Visibility

Why am I always sitting in the most visible spot from my front door when the Jehovah's Witnesses come knocking?!

In "my" corner, blogging yesterday morning

This morning, I was sitting in my favorite spot on the couch about to start my blog post, and they came out of nowhere. And of course I didn't see them until after they probably noticed the TV on (and maybe the two cars in the driveway).

I can remember when I was a kid, once in a while completely randomly, my mom would yell to us, "Get down! Shut up!" (Or was that Lt. Dan on Forrest Gump?) Either way, she made us crouch down on the floor until after the Witnesses knocked (numerous times) and then left all their "literature" in the door. I never understood what the big deal was.

And then here I am, 20-something years later, and shushing my kids, telling them to go to their room and be quiet. Not that it helped, because I answered the damn door anyway. Thankfully, they didn't stay more than a minute, just long enough to give me a paper inviting me to a talk about eternal damnation and how we're all doomed unless we become a Witness, yada yada yada.

(By the way, this is not meant to offend any of my readers that may be a Witness. I have no problem with the Witnesses other than the fact that they try to convert everyone who doesn't want to be converted. A couple of years ago, I got a book about wine from the library, and tucked inside was a pamphlet from the Witnesses lecturing about how sinful it is to drink alcohol). Moving on...

I got my workout in first thing again this morning. I just did a short incline-walk on the dreadmill (2 miles) because I did strength training today also. I'm kind of enjoying the strength training I've been doing. I do a full-body workout every couple of days. Nothing spectacular--just basics. I'm not looking to get really defined muscles or anything; just get stronger for running and maybe increase my metabolism a little.

When I took the kids to their class today, my friend Courtney came in with a bouquet of cake pops(!) for my friend Jessica. Courtney and her friend started a business making these super cute "cakes on a stick". I had never tried one before, and Jessica kept pushing me to try one. I asked Courtney about how many calories are in them, and she said about 100-150. Yikes! But I ate one, just to try, and it was yummy!  I counted the calories for it.

After that, I took the kids for ice cream--and I didn't get anything. I was so tempted to get something, but I am really on a roll with the counting calories, and I had already eaten the cake pop. The cake pop left me wanting more sweets ALL DAY though. I could never make a batch of these things, because I would eat the whole batch, I'm sure.

I am SO glad it's the weekend. Normally, the days all blend together for me, because I'm a stay-at-home mom. But this week, I've been driving the kids back and fourth to their Safety City class. It doesn't sound like it would be draining, but I'm seriously exhausted (probably more mentally than physically). One more week of this and the class will be over. Tonight, I'm hoping to catch up on blog reading. I'm falling behind!

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I love that feeling

I woke up feeling very thin today. Do you know those days, where you just feel thinner, even if your weight is the same? That inspired me to try on some jeans I bought a few days ago from the thrift store, and they fit very well. I was happy about that! When I tried them on at the store, I thought to myself, "I need to drop a few pounds to get rid of the muffin top before I wear these".  At this weight, a few pounds really makes a difference in the way my clothes fit. I bought the jeans with the intention of cutting them into shorts, but I kind of like them as-is. I have zero pairs of shorts right now.

"The" jeans

I hopped on the dreadmill before I even ate breakfast. I just wanted to get it done for the day. I walked 3 miles at 4.0, and increased the incline by 1% every minute--up to 12%, and then decreased every minute back down. Then I increased by 0.5% every minute. It was a tough workout! A 12% incline is serious business!

I made Asian style tuna burgers for lunch per Beth's recipe at Beth's Journey. Tuna burgers have never appealed to me, but after reading her post, I decided to give them a try.

They were REALLY good! My husband and I each had one for lunch, and he asked if he could take the leftovers to work because he really liked them too. Eli even liked it until I told him it was made with tuna ;) 

I had bell pepper strips and dip on the side, to get in my one veggie for the day (this week's challenge is to eat at least one veggie per day). I'm glad I tried this recipe. I am having a hard time coming up with lunch ideas. Breakfast and dinner are easy meals to come up with, but lunch is difficult for me.

My kids are taking a two-week Safety City class, and I swear we're going to go broke because of it. It's about 1/2 hour away, and the class is 2 hours (11:30-1:30). I drop them off and since there isn't really enough time to go home for a while, I just go shopping. I went to Wal-Mart and Goodwill on Monday, a wholesale place and Kroger on Tuesday, and today I went to a big we-sell-everything store (kind of like a Super Wal-Mart). I tell myself it's just to kill time, but I end up buying a bunch of shit that I probably don't need. I really should go for a run while they're in class, but it's so hot outside at that time of day.

Remember how I had two stacks of jeans in my closet--on the left were all the jeans that were too small, and on the right were the jeans I was comfortable wearing in public? Well, I tried on all my jeans today, and I got to move some from the left pile to the right pile!

Previous pile--from June 1st. The left are the muffin top jeans, right are wear-in-public jeans.

And today... Look at all my wearable jeans!

By the way, EVERY PAIR of jeans I own are a size 3 or 4. But they are all different brands, so they vary greatly in how they fit. Lame, right? I really wish that there was a universal sizing system. Whatever, I'm feeling GREAT today--just like I did when I was consistently losing weight for 16 months.

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What was the highlight of your day today?  I know it's vain, but the highlight of my day was being able to fit into some of my old jeans again!

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Great weigh-in today!

I was very happy to see the scale drop quite a bit this week. I weighed in a 144.5, which is down 3.5 pounds from last week. This is the lowest number I've seen since I got home from Indy at the beginning of May.

Calorie counts for the week:

6/17 was my day off from tracking--but I had about 4,000 calories. Yikes!

 Total:  11,832 calories

With the exception of Friday, my calories were pretty low. While I was losing weight before, I was eating probably about 1600 calories per day. This week, I just tried to stay in my calorie range given by Sparkpeople, which is 1200-1550. I figured since I had such a high calorie day on Friday, that eating at the low-end of the range the rest of the week was best. Daily average ended up being 1690.

Mileage this week:
Wed- 2.0
Thu- 3.5
Fri- 3.0
Sat- 2.0
Sun- 7.0
Mon- 3.0
Tue- 2.0

Calorie deficit from food: 68 (with 1700 as a baseline)
Calorie deficit from exercise: 2516 (not counting strength training)
Calorie debt payoff for the week:  2584

I feel like I'm getting my mojo back in full-swing. I'm really excited to get back to the 130's. I feel very uncomfortable in the 140's. And since I declared 133 my "official" goal weight, I'm psyched to see it on the scale again soon!

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Yummy dessert!

I just ate the most delicious dessert, and I had to share! Normally, I don't count fruit as a dessert--because it's NOT :)  But when it involves chocolate and peanut butter, well, that changes the rules. I hesitate to even call this a "recipe", because it only has 3 ingredients. But I can see myself eating this daily--at least for a while.

Simply orgasmic

 Peel and slice a small banana into a bowl. Combine 2 Tbsp. of PB2 + 2 Tbsp. Hershey's Lite Syrup and stir until pretty smooth. Top the banana with the chocolate/PB mixture, and inhale savor your dessert.  (Stats: 187 calories, 2 grams of fat, 4 grams of fiber, 40 grams of carbs, 6 grams of protein).  I know that Hershey's Syrup isn't exactly healthy, but if it makes me lust after a banana, then it works for me!

So, Katie, how is your sugar-free Tuesday going?

Wait, what?

DAMMIT, I forgot again!!

I completely forgot about going sugar-free on Tuesdays until I typed "Hershey's" and then it hit me. Oops.  My whole day was kind of screwy today. I didn't eat a single bite of food until 2 PM! I woke up at 6, and before I ate, Eli started throwing up.

I was taking care of him, and then took him to the doctor, and took the kids to a class thing they had going on today--and long story short, I didn't get home until 2:00. I was starving. So I ate more calories than usual for lunch and dinner. And to complete my stressful day, I'm going to have a glass of wine (or two).

Tomorrow is my Wednesday weigh-in. I think I did pretty good this week. I counted calories for 6 out of 7 days (Jerry told me I could have one day off each week from our deal, woo hoo). I've worked out every single day in June so far. I wasn't planning on doing that, but now that I have this streak going, it's hard to stop.

I'll write more tomorrow after I weigh in.

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What do you do to unwind after a stressful day? I love to relax in the corner of my couch (it's a sectional, and "my" spot is the corner) with a glass of dry red wine and a good TV show.

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Barney Butter vs. Kettle almond butter

I mentioned a few days ago that I bought some Barney Butter in order to get free shipping from Amazon. I've tried it out the past couple of days, so I thought I'd post an opinion on it.

I love almond butter. I've tried a few different brands, but my current favorite is Kettle brand. I love that the only ingredients are almonds and salt. I don't think it's necessary to add oils, sugar (refined or natural), or any kind of preservatives. I like the consistency of the Kettle almond butter because it's thin and very easily spreadable right out of the refrigerator. If you like to "drizzle" nut butter over things, then the Kettle brand almond butter is great. And above all else, it tastes GREAT--like almonds :)

I've read on other blogs about Barney Butter and how great it is, so I was excited to give it a try. I didn't know much about it, except that it was supposed to be incredibly smooth and creamy. As soon as the package from Amazon was open, I was unscrewing the cap of the Barney Butter. Right away, I could see why people like it--the texture is the same as "regular" peanut butter, like JIF (the kind we grew up eating).

There was no oil to stir in, like there is with Kettle, which is nice (somehow I always wind up getting oil all over my hands while stirring it).  I took a taste and the texture was as creamy as it looked. However, it didn't taste as "almondy" as I was used to.

I looked at the ingredients and discovered why: Almonds, evaporated cane juice, palm fruit oil, sea salt. I was so bummed to see that they added sugar AND oil to it. I've found the BEST flavor in nut butters is when there is no added oil.

The oil kind of dilutes the flavor of the nut itself, if that makes sense.  The taste was good, but not as good as the Kettle. I liked the texture--it was something different, and I could definitely picture my kids enjoying that too. But there is something about the gritty texture of natural nut butters that I've grown to love.

The nutritionals (when comparing the nutritionals, keep in mind the serving size also--28 grams vs. 32 grams):

Kettle brand

Barney Butter

The texture:

Kettle brand

Barney Butter

Price:

If you factor in my free shipping on the Barney Butter (I can't get it in stores here), the cost was about the same--roughly $6/jar.

Overall: 

I like both of these, but I still like the Kettle brand best. I like that the ingredients are minimal and I like the grittier texture. I also like that it tastes more like pure almonds. However, I think the Barney Butter is great for someone who is new to almond butter, because the texture really is just like the good old fashioned JIF peanut butter. Another factor (which doesn't effect me, but may effect someone else) is that Barney Butter is processed in a peanut-free facility, while the Kettle "may contain peanuts and other tree nuts".

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I've tried something else recently that I immediately FELL IN LOVE WITH and I'm dying to mention:

BUFFALO WING flavored Pretzel Crisps!!

I really like plain version of these pretzel chips (the texture is SO crunchy and I love the smooth exterior), so I was thrilled to find the Buffalo Wing flavor. And it definitely lived up to my expectations--spicy but not TOO spicy, tangy, and just like a buffalo wing (blue cheese and all!)

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Have you discovered any good food-finds lately? I want to hear about them!

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Naked pictures

Not of ME, silly goose. Do you think I want to blind you?! lol

Funny story:  Yesterday, my husband and I took the boys out garage saleing. There was a neighborhood sale, so we spent the morning walking around to different sales. At one house, a woman was selling a cell phone.

My husband is kind of obsessed with checking out phones right now, because he wants a new one; so he was playing around with it, and then we started walking back to the car. He told me that there were a bunch of naked pictures on it--some girl who looked about 20 years old or so. VERY EXPLICIT naked pictures--not your average boob shot or something.

I was shocked, but I said, "Jerry, I HAVE to go tell that woman! I'm sure she has no idea!"  So I went back up to the sale and said to the woman, "My husband was checking out that cell phone you have for sale, and I just thought you should know that there are pictures of a naked girl on it."

The woman gasped and said it was her 19-year old son's phone. She grabbed the phone and started messing with it, and it turned out that the pictures were of the son's girlfriend. Ahahaha, I just found it so funny. Game over for him!

I ran 7 miles this morning while my kids were at church with my parents. It was a great run, nice and slow and relaxing. Until about mile 5.

Are any of you familiar with fish flies? Sometimes called May flies. They are these awful bugs that come around once a year in the late Spring/early Summer. They serve no purpose that I know of, and they're really gross.

Anyway, when you step on them, they make a loud crunch noise--and when you step on MANY of them at once, it sounds like you're walking on bubble wrap. I'm not joking. I live right next to Lake Erie, and these things arrive overnight one day unexpectedly. When you wake up in the morning, they are covering your house, your car, the street, sidewalks, etc. I mean COVERING. When they die, they smell like dead fish--hence the name "fish flies". They don't last long, thankfully. They'll be here for a week or two and then be gone until next year.

Oh, and the thing about these bugs is that they don't DO anything--they just sit on the side of your house or whatever until there is movement near them. Then they just fly and land on whatever is around (namely, YOU). Then they just chill out on your shirt or in your hair until you swat them off. And no, they don't bite or sting.

During the first part of my run today, I was running out away from the lake, and didn't run into many fish flies at all. But once I headed back and ran along the lake, they were AWFUL. In some spots, they were stacked 2-3 bugs high. Check this out:

This was under a street lamp--they LOVE lights. Don't ever leave your porch light on! lol

Stepping on or driving over these things sounds like bubble wrap

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What's the most interesting second-hand item you've ever found? My aunt once bought a coat at a garage sale for $1, and when she got home, she discovered $50 in the pocket--lucky her!  I have to say the cell phone incident was the most interesting thing I've found.

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UPS came today!

Everyday when I see the UPS truck drive by my house, I feel a little hopeful that they will stop in front of my house... even if I haven't ordered anything. Then I always feel disappointed as they drive by. Well, not today! I made an order on Amazon about a week ago, and it arrived today. I was so excited to get the package.

I had read about a book called What I Eat: Around the World in 80 Diets. It sounded really interesting, so I decided to order it. Normally I get books from the library, but this one looked like a book I'd look at over and over again.

It's a book full of photos and descriptions of the diets of different people around the world--including the daily calorie counts, the person's height and weight, and a page or two of the person's story (their job, their way of life, etc.)  I get really interested in seeing what other people eat, so this was right up my alley!

The book was MUCH bigger than I expected, too. It's hard cover, the size of a big coffee table book. Well worth the $24.18 I spent on it. When I ordered the book, I was only 82 cents away from getting free shipping, so I decided to order something else I've been wanting to try--Barney Butter. I LOVE almond butter, and have tried several different brands, but never the Barney Butter.

So, when I opened my package from Amazon, I saw both the book and the 3 small jars of Barney Butter:

I tried the Barney Butter right away, and I have some thoughts on it. But I was thinking I'd do a comparison between my current favorite brand (Kettle) and the Barney Butter, so I'll save that for tomorrow or something.

I also dove into the book right away, and read the bio's of about 5 people. The book is SO interesting! It's organized from lowest-calorie diet to highest-calorie diet, and I started with the low end. It made me feel like such a glutton! lol

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I did a 5k run on the dreadmill today. You can do a "race" against fake people. There is a 1-mile, 2-mile, 5k, 10k, 15k, 10-mile, HM, 20-mile, and marathon program. Who the fuck runs a MARATHON on the treadmill?! I told Jerry that if I ever decide to run a marathon, I'm sure as hell going to make sure I have witnesses and a chip time and all that. I'm not going to do it on a dreadmill in my house!

I was planning on running the 5k kind of easy, but I set it on "hard" and then I wanted to win. So I finished in 26:19. Not my best 5k time, but I wasn't going for a PR, so I did pretty well.

What's your favorite nut butter? Mine is definitely almond butter. I love peanut butter and cashew butter, but almond is certainly my favorite.

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Guilty Pleasure #847

I just had Reese Puffs cereal for dinner... and I enjoyed every bite of it!

I actually feel good about it, because normally this is a binge food for me. But this bowl was planned three days in advance (I suggested a cereal night for dinner and this is my FAVORITE); I weighed out my portion (well, portions--what you see here is two servings, isn't that ridiculous?!); and I counted the calories in it. This did not, by any means, fill me up... but it satisfied me mentally, and that is just as important :)

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Exercise must be paying off

I actually weighed in at 148 this morning, which surprised me--I lost 1.5 pounds this week. It's GOT to be the exercise, because I ate an entire bag of chocolate chips on Monday I've not been eating so well lately.

Jerry and I made the same deal we made a few weeks ago--I told him that I have to count calories (staying within range) every day until June 30th. If I cheat, then Jerry gets to withdraw $500 from our savings account to spend on whatever he wants (which is always stupid shit, so I don't want him spending our money on it!) 

I counted calories yesterday and (so far) today. It's hard. I hate it. I need to put my cat on a diet, too. The vet told me that he's going to get diabetes soon if I don't. Paolo (the stray) is still too skinny, so I have to feed him EXTRA. It's too much work, having four cats.

This is Chandler Bing. Could he BE any fatter?!

I did discover a new food combo recently that I enjoy. It sounds completely disgusting too. I mix a (drained) can of tuna fish with 1/2 cup of cottage cheese and 1 Tbsp. of dill relish. Then I just eat it with a fork, but I suppose you could use it for sandwiches too. I was going to take a picture to post here, but I didn't want to gross any of you out before dinner, so I decided against it.

My weekly goal for my Summer Challenge is going to be to NOT go grocery shopping for a week. I love live for grocery shopping. I kind of suspect that a lot of fat people have this in common. When I was fat, I loved buying all kind of delicious, yet bad for you, food.

Now, I love to go and just IMAGINE I was buying all that stuff--I love to look at the cakes and cookies at the bakery and decide what I would buy if I was fat again. Is this totally weird? Does anyone else do this? My most lusted-after item? THIS:

A "Monster Cookie"... le sigh.

Do you combine any foods that other people would find strange? Other than the tuna and cottage cheese, I'm having a hard time thinking of any. I know I have to eat some weird stuff though! Hmm.

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Weekly Recap

While I haven't been doing AWESOME at my Summer Challenge, I've definitely been doing better than I would have if I wasn't doing the challenge...

-I logged 24 miles this week.
-I've yet to do a sugar-free Tuesday. Yesterday, I almost put myself in a sugar coma instead.
-I posted my weigh-in on Wednesday.
-I did strength training at least twice (maybe 3 times). I'm loving how this makes my feel!
-My weekly goal was to eat a DIFFERENT breakfast every day. I was successful at that!

I think my favorite breakfast was the blueberry pancakes. My least favorite was probably the oat frittata with cocoa + coconut butter (pictured in the center of the top row here). It was amazing in my head when I thought it up, but then when I put it together, it just wasn't very good.

I was STARVING shortly after I had the peanut butter toast. The bran flakes with blueberries made me feel full the longest. I learned that I definitely prefer unsweetened almond milk to unsweetened coconut milk (I tried the So Delicious coconut milk because it was on sale).

The breakfast thing was kind of a fun challenge. I REALLY need to try this with lunch. I'm notorious for eating the same thing for lunch every single day for months and months until I move on to something else. I don't think I'm ready to try this as a challenge yet however!

Tomorrow I'll weigh in and post my new weekly challenge.

What is your favorite breakfast?  Mine is definitely oatmeal when I allow myself enough calories to add stir-ins and toppings. Lately, I've been trying to keep breakfast calories down a bit though.

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