Wednesday, November 30, 2011

It's Wednesday...

So as I inferred in yesterday's post, I knew today was going to be bad.  However what I didn't expect was that it wasn't as bad as it ended up being.

I mean that to say, is that what I ended up gaining was only 2 pounds!

YaY!  I'm happy with that.  You may be a bit confused by that but I'll elaborate.  Given that I didn't count my WWPP points on Thanksgiving, nor on our actual "Thanksgiving" (the day we actually celebrated) then over the course of the next few days we grazed on left overs, I wasn't counting points at all....for like *ahem* 4 days to be exact.......*blushes at the realization*.

Well, it does pay to count those puppies I can tell you, lol.  While I never gorged....well......except for the one day when family all got together.  I think we all did that day though. I think had we not brought home any left overs, I would've done much better.  But that's okay.  When this all started, I knew from previous attempts at weight loss and interactions with other people and their attempts at weight loss, I was going to give myself some off time from the plan.  But once that off time was done, I had to get right back on and forgive any gains and move forward.  This time around, truly, knowing that I might possibly gain, I'm good with it, that it was only 2 pounds, I feel like there truly isn't anything to forgive.  It'll be off quicker than you know it and, as Jackie Gleason used to say......"And away we go!"

Thinking on those off times, I only have one more off time (the other 2 being my birthday, this last one being Thanksgiving and the upcoming one being Christmas) which I think is a reasonable thing to do.  I say that because of my mother-in-law.  She was doing this one plan, I struggle to remember it now, I remember it was through her church and she met with quite a bit of success and kept it off for a very long time.  The only problem in it was that she drove her family crazy, in that she would say she couldn't eat this or that or another thing because it wasn't on her diet.  Which is fine, but because she did the cooking, the rest of the family didn't get to eat either.  I seem to recall, my youngest brother-in-law doing a lot of McDonald's runs, lol.  Thankfully he's none the worse for the wear, he's like his older brother The Wonder One in that he's an athlete so the fast food didn't hurt him.  The Wonder One was working his first job at the time in a restaurant so he was able to eat at work, so no hardships there either.  However the problem came during the holidays because it was particularly tough because she would then become defensive and well, you could probably see where it went from there if you use your imagination.  I don't begrudge the woman her successes at all, the only thing I would recommend was that she would have allowed for a day or two of off time for special occasions so that she can have some built in forgiveness if it were to be that she "slipped up" as it happens that we all will do.  Otherwise you end up dealing with the guilt that comes with overeating and the vicious circle afterwards of self hatred and then you end up spiraling out of control.  We are after all only human.  When we have our weaknesses be they what they may (mine vary, but usually they are sweets) and you indulge them, you have to forgive them and move forward.  Otherwise you end up undoing all the hard work you've put in.  All too often people try to put off that they can ignore their baser instincts and not do whatever it is that is within them to do. However, in the end, they break down and do it anyway saying "Well, only this one time..." Trust me, I know, I've done it so many times.  That's why when I started this time around I thought long and hard about it and realized that I needed to have these times built in for myself so that I could indulge.  It's the getting back in the groove that's the hard part.  But I have The Wonder One to kick me in the pants and he's good for doing it and keeping me on track.  I firmly believe that knowing that I will be getting back on track, while not counting points but still knowing there is a deadline to my indulgence helped keep me from going overboard, but yet still having a good time..........I just realized, I'm going to have to allow for a fourth off time.  lol I forgot about my anniversary as we started the plan after our anniversary but before our birthdays and the holidays! lol Oh my.  But it's all good.  So long as I plan ahead and mentally prepare myself.  I'll be okay.

So..........until Christmas..........I'm back in the groove.

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

The dreaded upcoming weigh in...

So, last Thursday was Thanksgiving here in the United States, as is the custom here in the states, most people will find that they go off their diets and do "it" big or go home.

While The Barnacle and The Wonder One and I went out to eat on Thanksgiving because it was just the three of us (my family is scattered and his family was eating on Friday) we figured we'd go to an "All-You-Can-Eat-Buffet"....the only one to put that to the test was The Barnacle.  I'm truly kicking myself for it now for not taking pics of her plate because I know you as my loyal cheering section probably won't believe me when I say her plate was loaded doooowwwwnnnnn with the thickness of food!  Seriously.  On her plate was more food than what The Wonder One and I had COMBINED!!!  Then when it came time for dessert....I was embarrassed for her.  Not to mention disgusted.  You would think that she was never let out of the house and was never fed, but then you would have to know better just because of the sheer size of her.  (She weighs as much as I do ~ if not more, but where I'm 5'6"...she's 4'11"...so she's a BIG momma!)

The Wonder One and I knowing that we were getting together with family the following day, held our appetite in check and behaved ourselves (for the most part) until it came time to go to the "Chocolate Wonderfall" (yes we went to the Golden Corral, while not a bad place, on a holiday, I was doing a lot of channeling of Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory "What fresh hell have we gotten ourselves into".....All I can say is listen people, only you think your kids' squealing and dancing is cute, to those of us with bleeding eardrums and only slightly fractured shins, we do not. /end rant.)  Back at the Chocolate Wonderfall.....it was soooo nice to have fresh pineapple smothered in chocolate.  Ditto for the Rice Krispy treats and the strawberries and the macaroons.  I mostly had pineapple though.  I didn't have a lot of food, I wasn't all that hungry, a piece of chicken and a piece of meatloaf with some sweet potatoes and green bean stuff not a lot.

Great thing is that I discovered that I can't eat like I used to.  YaY!  I just can't load up my plate, it really just makes me queasy.  Not only that, the after effects are a gastrointestinal NIGHTMARE.  I was in the loo literally all night long.  I didn't get two hours strung together of sleep.  It was so not pretty.  Thankfully it stopped long enough for me to get the turkey in the oven which from what I'm told ended up being very good.  Where The Wonder One and I did our damage is when the family and all of us got together.  We were a glutton.  We ate like pigs.  Full on.  For two days. 

I am soooooo not looking forward to tomorrow.

The only thing I can hope for is that my gastrointestinal nightmare balances out all the Thanksgiving grazing that we did......


I hope!

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Thursday Review...(yeah, I know it's Tuesday...)

However Cheerleaders, there is a means to my madness.

This is a long post but I think you might find it worth the read, just a heads up.

As you know when time permits I have a schedule that I try to stick to.  Things have been a bit wonky these past few weeks, however they should be settling down somewhat.  Except...

*Cue ominous sounding music*

The holidays...

Yes I said it.  Turkey day is coming up.  Which got me to thinking.  The holidays will be over and people will be wanting to lose what they've gained over them.   I've mentioned that I do Weight Watchers (Points Plus), but I've never done a review on it.  Yet I've never done a review on any of the diets that I've done.  Nor have I given my personal perspective of how it came to be that I decided to use WWPP and what other plans I looked at.  So let me start at the beginning.

Using a BMI calculator from the CDC (Center for Disease Control) I calculated my BMI and found that I was morbidly obese because my BMI was over 40. (To be exact it was 46.2, rather scary and alarming looking back on it now)  With a BMI of 46.2 I was morbidly obese and could have probably qualified for bariatric surgery.  I know of several people who've had it done.  I'm hoping I can get one of them to be a guest writer one day to write of her experience, but until I get the chance to approach her and we talk about it, that post will be for another time.  Mooooving on....

I did my research with regard to bariatric surgery and lap band surgery.  The thing that disturbed me the most in all of it was that two of the people that I know had some major complications and very nearly died.  As well, I was unable to find any long term studies to show long term results.  There were no findings to show that after 5 to 10 years those who've had surgical intervention kept off the weight they had lost.  To me, that was not an option.  I knew that once I'd worked so hard to get this weight off, I wanted it to stay off!  Don't think that just because you've had surgical intervention that it's not work neither!  Just ask anyone who's had it done, they can tell you.  It's still a battle.  I felt this wasn't a fit for me as I didn't have any life threatening medical conditions that required me to lose weight quickly (which most, not all lose weight quickly in the beginning then it slows down) and I felt that it was a permanent solution (cutting into my body) for a temporary problem (the excess weight which will be lost once I put forth the effort) because I know, I'll get this weight off, come hell or high water.  I know that for those that have had it done, they made the decision and did their own research very carefully and for them it was the right choice.  I applaud them for doing it, I support them in that endeavor.  I just couldn't personally make that decision for myself.  I know as well, for all of us, this journey we're on, this fight that we fight daily with our bodies to get it to do what we want, is a constant challenge.  There is no easy way and I'll fight with anyone who says that using a surgical intervention is the easy way out.

In the past I'd done WW, with little a little bit of success.  The last time was with the Points plan but in that incarnation, I felt it was a miserable plan and had no luck at all because even though I followed the plan to the letter, I didn't lose any weight.  I think I actually gained a pound or two.  Talk about frustrating!  So I was quickly a WW dropout (again).  Also it seemed to be that any time I'd been on WW I'd go to the meetings then I'd miss a week then the following week I'd have to pay for the week I'd missed, etc.  In that form of the plan, it really didn't suit me.

I'd also done the high-fiber cookie diet.  It's this super dense super high fiber cookie (the damn thing has 40% more fiber than rope!) that you eat before each meal with 8oz of water.  It blows up in your stomach, makes you feel queasy, then you run to the bathroom to blow out your butt.  While I had the cleanest colon on the west side of Columbus, I knew that this was not a long term solution as I hadn't learned to eat right and exercise, two things I had unlearned in order to gain all the weight.

I've done The South Beach Diet.  It's sort of like Atkins in that you have a "phase" where you limit your carb intake. Which if memory serves me correctly is 2 weeks.  Speaking of memory....seriously....anytime you have to seriously cut back your carbs like you do in any of these sorts of diets, it's a bad bad thing.  You NEED carbs for vital mental functioning.  If you don't have a balance between carbs and proteins your brain won't have anything to feed on and it gets all sorts of ugly.  I'm just saying.  You can only do it for so long.  If you've done an extreme low carb diet and you've felt that woozy light headed giddy feeling that's why.  It's your body's way of saying "Danger Will Robinson, Danger Will Robinson"  Then after that 2 week first phase you go into another phase (the length eludes me) and you stay on that for however long and the reigns loosen up somewhat however, not by much.  I say that because South Beach says that there are certain foods that you CANNOT eat!  I'm sorry, say what?  Say that again?  I cannot eat certain foods?  Wait a second, hold up, I cannot eat certain foods because why?  I mean it's one thing if I'm allergic to certain foods and I can't.  **Side note:  It was because of the South Beach Diet that I found out that I'm deathly allergic to shellfish so I guess that's a good thing.**  But to flat out tell me I can't eat something like.......pineapple.  Which by the way is one of my favorite fruits........that sent up warning signals.  While Queenie, who had done South Beach with her hubby (The Wonder One's brother) and met with great and amazing success had explained that it was due to the high sugar (i.e., carb) content, that is why it was forbidden.  I'll let Queenie comment on her end results and how she's done since being on the program in the comments section.

So then moving on to using some common sense and not really following a diet plan at all.  I did that for a few months as well, lost about 30 pounds.  Then over the course of time put it back on.  So I was back where I started plus 3 pounds at the end of April, beginning of May when The BFF mentioned going on WWPP because they had the new Points Plus, check it out for a week for free, what could it hurt?  So I decided to do it online and have The Wonder One and The Barnacle do it with me because we all needed to lose the excess weight that had been slowing us down and let's face it, misery loves company.

I have to say, since being back to WWPP, it's the longest I've stuck to a plan and I don't view it as a diet but a game plan to meet a goal.  It's livable, and workable.  When need be I take my scale with me (to family dinners to weigh out meats) and I make sure for those sorts of events there are plenty of things that I can eat that fit into my eating plan.  With The Wonder One having done the plan with me and lost his 57 pounds he understands what all this means because he's lived it.  I allow myself days off and plan for it because I know they're coming (such as Thanksgiving) and work them into my eating strategy.  When I know that I may over indulge I also try to work on a bit more cardio because that gains me a few more points for the week that I can use.  It's very flexible which I think is the key here.

Any extremes in any one direction or another in my opinion is a very bad thing.  When a diet plan tells you that all you have to eat is pounds upon pounds of bacon to lose weight, ask yourself......can my arteries take that kind of abuse?  Then when another plan tells you to give up something like fruit, something that's supposed to be good for you (yes, I know it's got a high sugar content) guess what ends up happening when you can't have it at all?  You are a glutton for it.  Since being on WWPP, I've had pineapple MAYBE a half dozen times, but it's been fresh, not from the can.  I can take a certain amount of pleasure in that.

I don't want to feel guilt for eating something I enjoy.

Do you?


I honestly can't recommend WWPP enough, if it's something that can work for you.  If  you enjoy grazing, it probably won't work for you if you don't like grazing on fruits and vegetables.  The BFF hates fruits & vegetables so WWPP ended up not working out for her.  Pity because if she'd tried working on that disdain for the fruits & veggies I think she would've had a better time of it.

Monday, November 21, 2011

Funny Monday


How big do I need to get my friends to be in order to look like a size 4?

Monday, November 14, 2011

Funny Monday

Yeah, I would have to agree, this is pretty spot on!



**Image is not owned by me, but by typelikeagirl.tumblr.com

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Thursday Review...

So the last time The Wonder One and I did our pantry stock-up shopping I found this in the ethnic food aisle at our local Giant Eagle.  Given that I'd given much yapping to possibly getting my mojo back in several posts because I was losing weight again which you can see here and here, when I saw this product staring back at me from the store shelf, I had to do two things right away. 

One was to laugh.  Not just a dainty "oh isn't that sweet" laugh, but one of those "Oh, holy hell, that's some funny shit!" belly laugh cackles.  Now anyone who knows me can tell you, when I get a good laugh on, they can tell I'm not faking my laugh. 

The second thing I had to do was to snap a picture of the bottle. 

(I couldn't get my personal image to upload, this is the company's image, this image does not belong to me)

As well I couldn't get any of my other images to load for some reason so I have to rely on Badia's information for the rest of this review.  

Ingredients  

Onion, garlic, Cumin, Oregano, salt, Black pepper, Orange and Lemon Juice


(Oy! I hate when Blogger is not being cooperative)

As well the nutritional information is pretty much good except for the sodium which is 135mg/Tbsp everything else is 0, 0 Calories, 0 Fat, 0 Carbs, 0 Cholesterol.

So all the boring but necessary stuff is out of the way.  I'm sure your wondering about the IMPORTANT stuff.

How's it taste?

I used it to marinade pork chops because I'm not much of a pork eater, I only buy it when it's on sale to stretch out our budget and menu and I like to marinade it to give it flavor because I find usually pork is on the dry side.  This stuff is amazing!  It's tasty and flavorful!  It's got some zip and tang to it.  With the orange and lime juice in it, it helps to tenderize the meat nicely while the garlic and onion (which I believe is actually scallions) give it some really nice flavor.

What turned out to be a fun purchase based on the name, ended up being a treasure find.  I will def be repurchasing it again to use on other meats such as chicken and beef and can't wait to see how they turn out too!

If you try this yourself, please let me know what you used it on and how it worked for you, I'm always on the look out for new recipes!

Hugs n' toodles cheerleaders!

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

It's Wednesday...

So I'll just cut to the chase this week.

I'm not a big fat loser.  Well I am, but only because I didn't lose (insert pouty face here) this week.  I put a little bit back on.  What is a little bit you may be wondering?  Three pounds to be exact.  To some three pounds is a lot, but when you consider what all I have to lose and have lost, it's a little bit, lol.  Am I upset?  Not really.  Am I worried?  Nope.

"But Chubbybutt, you've been working so hard and have been doing so well, I'd be freaking out if I were you!" ahhh I understand my faithful cheerleader just what it is you are saying, however, I'm not worrying because, well, it is "that" time of the month.  I figure come next week, it'll all balance itself out.

If not, THEN I'll be freaking out!

So, until the next weigh in, keep an eye out for a yummy new review coming and a few other surprises I have up my sleeve for you.

Till then, hugs n' toodles, cheerleaders xoxox

Thursday, November 3, 2011

It's Wednesday...(yeah I know it's Thursday...)

This past week saw a lot of celebrating over the new part-time job that I was offered.  And yes, I accepted.  I thought I was going to be offered this one full-time job, but, as it turned out, I've not heard from them.  Weird.  They'd been looking for help, apparently no one had applied (except me) and yet, I didn't get an offer.  It was a customer service job and while my customer service experience is limited somewhat, I really do believe that nursing is the ultimate customer service job.  Maybe that's just me...

Anyway, that's the nutshell version of what's been going on in chubbybuttland. 


Onto what you're here for...

The weigh-in...

So there was some celebrating like I said, and as with any celebrating, food was involved.  Probably more than there should've been, but at least I was still a big fat loser!  At this weeks weigh in I lost 1.5 pounds!  I'm sure I would've lost more had I not done so much celebrating like I mentioned, lol.  So that takes my grand total to 39 off and my current weight to 247!  Here on in these are all going to be numbers I haven't seen in decades! 

Wow, what a new experience!

I feel positively glowing!