Day 12

I meant to write this last night but I fell asleep on the couch.  So I had plain Greek yogurt and I stirred in some toasted, unsalted almonds plus I took some frozen blueberries and heated them up in the microwave and ate it all together. Fruity crunchy yogurt with no added sugar, tasty and healthy.  Bonus!  I'd brought my lunch but then a co-worker asked if I wanted to go out.  Since I had been sitting inside for 5 hours and it was a beautiful day, I said "Of course I'll go out to lunch with you!"  We went to Joy Feast, a local Chinese restaurant here in Burbank and the best one I've found so far, and I had hot and sour soup, hot garlic shrimp, fried rice, a veggie egg-roll and a Coke to drink.  I've been to this restaurant twice and have enjoyed the food both times, although the egg-roll was a little bland, even with soy sauce.  My afternoon snack was a couple of Lindt extra dark chocolate truffle balls and a glass of non-fat milk.  I had two bags of 'lite' butter popcorn with parmesan cheese for dinner instead of my leftover garlic chicken and green beans.  This is precisely why I can't have things like popcorn; ramen noodles or Dove bars in my house.  I eat them until they're gone and ignore a perfectly delicious healthier dinner.  I also had two glasses of the white wine I bought in Solvang.

I think I've have an exercise/flexibility plan hammered out.  It may have to be tweaked a little but I'm happy with it.  One of my biggest problems is that I sit in front of a computer all day, so as part of my plan, I get up every hour or so and take a quick turn around the office.  It only takes a minute and it keeps my body from being so stiff and painful at the end of the day.  I also walk out to my car and back a couple of times a day.  It doesn't sound like much and I'm not doing it for the cardio/weight loss benefits.  It's for the flexibility.  It keeps my shoulders, neck, back and hips from tightening up.  When the office was in Beverly Hills over 10 years ago, I walked to and from work every day.  For the last 10+ years, I've had to drive to an office 11 miles from my house so any movement I can get during the day is a plus.  I've also started working out as soon as I get home from work.  It keeps me from plopping in front of the TV as soon as I get home and gives me energy to do daily chores in my house.  I'm pleased so far.  Oh, and I was somewhere between 292 & 293 yesterday, I can't remember the exact weight.

Days 9, 10 and 11

Road trip!  I was out of town for a couple of days and didn't post.  Ofelia and I drove up to Solvang and had a great weekend.  We walked and we ate and we drank wine and the weather was perfect and it was all very relaxing and beautiful.  I don't remember what I ate on Saturday but on Sunday, I had some cottage cheese and mixed nuts for breakfast, a cup of vegetable soup; a half of a chicken salad sandwich, a few onion rings and a club soda for lunch.  We walked a bunch and then went wine-tasting.  The wine was fantastic and we enjoyed that too!  At dinner, we went to Root 246 and everything was SO good.  We shared the cheese plate and the potato puffs.  Ofelia had toast with olive tapenade and I had gnocchi carbonara.  She had a glass of reisling and I had a glass of grenache and we shared the dark chocolate cake.  We were stuffed.  We then walked back to the hotel and proceeded to relax for the rest of the weekend.  Sunday, we had sweet rolls and coffee and we had sandwiches with potato salad for lunch.  We bought some wine and I bought two different kinds of the most decadent dark chocolate ganache filled cookies (one of each kind) to bring home.  I ate one when I got home with a cup of coffee and it's a good thing I didn't eat one before I left Solvang, I would have bought all they had.

So I was pretty tired when I got home.  For dinner, I made lemon garlic chicken breasts and green beans for dinner.  This morning, I weighed 292 lbs.  So even though I ate a lot, all the walking had a beneficial effect.  I had plain greek yogurt with almonds and berries for breakfast.  I had two cups of coffee as well.  Lunch was leftover chicken and green beans with water to drink.  I ate the other cookie for dessert,  I had some lite popcorn for an afternoon snack plus two Lindt dark chocolate truffles with a glass of non-fat milk.  I'm making chicken and green beans again tonight with a glass of white wine.  I'm still eating too much sugar but I feel pretty good about my overall food choices.  Now that my meal plan is in place, I need to make an exercise plan that I can do and stick with.  I'd rather be sore from working out than in pain from obesity and a sedentary life.

Day 8

Got this morning and I had gone back up to 294.4.  Annoying but just more impetus to eat properly which I then proceeded not to do.  I kinda feel like I got nothing done but actually I accomplished quite a bit, the most important to me being the food plan. I now have a solid plan to eat this week and just need to get a couple of things from the store to make it work.  In other news, Bob and I went to Gallerie Michael in Beverly Hills for an exhibition of Davyd Whaley's work. Davyd is a tremendously talented artist and it was great to see him have his own show. He sold several pieces. So great! After the show, we went to The Grove and dinner at Ulysses Voyage. I had chicken souvlaki, grilled artichoke and pita with hummus, sweet pepper and kalamata olive & sweet fig dips. We both drank club soda at the restaurant after drinking champagne at the Gallerie. Now I have to get ready to go out of town tomorrow. Ofelia and I are going to the Wine Valley Inn in Solvang go a night away from the big city.

Day 7

Okay, obviously I didn't post last night. I completely spaced out. I was pretty tired, I've been working on a project that while it isn't difficult, there's a lot of detail to pay attention to and the whole thing is a bit tedious. But I do feel like I'm getting a necessary thing done so that's a plus. Speaking of plus, I went down a lb and was at 293 yesterday morning.  I had just some mixed nuts in the morning plus coffee. Lunch was with one of our vendors and there was bread, antipasti (I had mixed vegetables) and pizza with club soda to drink. When I came home I had 3 Lindt dark chocolate truffles and a glass of non-milk then I ate leftover pizza for dinner with a glass of milk. I had a cup of hot chocolate later. I didn't do an exercise routine but I put on some funk and danced for about 30 minutes. I really need to figure out a meal plan.

Day 6

Today, I had no time, I was so busy. I ate a few almonds for breakfast, plain Greek yogurt & berries for lunch & three Samoa cookies for a snack. I came home & had some lentil soup with two corn muffins and a glass of nonfat milk plus a couple of chocolates for dessert.  No time to work out at all today which disappoints me greatly but tomorrow will be better. I weighed 294.4 lbs this morning. The best thing this blog is doing for me is making me realize how much sugar I eat. It's really focusing me in on what I eat.  One of the things I am going to do this weekend is create an eating plan for the week. Less winging it, more structure. Now I'm going to bed.

Day 5

292.6 lbs. coffee, half & half , granola bars, Chinese food for lunch, lentil soup & corn muffins for dinner. Did bar method work out. Will do a longer entry tomorrow. Going to bed now.

Day 4

This is going to be very short post because I have to go to bed.  I ate yogurt, almonds and almonds for breakfast.  I drank 2 cups of coffee with 1/2 & 1/2.  Snacks were a piece of beef jerky and 3 small cookies with a cup of hot chocolate.  Lunch was a can of Progresso chicken and wild rice soup, drinking water.  I made lentil soup with onions, garlic, carrots and celery.  I also made green chile, sharp cheddar cheese corn muffins.  I had a bowl of the soup with parmesan and 3 muffins with butter plus a glass of non-fat milk.  I also did a 10 minute trainer work-out.  I felt rushed all day and didn't feel like I accomplished a lot. Now I'm going to bed.

Day 3. I think.

Okay, so today, I did laundry, read a book, talked about the hunky guys on HGTV, cleared the sweets out of my house, did my laundry, booked my hotels for my trip to Quebec, worked out and watched Antiques Roadshow with Bob.  Bob also joined the 21st century and got an iphone today, so I had fun showing him how you can record your texts instead of typing them and I introduced him to Siri.  He promptly asked her if she was a lesbian and she told him it was none of his business.  LOLOLOL!

The voice memo app on the iphone is great, I don't have to remember or write down what I ate.  Using tracking programs like Weight Watchers or MyFitnessPal doesn't work for me because I forget to update them and I find it to be a pain in the ass. I just take a memo, then listen to them and write my post.  Awesome!!  So today, I weighed in at 293.2 lbs, up a half a pound from yesterday. I had two cups of coffee with 1/2 & 1/2, one packet (2 small bars) of oat & honey granola bars, plus I still had a squidgy gut this morning, but that passed pretty quickly.

I also set up a plan to work out with my friend Ofelia, although she couldn't do it today.  So I worked out by myself.  More on that later.  I didn't really eat a meal today, I kinda grazed.  I had several pieces of beef jerky over the course of the day and evening.  I also ate some mixed nuts, mostly almonds and cashews.  A portion of nuts according to the bag is 20 nuts.  I don't think I ate quite that many but that's what I'm saying I ate.  I ran out of coffee today so later in the afternoon, I had a cup of instant hot chocolate with a few mini marshmallows.

Boy, these voice memos really do come in handy.  I did have a meal, sort of.  At about 3:00 this afternoon, I had 3 pieces of leftover pepperoni & black olive pizza, plus 2 12 oz glasses of sparkling water.  Later I had some of the beef jerky I mentioned plus a couple of spoons of cottage cheese.  I also had a couple of glasses of red wine while watching TV. Before I move on, I forgot to post yesterday that I had 1/2 cup of caramel corn and some beef jerky

Now about that exercise.  I decided earlier today that I was going to work out tonight and then proceeded to avoid doing that all day.  About 6:00 p.m. I decided to do it.  And what motivated me to actually exercise was I couldn't stand the thought of posting on here that I hadn't worked out and whining about how I don't feel good.  I actually feel okay, my gut isn't bothering me anymore today and since I ate relatively little sugar, I don't feel lethargic and bloated.  So I put on my Bar Method Dancer's Body dvd, which is an hour long workout and a tough one.  I have to admit that I'm not quite up to the full hour but I did the calves and thighs; the seat work and the abs.  Which is probably a good 25 minutes.  I'm going to check that running time.  Some of the ab work was difficult for me because I have a huge gut, but I was able to do about 15 crunches, 15 obliques on the right and 15 obliques on the left.  That right there is more ab work than I've done in I don't know how long.  It seems my plan of owning up on a blog, which is a public forum even if no-one is reading this except me, is motivating me to think about what I eat and what I do.  I feel like there should be a fanfare.  Tah-dah!

Okay, I am going back to work tomorrow after having four days off, I have to get up at 5:45 a.m. to be at work by 7:00 a.m. and I still have to make my bed. 

This is what I'm talking about

Here's an image of all of treats that I am taking to work to get out of my house.  I thought it was just the cookies but then I found all the rest.  Jeeze, it's no wonder I don't eat right and I'm fat.  It's gotta go.

Day 2

It's 11:30 at night on day 2 of my plan.  I just finished watching the season finale of Downton Abbey with a couple if friends.  We have a Downton Abbey viewing party every Sunday night.  It's a lot of fun. 

So today, I was still feeling the after effects of whatever attacked my intestinal track yesterday.  I felt better but still not great.  I started off by weighing in at 292.6, which is a pound lost from yesterday.  Since I put my measurements yesterday and I'm putting my weight every day, I should add that I'm 5'8" tall.  I started the day with a couple of forkfuls of cottage cheese (the fork in question is the smaller salad or dessert fork, not a dinner fork) and a glass of water.  I did the dishes and organized a project I'm working on, then had 2 cups of coffee with half and half and a packet (2 small bars) of Nature Valley Oat & Honey granola bars. 

After my shower, I had brunch: 2 egg cheese omelet, 4 small strips of bacon, 5 artichokes hearts (in brine) and a small tangerine with a glass of non-fat milk and 2 extra dark chocolate Lindt truffles. I then finished the book I was reading, Michael Connelly's The Black Box and worked on my project a little.  After a few other small chores, I had dinner at 5:30, several slices of pepperoni and black olive pizza with club soda to drink.  I had 5 Girl Scout Samoa cookies with another glass of milk.  Finally, I had a couple of 5 oz. glasses of red wine to sip while watching 60 Minutes and then Downton Abbey.  I'm seeing a pattern here of eating more than I should, especially of sweets, because truth be told, I was kind of bored today.  I hate being sick and having low energy, it just makes the day drag by.

I also took a probiotic and some vitamins: B12, C and D3 plus a flax seed oil pill.  God, this is a dull post. 

Day 1

So I'm posting this @ 11 p.m. of the same day of the previous post.  Here's how the day went.  I weighed in at 293.5 lbs this morning and my measurements are 53.5" bust; 48.5" waist; 58" hips.  I ate some cottage cheese; 4 strips of bacon; 2 egg omelet with cheese; sliced tomato; 2 cups of coffee with 1/2 & 1/2; 3 glasses of non-fat milk; 3 Whitman chocolates; a tangerine; sticky bun with butter; gluten-free pasta; mixed nuts; caramel corn & finally, some dark chocolate rice chips that Bob gave em for Valentine's Day.  This day did not turn out as I planned at all.  I felt great this morning but slowly, I started feeling not right.  My neck and upper back started hurting and when that stopped, my lower back REALLY hurt.  Then the problem with my intestines started.  They were doing what they're supposed to do which is get rid of something toxic but man, it just sapped my motivation.  I ate a bunch of sweets, which made me realize I need to get rid of all of it.  I thought I could have it in the house if it was in the back of the cupboard, not in plain sight but today proves that isn't the case.  I did get a few chores done but no exercise.  One of the notes I made to myself was the reason I want to do this is because my body freaking hurts all the time.  I get sore when I do work out but it's a different kind of pain from the hurt of obesity and non-activity.  The note was actually a voice memo I recorded on my phone and I'm leaving it on there to remind myself why I'm doing this.  But for right now, I'm going to bed.

I think I need a plan

I want to say that I've been struggling with my weight for years, but really, it hasn't been a struggle because I haven't attempted to do anything about it.  Not in a credible attempt that I haven't abandoned within a few days or weeks.  It's not that it's hard to eat good healthy delicious food.  It's that I eat a lot out of boredom.  I notice that when I am focused on a project, it's very simple for me to eat something that's good for me and that tastes good and doesn't make me feel lethargic and bloated.  Even cleaning my house or doing chores, as long as I'm actively engaged.  It's when I'm doing repetitive or sedentary things, or both, that I eat.  Not because I'm hungry but because my brain is bored. 

So here's my plan.  I'm going to post every day.  I'm going to give my weight, what I've eaten and why, any exercise I've done, and once a week, I will post my measurements.  I'm not doing this so that anyone will read this, although it is a blog, but more to keep myself honest.  I may include photos or videos.  And if I post a message on someone else's blog, I will include a link to this.  No more hiding.