Fluffbusters 2: Week 3

Jill is the winner this week! Four pounds down, way to be!

Here’s your Badge.

Name	Current Weight	Loss	Total Loss
Amy	215	-	5.3
Apple	147.2	-1.2	-1.6
Candise	239	-0	-3
Grace Ellen	134.2	-0.4	3.2
Jill	204	-4.0	-6.0
Liz	171	-0	-2
Melissa	215.2	-1.8	-1.8
MHuff	169.8	-1.2	-3.7
Miranda	245	-0	-3
MomBabe	212.4	-1.4	-6.8
Sarah M – Badness	153	-0	-2

Challenge: Walk for 30 minutes every day.

Low-Carbing It

Posted by Toni

For the past few weeks, hubby and I have been trying to cut out all grains (not a permanent thing, just like a jump-start to metabolism) and starchy products like potatoes.  It really hasn’t been too bad, at least not as bad as I thought it would be.  Instead of making burritos, we have lettuce wraps (which I feel we make just as good as P.F. Chang’s), instead of sandwiches for lunch, we have salads.

So last night we had hamburgers.  And french fries.  Hamburgers weren’t really a challenge.  We made a low-fat bleu cheese sauce to go on the hamburger patty, which was way more delicious than a regular hamburger on a bun.  But the incredible part was the french fries.

We have been substituting sweet potatoes for regular potatoes.  Last night we cut them into fries and put them in a ziplock bag with some olive oil, seasoned salt and cinnamon.  After shake-shake-shaking them, we baked them.  They were absolutely delicious.  Much tastier than regular fries, however not as crunchy.

It has been a very tasty experience as we have looked for low-fat substitutes to our very carbohydrate-laden way of eating.  Only two more weeks of no grains, and then we plan to only have whole grains, on a limited basis.

Reintroducing myself

Hi.  Remember me?  I’m Jen and I used to post here regularly.  Then I went MIA, so now I’m totally a hypocrite, as I’ve also been the Bossy Chick who would occasionally kvetch about how no one was posting or commenting.  Sorry about that.

So, in terms of life in general, it’s been a pretty good summer.   Busy.  Fun.  Time is flying by.

But, in terms of my weight loss, the last several weeks have been a disaster.  In three weeks, I managed to regain all the weight I lost the month before.  I’m walking 2-4 miles every single day, so I lay the blame on all the fun foods I’ve been eating this summer.  Ordering pizza for dinner and then having two or three slices.  Making homemade ice cream sandwiches.  Baking.  All because, hey, it’s summer and we’re having fun.

There have also been some stresses — my father is terminally ill, plus we’re building a house while the economy is in the crapper — and I’ve caught myself stress eating a few times.

Some days, I’m so caught up with what’s going on with my life that I forget that I’m supposed to be mindful about what I eat.  That I’m supposed to be watching my portion sizes carefully.  That I’m supposed to be tracking points.  I’ll get through an entire day and then suddenly remember, “Oh yeah, I’m supposed to be careful about what I eat.”

So this week, I’m just taking things one step at a time.  Forcing myself to focus on food, even though my mind is on far weightier matters (no pun intended).  Trying to remember that, no matter what is going on, my health is still important and losing weight is critical to that equation.

Fluffbusters: Week 2

Way to go ladies! Thanks so much for getting your weigh-ins to me on time. I really appreciate that. It looks like we’re all kinda slow going. Small changes. Don’t let it get to you, though. Small changes eventually lead to bigger better things! (BTW, Melanie, I totally didn’t get back to you before the weigh in. My bad. Of COURSE you can still join!)

This week, the winner is……me! Down 2.6 pounds. Jill came in 2nd with a loss of 2 pounds. Great Job!

Weekly winners get a special prize this time. Bragging rights, if you will. Bragging rights in the form of badges that you get to display on your sidebar.

And now for the results:

Name	Starting Weight	Current Weight	Loss	Total Loss
Amy	209.7	215	-	5.3
Apple	148.8	148.4	+0.6	-0.4
Candise	242	239	-1	-3
Vegas	162		-	-
Grace Ellen	131	134.6	-0	3.6
Jill	210	208	-2.0	-2.0
Liz	173	171	-1	-2
Melanie
Melissa	217	215.2	-1.8	-1.8
MHuff	173.5	171	-0	-2.5
Miranda	248	245	-1	-3
MomBabe	219.2	213.8	-2.6	-5.4
Sarah	290		-	-
Sarah M – Badness	155	153	-0	-2

Great job everyone!

This week, your challenge is to UP YOUR WATER INTAKE. It’s JULY ladies. Get your water in, and then some. Dehydration makes weight loss almost impossible. So drink up!

Progress At Last

By Toni

It seems I have been losing the same eight pounds for six months.  I thought I was walking my fanny off, but apparently not.  However, my ankles slowly revealed themselve again.  But if I ate the wrong thing, or it was the wrong time of the month, my ankles would disappear once more along with any weightloss victory I had achieved.

Two weeks ago my sweet hubby signed us up with a personal trainer.  I was scared to death to start, and after the first week I understood my fear as I hobbled around with sore muscles, trying to get the nerve up even to try to sit on the toilet seat, and then I had to give myself a pep talk to get back up off it.  My muscles were screaming at me for the years of neglect they had received.  And to top it off, after our first visit as we were walking out the door, our trainer yelled “Oh yeah, no grains.  Stay off of grains.”

This week I am not so sore, all my water weight is gone, the original eight pounds, plus four more have come off.  I am moving around easier than I have in years.  I am feeling more confident about myself.

I thought that I would share with you another tool I am using.  It is a website called “Refuse to Regain”.  It is aimed at those who have lost their weight and are now working on maintenance.  But I have found it to be helpful to me as I’m working on losing the weight.  It is helping me to understand that this is not just a phase until I lose my weight, but it is a lifelong process of being healthy, a life change.  Click here to visit that site. You may not agree with everything, but it certainly gives you something to think about, some new ideas to help us along our journey.

Lose Lose Situation

So.  I’m in a bit of a conundrum.  Just a little one really.  Annoying and bothersome, but probably surmountable.  A ding or two to my self-concept. . .

I’m not losing the weight I imagined I would.  Maybe about a 1/2 pound a week.  (Must I be slow at EVERYTHING?)

But.  That’s not my problem.

The other night I was getting ready for bed when I made the mistake of looking down.  At my breasts.  I immediately ran into the bathroom where hub was brushing his teeth and said – nay demanded – “Are my boobs getting smaller !?”  He confirmed it.  I was SO bummed!

I’ve always been the . . .  er. . . “breast” of jokes from my family since I was in my teens.  Every woman in my family is more well endowed than me.

My sister (you know her as Miranda) warned me this would happen.  And when I said “nawwww!”, her husband said “yep!”

And now it has.  *sigh*

Whatever.  Enough moping.  I’ve gotta go run.  And try not to be sad that I’m whittling down to an A cup.

with child

My husband and I bought a baby seat for my bike. We did it after several weeks of debate, and many trips to local bike stores. I thought getting a baby seat for my bike would be beneficial for several reasons. I figured that biking to places we’d normally drive, such as Kroger or the playground would make a teeny-tiny dent in my daily rants about gas prices and what is wrong with this world. I thought biking would be a great way to get rid of some of my arm fat, and I also thought biking would, in some small way, model to my Mr. Independent 15 month old that mama takes exercising and living a healthy lifestyle seriously. In my mind, if I started modeling healthy habits now, rather than when Mr. Independent is 8 or 10 or 15 and wants nothing to do with me, they will just be ingrained in him. He won’t know anything other than daily exercise and mostly healthy eating.
So we bought the bike seat and a basket and helmets for me and Mr. Independent. My husband spent several hours installing the seat, after I spent several hours nagging him about installing the seat. Then Mr. Independent and I went out for our first wobbly ride. We stuck to the neighborhood and did a few laps while my husband sat on the porch grading papers and cheering us on. A few days later we did a more extensive (scary) ride, and while biking hasn’t completely become the norm, Mr. Independent and I are getting close. He generally loves going on the bike, and he even brings me his helmet in what I think is an attempt to tell me that he wants to go for a ride, now, Mama!
In all honesty, biking with a toddler is annoying. Or maybe it’s just biking with my toddler that’s annoying. He throws the center of balance off. I get judged from drivers, pedestrians, and bikers who don’t have a toddler attached to their seat. Mr. Independent thinks it’s an awesome idea to lift the back of my shirt up and pretend to tickle me while I’m wobbling and tettering up a hill. Or down a hill. He head butts me with his helmet, leans forward and shoves his helmeted head into my lower back with a surprising amount of force for a 15 month old. And sometimes, he thinks it’s a great thing to stick his hands down the back of my pants. I am in no way making any of this up. But despite all of this, it is rewarding to see the huge smile on his face and hear his tiny voice say “weeeeeeeeeeeeee!” or “daaa-aawg!” as we pedal through our city.
We biked to Kroger and back this afternoon. As I huffed and puffed our way up a hill, listening to Mr. Independent sing his version of the alphabet song (a-douba-g-douba-g-douba-g, in case anyone was wondering) I started to worry: Am I doing the wrong thing by putting him in a bike seat or in the stroller? I started to over analyze. What if, by putting my child in a seat, I’m teaching him passivity rather than modeling exercise for him? What if rather than teaching Mr. Independent the importance of exercise and going green in our own special way, I’m teaching him to sit on his butt and rely on someone or something to get him where he wants to go?
I tried to look at my concern objectively. Mr. Independent is only 15 months old. It’s not like he can have his own bike or run a 5k with me. When I take him to the playground, he plays pretty hard, so that probably counts as exercise. He dances all the time. I guess that counts, too. So then I tried to come up with age appropriate forms of daily exercise. The best I could do was resolving to take a daily walk with him. With him walking. I thought around the block was an appropriate distance for a 15 month old. I thought wrong. After dinner, I put Mr. Independent’s shoes (in his words, doos) on and told him we were going for a walk, only we weren’t going for a walk in the stroller. We were going for a walk, and he was going to walk. I informed him that it is important to exercise because exercise helps us to keep our bodies and minds healthy. Then I told him that the rule for going on a walk was that he had to hold Mama’s hand. That worked well until we got to the bottom of the porch steps. He spent the rest of the walk trying to wrestle himself from my grasp and wander into neighbor’s driveways and yards. I made threats such as, if you don’t hold Mama’s hand, then you will be carried. He called my bluff, and 2/3 of the way around the block, I had a fussing, squirming 22 pound contortionist in my arms, kicking, flailing, and shaking his head no.
I carried Mr. Independent the rest of the way home, let him play in the backyard some, and then tried to take him on a walk again. We got about 3 houses away before he bit me for holding his hand.
Exercising with a kid is tough. Showing a kid the importance of exercise is even tougher. I will make this work.

Woah, what a week!

By Sarah

Oh. Wow. What a week (and a half, but who’s counting?).

So, yeah, I did a major life-changing thing on July 1st and moved in with my boyfriend. He’s the first guy I’ve actually wanted to live with (I was always really ambivalent about it before; at one point I flirted with the idea of living apart until engagement/marriage), and so far it’s been, like, super duper really really great. So, that’s good.

Not so good was the state of his apartment. Kitchen, bedroom, living room, foyer, bathroom all needed to be cleaned (think Spring Cleaning on steroids). We washed walls with vinegar. We cleaned windows. We threw countless bags of trash out. We re-arranged furniture. We vacuumed and steamcleaned the carpets. We went through the fridge and cupboards in the kitchen. We dusted every available surface that stood still. Long story short, we’ve been cleaning like mad for the last week and a half. (If you’d like, feel free to go over to www.oursimplicity.blogspot.com to see pictures of the damage. I think it’s still on the first page).

But tonight, we FINALLY finished (well, most of it, but lets not dwell on that! HA!) and then moved ALL OF MY STUFF OVER!! WOOOO!!! I’m so excited because I’ve been living with his parents for the last 3 months, and most of my stuff has been in storage since the beginning of March. Oh. It feels SO good to have all my stuff finally with me, and I CANNOT WAIT to go through it all and put everything away and prettify this place up a bit.

Downside to this, of course, is that I haven’t been to the gym since July 1st (which is why I haven’t submitted my weight for Fluffbusters, I promise this week I will). But I figure spending all day hunched over washing things and lifting furniture and hauling every single thing I own across a parking lot more than makes up for it.

It should, anyway. Or else my back is going to be one pissed off body part.

Quickfire Challenge Results

Last month I posted asking for snack ideas that were ideally baby friendly and able to be eaten without the use of utensils.  I’ve tried some of the suggestions and have had some success.

Snack #1:  Popcorn
A few of you suggested popcorn, so I’ve been making popcorn from scratch, on the stove.  It’s kind of a lot of work, but about six months ago I started to be really grossed out by the idea of microwave popcorn, and once I started to be grossed out, I started to think that it tasted funny when it had tasted perfectly fine before.  So here I am, working my arm muscles, slaving over popcorn on the stove.  I put about 3 tablespoons of canola, peanut, or olive oil in a stock pot that’s now become solely the popcorn pot, and heat it.  Once the oil is hot enough, I add 3/4-1 cup of corn kernels, cover the pot and shake it.  After the popcorn has popped, I sprinkle it with salt or whatever else.  I’ve done salt and pepper, as well as cinnamon sugar.  This recipe yields anywhere from 10 to 20 cups of popcorn, and a cup, plain, is about 1 point.
For a twist on traditional popcorn, I tried Maple-Chile Popcorn.  I made this recipe several times in order to work out the kinks.  I’m still working out the kinks.  The first time I made it, it was awesome, then obscenely spicy, then awesome again.  The next time, I tried it without the red pepper.  My husband and I devoured it almost immediately.  My kid’s too young for popcorn, so his opinion isn’t represented.  If I remember correctly, a 1/2 cup serving is 3 points

Snack #2:  Apples mixed with peanut butter and honey
Apple suggested this snack.  Oh, yum, is all I can say.  I am drooling right now just thinking about it.  Oh, yum.  I ate this snack as breakfast one morning after my bike ride to class.  I cut up a Granny Smith apple, threw some lemon juice on it so it wouldn’t turn brown, and put it in a gladware.  I took a smaller gladware and mixed the honey and peanut butter together.  The snack was too sweet for me to eat the entire thing in one sitting, but it was a great way to boost my energy throughout the morning.  I’m not sure what the best raito of peanut butter to honey is.  I’m still working that.  My thought is 2:1, peanut butter:honey.

That’s all I’ve got for now.  I know, not much for a month’s worth of time!

Fluffbusters:Week One

Congrats guys! We’re off to a great start.

Before we begin, let’s clarify a few points. Weigh in should be Monday MORNING, and then email me (MomBabe) your stuff. I’ll put up the post Tuesday morning.

This week, I was the winner. I lost 2.8 pounds. woot-woot!

Here’s the Stats for Week One:

Name	Starting Weight	Current Weight	Loss	Total Loss
Amy	209.7	215	5.3	5.3
Apple	148.8	147.8	-1	-1
Candise	242	240	-2	-2
Vegas	162
Grace Ellen	131	134.6	3.6	3.6
Jill	210
Liz	173	172	-1	-1
Melissa	217
MHuff	173.5	171	-2.5	-2.5
Miranda	248	246	-2	-2
MomBabe	219.2	216.4	-2.8	-2.8
Sarah	290
Sarah – Badness	155	153	-2	-2
Tenille	265.4	264.4	0	0

How did everyone do with the 100 List? Was it eye opening? Did you learn anything new? Did you notice a pattern? Did you find a cause of mindless eating? Let us know. We’re here to help each other and support one another. Many of us deal with the same types of issues as you. You’re not alone and you don’t have to do this by yourself.

CHALLENGE:  incorporate a new healthy ingredient into your eating plan. I want you to try a new ingredient at least 3 times. Pick up a vegetable you haven’t had before. Try a new recipe. Substitute applsesauce for sugar. Whatever you decide, let us know how it turns out. the food we eat should be enjoyable and savored. Let’s not waste calories on gross, preservative laden,  deep fried stuff. Try it out and share the recipe with us. Good luck everyone!