil and 2 T of peanut butter in tonight's stir-fry, and counted half of that as consumed by me. Some was eaten by the kids, but not much. They didn't care for the peanut sauce on the noodles. Silly kids.

Pleased about this week's weight loss, pleased to be getting my fat intake under control, and pleased as punch that the weekend is here. How about you??

Friday Weigh-In no. 2

I stepped on the scales for the Deep End challenge and am 196.6, same as yesterday. Wooohoo!!

That's a loss of 3.4 this week, which is huge for me. I haven't been doing the healthy eating quite a month yet, so it will be interesting to see where my monthly plateau (read "ladies' water-retaining week") hits. I think it'll be next week. Last time I did WW, it took me a couple of months to see the pattern. DUH!

Thursday, January 11, 2007

10.2

That's 10.2 pounds gone since we started the healthy eating 16 December 2006 (actually, we started eating healthy the NEXT day!). It's also 3.4 down since I started the Deep End challenge, but tomorrow's weight is the reporting weight for this week.

Anyhoo...I'm most pleased! Yesterday's Water Before Coffee plan worked wonderfully well, and so far so good this morning. I ended up drinking 3 glasses of water before I got the kids to school, another when I got back, and now that I'm having my delayed breakfast I'll have coffee after. I could reallllllly cut down on the coffee with this tactic.

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Today's Challenge

Well, yesterday's weird food day showed up on the scale as a gain of 0.4 pounds. I think it's all that Crunchy Corn Bran fiber working in there, but who knows?

Anyway, I'm having a tough time drinking all the water I want to in a day. My buddy (hiya, other Susie!) pointed out in semi-jest that I could do it if I drank water instead of coffee. That gave me an idea for the day's challenge. For every cup of coffee I drink, I must have at least 3 cups of water first. It may distract me from the java, but even if not, I'll be getting more water in!

Stay tuned...

Tuesday, January 9, 2007

She Eats....She Scores!!

Well, I went to the easier-than-dirt La Choy Chow Mein in a Can option for dinner, and saved the calorie/protein/fat balance of the day. See my FitDay stats for details and film at 11. Yay for lots of filling Chinese style vegetables. And double-yay for my darling, who even cooked it for me.

Yes, this afternoon has been a total bust, as far as energy and motivation go. I am pleased to have avoided the train wreck it could have been! Yet again, let me praise FitDay to the heavens. It is SOOO nice to see what's going on in graphic pie-chart form. Very, very helpful for me.

Sigh....

So, I experienced a brief derailment in the form of a huge handful of gummy princess shapes (I calculated them as gummy bears). Sugar just seemed like a really, really good idea all of a sudden. I think I started heading off the rails when I decided a snack of Crunchy Corn Bran was a good idea. I had already had some for breakfast this morning. I'll have to keep a wary eye on the Nectar of the Gods Cereal...it's back up on the cereal shelf, at least, and away from me for the rest of the day. I don't want it to be a trigger food for me. It's too yummy to have to avoid, and all that fiber. Such a good thing.

Carby snacks = not good strategy.

Bright points in the day: I am drinking lots of water, and I made a fabulous tuna melt lunch (tuna, 1 T mayo, 2 slices light cheese, 2 slices light toast).

Monday, January 8, 2007

Best. Cereal. EVAR.

Yes, Crunchy Corn Bran is the best cereal ever. Good as a snack, GREAT as a breakfast. Filling, tasty, low in calories and sky-high in fiber. I loves me some Crunchy Corn Bran. So do DH and the little people.

We actually mail-ordered some because it's not a Brit thing, and the American commissary doesn't carry it either.

I'm so very happy right now. Is that sad? Yes, yes, it is...

Another Inspiring Blogger; Why Is It So Hard to Eat Enough Protein?

Check out PastaQueen's blog Half of Me. In particular, see her very cool, rotating progress comparison here. She's done, and is doing, amazing things. I am impressed.

Today's been good and bad here - I woke up to 198 on the scale, so I'm guessing salt was the culprit yesterday, or just scale mojo. That's the Good. I've been out all day today, so my protein/fat ratio is waaay out of balance again. That's the Bad.

No breakfast this morning - mistake number 1. I ran into town for some errands as soon as I dropped the kiddies off for school. In town, I had a skinny latte and a small granola thingie at Caffe Nero today for a little over 300 calories. The granola square was pleasantly filling, but when I logged the nutritional info, I discovered it was pleasantly fatty, too. Mistake number 2.

Lunch was the cafe in Tesco, since I had Lily to feed and groceries to get. I had a bowl of soup and another latte. The other main dish options were all fried or fatty. The soup was good, but minimal protein. Mistake, or protein-miscalculation, number 3.

I'm supposed to make veggie-stuffed peppers tonight, but I may swap out a higher-protein meal instead. Yes, I will.

Sunday, January 7, 2007

Tweaking my Eating Plan

Today has been more successful as far as balancing protein and empty calories. I had light toast and some peanut butter for a midday snack and have entered in my evening coffee, which I'll have after the kids are down for the night. The day looks pretty good (see my FitDay personal link at left).

I looked at my nutritional stats for the month and realized I am low on calcium - I used to put a lot more milk in my coffee, and I used to eat a LOT of cheese. To fix that, I'm drinking coffees with 3/4 cup of 1% milk, and I'll add some more low-fat cheese to the protein selections on the menu. [I also remembered to customize my coffee on FitDay to reflect that it's 2/3 decaf; I've been weaning myself slowly down.]

Is everyone bored to tears yet? Anyone? Anyone? It's helpful to me to write things here, to dissect the nutrition of my reworked eating. So I'm not too bored, at least!

Go See the Funny...

The Shrinking Knitter posted a cartoon that cracked me up today. Click
here to see. I look forward to her posts every day -she's thoughtful, funny, and inspirational to me. Thanks, SK, for sharing your thoughts with us all. Many mornings you have given me lots to think about.

Lunch was Dinner: The Even Healthier Sequel today. More chicken in honey-mustard sauce, this time with a honking big side of utterly delicious brussels sprouts. I am a sprouts fan anyhoo, but these babies were awesome. Tiny, sweet, and lots of 'em.

Sunday...

Up .2 pounds this AM, which I deduce is caused by the saltiness of yesterdays's menu - 3400 mg of sodium is a lot...I'll be drinking lots more water today!

Saturday, January 6, 2007

End of a Lovely Day

It has been a good day - I feel overstimulated, or maybe undercaffeinated, but the day was good. Stuck with two meals only today, since the birthday food was going to be a bit decadent. I made eggs benedict for brunch (very nice, they were) and a quick honey-mustard chicken over rice for dinner, with a salad. The killer for dinner, or for after-dinner snack as it happens, is the birthday cake for D. I got a microscopic cake - 375 grams, or 10-ish ounces, but every ounce is calorie-packed. If you check my FitDay stats for today (see link at left), you can see that my fat-protein ratio was fabu-glamtastic. That's before cake. After cake? Not so much.

Well, all the festive events for this month are finished now, so there'll be no more cakes to work in. And the silver lining - even with cake and eggs benedict, I stayed in my calorie target range.

RED-letter Day

Today is especially nice, because not only is it Saturday, it is also DH's birthday. And I weighed in the Wonderful One-hundreds this morning. Wheeeeeee!

The weight is coming off sooo slowly it seems. My Quest for Protein Snacks yesterday was unsuccessful - I just wasn't hungry during the day. I think I am going to lower my calorie target by a hundred or so, and try for a protein after-dinner snack. Last night was SUGAR, once again. Of course, it was accompanied by Celebrity Big Brother UK and a lovely cup of coffee in good company, but I grow tired of the Sugar Before Bed thing.

Friday, January 5, 2007

BMI....TMI?

Heh, I just wanted to rhyme there. Not too much information, really. At 65 inches tall and 200 pounds my BMI is 33.3. That's in the Obese range. When I get to 179, I will move into the Overweight range. Wheee. Then it's another 30 pounds to the Normal range, so 149 is a non-overweight size for me. That's certainly been true in the past. I'm sticking with smaller goals than that to start; 160 seems like a long way away right now. How much farther is 149? Miles and miles down the road. Check out your own BMI here.

Cooking Stuff

So I walked into the kitchen to stir lunch, and was charmed to see both lunch and dinner there, cooking to perfection. I love using the crockpot for dinner. Have I mentioned this?


Lunch today is red beans and rice with some ham - terrifically yummy but VERY high in salt. Other than that it's pretty good value nutritionally. I am using a Mahatma mix for the beans and rice - I need to find a recipe for home-made so I can knock the salt down. Meanwhile, I'll just drink some extra water with my salt.

Dinner's chicken soup, pictured here. I started it yesterday with 3 skinless chicken thighs, a bunch of carrots, a can of low-sodium chicken broth, a vegetable bouillon cube and some water. Today I skimmed the fat off, boned the chicken, and added celery and onion.

Smelling, and tasting, quite nice right now...I think we will have noodles in/with it, depending on the diner. The kids will eat the noodles plain, I'll bet. They're not mixers of food...or you could just call them picky-pants. I know I do. We're working on that.

Mmmmmm.....Milk!

I'm thinking maybe I should just live on 1% milk. Check out the ratios here - possibly the Perfect Storm of nutritional values.

1 cup of 1% milk contains 102 calories, only 2.59 g of fat (4% of daily requirements), 9.76 mg of cholesterol (3%), 11.66 g of carbohydrates (4%), and 8 g of protein (that's 16% of daily requirements!!).

It's definitely worth it to mix my own. Here in the UK, at least here in Norfolk, you can buy skim milk, 2% milk, or whole milk. So we buy a carton of skim and a carton of 2%, mix them, and pour back in the cartons. Soooooo very exciting, no?

Today is Official Day One of the Deep End Challenge. I'm really stoked about this!

Thursday, January 4, 2007

Ehhh.

Well, best laid plans and all that. I did have breakfast, had a really decent lunch and dinner, but the lack of planned snacks between meals left me with way too many calories to fill at the end of the day - almost 500. I ended up eating a bit of cake, some of my lovely amaretti cookies, and 3 jelly fruit slices. Basically pure sugar...yeah, that's helpful. I hit the calorie target but had way too much crap.

Tomorrow - new strategy. Decent snacks, with some protein in them, during the day. Wish me luck!

Tomorrow begins the Deep End challenge as well. The sing-up will remain open through Sunday January 14th, though - check it out if you are interested.

Morning Update

A good morning thus far - I've officially signed up for the Deep End challenge and sent the initial weigh-in picture of the scale. I ate breakfast (woohoo!) and remembered my vitamins/other pills. I have chicken soup cooking in the crockpot for the weekend.

For two days in a row now, I completely undershot my target calories for the day (1500 to 1700), and I'm thinking it's because I missed breakfast on those days. We'll see how today goes...

Wednesday, January 3, 2007

Deep End of the Pool

This is so very groovy - a website/blog that's a weight loss challenge. It's called the Deep End of the Pool. Biggest loser takes it all sort of thing...I can't remember whose site linked to it, but thank you, whoever you are. I am signing up; how about you?

Initial weigh-in is this Friday, January 5, so check it out ASAP if you'd like to join in.

Morning Scales...

As of this morning, before breakfast but fully clothed in jeans and t-shirt (my preferred method), I weigh 200 pounds precisely. I have been here at 200, 200.2, 200 all week, which is interesting. My official weigh-in day is Monday, just because that's David's as well for WW Online. But I've decided to weigh every day or so, and see how the scales bounce around. Usually, there's more of a fluctuation from day to day. No idea of the significance...it's just intriguing!

Looking at my FitDay stats, I undershot my calorie intake yesterday. I just didn't feel like "snacking" more to fill the numbers in, and I didn't feel like eating anything solid either. I don't like to go too low, but a day here and there won't hurt me. Or so I hope!

Tomorrow the kiddies head back to school. The bean's preschool gives me a little morning time to myself; I usually clean or do shopping etc. This term I think I will use the time for starting up some exercise. I have a Pilates for complete duffers (or something like that; haven't used it yet) and some Rodney Yee yoga DVDs that I liked back in Nebraska. There's always....oooh, this is scary....WALKING, too.

Actually, I can walk over to Sandringham and back while she's in preschool. Not sure on the mileage but it's not far. Now, where's that pedometer??

Tuesday, January 2, 2007

Yummy dinner...


Thank you, Carrot and Coriander Soup!

I made a great Indian-style chicken dish for dinner tonight. Only three ingredients, too! 300 grams of raw chicken breast cubed and browned in nonstick pan; 1 red pepper cut in strips and sauteed in a little water; to that I added one packet of this kick-butt soup as the sauce. VERY quick, and very easy. I made a portion-controlled rice and lentil pilau, microwaveable in a pouch (contains 2.5 servings which is enough for us and two picky eaters). The rice/lentil pilau is a bit spicy, and the carrot coriander soup/sauce spices really meshed well with it.

With the rice, it worked out to 225 calories per serving...add in the butternut squash and snow peas for about 100 more and we had a yummy dinner all around. (Yes, I know the vegetables didn't match the entree, but in our quest to make the kids *less* picky, we try to offer at least one thing we know they WILL eat on the plate.)
Right now I'm willing to pay a bit more for portion control, until it's more internalized (especially for carbs, which are my Achilles heel), so the nukeable rice packet works well. Plus it was low in calories and fat and HIGH in fiber, baby...

Some Pictures by Way of Illustration

Looking through pictures from this summer and fall, there are very few of me. I've been avoiding the camera; I knew things weren't good but I didn't want to take any action to lose the weight. Here are two lovely shots of me at somewhere between 205 and 208, which is the highest the scale has shown.

July in Berlin at Checkpoint Charlie, on our 10th anniversary trip. Hey, note to clueless self - the artfully positioned hat doesn't hide the lack of a waist!














Here we are October at Hadrian's wall, in a coat I actually LIKE, because it makes me look skinnier. How scary is that - this is a flattering picture!














So....today I had D. take pictures for progress comparison. I've lost 6.8 pounds; it's hard to see any change yet. And the rear view, one I don't see personally that often, is a definite downer.

Where to start, where to start...

How about December 16? That is the day David and I looked at each other, and said, "It's time. Time to get back with the Program." And so we did. Both of us lost 40 to 45 pounds with Weight Watchers 5 years ago but once you stop Eating Awarely, the pounds come back. They always do. After Lily was born in 2003, my pregnancy weight came off right away, but since early 2005 I haven't been exercising at all and I have been eating and snacking like a horse.

David is doing WW Online, and I'm doing the Unpatented Freebie System, in which we all eat the same things, but I track my eating and weight loss/activity through FitDay. FitDay completely rocks; David's used it before but I really hadn't. After the first week, when I had a LOT of "custom foods" to enter into my details, it got very easy to use. I like FitDay better than straight WW Points counting because I can see where my calories are coming from, and take steps to up my protein and lower my fat intake. That's probably the most important thing, healthwise, for me right now.

On the first day of logging, a typical PRE-sanity day, I ate 2500 calories, and 37% came from fat. Only 15% from protein. Not a great recipe for success and health, that. And since I need about 1500-1700, you can see where that weight came from...