November 05, 2012

TUTORIAL: Hemming Jeans Without Making Them Look Hemmed

I feel like I had a very productive day today! I love those kinds of days, where I feel busy all day, but not stressed. The morning was a little chaotic, however. I got the kids ready for school and as soon as they left, I had about 50 minutes to do my tempo run, shower, dress, and head out the door to meet Renee and Andrea for tea.

After lunch today, I decided to get crafty. I've been wanting to use my sewing machine for a while, and decided to hem some jeans that I've been meaning to hem for a couple of years. Yes, years. I remembered reading a tutorial on hemming jeans while keeping the original hem on them, so that they don't look goofy when you're done.

So I tried it out, and took some pictures to demonstrate. (I just Googled it to find the original place I read this, and you can find the tutorial here. It's much more detailed than this collage I threw together):

 
You can barely even see where it was hemmed--I love it! I did Jerry's jeans first, and was super excited with how they turned out, so I got out three pairs of my jeans and two pairs of yoga/running pants and did those as well. It was like I had a brand new wardrobe when I was done.


I was actually a little nervous for my tempo run, because I was going to try and keep my pace at around 8:42/mile. That's pretty fast for me, and I knew it would be tough. As soon as the kids got on the bus, I was ready to run. I started with a five minute warm-up at an easy pace, and then when my Garmin beeped, I started running hard for the next 25 minutes.

I loved it and hated it at the same time--it was hard, and I wanted to stop, but I was so happy to be running fast (for me). The weather was awesome again today--34 degrees :) It's funny how 34 degrees is "nice" in the morning for a run, but freezing when doing anything other than running!

I made it back to my house and didn't even get a chance to check out my pace because I had to jump in the shower. Later, though, I was very happy with how I did!


For the 25 minute tempo part, I managed to run an 8:32/mi pace. That's faster than my 5K PR (8:41/mi pace)! I'm kind of excited to run a 5K in the future, because I think I have a good shot at my sub-26:00 goal. It's going to be fun working on new goals now.

Today's run also got me to reach 1,000 miles for 2012!

After my run and super fast shower, I headed out to meet Renee and Andrea, and got there right on time. I ordered a caramelized pear tea, and it was really good. I was excited to hear about Renee's marathon. She had registered for the marathon in Indianapolis  when she decided not to run the NYC marathon (before they canceled it). She said up until mile 17 she was on target to qualify for Boston (she hadn't been training for that, but she thought maybe she could do it). Then her legs just kind of bonked, and it was all she could do to finish the race. She still finished in a great time, however--4:00:xx--just seconds over four hours.

When I got home, I made a "jalapeƱo popper grilled cheese" (from the HG cookbook). I was very impressed with it, and don't know why I never thought to add jalapeƱos to a grilled cheese before.



Working on the jeans kept me so busy all afternoon that I didn't even think to stop and have a snack. That almost never happens ;) Since I didn't have an afternoon snack, I had a lot of PointsPlus left after dinner, and chose to use them on a high-PP indulgence...


That would be Peanut Butter & Co. White Chocolate Wonderful peanut butter. What you see pictured is one serving (32 grams). Before my no-peanut butter challenge, I was probably eating 4 of those a day!

Yesterday marked eight full weeks of being binge-free... my longest streak since I was losing the weight. Giving up peanut butter for six weeks helped me a LOT. I have a hard time with having "just a little" of something--it's much easier for me to not have it at all, at least for a while.

I thought I might go a little nuts with the peanut butter once my challenge was over, but I haven't had much of it at all, actually. Today's spoon was the first full serving I've had. It was good, but I didn't feel the wanting to go back for a second spoonful, so that is good progress!


36 comments:

  1. Hey Katie,

    Not sure if you know this but when making grilled cheese use cooking spray (like pam) on the bread instead of butter. It's no PointsPlus and still really good.

    You spray only one side and put it down in the pan and wait until it's cooked then spray the side that is facing up just before flipping it.

    Sorry if you already knew that but I now don't like grilled cheese the normal way!

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    1. My favorite way to make grilled cheese is actually when I spread the bread with oil--it gets perfectly toasty, even better than butter! I started doing this to get in my 2 tsp. of healthy oil (WW recommendation).

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  2. Congratulations on the 1,000 miles!!! Very impressive!!! :)
    I was talking to a co-worker a couple weeks ago - apparently she's lost 90 pounds, and really enjoys running! I mentioned a blog I read faithfully (yours!), and she asked "Are you talking about Runs For Coookies?" - we were both kinda surprised that someone else around here (we're in Louisiana!) reads it! Had to share! :)

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    Replies
    1. Wow, that's so funny! One time, my brother (from MN) was at a friend's party, and a woman there was talking about "a weight loss blog"... and they discovered that she was talking about "Brian's sister's blog" (a.k.a. MINE) and they had no idea until it was brought up at the party. Such a small world :)

      Thanks for reading!

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  3. I lost 60 pounds. The base is correct diet and cardio training and other exercises. After lose weight I feel better. I can buy many clothes! Its great for me. Congratulations for your success.

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    1. Congrats! Buying new clothes is one of the funnest part about losing weight :)

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  4. I've been making a daily list of what I want to get done for the day. I can spend hours on the computer, not accomplishing anything. It's helped a lot. Even just writing down "put laundry away" and then being able to cross it off feels good!

    I have gone back to not eating after dinner and that has helped with mindless eating. Want to be camera ready!!

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    1. That's a good idea, Linda. I should do that on a daily basis!

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  5. That's awesome that you've gone that long w/o a binge!!! You've inspired me to give myself my own challenge...I'm thinking of trying to give up sweets for awhile. I don't care much about salty snacks and if I do have a craving I can stop pretty easily, but sweets...that's another story. And with my son's halloween candy just sitting around...I have had such a hard time with it. I don't know if I could cut out all sugar...I would like to, but there are certain things I cannot live w/o...like my creamer for my coffee (no coffee, no worky). My youngest son's first birthday is this week and I know I'll have at least a couple of cupcakes and my mother-in-law makes the best iced sugar cookies so I'll have a few of those, but after I'm going to try and cut out the sweets! Wish me luck!

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    1. That's a tough one--good luck to you!! :)

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  6. That is wonderful about the peanut butter/binging victory. You really are giving me hope for my own struggle (for me it is sweets...in general).

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    1. I am totally hooked on sweets, too--but I discovered through this peanut butter thing that most of my favorite sweets have peanut butter! I always add pb to ice cream, or brownies, or cookies...you name it.

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  7. Congrats on being binge free for so long! I wish there was one thing that triggered binges for me, unfortunately there's isn't one specific item.. My goal for myself is to be binge free until Christmas and hopefully this will get me through christmas baking season :)

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    1. Staying binge-free is a very tough goal--good luck!!

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  8. Those jeans look awesome!! You can't even tell and you don't end up with the obvious, goofy, just-been-hemmed look. I didn't quite understand the instructions, but maybe if I look it up online, it will be clearer. Good job!

    ~~Aundrea~~

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    1. Yes, I didn't do a very good job explaining--but I figured the link to the original instructions would help. It's not as complicated as it sounds, honest!

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  9. I hemmed a pair of pants like that, and they flip up with every wash! so annoying! It looks like the same technique, so not sure what went wrong!

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    1. I haven't washed mine yet, so we'll see what happens. But so far, I love them!

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  10. I know how much you love your nut butters so when I saw this in my local paper, I thought of you: http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/food/sc-food-1102-veggie-cookies-20121107,0,7134189.story

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    1. That picture of the cookies left me drooling!

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  11. May I ask how you stopped bingeing for a whole year? And now for 7 weeks? I binge at least once a week and I don't even enjoy the food when I do binge, I just need to put as much food that I like in my mouth as soon as possible. I think like peanut butter is your trigger, sweet stuff is my trigger but trying to stop it completely just results in a binge eventually. *sigh* any advice would be wonderful :)

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    1. I wish I could list specifically what helped me to do it, but it's hard to put into words. The peanut butter thing helped a LOT--I always thought I was hooked on sweets in general, but I discovered that all my favorite sweets involved peanut butter. So cutting that out eliminated a LOT of my binge foods, and the other stuff didn't seem worth bingeing on.

      Not sure if you've seen this post, but here are some other tips that helped me: http://www.runsforcookies.com/2011/08/faq-3-how-did-you-stop-binge-eating.html

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  12. White Chocolate Wonderful is the only peanut butter I eat, anymore. Once I tasted it, there was no going back. Regular peanut butter just tastes so salty to me now.

    That's awesome about hemming the jeans. I just borrowed my mom's sewing machine for the first time, and I've been having fun just getting used to the process of sewing some stitches. I can't wait until I can be productive!

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    1. Sewing is a fun hobby! It feels much more productive than knitting or crocheting (two other crafts that I do) because you see progress so quickly. Good luck!

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  13. I ran the Indy Monumental Marathon, too! The course was great, but we got rained and hailed on for a loooong time. I was so happy to be done with it.

    http://www.kellytheculinarian.com/2012/11/indianapolis-monumental-marathon-race.html

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    1. That was a great read! I always feel awful hearing about people getting pulled off the course, aid stations packing up early, or an empty finish line! You certainly put up with a LOT--congrats on finishing!

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  14. Okay so this has nothing to do with your blog today but I found this joke and I thought of you right away, so had to share..

    Q. What did the grape do when it got stepped on?
    A. It let out a little wine!

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  15. Yay! I love to hear of someone being so successful being binge free! I'm super struggling with it later and it's making the scale go higher than my starting weight. Starting out small- goal is to track everyday for a week to stay acccountable (even binges get tracked!).

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    1. That's a really great goal! It's hard to track binges, but it certainly helps. You can do it!

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  16. Oh wow, jalepeno grilled cheese - I MUST try that! Yum!

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  17. I LOVE White Chocolate Wonderful. Easily one of my favorite PBs. I tried giving up PB for a little while (bc I also eat several spoonfuls or little bites) but then I wasn't getting a lot of healthy fats, so I added it back in in moderation. It's hard to portion out PB! haha :)

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    1. I had a really hard time with moderation, but giving it up for 6 weeks was just what I needed to get control again. I'm doing just fine with it in the house now! :)

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  18. I know what mean about loving and hating it at the same time!

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