For much of April, my focus was on eating healthy and caring for my body. I’ve encountered some examples lately of what I don’t want to end up like, which gave me the motivation to get myself in gear and lose (hopefully) 30 pounds by the end of summer.
Motivation comes every so often and if I don’t have that, I really can’t psych myself up for spending so much time focusing on what I eat. Of course, then I end up snacking on junk (I blame Girl Scout cookies just as much as my lack of will power) and not caring about it. You may remember I was doing Weight Watchers for awhile about a year ago and was successful on that. This time, similarly, I am counting calories with an app called LoseIt that I heard a nutritionist recommend on the morning news. It’s not the program so much as my mindset that matters. Once I decide I am doing something, it’s going to happen.
I mentioned in my last post that I’ve changed up my diet. I am eating 1,000 calories a day, which doesn’t sound like much, but the way I’ve spread it out, I am perfectly satisfied. Passover didn’t affect me at all because I don’t need the bread anyway.
Most days, I have 1/2 cup oatmeal for breakfast with cinnamon and pure coconut sugar (92 calories). Then I have a chocolate EAS shake (100) mid morning. If I’m still hungry, I have a greek yogurt (80).
Lunch is a large salad I make each day at Whole Foods. Lots of raw veggies, 4 oz of grilled chicken, 2 tbsp parmesan, and 2 tbsp lite dressing (240). Dinner varies, but generally I’ve been making veggie stir fry/steamed veggies with a small amount of chicken, or some derivative of that. Tonight we are having steamed spirals of zucchini and meat sauce made with antibiotic-free lean beef and a sauce that’s mostly tomato paste. Whole Foods makes it simple when Mr. B is traveling because it’s easy to make a salad for one person or get something that’s prepared fresh. Also, I’m trying out a new healthy single-serving boxed meal delivery place called Freshly. And the key at bedtime is to NOT munch on M&Ms while reading my book. I moved them to the kitchen so that one small handful is all I get. 🙂
Before all of that, after I walk Sweet Girl to school in the morning, I walk the .7 mile loop around her school and the park and fields that adjoin it. Walking to and from there plus 4 laps around is 3 miles, which almost completes my daily goal of 10,000 steps. That’s quite an accomplishment before breakfast! Then I drink a couple glasses of water (a few drops of this flavoring that I discovered at the hotel spa when we were in Colorado makes a huge difference and has led me to drink much more water in the past few months) and 2 apple cider vinegar pills. (The Food Babe suggests waking up to warm water with either that or lemon and cayenne, but since I don’t like the taste of either, this was the next best option and it has the cayenne in it as well.)
So far, I am 6.5 pounds lighter and I feel incredibly better and healthier. Before starting, I’d been feeling very weighted-down and I had zero energy. Now I am on the move. (I like parking far from the store so I can get in extra steps!) It could be mental, but knowing that I am not putting as many chemicals into my body feels great.
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Stories by 20 women authors (Tracy Chevalier, Francine Prose, Tessa Hadley,Emma Donoghue, Audrey Niffenegger, and others) that inspiration from the famous line in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. Generally, they were engaging stories about romance and marriage, though I didn’t particularly enjoy the collection.
April is a furniture appraiser sent to Paris to value what’s inside an apartment that’s been shut for decades. She reads the journals of a very bold and lively demimondaine (sort of an upper-class courtesan). In Paris, April finds personal meaning in the stories, as well as the time to work through some very personal issues of her own.
I thought it was fun and interesting to learn about what life was like in Paris at a different time. I didn’t think that April was a very strong character and didn’t particularly agree with many of her choices. I found the book flat at times, but kept going and it resolved in a satisfactory way.
“EVERY BITE OF FOOD that passes through our lips and every glass of water we drink are potential sources of toxic chemicals, including pesticide residue, preservatives, artificial flavors and colorings, addicting sugars and fats, genetically modified organisms, and more.”
Scientists blame chemical-filled food for the dramatic rise in obesity, heart disease, chronic fatigue syndrome, infertility, dementia, mental illness, etc. Hari’s mission is to educate people about the ingredients in their food and teach them how to live an organic, additive-free, healthy lifestyle.
Learning about what is in most of what we eat has been shocking for me. I still can’t believe “big food” doesn’t care that what we are eating is killing us. Just GMOs alone should be illegal. Why would we knowingly eat artificial ingredients extracted from bacteria, viruses, insects, and animals? Ew.
“How, as mothers of schoolchildren, can we bring our best selves to the task of mothering so that we are not at the mercy of daily frustrations, fears and anxieties? How can we rise above habitual reactions of irritability, stress and impatience? And what are the most reliable sources of contentment for us?”
I really liked Napthali’s book on adjusting to becoming a mother and caring for ourselves. This one addresses the different challenges of raising school-aged children like time pressure, our response to stress, boredom from the repetitive nature of everyday life, making friends, and much more toward living a balanced life. Highly recommend.
This book is a quick read and it’s hilarious. 25-year-old Sundquist realizes he’s never had a girlfriend so he tracks down his old crushes and asks why it never worked out with them. He learns about his own preconceived limits and Very honest and very real about how tough it is to be in high school with the social pressures and awkwardness. I’d recommend it for anyone in my generation.
Oh Naomi! What a great thing, your goal this summer and all that. I want to join you! I also have watched 30 pounds eek up on me of the last 6 years. I had gotten down to a weight I felt as really good at that time but couldn’t hold it there. For most of this time I’d be saying I want to lose 20 pounds, but just this week I said, You better make it 30. So I’m going to be using you for encouragement. Thank you. I love your posts and book reviews. Keep it up.
Kimberly Jewell recently posted…Day 247 – New Mexican Cheese Itz and Good Friends
Excellent!! I’m more than happy to have a pal along the way so we can encourage each other. I also was doing well but couldn’t maintain it, and then I just let myself slide down further and further, thinking I didn’t care but realizing I was feeling terrible about it. So far… 9 pounds gone. I don’t see a difference physically yet, but I feel better.
Woohoo 9 pounds! I’m here for ya!
Kimberly Jewell recently posted…Day 247 – New Mexican Cheese Itz and Good Friends
I love ‘lose it’ and I lost about 40lbs a couple of years ago. I still fall back to it whenever I see the scale start to inch up…LOL! Looks like you are off to a fab start…..wishing you continued success! As always….great insight on some good reads!
Debbie Goode recently posted…The Giants……Sequoias
That’s wonderful encouragement!
Glad your diet plan is working out for you! I find planned meals get tiresome quickly.
SKJAM! recently posted…Book Review: The Inugami Clan
I’ll have to watch out for that, Scott. So far, I’m able to change up the salads enough that it’s ok. The Freshly dinners are really good and there are lots of options.
Congratulations on your weight loss success, Naomi. I can’t imagine doing 1000 calories a day without running out of steam. I don’t know how you do that with exercise then still have the energy to get things done. Good for you! Sounds like it’s working well.
So far, it’s working for me. When I exercise, I earn extra calories. Yesterday, 13,000 steps gave me 100 calories extra. I munched on some blueberries while my daughter had some ice cream. 🙂
Congrats on your success with your eating and exercising lifestyle! So good to hear the success you are having.
Have you ever watched The Food Babe’s videos? Oh my goodness, her videos will definitely get a person to stop eating certain foods. For example, in one video she is cutting down a tree and later explains that grated cheese purchased in the store has a certain ingredient that really is wood pulp to keep the cheese from clumping. I haven’t eaten grated cheese ( if I purchase cheese, it is only in block form) because of that video.
Then in another video she is takes a bite out of a yoga mat and tells us that subway sandwiches ‘bread’ has the same ingredient that is in yoga mat (it’s a really long word, I can’t remember it). I don’t eat at Subway so it didn’t affect me but now I read bread labels to see if they have that. If I remember correctly, Subway changed their process because of her making it public. (I think it was Subway, can’t remember for sure because she has a lot of videos with so much information- she did one a week)
Anyway, I am so excited for you on this journey of healthy lifestyle!!
Elda recently posted…But He/She Is So Stubborn!
You know, I hadn’t made it to her actual website yet before you wrote, but now I signed up for her newsletter and read some of her posts. So thanks!! Her book is really good.
This was a fun read, Naomi. Glad you’re back. I’ve been really watching my food lately and trying to cook my own to avoid the chemicals. They are terrible and ubiquitous! We used to eat out a lot, several times a week, but I am really trying not to do that. Several of these books look fun. Do you think my high school daughter would like We Should Hang Out Sometime or is it more for adults?
Amy Putkonen recently posted…A Nod to Deng Ming-Dao
Yeah, it seems that you pretty much have to eat more at home to avoid a lot of these bad foods. Definitely your daughter would like that book. I learned it is actually a YA book, but I think most adults like it the most. I can’t imagine liking it nearly as much if I’d read it as a teenager. Part of his charm is that he’s a few years removed from that scene.