Monday, February 8, 2010

DAY 183 Week in Review & Pink Happy Tears


Gooood Monday Afternoon , Journal & Friends!

Since I no longer do a weekly weigh in, I decided to make Monday my day to do a review of the previous week... how it went, what went wrong, what I could do better or different, triumphs and trials! 

Overall, I'm fairly on track. Just plugging away, day after day, trying to be consistent. That was my big downfall in the past. I might have made faster progress, but it was 3 steps forward, then boom! 3 steps back. Now I am just going for consistency. And it's working.

As far as learning normal portions: still within my calorie count. Pouted a couple of times when I ran out of calories before I ran out wanting to eat! Harumph!! But I don't write hot checks any more to the Calorie Bank, and my fridge doesn't accept credit cards.  So, I stopped.  Forces me to learn to balance my expenditures better throughout the day, so I am not broke too early!


I could do better in the nutritional department. As usual, I need to get in more veggies. I am a work in progress there...after all, you don't get to be over 400 lbs by being in love with veggies!! 

So now, they are courting me, wooing me, and trying to win my love. Every once in a while I get a little heart flutter over one that I discover I really like. My current sweetheart is Mr Eggplant. :-D


And now for some FUN news about my exercise: I was so happy Sunday while doing my DVD exercise, I almost had "happy tears" over my pink dumbells. I was actually feeling the muscles in my back, near the shoulder blades, working... moving around, sliding, squeezing, doing their job. And it felt good! It was hard, yes, but good! I tried to find a video on youtube that was the same movement, so I would know what to call that particular exercise. But no luck. I know it has a name... where you curl your arms up and down in front of you, sort of out to the side, like a bird warming up his wings, up and down, and curling them around to the front...oh well. I am sure I murdered that description! 

My point is, I loved it!! 

 

I've been working on improving my Time Management. Results: eh... let's just say, I'm a work in progress. I see improvement, so I choose to be "realistically" encouraged.  Meaning, I won't fool myself into thinking it's "good enough". But I will be a friend to myself, and acknowledge I am getting better.

The Mental part of this journey is paramount. I  take that seriously, and put in the time to work on my thinking. And it DOES take time. This daily blog has been a key in my success, because it forces me to tune in daily. Not get busy, and fall into the "there's always tomorrow" syndrome. 

If everyone got bored and tired of me, and disappeared, I would still be here, pecking away at the keyboard. By having to put my thoughts down into a coherent sentence, it crystalizes things in a way that helps me connect with ME. And feelings and thoughts that are fuzzy come into focus, and must either stand up to scrutiny, or be kicked out. 

There just can't be room any longer in my brain for thoughts that don't take me CLOSER to my goal... that don't help me get healthier... that are not true... that are not in my best interest. Yes, I struggle at times with negative thoughts, doubts, self-pity, discouragement.

But I am not polite any more to Stinking Thinking. I show them the door pronto! I am a very picky hostess when it comes to who gets to live in my head now!!


Gotta go...Time to throw those pink dumbells around!


From Dr Phil's book: "Whatever the situation, you can choose your reaction. No matter what the circumstances, your interpretation of those events is of your own choosing."

My verse for today: "I press on toward the goal..."

My quote for today: "Every passsing minute is a chance to turn it all around." Tom Cruise, in Vanilla Sky







11 comments:

Unknown said...

I love it! "But I don't write hot checks any more to the Calorie Bank, and my fridge doesn't accept credit cards."

I too need to work more veggies into my diet. I've never even tried eggplant. How do you prepare it?

I'm always a little scared to try different veggies and find myself relying on the old standbys like broccoli.

Great job on the exercise!

Unknown said...

I for one won't be getting bored with your blog anytime soon - I love how you put it all together.
Fortunately for me Veggies are one thing I absolutely love.... except Eggplant and I think that is only because I don't know how to make it taste good. I'm game for any ideas you want to share :)
Great job on the exercising... love to love that feeling of muscles working.

Retta said...

Hi Debbie and Sandra,
Thank you for the nice comments. :-)

About my new love, Mr Eggplant. He is sooo versatile! And some people like to salt him and let him sit, and it draws out any bitterness, then they rinse and pat him dry with paper towels before cooking.

But the EASIEST way, and fast, is to grill him up on my George Foreman grill.

I brush the grill with olive oil or spray, and while it's heating up:

-Wash him, cut off the ends. Slice in about 1/2" thick rounds.
-Sprinkle with whatever you like. I use stuff like sea salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion salt, sometimes a rosemary herb blend.
-Grill on hot til nice and done, with those crispy charred grill marks, maybe 5 or 6 minutes.

The instructions say 8 to 10 minutes on medium setting. But I like the crispy char marks, so do it hotter, and just watch it.

The first time I did it this way, was for a vegetarian lasagna (using the eggplant instead of pasta). But it was so good right out of the grill, it never made it to the dish! It was tasty and moist, and low calorie, right off the grill! Yummo.

If you don't have a Geo Foreman grill, you can pan fry Mr Eggplant.. it's similar, just not quite the same.

I brush the grill with oil even though it says "non-stick", and it cleans up slick as a whistle. The oil that gets into your food is negligible, yet adds just a teensy moistening effect.

Next time I grill one, I plan to have a couple of tablespoons of pasta sauce to put on top, with a little dusting of parmesan cheese. Mmmmm. But believe me, grilled this way, plain and straight from the grill, it's delicioso! :-D

Loretta
=^..^=

Christine said...

I need to work on...pardon the french...trying not to sex it up too much.
It really is all about consistancy.
I am thinking about my attitude lately, and I have to get used to the idea that it isn't really all that exciting once you get down to a relatively healthy level.
It's just applying the basics, day in and day out.
At least now, I can enjoy life as opposed to being too tired to do anything.
So, I guess that is exciting.
Keep up the good work loretta.

Olivia said...

I loved this...

"There just can't be room any longer in my brain for thoughts that don't take me CLOSER to my goal... that don't help me get healthier... that are not true... that are not in my best interest."

And I just love reading your blog. You are such an inspiration because of your consistency! Keep it up w/those lovely dumbbells.

financecupcake said...

YAY!! Great update! I'm glad you see your strength of consistency and are happily working with it! I can just see you and your pink dumbbells! What videos do you do? Also, have you tried The Ogre yet? It's a great way to sneak in some spinach or even just some fruit. I can't just eat a piece of fruit, and my veggie intake can always use improvement. Do you have any good eggplant cooking tips? How do you prepare yours? Never mind, I just read the lovely description. That sounds yummy! How do you not have a day of the week devoted to recipes on here? That eggplant sounds like food porn!

soontobe...skinnygirl said...

I always love to read your blog Loretta. I love your honesty. It really makes me take a look at myself.

That diet I follow is Precision Nutrition. I have a link on my webpage. It involves a LOT of veggies... at each meal AND for each snack. Lucky me, I love them...in fact, I'd rather eat them than meat. One thing I might suggest is you try roasting them, that is if you haven't already. I roast everything when I can! Just a drizzle of olive oil and a hot oven. Nothing is watery...everything tastes wonderful!

As for boring...you could never be that! I read you each day! You're part of the reason I keep going!

-B

Patsy said...

It's taken me a L-O-N-G time to realise that slow and steady is the way to do it for good...

We've all done crash diets and other crazy stuff, but as I read in a book yesterday "If you keep doing what you've always done, you'll get what you've always got" and in my case with crash or faddy diets, that was 14lbs off, 20lbs on! lol

Leslie said...

You had me yukking out loud today, Loretta, with the calorie bank, bad checks and all. I love your blog and the way you process your thoughts. Very helpful for me.

I love veggies - unfortunately I love just about all food except for milk and liver. I have some good recipes I should start posting and give you another source for ideas. TJ's blog is great for that.

I love the baby with the pink dumbells! Adorable. Have a great day, and I'll be back tomorrow!

antgirl said...

Love the hot checks and no credit card analogy.

I'm so glad you're learning to love PA and what it does for you. That will help keep you going. Remember that when a more lethargic day comes along. :) It's how I keep myself going. One of the ways.

I love veggies. Hope you find more you like.

I won't be getting bored with you either. Your insights help keep me inspired. :)

Retta said...

CINCIMOM: Hi Christina, sorry to be so long in answering you.
I haven't tried the Ogre myself. Years ago I was in one of those hospital-based liquid fasting programs. All I ate for MONTHS was shakes of various flavors. It got so that I literally gagged at a shake. Obviously the program didn't work long term, or I would be HERE, right?! But there are only very few kinds of shakes I can eat yet that I don't physically gag on. Ogres would fall into the nuh-uh category. ;-)

About the DVD's... right now I have two kinds I switch out. One is Richard Simmon's Sweatin to the Oldies, a boxed set from ebay with Sweatin 1,2,3, and 4. Love them!

And the other is a Billy Blanks Tea Bo, called Believers Workout, The Strength Within. It's new to me, and I love it. I can't do some of it yet, but my mantra when exercising is "modify". That way I can usually do whatever I want, and just modify it.

Loretta
=^..^=

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