A Loss...

Official weigh in today! 4.5 off! Even got my exercising in yesterday. Was only able to stand 15 minutes because I stupidly put it off until after supper and I was still a little too full. Won't make that mistake again today. Now I only have a half pound to go to be where I was before Christmas. I'm so looking forward to new numbers. I know, I know, I'm a scale junkie at heart.

The wind kicked up before dawn this morning and I thought it would blow me off the mountain. Then the snow started. There's only about an inch and a half out there now and it sure is beautiful. Just hope the accumulation stays on the low side. National weather says we will only get 3 inches. That's enough.

Since my mailbox is at the bottom of the mountain, I tend to not check it everyday. I only check it when I'm going off the mountain for something else in the winter. In the summer I'll hop on the ATV and run down there to get it more often and enjoy the scenery a little while I'm out. But I haven't been to check it since last Tuesday. I just did (before the snow got too high) and was surprised with another Christmas present. It was from my NJ daughter. She made me the most gorgeous place mats. Going to clean my table off (crafting supplies all over it) today and take a picture of them. You're gonna love them. Both of my girls are so talented in the crocheting department and other departments as well. I am so proud of the women they have become.

Today and tonight will be quiet ones for me. I was invited to a New Year's Eve party but declined because I don't want to be out driving alone on New Year's Eve in the snow. Especially with the crazy drunks in this county that will be out there. And besides I don't have anyone to kiss as the new year rings in except my pups and they weren't invited. So what are your plans?

Enjoy the last day of 2008 and here's all my best wishes that 2009 will bring all of you what your heart desires. Maybe we will all reach goal in 2009 or maintain it if you already have.

Musings...

Well, this is the beginning of day 4 and so far so good. Didn't exercise yesterday but the food consumption went really well. According to MyFoodDiary I'll meet my goal by November '09, no February '10, no September '09... I've been getting a laugh out of that. It all depends on what I did that day. Now I'm wondering if I can just kick butt and make it sooner. This may be a way to really keep me at it with a vengeance.

I'm back to weighing myself every morning right now. Since I gained so much over the holidays I'm really anxious to see what happens. Right now I've got it almost all off. (That will surely mess up their computing.) But I know that after binging, for me, the first week the weight really drops.

I think I mentioned that they give you little smiley faces when you have done well and frowny faces when you haven't. Well...I will NEVER get a smiley face for my sodium intake! I do eat a lot of sodium rich foods and that is for health reasons. I tend to have low blood pressure and the doctors have always told me to increase the sodium so that I won't pass out. Even with a sodium day of over 4,000 I sometimes have dizzy spells. Hey, just had a thought, doesn't exercise decrease your blood pressure? Hmmmm, should I cut that out of my daily routine? Just kidding, I won't because it is good for my heart, heart, heart.

Later Bloggagators!

Some Ramblings...

Exercised again yesterday!

Ate within my allotted calories!

And that's all I have to say about that!

I've been working on more socks. I have all these partial balls left over from the ones I already made and I'm experimenting. Here's a pic of one I started.

Now all I have to do is remember which balls I used for the stripes and reproduce it on the other sock. Don't think I'll do the rest of them like that. I was looking at a catalog sometime before Christmas and they were selling "mis-matched" socks. Interesting enough, they were way more expensive than the matched ones. Think I will do that with the rest of the partial balls. I don't really need any more socks so maybe my family would like another pair or two. I'm beginning to think that I will just keep on making them because they are so much fun to do.

Started a new book a couple of days ago. It's "Duma Key" by Stephen King and I'm not sure what it will be like yet. It is interesting but so far it is just not like the usual SK novels. His writing has surely changed since his accident. I'll probably be into this one for a while since it is over 700 pages. I've read most everything he's written (pre accident) and I like Dean Koontz too. Have you read DK's "Marley and Me?" I've seen where they made a movie with that title. Wonder if it is based on his book. The book was really a good one and not at all in his regular genre.

Have a great week out there in blog-land.

Day 2 (545)...

So far so good. I made it yesterday! Yay! I had my doubts, that's for sure. I even exercised for a little while. I did have a problem last night at around 8:30, I was starving and had no more calories left. So I got myself some celery and munched on it for a while with a big glass of water. I figured celery would be a good choice since it takes more calories to chew it than it contains.

MyFoodDiary is a really cool site. It doesn't leave any room for guess work. It totals your calories as you enter them and tells you how many you have left in order to lose what ever goal you set for yourself plus it gives the amount of calories left to lose 1 pound a week. So you have options. And when you enter your exercise it adds some calories to your total left. That's why I exercised, to see what it would do. I really could have fudged it and just entered the exercise and not do it but that would be cheating, wouldn't it? At the end of the day you are asked to close out the day when you are finished. It then tells you how you did and gives you a date that you will be at your goal weight if you keep on doing what you did on that day. Hmmm, wonder if it changes as the days go by and you do better or worse. We shall see.

Guess you can tell I'm enamored with this web site and my new toy.

BTW the title means that this is day two of my new start and day 545 of when I began this. Sure wish I had stuck with it better and I may have been to goal by now. Oh, well, that's water under the bridge, or in my case I think it flowed over the bridge there for a while.

Those weren't my doggies in yesterdays post. I have one that looks sad all the time and one that just looks bored. They never pant so I can't capture them looking happy.

Pictures of the socks I made are coming. As soon as Cara takes a picture of her families feet for me to post. So please be patient.

Hope your Sunday is going as planned and is a blessed one.

A Fresh Start...

I've decided to get back on it!!

As I was lying in bed last night waiting to nod off I got to thinking about how far I've come in the past 544 days and how far I have yet to go. I decided it would be a shame not to continue the path I'm on. After all, I long to see my collar bones (can't remember the last time I saw them). I gained 5 pounds over the past 3 days and that is really BAD. I know we are not supposed to use that word but it is what it is. Today is the beginning of my continuing down the RIGHT path.

So, I joined Myfooddiary.com this morning. Cara was singing it's praises a couple of weeks ago and although there is a fee to use it, I decided I needed a tool that will help me stay on target. It does have some really neat features. The one I like the best is that after you enter a food it tells you how many calories you have left for the day in order to meet your weight loss goal for that week. This I think will be a very helpful tool for me. When I get the munchies or want something in the evenings, I can look there and see just what I can have. Just think, I will be able to check to see if I can have a cookie or not!

As hard as it was for me to do it, I updated my side bar to reflect my gain. After all, I'm doing this weight loss blog to help myself and if I can't be honest then it won't help me at all.

Hope your weekend is going well.

The Cookie Monster Came to Visit...

Baking cookies last night was a stupid thing to do. I really wanted it to feel more like Christmas with home baked goodies. BIG MISTAKE!! I had it all planned out. I'd eat 2 or 3 as a real treat and then one a day until they were gone. Wrong. I ate 6 before I had to slap my hands to keep them from getting into them and eating them all. I usually don't have a sweat tooth. So I was sure I could handle it. I guess I've found my weakness, home baked cookies. Cakes don't bother me that much and pies don't bother me that much, nor does candy, but home baked cookies, wow. Today has been a little better, I've only had 4, and I just can't make myself throw them away. I just can't! So my plan for tomorrow is, one for breakfast (they are oatmeal cookies after all) and one after supper.

Trivia time: Do you know why you get sleepy after a big turkey dinner? (If so, you can skip this paragraph.) Turkey contains tryptophan. It's an essential amino acid the body can not manufacture. It only comes from food. Tryptophan helps the body produce vitamin B (niacin) which in turn helps the body produce serotonin (a calming agent in the brain). Wonder if they put tryptophan in sleeping agents? If they don't, they should because anyone that has had turkey knows it really calms us down.

Have a good weekend.

Merry Christmas to All...

We had our little Christmas dinner a bit early this afternoon. I set a special place for "the kids" with their own little place mats. We had turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, green beans, creamed corn and cranberry sauce. Actually they had all of that except for the dressing and cranberry sauce. I didn't figure they'd like those so I left them off their plates. I think they really liked it because as you can see they cleaned their plates and didn't even spill anything. It was really funny watching them lick up the mashed potatoes.

It's sure interesting the way I've changed. When I got my plate fixed the first thing I dug into were the veggies. I've come a long way "baby." I haven't had mashed potatoes in a long time and they sure brought back memories. I only fixed two medium potatoes so that I wouldn't have a lot left over to haunt me because I made them like I used to with real butter and Carnation milk. I figured since it's Christmas that was one of my presents to myself.

I was invited to a neighbor's house for dinner but I declined since I already had the turkey breast thawed and have been looking forward to it for a while. Besides it's been really nice and relaxing.

I was contemplating baking cookies yesterday and decided not to since I'd be the only one eating them. But I've changed my mind. I'm going to whip up a small batch and ration myself with them. I mean what's Christmas without Christmas cookies?

I've heard from all my family and friends today and they are having a nice Christmas too. I hope yours was grand as well.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night...

Holiday Greetings...

Merry Christmas

Happy Hanukkah

Just Some Ramblings...

Sure is cold here but I know it is most everywhere right now, so I won't whine too much. I did stop in at the dollar store yesterday for some household cleaning supplies that were dwindling and happened to see sweat pants on sale. I decided with this cold snap that I needed some so I got two pair. Boy am I glad that I did. They feel nice and comfy right now and much better than the thinner pants I've been wearing around the house lately. And they're mediums!

We have no snow so we won't have a white Christmas. For those of you out there that do, enjoy it for me.

Cara has a really good blog about eating comfort foods. It has put everything into perceptive for me. Go check it out.

My eating lately has been great. I'm still not counting and measuring, as I'm still on vacation from obsessing. Hopped on the scales yesterday morning and was down a half pound. But since I'm not on this cycle of trying to lose weight, I'm not changing my side bar right now. Think I'll wait for a couple more weeks and see if it stays that way or just maintains like it has been.

Two more days! Are you ready? I am. Have my dinner all planned out for the doggies and me. They are really excited about it too, I can tell. Didn't get them any presents though. I think they'll enjoy the turkey breast enough without presents. After all food is more important to them than another squeak toy.

Have a great day.

Sensible Eating...

I don't know what came over me when I went to Wal-Mart Wednesday but I picked up a couple bags of potato chips. Yeah, a couple, one in regular flavor and one in the sour cream/cheddar flavor. I have been wanting them so badly lately. Just a few with a sandwich would be nice. And the last time I had chips I was pretty careful to ration them out a few at a time. So I thought what the heck, I can do this. They stayed unopened until yesterday. I decided I'd give them a try. I opened the plain ones and counted out one portion. I brought them to the computer to munch on while I read and commented on some blogs. Well...I didn't enjoy them at all. The taste wasn't nearly as satisfying as I'd thought it would be. I did finish off the portion and then had a few peanuts to wash away the yucky taste of the chips. What's with that, anyway? Am I morphing into a healthy eater? This just couldn't be happening to me. I put a chip-clip on the bag and tossed them on top of the fridge way in the back. Still haven't tried the cheddar ones and at this point I really have no desire to do so, so they are right beside the other ones for the time being.

Cake...remember the cake I told you about that my friends had brought. It was/is about 5 inches long and about 3 by 3, in the cutest little ceramic baking loaf dish. I still have about 3 bites left!!! Yeah, I've made it last for 5 days instead of the 4 I had planned. One reason is that I refused to cut myself a piece and set down with it. I just kept a fork near by and took a bite whenever I wanted something sweet after a meal. This has worked out really well.

It's been a couple of "gloomy Gus" days here and I'm not complainin'. At least all this precipitation is in the form of rain and not snow. The road up the mountain is clear of snow and ice so I don't have to worry about slip/sliding down or up. I'll take the soggy ground anytime as long as the road stays clear. Usually after the first snow fall the road stays icy all winter but since there's been so much rain it's all gone as of now. I'm sure now that I've stated that fact we'll have a great snow fall soon and the road will be horrible so I'm knocking on wood just in case.

Gonna have some oriental chicken over pasta for supper. And since I have been eating a lot of beans instead of chicken I'm actually looking forward to it for a change.

I must confess that I haven't been very diligent with my exercise. I only did the Richard Simmons DVD 4 times and haven't thought about it in about a week. It's just so boring exercising alone. I get all fired up when I try something new then it gets boring and I quit. I've got about 5 DVD's of different types of exercise and different people that I could change them around and not get bored with any one of them, but the aloneness gets to me. Just don't know how you all keep at it.

Have a great weekend. Enjoy all the Christmas doings going on. But don't forget what the season is really all about.