BLOG ON HIATUS FOR NOVEMBER

I know we've been absent a lot lately but with moving, working and trying to keep my head above water as the economy plummets, I've been a little busy. And now I'm writing to let you know that Noelle and I will be absent for the month of November.

November is National Novel Writing Month.

We've decided to accept the challenge of NaNoWriMo of writing 50,000 words or a full novel during the month of November.

In order to achieve my goal I will be cutting back on all other writing as much as possible. I've set myself a 1000 word goal for each week day with a larger goal for the weekends, 5000 words each day for three weekends. I'm taking the other weekend off writing in order to move.

I'm not sure what Noelle's specific plan is but I'm sure she'll be working just as hard to win NaNo this year. She won last year and would love to repeat her success.

In order to make the goal, we will put this blog on hold. But don't worry.

We should be back December 1st.

Feed a fever, starve a cold? Or is it the other way around?

Sorry for the delay in writing but I've been down with a killer cold that had me using every spare moment to catch as much sleep as possible. In between naps I managed to go to work but that was about it. So all this rest may have helped me feel better but it did nothing for my weight loss plans.

Instead I put on 2 or 3 pounds. I'm not sure how considering I ate very little because I couldn't taste anything and it seems wasteful to eat when your taste buds are on vacation. Plus with congestion and crap floating through my system the last thing I wanted to do was add anything more into the mix.

So back to the point of this entry. Is it feed a fever, starve a cold? Apparently it IS the other way around. When I did a search I found more references to feeding a cold. But really I must repeat my earlier assertion, who wants to eat with snot running down the back of their throat and their taste buds on hiatus?? Sorry about the graphic reference but I felt like CRAP last week. I'm only now feeling a little better. But I'm hoping for back to 100% by Wednesday. By then I plan to get back to packing my apartment (I move in 3 weeks) and getting back into an exercise routine.

I did manage to walk at lunch today for 2 miles without sweat dripping down my face and feeling like passing out. But I'm thinking once I have my energy back I'll be adding the strength training back to my regimen. It always makes me feel better but I still can't seem to stick with it.

We'll see how well I do. One another note, I won an award at work and from the list of prizes I chose a Trek Mountain Bike. Hopefully this expensive bike will inspire me to get out an ride. Winter's coming I know so maybe this wasn't the best plan but still if I spend the winter working with weights I'll be raring to hit the trails on the bike come spring. I HOPE!!

So I failed to feed my cold and still I survived? The only thing I lost was my motivation and yeah I took a couple steps back in my weight loss plan. So for this week a cold stopped my weight loss.

How about you?

What's stopping you this week?

Caught in the candy trap

I know I said I wouldn't get sucked in to the endless candy that seems to flow from every nook and cranny leading up to Halloween but again I have failed. For the past two days I have consumed at least 500 calories in empty, mindless sugar consumption.

A coworker placed a container full of some of my candy favorites - Lemonheads and red hots - within easy reach of my desk. Within three steps there is also a tub full of Twizzlers. I'm a big fan of the sweet that comes with the sour and I cannot help myself from mindlessly popping these tiny candies into my mouth while I work. I created a Power Point presentation while eating 2 90 calorie boxes. Then I checked my email during another box. I cannot put the candy down.

I have bought no candy myself. My cupboards are empty and there are no bowls or containers available on my desk or at home to put candy in. YET, I'm still consuming candy at an alarming rate. Those tiny boxes of Lemonheads have 90 calories in them, 90!!

At the rate I'm going I could be consuming my daily calorie allowance in sugar by Halloween.

I just don't know how to stop myself.

Being the Fat Girl

I haven't been in the mood to write much lately because I've been busy with other things. Plus I'm down about 3 pounds - the stage where my size 16s look baggy on my butt but size 14s are still a little too tight. There hasn't been much else to say.

I was a little bored earlier so I was wandering around in blogland and hit on some blogs that were a bit distressing. I know that we are a weight obsessed culture and for those who feel fat, the feelings of distance and ostracism can be overwhelming. I guess I've just never had it in my face as much before.

I stumbled across the following blogs:
http://101reasonsihatebeingfat.blogspot.com/
On number 97 of things this blogger hates about being fat. If you are looking for things to add to your list, there may be a few you haven't thought of.

http://angryfatgirlz.blogspot.com/
This blog covers more than just ranting about weight. There are some good life tips here.

http://www.pastaqueen.com/halfofme/index.html
If you're looking for positive and reasonable inspiration, start here. This blogger tracked her weight loss over 3 years for a total of 178 pounds and now works at tracking how she keeps it off.

http://www.dietgirl.org/dietgirl/
Check out another woman who has lost half her weight. This blog tracks weight loss that started in 2001 and is great for the maintenance stage.

http://www.myallnaturalweightloss.com/
A weight loss journey with a dieter willing to experiment with almost any diet out there.


Some of these are great blogs full of awesome inspiration while others rant. There are a few moments of negativity and laughs but these are well worth the visit.

Free food fandango

Why, as adults, can we still be bribed with food?

Our insurance agent came by today to check in, see how we are doing, answer any questions, just basically remind us that his company loves ours. He brought muffins. And not some skinny little muffins like your mom used to make in the 12-cup muffin tins, but huge, gooey, multi-thousand calorie muffins that are really small cakes. People were lining up in the breakroom to get some. Luckily, the things were so damn big we had to cut them in half, so there was plenty for everyone.

Why are we like that? None of us are starving. All of us could afford to go buy a similar treat for ourselves (or something healthier or more appropriate), but we all go crazy for free food brought in by a vendor. And we think well of them for bringing us this stuff that is really not good for any of us. Granted, we also like it when they bring us calendars and pens and other desk accessories, but nothing turns us into cavemen like food.

This is something I've had to make a deliberate effort to stay away from, so I think I'm a little resentful, too. I have an eating plan and big muffins aren't on it. I have to be one of those people who declines the original offer PLUS has to stiff-arm all the office people who want to encourage me to partake in the bounty. There is no polite way to say, "No, thanks, I'd rather those calories were on your thighs, not mine."

The winter holidays are coming and this free food phenomenon is only going to get worse. How do you cope? Do you just give in or try to fight the food frenzy?

Comfort Food

I'm half way into what I feel will be a killer cold. I have the itchy ears, throat and congestion. The fever seems like it's creeping up and will probably knock me on me tail this weekend while I'm in the middle of a serious enterprise at work. However, there's nothing I can do but pop some pills and suffer through. I can't take off work because there's just too much to do during the next week.

Anyway, the most prominent side effect of having a cold is that I cannot taste anything. Why this makes me want to snack I cannot tell you. I'm not hungry and have no appetite yet I feel some compulsion to eat something every now and then. So today what did I grab for comfort food?

Was it soup?
Maybe some hot chocolate?
How about something hearty and nutritious?

NAH, I reached for cheese and crackers with a side of apple.

I can't tell you why but I do believe this is my favorite food. As a snack it is perfect. It makes a damn good dinner too (although since it was lunch, I made do with a mini bag of popcorn for dinner). I found that standing long enough for the popcorn to pop in the microwave made me tired and ready for a nap. I decided to write this quick update then I'm off to bed.

Before I sleep I suggest you might want to consider the following:
What is your comfort food?
Is it crazy?
Healthy?
Sugar?
Salt?

And the most revealing question (if you ever find an answer) WHY is that your comfort food?

Are you hungry??

Hunger is a fascinating word that has over the years achieved a variety of definitions. Consider some of the following from Encarta Dictionary for the word hunger:

• the need or desire for food
• a lack of food leading to sickness or death
• a great need or desire for something

In deciding that you are hungry, what are you really saying? Is your hunger a biological need for food for fuel, for energy, to exist? Or is your desire caused by some other trigger? Are you an emotional eater? A stress eater? A bored eater? Or do you eat just because it is lunch time?

Determining the source and reason for your hunger will help you find your starting point, maybe even one reason behind your initial weight gain.

I've been thinking about this a lot since reading Rethinking Thin and writing this blog the last few months. What I've discovered is that I am rarely if ever hungry. I eat because it's time or because I have a headache. Sometimes I eat if I am bored. For my situation hunger or even the desire for food are not my primary motivators for eating.

Realizing this I have no idea why I can't lose the weight. I've just begun the journey of determining my root causes and motivations. But for now, at least I know that hunger is not my reason for eating.

"Rethinking Thin" or Should we just Give Up

This weekend I read Rethinking Thin by Gina Kolata on the recommendation from Noelle. My partner in crime has been a bit slammed lately which is why I've taken primary blogger duty of late.

Regardless, she mentioned this book so I checked it out from the library and took a look. As a side note, I have decided that I will not EVER buy another book about diet, weight loss or getting healthy. I have dedicated one shelf of one of my larger bookcases to these type of books and I'm disgusted with myself over how much money I've spent on books that did nothing for me (or my health). So NO MORE. I will borrow from the library and hopefully one day, I will just stop reading these things.

But for now, I did spend a few hours this weekend reading this book written by the New York Times Science Writer, Gina Kolata. To Kolata's credit (or detriment, I haven't yet decided), this book reads like a science book. If you are not at all interested in the history of the science investigating obesity, then leave this book on the shelf (or just read the short sections at the end of each chapter that talk about the research test group studied for this project).

I admit I'm not a huge fan of the science jargon so I skimmed some of the chapters. I wasn't too interested in the discovery of leptin deficiency in rats (or mice) so I read enough to get the gist.

I finished this book with 2 problems:

1. It seems like there is no hope for most people wanting to lose weight; AND

2. This book doesn't apply to me

So I guess personally I wasn't disheartened by this book but for others, I felt irritated. The book reads as though there is a genetic component that forces people to maintain a high weight because the genes make them eat more (some are insatiable), it adjusts so that they constantly need fewer calories to maintain their weight.

The reason I say this book doesn't apply to me is because I am not a big eater, I don't have any drive to consume massive amounts of food in the evening and I'm not so obese I cannot move. In relation to the participants in the book, my heavy weight isn't high enough to qualify. So I'm not the audience she is speaking to. Still, it seems distressing to think that for some people, weight is completely out of their control which in turn means that their health and life are out of their control as well. For some, reading this book is the answer to a prayer. It is a reason to just give up and never try to be thinner. It is the ultimate demotivator.

The 20 Minute Walk Fantasy

We've all heard it from any number of sources, all you need to do is walk 20 minutes a day and you can increase your health and decrease your weight.

If this was true I would weigh 100 pounds. The thing is that 20 minutes of walking even at a pace where your having a hard time breathing is NOT ENOUGH. I walk a half hour at lunch almost every day. I struggle with it, EVERY TIME. My cardio does not get better, my heart and lungs don't feel better and I certainly do not lose weight.

So why does every program you see, almost every diet and exercise plan tells us that we just need to move a little, to have those 20 minutes a day or get those 2 miles a day and you will be healthy and thin?

For those who do ZERO activity, I guess 20 minutes a day is better than nothing from the viewpoint of the weight loss experts. Maybe the idea is that something is better than nothing.

These of course are the same people who promise if you would just drink your 64 ounces of water ice cold instead of lukewarm, you will notice a difference in how it speeds up your metabolism.

This crap just doesn't work. Plain and simple.
I don't know what the solution is yet but I do know that it takes more than 20 minutes a day.

I’m not ignorant; I also know the bad side

If you read yesterday’s post and thought I had lost my mind, all that positive when our economy is falling apart and people are losing their jobs and savings all around us. I am not insensitive or crazy. I’m just trying to find a way to get by, just like you are.

The economy sucks and I’m afraid to even look at my 401k again this month. Still I have to be positive or I will want to give up. What’s the point of working 2 jobs and trying to write in my spare time if the world is falling apart?!

For you Negative Nellies I will acknowledge the following health negatives that the economy may cause:
1. Job loss = income loss = inability to buy food and basic necessities
2. Job loss = benefits loss = no health care
3. Stress is bad for our physical and mental health

AND THE EXTREMES
4. Hunger and starvation
5. Increased rates of suicide
6. Increases rates of violent crimes
7. Rise in infant and child mortality rates
8. ETC.

Still, the US isn’t a third world country as of yet and hopefully no matter how far we fall, we won’t let people starve in the streets. I try to be positive that even if our leaders cannot prevent this, we as a people, will band together and those who can help others, will do so. Call me sentimental or foolish but I want to stay positive.

Good news about the economy

I was reading the NY Times online this morning and came across an article that may perk up your mood (or depress the hell out of you).

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/07/health/07well.html?_r=1&8dpc&oref=slogin

The article Are Bad Times Healthy? discusses a few ways that economic hard times can be good for our health. For dieters there are some obvious advantages.

1. Less eating out
2. More cooking at home from scratch
3. Walking and biking more to save on fuel expenses
4. More time at home with the kids
5. Less cable TV watching (I added this one on my own)

Look at your own life. Has the economy changed how you eat or exercise? Can you make changes to save money and improve your health?

I took two steps this year to save money that are helping improve my health

1. I planted two tomato plants in the spring that have yielded one or two ripe tomatoes per week on average. I save money and eat fresh produce with the added bonus that the tomatoes grown on my patio have tons more taste than the ones I buy in the grocery store.
2. I gave up the cable TV. I did this a few months ago for 2 central reasons – my cable bill was costing $150 per month which I could no longer afford and I realized I was getting home from work and planting myself in front of the TV to watch reruns of The OC and General Hospital and losing an average of 4 hours per day. I’d like to say that I use this time to exercise but it would be a lie. I haven’t gotten that far yet. I do use the time to work my second job and I’m more productive without the TV on so that I finish before 10p each night and therefore am able to get my 7 to 8 hours of sleep each night.

What small step will the economy force you to do that also benefits your health?

Back in Gear, sort of

I'm back in the diet mood again. More I'm working on a healthy diet option with one caveat - I'm not giving up the soda. Maybe it's counterproductive but there is too much stress in my life right now to give up the crutch that is caffeine and sugar.

I have however set a different goal. I intend to consume no more than 1300 calories per day (this includes the soda). I'm not sure if this means I will be cutting too many vitamins and minerals but I've decided to try getting healthy my way, the half way.

So other than the soda, I will be all raw fruits, veggies and lean proteins but my sugary simple carbs will be in the soda. I'll cut out all the others - pasta, bread, candy. Whatever it takes, I'm thinking that I can give up the others as long as I have the cold caffeine.

I don't know how this will work in the long run BUT everything I've read argues that weight loss is about the simple step of creating a calorie deficit. I need to eat less than I burn. With this 1300 calorie goal, I will definitely eat less than I burn. We'll see if it works.

I'll let you know in a week or two.

For now, start thinking about what modifications you make in your quest to get healthy and thin while trying to maintain your sanity.

Crazy Alternatives

Today I'm not really interested in talking about myself. I guess I'm in a bit of a mood. Instead I did some research and gathered 5 diets that were guaranteed to be crazy. They may have been just crazy enough to work but there were obvious and sometimes complicated side effects. So today I shall celebrate the Crazy Alternatives out there in diet land.

Number 5
Diet pill containing a tapeworm. I may have even seen this one on ER or one of those other medical dramas, it's so difficult to keep them straight. Anyway the point is that you swallow a pill and soon you are dramatically losing weight, no matter what you consume. Of course, eventually you may notice what appears to be a tumor growing in your abdomen because the tapeworm you ingested has started growing due to the constant food you've been feeding it. All I can say is GROSS!

Number 4
Master Cleanse promoted by some celebrities that requires you to drink a mix of maple syrup, lemon juice, water and cayenne pepper. If you vomit often enough, you will lose weight.

Number 3
HCG - The pregnant woman hormone that you inject into yourself on every day while you reduce your calories to between 500 -800 per day. Difficult if you are not a fan of needles. I've actually tried this one and I hate to think of the side effects that may one day creep up. I recall being hungry constantly and it was impossible to eat so few calories without a constant headache.

Number 2
Weekly colonics - this says it all. DISGUSTING and I'm not sure how it helps anything.

Number 1 - THE ALL STAR
The Druggie Diet - choose your drug of choice - cocaine or heroine - and consume copious amounts while forgoing all forms of food. Not much to say about this one. You will get thin quick but you might not be around to see it.

What are your TOP 5 CRAZIEST DIETS?

Which have you tried?

How important is the sun to our health?

I’m a native Floridian so I’ve spent much of my life exposed to sun. While I am fair skinned and therefore careful about the sun and using sunscreen, I still am used to getting most of my Vitamin D straight from the sun.

Fall is coming to Massachusetts where I now live and the new season has been ushered in by a week of dreary, rainy days lacking in any sunshine. I did fine for a few days but for the last two I’m pretty sure I’ve been losing my mind. Getting out of bed each morning has become more difficult. Plus I’m plagued by morning irritation that lasts until about 3 in the afternoon.

I've been doing a little research and found that one of the reasons many women are Vitamin D deficient is that other than sun exposure, the vitamin is hard to come by. It is found in some foods such as fish oils and in small quantities in liver, eggs and cheese. When most of us drank whole milk it was fortified with Vitamin D for better calcium absorption. But now that 1% or skim is becoming the norm, we aren't getting enough of the D. As a result, our bodies also aren't metabolizing calcium as well either.

Without Vitamin D our bones and muscles become weak which can lead to rickets, osteoporosis and insulin resistance which can lead to weight gain. Even with all these the bigger problem of Vitamin D deficiency is the symptoms of fatigue that lead to irritation and a general tendency to avoid doing anything.

If you are like me and don't take a multivitamin daily then you risk a Vitamin D deficiency contributing to the stress and weakness you feel on dreary days. I'm thinking that starting today I will be adding a multi to see if it boosts my fall and winter mood.

Welcome to October the month of endless CANDY

I have a love/hate relationship with the month of October. Last year I spent more than $50 on bags of candy for the office and will be the first to admit that I ate more of the sugar than anyone else. I probably reach 3000 calories some days with the empty sugar calories and foolishness.

I'd like to say that one day I will have willpower and just avoid buying the candy. This year I will likely not get sucked in when in the store just because the money crunch has me on a strick budget. However, I work in an environment where there is candy on every desk and in every classroom - year round. But we seem to get a little extra for the days leading up to scary candy day.

I wonder if I should just scrap the entire month then start over in November. Of course, November houses my favorite holiday (and its requisite chow down) Thanksgiving. So then I would have to give up again until December.

This just doesn't seem to be a good idea.

While candy may be my nemesis I think I will try not to give an entire month to it. I already gained back 2 of the pounds I lost last month. SO my goal for this month is 6 pounds instead of 4. Since my workout hasn't been working either I'm going to go back to the drawing board. I want to still take what I was learning from Turbulence Training and start smaller again. Right now my right wrist is swollen and sore so pushups and weights are out of the question for 2 or 3 days. So starting Saturday I will go back to working out but for the first week I will plan a simple body weight routine that lasts about 15 minutes. Then I will get back to the TT workouts the second week.

Fighting candy and lack of exercise WILL NOT get me down. Be prepared to SMACK ME if I give up this month. I'm headed back to Fitday.com and getting into a routine again. I'll let you know how it goes.