Month: July 2009

Thin Habit #3- Log What you Eat (at least for a while)

This is one of those things that you may not need to do forever, but if you’ve been putting on weight or seem to be stuck at a plateau and not losing this is a great exercise.

Biggest Loser trainer Jillian likes to say, “calories in, calories out”. Basically, if you aren’t losing weight, you are eating too much, exercising too little, or some combination of the two. Very rarely is it some other issue. It’s simple math. If you want to lose weight, you need to consume less calories then you burn.

There are tons of online sources to figure out how many calories you need a day and how many calories are in different foods. Some cost money like My Food Diary(which Nathan and I are using again)and some are free like The Daily Plate.

Sure, it can be a pain to do it, but I really believe that most of us way underestimate how many calories we are eating. Once you’ve done it for a while, you’ll have a good idea of what and how much you should be eating without always looking it up or logging it.

Now, for this week’s weigh in. I did not do well this week. I didn’t expect to since I ate way more than I should have and had only 2 days where I really was careful. I’m up a half pound. It could have been much worse. Nathan stayed the same. This will be a much better week!

Tune in tomorrow for a post of automating your meals. An idea I got from the You On A Diet book!

Thin Habit #2- Stop Eating After Supper

I’m a grazer. A good percentage of the food that I eat is not at meal time. Being at home all day with access to food has not been kind to my waist. I’ve been trying to think about habits that I can instill that are things that I can live with- not just short-term, but forever. I don’t think it will be easy to cut off my after supper snacking, but I think I can do it if I work on it.

By the way, I bought some gum yesterday! So, that’s two things I’m working on- I’m going to stop using food to cope with stress and I’m not going to snack after supper.

Thin Habits (inspired by Erica)

Erica just finished 13 days of thin thoughts on her blog and I feel inspired to continue the series here with habits that I want to work on adopting as I try to get and stay thin! I’m sure at the end of these 13 days, we’ll all be healthier and thinner. Right? Ha!Unfortunately, “Thin Habits” doesn’t have the nifty alliteration that “Thin Thoughts” has. Oh well.

Thin Habit #1
Stop Using Food As a Way to Cope with Stress
This is one of my biggest (if not THE biggest) issue that I’m dealing with now. It’s always been a problem, but it’s really magnified now as I’m adjusting to having a newborn again. Every time Isaac starts to cry when I lay him down for his nap, I go to the pantry to put something in my mouth. If I want to lose weight and keep it off, I really need to stop doing this.
I think I remember Chris (Nathan’s mom) mentioning some trick to overcoming this. It had to do with doing something you didn’t need to think about and was repetitive. Maybe she will elaborate in a comment (hint, hint!). Did you say something about gum? Anyway, I think I’m going to invest in a pack or two. The next time I’m tempted to eat because I feel stressed, I’m going to pop a piece of gum in my mouth instead. Think of the calories that I can save!

Better go, Isaac is crying in his swing. I’ll let you know what gum I plan to us- this would be a good time to buy stock. Their revenues are about to increase!

Alone

If I could characterize the last 4 months with one word it would be, “alone”.

When I went on bedrest, it was a long 5 weeks (was it 5 weeks?). I was scared and overwhelmed at the prospect of having Isaac too early. I had some friends that helped out, but for the most part, I didn’t hear from many people.

Now, I’m in the middle of the crazy newborn/post-partum time. It seems like Isaac needs to eat all the time or wants to be held and that makes it really hard to go anywhere that I will be the only adult watching the kids. It’s just a really lonely time.

Weight Loss Update

Nathan and I just finished our third week. Our weigh in was on Friday. I was down 2 pounds! Nathan was down 4 (I think). We’re not doing anything revolutionary. We’re just keeping track of our calories and trying to stay below the number we would need to maintain our current weight. So far, so good!

I hope to be down to my goal weight by December. That’s a good 4 months, but I’m nursing so I need to keep my calories a little higher than normal and don’t want to mess that up.

Scrapbooking Layouts

Here are a few of my layouts from yesterday. I finished 10 pages for Audrey’s scrapbook! It was my first time being away from Isaac for an extended time period. I had some milk stashed in the freezer and got that out for Nathan to give Isaac when he was hungry and I brought my pump with me and pumped every 3 hours. It was nice to get a break and have some fun.

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Easy summery recipe


Southwestern Rice Salad

Prepare 4 cups white rice according to pkg directions. Cool.

Add 1 cup each drained and rinsed canned black beans and conned corn, 1 chopped red pepper, 3 chopped green onions, 8 oz of Italian dressing. 1 cup salsa. Mix lightly. Cover.

Top salad with a handful of lightly crushed tortilla chips.(I don’t put the chips on it until we’re ready to eat so they don’t get soggy).

I make this as a main dish. Even Audrey eats it. Sometimes Ethan will. He asks me if he likes it and I tell him that he does! It doesn’t look exactly like that picture because that’s a different recipe, but you get the idea.