August 6, 2011
100 days of Weight Loss- Day 1

I got this book a while back called 100 Days of Weight Loss. I STRONGLY recommend it. I’ll be honest, I only made it through about half of it last time, but I’m starting it over because so many of the early days were so good. I don’t have my notebook with me tonight so I figured I’d just post my journal response on here. I may continue to do this, I may not. But regardless check the book out. Its great and super helpful.

Day 1 is called “I used to be that way…” and asks you to come up with some statements. 

I used to, but now I…

Here are mine:

I used to give up an entire day because of one messed up meal, now I take it one bite at a time and try to make each choice the best and most intelligent one.

I used to make excuses not to work out, now I put on my tennis shoes and just go. Even if its just to walk. Something is better than nothing!

I used to not believe I could lose weight or maintain a healthy wait, but now I have seen that I am capable and will fight to build healthy habits for life. 

I used to be afraid to talk about anything related to weight, but now I blog, ask questions, seek support from family and friends, and other similar things.

I used to chose fruits and vegetable last but now I make them my first choice for a snack in most cases. 

I used to have external motivations (losing weight for other people, trying to look like other people, external pressures, etc.), now I am doing it for my health and my own feeling of accomplishment and pride.

I used to think there was a quick fix and if I could just lose the weight, I would be able to eat whatever for the rest of my life but now I know this is a life change and I will work on healthy habits for my life. 

12:31am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZwKSdx7zKyu7
(Notes: 7)
  
Filed under: weight loss diet nutrition exercise mind food 
July 20, 2011
Doing a little cooking…

And trying some new recipes. I’ll post back after I finish the experiment but I’m particularly excited to try this dip for dessert. Its greek yogurt with cinnamon and brown sugar. I have some cherries that need to be eaten so I’m going to pair it with that but I think its going to be pretty wonderful. We’ll see!

 

3:34pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZwKSdx7K6-aX
Filed under: recipes greek yogurt fruit dessert cooking diet weight watchers weight loss healthy 
July 18, 2011
Breakfast of Champions

So I just ate what I think is going to be an incredibly brilliant breakfast choice and so I had to share. For my own documentation as well as for any of you that might benefit from it. 

I have become recently obsessed with having oatmeal for breakfast every morning. I had been buying Active Lifestyle’s brand which had pecans, apples, and raisins and was really good. But there just wasn’t very much in there and most days I was hungry fairly quickly. So I remembered, hey, you can just buy oats and make your own! Duh!

So that led me to today: I bought kroger brand whole grain instant oats, mixed a half of a cup of those with water and stuck it in the microwave for about a minute. I realize that making it with milk is even better but I opted to save the point today. Someday I will make it with milk and report back about the difference. 

I threw on some brown sugar splenda, a little I Can’t Believe its Not Butter spray, and sliced up a banana to put on top. And finally, I dashed on a little cinnamon. Let me tell you it was WONDERFUL. Just as good as my active lifestyle oatmeal and there was WAY more in my bowl. It just felt heavier too which is always sort of fun when you are watching your portions. Also, I’m pretty sure this is going to stay with me for a good while. The whole grains and the banana are both Weight Watcher power foods and like I said I just felt like it was a lot of food. 

So thats my extended post on oatmeal. Love it or leave it but I suggest loving it because oatmeal is gooood stuff.

—LAC

9:45am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZwKSdx7EcglL
(Notes: 1)
  
Filed under: oatmeal oats food diet recipes nutrition healthy health weight watchers weight loss 
July 17, 2011
Creating recipes…

So I was feeling creative tonight and decided to make up a recipe. I actually had the idea when I saw the portobello mushrooms at Kroger and just knew I had to make something out of them. Mushrooms are, of course, 0 points on Weight Watchers. So then I thought, I wonder if I could turn it into a pizza somehow…

and there you have it. A portobello pizza. I just threw on 2 slices of reduced fat provolone (2 points) and 1/2 serving of turkey pepporoni (1 point) which made this dinner a whole 3 points. So I added some random sides with it which I won’t mention because they were boring. But here’s the results of the pizza endeavor:

It was pretty good taste wise, but a little dry. I think next time I might add some diced tomatoes (or even some sauce if I want to add a point or two). And then of course extra veggies would be great on it. And maybe some parmaesan or garlic…just jazz it up a little. But the concept was good and putting it in the broiler it only took about 5 minutes. And it was surprisingly filling!

Moral of the story: play with portobellos. They’re a great vegetable and so easy to make all sorts of things with!

*****UPDATE*****
Yesterday I tried this again and threw on the tomatoes. It was AWESOME. Tasted like a pizza with fresh mushrooms. Sooo goood. Of course I went to Kroger yesterday and they were out of portobellos…but I bought the smaller ones and figured I could make some mini ones. Anyway, give this a try. You won’t regret it. 

1:02am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZwKSdx7Bo189
Filed under: weight loss, recipes nutrition portobello mushrooms pizza diet weight watchers 
July 10, 2011
A Thought on Binge Eating

Dear Readers,

Just a quick post before I head off to the gym today. Last night I had a small binge. Nothing major and it was all on healthy food at least. But one thing I did afterwards that I don’t usually do is made a list of everything I ate. I even put the amounts of each item (with my best guess if I wasn’t sure). Looking at that list following my binge was really eye opening. Even though I didn’t feel sick or overly full, the list proved that I really did eat a lot of food. 

So here’s a thought: in the future, I would like to try writing down each thing I eat after I eat it. In general, I think thats a good idea. Just to force myself to stop for a second before eating the next thing. A little rule of thumb; no eating the next thing until the previous thing has been written down. I’m sure this will not be a perfect rule or something I stick to all the time, but I think it is a good thing to shoot for to help keep you aware. 

That’s all for now. Welcome to my new followers! Please feel free to comment or ask questions and please share my blog with others that might enjoy!

-LAC

11:47am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZwKSdx6ySjBJ
(Notes: 6)
  
Filed under: binge binge eating emotional eating weight watchers diet nutrition health food healthy 
July 6, 2011
Recovery

Dear Readers,

Today’s theme is simple (in theory); recovery. 

It shouldn’t be so hard to just move forward. To let go when you have made mistakes and just forge ahead. But, at least for me, these are some of the most difficult things to do. 

Fortunately, I have a lot of options for support in doing this and I plan to use each and every one of them. One of the most helpful, of course, is this blog.

Basically, my life just got completely jumbled up in the last week and true to form I used eating to deal with it. Of course, eating only made things worse. It made me feel shitty about myself, feel shitty physically, and just was all around not helpful in any way. It got so bad, in fact, that yesterday my body just completely crashed. It was compounded by a number of other factors, but I felt TERRIBLE when I woke up yesterday and ended up spending most of the day in bed. 

But today.

Today is a different day. And as I said all through my Jenny Craig experience, I refuse to give up. This is going to be a lifelong battle for me and I acknowledge that. 

So this recovery thing. To me, its just about forgiving yourself and allowing yourself to move forward. Accepting the mistakes you made, but not focusing on them. Because they are done. Over. Moving on.

Today I went to the gym and had a good workout and have been trying to reestablish my eating patterns. I am also going to get organized in my new house (particularly in the kitchen). I am going to go to Weight Watchers meeting today and face the music as they say. But I am not going to let it get me down when I see the damage that I have done. I am instead going to just take it, accept it, and move forward. 

This is how I do the “recovery” thing. How do you all deal with your struggles?

As always, thanks for reading. I will probably be posting again after my meeting to ensure that I don’t get too down on myself and really can move forward.

Enjoy your Wednesday, everyone.

-LAC

2:51pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZwKSdx6pl6mQ
(Notes: 5)
  
Filed under: lapse recovery eating binge diet nutrition exercise health wellness fitness healthy food 
July 2, 2011
Emotional Eating

Dear Readers,

Today I would like to discuss a topic that is something I have always struggled with and probably always will struggle with: emotional eating. 

Now keep in mind, this blog is not necessarily (and not likely) going to be filled with answers. I do not know how to fix emotional eating. Instead, I’m going to use this as an opportunity to discuss my experiences with it, seek some advice from you all, and to just reflect in general.

So my life is sort of crazy right now. I am moving tomorrow (already stressful), working practically full time (more stress), trying to graduate from college in August (oh look, stress), and dealing with the constant struggle of being a woman and having to manage those God awful things called hormones (stress related to having a crush on anything that moves, being super moody, etc.). All of this equals one stressed out gal (keyword STRESS in case you missed that). So what do I do to combat this? Gym, talk to people, listen to music, etc. etc. And all of that is well and good. But at the end of the day, literally at the end of the day, my stress hits its peak. As I frantically look at all that I still have to do, all that is coming up tomorrow, and all that I did during the day, I freak. And I go straight for the fridge. Then it just sort of becomes a case of mindless, unconscious eating. Shoving whatever I can find into my mouth and just trying not to think for a few seconds. But then after, oh this feeling I have after….not immediately after. Immediately after I’m probably still savoring the taste of the pint of ice cream I ate. But about 20-30 minutes later, I feel like shit. I feel guilty, I feel disappointed in myself, the stress has of course come back (and is compounded by more stress over how much weight I just gained in the last hour), and physically I am struggling too.

So what can I do about this? Well right now I’m doing one thing I think to be pretty useful- writing about it. Now if only I can do that BEFORE the binge next time. Also, I noticed that when the binge was about to start, I could feel it coming. Next time, it might be good to recognize that feeling, and assess it for a minute. Decide if its worth caving into or not (because lets be real, sometimes it is…tonight it was not). And lastly, I think its sort of a mind game (isn’t it always?). There is no point in sitting around and stressing about everything I have to do tomorrow at 11:30pm the night before. Tomorrow is still going to happen, whether I worry about it or not. Sometimes I argue that by stressing about it I am “preparing myself”. But if this “preparation” requires me to eat a bunch of junk and inevitably feel worse about myself, forget it. That’s really not preparation, is it?

So, readers, that’s my take for the night on emotional eating. There are definitely ways to fight it. It just takes some mind over matter. You know, that old cliche we all hear about. Cliches always have some semblance of truth, don’t they?

Feel free to share your emotional eating stories/tips. 

Here’s hoping for a good and productive Saturday.

-LAC

12:29am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZwKSdx6fzDYJ
(Notes: 2)
  
Filed under: emotional eating food mind body diet health healthy living nutrition exercise 
July 1, 2011
On Zumba

Dear Readers,

So I know I just posted that welcome letter, but I already have something else to write about. So here it is!

This morning I went to Zumba for the second time. I have wanted to try Zumba for a really long time but never did because a.) I was scared b.) no one would go with me and c.) I was scared. But alas I finally decided to try it last week and I loved it. This week I loved it even more! Here are a few surprises about Zumba though (at least for me):

1. Its actually a really good workout! The class I went to was an hour and I definitely was sweating and feel like I got a good cardio challenge.

2. It IS possible to feel sexy despite being incredibly uncoordinated. 

3. It is INCREDIBLY cathartic. Dancing around to Spanish music with a bunch of other women…theres something really empowering there.

Long story short: I love me some Zumba. Its definitely going to be a once a week staple for me. And lets be real, any exercise that lets me dance to a salsa cover of “Hey Jude” is a winner in my book.

Hasta luego chicos!

-LAC

12:11pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZwKSdx6eYzrt
(Notes: 3)
  
Filed under: Zumba cardio fitness exercise healthy living 
July 1, 2011
Official Welcome- Losing With LAC

Dear reader,

Hello and welcome to my tumblr! I am going to use this for several purposes, so read on and see if any of them interest you. If so, please follow me and recommend me to your friends! I want to build this up as much as possible, for me and for others too!

As I mentioned, this blog has a few purposes. First, it is an outlet for me to journal about how I feel, what I’m doing that is working or not working, and to keep me accountable for the things I am doing to my body. I have done writing like this in the past and found it to be so beneficial. Also, I plan to use this to collect all sort of information related to healthy living. I have so many different sources of information for good health habits and I just really want to collect them all in one place. Again, for myself but also for others that might enjoy them! Finally, I am a firm believer that everything is easier with some sort of support system. If I can build this up the right way, maybe it could be that for me. A network of shared information and support. That’s what I really want out of this. 

And hey, even if I am unable to build this up to what I want it to be, the nice thing about Tumblr is that you never know who is reading. So I can always just tell myself people read it and feel good about myself. Awesome! 

In one of my first posts (before I had a real direction for this blog) you can see a sort of synopsis about how I got to where I am now and what I am hoping to do in the future just so you can have a little background knowledge. If anyone else wants to share their stories, please do. Following that, expect lots of info, ideas, thoughts, whatever I feel like posting about healthy living in terms of food, body, and mind. 

Follow me kids! Its sure to be entertaining anyway! :)

-LAC

12:00pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZwKSdx6eXkMx
(Notes: 5)
  
Filed under: fitness diet exercise healthy health weight loss food body mind nutrition 
April 7, 2011
Heeeelp!
When should I weigh myself? Should it be weekly, bi-weekly or some other amount of time? What do you think? What do you do?
I am a firm believer in the only weigh once a week method. Otherwise you become obsessive about it and that is just not conducive to anything. More than that though, your body weight can fluctuate day by day (or even hour to hour). So in my experience weighing at around the same time once per week is the most realistic and effective way.
Just my thoughts. : )
11:38pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZwKSdx48G2gq
(Notes: 1)
  
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