CathyM Weight Loss & Health Blog

I have been hovering around 172-173 and even up to 175 one day this week, and then wow today I am at 170! It just shows that while watching the daily weight is important, it’s still the long term trends that count!

172 today! Yea! Even with challenges!

Social Eating – I survived it by thinking it through and being mindful of everything I ate. I had decided in advance that I was going to eat, choosing the best I could with what was available and if that wasn’t too good, just keeping the quantities reasonable. I did. Saturday afternoon was a gathering in their home for the loss of a husband and father. He was a wonderful, kind, humorous guy and we told stories about his great Halloween costumes. There was also food, buffet style, all afternoon. I graised on the vegetables, I had a chicken on a stick, I ate Chinse chicken salad without the dressing, and I treated myself to a crumb of a cookie left on the platter. I passed on the pizza (normally I would have had some) and the Krispy Kreme donuts (not much of a temptation – too sweet for me). Yikes, does this sound like I was more focused on the food than the people that afternoon (I hope not). I will say though that it is easy to obsess about food when dieting. I think that many people who are naturally thin do not have that obsession with food.

Saturday night was a tri tip dinner and I ate in moderation. I also only drank one glass of wine. Best of all, there was dancing and I danced! I do have to be mindful of injuries. A couple of years ago I danced at a wedding and ended up with a chronic problem in my right heel – a heel spur and plantar fasciitis. It is under control now with orthotics but I think I will always have to be careful with it. I have also ended up with a sore hip and concern about my knees with dancing and thats another reason to loose weight – less strain on the joints!

Sunday my husband and I hosted a Father’s Day Lobster Brunch at the yacht club. And I cooked it the way I wanted to, with butter, hollandaise sauce, the works. I did bring strawberries and asparagus so I had some healthy side dishes. I ate a moderate serving and was fine. Only one glass of champagne too.

The moral of the story is that I can do it if I set my mind to it and keep mindful throughout challenges. Thats something that is emphasized in yoga, always being mindful of the present moment.

Social eating can be a problem when trying to loose weight. The first week of this diet I avoided it all together. I needed to get a good start without any temptations. It is very easy for me to say to myself that I will enjoy a party and worry about my weight the next day and then the next day. To really loose weight, I can’t do that.

I survived the first week with no social life and decided that from here on out I would try to eat and drink in moderation at social functions. Most weight loss tips will recommend bringing your own food to social gatherings however there are times when it just doesn’t seem like the right thing to do. On Sunday this week a couple had prepared a home cooked, full Southern breakfast for all of us to partake of at our yacht club. I decided in advance that there was probably a good chance that she would have fruit and that in any case I would eat everything but in limited quantities. It worked out fine because I thought it through beforehand and followed my plan. Fortunately it was a buffet and a I was able to serve myself small quantities of each food and there was fruit too! I made sure that I had a water bottle in front of me at all times and again was glad that no one encouraged me to drink champagne. Its hard for me to turn down a drink but this diet is important and a little champagne was not what I needed. This upcoming week-end will be a challenge, 3 different eating events. Saturday afternoon, a gathering for a friend that passed away this week. Saturday night tri-tip dinner at the yacht club, and Sunday, our turn to host a Father’s Day lobster brunch at the yacht club (and I will bring fruit).

Key Points for Social Eating:

Haven’t written in a few days. Partly because I have been busy, partly because I didn’t want to talk about gaining a pound. A pound is nothing, it could be water weight. Today I am down to 173 so I can brag about it. If I am up in weight tomorrow, I will probably keep it to myself.

I participated in a diet program during the 80’s where we had to weigh in daily with a counselor. I would stop by on my way into work. The daily weigh in was to keep us on track and the counselors were motivating when they congratulated us on weight loss. However, I absolutely hated the days when I was even or up in pounds. The counselor would ask , “What did you eat yesterday? What did you do different? Did you exercise?” I didn’t want to have a long conversation at that point, I knew I was on track and would see the weight loss within the upcoming days. Now, when I did get off track too much, that’s when I would go ahead and drop the program and be done with weight loss for a few years. Wonder if that will happen with this blog. Will I get off track and give it up? I am trying to make this a long term commitment. We’ll see if I can do it.

I often have thought that I could eat whatever I want for 11 months out of the year and then diet for one month. Well, almost. In reality what happens is that I eat mostly healthy but as much as I want and about every 5 years I have to loose 15 – 20 pounds. That’s where I am at now, the last time I did a similar weight loss was 2000-2001 and before that it was 1996.

I think I will like the anonymity of joining an online weight lost program. It’ll be part of a “program” but not having to tell my life history to a counselor unless I want to. He he, and that’s what I am doing in this blog. I have been too busy too start my evaluation of online programs but I will get to it.

Enough rambling.

I have wondered whether my excess weight is causing me to be pre-diabetic. Sometimes, usually in the afternoon, I get very hungry and with that hunger is a nervousness which makes me very anxious to get food. I believe it is related to blood sugar levels. This condition has been developing over the last 10 years.

Today there is an article and study that answers many of my questions about the pre-diabetic condition. The research which involved two studies was presented at a meeting of the American Diabetics Association.

One study predicted that half of all Americans will develop a condition known as insulin resistance, a type of pre-diabetes that puts them at high risk of heart attacks, and another showed that high blood sugar alone made hospital patients much more likely to die of other conditions.

Curing insulin resistance alone would reduce heart attacks by 42 percent.

Normal blood glucose levels are 70 to 110 mg/dl, and anything higher is often considered insulin resistance or impaired fasting glucose.

The article concludes that diet and exercise is the place to start but also recommends drugs for those who cannot or will not lower cholesterol and high blood glucose with diet and exercise.

Personally, I hope that I am always able to use diet and exercise to stay healthy and avoid drugs whenever possible. I looked at my test results from a physical last year, I do have normal cholesterol and glucose levels.

Exactly one week since I started and I have lost 5 pounds! Of course I know that these pounds are the easiest and it will get tougher. What did I do this week to loose so much?

It’s a wonderful time of the year for fresh fruits and vegetables. I am fortunate to live in Southern California and have close access to the Torrance market. In order to sell produce at the farmer’s market it has to come directly from a California farmer. Today I picked up strawberries, blueberries, nectarines, apples, tomatoes, purple potatoes, green beans, okra, onions, cucumber, and cabbage. Some good things about these choices:

You can see from this list why I say that strawberries are one of the best fruits, especially when you are trying to watch the calories.

Blueberries are excellent too and I was surprised to see how much fiber they have. Blueberries are known for their antioxidants which “help neutralize harmful by-products of metabolism called free radicals that can lead to cancer and other age related diseases.” This is from the Blueberry Council website. I do not always buy organic but the farmer today told me that his blueberries were organic and that most blueberries are not. A search in Google for blueberries pesticides does come up with quite a few discussions on pesticides on blueberries so I am glad I bought organic today (although they were more expensive).

Nectarines – I just love to eat them and they are high in vitamin C and potassium and a fair amount of fiber and antioxidants.

And you know what they say about apples, an apple a day keeps the doctor away. This saying dates back to 1866 according to the Friedman School of Nutrition. I was on a popular diet plan about 20 years ago that included 2 fresh fruits every day, one of which was an apple. They encouraged us to get the biggest, juiciest apple we could find. Too bad I didn’t know about the farmer’s market back then!

I am doing this first week of my diet/exercise program by myself, with the help of this blog! I also plan to research some of the online diet programs and when I find one I like, give it a try and write a review. One of my main criteria for choosing a plan will be that it has a strong emphasis on fresh fruits and vegetables (no diet shakes or pre-packaged foods for me except as occasional fill in when there is no time to prepare fresh).

Scuba diving – that’s the kind of exercise we all should seek – it’s fun, burns calories, and we come home with healthy food for dinner.

My husband and I dive off our our 32 foot Radon out of King Harbor in Redondo Beach. Besides being good exercise, I think that the cold water requires extra energy from the body to stay warm. The water is usually in the 50’s here sometimes warming up to the 60’s. Today I picked up a crab and my husband speared some sand bass. We eat good!

For dinner I made a sort of crab stuffing to go with the bass – celery, onions, pepper, garlic, cajun seasoning sauted in olive oil with just a bit of butter. Then add some bread crumbs and stuff the fish. I do believe that to be able to stick with a diet it can’t be too strict and has to have some flavor. I just learned this trick:

I am down to 175 today! Whoo who! I know this can’t last and it’s going to be really hard to post on the days when I gain some weight. Better celebrate now!

I exercise 5 to 6 hours per week. Why do I still gain weight? The answer is easy, I eat too much. Here’s my normal schedule (these are hour long classes except for the scuba):

I am pretty regular with the above schedule missing sometimes one day a week from the above. During May however, I was working more and did miss more classes which probably contributed to climbing to 179.

Now to loose weight I need to change it up, increase the exercise and descrease the food. I’ll talk about the food another day. On the exercise I have been upping the anty this week. I am doing all of the above plus adding another 15 minutes to an hour each day of yoga. On Tuesday I taught an evening yoga class in addition to the morning pilates. Today the weather was bad so instead of scuba I did a very intensive Power Sculpt class. I have to be careful with this class. The last time I went I hurt my ankle from the jumping and it took months to heal completely. I currently have a sore right shoulder and a twinge of neck pain so I am being careful with the shoulder, using lighter weights or no weights. It’s tough getting old.

I made this blog public by putting it on the Internet but if nobody knows about it, it is still pretty private. So I let my daughter have a look. Her questions included:

But why do you want to loose weight all of a sudden? And how much weight do you want to loose?

First the easy question – my goal is to get to 160 pounds. Why 160? Because it seems realistic for me and I am comfortable at that weight. Not especially thin at 160 but comfortable and ok with it. The last time I was at 160 was late 2001, early 2002. This was after a weight loss journey from my highest weight of all time of 190 in 2001. I have less to loose this time, in theory it should be easy. Jeez it’s only 16 more pounds to go. At 2 pounds per week I could be there in August. That’s a good goal.

Now, why do I want to loose weight? And funny that my daughter thinks it is “suddenly.” Of course I always want to loose weight but I usually am not serious enough to do it. Now my daugher is in her 20’s and has never had a weight problem. She is beautiful and often gets comments that she should be a model. She also has that trigger that tells her when she is full to stop eating. I don’t have it. Neither does my son. I should research and write more on that subject later. Back to why do I want to loose weight:

I am rather fit for my age and weight. My blood pressure is good, usually low. My bone density is that of a 35 year old. But I do have some joint problems, they are minor now but I don’t want them to become problems as I age. I do have scoliosis and some compression of my upper spine. I am not sure that loosing weight has any effect on that other than less overall stress on my body and greater ability to exercise. And I do have a thing going on with hunger. A few hours after a meal I feel hungry and nervous and jittery. I am sure it is a blood sugar thing and maybe even a precursor to adult diabetes. Another subject that I need to research more. I am hopeful that loosing weight will help that problem.

It really boils down to 2 reasons to loose weight – more attractive, comfortable clothes and better health!