Some Progress...

...but still haven't found the number I'm looking for.
The nutritionist said I should official weigh-in with her once a month and the result is:
Four pounds down from last month. BUT...
1.5 inches off my waist and 2 inches off my hips, and I'm very happy about that!!

For this upcoming month, the plan is to:

• Strength training four days per week, 2 longer sessions of 45 mins, 2 shorter 20 mins. In an ideal world, I'd hit the gym. It's still not ideal here. But in the meantime, I've got some dumbbells and can do bodywork exercises. 
• Dust off my bicycle and try it out. Go for short rides in the neighborhood. In May/June *might* cycle to work once all the snow melts here. It is about a 2 hour round trip, and I need to get my stamina and strength up.
• Keep hitting 5K or more outdoor steps, and keep being active in the house. 
• Food: Keep on already defined food plan, which is lots of veggies, some protein (fish and chicken or beans), some good fats, low sugar, low salt.

Eats

Being not the best cook, I try and find shortcuts when I can. And I'm cooking for one--no one else in my household is on my plan. I've got a bunch of various frozen veggies stocked in my freezer. Paired with a protein and I'm good for lunch or supper. I bought a bunch of chicken thighs on sale, baked them with some homemade BBQ sauce and added some veggies. Easy peasy! Frozen berries and cubed avocado are useful too. I prefer frozen avocado because I only eat maybe 1/3rd of a cup at a time, or throw a few cubes into a smoothie. Buying whole fresh ones are so expensive here in this area. 

When I make homemade soups, I do prepare my own stock. Commercial stock is way too salty for me, and my nutritionist has me limiting sodium anyway. Tonight, I've roasted a turkey and tomorrow I'll slice it up and use the bones for stock.  A veggie-laden soup is something I've been having a lot of lately. Looking up other healthy turkey left overs recipes is my next task.

Lunches or suppers can include prepared salads from the grocery, but I'm careful to read the label to make sure there are few ingredients. I do like having a  sandwich using canned salmon or tuna that I stocked up on when on sale.

My morning smoothies are pretty boring, but there you go. My tastes may change as summer comes along. It's still cold and wintery here. I get to switch it up sometimes with cereal and berries. I find the day difficult without coffee.

Protein is limited. In the past, I did have a bit of success with a Paleo diet, but my health issues become worse with excess protein. 

Calorie-wise, 1400 or so is what the nutritionist decided. 

My collage pic below is out of order, but here's a sample of my eats. If I feel hungrier, I might have an orange or some dates stuffed with pecans and a smidge of nut butter as a snack.

Breakfast: Pumpkin smoothie (1/2cup oatmeal, unsweetened almond milk, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, pumpkin puree--not pumpkin pie filling, lol!) 

Lunch: Two hard boiled eggs, sliced on top of 3/4 cup of a prepared grocery store salad form the "healthy aisle" a Royal Couscous salad. Homemade Thai soup, with much less coconut milk than the original recipe called for.

Supper: Chili (black beans, eggplant in addition to my regular recipe) about a cup, with a little bit of lactose-free cheese on top, and a couple slices of fresh bakery baguette. Not my usual bread, took a couple of slices from my man.

I'm trying to wean myself off of creamer in my coffee but it is hard. About 2 tbsps is what I add... and that adds up to 70 calories.  I only have one cup of coffee, usually about an hour after waking up. The nutritionist has me drinking lemon water first thing in the morning. It's supposed to have a lot of health benefits, "alkalizing the system", "detoxing", improving digestion... I'm giving it a good chance anyway and continue to do it every morning. 

I'm working on reducing portions, and not eating supper later than 7pm. Maybe the upcoming time change will help me shift my days earlier. 

Steady as She Goes

For the past while, I've been following my nutritionist's plan fairly well, except for some celebratory pizza and pastries that were in there. Although the ultimate goal is to have that Food is Fuel mindset, I'm not there yet. Coping with food as comfort is going much better as in that is not happening as much as before. The true test will be when my hormones get roaring! lol.  

The only big issue so far is downing a glass of lemon water as soon as I get up in the morning. She says the main benefits I should see are the flushing of toxins (insert eyeroll here) and improvement in digestion (maybe? Hope so). 

In terms of exercise, my fave being walking outdoors, that's not great. I had to do more shoveling of snow this week, and tomorrow morning--I just looked out the window :(   It burns calories, but I don't get the same mental release as with walking. For other upper body exercise, working out with hand weights has been in my rotation. I have five and ten pounders. I can only cope with the fives at moment--weak I know!  Gyms here are starting to re-open but they have high demand. Everyone's been cooped up for months, and itching to get back to fitness classes and personal training. I'll wait until the demand disappears, and I get the vaccine, before signing up. In the meantime, there's plenty of free resources like body weight exercises on YouTube to follow.

And speaking of body weight, my nutritionist wants me to only weigh in once a month. I started to get a bit fixated on the daily swings up and down. She's reminded me it's not a quick fix weight-loss plan, but a life-long health plan. So I'll post my official weigh-in numbers that I share with her which will be the sometime around March 22nd or so.  Steady as She Goes... by The Raconteurs :)

Shovelin' Hard

I've not been a stepping out as much this week. After a couple of good walks in, on Friday and Saturday, the snowfalls rolled in and ever since I've been busy with my shovels. This last one was a doozy, and spent about three hours in total outside working out. I usually do sessions of no more than an hour and then go inside for a little break, warm up, change out of my sweaty shirt, and down a glass of water or two. It helps having some tunes playing. It somehow leaves me less discouraged and gives me a bit of pep in my step when I get tired and snow-weary. A rest-day was needed after that. Lots of sore muscles in the shoulders and arms. And yesterday, I started a big laundry of sheets and blankets, so I was up and down the stairs.

Food-wise: You can see some of what I've been chowing down on since Monday on my Twitter: https://twitter.com/FatGirlWontRun 
I remembered my password! lol. I forget why I set up that account way back in 2016. Instagram would probably be a better place for that kind of accountability, and for inspo, but I'll see how it goes for now. 

Not all liquids get posted, but I try and get in 8 cups of water a day. I sometimes drink sparkling water instead. My nutritionist is a wee bit woo, and believes that lemon water is a great alkalizer and has all sorts of benefits. For the Vitamin C (wards off scurvy, ha ha!) I'll take it, and if anything else positive comes from it... so be it! lol. All solid food gets a pic unless I forget! Then it gets written in with the next meal's pic.

Good news: No hunger pangs this week, but I think a lot my cravings are cycle-related. But... my man bought some pastries for Valentines day and a small box of chocolate bark that we shared. I put a couple of my pieces of chocolate aside for this week.

My next move is to get back to using My Fitness Pal for calorie counting. I might check out a few of the newer apps to see if they are easier to use. 
 

Weight: Not much change from last week. I'm not discouraged. The scale will tell the tale towards the end of the month.

Love the blinged out glittery shovels in this catchy music video. If I have time for a little project, I'll bedazzle the length of the handle and maybe the top of the blade of one of mine 😆

Steps

I've been a steppin'!! Consistently getting 5000+ outdoor steps in every single day. I'm usually out walking for an hour or more and really enjoy my time outdoors, with my tunes helping to keep me on a brisk pace and not strolling.  Tonight was too cold, even for me, so I did one of those Leslie Sansone Walks inside instead, followed up with an upper body workout with weights, and did laundry. Laundry here means up and down two flights of stairs a whole bunch of times. My man huffs and puffs, but not me. Gotta put that fresh laundry or else it ends up staying in the basket or piled up somewhere. I'm proud that I've been taking a "no excuses" approach here, and it's been working. 

As for healthy eating... well... not sure what's up these past couple of weeks. I do great for four or five days, then fall off for two and eat too much, eat too much bread, or go out to "treat myself". Ugh. My nutritionist have been working on balanced meals and how to break this cycle. Starting next week, I've committed to a strict regime for the next two months, with a calorie limit, but all the meals are ones that I've chosen (and like). I will be posting my meals on Twitter for accountability... if I can remember my password there, ha! If not I'll open an Instagram account. 

Anyway current weight is 192.2 lbs, so down about 3 lbs since my last post. But to be honest, it's been bouncing up and down but this is the lowest it's been in the past couple of weeks.

Got the Blues

It's been tough lately, and I basically ate my way through the Holidays. Pandemic Blues. Stay at home blues. Curfew blues. Missing my family and friends blues. Just when I think I've learned how to cope with my feelings, I turn to food for comfort, and procrastinate in my free time. It didn't help that family and friends dropped off goodies, so many goodies. Throwing food away in the compost... seemed wasteful... but I should have done just that. I was able to re-gift some items, like boxed chocolates, to neighbours. 

Here I am again at 195lbs. This past week, I started walking outside again, even though this is the coldest time of year, -15C on average. Got up to 5000 steps outside 3 out of 5 days. The other 2 days were just over 3000. I was only able to do a couple of stretching sessions (yoga or pilates) but I should aim for daily. 

My diet has been decent since the end of the Holidays--no more baked goods or chips. 

I was able to score a cheap agenda, with a habit tracker, so I've been writing down of my food intake and exercise and step count for my outdoor walking. It seems to be helping. But I might also add back in MFP or some other online tracker.

Just gotta keep on remembering that I feel so much better when I exercise and eat healthy! 

Didn't Fall off the Wagon

Meant to update a bit more frequently, but... eh. Weight-wise, things are still slow and pokey, like some kind of turtle. I'm bouncing between 188 and 191lbs depending on the day. So far, 1 1/2 inch off my waist, and 1 inch off the hips. 

I did hurt my knee stumbling down the stairs last month, so that has slowed my exercise goals. Since I'm mostly working from home during my work week, I need to walk briskly about 45 minutes to an hour in the morning before work, and another 45 minutes to an hour after work. Add in working out with weights three times a week for 20-30 minutes and rotating those workouts. Yeah... I know that's a lot of time to spend on exercise, but that (in combo with a good diet) seems to make me feel good right now. 

Had a follow-up with my nutritionist to see if those tweaks helped, and it looks like they have. But, there is a possible issue, in part with nightshades (tomatoes, peppers, potatoes) which might have been causing my eczema, so they are off my menu for a while. Guess what my fave veggies are? lol. 
Otherwise, I don't seem to be craving chips, cheezies, chocolate bars even though those big boxes of Halloween candy are on sale here. Good thing there is no Trader Joe's here in Canada because those Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups could be too tempting!!

Was able to see my Mom for Thanksgiving, and that was wonderful. She is doing well enough, but is finding it hard not being able to be more social. She still is, but keeps her circle small. She is a card shark, and playing bridge with her friends and others was a good way to keep her mind sharp. She really misses that. But the other women bridge players aren't so careful with the new physical distancing and hand washing rules... so she says she cant trust them. She tried online bridge, but it's not the same kind of fun she says.

Work is stressful. We've a complete and utter slacker on the team, and the rest of us have to shoulder the work he is not doing. He's simply a con-artist. He's been able to fool the boss for months and months now, even though the team has been waving red flags. Hope this issue gets resolved soon now that the higher-ups are aware.

Covid-19 has made a return in these parts. Two weeks after school started, the cases started to soar. Even though most of the new cases were not happening from restaurants, gyms and theatres, those are now closed, and restos can only offer take-out. They might re-open next month. Hopefully the government will come to its senses on this one. Most of the new cases are happening to people in the 20-60 age range because of get-togethers at home.

Meanwhile, to keep my mind off of negative stuff, I keep looking for fun music to listen to taking those walks. Gotta say Lizzo fills the bill! Here's her hit from last year:

Tweak

My nutritionist is on the case and tweaking my food plan. I want to try a plant-based diet to see how I feel, and to see if it will help with my latest bout of eczema. I'm so itchy and have welts in a few places, and is especially bothersome around my eyelids. It's like I need a 'cone of shame' to stop from itching my head and face. I've got creams and pills, but they didn't seem to work all that much.  Anyway I'm glad I pay the nutritionist make me a plan and to factor in my needs because of my kidney issues. I tried to figure it out myself, but Dr Google let me down, lol.

Otherwise things are going fair to middling. I'm moving everyday at least 30 minutes--could do better and bump it up to an hour or more. I did a bunch of squats as part of a workout last week and could barely move the next day. My hamstrings burned! Just goes to show me I have lots of improvements to make.

Being back in my office part-time is trippy. Not everyone is back and the building management's rules keep changing.  Plus it is busy, so I'm not there cleaning lint out of my belly button. I dunno, that and my commute is stressful, but I'm just trying to go with the flow by keeping my head above water. Doing my best, and keeping my mask on. Pockets of outbreaks are happening randomly so there is no predicting anything around here.

I take a reading break at lunchtime and read at least one thing on health or fitness to keep me motivated. Lately it's been a chapter of a Jillian Michaels book. I step away from the computer and just sit at the kitchen table (at home) or my desk (at  work) and take the time to enjoy my food and then read my book. I am trying to eat my food more slowly, but stress-eating! Sigh. 

Was able to have a picnic with friends, including one who had weight loss surgery. She is doing well and is no longer diabetic, which is great! She still measures her blood sugar, not out of habit but to make sure it doesn't go too low. Loose skin (abdomen, arms, thighs, neck) is becoming an issue, but she says she'll wait another few years to deal with it since it is expensive surgery. She says she still has some issues with food--ice cream in particular, but she physically can't binge so she deals with her problems and feeling, rather shoving them down with food. It was great to see her and my friends in person rather than talking through the phone or Skype.

Weight is super-slow coming off, but a little but less than last time: 193.1 lbs.