January 2010: New Year's Resolution

I mentioned before that my New Year's Resolution for 2010 was to eat healthier foods and exercise more. I used my list to choose healthier foods at the grocery store. There were a few things I posted on Facebook that helped me with my recap:

I started out my new year on January 1st with a salad for dinner. This must not have been enough to fill me up because for dessert I ate 3 bowls of Cheerios (that would be PLAIN Cheerios with NO sugar added to them). Hey- it's better than eating junk food! On the 2nd I posted that I was sore from working out two days in a row. Gilad was killing me!! I had started working out with Gilad's Total Body Sculpt workout on FitTv back in October after my cholesterol test said my cholesterol was 334. My first couple of workouts I was actually SCREAMING while doing the abdominals. In November I was able to make a little less noise and was working out several times a week. So now that it was a new year I was going to try my hardest to workout every day.


Another gift I was given for Christmas was a workout DVD by Jilian Michaels. It was the 30 Day Shred workout. I decided to try it out on January 3rd. I did the level one workout and this workout kicked my butt. It kicked my butt so hard that I believe it was why I woke up in the middle of the night with a muscle cramp that was so painful that I fainted. I knew I was going to faint so I did not get out of bed but that was the first time I ever fainted while laying down (my fainting issues are a whole other story). I have not tried the workout since. I probably should give it another try now that I am in better shape and when I do I will let you know how it goes.

In January I usually go to a Creative Memories scrapbooking retreat. It always seems to fall on or around my birthday. I remember we went to McDonalds and I got a fish fillet but did not get any fries. It is hard to find healthy things to eat when you are staying in a hotel. There was a table full of snacks there and I only ate from the vegetable tray. I had never eaten RAW asparagus before and it was pretty tasty. I think I was pretty well behaved over the weekend. I brought a big bowl of broccoli slaw salad with me to eat for lunch and brought Cheerios for breakfast. I had stopped at the grocery store when I arrived to pick up some milk for the cereal and some flavored water to drink and I think I also picked up some Triscuits and nuts in case I needed a snack.

Here is the recipe for the broccoli slaw salad (I don't remember where I found this and I changed it a bit):

Basic Ramen Broccoli slaw

This is one of the most popular ramen noodle salad recipes in circulation. It's perfect for a potluck or picnic, because it contains no dairy products and will stay fresh.

Some of the recipes I've found use more oil. Overnight, the noodles will soak up the liquid, and to me, too much oil makes the salad...well, oily.

1/4 cup oil (some recipes call for up to 2/3 cup)
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup vinegar
1 seasoning packet from ramen noodles

1 pkg. broccoli slaw mix
1 cup sunflower seeds
2 pkg. chicken ramen noodles (broken up)

Mix oil, sugar and vinegar. In large bowl, mix together broccoli mix, almonds and broken ramen noodles. Add dressing and toss. Let stand for a few hours.

I was trying not to eat as many processed foods and I do remember eating a lot of home made potato soup in January. I also ate some low sodium soups. I like to eat soups when it is cold out.

Here is my Grandmother's recipe that I use when I make potato soup:
Potato Soup

5 potatoes- diced
1 medium onion- chopped

Boil in water for 10-15 minutes
Drain

Add:
1 quart of milk
dried parsley
2 eggs- mixed up
1/3 stick of butter or margarine
salt & pepper

Once the milk is heated up it is ready
Try not to boil the milk

I have no other notes from January and I can't think of anything else I was doing in January so next up will be what I can remember from February. 

Out with the old food, in with the new

I will start my recap back in December 2009 following the life changing visit to the doctor. I knew something needed to change and I had to be the one to change it. I could not continue to eat crap anymore. So I spent the rest of the month eating the food that remained in the cabinet. If it was not healthy I would not be buying it anymore.

What did I eat that was so bad? I did not eat a lot of fast food. I probably had fast food no more than once a month. Brian may have ordered pizza or made a frozen pizza about once a week for dinner. He also liked to make cheesesteaks and french fries about once a week. Sometimes he made ravioli. He makes a really good meatloaf but he buys the cheapest ground beef to make it so it is always very fatty. When he was not home and I had to cook for myself I usually ended up eating a package of Knorr pasta or rice side dishes. I do know how to cook but I am not a big meat eater so most of the dishes I cooked did not contain meat. I guess Brian does not get filled up unless he has meat so I let him do the cooking. A lot of the things he cooked had a side of french fries. He loves his fries.

Cookies...Brian would buy cookies, donuts, swiss rolls & other snacks "for the kids" and since they were in the house and I liked them I could not help myself. Sometimes I would sit there and eat 10 or more Oreo or Chips Ahoy cookies with a glass or two of milk while I sat at the computer playing games on Facebook. Those cookies were very addicting. I think a lot of my problem was portion size. If I had eaten one serving of cookies instead of 5 servings I might not have been as bad off as I was. After Halloween I probably ate 5 or more Reece's Peanut Butter cups a day until they were gone and I am thinking the kids got at least 30 of them. Looking back now I can see I was eating way too much sugar and processed foods.

I was given a wonderful Christmas gift. It was a book called Eat This, Not That! and it was very helpful in getting me started on the right track. If you have not read this book I think you should. It is filled with helpful information on how to make better food choices.

I used this book to create my first "healthy food" shopping list. I had to stock up on REAL foods such as fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean meats, fish, nuts, and other foods that didn't contain a list of ingredients that were very hard to pronounce. This was all new to me so I figured I would take baby steps and using my book I made this list of "better choice" foods:

flavored greek-style yogurt (I don't like plain) Chobani

blueberries

sunflower seeds

almonds

regular Cheerios

Post Shredded Wheat Spoon Size Original

Thomas' Multi-Grain light English Muffins

Triscuit Thin Crisps Original

Triscuit Original- hint of salt

Nabisco Wheat Thins Fiber Selects Garden Vegetable

Reduced Fat Nilla Wafers

Orville Redenbacher butter popcorn

Wishbone Bountifuls dressing Tuscan Romano Basil

Stouffer's French Bread Pizza

Kashi Five Cheese Tomato Pizza

Budget Gourmet Mac & Cheese w/cheddar & romano

Budget Gourmet Ziti Parmesano

Ronzoni Smart taste thin spaghetti or Healthy Harvest

Classico Tomato & Basil

Amy's Low Sodium Organic Marinara

Campbell's Healthy Request chicken rice

Dr McDougall's Vegan Tortilla with baked chips (soup)

Kraft singles 2% milk american

Sargento light string cheese

Sargento classic mozzerella

Laughing Cow light

Kraft Mayo with olive oil

Martin's whole wheat potato bread

Mission white corn tortillas

La Tortlla factory smart & delicious low carb whole wheat wraps

Gortons Grilled Fillets Garlic Butter or any flavor

Bird's Eye Viola! (complete frozen meals)

Ore-Ida Potatoes O'Brien

Fudgesicle no sugar added fudge bar

Low sodium V8

Smart Balance

Hint of salt or low sodium saltines

potatoes

eggs

skim milk

carrots

Now I did not buy everything on this list. This was just a list to use as a guide to help me learn to shop better. I am sure that upon closer examination of the food labels today I would choose not to eat some of these foods. Remember that this is a new learning experience for me and I was just getting started.

About me...

Once upon a time a little girl was born. She weighed 7 pounds 5 ounces and was 19 and one half inches long. She was always a thin child and had to wear "slim" sizes. As a teenager in the 1980's she found it difficult to find pants that did not leave her looking like a clown since they all seemed to be so baggy. She grew up and became a 5' 4" adult and was still nice and thin. The girl I am talking about is me in case you have not figured it out yet (and I am sure you have).

I can't post any pictures from 2nd grade to 9th grade due to being stuck with some pretty horrible teeth that required many years of braces to fix. Hey I know I looked pretty scary and I would have made fun of me too but that does not make it right! So here is a skinny shot from senior week:

So as you can see I started out nice and slim. I could always eat whatever I wanted and as much as I wanted and not ever gain a pound. We all know sooner or later this is something you "outgrow".

As the years went by I gained a pound here and a pound there. According to a notebook I found from 1995 it looks like I was about 125 pounds. I must have made a New Years resolution to lose some weight. Perhaps I thought 125 was a little too much for me to weigh. It looks like I stopped tracking my weight that year on Feb 4th where the last entry made was 119 pounds fully dressed. Another entry marked "1997 diet" shows my weight at 120 pounds on Feb. 21st and down to 118 pounds on March 27th. Nothing is noted in the book after that. It looks like I was trying to stay below 120 pounds. If I recall correctly both times I used Slim Fast and counting calories to lose the weight. I remember being hungry while using Slim Fast.

I went on another diet in 2003 around the time I filed for divorce. By the time the divorce was final I had lost over 200 pounds!!! Now that's success. Ok- I will be serious now. I went back on the Slim Fast again. On April 5th I weighed 127 pounds. By June 1st I was down to 121 pounds. It looks like I decided to weigh myself again on December 29th and I was back up to 125 pounds. So I lost 6 pounds but gained back 4 pounds six months later. I will not call that one a success.

In early December 2005 a guy we will call Brian (because that is his name) introduced himself to me on myspace and we started dating. He likes to cook but for some reason only cooks food that is BAD for you. Well I married him on May 5, 2007. I continued to eat his cooking while he admired my butt as it got larger and he seemed to like it that way. So I kept buying larger pants and eating his food. I would go to the doctor and they would have me step on the scale. The scale would say I weighed 130 something and I would tell myself it was ok as long as it did not go over 135. When the scale went over 135 it was okay as long as it stayed below 140. Then when the scale started going over 140 I would convince myself it was ok as long as it was below 145. Then came the big day- December 14, 2009. I went to the doctor and got on the scale. It said I weighed 145 and a HALF. I panicked. That was way too close to 150 and I was NOT going to ever weigh over 150. Nope- that was NOT going to happen!

I had started exercising semi- regularly a couple of months earlier because my cholesterol was too high again (that is a whole other story) but had been slacking a couple of weeks before this appointment. I had on my DVR several episodes of Total Body Sculpt with Gilad and I had been doing those workouts. I went on a cruise with my Mom in October 2009 and you can tell I had gained weight as seen in these pictures:

OMG! My butt is HUGE in this picture.

So I probably should have started this blog thingy at the beginning of 2010. My 2010 New Years resolution was to eat healthy foods and exercise more. I know that is not very specific but I had started listening to several Health & Fitness podcasts while I was at work and I was getting a lot of ideas about changing the way I eat. The first part of the plan was to stop eating high fructose corn syrup.

So my plan for this blog thingy is to first recap my transformation from the beginning of the year. Once I have caught up to date I will continue to track my progress in hopes that by making this public I will stick to my lifestyle change permanently.