Yet another start

Maybe this time it will take. I haven't quite gotten back into the groove since my sister died, but hope springs eternal. I tell myself that I was sidetracked by Flower Show related activities, and that's mostly true. Meals were sort of irregular.

But here we go again.

Breakfast: a three-egg omelet in olive oil

Lunch: 3 oz cooked chicken, 1/2 c brown/red/wild rice blend, 1 c snow peas. Plus 1-1/2 tsp sesame oil and a hot sauce whose name I have forgotten. Plus my morning apple, a bit later.

Dinner: [haven't had it yet]

Exercise: I biked down to the Wal*Mart and back, which I believe to be about a six-mile round trip. That wasn't exactly a huge bike ride, but it was a pretty punishing one on the way back as I was battling 15-25 mph headwinds.

Tomorrow I'll have a little seance with the tape measure and see where I am.

Tape measure progress, raw veggie snax, beef stew

Not going to Weight Watchers because it costs money (and time!), and we don't have a scale. So I got out the tape measure, which tells me I'm at my lowest measurements since I started the latest round of mindful eating. That would be January 2011; I'm not counting the six week vacation I took after my sister's death. This is good news.

The mild winter weather also means better exercising conditions. I loathe going to the gym and I don't care much for exercise for exercise's sake. But going for a bike ride is pure joy. So is walking to and from somewhere I have to go anyway. So...

Saturday we took the bus to Market East so I could buy a bus pass for February (possibly a mistake, given the mild weather we continue to have). We walked home, with a coffee stop -- about a mile and a half. Knees weren't happy, but they didn't mind a walk of similar length, with a stop, last night. And in fact something clicked and I was able to stride for a change, whee.

The other day I rediscovered something I seem to have to rediscover every so often because it was never my natural idiom -- raw vegetables make a lovely snack. Moreover, I discovered, belatedly, that one way to incorporate miserly raw vegetable prep into my daily life is to snap a few extra beans or snow peas, or slice a few extra carrots, celery sticks, etc., while preparing vegetables for use in cooking. Mr. southphl has settled into a pattern of eating a few Cheez-Its as a snack with our pre-dinner tea. Better I should eat carrot sticks.

Also also, I made a tasty stew out of about a pound of boneless beef round bought on sale. I fried it up in a little olive oil and butter, added a grapefruit-sized onion, coarsely chopped, and let them saute, then added

• a slurry of tomato paste, flour and water
  
• the last of some concentrated chicken broth from our last chicken
  
• about a pound of carrots, chunked
  
• three stalks of celery, sliced
  
• most of a green pepper, sliced (I saved some for snax)
  
• a pint container of black beans that I'd cooked a couple weeks ago and frozen
  
• two small potatoes, chunked
  
• chipotle powder, oregano, cumin, thyme, marjoram, Tabasco, possibly a couple other things that I've forgotten, plus sea salt (much cheaper at the Asian market) and pepper
  

All went into a removable crock pot liner and into a 300-degree oven for about an hour and a half, then into the crock pot set on low while we went out.

Served us as a hearty dinner last night and will also serve us as lunch.

Another Year, Another Fresh Start

Actually, it's just a resumption after a premeditated abandonment of my weight-loss program.

I did pretty well in 2011, dropping somewhere between 40 and 50 pounds on the Points Plus program. Trouble was, my sister was dying. The week she went on hospice, I had a talk with myself and decided life was stressful enough that I'd not worry about food intake until a couple months after she passed. Which she did in mid-November. Her funeral was the Saturday before Thanksgiving, and then it was the holidays.

I've started to ease back into my program. I'm not following it as scrupulously as I'd like, but I'm being pretty conscientious about tracking every handful of Cheez-Its I eat. I'm not that far off program now and I'm improving every week.

My resolution for 2012 was to consolidate the gains (weight loss and good habits) I made in 2011 and perhaps add some strength training to my walking/biking. I believe I'm on track.

And I'm still as miserly as ever.

Feburary 21: Doing okay on Points Plus

At least, I think I'm doing okay. I've been pretty good about following the program, have used only one bonus point since I went to Weight Watchers, and have picked up the pace of exercising.

What I haven't done is stepped on the scale. We don't own one and I don't feel like laying out the bucks that an accurate scale for a Woman of Substance would cost. Next Saturday I think I'll bike down to Weight Watchers, plunk down my fourteen bucks and weigh myself, though.

All that fruit on Points Plus makes for luxurious eating, though. I don't feel deprived at all and as I think about it I'm only adding maybe 4 points of "free" eating. Not a bad tradeoff for not feeling deprived.

Meanwhile, Mr. Southphl is within three pounds of his goal weight and has decided to go on premature maintenance, or at least to use up all his bonus points. He's still on the old Point system, doesn't feel like learning new tricks.

Tonight we will have leftovers: leftover roast chicken, leftover brown/wild rice blend. The vegetables won't be left over, though.

Another year another attempt

But this one is going well. Before the holidays, I made a New Year's resolution that I would journal my food intake. That's the extent of the resolution. I haven't committed to any long range eating plan or anything.

By the end of Week 2, I was counting Weight Watcher points. By the middle of Week 3, I was staying within my range, more or less (I had no idea what I weighed).

On January 22 I went back to Weight Watchers to scope out this new Points Plus system and was thrilled to find out my weight was a lot lower than I'd expected.

The no-points-for-fruit change is wonderful. The new point system is opaque to the user, leaving the practitioner dependent on the little book or a purchased calculator. However, some clever person has reverse-engineered it and created a formula, which I've put in an Excel spreadsheet so that I can calculate points for things not in the little book (like the monkfish I had for dinner last night).

Speaking of monkfish, here's the monkfish stew I made -- two gargantuan portions at eight points per portion.

13 oz raw monkfish, cut in chunks
1 28 oz can of crushed tomatoes
4 tsp olive oil
2 yellow squash
1 red bell pepper
1 green bell pepper
1/2 of a huge onion
Pepper, Tabasco, oregano, cloves to taste (there was salt added to the canned tomatoes)

Cut the vegetables in chunks
In a baking dish, toss vegetables in olive oil
Add canned tomatoes and seasonings
Bake at 350F until vegetables are cooked
Add monkfish, bake another 10 min
Serve in huge bowls

Mmmmm... plan to do it again

Reset: Day 1

I am not doing Weight Watchers this time. I am just trying mindful eating plus exercise. The first goal is to be fit enough to do a bit of walking in a month's time, when we go to the Blue Ridge for a long weekend.

To start building capacity, I've been biking between 10-15 miles a day on the level for the past few days. I hope to add some walking -- but not on pavement! -- next week.

I had a 3 egg omelet cooked in olive oil with a heap of Tabasco for breakfast.

Seems almost impossible to get back in the swing of things and I will be too heavy to be comfortable while leading early morning tours at the Flower Show. Again.

Mr. Southphl has done fairly well, and has adapted to being pretty scrupulous about keeping a food diary. I think I'm about the same weight I have been -- clothes fit about the same, at least, and I'm not busting out of anything I wasn't busting out of before.