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!
Tagged as:
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. 
I’m running out of post titles for what amounts to yet another post raving/talking about fruit. 
Anyway, I’m about to go to bed – it’s been an EXHAUSTING day. Thanks to you all for the nice and helpful comments. I suspected that regular grocery store fruit was chemically modified in some way to make it bigger. Organic and smaller fruit is actually tastier, I’ve found. Has anyone else ever tried those huge red delicious apples (not the regular sized ones)? They are awful! They are so big and mushy and tasteless. Clearly there is some sort of chemical enhancement at work to make the fruit that big. Whatever it is destroys the quality and taste.
I love the regular-sized red delicious apples though.
Anyway, today’s fruit was quite varied. I had: 1 banana, 1 serving of a mixture of kiwi, mango & strawberries; and a bowl of mixed berries of blackberries, blueberries and raspberries, which in all likelihood was two servings of fruit in itself. I had a really busy evening and didn’t get the chance to eat much of anything else, other than cottage cheese, a gatorade and soup. Yikes, after I just typed that up, it sounds pretty unhealthy – not enough food or calories for sure. And no veggies. A telltale sign with me that I’m not eating enough is when I confess to drinking an energy drink. I have no reason to drink them other than low blood sugar or low electrolyte feelings.
Tomorrow my schedule should calm down a bit though so I will have more time to plan and eat healthy meals. I had some very important AA step work to do today that took several hours. It was one of those days where recovery had to come before absolutely everything else (including the website, my eating, etc). But I’m very glad I did it.
I am still holding off on getting on the scale……… soon, though.
I may also be posting real pictures of me soon. I will talk more about that later… for now, it’s time to go to bed!
I got another “you are losing weight” comment tonight, this time from a guy. He said something along the lines of “Hey you have lost a lot of weight, girl!” (The word “lot” was actually in there).
Also, earlier today I tried on a pair of capris that were too tight only 10 days ago.
Now, they fit… and don’t look half bad on me.
I am DEFINITELY noticing the weight loss myself now physically. Sitting here at my computer, my hips and stomach and waist area are startingly smaller. I keep feeling them in wonder, like “where did the extra bit of padding go?!”. Seriously, it’s like I lost several pounds or inches overnight.
The absolutely FUNNIEST thing of all – something I didn’t mention in my post earlier today (or should I say yesterday since it’s 3am), I actually went OFF my diet last night (Sunday) and had a huge helping of macaroni and cheese for dinner. Yep – that is really, really bad stuff, right? I was craving it something fierce last night though for some reason.
So anyway, apparently eating a bunch of fattening, unhealthy carbs last night shocked my body into losing even more weight. I don’t know what is going on, but darn, it’s good! Today I stuck with only 2 helpings of fruit for breakfast, a couple of hard boiled eggs and cottage cheese for lunch, and some cheddar cheese and organic tomato soup for dinner. I started feeling lightheaded this evening and so I downed a vitamin drink at the meeting. I had no appetite today whatsoever for some reason and had no desire for veggies. (I’ll do better tomorrow!)
I have been getting all the symptoms that go along with somewhat rapid weight loss for me – which is the occasional light-headedness, the weird feeling in my chest, the feeling of “slightly lower than usual electrolytes”, etc. (Yes, I’ve had some bad electrolyte problems in the past). I need to step up the fruit and veggies for sure, as I probably didn’t get enough nutrients or something.
And I’m getting on the scale tomorrow morning (or afternoon) first thing when I get up! I would get on now but I just downed a couple glasses of water.
Anyway, time for bed!
So, in the few weeks that I’ve been on this fruit diet plan, I have come to a few conclusions:
- 1. I don’t like honeydew melon.
- 2. I like apples but don’t feel like eating them very often. I can’t really do the “an apple a day” thing.
- 3. I love, love love pears and can eat them every day.
- 4. I like bananas but wish they didn’t go bad so darn fast (even in the fridge).
- 5. I love peaches and nectarines but don’t want to eat them every day, either.
- 6. Grapes definitely have a laxative effect, especially the purple ones.
- 7. Organic fruit is smaller than regular fruit. Why is this? (If anyone knows, let me know!)
- 8. I love berries and can eat them every day.
- 9. I love love love exotic fruits – for example, pineapple, mango and kiwi and can eat them every day, too.
- 10. I like plums and pluots but also can’t eat them every day, so I need to buy less of them.
- 11. Last but not least, not all brands of blueberries taste the same. I need to stick with the brand from my regular store and not get the Wal-mart brand, which just don’t taste nearly as good!
It’s good to get all this stuff laid out in black and white in front of me because I am heading to the grocery store to restock my fridge shelves a bit later this evening. Based on my conclusions, I will be buying a lot more pears than I usually do (about 5 instead of 2) and several more varieties of berries. But I will buy less apples (have WAY too many in my fruit bowl that are going to be rotting soon!) and less peaches and nectarines. But I will be buying 3 bananas at a time – that seems to be as many as I can buy and get eaten that won’t go bad at any given time. I recently found a place that sells a fruit container with lots of yummy cut-up fruit like strawberries, kiwi, pineapple and mango. (My regular grocery store doesn’t).
So I guess the fruits I will try and eat every day are: pears, berries, bananas (when I have them), and some sort of exotic fruit combo and possibly cantaloupe.
Anyway…. I haven’t gotten back on the scale. I keep forgetting to until it’s too late in the day.
Speaking of which, I seem to be back on my “up all night” schedule. My body just naturally gravitates towards that for some reason. I wish it didn’t… oh well!
I got this comment from someone tonight – someone that didn’t know I have been trying to lose weight. It came from a girl who I saw last probably several days ago. After I said “Really?” she told me “Yeah, I could tell you had lost some weight as soon as you came in the door.”
That made me pretty darn happy!
I told her and someone else listening about what I am doing – and how it is so easy that it’s ridiculous.
I had a pizza on the table in front of me tonight at a meeting and I wasn’t even tempted to take a slice… instead I had a fresh fruit cup with mango, kiwi and strawberries.
Well, it’s 2:40am here and I’m exhausted… bedtime for sure. I plan to weigh myself again tomorrow morning.
