From just after Thanksgiving to the end of December, I was doing a pretty intensive diet with canyonwalker and lost 12 pds. After we got back from holiday travels, I wanted to try and figure out a maintenance diet. It worked pretty well; I kept bouncing around in the same 2-3 pd area. I consider that a success, because maintaining weight can be just as hard as losing it!

When I saw my dr this month, she really got on me regarding my weight and triglycerides levels. She had a valid point that both needed work, and I think she understood my point that I gained all this weight from pain management medications I'd been on that screwed up my metabolism. Regardless, I needed to make the next step to lose another 10 pds. My parents were visiting, so I decided to go back on the intensive diet after they left.

They're gone, but I've still not gone back to that diet - and I feel good about my decision. You see, while they were here, my mother started eating my instant (sugar-free) oatmeal with blueberries for breakfast every morning. And I decided to try eating it again that way, and realized I'd forgotten how much I enjoy it. Add in the very real benefits to my triglycerides levels, and I decided that I'd make this change: 1 meal each day will be 1/2 cup oatmeal (pre-cooked), with 1/2 cup blueberries, 1 tsp of hemp seed (because I want to finish it off!), and a bit of other veg or fruit from the fridge - whatever was around. Other than that, I haven't deliberately changed anything. I'd been mostly staying away from the sugar, and mostly eating more meat/veg/"real food" for the past two months with minimal change in my waistline. I've also been doing as much exercise as my poor body can handle. I've got supplements I'm taking, but other than two to help me with triglycerides, I haven't added any new ones.

The results are amazing. I've lost 4 pounds this month without really trying! The oatmeal daily has gotten me from eating 3 meals plus snacks done to 2 meals plus snacks. I'm not feeling hungry, I'm not feeling cravings, I'm just doing my thing and my body is giving up weight. I feel like a walking stereotype right now - how often do "health experts" push that exact meal on us and it doesn't work? Except that my body finally got to a point where it does. The benefits might not last forever, but I don't care. I'll take whatever I can right now, to pull off the remaining 30 pounds that the medications put on me. If I can't get below that, I don't care too much. I'll be in pretty good shape, and hopefully my blood work and pain levels will reflect that.

It's so ironic, that medications designed to help us with issues cause us to gain weight. That weight gain makes a lot of the problems that need fixing worse, and it gets into a horrible feedback loop. I really hope that I've broken out of that loop, but I'm not going to hold my breath until I see that I've actually gotten to my destination.

talons / Rake your talons / Link

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Tags: diet, health, musings, weight loss

1) I rollerbladed today - for an hour. It. Was. AWESOME! Well, except for one, tiny bit; roller blades are really good for telling you when your foot is not fully healed. Inmovable boot + toe area with less than 100% movement = pain. Thankfully it dissipated once the boot was on, and I got to have lots of fun. I'll probably try to go out again tomorrow.

2) I found a pair of dress pants at Kohl's in my size (well, slightly too large, but trust me, I'm sure they'll shrink in the wash) for $4.80. Oh, and I had a 30% off coupon. Yeah, that's worth getting.

3) Kohl's clearance rack was taunting me, however. When I was a size 14, everything on the clearance rack was a size 12. Now that I'm a size 10 (or a size 12 petite), everything's a size 14. W. T. F., shopping gods?

4) Tried some kanpyo sushi the other day, and it was delicious! Wish that the sushi joint that had it wasn't so awful otherwise. I'll need to look around and see where else I can get some.

5) Tried some Yamagobo sushi at the same time. Discovered that I'm allergic to it. *sigh* Not that it's that big a deal to me - the flavor wasn't all that. But it does look like carrots, so that means I can't have mixed vegetable sushi anymore, because the carrots might not really be carrots...

6) Plans to see Green Lantern tomorrow fell through. I can't say that I'm all that unhappy at the situation.

7) DC Reboot! Didn't I say that DC hiring Bob Harras as EiC was going to come back and hurt them? Well, I'm unfortunately correct. Thankfully for me, I suppose, I hadn't been enjoying much of their stuff recently anyway. I've stopping reading more & more DC books (thanks Geoff Johns!), and the two or three I'm reading are going away/changing, anyway. Good jumping off point for me.

Tags: allergies, clothing, comics, dc comics, diet, food, green lantern, rollerblading, sushi

I can finally get my ass (barely) into size 12's. While loosing weight, I go by the adage of "Better to have tight pants than loose pants. Tight pants make me want to not eat too much. Loose pants make me not worry."

The great thing about being in size 12's again is that the designers stop assuming I have tree trunk legs. My legs are highly muscled saplings. While wearing Sizes 14+, I have fabric just flying around my legs. Now, the amount of fabric is properly proportional to my legs. Ahhh, that's nice.

But here's some other oddities I don't get:

A) The same Gloria Vanderbilt trousers - Size 12 & Size 14. The Size 14's have properly sized (aka usable) pockets. The Size 12's are so small, there's no way I can get my wallet, keys, and phone into them without something constantly falling out. Really?

B) Lee's short pants. I tried on a Size 12 Short for one of their trousers. It fit fine around my waist. And yet - the pants were about 2 inches too long on me. Really? I'm 5'3". If they can't manage to make "short" pants that aren't longer than me, I have no idea what size demographic they are going for. 'Cause it sure isn't actual short people.

Tags: clothing, diet, wtf

Atkins Peanut Butter Granola Bar tastes like badly flavored styrofoam.

Then again, after one bite - I'm no longer hungry. So it did it's job. Kinda. Right?

Tags: diet, food, wtf
Mood: traumatized

I was just watching Sex and the City for the first time, as something to keep me occupied while exercising. I am very much not their intended demographic. All I could think while watching it was how horribly thin the actresses are and that they desperately need to get some sustenance in them. Desperately.

Tags: diet, random, tv