Tag Archives: diet

where I've been

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I haven’t blogged in a week, which is practically unheard of for me, so y’all will have to indulge me here and let me do one of these recappy things to cover what’s going on here at Chez PooBou.

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* Catie hasn’t had a single potty accident since last Friday (as in, April 23rd). That’s 9 days ago. I think, I mean I’m reasonably certain, that this means she’s… potty-trained? Like, we’re done? Quick, somebody knock on some wood for me!

She still wears a Pull-Up to bed, but she wakes up dry every morning, so we could probably ditch that as well. But she asks for the Pull-Up at bedtime, I think it makes her feel more secure. And that’s fine. We made a BIG DEAL out of putting her diaper pail in storage the other day (no more putting stinky poops in here! All your poops go in the potty now, right? Right! YAAYY!), and she was pretty excited about that.

And on the one hand, I feel like, wait, that’s it? We’re all done now? That was too easy! But then I have to slap myself and remember that we started this process a full freaking YEAR ago. So, no. It has not been easy. At all. But I think she’s got it down now. Finally. Praise the lord.

Future's so bright...

Also? She is so proud of herself, y’all. Last night we went to TGI Friday’s for dinner, and she introduced herself to the waitress. “Hi! I’m Catie W[last name]! I poop in the potty!” Dave and I almost died laughing. (And thankfully, the waitress seemed to think it was funny too, she didn’t look horrified.)

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* I’ve been exercising like a maniac lately. It’s bizarre because I’ve always hated working out, but now I’m finding that I actually look forward to it. The exercises for my knee that the sports medicine doctor gave me have really helped, and I’ve been able to really push myself to work out hard, which feels great. I’m doing the couch-to-5K (although I’m stuck on week three because no matter how hard I try, I cannot run for longer than 3 minutes without feeling like I’m going to fall over and die; I’ve tried to move up to week 4 on a few different occasions, and nope, sorry, my body cannot run for 5 minutes; hopefully I’ll get there someday?) and I’m doing “The 30-Day Shred” in there on alternate days.

Yesterday, just to mix it up, I did my “Weight Loss Yoga” DVD, which I haven’t done in ages (btw, that’s another “Biggest Loser” by-product, and I do not understand why I’m suckered into buying these things when I don’t actually watch the show!). And it was a great workout, so I definitely need to start working that one in more frequently.

So, yeah. I’m apparently becoming a workout nut. Bizarre. The diet part is trickier. I’ve lost about 5 pounds and I’m holding steady there. I know the foods I need to change in order to amp it up. I’m just having a hard time making myself walk away from the junk food. As usual.

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* My job is busy. Trying to balance working full-time along with taking care of the house and the kid and all of that? It’s kind of kicking my butt. I think there are probably a lot of areas in which I’m failing right now – like, say, in the housekeeping division. But hopefully I’m going to be getting some help on that front very soon, because there is just no way I can keep this whole house clean on top of parenting my kid and working 40 hours a week. And Dave works even longer hours than I do. So I think a housekeeper is definitely in our immediate future.

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* Spring means getting to hang outside more often, which probably accounts at least partially for my lack of blogging. Catie wants to spend every available moment playing outside with the neighborhood kids. And she’s too little to play outside by herself, so that’s where I am too.

Spring also means the return of Drum Night. The last Friday of every month, we go to see a band called Rhythmicity that plays at an outdoor mall near us. The kids love it.

Catie rocking the tambourine at drum night

Elizabeth boogies down with the belly dancer
(Catie & her cousin Elizabeth both liked the belly dancer, and I have to admit that she was pretty awesome. I admire anyone who can get up in front of a crowd and shake their stuff the way that she did.)

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So, yeah. If you don’t hear from me as much on the blog here, don’t worry about me. We’re all good.

t-shirt headdress

In fact, I think we’re better than good.

just as she is

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So, to follow up on that last post, I started the South Beach diet on Monday. (With a few tips from the “Fat Flush Diet” thrown in, because I actually liked a couple of her techniques when I tried them last year.) Just your basic low-carb, low-calorie diet, and I’m trying to use The Daily Plate to help me track my calorie intake. Which is difficult, because it’s tedious and I tend to be lazy about documenting things like the handful of granola I grabbed as I walked past the pantry. (How do you even document that? How big a serving is a handful?) But I think it’s a good exercise because it’s making me a lot more thoughtful every time I shove something in my mouth (heh… that’s what she said).

And so far, it’s honestly been fine. I haven’t felt deprived at all. I’m staying well within my recommended daily calorie allowance, and I’m not starving. So it’s good. I figure that if I can stick with that ideal “lose 1 or 2 pounds a week” target, I should be down to my goal weight in about 4 to 6 months. It sounds daunting, but not nearly as daunting as it did when I was 265 pounds. Four to six months is nothing compared to that. It’s a drop in the proverbial bucket.

I’d really like to start working out too, but I can’t right now with my sinuses still all gunked up with this cold. Hopefully by the time my Vibram Five Fingers arrive in the mail, I’ll be over the majority of this cold and will be able to get started on my couch-to-5K again.

One thing that’s been on my mind a lot lately is how much of my mom’s body image issues I adopted as my own as I grew up. When I was little, I remember my mom always complaining about how fat she was, and she was maybe a size 8 or 10 at the time (so NOT fat in the slightest). I worry about passing those sorts of hang-ups on to my own daughter.

Catie in my winter hat

My plan is that if/when she asks me about my new eating habits (and I’m sure that she will, because the kid notices absolutely everything), to emphasize to her that this diet is so Mommy will be strong and healthy, and I will absolutely not say anything negative about my body in front of her (even though I might be thinking it). I just don’t want to put those types of ideas in her head. I don’t want her to internalize any of my own negativity or hang-ups.

pretty Catie with her flower

I never want her to think that she isn’t beautiful, just as she is.

fuzzy-headed, empty-tummied

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I started a new diet today. Which, if we’re counting, makes this probably my third or fourth diet this year. But, every other time, it’s just been something that I tried to do on my own. This time, I have a plan. Duh-duh-DUHHH!!

Specifically, I’m doing the Fat Flush Plan. Which is pretty intense – low-carb, low-calorie, low-fat, low-everything-I-like. I’m modifying it a little bit, because while I get that her goal is to shock your system into losing weight, I also think this woman is juuust a teensy bit batshit insane. And I think that I can stick to the basic principles of her low-carb/low-cal/low-fat ideal without completely compromising the integrity of the diet. Because look, I’m sorry, but I’m not going to cook with flaxseed oil, because it’s flat-out disgusting. I’ll stick with my olive oil spray, thank you. Also, she instructs that you should eliminate salt from your diet, which, no. Cut back? Sure. But I want to enjoy my food, and salt plays a pretty major role in several things that I eat. (Besides, the main benefit from cutting out salt is that it makes all of her diuretics more effective, so I’ll lose more water weight, not real weight. Whatever.)

I am, however, doing a lot of the supplements and other things she recommends, like the cran-water (unsweetened cranberry juice diluted with water – mmm, bitter! Gag.), and I can drink hot water with lemon, no problem. She recommends this “Long Life Tonic” twice a day, which is her cran-water concoction mixed with a teaspoon of ground psyllium husks. Which I had to Google, because I didn’t know WTF psyllium was, and it turns out that it’s basically the raw form of Metamucil. Nice. So with this drink, you get bitterness and grit. Yum. Dave looked at it and said that if that’s the Long Life Tonic, he’ll just take the 5-year hit on his lifespan rather than drink it. I’m honestly not sure how long I’ll stick with it either, because it’s truly revolting. But I’ll try.

The author also frowns on caffeine and artificial sweeteners like aspartame, which means my Diet Coke is a no-no. I’m not crazy, there’s no way I can go cold turkey off of Diet Coke, but I *am* trying to cut back to maybe 2 a day (down from my usual 5). So far it’s 1:45 pm, and I’ve only had one today. I also feel light-headed and headachy, which might be a sign that I’m working on a pretty serious addiction here. I’m trying a cup of (caffeinated) green tea to see if that helps.

As for exercise, I was doing really well on my couch-to-5K plan, and I had gotten to the point where I could jog for three whole minutes without stopping, which was a first for me. And then we had to go to Mississippi, and then the house move, and everything just sorta went to crap. So I need to get back into it. Hopefully I’ll be able to do that soon, as soon as the shock on my system with this diet wears off.

So, you know, if things seem pretty whiny and bitchy around here for the next couple of weeks, you’ll know why.

Random Sunday bits

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* Diet/exercise update: I’ve been doing pretty well so far. Trying not to eat at night has been about as difficult as I expected, which is to say, VERY. I’m drinking a lot more water, although I’m probably still drinking too much Diet Coke. One step at a time, people. For me, Diet Coke is more addiction than habit, so that one’s a little tougher.

My sister talked me into trying out The Daily Plate to track my calories, and I guess I should’ve expected to be appalled by the amount of junk I was eating, but it still caught me by surprise. The website has its pros & cons: it doesn’t strike me as the most user-friendly, but on the plus side, it does have pretty much every food item imaginable in the database (even menus at chain restaurants). My main gripe with it, or any type of food journal, is that it’s just tedious to keep a log of every single food item you put in your mouth. (Of course, I also see the benefit, that it makes you think twice about it when you know you’re going to have to see the calories on the screen right in your face later.) I’m still debating on whether or not I’ll use it long-term.

I’ve worked out the last three days in a row. On Friday, I did pilates. Saturday, I did the first couch-to-5K workout (which was hard, but I survived), and then today I did the Biggest Loser Weight-Loss Yoga. Tomorrow it’s back to the couch-to-5K, and so on & so forth.

* We went to Target today and it was insane. We shop there all the time, so I didn’t account for the traffic increase on Sunday afternoon. That’s a mistake I won’t be repeating. But listen, I get that it’s August in North Carolina and it’s insanely hot outside, but y’all: wearing a teeny-tiny swimsuit cover-up and a pair of flip-flops (and nothing else) is not appropriate shopping attire. What happens if you have to bend over to pick up that 12-pack of soda? Lord help us all. And I’m not talking about one person, there were many women that I thought, “oh wow, she really should’ve put on a bra before leaving the house.” I saw lots of kids running around the store barefoot too, which, eww. Yuck. Seriously? Really, really not ok. I think we needed the fashion police up at Target today, is what I’m saying.

* Catie continues to be almost 100% successful at peeing in the potty (she had an accident in her Pull-Up at Target today, but it was her first mistake in 5 days, & she was distracted by the toy aisle, so I’m overlooking it). Still no poops in the potty, but I think she’ll get to it soon. I’ve been shaking her Pull-Ups into the potty so she’ll have the visual “this is where it’s supposed to go” clue. And she’s been acting out scenes in which one of her toys poops its diaper and she tells it, “no no, poop goes in da potty!” (my favorite was when Molly, one of her Thomas the Tank Engine trains, pooped her diaper; I can’t even begin to wrap my head around how that’d work).

* Random kid funny: Last night Beaumont climbed across Catie, trying to get within head-scratching distance of me. Somehow part of his giant cat self ended up on Catie’s foot, which made her irate. She screamed at him, “No, Bun-bun! It’s MY foot! It’s Catie’s!” I can’t explain why that made me laugh for the next 10 minutes, but god, it really did.

weighty issues

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I had a doctor’s appointment yesterday. I went to my OB/GYN and had my IUD taken out. So, yes, this means that technically we’re going to start trying for baby #2 – or at least, we’re no longer preventing the occurrence of baby #2. And I know that’s exciting, and yay! Squee! Baybeees!! But there’s something else about this doctor’s appointment that really bothered me, so we’ll leave the baby talk for another time (like, I don’t know, maybe after I get a positive pregnancy test, which could be a year from now, given my previous track record).

The thing that upset me? My weight.

I knew I’d have to step on the scale at the doctor’s office. You always do, right? I hate the scale. I avoid the scale at home. I’m almost never happy with whatever the number may be. But I thought I was mentally prepared. I had done a little calculation in my head on the way there – sure, most of my clothes are feeling a little tighter lately, but I can still button my size 12 jeans, so it’s not that bad, right? I had an idea of what the number on the scale would probably be.

Wrong.

I’m not brave enough to type the number here, but let’s just say that I have a mental block around a certain number – a weight that I haven’t been since my gastric bypass surgery. It’s a number that for the past 7 years, I have refused to ever see on the scale again. And now I’m dangerously close to that number. Like, I’m less than 10 pounds away from it. I can smell that number from where I am. And I don’t like it one bit.

And I know – I KNOW! – that it’s just a number and it’s all about how you feel and how your clothes fit and blah-blah-blah, but the thing is? I feel like crap most of the time. I feel comfortable in very few of the clothes that I own. So it’s not good, and I need to do something about it. I started a diet back in January, but I think it was too radical – I cut out ALL refined sugar and white flour, which is insanely hard to stick with when you have a 2 year-old in the house. But I did it faithfully for a month and lost a whopping zero pounds. That’s when I got frustrated and quit.

Since January, I’ve gained about 10 pounds, and I think I know why: I snack too much at night. I have always “grazed” in the evenings, but lately it’s gotten out of control. I would estimate that probably half of my day’s calories are consumed between 8 p.m. and midnight. Pretty much the worst possible time to eat, right? So that’s the biggest change I’m going to work on for now. I’m definitely going to be adding in healthier food choices and snacks during the day (plus drinking more water & less Diet Coke), but I also know that it’s pretty likely that I won’t be able to stay away from the occasional cookie. So for now, the main thing I’m going to do is stop eating at night.

I started last night. After I put Catie to bed, I had a cup of chamomile tea – because hot liquids trick your tummy into feeling full, plus it helped me start to feel sleepy. And you know? I didn’t die. In fact, it was fine.

I also need to work on getting in shape. I couldn’t do the 30-Day Shred because it hurt my knees too much, and I love the Wii Fit, but it’s more for fun & doesn’t feel like it’s giving me a really solid workout. So I’m thinking about trying Cool Running’s Couch-to-5K program. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to jog/run a 5K; I have wonky knees, and I doubt they’ll hold up for something like that. But I can try. The program only takes up 3 days a week, which seems do-able. Throw in one or two yoga/pilates workouts too, and I should be doing fine in no time.

Wish me luck. I’m going to need it.