Categories
General Weight Loss Tips

On The Mend

I’ve been on the couch since Thursday afternoon nursing a sprained knee. Picture me tripping over and ON  a dog. Who does that? I laugh because it’s pretty ridiculous. Thursday was the worst of the pain, Friday was better and today, while it still hurts a lot to bend my knee, I can move much better. Luckily, I’ve had these two to keep me company:

babyman On The Mend

googie On The Mend

I’ve been keeping a food journal these past couple of days and would like to move that documentation on the blog. I always say that though so we’ll see what happens!

Yesterday mid-morning I was starving and needed something quick, easy and filling to make. My friend Courtney’s Tamale Pie came to the rescue! Oh my, this was glorious and so darn easy…

tamalepie On The Mend

To make this all you need is a roll of prepared polenta, diced tomatoes, salsa (optional), black beans (one can), salt, cumin, garlic, green onions and cheese. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Crumble warm polenta in the bottom of a medium to small casserole dish. Top with black beans. Sprinkle with salt, cumin, and garlic. Add a layer of diced tomatoes (I used 3/4 of a very large can), then sprinkle with seasoning again. Finish with green onions and cheese. Bake for 30 minutes.

I ate two plates of this and another serving a few hours later with a turkey sandwich. Snacks included three clementines, a bite of turkey, and a little feta. I drank tons of water. I’m drinking about 12 oz. every hour which I believe is helping with the injury swelling. I like to think so at least.

And then later on in the evening I made vegetable fried rice and ate about a cup.

****

This morning I gave myself a little spa treatment. I was feeling gross and restless and desperately needed to shave my legs. The miracles of a hot shower!

I had a banana in the early morning and then made this plate before noon:

breakfast2 11 12 On The Mend

A slice of oatmeal bread with butter, three slices of local/nitrate-free bacon, and scrambled eggs with feta, green pepper and green onion. And more water!

I’m working really hard on not eating out of hunger. Some days are better than others and I’m finding comfort and control in a daily food diary and weekly weigh-ins. Yesterday was a hard day. I wanted to snack on everything, and I just had to sit with it. I remind myself every day that it will get easier. Admitting that it’s not going to always be effortless is important to me. At some point yesterday I wanted to eat so bad that I was literally biting down on my hard plastic straw and I knew then, that these are the hard days of breaking a habit.

I think before I would have thought that my desire to eat more was caused by being bored, lonely, sad or deserving. I would have believe it was because I wasn’t getting enough of one type of food or another. And the more I do it and the more I practice, the more I realize that I’m beating a bad habit and nothing more than that. I’m breaking a 20+ year habit of eating despite of hunger.

Today is much better, I am getting restless though. I’m making sure to move every hour and to stretch my legs to prevent them from getting stiff. Do you guys have any recommended exercises that I can do for the next week or so while I’m on the mend? Something that I can do at home with my upper body and good leg without impact on the bad knee? I’d love to hear!

 

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Categories
Weight Loss Exercise

Food Journal and Menu Planner



One of the most important things that we can do for ourselves is to stay on track. This I have found is the toughest thing to ever do. We get so excited about making changes and then we realize that there are so many things to keep track of and it becomes very difficult.

I want to try and help you through this of course and one of the things that I have always found about Weight Watchers or Jenny Craig is the tracking and accountability to yourself. To try and help you through this I have created a food journal and found a menu planner that should help you.

Menu Planner

We try to do menu planning for our dinners every Sunday so that we can make sure that we can get our eating figured out for the weeks dinners. This is a job that my daughter and I have taken on after years and years of my wife figuring out and making dinners. This Menu Planner that I have here will help you by giving you space to decide what you are going to eat ahead of time so that you don’t just wing it (always bad).
http://www.fitnesstipsforlife.com/goto/menu-planner

Food Journal

I created this food journal so that you can track every day what you eat, and make sure that you track your water, fruits, vegetables, and protein. I have also added a couple of lines for energy and attitude (rate yourself on a scale of 1-10) and there is a bottom section that is to track your exercise. Remember this is for tracking. You can learn all over my blog what to eat and when but I will get into that again in another email for you. The last thing that I think is really helpful is journalling, Try and journal how you are feeling and what you did well or poorly with by just writing it on the back of the paper. Each page has three days worth so you will have to cut it in three.
http://www.fitnesstipsforlife.com/goto/food-journal

These are critical I think to help you eat and exercise better and stop those starts and stops that really break your motivation. I hope they help and if you have any questions or ideas to make them work better for you please let me know, I want the best possible stuff out there to help people.

Categories
General Weight Loss Tips

Don’t Let Your Mind Bully Your Body

94786767127131368 uM6PcC4D f Dont Let Your Mind Bully Your Body

I found this print by Lori Weitzel on pinterest and had to put it up. Isn’t this the truth? I deal with my mind every single day. It likes to justify and convince me that my bad habits are survival. That I need to eat until I can’t move or until I’m sick. That it’s just this one time, tomorrow I will be good. It’s as though food is oxygen and even though I’ve had enough, it wants more. And every time I turn it down and say no, the bully gets weaker. I imagine it takes a very long time for the bully to play a very small part in my life. So small, that he won’t even make it to the end credits.

I’ve made a list of all the reasons why I don’t want to eat too much food. This list is best written after eating too much, because for me, it’s more true and it hits harder. This list is helpful for when the bully or the lower brain works with me to justify making me sick. It tells me I’ve earned it, that I’ve had a bad day or that I’m not worth the trouble. It tells me that food will smooth things over and make everything uncomfortable go away.

One thing on my list is how dramatically different I feel. When I’ve had just enough food, I feel like I can do anything. I feel hopeful, excited, and optimistic. When I eat too much food I feel depressed, moody and hopeless. It feels as though the earth will open up and swallow me. It feels like I will never make anything great happen. Knowing the truth helps me to ignore the bully, it makes me stronger.

What’s on your list?

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