Well… I went and saw a psychiatrist this morning for the first time in my life. It was interesting. He didn’t try and prescribe me anti-depressants or anything except Campral, which is supposed to be for alcohol and/or drug cravings. I told him that I have been having terrible cravings for alcohol every few days or so. To be honest, I probably won’t fill the prescription, because I do not under any circumstances want to have to take something every single day!

So it looks like I’m not depressed or crazy! Not that I thought I was in the first place. I mainly had made the appointment to see if they thought I needed to be on something. Thank God I don’t.

I’ve decided to go back on the diet I listed in the post below this one to see if it will work wonders like it did for me a few years ago. Why not?

Anyway… I got my blood pressure taken and I was weighed this morning, which sucked. I’m PMS’ing and have some definite water weight going on, and I was NOT happy when I saw the number on the scale. Of course, I had just worked out, eaten breakfast and drank coffee and water AND was fully clothed, so the number is likely several pounds over. But still…

Anyway, I’m in a good mood right now despite the fact that I am overtired. I’m working on resetting my sleep patterns again, which means several days of sleep deprivation and exhaustion. Thankfully by tomorrow night I’ll be back on a regular schedule, sleeping 11pm-7am or something. When I’m on a regular schedule it is SO much easier to eat healthy and exercise.

Speaking of exercise, I am keeping up with it… I will be adding walks back into the picture once I am getting up early in the morning again! I think my goal will be a daily morning walk along the river, then elliptical and weights 5 days per week.

Anyone who actually thinks a low fat diet accomplishes long-term weight loss, well, it doesn’t.

At least not for me.

I look back to my diet history, and of all my weight losses, there has been one time that stands out. The time I lost about 15 pounds in 1 1/2 months absolutely effortlessly.

Want to know what I was eating in a typical day? Here it is:

Meal 1: Fruit
Meal 2: Cereal
Meal 3: Salad, cheese, full-fat salad dressing
Meal 4: Nuts and/or sunflower seeds
Meal 5: As much cheese as I wanted, chicken or beef or fish, veggies
Meal 6: More nuts and/or seeds, veggies

There was well over 80 grams of fat in that menu, yet I lost weight so quickly and felt SO healthy that it’s ridiculous.

The calorie count was also through the roof.

AND I didn’t work out. I only did maybe 30 minutes of moderate walking per day.

How ironic, eh?

On a completely unrelated topic, I have been exercising for at least an hour per day the past couple days, and will be today again!

Well, I had to step up my eating plan a bit. In case you don’t know, I’m a recovering alcoholic and I only recently got sober. (I stopped a few times then started up again, then stopped again.) Anyway, my body is in “healing” mode - trying to heal itself from the damage I caused by drinking lots of liquor for a couple of years. It became apparent yesterday that I haven’t been eating enough to allow the process to happen.

So screw the weight loss for now, I need to heal. (Yes, you read the right!) Although I must mention that my stomach is currently flatter than it has been in years.

I’m still eating lots of fruit and still having my least meal of the day be low-carb (meat and veggies). But the rest of the day I’m adding in a bit more food than I was eating. I’m also eating more in the morning, like adding cereal in with the fruit. I am not going to “overeat”, but I am going to not try to lose or cut back as much for a while.

However, I have started exercising again. I started slowly and am working myself back up slowly.

When I start feeling close to or at 100% physically, which should happen within the next couple of weeks, I will cut the food back a bit once more.

But for now, healing and health is much more important!

Tags: foods

I’ve had a couple of people ask me what I eat in a typical day on the plan I’m on. Although I have shared it in past posts, here is what I have had yesterday and what I’ve had so far today…

Yesterday, I had a pear and a banana with coffee for breakfast, then a turkey, cheese, tomato and lettuce sandwich for lunch, a few lifesavers in between for a snack, then grilled chicken and vegetables for dinner, and a few cheese cubes as an after-dinner snack.

Today I had a pear and banana for breakfast again, a roast beef and cheese deli sandwich and cottage cheese for lunch, and will be having grilled chicken, tomato soup and steamed organic veggies for dinner, plus maybe a few pieces of hard candy thrown in between meals. I may also throw in some mixed berries after dinner for an extra kick of vitamins and nutrition.

Wow, I haven’t done an update here since last Wednesday! It’s been a crazy few days. Food-wise, I have been doing well. I was kind of sick on Thursday and didn’t eat much at all. But the rest of the time I’ve pretty much stuck to my plan with a few moderations from time to time. I’ve been going out to dinner every night with friends for the past 3 nights, but have stuck to healthy meals like omelets, which I unfortunately found out I can’t stand, and chicken/veggie dinners.

I still have scale phobia and won’t be getting on it anytime soon though!

I’ve been feeling a bit tired and weak over the past few days. I may be fighting off a bug or something - there is yet another flu going around here. I am adding a vitamin drink in with the lunch I’m currently eating though, maybe that will help me feel better. Unfortunately, it’s probably due to dieting. Losing weight always makes me feel like crap for the first several weeks that I do it, especially when I am losing at a moderate rate. I think this time around it’s a bit harder because first of all, I’m older, and secondly, because my body has been used to tons of extra (mostly empty) calories over the past couple of years. I’ve been slowly easing it out of that trend and trust me, it ain’t happy about it.

Exercise - for the most part - has been put on the back-burner until I start feeling a little better.

Anyway, that’s it for now…

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Later update:

I decided to do a bit of calisthenics today. Where I have lost a few inches around my waist/stomach area, my skin is kind of loose. I know that is normal when you lose weight and for me it tends to tighten up rather quickly, but in the meantime, I can’t stand the way it feels or looks! Exercise supposedly helps things along, so I am going to do some light exercising each day until I feel normal again and can go back to my regular 30-60 minute per day routines.

Today I have done pretty good on the eating healthy front… so far I’ve had a bowl of mixed berries, a pear, a banana, some turkey, cottage cheese and some organic steamed peas and carrots. I got up extremely late today so when I get home from the meeting around 11pm, I’ll probably have some exotic fruit and call it a night.

All in all, a lot of “clean” eating, except for the cottage cheese.