geoblewis

I regret not posting here for two weeks, but I've been swamped at work and the thought of being on the computer when I get home was rather off-putting. To be honest, I'm at a standstill with the weight loss. I have been very distracted. Sick dog, long hours at work, catching up on taking care of things at home (or not!), lack of good sleep...all leads to me making poor choices! Dog is much better now and back to sleeping in her kennel. I have gotten on top of thigs at work and everything is working much better. Riding around on my Nimbus 2000 at home, getting the boys to chip in more. Laundry - done! Dishes - done! Shopping - done! Bills - paid! Taxes - started! Sleep...getting there. It was my birthday yesterday and the boys kept me busy later that I expected, plus - just one more episode of Mad Men before bed. Breakfast of four strips of uncured turkey bacon, 3 oz. organic baby spinach, 2 pastured eggs, all cooked in olive oil. 2 cups coffee with heavy cream. Lunch of turkey, fire-roasted tomatoes and cannellini bean soup. Dinner of white-wine braised grass-fed lamb chops with onions, carrots, zucchini. Plus roasted asparagus on the side. Pilates class this evening. And in bed by 9, sleeping by 10 (after another episode of Mad Men).

I don't love to exercise. I love how I feel after I exercise. I love how my muscles have been growing, that my DEXA scan shows I've put on 5 lbs. of muscle and 3 lbs. of bone over the last year. I love how hard my abs are and that I can curl 20 lbs. And that I am so, SO close to doing push-ups on the ground. But breathing hard and sweating, not my favorite things! If I didn't work in a fitness studio, I'd be sleeping in and consoling my miseries with waffles later in the day. Mmmmm...waffles. I miss them! I have been very busy at work. We're about to start our annual fitness/nutrition challenge, so I've been online updating our website and generating paperwork. This week we started doing body composition tests with our clients. We seem to have twice as many participants as last year, and I haven't even started promoting this online! So as for me, I'm looking forward to participating in the studio's challenge, but I've already started here! Doing okay. Only been through the drive-thru twice. Fasting hasn't been so good because I've not been sleeping all that well. For me, success at both is very important. So I slept really well last night and I'm not hungry at all this morning, so I'm going for at least 12 hours, which puts me at not eating till 10:30. And since I'll be at work then, I'll probably be able to go till 2:30. 16 hours for today. I caved to sugar this week. So today's fast should help with that. I'm not sure why I ate sugar. I'm not into sweets, but I mindlessly plopped a couple sugar cubes into my coffee for a couple days, and ate a couple dark chocolate truffles. Not all at once. Over the course of the week. I also had a sandwich just before going to bed two nights in a row. Wasn't really hungry. Was just edgy and wanted help going to sleep. I've been noticing that on regular eating days, I can have a good breakfast before 7 a.m. (2 eggs, 2 lamb chops, sautéed spinach, all cooked in butter), drink a couple cups of coffee, then just drink water and coast till 2 p.m. Then I can eat a big mixed veggie salad with olive oil and lemon, grilled salmon and some roasted beets, and again be fine until 9. If I go to bed at that time, I would be done eating for the day. But I get home between 7 and 8 and put dinner together for my younger son, the 16-year-old, and then I find myself munching right along with him. I end up going over the calories to which I wanted to limit myself, but several hundred. And I'm not even hungry! Just feeling only a little empty. I wish I'd be okay with just a small snack when I got home, but I'm not that disciplined with food quantities. Fortunately exercise is going great. Which reminds me...I gotta get to work!

Haha! I'm trolling for dinner guests...

It was a good dinner! I have taken on Paleo cuisine with a relish. Been eating like this since I learned I was allergic to soy, having gone low carb a few years earlier due to type 2 diabetes. I am a an enthusiastic carnivore, and while I've always loved eating vegetables, I had always thought I should be eating them raw or steamed. But once I tasted grilled and roasted veggies, oh man! Nearly everything gets roasted now! I'm looking forward to St. Patrick's Day. I have an organic uncured corned beef in the freezer for that occasion. I love to line a baking pan with a couple sheets of foil and layering cabbage wedges, sliced onions and sliced oranges, then placing the corned beef on top of that, then more oranges and onions, then sealing it all up. Roasting it all in a 275-degree oven for most of the day until done.

I'm allergic to both soy and coconut, so I use fish sauce.

Eating has been very mindful today. I like it! No measuring and no calorie counting = no stress for me. I've not been overeating at all. But of course, the evening is the true test. I have roasted beets and toum (Lebanese garlic sauce), some cauliflower and a grass-fed beef patty waiting for me for dinner. I did have a coffee from Starbuck's today. Unsweetened Iced Orange Spice with cream. It was heavenly and what I really needed this afternoon before I went back to work. My brain was starting to lag around 4. Connected with my new EBT class today. Great group! Gave me joy to be back at it again. I'm looking forward to a good night's sleep.

EBT is emotional brain training. www.ebtgroups.com It is a practice for dealing with stressful situations, PTSD, etc. In essence, it is learning to rewire the brain to deal with stress in a productive manner, rather than get mired in a tangled mess of emotions that can inhibit living a fulfilling life. I've been using it for nearly 15 years and it has made a huge difference in my life. Helped me with PTSD from childhood traumas, dealing with the stress of mid-life issues (divorce, menopause, single-parenting teenage sons, caring for aging and ailing parents).

Have not done any 36-hour fasts yet. First one is this week. I am succeeding with 18-hour fasts, from 9 p.m. to 3 p.m., every other day. I do better at these when I've had a good night's sleep. No fast food at all! No drive thru, not even Starbucks. I'm saving money! I struggled to avoid sugar and refined carbs over the weekend, but I did skip on the alcohol. I am fully into sugar cleanse mode now. I have increased veggies, fats and proteins. Starting to feel clear-headed again. I need to step up my EBT work. Have been checking in a few times a day, and I find I'm generally in a good mood, at peace, not very stressed. I like how this feels! Must remember to enjoy how that feels in the moment.

What if steamed veggies were junk food? It would be so wonderful if they could be, but I don't get the same effect from the steamed veggies. The roasted veggies are a more-likely candidate for that, since the combination of the olive oil and the caramelization of the sugars in the veggies intensifies the flavors. After I roasted the Brussels sprouts, I was intending to store them, but after I tasted one, I felt compelled to "taste" all of them. Quality control and all that. I know what my cravings are all about. It's all emotional eating. I'm edgy, stressed, it's late afternoon, I'm sleepy, bored, angry... If I haven't been eating my veggies, then I'm not as well-nourished as I could be and my body is craving something, even though I'm not actually hungry. Last summer, when I was shopping the farmers' market and eating up to eight servings of vegetables a day, I had NO cravings for fast food. But with colder temps and no farmers' market, my veg consumption dropped. Holiday eating didn't help either. The next two weeks is all about the sugar-cleanse for me. No sweets in any form, alcohol or refined carbs. Eating more vegetables, fats and proteins. Focusing more on mindfulness. Not worried about cutting calories. Getting plenty of sleep. Working on drinking water. Exercising daily. That's enough for now. I turn 53 in a couple weeks. It's going to be a good year for me!

I spent yesterday roasting vegetables for the week. Problem with this is that I already ate some and I think I'm going to run out! Brussels sprouts are gone. Kale is being devoured at this moment. Finishing up the braised green beans and tomatoes with chicken tonight. The veggies are really helping me manage the hunger today. Morning Pilates done. This evening, cardio and weight training class. Forgetting to drink water...AGAIN!

I work at a fitness studio. Annually we do a 50-day lifestyle clean-up challenge starting in February, after the holidaze are over and everyone has abandoned their resolutions. Over the course of 7 weeks, we coach people on how to get back on track with their wellness/fitness goals. We devote one week to getting rid of sugar. Actually, it takes only 3 days, but we try to go 5. We always tell people to quit sugar and all natural sweeteners (even stevia), fruit and all juices, any form of artificial sweeteners, alcohol, and all refined carbs - cold turkey for three days. During these three days, we do NOT encourage dieting or cutting calories of any sort. We do encourage increasing non-starchy vegetables, healthy fats and proteins. We also encourage drinking plenty of water and getting plenty of sleep. Cravings for sugar do occur, and the first day is usually the worst. But by the third day, most of our participants reported that they were so satisfied by the food they were eating that they didn't crave anything sweet. On the fourth day, some tried to eat something sweet that they formerly had but found it didn't taste good to them any more. After the fifth day, we tell our participants that they can go back to having a serving or two of fruit per day, as well as whole grains. We tell them to go ahead and have sweetened foods on occasion, but to understand that if they are relying on a sugar boost to make it through their afternoons, then they're not getting enough sleep, water and the right nutrition to stay awake. We host this challenge annually because everybody loses focus during the holidaze. Even my boss loses focus, which she freely admits. It's normal. But we don't have to be enslaved by sugar.

I only found you all this last week, so today is the first day of the remaining four weeks of this challenge. Spent the morning shopping for groceries. Bought lots of fresh organic vegetables, and I roasted them with some olive oil for the week. Right now, I've got beets and their greens, Russian kale, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, eggplant and grape tomatoes cooling before I put them in the fridge. Will be braising some lamb chops and green beans with chopped tomatoes and garlic next. I'll confess my current struggles here: I don't drink enough water. I'm a big woman (5' 10.5", 315 lbs.) I'm nearly 53 years old and a type 2 diabetic. When I'm dehydrated, my blood pressure goes up. I struggle to drink 6 8-oz. servings a day, and I need at least 12. It's not that I don't like water, I just prefer coffee and tea lately. Probably because it's been cold. I do like to drink water with things in it, like a few slices of lemon and cucumbers, plus some mint in a pitcher. Something I usually do in warmer months. One of my issues is a weak bladder. I just had two servings of water and I'm ready for the bathroom already! I wonder if I'll make it there... Fast food. I don't really like it. I'm rather bored with it. But it's so damn easy! My life is full, and even if I have food at home and ready to eat, I blow it off and opt for the drive-thru. This is only in the evenings, however. After I've had all the food I had planned to eat for the day. After my workouts. I'm not really hungry when I make this choice. I. JUST. WANT. IT. It's safe to say that I'm addicted to it. I don't want to be. This feels like an emotional issue for me.Not looking for anybody to troubleshoot this for me here. Just wanted to share.

So I work at a fitness studio. I'm the manager. Today I met with my boss about expanding the business and my scope of work. Right now, it's a very small studio (on purpose) so my duties have mostly been about building and managing the website and social media and a few things in the studio. I've been working there a year. Today my boss tells me that she wants me to lose 50 lbs. this year, because she wants me to become a trainer at the studio. She's seen my progress (I've been going there for four years), is very impressed with my abilities and has a lot of confidence that I'd be a really good fitness instructor. She wants to expand the business in the next two years and she wants me with her on this. My boss wants to pay for my training. She's been helping me get into shape, but I have been holding myself back for a lot of personal reasons. I've never had anyone voice such positive things to me. I would absolutely LOVE my work to expand in the direction she has put forth. I'm excited! But mostly I'm rather blown away by what she sees in me.

I like the "project jeans" concept. Gives me ideas. Happy belated...

Just read through your progress. OMG!!! You are fabulous! Well done!