Re-Start

Thank you Token Fat Girl for bringing me back from the dead. Her comment reminded me that I still have this blog and thinking about weight loss again.

Okay. So I’ve moved, but not really. I’m currently staying at my parents’ house and my life has turned upside down with disarray. All of our belongings are in boxes, I’ve started to work, and we’re working on our house at the same time. This moving thing really sucks. As a result I’m eating and eating and have no idea how much I weigh, because the scale is packed away somewhere. I had tried weighing on my sister’s scale, but the number was just so large that I decided that it sucked and refused to weigh myself until I got my old scale back. Unfortunately, at the rate we’re going, that won’t be anytime soon. What was suppose to be three weeks at my parents’ has turned into two months, and I’m tired of putting my life on hold, so tomorrow I will be weighing myself using my sister’s scale.

Exercise-wise, I haven’t been doing that much better. I’ve stopped weight training all together, but I still go biking. I love it. Listening to my music and daydreaming as I wiz by breath-taking scenery. Nothing gets better than that. But I do know I should probably reintroduce strength training back into my life (yuck). I will be looking at my schedule and see where I can put it in. With everything going on, I don’t know where to start.

Paperwork Anxieties

We will most definitely move. Yesterday I worked all day researching the law and putting together paperwork for the renters to sign in the evening. Oh, the anxiety! I really wished we had enough money to hire a lawyer. I really wished I had more time. I really hope that it doesn’t bit us in the ass somewhere down the line. Anyways, it’s done now. They’ve signed and it is official. Yet, I am still anxious.

The strange thing about anxiety is that I am oblivious to eating. I have no urge to eat my meals, but if Teresa leaves her crackers on my desk, I will definitely munch on it. And I don’t forget to take breaks for chocolate.

Moving Anxieties

I haven’t been doing anything regarding my goals: eating, procrastinating, etc. It’s been hard for me to focus on anything else outside of the fact that we might be moving soon and renting out our current house. It has caused me great anxiety, and I wonder why I ever agreed to do this. I haven’t been sleeping too well, and I’m fortunate that I have the option to take a nap with Teresa or I would be dysfunctional. Our finances will be razor thin after the move, and I can’t seem to find the time to look for work when looking for renters and researching about land lording and laws has occupied all my time.

Despite all this, I have continued to include exercise in my life. It really have become a habit, and it helps when I tell myself that it’s a stress reliever. As planned, I went hiking over the weekend, and I totally enjoyed myself.

Early Spring

Hunter brings home a weekly newsletter from his kindergarten class that gives me a brief of what they have been up to. Apparently, his class had voted that the groundhog DIDN’T see his shadow so there’ll be an early spring. It was cute, but they may be on to something because it sure feels like spring is here. The rain has stopped, the sun out, and it has been warmer. I went biking and the trails were crowded. My sister and I are also talking about doing more outside activities such as biking and hiking. Next week, if all goes well, we may go hiking with our cousins.

I’m definitely a creature of the sun, gathering all of the warm and nice days as I can and going outside whenever possible.

Orange Sunday and Southwestern Bean Dip

I hosted a Superbowl Party on Sunday. Before that, my mother-in-law gave us a bag full of her homegrown sour oranges. And you know what they say when life gives you sour oranges make orange something, and that’s what I did for my party. Here was my menu.

Appetizer: Southwestern bean dip with chips
Salad: romaine lettuce with ORANGE vinaigrette
Main: ORANGE vinaigrette chicken with wild rice
Dessert: ORANGE bread

When I watch Iron Chief, I always thought it would be fun to make a three-course meal incorporating one ingredient. Now I done it, and it WAS fun. However, by the end of the evening I was oranged out, and my acid reflux was none too happy with it.

Not surprisingly, the big hit of the party was the bean dip, the only thing on the menu that didn’t have orange. Originally, I had intended to make it using a recipe from Eating Well, but I ended up omitting half of the ingredients and adding more of what I did use for compensation, coming up with a whole different recipe. I thought I would share it here:

Southwestern Bean Dip

1 16-ounce can refried beans
4 scallions, sliced
1/2 cup prepared salsa
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese
2 plum tomatoes, chopped
1 medium avocado, chopped

1. Combine refried beans, scallions, salsa, and chili powder in a medium bowl. Transfer to a shallow 2-quart microwave-safe dish; sprinkle with cheese.
2. Microwave on High until the cheese is melted and the beans are hot, 3 to 5 minutes.3. Scatter with tomato and avocado.

Makes 6 servings. 198 calories, 12 g fat, 16.5 g carbs, 3.3 g fiber, 9.2 g protein

EatingWell also has a tortilla chip recipe that I used to accompany this dip and was delish.

Marshmallow's Contest

So I completed my fourth day of recording food in-take, and I went over my calorie range. This time however it wasn’t snacking that done me in, but the French bread I had for lunch. Damn you, carb-based foods! But the good news is I completed it.

In other news, Marshmallow has issued a contest with prizes! It’s a similar contest to Dietgirl’s in that I will be gathering pictures in a scavenger hunt. Wish me luck.

1. Something Brown - Is this low-fat turkey burger vegetable soup that I’ve made that surprisingly my whole family loves!



2. Something Orange - My favorite color! For this one, I didn’t search past my own blog. Here is my profile picture of an orange flower.



3. Something Purple - In high school my basketball jersey was purple, although I never was THIS sexy wearing it or ever will be no matter how much weight I lose. Well, maybe in my imagination.



4. A Marshmallow - This is the marshmallow monster from the movie “Ghostbusters."



5. Someone Sleeping - Sleeping beauty. A fellow blogger had noticed that we put our lives on hold for when we reach our target weight like sleeping beauty waiting for the prince, but life is worth living NOW! Very insightful.



6. A Cat - Garfield. He's fat and lazy like me!



7. The Letter M - M is for Mardi Gras, which will be this Tuesday.



8. The Letter W - Umm… W is for watch. Sorry, I lost all my creativity. If only I knew how to make those talk and thought bubbles!

Recording in Small Doses

Today’s the last day of recording, and it’s strange to say but I think I might miss it. I had stopped recording early December after recording for 9 straight months, because I was tired of it and at that point it felt useless. I was going over calories constantly and just didn’t care. So I decided to take a break, resuming January 1st. Well January 1st came, and nothing changed. It was still a drag. I managed to record for a whole week before giving up. But now it feels different. I’m actually enjoying myself and seeing the results of the day is fascinating for me for the first time in a long time. I’m not making my calorie range, but I am learning something. So far, I discovered that currently I am snacking too much. Every day the past three days I managed to overdo it. Very interesting. Here’s hoping that I’ve learned my lesson for the fourth day.

Weekly and Lenten Challenge

I have started to record food intake again, starting today and ending Saturday. I’ll see how it goes. I do not have the urge to record food in-take everyday for the rest of my life. These four days will have to do for now, and we’ll see what I should do after my next weigh-in on Monday.

I’ve decided to set-up personal weekly challenges and reward myself when I meet those challenges. The recording food in-take for four days will be this week’s challenge. If I complete this challenge I will give myself 50 cents towards my weight loss fund and if I’m within calorie range for three of those days I will give myself another 50 cents. I know it has taken me a long time to mull over and finally decide on a something so simple, but simple is actually very difficult to do. I read other weight loss blogs of those whom belong to Weight Watchers, and I must say, I’m jealous that they have a reward system ingrained in their program. That they don’t have to sit there and think about what reward system would be best. Might be for the better, considering how fiercely independent and defiant I am.

Yesterday, Ly and I were talking about Lent coming up. As usual, Ly has difficulty coming up with what to give up and asked me to decide for him. I tell him, because it always makes him strangely happy since he likes to treat abstinence during Lent as a dare. The drawback, however, is that he thinks he can tell ME what I should give up. Um… I don’t think so. I was ready to say “Don’t tell me what to do!” but this year he actually came up with a good one that I would never have thought of: procrastination. Since I started abstaining for Lent it was always been a toss up between chocolate and TV. It’s high time I try something different.

Vaguely Victorious

I can’t believe that I am posting so soon after my last post! Every day I’m doing better and better. Which appears to be the way I operate. There are rare occasions when I get inspired and I’m operating at full tilt, but most of the time I acknowledge that I need to change and I work away at it like a sculptor chipping away at slab of stone. As for my goals I had set up, the limiting TV/Internet and high calorie foods, I’m doing okay. I’m not being rigorous with keeping track of everything, but I can only recall 3 instances this past week and a half when I had overate high calorie foods and I had actually lost weight this week. That has to account for something. As for limiting TV/Internet, I was able to pull myself away enough to get some filing done. It’s not the type of victory that I would make movies about, but it feels like I’m finally pulling away from failure. Now my next step would be to set up some recording/award system, so that I know for sure when I’m doing good. I had one set up, but it was largely dependent on my calorie intake. Now that I’m no longer caring about that, I should probably think of another system.

"How did you do it?"

Earlier this month my sister asked me how I lost the weight. It’s that time of year when most people are feeling extra motivated to lose weight, my sister included. Unfortunately, I wasn’t feeling it, so I wasn’t currently following a healthy lifestyle and had forgotten what I had done to lose all the weight. So when I answered, I wasn’t much help.

“…Ummm…I chose healthy whenever possible, but if I really feel like eating something than eat it…Ummm…When eating desserts I eat about this amount (form small dome with hands)…ummm…(long pause).”

Cousin chimes in to be helpful: “Do you eat small meals throughout the day?”

“…Uh…no… I eat breakfast, lunch, dinner, and sometimes snack.”

Sister says: “Breakfast, lunch, dinner, and sometimes snack? Eat whatever you want? So basically, I should keep on doing what I’ve been doing.”

“…uh…ummm…(shrugs).”

I’ve been waiting for the window to help my sister and I totally blew it! So, I’ve thought it over. This is what I ACTUALLY did to lose the weight…

1. Record food intake
2. Plan/schedule exercise
3. Reward myself
4. Find support
5. Try new things

Now, that’s the bare bones of it all of what I did, but I also know that what worked for me may not work for someone else. Heck, it may not work for me currently. What I should have done was help her make her own plan. I should have asked her what she was currently doing and helped come up with her next (or first) step. THAT’S what I’ll do if ever another window opens.

Roni's Contest

Check out Roni’s new contest! I can win a Nutrition Smart Scale from Eat Smart and so can you! Click here for details!

The Art of Limiting

I’m having an issue with time and the perception of time. I believe I have none and quite possibly I don’t. I was contemplating eliminating blogging and other activities out of my life, so that I can devote more time for job searching. “But which one?” I thought. So I wrote down all the things I do and would like to do during the week and all the time I actually have. And do you know what I discovered? I discovered that Ly was right. I have plenty of time to do all the things I want to do with time to spare for goofing off. My issue is that I have great difficulty limiting. Once I start daydreaming, it’s hard for me to snap out of it. It’s the same with TV watching and using the Internet. And it’s the same with eating food that I enjoy. All these things are similar to me in that way. At the same time, I can’t just eliminate these things from my life. I would like to go back to when I was living in moderation. I’ve done it before, and I’m sure I can do it again. I just need to practice.

Plan:
Limit TV watching and Internet 2 hours/day
Limit snacks and high-calorie snacks 1 serving/day

Review and Resolution

Thank you everyone for continuing to check in and comment on my blog despite my MIA status. Sorry about that. I have been out of town since the day after Christmas with full intention of blogging, but never doing it. I’ve also been home since the 3rd and haven’t gotten myself to blog until today. But today is the end of my silence and hopefully you’ll be hearing me more frequently this coming year, because that so happens to be one of my weight loss resolutions: to post at least once a week. But before I get to that, I would like to review 2007 year of weight loss.

I started off that year after what I termed as “The Quarter from Hell”. Even with a month off, I was in a pessimistic, depressive slump. During that whole quarter, I promised that I would get back on the exercise/diet wagon with full vigor as soon as vacation hit, but that didn’t happen. It was more of a small crawl. Making my new year’s resolution for last year just felt like routine and I had no optimism in the process. Luckily, the quarter that followed was a more manageable load. I was able to put attention to my weight loss and actually saw it as a welcome break from school work and internship. I joined SparksPeople and was able to successfully log in my food intake for which was quite a feat, considering the year before this was something I struggled at. As I predicted, weight loss became much easier after I started recording, and I lose the weight in an almost predictable manner. However, I struggled with the whole recording process. I had difficulty gauging the calories I was consuming and obsessed over what I ate. I felt guilty for going over the recommended range of weight loss, and I didn’t like feeling guilty. During the middle of the year, I worked on letting go of the guilt with the help of intuitive eating. I continued to record but I used the numbers instead as something to reflect on. However, a drawback of letting go of guilt has been my abandonment with sweets and chocolate. Especially chocolate. Before, I was eating chocolate in moderation, but come Halloween, all of that went out the window. A part was also because of winter blues. My numbers were off the roof, and I became indifferent to them. Come December, I became tired of recording food intake and decided to take a break. It seemed pointless since seeing the outrageous amount of calories I consumed per day did not discourage me from over eating.

For the year I lost around 30 pounds! 50 pounds since my highest. And I must admit. Life without the weight is so much sweeter. I feel prettier and confident, and Ly and I are having more sex. Despite my recent spiral into over-indulgence, I conclude that this has been a successful year of weight loss. Things that I did well this year was to maintain regular exercise, record food intake, weigh-in regularly, and blog.

Things I would like to work on for this year is to control over-indulging and to stretch everyday and of course to maintain the good habits I have obtained so far. My goal for this year would be to reach my target weight and maintain.

This year feels much more optimistic than last year, but this year weight loss is not my number one resolution. There is also the trouble of finding work, which would take priority. Seeing how weight loss fits in the coming year will be interesting.

Landslide

I’m sliding like how a snowball slides, picking up speed and getting bigger and bigger. Eventually the snowball is unstoppable and catastrophic. How do I stop something like that?

Every night I lie awake, full from eating too much, excited with the promise of tomorrow. Because tomorrow is when I will do better and I will have a perfect day. Eating within my calories. Eating in moderation. Then the next day is here, and I do something stupid like eat 12 servings of cookies, half a loaf of dessert bread, or four bars of chocolate. I’m eating so much and continuously that I can’t remember feeling hungry for weeks. I miss feeling hungry.

Oddly enough, I’m still feeling optimistic. I still lie awake and feel confident that I can do well the next day. This has to be good. This must mean there is still hope.

I know what my problem is. My expectations are too high. I want perfection. I expect to eat like how I use to when my motivation is swelling over the brim. When this whole weight loss thing was interesting. I need to start over. But what should my first step be? Should I start recording food again? Should plan ahead? Should eat intuitively? Should I re-initiate the SP diet? I have tried them all and none of them are appealing at the moment.

Animal

I went to a Filipino Christmas party recently and there were these Mexican deep-fried flour tortilla rolls that were pretty good. Actually, they were the only things at the party that were worth eating, but whoever brought it only brought a small amount. Not enough for everyone at the party to have one, and this was where my dilemma was. Instinctively I wanted to rush for seconds and maybe even thirds or fourths before they were all gone, but logically I should let everyone else have the rest so as much people as possible had a chance at it. I am reminded of the trouble I have with my Asian, non-Filipino friends and their opinions around sharing food. I had gotten into a lot of flack around eating all the good stuff before anyone else has had the chance. Filipinos, however, have always been indifferent to my greed. Actually, during a recent fiesta, I remember the party members swarming over the freshly made soup that the caterers brought out with no intention of leaving enough for everyone. At the time, I was somewhat irritated, because I had developed the habit of waiting patiently for my turn; my instinct to swarm with the rest was squelched by negative regard from the past. I start to think about communal animals in the wild. I don’t know much about them, but I’ve seen a few animal documentary shows. I imagine that wolves fight for as much of the shared food as possible, because those whom weren’t assertive ended up dead from starvation. I also imagine that monkeys have a different social order. I’ve seen documentaries where monkeys become outcasts because of their rude behavior and those who are without a community also end up dead. I know that we aren’t wild animals and I know that there is no scarcity of food, but I believe that there are some animal instincts left, especially with me. I sat at my table, eying that plate of tortilla rolls as the remaining disappeared one by one. I was pretty sure that no one would have cared that I went for seconds but still I remained seated, my greedy animal fighting with my ultraistic diplomat. Then the last roll disappeared and the internal fight disappeared with it and I wondered what the big deal was. I was so afraid that I would feel regret not eating seconds, but there were none. Actually, I felt quite proud. There would have been more regret if I had eaten more than I should have.

Diet Girl's Scavenger Hunt

This post is an entry to Diet Girl’s contest, which consists of a scavenger hunt to take pictures of various items. If I win, I get to own her book!

I had learned of this contest on Wednesday, but I wanted to take my time with gathering the pictures.

1. A bicycle – I just bought this bike and it has been useful in getting me excited about exercise again after my recent exercise slump.



2. A bald man – This is a picture of the gingerbread men that I baked for Hunter during my friend’s visit. Although I went hog wild on them, compared to other cookies that I enjoy, these were quite low calorie. Additionally, these were 100% whole-wheat. If I had made them with molasses as they are normally made, they would have been even more nutritious since molasses actually has nutritional value compared to most other sweeteners.

3. Elvis – This is a move that my aerobics instructor LOVES. She likes to get us to say “Huah!” when we do it. Only some do, me included. It really does get your energy up.

4. Greek yogurt – I know that taking a picture of an actual Greek yogurt wasn’t required, but I had wanted to try it out anyway.

5. A wedding dress – MY wedding dress, which my cousin-in-law will wear for her upcoming wedding. I had tried it on before we shipped it off to her, and it didn’t fit. Dang I was skinny back then!

6. The letter D – This D is on a book I’m currently reading about cooking tips.

7. The letter G – This G is on book about bike trails in my area.

Challenge Success!

Sarah had challenged me to meet my exercise goal. My goal was to exercise four days last week starting Monday ending Sunday. I am happy to say that I succeeded. Here’s a rundown of my success.

Monday: Day of rest. Strange to start a challenge with a day of rest, but that’s what I did.

Tuesday: Aerobics tapes after I procrastinated and sat around for a while. I was suppose to go to my aerobics class but missed it. Before Hunter’s Thanksgiving vacation, there was a week of minimum days, which actually translated to having Hunter come to school an hour and a half early. I had gotten used to rushing Hunter out the door, then taking my time to eat breakfast and prepare myself that I had forgotten the regular routine, which was to prepare him early so that I can leave the house fifteen minutes before him.

Wednesday: Day of rest. I was supposed to go jogging with my neighbor, but his daughter and my daughter were not up for it, so it was postponed until Friday.

Thursday: Went to my aerobics class! Although, I was totally not feeling up to it since I had poor sleep for a couple of nights already. It didn’t help that there was a substitute with such a calming voice. I had to actually resist the urge to fall asleep.

Friday: Went jogging with my neighbor, but he forgot his inhaler. He needed to stop half-way through our run, so I only got 10 minutes in. It didn’t matter to me. For jogging, 10 minutes is plenty.

Saturday: Went biking with Ly.

Sunday: Went biking by myself.

My Motivational Weight Loss Story

This is my weight loss story minus all the boring stuff and focusing on what would motivate a reader. I had planned to send it to a contest but decided it wasn’t for me.

When I was younger I was energetic and enjoyed climbing and running. My energy was legendary, and my relatives continue to speak of it to this day. I remember after a day of endless play was coming to a close, I would sit on the top of the monkey bars and pretend I was on top of the world as the sunset signaled my time to go home. Even as I grew older, I enjoyed playing with children because it was a chance for me to become a child once again. Ironically, when I had my own children I was so heavy and sluggish that I no longer felt free when I played. I no longer had the urge TO play.

Throughout my young life, I was always of normal weight. Every once in a while, media bombardment and “friends” would make me feel fat, causing me to embark on an unnecessary weight loss endeavor, which always ended as my mood changed.

It was only after I married did I REALLY needed to lose weight. I was under the most stress that I’ve ever experience up to that point, causing me to eat uncontrollably. I gained weight and exceeded my husband's weight. I didn’t like being “bigger” than him, and I had wanted to reach a healthy weight so that we can have a baby. Unfortunately, wishful thinking doesn’t constitute as a weight loss plan and my weight stayed elevated. We grew impatient and decided to have a baby anyway. However, during my first pregnancy I ate terribly. At work, I had access to free chips and candy, which I frequented. Also I believed that smaller frequent meals were ideal for the baby. Unfortunately, I was never able to accomplish keeping my meals small, so they were just frequent and regular sized. My weight skyrocketed. After I gave birth and the edema wore off from the epidermal, I weighed 170 pounds. On my small 5’2” frame that kind of weight takes a toll. I developed foot problems, acid reflux, and sleeping problems. I felt depressed due to the anxiety from being a working mom for the first time, and nothing seemed to help except to work some more, hoping that I can catch up enough to finally relax. Inevitably, my reserves would run out and I found myself listless in front of the TV with a high-calorie snack. This whole time I knew I had a weight problem, and I attempted to tackle it through a series of false starts until life overwhelmed me and priorities change once again.

Then one evening, my husband confronted me with concern about my health. Normally this type of confrontation would have me running out of the room in tears, but this time was different. I found the courage to stay, and we talked. We talked all night. I told him of all my obstacles. Normally he would say that I was making excuses, but that evening (more like early morning by that point) he gave me permission to put my health as my first priority.

I know that some of you may be outraged that he was presumptuous enough to give me permission, but that was exactly what I needed, because I was unable to give myself permission.

I did it little by little. I started with developing a moderate exercise routine, and then I worked on developing a healthy diet. The weight would fall and stall and even go up a little. Every once in a while, I had to remind myself of what I promised that faithful night. That I was going to put my health first. Throughout the process, my anxiety and depression decreased. I started to feel optimistic that I can lose and keep the weight off. Most of all, I started to feel energetic again. Today I weigh 120 pounds. 5 pounds until I reach my target, but it hardly seems to matter anymore. I’m lighter, healthier, and happier.

I play with my children now, and we like to go to the park. There was one day when my 4-year-old son had me chase after him, and we ran and climbed all over that park like crazy. There was a moment, when I ran and scrambled up the jungle gym after him. He squealed with delight and made for the slide. I paused and looked around me. Below were mothers of other children, watching quietly, and I remembered being one of them, not too long ago. Not because I was uninterested, but because I was too tired. I stood there looking into my past and in awe of my moment, and I knew I made it to the life I wanted. My reverie broke because I saw that the sun was setting and there was more play needing to be done before we had to go home.

Bake-o-rama!

I’ve been inspired to be in the kitchen more lately. It’s good, because I’m introducing more variety in our meals. It’s bad, because I seem to favor baking over meal preparation. Baking is more fun and people are more appreciative of it. Also I recently discovered King Arthur White Whole Flour.

It’s supposed to act and taste like white flour but with the goodness of whole grain, so I’ve been itching to use it and give the results to others. So when they say “Yum!” I say “Ha, ha! It’s whole wheat!”

So far I’ve made gingerbread men, almond bundt cake, cornbread, and piecrust with it. Everyone enjoyed them and didn’t notice a thing.

Although I’m loving how everyone is enjoying something a tad healthier for them that I’ve made, I’m eating way too much of my own creations. The almond bundt cake was supposed to be for my daughter’s birthday party for over 30 guests, but was ruined because I didn’t flour the pan and a part of it stuck. So it was left in our house for only my family of four to eat. It was suppose to serve 16, and I must have eaten 75% of it.

The gingerbread men were made because Hunter kept harping for me to make some. (Stupid kindergarten with their multiple stories about gingerbread men.) When a friend was coming over to visit I thought it would be an excellent opportunity to make them and not eat too much of the finished product. The recipe made TWENTY cookies. My friend only ate one, and the kids lost the urge to eat them after the first few. They sat in the breadbox, until finally Teresa and I finished them off. I must have eaten 10 of those twenty cookies.

The cornbread I brought to a housewarming. That went well, since I left the remaining bread at the party. So lesson learned. If I plan to make something make sure I have some place to off load it. One exception to the rule would be the pumpkin pie and piecrust that I made with The New American Cookbook.

The kids and I liked it. Ly didn’t. The crust was too unusual, and he complained of an aftertaste in the filling itself. I couldn’t figure out what he was talking about, because I didn’t get an aftertaste. I wonder if it’s the canola oil. The recipe asked to reduce the pumpkin in a pan of canola oil. Maybe it’s the All Spice. However the crust did taste unusual. It definitely had a canola oil taste to it, but it still tasted good to me. Anyway, it was one dessert that hardly made a dent in calories. I ate THREE slices first day of leftovers. I was expecting to be way over calories for the day, but when I entered it I pleasantly discovered I was not. This knocked me off my feet! I’ve made cinnamon bread and banana bread with similar calories per serving (not the same fat however), but I noticed that when I ate the pie I actually became so full that I didn’t feel like eating anything else. The breads took more for me to become full. Also I didn’t eat all three pieces of pie in one sitting like I would with bread. I have a theory about this and it has something to do with sugar. I’ll explain it another time for fear this post will become a book. Anyway, it’s definitely one pie I wouldn’t mind keeping around the house. At the same time it’s one pie I wouldn’t make for anyone else but for the kids and myself. For Thanksgiving I used a different pie recipe with real crust.



I did however used low fat evaporated milk and two egg whites and one egg rather than the two eggs that the recipe called for. My in-laws loved it. With the white whole-wheat flour in the crust, I felt like a successful thief. “Ha ha! It’s whole wheat AND lower in fat!”

What I Need to Do

I discovered that I gained two pounds! Yet, I’m not feeling a great urgency to do better. I’m bummed and my motivation is low.

I don’t want to gain the weight back. I came up with a list of things I need to do to get back on the wagon.

1. Stop eating impulsively.
2. Sit down and focus when I eat.
3. Keep myself from getting overly hungry.
4. Calm myself if do I let myself get too hungry.