Let there be light

Yesterday's post was pretty depressing. I almost deleted it when I read it this morning. I guess we all have days where we're a little off (I was way off!). The day actually got a lot better, the sun came out and that always cheers me up.

I bought my ankle weights yesterday. The store only had three and four-pound ankle weights. I thought that wasn't going to be heavy enough. I was hoping to buy heavier weights, more like eight or ten pounds for each ankle. I purchased the pair of four-pound weights and headed off to the gym.

When I got to the gym and pulled the weights out of the box I thought, wow, this four-pound weight is actually really heavy. Four pounds sounds like nothing to me. Well, it turns out that four pounds on each ankle is really HEAVY!

I strapped on the weights and as I walked to the StairMaster I could really feel the heaviness of the eight pounds. It was like walking through mud. I climbed on the StairMaster and had the workout of my life. I did thirty minutes on the StairMaster where I thought I was going to die. Then I did my 45 minutes upper body workout.

Again, there were only guys in the heavy weight area. Where are the women? I lift 15, 20, and 25-pound dumbbells, and the Olympic sized barbell without weights (it's 45 pounds by itself - I know because I weighed it on the scale). It's not like these are super heavy weights, but usually I'm the only woman in this area, with a bunch of bulked out guys. I guess I'm use to it but why aren't more women lifting free weights? They all seem to stick to the weight machines. Anyway, just a rant of mine.

After the weights I decided to get back on the StairMaster with my ankle weights on. Normally I can never get my heart rate up past 144 for any length of time. Keep in mind, 1.) I'm 55 and 2.) my resting heart rate is 50. Yesterday my heart rate got up to 151 the second time on the StairMaster, and I kept it there for 15 minutes! I hit some sort of weird, sweet spot where it didn't hurt and I wasn't panting like a dog. The sweat was pouring off of me but I was breathing almost normally. I even thought maybe the machines heart rate monitor was broken but my own Polar said the same thing. 151. Really weird.

After my workout I was ravenous. My HRM said I'd burned 606 calories and I'd only eaten breakfast and a banana (it was 5pm). I overate on chicken, veggies and fruit. My weight this morning was 180.2. Not what I wanted to see.

Today's another day and today I'm back to tracking my food. I haven't tracked for the last few days. Who wants to write down cookies and candy in their food journal? It's embarrassing.

My new plan is just that, if I "cheat" and eat more than I should or eat something I really have no business eating, I'll post it in my online food journal and then on here for the whole world to see. I'm deleting the food diary blog. I'll add the food journal pages to the bottom of my post for that day. I don't like having two blogs that need updating every day. Too much work.

Okay, so it's a new day, a new me. Let there be light!

Cranberry Spiced Cider

(makes 8 servings)

Ingredients:

• 4 whole cloves
  
  


• 4 whole allspice
  
  


• 5 cups apple cider (non-alcoholic)
  
  


• 3 cups cranberry juice
  
  


• 1 cinnamon stick, broken in half
  
  


• ¼ cup brown sugar, packed
  
  


• 2 star anise
  
  


• 3-4 orange slices
  
  

Preparation:

• Place cloves, allspice, cinnamon sticks and star anise in a cheesecloth square and tie ends together.
  
  


• Combine spice bag, apple cider, orange slices, cranberry juice and brown sugar in a large saucepan. Bring to a boil then reduce heat and simmer, covered for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
  
  


• Remove from heat and let stand for 30 minutes.
  
  


• Discard spice bag and orange slices then pour into mugs.
  
  

Make 8 Servings:

Weight loss recipes Amount Per Serving (1 cup (265 g)): 149 Calories, 1 g Protein, 38 g carbohydrates, 0 g Dietary Fiber, 0 g fat, 0 g saturated fat, 0 mg cholesterol, 8 mg sodium

lose weight, 5 best way for women

lose weight for women

 the previous post I wrote about losing weight for teenagers and how Many teenagers and especially girls often find losing weight a very tedious task and it seems like it will take forever to see some results but today I just thought about some ways for women who want to lose or they find there weight is not as they say (not comfortable) and losing weight for women is a serious case than men because Both men and women want to lose weight. But if I were to choose
on which gender is more aggressive or desperate to lose weight fast, I would say it would be the women. This is because, women have more options in clothing style, are more conscious of how they look and gain self-esteem plus confidence from their appearance.

Oddly enough, the female gender is the one who wants to have a well sculpted physique, but they are also the ones who find it harder to achieve it. This is because women have more body fat percentage and less muscle mass than men. Do not lose hope though because this article will tell you the five best ways on how to shed off those excess pounds.

1- right reasons make more sense

Unlike most men who usually do things with no deep or apparent reason and yet succeed, a woman needs to have the right reason/s to keep moving. A woman must have the right reason to shop, to drink, to work, and to lose weight so she’ll be able to do or even to start a specific task.

If you really want to lose weight, you need to ask yourself the question “Why do I want to lose weight?” It is unsurprising if you cannot come up with 101 reasons, but the most important thing is to choose the best among the list and engrave it to your mind and heart so you’ll never give up even when you feel like going to.

2 a strong support group is more effective way.
Women usually have different means to deflate all the bad emotions they feel inside. They can call their BFF to cry with them, they have a sweet tooth that tells them to eat chocolate and benefit from the ‘happy chemical’ called phenylethylamine (PEA). Though this may sound healthy, but chatting and crying with girl friends always involves a food element. Common foods in a normal girl bonding are sweets like cake and muffins, junk food like chips, and alcohol.

For that reason, make sure that your support group is strong enough and that they too are conscious for their health. This is to avoid any innocent but bad health influence. Talk with your friends and ask them to help you lose weight by not serving unhealthy foods (especially chocolates as they contain very high amount of calories) whenever you cry running to them.

3 counting calories

If you are not quite good in computing your calorie input and output, you may use online calorie calculators to do so. Also, if you are the type of person who is not good in memorizing numbers, you may write your daily calorie count by keeping a food journal.

Since calories play a vital role in weight gain and weight loss, monitoring your calories is very important. By doing so, you’ll know if you are taking in too much and you’ll be able to plan your weight loss menu.

4 -fun activities, why?

Singer Cyndi Lauper said on her award-winning song, “Girls just want to have fun”. She is right. Girls are not as persevering as boys when it comes to exercise. Girls are often caught chatting with their gym buddies or ending up in the gym’s cafeteria.

A fitness trainer-friend told me that in a three hour workout, girls spend two hours chatting and just one hour to actually workout. For that reason, fitness experts have recommended that women should engage into activities they can burn calories while still having fun. Some suggested activities are sports like badminton, volleyball, and swimming, dancing like belly dancing, hiphop, and ballroom dancing, and the famous Pilates and yoga.

5 Get as much workout as you can

Over 90% of the women in the United States go to work to earn a living. That means, women especially those who work in an office are getting sedentary jobs. Sedentary living as we all know is one of the major contributing factors of weight gain. Thus, to avoid that, women must make an extra effort to get those muscles working out.

At home: try to avoid sitting for long hours in front of the TV, but instead, why don’t you do simple workouts like jumping jacks, push-ups, and crunches. Another good calorie-burning activity at home is doing household chores like mowing, mopping, and washing dishes. This will not only make your house clean and organized, but helps you lose weight as well.







In an office: try to get as much exercise by using the stairs instead of the elevators. Also, park as far as you can from the office so you’ll have a longer distance to walk and if your workplace is not too far from your house, try walking or biking to work instead.

Hawaii is off, I can't lose weight and life kind of sucks

This isn't a happy post because I'm not feeling very happy.

The Hawaii trip isn't going to happen. It's a long, sad story. Basically my sister that lost her husband of 52 years in November of 2009, doesn't want to go back to Hawaii without him. Their last big vacation together was in Hawaii. I totally understand. I'm just a little sad that we can't all go and have fun together. Maybe next year.

About my weight. I just don't know what to say anymore. I feel like I constantly post about how I'm going to do this and all my great plans, then I fall flat on my face. I went down a couple pounds during the week, but today I'm back up to 180. My face fell into a bag of cookies and a lot of candy. I won't bore you with the details but six days of hard work can and was totally destroyed by one evening of total madness.

I'm trying hard to not totally hate myself right now. It's not easy. Even though I know it doesn't make me a bad person because I have an eating disorder, I can't help but feel there's something terribly wrong with me. Why on earth do I keep doing this to myself? As hard as I try, I can't figure out the answer to that question. I'm still working on trying to find the answer, but at this point, it's still an unknown.

I have The Big Climb looming in front of me on March 20. 1,311 steps. 69 floors. What the hell was I thinking to get a team of people together to do this? I certainly can't back out. I have to do it. I have a team of ten right now, and about ten others that said they're going to sign up. I'm the team captain. I'm a little freaked out about the whole thing. Lugging my fat ass up 69 floors. If you don't hear from me after March 20 you can rest assured I dropped dead of a heart attack.

In a few minutes I'm heading up to the store to buy ankle weights and then to the gym to do the StairMaster. I read somewhere that ankles weights and the StairMaster are good training for the Big Climb.

The dreary Seattle weather isn't helping either. I can't remember the last time I saw the sun. This morning the weather guy on TV made a big deal about what a great weekend we're going to have. What he meant was we're going to have dark, gray skies, no sign of the sun, but no rain. No rain is considered a nice weekend. Hey - the sun just popped out for a second as I wrote this. Weird. The skies are almost black but somehow the sun peeked out. Hmmm...maybe there's hope after all.

Sorry for my bad attitude today. I know people don't come hear to read doom and gloom. It's just how I'm feeling. I can't seem to get past it today, and I don't even feel like trying.

very very slowly losing (and message for Caroline)

Caroline, did you post on my last message babes? I got the one about a rider, and to delete it but nothing else. I got one today too asking if I posted the post. I assume there was a new one but I didn't get it or something. I also sent you an email but it bounced and then found your email change, so hopefully we will sort it out. I usually get emails from you when you post something, but haven't had anything as yet.


Anyway, just thought I would let you know that I am slowly, very slowly, creeping down the scale. I don't quite know how it is happening, but I GUESS - even after all this time - that its because I am not forcing myself to eat three meals a day, eating one nice meal in the evening and being relaxed when I do so. I cant be consuming 3500 cals doing that, which is what I would need to consume to maintain my fat arsed carcass.

Good huh.

I am going for the fill. Fuck it, can't hurt can it. We also get 2 months off our council tax payments in Feb and April so I will use it for that. Sweet.

Pretzels

(makes 12 pretzels)

Ingredients:

• 1 package active dry yeast
  
  


• 1½ cups warm water
  
  


• 4 cups flour
  
  


• 1 tbsp salt
  
  


• 1 tbsp sugar
  
  


• 1 egg white, beaten
  
  

Preparation:

• Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.
  
  


• In a medium bowl, combine water, salt and sugar, then sprinkle yeast on surface of water. Let stand for 10 minutes to activate yeast.
  
  


• Stir in flour and mix well with a wooden spoon.
  
  


• Place dough on a floured surface and knead until smooth. To knead dough, flatten it with your hands, fold the dough into quarters and then flatten again. Do this for about five minutes. Flour your hands and the work surface to keep the dough from sticking.
  
  


• Roll the dough into 12" lengths, about ½" thick. Form the dough strips into different shapes
  
  


• Place on a lightly oiled baking sheet. Brush with egg white or water then sprinkle lightly with salt (optional).
  
  


• Bake at 425 degrees F. for about 15 minutes or until golden brown
  
  

Make 12 Servings:

Weight loss recipes Amount Per Serving (1 Pretzel (48 g)): 163 Calories, 5 g Protein, 33 g carbohydrates, 1 g Dietary Fiber, 1 g fat, 0 g saturated fat, 16 mg cholesterol, 588 mg sodium

Garlic Pita Chips

(makes 32 chips, 8 chips per serving)

Ingredients:

• 2 pita breads
  
  


• 4 tsp olive oil or vegetable oil
  
  


• 1 garlic clove, crushed
  
  

Preparation:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
  
  


• Cut along circumference of each pita bread to remove folded edge.
  
  


• Mix oil and garlic in a bowl.
  
  


• Brush each pita round with the oil and garlic mixture.
  
  


• Stack the rounds and then cut into 8 wedges.
  
  


• Arrange wedges in a single layer on a baking sheet


• Bake for 8-10 minutes until golden brown.
  
  

Make 4 Servings:

Weight loss recipes Amount Per Serving (1/4 cup (37 g)): 125 Calories, 3 g Protein, 18 g carbohydrates, 2 g Dietary Fiber, 5 g fat, 1 g saturated fat, 0 mg cholesterol, 170 mg sodium