Back in May, I had just decided to do the Blood Type Diet (BTD). My husband and I are of different blood types, yet we both saw improvements in following our different diets. I tried to cook mostly meals we could have in common, or alternate out meals — one night I would fix him something, then the next night he would eat that for left-overs while I cooked myself something; or I’d fix two different entrees with the same veggies in common; but sometimes I’d just fix different meals — sometimes different left-overs for everyone in the family. It worked out okay, but took a bit of getting used to. Then, over the summer, we fell off the wagon — I tried to cook compliant, but many times my husband would request something off-diet, or we’d be visiting with friends or family, or have company, or church meetings, or traveling and having to eat out, etc., so I’m basically starting all over again. Whatever weight I lost in those first few weeks, I gained back. The health benefits my husband saw by cutting out the major avoids (wheat, corn, coffee, and most dairy) were amazing, but lost over the summer. The more compliant he ate, the fewer complaints he had — many of them, we didn’t even notice (or I noticed but he didn’t), until they came back — mostly sinus problems, stiff/sore shoulders & neck, problems sleeping, etc.

So, even though we haven’t been doing the BTD over the summer, I’m more committed than ever to it. With the return of school, we’ve gotten into a schedule, and that has helped get into a routine which includes better diet. I’m trying to fix my husband compliant foods, but I’m his wife, not his mother, so when he eats off-diet, all I can do is give a gentle reminder, raise an eyebrow, or say nothing at all — I cannot force him to eat right. He doesn’t always tell me when he eats avoids at school (typically coffee because he’s so tired, although sometimes he’ll grab an ice cream bar or something bad like that), but I can usually tell because of the change of attitude he has, depending on how compliant on the diet he is. I haven’t told him yet, but I can tell. Within half a day at least of eating wheat, he gets a stiff neck. For myself, I really don’t have health complaints other than being overweight. For the past several months, (perhaps even the past year) my weight has fluctuated perhaps 5 pounds a month and slightly risen from its baseline perhaps a pound every month or two. Initially on the diet, I noticed 5 pounds dropped off, but gained those back over the summer, so basically, I’ve started this second round about the same as I’ve been for most of the year. I don’t have a strict figure about what I weighed to start with, unfortunately, but my weight was as high as 220 some days (or nearly so), and definitely over 215 for the most part. Even though it fluctuated a bit (since I weighed myself every day, which some people say is a no-no), it came down a bit too, but not below 210 before the summer. Then I gained it back.

That weight gain has been the impetus for me to start the GenoType Diet (GTD), which is a variation of the BTD. (You can read more about both of those here.) I’m a “Teacher,” based on my measurements. At first, my weight was still fluctuating but on the slight downward trend — an initial loss (probably water) of a few pounds spurred me on, and then I continued the fluctuation that I didn’t like. Rereading the book, I saw that there were guidelines for how much of the various types of foods to eat — 2-5 servings of carbohydrates every day, 1-3 servings of turkey per week — that sort of thing. I realized that I was eating too much turkey, peanuts, peanut butter, cheese, etc., and not enough fruits and vegetables, so I made up a diet check-sheet for myself.

This has helped quite a bit, because I only eat what is on the list. I’m not craving food like I was, and I’m having more self-control. Before, I would let myself eat “just one” cookie, which would turn into a handful of cookies. Now, cookies aren’t even on my list! I didn’t realize I wasn’t eating enough vegetables — I thought I was doing a pretty good job; it’s still a struggle for me to eat 4 per day — most days I get 2 or 3. However, I’m staying within range on all the other things, so I’m no longer eating tons of turkey and carbs while also not getting any vegetables, or only one serving per day. That means that when I’m hungry, instead of looking to see what I have (and ending up eating stuff I shouldn’t), I look at my list to see what I’m allowed, and what I’m short on, and eat from that.

So, while my husband is still struggling with extreme tiredness and not being very compliant (although he sometimes talks about getting back on the wagon), I’m feeling great. I feel clean inside. And I’m losing weight, which is the main benefit I want. When I started the diet, I weighed about what I did when I gave birth! Within the first week after both births, I lost 20 pounds (including baby). Although I lost all the weight the first time, I kept much of the weight the second time, and then added back to it in the three years since I had my younger child. I’m tired of being the weight I am.

Today, my weight is 207, which is lower than I’ve been in months. Is it weird to feel “thin” when I weigh what I do, and am still well over “obese”? [This is an extremely interesting slide-show of various people of all shapes and sizes and whether or not they are underweight, normal, or overweight, according to the BMI. For a brief description of it, the "underweight" people look downright anorexic, the "normal" people look thin to normal, and the "obese" people look fairly normal to slightly chunky, while the "morbidly obese" look fat to very fat. I think the purpose of the slide-show is to demonstrate that the BMI is not a very good tool to determine whether someone is truly healthy or not. It certainly fits that purpose!] If I exercise, I tend to lose a pound a day; if I don’t exercise, I lose about a half a pound or so. Sometimes I don’t weigh every day, though. I’m thoroughly enjoying the diet. I don’t have the cravings I used to; I’m not hungry as much, and when I am hungry, it’s not an intense “gotta find something to eat now!!” feeling like I used to have; I’m eating more healthily (no sugar, no white flour, etc.). I just feel good.

I’m sort of doing the Atkins Diet, from a book written in 1997, so if what I say is out-of-date, that’s why. My husband and I have been wanting to lose weight — since starting this blog a year ago, I’ve increased rather than decreased my weight — so he’s been reading all sorts of books, and picked up this one at a friend’s house. I never thought I’d go low-carb, but I’m in the middle of reading it, and more important, in the middle of the 14-day Induction Diet, and I see the results. I don’t want to continue eating this way all of my life — far too much meat and not near enough vegetables — but I am amazed that the weight is dropping off, pretty much effortlessly, and I’m not thinking about calories, while eating things like cream and butter, nor am I hungry. The only times I’m hungry is (about an hour or two after I used to be hungry), it’s lunch-time and I haven’t prepared my food yet. Silly me.

We started this the Monday before New Year’s Day, so I’m nearing the end of my 2nd week. I’ve lost about 10 pounds. I’ve exercised a little. Sometimes a very little, or even nothing above my normal (in)activity — climbing the stairs to get on the computer, going downstairs to check on the kids, doing laundry and cleaning house, etc. Yet I’ve still been losing weight. And I’m not hungry.

In the book, Dr. Atkins has a diagram of a right triangle and says that is the typical American diet, which is unbalanced by having too many carbs (in addition to a lot of unhealthy food like refined sugar, flour, rice, etc.). And if you go immediately to a “balanced” diet (represented by a rectangle on top of the triangle, still sloping), you still have the unbalanced base underlying the rectangle, so you’re still unbalanced. He says that what needs to happen is that you, basically, go unbalanced on the other way (extreme low carbs), so that the two unbalanced sides balance out, and then after that, you can start on a balanced diet — a diet which will truly be balanced without the underlying imbalance, but a perfect rectangle made of the two unbalanced triangles.

It seems to work.

I’m ten pounds down, without being hungry, without counting calories, without restricting myself from anything but breads and the like and fruit — basically anything with sugars (even natural sugars), or high carb content. But I don’t feel deprived, and I don’t really miss the sweet. Yeah, I’ve fudged a little bit — I’ve had a little bit of some things with sugar, like a ketchup-based sauce (there’s sugar or high fructose corn syrup in the ketchup, but nothing else in the sauce had it); and I’ve had some extra carbs (because I didn’t keep close count, I’m not sure how many days I went “over”; but I know that the two days I ate at my mom’s house for supper, I went over, but not by much). But I’ve still lost. Amazing.

One of the struggles in my mind as regards eating is my frugality, my waistline, and my appetite.

Most of the foods that I enjoy eating are neither frugal nor low-fat and/or low-calorie. Pizza, for instance. The way I prepare it (which is the best that I’ve ever eaten, in or out of a restaurant), is fairly expensive. It’s cheaper than going out to eat, but not by much. One pizza which feeds our family costs about $10 in ingredients. It also uses one pound of mozzarella by itself, plus pepperoni and Italian sausage. We use mushrooms and spinach as well, but those are healthy so don’t count in this discussion (plus the amount we use is probably negligible for the calorie count, and they are the cheapest of the ingredients by weight of volume as well). All sweets fall into this category as well. Even if they’re very cheap, they’re unhealthy and unnecessary.

But I try to be frugal (as much as my husband allows), so when it comes to left-overs, I hate to throw things out. So I eat them. But they add up too! I’m trying to get it in my mind that it’s just as wasteful to throw something into my mouth unnecessarily as it is to throw something into the garbage can. If I don’t need it, then it’s wasteful and “waist-full”!!

So, the few bites of peanut butter and jelly sandwich that my kids didn’t eat can either be saved for later (and they probably wouldn’t eat it because it would be mushy), I can eat it, or I can toss it. Usually I eat it so it’s not “wasteful” (my dad was full-blooded Dutch, so I’m frugal by nature as well as “nurture” — we didn’t have enough money growing up to be wasteful)… but it’s still wasteful to eat that which I don’t need. And it’s probably worse, because it’s unhealthy for me. Even if the actual food isn’t just loaded down with fat and calories and artificial ingredients, it still contributes to me carrying around at least 30 extra pounds that I ought not have.

So my new motto needs to be “Let the garbage can eat it!!”

There are so many avenues to take with a title like this. Think about it. So many people say they do something or don’t do something because of [fill in the blank], when the reality is that it’s because of something else.

For example, I want to do the Dave Ramsey thing — get out of debt and stay that way. I’ve probably said “Dave Ramsey” too much and have turned my husband off of him. So, I’m not saying anything right now. It’s in my long-term goals, but I want to win the war even if I lose a few battles. I’ve asked him to do the whole Dave thing, and he “doesn’t like Dave Ramsey.” I’ve asked him why and his answer is that Dave doesn’t like any debt, and sometimes debt is necessary — for instance, med school costs a lot of money, and most people couldn’t go without a student loan of some sort (unless they came from a wealthy family).

But that’s his excuse, not his reason (imho). His reason is that the Dave Ramsey program is too hard. He doesn’t want to cut expenses that much, and “live on beans and rice, rice and beans.” He wants to out-earn our wants, but I know that can’t happen. You can always find something to spend your money on.

On another blog, someone wrote that the father of her child has told her that if he didn’t have to pay child support, if it wasn’t something forced on him, then he’d be more involved in their child’s life. Bull. That’s his excuse, not his reason. She’s toying with the idea of letting him out of his obligation, so that he won’t have that excuse any more. But that’s the funny thing about excuses — if you don’t have one, you can always come up with another.

If you don’t work-out, it’s almost never because you literally don’t have enough time. It’s because you choose not to make the time to work out. (The only exception I can think of is if you literally are working or sleeping 24/7.) But if I have time to get on the computer for half an hour, or even for 5 minute segments, I have time to do a work-out video, or at least some crunches or leg lifts or something. Something. Anything.

A broken leg is a reason not to go for a walk. “It’s cold” is merely an excuse.

I can’t be fat, right?

Weight has a tendency to creep up on you. You wear your clothes, and then they feel a little snug. So you get more comfortable clothes from your drawer or the back of the closet. Ah, sweat pants! Then you go shopping for more clothes (or in my case, get clothes that my sister was purging from her overstuffed closet), and get clothes that fit. Gradually, ever so gradually, you stop wearing your clothes that previously fit, and get bigger clothes. Your clothes still fit! But they’re different clothes.

Then one day you pull out your jeans (that all used to fit), and find that you can’t button them. The fact that you can fit into your new jeans doesn’t matter. You can’t fit into clothes you used to be able to wear.

So now you have a choice — ignore the fact that your old clothes are in fact too small, which means that you are now in fact too big; or make the choice to get back into your old clothes.

This happened to me. I knew I was eating too much and not exercising enough. I felt like I was gaining weight. But my clothes still fit. The fact that most of them were stretchy and knit didn’t change the fact that they still fit. But it also didn’t hide the fact that I was gaining weight. But then come out the jeans. My new jeans fit. (But what size are they? I don’t look.) And my old jeans? I can get into them, but they’re tight. Not too tight to wear at all, but they’re not exactly comfortable.

But this has been an effective tool. Wearing clothes that are too comfortable makes it too easy to eat too much. Not only does something tight across your tummy make you not as hungry, but it is also a physical reminder that you are too fat, so ought to not eat as much.

This is one of my problems — when I get to a certain point of weight loss, or to where my clothes fit, I start feeling good about myself, and feel like I’ve got this weight thing licked. Then I slack off. And eat more and exercise less. Fooling myself into thinking that I’m still doing what I had been doing. Knowing I’m lying to myself. Gotta stop it!

Blogging about losing weight was good at the first. Then I started blogging too much and not losing enough weight. Too much computer, not enough exercise. And I stopped counting my calories, and basically went back to the way I was eating before, therefore I’m heading back to the weight I was before. Not good!

I wore my yellow dress to church this past Sunday, which was the first time I’ve put it on in months. Since I was breastfeeding the last time I wore it (and am rather buxom to start with), it wouldn’t zip, but it was easy to say that it was due to the extra boobage rather than just the extra fat. Well, my son has weaned, and while I can wear the dress, it was tight. It’s never been tight. (But then, the last time I actually wore it somewhere was before I got pregnant four years ago. Since then, I’ve been pregnant and/or breastfeeding.) That wasn’t a good sign. Other clothes are tight. So I stepped on the scale today, and that was an even worse sign!

Reading Jennifer’s blog about not putting goals too far out was good. People are different — some people get overwhelmed by a goal too big or too far away, while others rise to the challenge. I’m not sure where I am. I liked her idea about “just one pound.” Fifty pounds does seem like an awful lot, especially since I’ve frittered away three months (twelve weeks, twelve pounds), and should have only 38 pounds left, when in reality, I have 47 pounds to go. And probably 35 weeks to do it in, if I’m going to stick to my one-year goal.

I must keep this blog up. To let it go is to admit failure. To keep it quiet is to ignore the problem. To keep writing on it is to face the problem and address the issue. It’s about accountability. And getting it down in black and white. Seeing it as it really is, and not as I pretend it to be. Enough is enough.

Since Jan. 8, I’ve lost 7 pounds. That’s about two pounds a week. That’s cool! I can live with that! In fact, I will live longer now, statistically speaking. Kinda makes you think, doesn’t it? I’ll live longer, be healthier, and happier. Those are pretty good goals to have.

My secret? Counting calories. This is for the specific purpose of thinking before I eat, and knowing how much I’m actually consuming. It’s way too easy to just eat handful after handful of junk, and never realize how you’re just loading up on calories like that. But when you write stuff down, you can really see how much you’ve been eating (and for me, how little in the fruits-and-veggies categories I typically eat). This has helped me make a conscious effort to improve my diet, and it’s given me a dose of willpower to help stave off the munchies. Eating with a purpose, instead of just eating because it’s there or because you’re bored.

I feel like I’m melted and poured into them, but I can actually put them on and button them, which two weeks ago, I couldn’t! Today is my weekly weigh-in day, but I forgot to weigh myself before I ate breakfast, so I decided just to skip it. I haven’t been exercising this whole past week, so probably just lost one pound anyway. Maybe I’ll remember in time tomorrow. The good news is that yesterday I didn’t eat too much at lunch, because (unfortunately) my husband had a fever so the whole fam stayed home. (Didn’t want to “share the love”!) I didn’t count calories yesterday, per se, because I ate a lot of tidbits instead of real meals. But I kept sort of mental track of it, and think I stayed about 1500. Even if it was as much as 1800, I’d still be a lot less than my former typical 2300 calories per day. So we’re all good! (And my husband is feeling better today, after sleeping some 13 hours last night.)

As much a fan as I am of counting calories (it’s a whole lot easier than I thought, and really gives me a feeling of control!), I am an even bigger fan of eating healthy. (If you check out my pages here on the right, you’ll see that I am no health guru–I need to lose probably about 50 pounds; my problem hasn’t so much been eating a lot of bad food, as it is eating too much food in general, plus too much not-so-healthy food.) But even before I decided to control my eating and my weight instead of allowing them to control me, I tried to eat generally healthy–I ate out very little; used whole grains a good deal; didn’t eat much fried food. I will admit that my biggest problem is sweets; but I do have some high-calorie favorite foods (like my home-made stuffed pizza) that I would eat too frequently and always too much.

As I’ve been reading other people’s blogs about losing weight, it really surprises me how many people will eat artificial foods instead of real food. That’s just not healthy–I don’t care how much lower in fat and/or calories it is. I used to work with a woman who probably weighed 300 pounds, and all she drank was Diet Coke. That’s low-cal, so it’s good for you, right?–or at least better than regular Coke, right? I have to say I am just really suspicious of all artificial sweeteners. Sugar may be bad for you, too, but at least it’s naturally bad, not artificially bad. I’ve heard that consuming artificial sweeteners actually makes you want sweets that much worse, because you taste sweetness, and your body expects it but doesn’t receive it; then because your body is primed for sugar, it begins to crave it. That might have been this woman’s problem. And she drank a 2-liter a day. So it might have been 10 calories compared to 1000, but it wasn’t healthy. Water would have been a much better choice.

There’s a similar phenomenon with other “diet” foods–foods that are not healthy for you, and are just low-fat or low-calorie concoctions similar to typical junk food. So instead of eating real junk food, you’re eating fake junk food. This makes sense? So when it comes to food, I’d choose regular sour cream (you know, the ones that just say “cream” on the ingredients list) vs. the artificially low-fat or non-fat sour cream (made from who-knows what chemical concoctions). Full-fat foods are more satisfying, anyway; and you can use less of it to keep your fat and calorie intake down.

You can lose weight and be in worse health. You might not suffer from certain obesity-related illnesses, but you may be slowly poisoning your body with artificial ingredients that they put into “diet” foods to make them palatable even though they’re low-cal and/or low-fat. Have you really looked at the ingredients list on some of these foods? If there’s even one ingredient on there you can’t pronounce, you should put it back. Same for anything that says “hydrogenated”, or if it has “trans-fatty acids.” Normal foods (you know, stuff that grows out of the ground, or animals that eat stuff that grows out of the ground) are easy to pronounce and generally healthy. Nutritious and good-tasting, too.

So instead of using fake foods as a crutch to get you from eating full-fat and high-calorie junk foods (cookies, chips, and other fried foods and sweets), why not make a complete change, from cookies to apples for your sweets; and from chips to celery with peanut butter for the crunchy-salty snacks? You can scarf down a couple of cookies or one large apple for the same calories; but the apple is healthy while the cookies are not; and it takes a lot longer to eat the apple than the cookies, which means it’s likely to be a lot more satisfying; and the apple is a lot bigger than a couple of small cookies, so you’ll be fuller. Eat more and lose weight–what could be better than that?

I’m slacking up a little this week. I guess I’m blaming my husband’s 3-day weekend getting me off kilter. I didn’t exercise all weekend; but I did do a video on Monday. Then I didn’t do one yesterday and haven’t done one today (but there’s still time). I pigged out on Sunday (see my daily diet), but have been keeping it in line since then. Yesterday I went over 1300 calories (but still under 1800, so that’s the bright side), and today I’ve eaten less for breakfast and lunch, to save calories for supper. I’m a little hungry but not too bad. I need to exercise, though. I just get in a rut, though, you know? I like to do things at a specific time, and if I get off schedule, then I don’t go back and do what I missed. Now I feel like sitting at the computer and checking email, surfing the net and looking at blogs. But I ought to exercise. (Actually, I ought to clean my kitchen and go through all the mail that I’ve put aside until later.) So I guess I’ll do that–one or the other. I’m going to get off the computer very soon.