Our attempts at weight loss....

NEW GOAL - LOSE 36 POUNDS IN 365 DAYS

Its always something!!

R/W 3.6m in 51 min. But the shin splints in the lower legs! they killed me today. Why, why after 1 year of running I still get these shin splints. Absolutely horrible. Came back and iced and stretched but am dreading running again on thursday. 4m Walk tomorrow, Dec goal is to build upto 8 mile LSD.

I love this season, the cold air, the lights, the warm clothes, the hot food and drinks. But I hate the fact that I have to be on the lookout for things which make me slip on the diet track. Today someone left a box of chocolates in the office. Designer chocolates, the ones with swirls of pink and white on them, 170 cal apiece. And all that I had read and written about in the past one month flew out of the window! Ate TWO of those!! But atleast I am feeling guilty for eating two , previously I would eat 3 and wonder why i hadnt taken a fourth! To salvage I had zucchini for dinner. Surprise, even my finicky 7yo ate it up.

So its started, the next 29 days I will be facing temptations everywhere. After the 2nd chocolate I have decided that I dont particularly care for that taste- it felt chalky, so I dont think I will be succumbing to its lure again. Yeah, I can say that today, but get a box in front of me when I am stressing out over some point and see me hog the whole thing.

Later on I did read the nutrition label on the box and it broke every rule I had mentioned yesterday- more than 5 ingrediants, with unfamiliar, unpronounceable names, not belonging in the outside periphery of the store and my grandma would absolutely not think that it is edible food- she would put them on the shelf as decoration!

Now if only I can remember all this the next time!

In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan

Finished the book. Its a good book, he goes over all the types of food available and it gets a bit technical , however I liked the last 1/3rd of the book in which he has suggestions on how to have a healthy approach to food and eating. He has quoted Wansink(Mindless Eating) and I liked both their suggestions.
Its basically all the points which we are aware of but dont take into consideration in actual life.

- Eat food which your grandmother or great grandmother would recognise as food. That automatically takes out all the packaged chips, yogurts, meats, flavored drinks, sodas etc, which means less sodium and less high fructose corn syrup(HFCS) which is considered to be the main culprit in making one fat because apparently it creates a craving for more sugar laden and high calorie foods.

- Avoid foods with more than 5 ingrediants, unfamiliar or unpronounceable names or again HFCS- so again all those above foods are out.

- Shop the periphery of the grocery store and if possible stay out of it and instead go to the farmers market.

- Eat mostly plants esp the leaves.

- Eat meals, eat at the table and not on the dashboard

- Eat slowly

- Cook, and if u can, plant a garden

There are other , very valid points but I am starting with these as they seem slightly more easy to follow. However, believe me when I say that it is very difficult to find foods with less than 5 ingrediants on their list. And HCFS is everywhere!! Take the healthiest bread in the store and see.
I cook but its mostly meat/fish/lentils. Green veggies maybe once in 2 weeks, I used to more before but lately have stopped due to some reason, so have to get back in to that habit again.
I would love to have a veggie garden if I could have a gardener with it, the idea of growing veggies is lovely but actually toiling in the garden- not yet, maybe when the kids are a bit more grown.

Overall, the book is definately worth a read, if you are interested in re-learning about food. Maybe I will pick up The Omnivores Dilemma again- I had dropped it because it was really detailed, with lots of information.

Rest day today, 4 miles tomorrow. Had stopped running last week because of pain in the right calf, will try again tomorrow.

Nov21-Nov30

No loss again, however, no gain either after having those two big slices of pie.
A bit disappointed, could be due to anything; I didnt run as much, maybe I am not as good with the logging of food intake, maybe it will show up as negative next month. So only 2 pound loss for November 2008, instead of the goal of 3. Thats OK, I will take it.

Goals for Dec 1-Dec 10:
- R/W 5 days a week.
- Try again with the free weights, hadnt started because in the back of mind is the fact that when I do start weight lifting, I might gain some weight in 4-6 weeks due to increase in muscle mass etc; I know, weak argument, so get back to it.
- Add a fruit a day; in the last one month have had only 2 pears and 1 banana- in the whole one month!!! So goal is one fruit a day- pear/banana/grapes/apples- I dont like apples.

This is harder than I thought.

Apple Pie...

...the first of this season, 360 calories of pure goodness, with 1 spoon of vanilla icecream, no guilt, pure satisfaction, no desire to stuff myself.

Had walked this morning for an hour which burnt approx 300 calories. Will go again tomorrow for a 60-90 min walk, hopefully in preparation of another piece, but this time of pumpkin pie!!

Life is good:)

Food and Books

I love both and realised that just as I cant pass any chocolatey, gooey, creamy stuff, I cant pass up any magazine and just as I eat big portion sizes of the healthy food, I overdose on books.

Went to the library and they had an announcement of being closed for Thanksgiving. To me that is a signal of book starvation coming up, so I brought back 25-30 books, 15 for my 7yo so she cant complain of not having anything to read, rest for me. At this time I have 3 books on food and diet-'The Omnivores Dilemma','In defense of food' both by M.Pollan and 'Fit to live'by Pamela Peeke. I didnt know where to start and so I have started all three, keep forgetting what I am reading, keep reading the same stuff, get frustrated, throw them on the side and hit the pantry.

Talking of behaviours which trigger over-eating, for me a good book has to be accompanied by some food. As a teenager, my favorite past-time was to get lost in an Enid Blyton with a stack of sandwiches next to me. My mother would wonder how a whole loaf of bread would disappear by the time she came back from her evening walk!
Nowadays being able to read for even 15 min straight is a luxury, there is always someone whose need is more pressing, and as I get older, Ok, I am not that old, but still it takes me more time to assimilate material now than before.

Walked more , ran some, 3miles in 45 min. Nice sunnny morning, Right calf still hurting off and on so taking it easy.

Today on MSN, they have an article of the fitness of the OBamas- how they wake up early to fit exercise in their schedules. Good for them, and if they can do it, we can too- yes , we can!! Her arms are great tho. Free weights from today!!

Addition, subtraction and weight loss

Was teaching my 7yo some addition and to emphasise the point said "2+2 is always going to be = to 4, whatever you do."

Then the next thought was 'except in weight loss.'

Why ? , because it takes subtracting 7000 calories to lose 2 pounds but only 300 measly xtra calories on a rest day to put it all back on my petite frame.

Anyway, today had to take my 14yo for soccer game to a community 45 min away so had no time in the morning to finish my LSD. Out there its a place I'd never been to before so I decided to walk around looking at the houses etc. Its a relatively new community, each house in the range of 2-3million, with large lawns and landscaping around. The whole community has a loop of pavement running around it, which one kind elderly couple told me was about 4.5-5miles. So I started off, thinking I would just walk the loop in maybe 1h20min max. The loop turned out to be so hilly, with curves going up and down every few steps that it took me much longer. But the view was lovely- the houses, birds, golf course, the sunny cold morning, I thoroughly enjoyed it tho it took me almost 1h40min and I missed the first half of the game.

I will maybe run tomorrow, since today was the walk day.

Try and focus on the calories again, was so hungry when I came back that loaded on the bread with cheese omelette. Now the kids want to go to The Cheesecake Factory tonite to celebrate I dont know what and their Dad seems to be in an expansive mood so he said 'yes' which means I will be one expanded person soon!