Flashback Friday: What I Gave Up for Lent in 2010

Flashback Friday is a series I started recently where I share an old blog post--I have been writing a blog since 2000, and I thought it would be fun to go through past posts and share them here. Keep in mind, always, that my thoughts and viewpoints have certainly changed over time. I may have written things that no longer apply, or aren't "politically correct", or whatever. I just mean these to be light-hearted posts that are fun to read and make fun of (or relate to, if it's a more serious...

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RECIPE: Whole Wheat Pizza Crust

I missed Tasty Tuesday this week, but in my next post, I reference this recipe... so I figured I'd post it now! I never thought I would like whole wheat pizza crust, but in 2010, I gave up white flour for 40 days, and I was forced to try new things. This pizza crust is amazing! As a fan of white flour, I never thought I'd like this, but I still use this recipe when I make pizza. Click here for the recipe's printer-friendly PDF Whole Wheat Pizza Crust Ingredients: 1 3/4 cups whole...

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Thrifty Thursday: Making Some Quick Cash (and Tax Return Plans!)

As most of us parents know, kids grow like weeds. It seems like we buy them clothes and two weeks later, the clothes are too small. Right?! This past year, my kids have shot up like rockets. This first picture is from May 2017. The second picture is from January 2018. A nine month difference! Noah needed some new shoes a couple weeks ago, and we went to the running store. You know what size shoe he wears now? ELEVEN. (The running store had their 2017 models on clearance, so he got a pair...

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Off the Phentermine, Update

So far I am doing okay without the Phentermine. I am definitely eating a bit more volume, but trying to make that added volume nutritious and low calorie/carb. This week we went to a potluck dinner and there were several food choices; I settled on a chicken vegetable soup (with no pasta or rice in it), some raw veggie sticks with dip, and a few cubes of fresh melon and pineapple. That's pretty much what I would have chosen to eat on phentermine, but I was hungry again before bed and needed a low carb snack. Right now I am baking some chicken drumsticks for lunch, and will make some broccoli salad to go with them (or to have in the afternoon when I get hungry). I am kind of just pretending I am still on the phentermine and behaving in the same way I did when taking it (you know how you feel like you don't want to "mess up" and are more motivated to be stricter when there is a short term crutch involved? It's like that.)

Funny thing. You know how I wrote about how I have been wearing large, loose clothing all winter so my body is not really on display as much as it will be in warmer weather? And how with the new bra, smaller jeans, tighter sweaters I was getting some more attention? Well it started to get a little overwhelming lately, so I actually went back to the crappy bra and bigger clothes for a few days this week. It felt like I could "hide" a bit and not have to feel weird about all the looks and comments (which I do like, but after awhile I start to feel self conscious). So yesterday when we went to our church's Ash Wednesday service, I deliberately wore my big, loose jacket and not-tight jeans to avoid any attention. It didn't work, though... a friend who I haven't seen in 3 months was standing with another friend and when I walked up she just gasped and said "Oh my God, you have lost so much weight!! You look amazing!" I admit that made me smile. It felt good. I couldn't help but wonder how shocked she'd have been if I was in clothes that actually fit and a good bra! Made me laugh.

Last night I dreamed about weight loss. I dreamed of trying on a lot of new clothes and noticing that every time I tried something on that fit, the next time I wore it, it was too big. In my dream, though, it was not upsetting. It made me happy, even though I kept having to find new clothes to wear. I was content and satisfied with my new body and its changes. Accepting of it. There was no anxiety about it like there has been in real life in the past. When I woke up, I felt this is the new attitude I am adopting about my weight loss. It feels so much calmer and happier... exactly what I need.








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Phentermine's Not Working Anymore

I guess it's real, and I have to acknowledge it: it seems the phentermine is not working anymore. I've been on it since late August (so over 5 months) and it was doing its job just fine (appetite suppression) all along. Even through January, which was a great month for me, losing 9 pounds... the most I'd lost in a month since that very first month on phentermine. But like I wrote last week, my appetite *has* been increasing... not in cravings, but in the amount of food it takes for me to feel "not hungry" and how long I can go between meals or snacks. I've been eating larger portions and more frequently and have had to put forth more effort to keep the calories low enough to keep losing. I guess what I'm saying is, I am doing a lot more of the work and phentermine is doing less.

This week it felt like it's stopped working completely. Like I am back to baseline in how hungry I feel and how much I want to eat. Well, maybe not *true* baseline, because my stomach feels like it has shrunk from months of eating smaller portions... and that's a good thing! I don't want to stretch it back out by overfilling it, either, so when I do eat, I stop short of feeling full. Just at or below satisfied... just enough that I am not hungry anymore.

Anyway, the last couple of days I even forgot to take my second half of phentermine because it has little to no effect anyway, whether I take it or not. It doesn't change my hunger level and doesn't give me any energy whatsoever. So I stopped it yesterday and am taking a break for a bit, or maybe permanently. I've read on the phentermine forums that it usually stops working after 3 months (so I am lucky!) and sometimes people will take a break from it for a month and then try it again if they still need to lose more weight and their rate of loss has slowed. I have an appointment with my endocrinologist soon, so I'll see what she thinks I should do. But for now, I'm off it.

I also am sitting at 205 pounds, still. That's nine days straight. I've been reading my old blog posts from back in 2010 when I was losing weight with Medifast. It was a real head game for me when I got close to that 199/200 pound barrier. There is something important... emotional... about crossing that threshold from the 200's into the "doesn't sound so huge" 100's. It messed with my head a bit back then, and it still seems like such a huge deal. I am getting close. I'm feeling the feelings surrounding this and not hiding from them. I look forward to getting out of the 200's again, even though my fear of going back up the scale is a *lot* more real to me this time around. After all that work and everything I experienced, I never would have believed I'd regain and get near 260 pounds again. But I did, so I know I could again. I pray not, and will work hard for it, but now I know that even if you think it could never happen, you might be surprised. But for now, I just need to get the weight off. Keeping it off is another battle.






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Weekend Wrap-Up: Week 4 of Half Marathon Training

Wow, it's been a while since I've written! Jerry was off work Friday-Sunday, so I spent very little time on the computer. I've also been doing a lot of sewing in my spare time--not making anything in particular, but doing clothing alterations (my latest "hobby", I guess! ha). Anyway, I'm not even going to try to catch up on everything, but I'd still like to post my training wrap-up for the week. Week 4 was a step-back week, meaning the mileage was cut down instead of increased. For this plan,...

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Exercise is Stupid, and Weigh In

Since writing my post yesterday about how I *need* to start exercising on a schedule and how resistant I always have been to that, I took some time to reflect on why... or rather, what's the mental road block to an exercise routine? First, I searched my blog and found my History of Exercise post, which described how my childhood and young adulthood never involved any structured exercise or sports routine. Then I looked through my blog history in which I have had long stretches of *doing* a routine... usually biking on my stationary recumbent bike, walking for the sole purpose of walking, and lifting weights in my home. I noticed that I have *always* been very resistant to getting any of these routines started, but once I got going for awhile I loved how I felt afterwards... and I loved the results! So why, just why, do I keep saying "I know I need to exercise" but then not actually doing it?

Well, I hate it. It's stupid. That's what comes to my mind when I think about going to a gym or picking up the dusty weights in my bedroom or getting on that bike in the basement. It's how I feel when I think about going to an aerobics class or a yoga class or any of those things. How dumb, what a waste of time. I don't even enjoy it, so there's not even THAT reason to do it. Even though I *know* that building strength, balance, and endurance are not at all dumb, I get this internal eye-roll feeling when people start talking about that kind of stuff. Why?

I think to get past this barrier (which has been an obstacle for me for as long as I can remember), I need to sort it out and directly confront the hidden reasons and thoughts for my resistance. So here goes.

I remember when I was younger... maybe an older teen... there was a book I had to read for some class I was taking. I think it was in college, and it had something to do with pioneer history. There was a lecture by a professor that went with a certain part of this book in which they discussed how hard every single task was back then. The pioneers had no time-saving devices. They were up at dawn and everyone... men, women, and even small children... had essential tasks to complete each day. Every bit of their day revolved around getting their basic needs met. If they wanted a pot of stew for dinner, they didn't just run to the store, chop and dump everything into a crock pot and then sit down to eat 6 hours later. They had to hunt. Walk sometimes many miles to find animals to kill, roots to dig, plants to harvest. They had to gather all of this, take it to a stream to wash it all, skin and clean the animal, and carry water from the stream to their home. They had to gather wood, build a fire, tend a pot over the flame, and then finally they could eat... but then there was the cleanup, too. They had to make and mend their clothing, wash it all by hand and hang it to dry. Everything they needed to do in a day took their hard work and energy and pretty much no one was sitting around getting fat.

The book compared this life to today, with our work-saving, time-saving devices like washing machines, cars. vacuum cleaners, electricity, indoor plumbing, and the like. The professor talked about the laziness of modern people. He talked about how those pioneers drove themselves to exhaustion just trying to do the work needed to survive, while modern humans have so much extra time and energy that they actually go to a gym to "burn off" their excess energy. People actually waste their time and energy on "workouts" that are not actually work. The professor spoke with disdain and mockery about people "running to nowhere" on treadmills and standing around lifting heavy metal weights over their heads for "no reason"... so stupid! How this would puzzle the pioneers, whose muscles were strong because they carried their children, hauled buckets of water, scrubbed laundry and belongings, and worked their muscles for *real purpose*... not silly, manufactured "workouts" but actual WORK.

I guess that attitude has stuck with me all these years, because that is exactly what I think of and how I feel when people talk about lifting weights or jumping around in an exercise class. They are using up their valuable time and energy... for NOTHING! Just for the sake of "burning calories" or "getting fit." I adopted that disdain and sense of "how stupid is it" from that professor so long ago, and it's always been the true driving reason I don't "exercise", but instead, try to increase my "lifestyle activity" (or actual work).

I think to myself sometimes, I am so tired by the end of a day. Sometimes I don't even have the energy left to mop the floor, or walk the dogs, or work on the yard like I should. How much sense does it make to add in useless, pointless activity that accomplishes none of the these tasks and is only burning energy for the sake of burning it? Isn't is more sensible and less stupid to take 20 minutes each day to go out and work on the yard, fix something around the house, walk a dog, paint a room, refinish the deck, or mop the floor than it is to take that same 20 minutes and energy (which is in short supply) and sit on a dumb bike in the basement, biking to nowhere for no reason? My energy is limited, so I tell myself I need to use it to do actual work that needs to be done, and not a silly "workout."

So there is it. That's the mental resistance to the "exercise routine." It's always been that way, I've always felt that way, and in order to get to a place of biking 30 minutes a day and lifting 3 times a week like I used to do, I had to shove those thoughts and feelings aside and just do it anyway. But maybe, instead of fighting it and just "doing it anyway," this time can be different. Maybe this time I can set a goal of 15, 20, 30 or more minutes each day of raising my heart rate and strengthening my muscles... whether that be "exercise" or "actual work." If *that* is my goal, then it obliterates my reasons for avoiding meaningless biking. Because if I *do* have actual work to do... I can do it. Use that as my 20 or 30 minutes, as long as it is heart-rate-elevating and muscle-strengthening. And if I don't have an actual hard-work task to do on a certain day, or didn't have time to get it done because I was sitting doing paperwork or driving to appointments, I can still get my time in my hopping on that bike and lifting some weights... because now it fills a need. Now it is a way to get my physical "work" requirement in without taking time and energy away from an actual purposeful task.

That's what I'm going to do this week. I have a checklist and will do at least 20 minutes of strenuous "work" each day, from one category or the other. I think this will satisfy the need for activity, the limited nature of my energy, and the mental roadblock all at once.

Scale says 205 pounds, which is one pound gone this week,






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Eating More

This has been an interesting week, eating-wise. I've noticed that as the months go by on phentermine (over 5 months now) the volume of food I am eating has started to go up and up. At first, I was eating *very* little during the day... usually coffee in the morning, a Greek yogurt mid-day, and then a smallish dinner... all low carb. I've gradually had more of an appetite. Or maybe it's just certain times of the month, or when I am a bit stressed or overwhelmed, and I feel like eating more often. At any rate, that hasn't hurt my weight loss so far (-8, -8, -7, and -9 the last four months) but I am wary of it starting to slow things down.

I am probably eating closer to 1200 calories a day now, which is actually more realistic for the long run. I do think I'll keep losing weight if I am consistent with the *regular* exercise... which I have not been (yet). The weather's getting nicer for walks and yard work, but I really need to stop procrastinating the bike riding. I always feel so much better when I get into a routine, so why am I so resistant? I always have been.

This week I ate a lot more variety. I've added hot oat bran cereal with cinnamon and peanut butter to my diet, which I really enjoy. I've had a few keto sweets and breads, half of an actual (non-low-carb) biscuit with chicken and gravy, sausage patties with eggs, a bit more cheese than is probably mentally sound, and a couple sessions of Pizza Hut garlic Parmesan chicken wings. I am not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing. Okay, the cheese was a bit much, and the wings should be a once-in-awhile choice just based on nutrition. But if I can manage to lose weight and eventually maintain while eating more of a variety of foods, that's going to make things much easier over the next several decades. But I also don't want to kid myself here and think those foods are ideal for health. Maybe it's time to start implementing my plan of "if I am hungry, add more vegetables." That's no doubt the wiser thing to do.

So let's get wise, and motivated, and more active. And thinner!





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