Close Enough to Taste It

This week finds me at 318.5 lbs. If I were not visiting my mother next week, I would think that the next goal was within reach. Alas, my mother always goes out of her way to feed me well while I'm there, but she also has plenty for me to do - help in the garden, with the lawn, the odd chores around the house, etc.

On the bright side, I let her know that I've lost 30 lbs so we've been talking about "AB's lists". Perhaps that'll help with the food intake. That and I got her a IngenuiTea tea pot with a green tea sampler for her birthday. I do have ulterior gift giving motives at times - I didn't want to have to take mine with me.

There's another factor at play here - I'm driving down with my wife and son. Long Drives = Snack Food. It's 18+ hours from where I live here in the north east to where she is in the south. I'm planning on making a healthy dinner to eat on the road for Friday evening as we leave but that leaves all day Saturday to fight the snacking urge. Nothing to do but drive and snack. Besides the obvious choice of nuts and granola bars, what else can I find to snack on? I also dread the "fast food" for lunch (and maybe breakfast). All in all I'll need to do some advance planning for Saturday not to mention the return trip home.

My goal is to maintain the weight I have and not get sucked into having high sugar snacks, fast food, cookies and pies, which is what usually happens when I visit Mom - she's a great cook!

Calorie Sampling

Breakfast - 209 calories

• Fruit Smoothie - 200 calories (3 oz each of blueberries, strawberries, berry mix, 1/2 banana, and 4 fl oz each of light soy milk, V8 fusion light)
• Green Tea - 4 calories (16 oz loose leaf brewed in tap water)
• Psyllium Husk Fiber Supplement - 5 calories (1 tsp in 8 oz of tap water)
• Vitamin/Mineral Supplement - 0

Morning Snack - 140 calories

• Kashi Trail Mix granola bar - 140 calories (1 bar)

Lunch - 457 calories

• 2 cups spring mix greens - 10 calories
• 1 cup baby arugula - 10 calories
• 1 kiwi - 25 calories
• 2 clementines - 46 calories 
• 1 avocado - 276
• 2 tbsp balsamic dressing - 90 calories

Dinner - 458 calories

• Steelhead Trout w/butter and wine - 215 calories
• orange glazed carrots -  199
• 1/4 cup couscous - 44

Evening Snack - 170 calories

• redskin peanuts - 170 calories

Total - 1434 calories

Trac Check

I'm creping up on 4 months since I changed my eating habits. As I've noted, 4 months on any "new thing" is about all I can sustain before lapsing back into old ways. In some ways I can feel this pulling at me. I've drifted away somewhat from trying to maintain the "everyday" list and even unconsciously ordered fast food when the family decided to have Taco Bell - I did try one of the burritos from the "drive through diet" menu. That by itself violated 2 of the "don't eat" list items - fast food and any item with the word "diet" in it.

But I didn't shoot myself over it. I acknowledged what happened decided that it wasn't catastrophic and went on. Eating that "diet" burrito wasn't "wrong" or "bad" it was just something I ate. I enjoyed it, we had a great family evening meal together and that was better than sticking 100% to any plan.

Still I'm finding more variations that I'd like as I get closer to the 4 month line. I'm making measurable progress and now that it is warmer out I've added walking back into the mix - as long as it's above 40 and not raining, I'll walk for an hour in the evening.

On the plus side I'm getting used to the avocado, fruit and greens for lunch, but at the expense of everyday carrots in a salad. Broccoli is become at least a once a week thing. Still no soda, I'm eating breakfast every day, I'm spending more time and money in the fruit and veggies section of the store, sweets are way down. I feel best about the "no more than once per week list".

I think it is time to watch the "Live and Let Diet" episode again to refresh my memory - I have it saved on DVR. It's also time to remind myself that I have lost enough weight to see myself on the scale, which is a huge accomplishment for me. My weight loss continues at about 1-2 lbs per week - this week I'm at 321.5 lbs. I've  lost nearly 30 lbs and have 4.5 to go to hit my next goal of 317.

I'm trying to look past the 4 month line to see myself as a "thin-er" person. So far it's looking better than it has in a long time.

Downward Trend Side Effects

Another aspect of the new eating pattern is I’ve been able to impose parts of the lists on my family. Since I do the meal planning and grocery shopping I inflict the “1 meat and 1 pasta per week” rule on my family as well as putting more healthy food in their way – veggies, nuts, better snack foods, etc.

Obviously I can’t control what happens for breakfast and lunch, but by stocking the pantry with the foods I’m eating, they can either eat what I am or go out of their way to ask for special food.  My son for instance has started eating the Kashi Honey Flax Granola bars, yogurt, and drinking V8 Fusion Lite. He doesn’t need to lose any weight but I’m feeling better knowing he’s eating more than pizza, canned soup and Beefaroni. My daughter, who’s skinny as a rail, is also eating the yogurt and more fresh veggies. She doesn’t always like what I’m making for a main course, however.

The most interesting change is my wife who, while still drinking her daily dose of Diet Pepsi (can’t get her to give that up), is eating the same dinner I’m eating. Again, lunch is up to her, but it’s easier to “go with the flow” than against it. She’s cut out the frozen pizza she was having for lunch and taking leftovers. And while she has dessert more than once per week, it’s down from what it was mainly because I force her to share my left over weekend concoctions with her co-workers.

The result of that is her weight is down 10 pounds or so and she’s not “dieting”. Yesterday she showed me that she was able to wear pants that had become “too small” for her at some point – pants that were her favorite. She said “whatever that thing is that you’re doing with the food, it's working”.

So it’s nice to know that my family is eating more healthy items, and that the new regimen is having a positive effect on my wife’s waistline. It was getting kind of lonely there on this eating change all by my lonesome.

Oh and before I let “Weigh in Wednesday” get away from me, the scale indicated I’m at 323 this morning – 28 pounds down, 6 to go to the next goal of 317!

Say "Less" to Sugar

I attribute at least some of the weight loss progress I'm making to watching my sugar intake. I try to eat things that are low in refined sugar. I also stay away from high fructose corn syrup (and derivatives) as well.

This morning I ran across this post on the Sugar Content of Common Food Products.  About the only thing on that list that is even close to being in my repertoire is the Tropicana orange juice. I don't have it often but it is in my refrigerator and my son and daughter drink it.

I drink at least 4 oz of V8 Fusion every day. It has no added sugar or high fructose corn syrup but the sugar content per 8 oz is a whopping 26 grams! Perhaps I'll switch to the "light" version which only has 10 grams of sugar per 8 oz serving . The "light" version only has 50 calories instead of 110. Bonus!

Mini Milestone

317 I'm not but the scale provided a nice way-point this morning. I've lost a total of 25 lbs. now - I hit 326 today! Perhaps I'll call it Weigh-in-Wednesday and just keep track and post my weight - gain or loss - each week.

As an added progress marker, I tried on some of my size 42 pants the other day. They went on fine and did not bind when sitting or squatting. I'll look forward to having an expanded wardrobe this spring.

Back in the Saddle

A little more than a week later and I'm at 328.5 lbs. My intent is not to start logging my weight per week, but reflect a bit on what happened over the intervening 8 days. It certainly was a lesson on my lifestyle changes and also of a willingness to keep at it.

The "seeing myself" mark gave me a great feeling of euphoria - it was a goal I had been after for a year. I felt so good in fact that I rewarded myself with some of those Girl Scout cookies that were still hanging around. In fact I ate a lot of them - binged I did.

Add to it that there were some rather emotional events going on within the family and familiar comfort food (and lots of it) became an emotional outlet. By Saturday I really started to feel the additional consumption but didn't want to stop the process. Funny enough, my body wouldn't let me continue down that path.

On the weekends I usually don't have my breakfast smoothie yet by Saturday night, that's exactly what I wanted for breakfast on Sunday. No eggs, not bacon or sausage but my fruit smoothie - a new comfort food? Perhaps but what does it say about the power of change when the craving isn't for the old familiar comfort foods but the new one? I didn't resist the urge since I knew it was right. Sunday AM I had my new familiar breakfast and was able to better control my eating binges. By Monday I was back in the groove again and starting to add my evening hour walks again, as the New England weather permits.

Loosing 1.5 lbs over the course of 8 days won't set the world on fire but it's progress and good progress at that. Overcoming emotional eating with new comfort food is comforting indeed.