It's the Little Things, Stuff I Wish, and No More Scale!

It's the small things. The little decisions that happen without fail over and over during the day that all add up to weight loss.


Scene 1: at the deli at the grocery store
I see they have crispitos!!!! Yummy flour tortillas wrapped around a chicken, green chili and cheese filling then deep fried, one of my absolute favorites! And there are 3 of them! I can't just eat one, so I'll get all 3 for my lunch.
But.
I have absolutely no idea how many calories they are, and right now, since I'm nowhere near maintenance mode but still in the losing mode, it's safer to eat something I am sure of.
So I made the decision to not get them.


Scene 2: In my kitchen at the fridge, then the sink
Oh look there's still half a french silk chocolate pie from Thanksgiving left but someone forgot to cover it and it's all dried up so I'm going to just pitch it in the garbage disposal. Hmmm, I bet the middle pieces are still good and I could get a few bites of non dried pie before I toss it.
Um, no, gross am I seriously that desperate that I am going to do that?! Pick at the pie that is dried out in the hopes I will find some morsels of softness? How pathetic is that. 
So I immediately dumped it down the garbage disposal. I made the decision to not eat that pie.


Scene 3: the kitchen (again)
I wanted some Lay's potato chips. And nobody can eat just one. So since Rachel has lost my food scale somehow during the mad Thanksgiving cooking bonanza, I got out a bowl and estimated the best I could for one serving. 
Now I COULD have taken the entire bag to the computer desk with me, or piled the bowl to overflowing with chips because dang, they are so salty and crispy and good. 
I made the decision to eat that much and no more. 


See what I mean? Three small moments in my day, easily looked over as not important, certainly not deal breaking, in the scheme of my weight loss. But it's those same decisions that I made day after day that add up to success. Because guess what. I will be making more decisions tomorrow. I don't know what they will be. I didn't expect the situations today.  My successes today encourage me to more successes tomorrow. I guess they feed off of each other.


~~~~~~~~~~~~Stuff I Wish~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I wish I'd never lost focus this past year
I wish I didn't get as sick as I did this past year
I wish I'd never gotten so hideously fat
I wish I'd never told my family about my blog 
I wish I'd never revealed my identity on this blog
I compare my posts from the first days to the stiff, heartless posts from now and the difference is striking. Now I have no idea who is reading this. So I find myself constrained to really pour my heart out like I did at first, because sure as shootin I am going to offend somebody. Trust me on this, I have offended so many people on facebook it would make your head spin. I offended someone by putting a sad face :-( in a comment on their post. THE GALL.
~~~~~~~~~~~~Done~~~~~~~~~~~~~


~~~~~~~~~~~~Stuff that's different~~~~~~~~~~~
my pants are getting looser, at first I thought I was imagining it, but no, they are.
I don't feel as heavy. Okay that's a tough one there to describe, but that ponderous feeling is gone.
I seem to move quicker.
~~~~~~~~~~Kinda short but oh well~~~~~~~~~~


I have made a decision to not weigh anymore. I know, I know, blasphemy and all that! Instead, tomorrow Rachel and I are going to measure ourselves and keep track that way. Why you ask?
Let me tell you a story about me and scales. I hate them. They ruin my day. I dread getting on one. They have all this power over me, and when weigh day comes I am so stressed and freaked and not looking forward to it, I'm scared. Plain and simple scared of the scale!! Especially if I don't lose, or if I gain. And if I DO lose, it's never enough. I always think 'I worked so hard, sacrificed so much, and this is all I lost!!!' So for my sanity, I have put away the scale with joy and glee and embraced the measuring tape. 


No grandbaby yet. It was due yesterday. Hard to be patient!


Making wise little choices all through my day,
Laura

The Day After

Wow. Two days spent primarily cooking. Everything cleaned up nicely yesterday morning, (kids helping) and the food turned out great. My Dad ended up not coming. He hurt his back. 


I was very pleased with everything--the kids just raved about the mashed potatoes! Go figure. The gravy was great, and everything turned out delicious. 


I pretty much did nothing today.


And I didn't have that many leftovers, which was what I planned for dinner tonight, so now I have no idea what to make! Would be great if everyone would be happy to have pumpkin pie for dinner.


I ate pretty much everything I served. I tried to keep the portions small. I did have seconds before bed, of the turkey, potatoes, and gravy. All in all it was a pretty good day foodwise. But I did not stress about how many calories everything was. I just tried to keep the portions small.


Today my food was normal fare, except for dinner which I still have no idea what I will be making.


Rachel and Mary are out on the town, going to see The Muppets for her birthday. 


The rest of the kids: slept in, watched tv or played video games all day, and pretty much got along nicely. They go back to school Tuesday. 


For some reason I woke up early.


So it's been a lovely start to the holidays. No black Friday shopping, we haven't started decorating for Christmas yet. It's not even December. I like to wait til then. The kids all want to decorate sugar cookies this year, which I am horrible at rolling and cutting out but maybe I'll do better than before.


Bethany did well with her 'baby', but she didn't sleep much. I didn't hear a thing. *grin*


Making wise choices through the hustle and bustle,
Laura

Day before Thanksgiving

I can pretty much sum it all up in these 4 words: I'm in the kitchen. Yes, when Thanksgiving is at my house, and my daughter doesn't cook so she isn't bringing anything, and my Dad doesn't cook so HE isn't bringing anything, then I have to cook it all.
So today I made the pumpkin pies, pretzel salad, boiled the eggs and peeled them, made the 2 vegetable casseroles. 


Thankfully I have a nice roaster so the oven will be free for other things tomorrow.


Tonight hubby will make the pecan pies because he has discovered that cooking is easy! I tried to hide it from him but he's too clever. So now the pecan pies are HIS thing which is allright by me.


Kids are out of school until next Tuesday. 


Food I have been eating:
cereal
milk
burrito made with my taco meat
chips
1 no bake cookie
chili with cheese (haven't eaten yet but will)
Yesterday I ate the same except I had a homemade hamburger for dinner.
And I did take a few tastes of the stuff I've been making. Tomorrow will be a wonderful day! I will be allowing myself 1000 extra calories. 


Oh and I cheated this year. Rachel brought home fresh rolls from the bakery so I don't have to make them!

The Beginning of the week from hell

Yep, Thanksgiving is in 3 days. And I thought it was going to be just my little family but then my dad said he was coming. So now my house has to be 'dad clean'. Which is slightly worse than 'mother-in-law' clean. I wish he had told me last week, then it wouldn't be so stressful!


Rachel and I were out and about today, picking up some bday presents for Mary and some cranberry sauce which for some reason I could not find at walmart. So it was a fun day.


Food I ate today
cereal
juice
mcdouble and fries
no bake cookie
spaghetti and 2 meatballs
salad
4 pieces of bubble bread


We're counting the days til the new little grandbaby hits the scene. But until then we have Bethany's baby she brought home from school--Everett. And it is very comical her responses to it. She gets flustered so quickly, especially when people are watching how she is going to handle all the crying. She is NOT happy about taking it to school tomorrow, but it is for a grade what can you do? It will be interesting to see how she handles it during the night. 


Man I had 8 babies. I remember how hard it was! And I had no help either. My husband didn't wake up at night ever. I was on my own. I really don't know how I did it all. Especially the last one, how in the WORLD did I homeschool and cook and take care of all those children! 


Dinner was really good tonight. 


I am noticing a difference in how my pants fit. 


Making wise choices be my new standard of living,
Laura

I have no fascinating title for this post

Food I ate today:
cereal
juice
half a sonic chili dog
half fries
half can of root beer (see a trend there?)
1/3 of a hoagie, and a few chips. For some reason it was really gross. Later I had
crackers with cheese
one small brownie


The choices I make set the tone for my day. Even when I don't make a conscious decision I am still deciding. Some days losing weight falls to the back burner. Other things creep in and take priority. But I still have the habit of checking calories; watching portion sizes; noticing satisfied signals to stop eating instead of the stuffed feeling. 


This is where habits come into play. And if I grab 2 brownies; eat everything I order at sonic; eat food that doesn't taste good to me; well, I'll be doing what I did before. And remember--if I do what I always did, I'll get what I always got. 


But I like my shape in the mirror. I feel pretty. I am not starving to death. If I get hungry I eat. How great is that?


All those years--waiting for something miraculous to happen--that special something--the pill, or secret trick, or special food that would be the answer to all my problems--all those years wasted when I could have been eating less of the foods I already enjoy. In the end, I didn't need someone to reach down and make everything come together perfectly for me to lose weight.


All it took was for me to say 'okay', I'm going to do this starting right now. 


And what joy! What freedom! I still carry around weight but my heart is light! How I have hated myself for being such a pig, so gross, so out of control. How my life has changed! I don't hate myself anymore. I feel confident, lovely, graceful, full of smiles that I freely bestow on others. And just because I count my calories? You bet!


There are people who do not understand why I feel this way. How can food be that big of a deal? What a good question. How DID it become such a big deal to me? Hmmm.


So the kids are home 2 days this week. Then off until NEXT TUESDAY. Nobody asked ME if they should have 4 days off from school. I just might go crazy. 


Oh, and my daughter is going to be pregnant for 3 hours tomorrow, then she'll have a baby for 3 days. Now that's the way to do it, right? It's for her child development class. She has to take this doll with her everywhere--even with her at night!--to take care of it. And I guess it cries until you do whatever it needs. Going to be an interesting couple of days.


Making wise choices be my choice today,
Laura

Blah

I almost didn't post tonight because today has been filled with a lot of little unfun things and I hate reading blogs where the person just complains over and over, even if is justified. So let's just say that when dogs have diarrhea it makes your life a living hell and I wish I didn't have teenagers and leave it at that.


Food I ate today:
cereal
juice
2 tostadas
ripple chips with french onion dip
1 chicken fried steak--I actually made this from scratch! My favorite food since I was a kid, and I've never made it until today.
mashed potatoes
gravy
creamed corn
1 bite of a killer brownie
I am so tired of writing down all the calories. 
I knew I was having a big dinner so I toned down on the breakfast and lunch on purpose so I wouldn't have to agonize over dinner.


Much busyness in the days ahead. Thanksgiving and all the cleaning and cooking associated with that; my daughter's 12th birthday; her 12th birthday party with friends; decorating sugar cookies with my kids; Christmas decorating and shopping; my first grandbaby is going to be born sometime in all that mess. 


Actually writing down 'my grandbaby' looks so very very weird. The thought of ME being a grandma is incredible. Grandmas are---well, they're OLD. My Grandma was old. Hard to accept that I, too, am OLD. I had always hoped that by the time I hit this time of my life I wouldn't be dealing with my weight still. Sometimes I feel like I'll be struggling with food for the rest of my life. I just don't see an end in sight, and that is part of what is making my day so stinky.


Making wise choices even when I'm tired of making wise choices,
Laura 

Lovely day with hubby!

He worked 67 hours in 6 days. So he was exhausted. He slept until 10, and then I fed him sausage, scrambled eggs, toast and juice for breakfast. Later we went to Walmart, the library, and the hardware store. And might I add how much fun it was just to be with him! I am so glad he's home.


Then he was hungry and we went to a little truck stop that has the best food in the world and we both had biscuits and gravy--he had 3, I had 1. It was a lovely lovely day!


After the kids got home I made chocolate chip cookies. Sam had 5 boys over after school to play video games. They ate ALL the cookies. 
So after dinner I made toffee bars. Simple and delicious, and very portable. David and Eli like to have a little sweet in their lunches they take everyday.


Dinner, I made vegetable soup and toasted cheese sandwiches. And it is very very cold outside AND in the house. But I ate something different.


Food I ate today:
1 toast 100
2 sausage links 120
2 scrambled eggs 150
1 biscuit and gravy no idea
hash browns no idea
1 sausage patty no idea
2 tostadas 300
1 toffee bar


It's funny, I seriously never eat anywhere but my home but in the last week it's been nuts. Hubby wanted to eat out and I was hungry too, so there you go. I'm pretty sure I ate under 1500 calories. But I wanted to make sure so I had a 300 calorie dinner. And a toffee bar. Mmmmm it really did hit the spot.


Tonight was a crazy one. Bethany gone with her friends to a youth group thing. MG had detention (!) then a book club THEN she went to a bunch of basketball games. Eli and Sam headed up north to 'the city' and Sam is supposedly getting his hair cut. Have I ever mentioned that Sam has hair down to the middle of his back? Yes, quite hippy like. And of course it's beautiful, smooth brown hair, and he doesn't even use conditioner! We'll see if he actually DOES get it cut. 


Oh and Meatball has something wrong with his ears, was scratching ferociously and hurt them. Rachel took him to the vet---and----Meatball was bad at the vet. He scratched one of the helpers very badly and they didn't even do anything to him because he was so freaked out. Rachel said when the man helper picked him up and put him on the table and laid on him to hold him still that Meatball SCREAMED. I didn't know dogs could scream. She thinks he hurt him somehow when he laid on him. And she doesn't want to go back to that vet ever again! She was pretty upset. And so was Meatball. We do have some steroids to give him, and ear drops. Huh. Ear drops? And someone please tell me how we are going to put drops in his ear when the vet couldn't even touch his ear.
All in all a very full day for all. Maybe, hopefully, I'll have the house all to myself tomorrow. 


Making wise choices through the turmoil of everyday life,
Laura