Fruit Binge!

I've been so disappointed in any fresh fruit that I've bought lately. I mean seriously - NONE of it tastes like a paczki! But today I made a special trip to Giant Eagle to raid their produce department. Now we have strawberries, peaches, grapes, kiwi, and cuties - enough fiber to make Patrick proud.

So if you can't find me . . . I'll be either in the kitchen or the potty.

The sun was shining a lot today - I ordered 8 lbs of Russian honeybees with  2 queens for the hives we intend to set up. Our new pets will arrive in mid-may. We have lots of names to decide on.

Back on the exercise trail!

20 minutes on the eliptical this a.m., upper body weights, and then 15 min on a bike. The best part was being with my girl posse. It was good to see them after a long, long weekend.

Not bad for feeling like the plague is settling in. Pain in eyes, ears, throat. Coughing/chest congestion evident after doing weights. General allover muscle  stiffness. Grumpy and fatigued.

Burger and soda for lunch made me feel taken care of for the moment so i'm not gonna let that high-cal choice bring me down. Healthy, light breakfast this am and lots of water trying to float this cold/virus away. Stopped at the produce market in the city before coming back to the burbs. Loaded up on kiwi, pineapple, bananas, nectarines, and stuff like that. Almost bought some stunning looking strawberries before I realized they were $5 per pound. I wasn't sure we'd be able to make use of everything i was buying, so decided against it. We have frozen berries anyway which I'll have to find some non-smoothie use for, any suggestions?

I think I'll read/take a nap now that my final load of laundry is going.

PITA!

I've got a pain in the asterisk that just won't go away. Or rather, it goes away and then it comes back again. It's not digestion related, but my butt is SORE! I had never had hemmorhoids before Kiddo was born 9 years ago, but have had occasional flare ups since then. Had one last week and thought "hmmm. . .could this be hormonal?" and it went away after a day or two. But now, it's back. Could it be somehow related to the evil eliptical? Please, GAWD, don't let it get like HFP's was. Drinking lots sof water, eating lots of fruit, using Cottonelle . . . Doing everything right and now this? It's really really a pain in the butt!

I survived!

Another day at the gym - a workout mostly by myself with a friend showing up for my last 10 minutes of cardio/her warm up. Lifted more weight with my legs today . .. . tomorrow I'll do upper body but I still can't get through 3 sets of 12 reps on most of those machines yet, so no adding on there. I feel like a big wimp, but it'll get better (right?)

A whole day without Pepsi. Sweet, icecold, bubbly, goodness . . .how I miss you.
It's not the only addiction I quit today. Can anybody guess what else I quit? (no fair Mandy, I already told you).

I'm another day closer to my 80th birthday, another day further from my 40th.

6 servings of fruit and 200 oz of water have kept me busy today. Also finished a craft, did some shopping, caught up on laundry (except for putting away) and actually considered asking Sweetie to bring down the xmas tree.

Tomorrow - workout at the gym, then off to meet friends at a Scholastic warehouse sale, lunch, and then quick shopping for the last of cookie ingredients. We're going to end up making good old fashioned fattening cookies. I'll put them in my beautiful cookie jar and try to forget about them.  I really love to bake. This will be fun. I just need to clean up the kitchen a bit first. Bigget Loser tomorrow night. Yay! Go Ada! Go Ada!

I'm feeling a bit more in control of things tonight, even my bladder. Sneezes are always iffy, but you gotta keep pounding down that water. Stopping the pop was a good call, gave me something else to feel good about, another accomplishment to work towards. So far so good. Thank you Voltaren!

Hot 100 and "I Refuse to Blow It Over the Holidays" update

I've lost 9 lbs since the first day of autumn. More would be better, but as long as it's going the right direction, I won't complain.

Health: Go to bed by 10 pm nightly
I've done very well on this except for last night when I had a hard time winding down after a day full of family fun :)

Nutrition: Eat more fruit!
I could do a lot better. I've been slacking here but I have lots of big juicy grapes waiting for me and I don't intend to let them go to waste!

Activity: Achieve BMI at or below 35
36.82 It's getting there! And with the new gym membership, it should get there a LOT faster now

Accountability: Blog at least 2x daily
This has been more difficult with all of the holiday prep and not much profound to say. Not a lot on my mind except for cleaning.


Pay it Forward: Encourage hubby to join the journey

Quote of the day "I could try to lose weight too, ya know"  :)

Kinda random

Doing well today so far. On track with food and did some light exercise first thing in the morning - trying to work that into my routine. At least if I do a little in the morning, it should give me the boost I need to get through the day and if I can work some in later, HOORAY!

Lots of laundry to do today, I've been slacking. I really need to get this house in order. I think I will feel oh so much better once I get my living room back.

I finished reading The Shack this afternoon and wow - what a powerful book. Even for a non-Christian such as myself, it is full of great messages and it really doesn't shove Christianity down your throat the way I thought it might. It's a wonderful story, quite different than I thought it would be. There's on paticular chapter I'm already looking forward to re-reading, about forgiveness which is always a hot topic for me.

Kid will be home from school soon and we will find a snack. So far today I've had my pepsi, a Sweet & Salty bar, half a peanut butter snadwich and a cup of watermelon. I've downed over 120 oz of water, done some emergency grocery shopping, made lunch for hubby, and had a little nap. For the next few hours it'll be all about the kiddo, homework, clarinet practice, maybe a fire in the fireplace and some knitting after Sweetie comes home from work.  Or, if I'm lucky I'll talk them into playing the Harry Potter version of CLUE. Cold and rainy, a nice fire-sitting night.

Meatless Mondays & This morning's doctor visit

Breakfast was a Sweet N Salty bar, lunch was grilled cheese on potato  bread, snacks consist of pumpkin bread and FRUIT. Dinner will be whole grain pasta with snowpeas and asparagus, parmesan & olive oil. Some herbs & spices tossed in.

Dr. appointment was good today. She continues to be pleased with my progress, not at all concerned with the slowdown - said that's normal for this time of year for many people. She said keep doing what I'm doing. Aside from a multivitamin, she didn't want me to do any additional supplements. She looked at my airway and considers it small, suspects that the root of my ongoing fatigue is sleep apnea. So, Dec 9th I go see a pulmonologist and they will determine if I need a sleep study. Expect a future post on anxiety, sleep, and insanity.

Meatless Monday take 2

No meat for me today, or for kiddo. 6 servings of fruit for me today and Aunt Flo is calling ahead to say she'll be here soon. Suprisingly, though, my energy level hasn't been too bad! I did 10 minutes of "Free Run" on the Wii Fit today which doesn't sound like a whole lot now that I say it "out loud". I should push for more tomorrow. It was my first try on that, realizing I can run while I watch "Fresh Prince of Bel Air"  could be a real turning point for me. I think I burn more calories laughing, don't you?

Big excitement around here is playing mancala lately. To add to the dinner entertainment, we put some wildlife feed out on the deck today and some super-cute raccoons came to dinner. Hobbes was fascinated by them and they are so maskilly adorable.

All in all, a good day today, but didn't get to read all of the blogs I wanted to. Only 45 minutes until bedtime and I don't think it's gonna happen. Must go report in to Sir Patrick and get the kiddo outta my bed and into her own.

Hot 100 and I'm Not Gonna Blow It Challenge updates

Back on the first day of autumn, I joined these two challenges - for more details, see the links in my sidebar.

For the Hot 100 Challenge we got to set our own goals, and we do a weekly update.


Health: Go to bed by 10 pm nightly
I did really well this week!

Food: Eat more fruit!
I am making fruit my bi-otch!

Activity: Achieve BMI at or below 35 (37.26 currently - getting closer!)


Accountability: Blog at least 2x daily
Yeah baby!

As for the "I'm Not Going to Blow It Over the Holidays" challenge, it' is to keep us focused and working hard over the holidays. And I can honestly say that I made it through Halloween without a net gain!  I'm so thankful for this challenge because it's helped me not completely pig out, although I have enjoyed a bit o chocolate recently! Much different than a bag of chocolate (Sam's Club size)








Pay it Forward: Encourage hubby to join the journey

just. WOW.

Anybody who's read me for a while knows that I weigh myself every morning and that there's no talking me out of it. In my mind, this keeps me from going too far up on the scale, which I had been doing as I slowly snuck up to +4 lbs because I simply wasn't making good choices where food and exercise was concerned. Now granted, it wasn't nearly the bad choices I was making a year ago, but still, those four pounds didn't take long to pile on.

A coupla days ago I got my head back in the game and dropped 2 lbs overnight. Then yesterday I was up 2.2 lbs. Naturally, I blamed Patrick. Not really! I knew I had eaten lots of fruit despite my lack of hunger and one of my basic rules is to not eat if I'm not hungry.  So then yesterday, I ate even more fruit, but only when I was hungry. This morning the scale shows my biggest overnight loss to date. Down FOUR POINT FOUR lbs. Finally, I'm at a new low. It's only slightly lower than I had been before I went awry a couple weeks ago, but I'm back on track and that's what's important.

I joined a new challenge last night and am going to work it for the first time today. I'll tell you about it a little later as this post is already long and rambling and my warm bed is calling me back.

Maybe there's something to this fruit-eating business!

Dear body;

The problem with eating a boatload of watermelon in the evening is that you have to wake up at 3:30 a.m to pee. That's 2 1/2 hours earlier than usual. Then, if you didn't take your meds like a good girl the night before you might have some pain and an anxious mind so that you're still up at 4:30 posting on your blot with really not much to say.

Not that it's ever happened to me.

Me & My Big Mouth!

Me and my big mouth are going to be consuming lots of fruit today and I wonder if you will all help me out!

My bloggy friend Patrick has a terrifically inpiring blog of his journey to a healthy life. It's called Responsibility 199 and today is the 199th day of his journey. Patrick has recently inspired me to eat more fruit and my daughter and I have been amazingly regular ever since we started our race to cover a page with fruit stickers. At any rate, to make a short story long, I thought it would be a FABULOUS idea to challenge all of Patrick's fans and friends to see if we could consume a total of 199 servings of fruit today.  So, whattya say? Please take a moment to click any of those links and let Patrick know (1) that you support him and (2) how many servings of fruit you've consumed today.

Thanks!

I hereby institute *drumroll please* MEATLESS MONDAY!

Ta Da! I'll be having no meats today, even though I picked up some nice yummy chicken at the meat market today. I had a fish filet for lunch because I was really feelin the need for some Omega 3's. Some people count that as meat, some don't. In the future, I'm leaning towards "don't" because it will make the it oh so much more fun/challenging!

While I was out I bought fruit fruit fruit!!  What kind, you ask?

Watermelon
Mangoes
Kiwi
Nearly ripe bananas
Green bananas
Frozen berries mix
Comice pears
What?! No grapes?!?!?  I didn't see any at the store. bah!

Now the hard part is deciding what to have first. I'm pretty hungry so I was actually considering a smoothie, but maybe I'll do a kiwi instead, see how that holds me over until Kiddo gets home from school. Then we can split a yogurt smoothie or even a mango since both will be new adventures for each of us.

So far today I have walked 1.8 miles on Walk It Out. Not enough to suit me!  Now I'm going to move laundry, have a fruity snack, and drink a bunch of water. Then I'll exercise some more until the bus comes by and drops off my precious cargo.

Update on Challenges

Hot 100

Health: Go to bed by 10 pm nightly I've been sleeping almost all the time the last few days, so I'm sure I haven't been up past 10 pm since my return from the Windy City

Food: Eat more fruit! I may have done a little TOO well with this at the beginning of the week. I normally stay away from citrus because of the acid content and my sissy belly not being able to handle it. Perhaps the pineapple extravaganza and the bellyaching are just a coincindence, though.


Activity: Achieve BMI at or below 35 (37.72 currently) It's getting closer!

Accountability: Blog at least 2x daily Didn't keep up too well on this one in Chicago but I'm getting back into the swing of things!


I refuse to blow it over the holidays challenge

Update: I have lost three and a half pounds since the first day of autumn. Now, this is not quite the amount that I had hoped for, but as long as I continue to see a downward trend, I won't complain. I am currently teetering at 240.1 lbs. Another pound down and I will be in a new decade AND officially 50 lbs down. Maybe tomorrow?

The Comice are here! The Comice are here!

If I seem to be missing the next couple of weeks, it's because it's peak season for comice pears and I'm probably washing the juicy goodness off of my chins. Had my first one of the season yesterday. YUM! Heavenly!

Dear Pineapple;

Please accept my apologies for all the negative things I may have said or thought about you over the last 40 years. Although I've always tolerated you, I've never really appreciated the REAL you. Growing up, I was lucky to have had canned fruit in the house - almost never fresh. As I grew older, fruit was something that other people enjoyed, but not really in my scope of interest until recently.

Then one of my favorite bloggers introduced me to playing with food by keeping track of the stickers from fresh fruit. How fun!  And yesterday, 2 weeks into my fresh fruit fiesta, I decided to buy a fresh, ripe pineapple. Never before have I experienced such fresh sweet juicy goodness, rivaled only by the infamously delicious Crown Comice pear.

You, my newfound spiky friend, are a new favorite! Beyond the disappointment of finding no quadrangle-clothed invertebrate living in you, my Kiddo likes you too!

Your fan,
Lanie

Hot 100 and I'm not going to blow it updates

It's been a week since these challenges began. Here are my goals and the results so far:

Health: Go to bed by 10 pm nightly.  This worked for me every day except yesterday when my daughter was having a hard time going to sleep. Her dad couldn't be home at bedtime and the separation anxiety was too much for her. She loves her some daddy time. I can't sleep until she's asleep, so I had to be patient. I think I was only about an hour late.


Food: Eat more fruit! I've started a fruit frenzy and am eating fruit at least once a day which is more than before. Today is farmer's market and I'm looking forward to some local pears and apples. Thanks Patrick (Responsibility 199) for the inspiration!



Activity: Achieve BMI at or below 35 Currnently 37.99 -> moving in the right direction!



Accountability: Blog at least 2x daily I have done so every day so far! Woot!



Pay it Forward: Encourage hubby to join the journey He's not taking the bait yet, but I'm still dangling the carrot (maybe if I put some ranch dipping sauce under it, he'll go for it).
 
And my overall results are 1.5 lb down from last week. It's not as good as usual, but with 4 days of not exercising, it's about right.  I've also found lots of great new blogs through The Hot 100 with lots of great people hosting them. They've restored my confidence in blogland. I love finding the good guys!

This morning I hung out with my cousin and we ended up at Bob Evans for breakfast after a trip to Ziebart and our favorite hangout - the bookstore. He's one of my favorite people in the world.

It's PEAR Season!

I love pears. They are my mostest favoritest fruits as kiddo used to say. Today I enjoyed the most deliously juicy sticky Bosc I've had in a long time and realized - hey! they're in season now!

I can't wait until a few more weeks when the Comice pears sneak into the stores with their ugly bumpy body that most people will avoid . ..leaving all the buttery juiciness to be MINE ALL MINE!

Wait, maybe I shouldn't have blogged that out loud.

Feeling Fruity Challenge

I am SO stealing Patrick's idea!  But really, I'm only sharing it because he said it was okay AND he still has it so it isn't as if it's really theft.

Patrick said he likes playing with his food. ME TOO! My kid does, too, of course.  Also, I know I've been lax (pun intended) about adding more fruit to my diet. Kiddo and hubby loooooove fruit, but me not so much. I love grains and nuts. I guess that explains why Mandy is my BFF. But I digress.

After discussing it with kiddo and tweaking my orignal plan according to some of her AWESOME suggestions, this is what we've decided to do.

We taped 4 sheets of notebook paper onto the back of our pantry door. One for me, one for kid, one for dad, and one for guests - because it really isn't fair to leave them out of the fun. Sorry cats, you're on your own for this challenge. We chose the Whenever we eat a fruit, we add it's sticker to our page. If there isn't a sticker on the piece of fruit, we will add a tally mark in the side margin of our page so that we at least are keeping track. It will be fun to see who fills up their page first. I was winning earlier today with 2 stickers, normally there would be 1 or 0 fresh fruits in my belly by the end of the day. Kiddo had an orange before bed so my lead is somewhat diminished.  Here's what the door looked like before she added her sticker.

As you can see, kiddo has organized hers into columns. I have no idea where she gets her penchant for organization  - possibly her paternal grandmother. Not me.

We decided to add the tally marks because we very much try to purchase our produce locally. In fact, we have an apple-picking outing due one day soon. I doubt we can get the local orchard to put stickers on all of the fruit still in the tree because - well, lets face it people are just lazy bastards. So, we still want to get credit for these apples and she came up with that idea. Works for me!

I hope some of you will join us in our little fruity frenzy. I'll try to remember to post progress photos of our door on the first of each month as it fills. I think this would be a great way to encourage youngsters to eat more fresh produce. Most importantly, it will make it more fun for me if others play along, and it is - after all - all about me.

Thanks again, Patrick (Responsibility 199) for the  inspiration. Don't make me say "thinspiration."