BLE: Back to paper

I'm waiting for my soup to heat up on the stove. I added Soyrizo to my veggie stoup and want it to actually cook into the soup so I'm not just shoving it in the microwave to re-heat as I might usually do. I've really been loving having a big bowl of veggie soup for dinners this past week; so easy and full of flavour with all of the power greens I added when making it. Plus I've been using the Chinese hot pepper oil left over from take out to add some heat and count as my fat; so delicious.

I've just packed up the Farrow I cooked earlier today, and the beans are in their natural release stage in the instant pot. They will become refried beans leer this evening, I just need to find a new audio book to listen to while I stand and stir them, waiting for the perfect consistency. Then tomorrow it will be Farro and beans w\salsa for breakfast. YUM. There is a poblano pepper, diced tomatoes, and the last third of the carton of baby power greens cooking in with the beans so they will be rich and delicious. It's a point of pride that I can make better refried beans than come from the local taquerias. Not to say that a fatty serving of those beans is not wonderful sometimes! But for the most part I prefer knowing how nutrient dense mine are, as well as creamy and spicy and wonderful.

Speaking of food (when am I not?) committing my food here just isn't working. I'm tired at night, and just want to be off the keyboard. So I will start using my paper journal to commit my food for Bright Line Eating. I'm sure I will still post food sometimes, but this will be the last daily accounting of food for a while.

Today's food:

• b)  toast, sliced deli ham, banana, strawberries & blueberries
• l)   leftover Chinese veggies, leftover ribs, apple
• d)  minestrone style veggie stoup, soyrizo, red chili oil

The family has an appointment at the zoo tomorrow. I wish I had more confidence in my stamina and walking, that is someplace I would actually like to go.

Time for soup!

BLE: Count Down to Hawaii; week 5/14

Up half a pound in my quest to be smaller for our trip to the big island. In my defense I weighed in an hour early, before my morning constitutional. That on top of having a heavier than usual dinner consisting of a Habit cheese burger (protein style) and sweet potato fries. It was rich, delicious, and filling. And really too heavy of a meal. On top of that I am having to clear my throat this morning, phlegm a sure sign of inflammation from the cheese (and meat?).

Not an auspicious beginning to committing my food either; I finished work after 9pm last night and never gave a thought to writing down my food for today. This morning I have already been to the grocery store - where there were shoppers without masks, very unnerving - and have supplies for food prep today and tomorrow. I need to get back to the days of having meals packed and ready in the fridge, making it easy to commit food.

Today's food:

• b)  toast, PB & flaxmeal, sliced banana, strawberries & blueberries
• l)   leftover Chinese supplemented with cashews, apple
• d)  minestrone style veggie stoup, leftover meatloaf, red chili oil

Leftovers are easy. Today I will be making batches of refried beans and Spanish farrow  for breakfasts. Tomorrow I will prep Chick pea salad for lunches, and more spaghetti stoup for dinners, with Soyrizo this time to keep it vegetarian.

'It's another hot one today', hitting 103 this afternoon. So I am off to drench the garden and fill up the water basins. It's fun to sit eating breakfast, and look up to see a tail peeking out while a furry friend gets a sip.

Small joys rule.

This morning I am heavier than when we started over a month ago. Go Me.

SW: 202.1

CW: 202.2

BLE: Committing my food

Susan's vlog this week explains why I will try to start committing my food here in the evenings for the next day. I just need to fit it into my evening habit stack, and sign on here as soon as I finish work each night. Normally I do have an idea of what I will eat the next day when prepping dinner and seeing what is left in the fridge, but after listening to the science I can see how changing my mind at lunch so often is not a good thing.

Time to start tightening up the plan, and following along more closely.

Today's food:

• b)  toast, PB & flaxmeal, sliced banana
• l)   leftover Chinese (cabbage, 'shrooms, twice cooked pork - not breaded) apple
• d)  minestrone style veggie stoup, leftover meatloaf, red chili oil

Tomorrow's food:

• b)  toast, scrambled eggs w\ mustard, grapes
• l)   leftover kung pao chicken, cauliflower & onion 'rice', apple
• d)  minestrone style veggie stoup, leftover meatloaf, red chili oil

I have enough soup left for another dinner - it's really delicious and leftovers are so easy - but I need to spend some time tomorrow prepping for lunches so I am prepared for a few more days. I picked up some red pepper hummus last Sunday, but it's just too garlicy for me to enjoy. I guess I need to make some myself so I can control the seasoning. Is it still called hummus if there is no garlic involved??? Instead I think just making batches of chick pea salad with lots of celery and green onion will be the ticket; it's going to be so hot (107 tomorrow) and that's a nice cool meal that takes a while to eat.

I will be Bright tonight, and tomorrow night. I need to see a loss Friday morning. I need to start reminding myself daily that I will be wearing a bathing suit in August.

BLE: Changing it up just a little

After thinking about how I first lost weight using Bright Line Eating, I decided to add back in a couple of 'maintenance' meals each week as I did then. This is also after hearing from G in my master mind group how well she is feeling eating on maintenance. There is more to it than that, she also doesn't eat fat (except a few nuts each week) and replaces some protein with veggies. But back to me. I have a lot of muscle mass, I have always been 'big muscled'. Hiking up the third steepest street in LA during my school years really defined my calf muscles, and sailing during those summers defined my biceps (guns) and core. But of course there was my inherited body shape to begin with, they way I grew up just enhanced what I was born with.

I remember attempting to get in shape for the surf camp we went to back when I was 50, and they had a chiropractor come in to measure lean body mass. Mine was so much higher than the others, 125# out of my total weight, and I think that plays a contributing factor in how I lose (or don't lose) weight. Maybe I'm just too hungry and in the middle of the night a part of me jumps out to say, 'hey, feed me!'

Let me jump in here to say I have four Bright days and nights in a row now - that was not a prequel to a confession of night eating.

Anyway, back to my point. This morning I had two pieces of flourless toast instead of one - making it a maintenance meal instead of a weigh-loss meal. This is fine, as lunch and dinner will both fall into the latter category. And it acts as sort of a mental pressure valve, eating a little bit more, so that deprivation has no foothold on my emotions. I won't do this every day, but wanting breakfast to feel a little more special on Sunday mornings is the perfect time for a tiny indulgence. 

I've never been an all or nothing sort of girl. I'm a 'moderator', the one who takes an hour to slowly creep her way into the cold water instead of diving off the end of the dock. It's just the way I am, and have been my whole life. No shame in that, I am perfect just the way I am. Wow, that brought up a memory of my paternal grandmother telling me exactly that - except her version was that God created me perfect just the way I was. Turns out she was pretty smart.

Today's food:

• b)  toast, PB, sliced banana
• l)   chopped salad w\ garbanzo beans
• d)  spaghetti soup, or minestrone with marinara instead of tomatoes, kidney beans

Time to put some oomph into this lazy morning and take a shower now that I am fueled up.

 

BLE: Count Down to Hawaii; week 4/14

Up point 7, less than a pound, at the weekly weigh-in. Given how many bites off plan I had been over the course of the week, and even one splurge from the bakery, I was grateful it hadn't been more. The coughing continues, followed closely on it's heels by depression, but I have tools to fight with, and most of the time I win my little battles. Something clicked last Wednesday and I have been Bright, day and night, since then. Having two Bright nights under my belt at the weigh-in probably saved me from an encounter with despair, so I am thankful for the timing.

Or course I had to sit down with my paper journal and do the math; how many weeks until we leave, what I might expect to lose by then if I were to stay bright, how I will feel about myself if I don't. On and on, you know. All told, I am down about half a pound since the start, so still in maintenance as has been the case since about February of 2020. I am hoping that this current calm and acceptance continues long enough to see some real progress. Because the BLE saying is true, that while 100% is easy, 99% is really hard.

After my video Dr. appt. I have upped my inhaler dose, and after three nights sleeping with a warm mist humidifier the coughing has abated somewhat today. Thank heavens, because I was getting closer to crazy than I like to venture. The Doc also ordered the cough meds I requested, but they had to be ordered and won't be in at the pharmacy until Monday or Tuesday. Sometimes I feel that all of my energy is going towards not coughing, and I hate how unfair it is to Cal. My goal has been to rest which shortens our walks, and has completely cast out our little games of 'go tag'. I feel for him, and I know this will pass, so after three solid weeks of this crap I am giving myself a break and not fretting about the exhaustion. And I'm using my IFS tools to keep the panicky parts of myself at bay.

Today's food:

• b)  cheese & triscuits, banana & grapes (first cheese in a week)
• l)   red pepper hummus, yellow squash, mixed nuts, strawberries & grapes
• d)  cauliflower rice w/ onions & nutritional yeast, black beans, salsa, corn

Dinner was too heavy with a full serving of beans and corn. I put the leftovers away to use or throw away tomorrow. I have a new bag of Nutritional yeast to try, and I'm looking forward to playing around with it. Guess I'll need to pick up some raw cashews.

Having forgotten to publish this Friday, I am doing so now.

Sitting in a warm steamy room is not conducive to staying upright and typing. I feel a Saturday afternoon nap coming on, the pull from the bed suddenly irresistible. Sometimes it's not such a bad thing to live in very close quarters; it's literally one step from my desk chair to a nap.

• SW: 202.1
• CW: 201.7

BLE: Count Down to Hawaii; week 3/14

I weighed exactly the same this morning as last Friday. R pointed out that the large cup of tea I drank to soothe my cough while waiting for her to get up and weigh accounted for at least half a pound. I had expected to lose more, but I feel like I lost and that is the important part. Well, aside from the challenges of watching my breasts flatten out as I lose weight there. Maybe by the time I need it, the plastic surgery won't be so expensive. Ha.

Today's food:

• b)  toast, PB, flaxmeal, banana
• l)   stew with lots of carrots, power greens, and onions (no potatoes), oranges
• d)  chopped salad, garbanzo beans, sunflower seeds

Still coughing, and Kaiser denied me the cough medicine I requested. Despite my long history of coughing, and never abusing a prescription, instead they made an appt for me on 6/11 to assess the situation. I have spent way too much energy being thoroughly pissed to vent anymore here. So it was another night with much broken sleep, too many sugar free cough drops, and so of course I am a little more tired than usual.

Which is why I made myself a cup of decaf this morning. Maybe the living room will get vacuumed today.

• SW: 202.1
• CW: 200.9

BLE: Coughing but Bright

I am feeling the stress of being over-medicated, which reminds me I haven't taken my evening dose of Delsym, explaining the increased coughing over the past hour or so. It's just all too much; the allergy meds, the inhalers, the cough syrup, the constant flow of sugar-free cough drops that leave my mouth wrinkled and unhappy. Tea all day long to soothe my throat and stay hydrated so my cough doesn't turn into a bark. 

Today's Food:

• b)  Triscuits, PB, banana
• l)   green salad, garbanzo beans, sunflower seeds, oil & vinegar dressing
• d)  kabobs; steak, shrooms, pineapple, tomato, green pepper & onion, potato salad

Dinner was good, the grilled veggies a nice treat. I prepped everything and M BBQ'd while I ran to the store to get Spaghetti O's for Cal. His latest favorite. I was sitting in the car going through the usual post-shopping ritual of de-masking and sanitizing my hands when I start coughing, and realized I hadn't coughed much at all in the store. Experimenting, I put the mask back on and sure enough barely coughed on the way home. It reminds me of how I used to pull the front of my shirt up over my nose and mouth while sitting and working. I don't know if it's the warmer, more humid air, or if the material is blocking allergens. Whatever, I will be wearing a mask more often while I wait for this cough to settle down.  The Dr. I spoke with mentioned in passing that it's a 'reactive airway disease'. If  you want to go down a rabbit hole, use Google. Long story short, this may calm down in a week, and it may become bronchitis and last up to eight. I can't think about it.

There was more play time in the kiddie-pool this afternoon, he really is a little water bug and we let him stay in the water until he is thoroughly chilled and ready to go inside.

Tomorrow we will make Minestrone soup for dinner, one of A's recipes that we know we all like. But we will be including ground sausage, so it will be a one bowl dinner instead of being weighed out. There will be lots of spinach, zucchini, tomatoes and carrots so I am not worried about the veggies. And we have some red lentil noodles to use in the soup too.

Speaking of zucchini, we have our first one growing in the back yard, and two of the tomato plants are covered in dozens of cherry tomatoes. So exciting! I just need to keep watering through this little heat spell we are having. It should be back down into the 80's next week, thank heavens.