Diet Grrl

Ported to BlogSome

2004-12-14T11:53:00.000-05:00

While struggling to find a decent option for commenting on the Blogger site, I was also looking at alternative hosts to see what they offered. I came across BlogSome, which is a free WordPress host. Perfect! I've used WP a little bit before and I knew it was a very robust system. So I've ported dietgrrl.blogspot.com over into dietgrrl.blogsome.com and it's looking pretty good so far. My first attempt at setting up Kristine's template didn't go too well, so I will need to play around a bit; meanwhile I've put in a nice template that will work in the interim. Who knows, I may even end up making this a fully-featured blog, with a blogroll and everything! I still have to tell Google AdSense where my new site is, but I'll do that after lunch.

Commenting Changes

2004-12-13T16:18:00.000-05:00

I changed the commenting for this site to Haloscan because I don't like Blogger's way of handling comments. I also copied all the existing comments over by hand into Haloscan, so anybody who has commented before does not have to go back and change anything. My problem now, though, is that it turns out Haloscan only e-mails comments to upgraded accounts. I'm not about to pay for it, so now I have to figure out another option. YACCS and BlogBack aren't accepting new registrations, and I can't figure out if Enetation will do the mailing thing. Then again there's the issue of spam to think about, too. Argh. It's time to leave work now, though, so I'll figure this out later.

I'm Skipping This

2004-12-13T10:33:00.000-05:00

I weighed in this morning at 169.5. No big surprise given that I had a big dinner the night before and haven't used the bathroom yet. I'm going to skip this one and weigh in later after I have eliminated. (TMI, I know.)

Almonds

2004-12-12T15:13:00.000-05:00

I'm over at my in-laws' right now; I brought my laptop. My mother-in-law has put out a little bowl of almonds and I am eating way too many of them. Damn, but they're good, though. I have also had two "Bellini" drinks, which is champagne plus peach nectar. I think I'm going to get myself a can of Diet Coke and just have that until it's time for dinner (whenever that is).

Saturday and Sunday

2004-12-12T11:04:00.000-05:00

Yesterday's eating was a bit wacky because I had to take a test right at lunchtime. I didn't get out until about 2:30, and then I had to drive an hour back home. So I bought a bag of Baked Cheetos out of a vending machine, but I didn't eat it until I was almost all the way home. Then for dinner - to celebrate taking this test - my wife and I went out to dinner at a restaurant I knew had a salad I like, and they make pretty good chocolate martinis. But I searched the menu all over and I couldn't find my salad! There was one item under "salads" that was listed as new, so I assume they replaced my salad with that one. It was an Italian place, so we ended up getting a family-size plate of penne with fresh tomato...I really wanted the spinach four-cheese ravioli, but I knew that wasn't the best option. I only had a little bit of the penne because I was yammering the whole time! I also had two chocolate martinis because I love them, and I got nicely drunk but not enough to have a hangover, fortunately. (I've never been that drunk; I drink very rarely and only once did I drink enough to not remember the next day.)

Today, Sunday, is going to be another big dinner, and I'm worried about that. We're going over to my in-laws' to celebrate three different things, and my mother-in-law is going to prepare the same things she made for Thanksgiving. The vegetarian side dishes she made were very good, so I'm looking forward to them, but I will have to be careful and only have a little bit of that while having a lot of salad. I just hope the salad is good.

Village Fudge Ad

2004-12-10T15:02:00.000-05:00

Methinks the Google Ads mechanism needs a bit of help! I've seen it advertising sites like FitDay on this site, which is totally appropriate...but it just displayed this ad:

Way to taunt me, Google!

TCBY Bar

2004-12-10T14:46:00.000-05:00

I found a new diet ice cream treat: TCBY's Sorbet Swirl bar! It's three ounces, and has 80 calories and 0.5g fat. The flavor I had was "raspberry sorbet in vanilla frozen yogurt," and I think there was an orange one too; I imagine the latter would be like a dreamsicle! It was pretty darn good, actually, for only 80 calories. And I love ice cream, so this is a very awesome find for me.

I noticed today that Cheryl has both Diet Grrl and Amanita.net on her blogroll. Thanks, Cheryl!

Onions

2004-12-10T13:19:00.000-05:00

I'm living dangerously today...I put onions in my salad! Unfortunately the dressing canisters were not labeled today, and there were two that looked like Italian. They have had Lite Italian and Creamy Italian in the past, so I assume that's what this was. I hope I picked the right one! I wish they'd bring back the Fat-Free Ranch, they haven't had that in a long time. And yesterday and today they didn't have the Lite Raspberry Vinaigrette either, but that usually comes around pretty often.

I'm having a fruity day! I had an orange with breakfast and I got an apple with lunch.

BMI and Diet to Go

2004-12-09T17:49:00.000-05:00

I just calculated my BMI...and I'm overweight! Obese is a BMI of 30 or higher, and my BMI is presently 28.9; I had thought I was obese by now but I'm still just overweight. I'm at the high end, of course, but at least I'm better than I thought I was.

On my way home from work today I saw a truck from Diet to Go, so I figured I'd check it out. They are a food preparation service, and you can get meals made for you for a fee. A full week of all three meals - a total of 21 - is $105 for the 1200-calorie option and $117 for the 1600-calorie option. Dinner only for a week is $43 and $46. You can also get meals for either five or six days a week. They have a low fat plan, a low carb plan, and a vegetarian plan. At first I was thinking "wow, this is a huge scam" but I'm mulling it over a bit more. It's far too expensive, I know, but I am kind of thinking about it. I wonder if you can try it for a week. The vegetarian menu looks pretty good.

Crappy Lunch

2004-12-09T14:40:00.000-05:00

Augh. The cafeteria needed to prepare for the building-wide holiday social that was being held this afternoon...so they closed at 11am. Prior to that they had carryout sandwiches and salads, but who eats lunch before 11am?! The e-mail announcing the 11am closure had not mentioned sandwiches and salads at all, so I didn't even realize they wouldn't have those after 11. Most people in the building can go out for lunch, but contractors have to park in a separate parking lot that requires a shuttlebus trip just to reach our cars...so the few hundred contractors in the building essentially can't leave for lunch unless a federal employee or military person drives them.

This wouldn't have been so bad if there were other options, but the cafeteria is pretty much the only eatery in the building...we're not within walking distance of anything. There are two snack bars at opposite ends of the building, and they usually have sandwiches and salads, but the one at my end of the building didn't have anything vegetarian at all. I thought about getting a package of Cheerios, but they didn't even have any skim milk! So I walked down to the other end of the building (good exercise, but took up a lot of time; I had a meeting coming up and I had to eat beforehand) and got in the huge line. The snack bars are small to begin with, and they're crammed full of stuff, so there wasn't much room to move around and the line extended out into the hall. They had three vegetarian choices: an egg salad sandwich on a croissant, an egg salad sandwich on a long sub roll, and a peanut butter sandwich on regular wheat bread. I chose the peanut butter sandwich and also got some raw veggies with ranch dip. WW says a peanut butter and jelly sandwich is 7 points...bleah. That's three times what I normally have for my main lunch.

I avoided the holiday social completely. There were fancy treats and cookies there, and I already went through all that on Tuesday. I just didn't go down there this time. My coworker did, but fortunately he ate whatever he got before coming back to our cube.

Weight Loss Ticker

2004-12-08T13:16:00.000-05:00

Thanks to a post by ladi_lavinder, I discovered that Ticker Central now has a weight loss tracker! Finally, a tracker I actually have a use for! I'm not sure where it should go with this design, though, so I'll just leave it in this entry for now.

About Those Cookies

2004-12-08T11:00:00.000-05:00

I had some of the cookies last night. I know they were high in points but I don't know how high, and that's where I run into the problem. If I assume that I used up almost all of my flexpoints for the week, then I should only eat 22 points per day for the rest of the week. But if I didn't use them all up, then I won't eat enough for the week, and my body will be in starvation mode and I won't lose any weight. I can stay under 22 points on any given day; I mostly use my flexpoints for extra treats...but I don't know what extra treats I'll encounter the rest of this week.

Dangerous Reception

2004-12-07T18:58:00.000-05:00

I had a very long day today; my job started at 7am and ended at 5pm and I had an hour commute each way. I started it off right, with a Cocoa Puffs cereal bar (3 points) and some coffee with lots of skim milk and Splenda. Lunch was pretty good; I had a veggie sandwich at Subway (4 points) and a bag of baked Cool Ranch Doritos (3 points). But then after the ceremony I was interpreting today, there was a reception and the non-working interpreter was strongly encouraged to partake of the massive layout catered by the hotel. (If we didn't have food in our hands, people urged us to have some.) I wrapped up some huge cookies in napkins - one chocolate chip, one peanut butter, and one sugar - to bring home and eat later, but then I still had trouble resisting the tables. I mostly kept it safe, sticking to the cut-up melon (and a tablespoon or so of yogurt) and the grilled vegetables...but then toward the end, I was sucked in by a tiny piece of pumpkin pie. I eyeballed it at about two ounces even though I have no idea how much two ounces really is. The WW website says that 2 ounces of pumpkin pie is equal to 2.5 points.

So now I have these huge cookies. Le sigh. As if the 3.5oz Nutrageous bar in the freezer wasn't enough tempation! (I've been working on it little by little; I've had maybe a quarter of it so far.)

Okay, I'll Compromise

2004-12-06T09:04:00.000-05:00

Ha! My concerns from yesterday about weighing in higher this morning were unfounded. I checked in at 167.5 but couldn't believe it, so I stepped off and stepped back on only to get the same result. Of course it's unlikely that I lost 1.5 lbs overnight, so I am going to compromise and say 168 for my official count. I haven't been entering weights into my WW records, though, because I've been feeling so bad about the weight I gained on the cruise. I had been thinking I would wait until I got down to where I left off before entering weights there again, but I think I will just bite the bullet and put down 168 for today and then record the food I've had so far this morning.

How Much Does Time Matter Anyway

2004-12-05T20:26:00.000-05:00

How much does time matter, anyway? Tonight I weighed in at 169, and I'm quite happy with that. But my normal weigh-in time isn't until tomorrow morning. Does it really matter if there's a twelve-hour difference? I know there are some people who weigh themselves daily, but I've always held firm to the belief that weekly is just right. Of course I got this belief from WW, not from scientists, but I do realize that weight can vary on a day-to-day basis so I'm happy with weekly. But what about a short difference? I will weigh myself again in the morning, of course, but what if I'm up from 169? Which number should I really count? How much does it really matter?

Grapey Grapes

2004-12-04T18:46:00.000-05:00

I've been meaning to post this all day, and I keep forgetting when I sit down at the computer! I don't remember if I've mentioned already how much I love grapes. The funny thing about grapes is that the more you eat, the less you gain. Grapes, you see, have a laxative effect if you eat enough of them. And I love them so much that I do end up with that effect. So that's how I ended up weighing 168 pounds today: I ate a couple of pounds of grapes yesterday. I have no idea if that'll hold until Monday, though I do have another bag of grapes so I probably will eat those all up too.

Afternoon Snack

2004-12-03T15:25:00.000-05:00

As an afternoon snack, I got Atkins Endulge peanut butter wafer crisp bars. They have 120 calories, 9g fat, and 3g fiber, which is 3 WW points according to the website (and only 2.5 according to the math I did in my head, bah!). So they're not too bad for me - they also have 4g protein, but not much of anything else - and they taste...well, they taste okay. Not all low-carb products are low-fat or low-calorie (this has more fat than products I usually get, but fewer calories), but this one turned out to be okay. Of course it's only one ounce total...but it will do.

I have to go grocery shopping at some point very soon. I'm not looking forward to it, partly because of having to haul back through town during rush hour. Maybe I'll go tonight after rush hour is over. I think I'm still not ready to go on the core plan for WW.

Hopefully I won't gain too much weight this week. I haven't been recording my food at all, and I'd be happy if I just maintained.

Veggies for Lunch

2004-12-03T13:12:00.000-05:00

Today's lunch is corn, mixed vegetables, and small new potatoes. Those were the three hot sides available on the entrée line here at work today. I feel like I'm not eating healthy because I don't know how they were cooked...I can tell there's some kind of oil on them but I'm not sure what it is. But I really did not want Another Damn Salad, especially now that tomatoes and sunflower seeds are unavailable, and shredded carrots only show up sporadically. So I got in the hot entrée line instead and ordered my veggies. I know my choices are healthier than, say, pizza...but I still feel like I'm being bad.

Avoiding Lasagna

2004-12-02T13:31:00.000-05:00

Congratulations to me for resisting the lasagna at lunch! They have hot entrées every day, but they are vegetarian maybe once or twice a month. They had a spinach lasagna with all kinds of cheese today, and I was so tempted to get it. But one serving had 514 calories and 19.9g fat, and they often give you more than one serving on a plate, so I knew I shouldn't get it (even if it did have 33g protein). I ended up with steamed carrots and peas and grilled zucchini instead, with a bag of plain Baked Lay's chips. Not the most filling lunch out there, but at least I didn't get the lasagna. I just wish they would bring the sunflower seeds back to the salad bar, I miss them!

Eating Too Fast

2004-12-01T13:28:00.000-05:00

I eat too damn fast. I can wolf down a salad pretty quickly. Ditto for just about everything else. Even when I am at the computer and therefore distracted, I eat my meal quickly. When I'm eating with a co-worker, I eat quickly. Reading the newspaper...I eat quickly. I think I probably even eat quickly when I'm out at a restaurant. I know it's bad for me, but I don't know why and I don't know how to slow down.

Chocolate Soda

2004-12-01T11:24:00.000-05:00

I want chocolate today, and I don't know why. (Does it matter?) I thought of getting some hot chocolate but didn't want anything hot to drink, and I found myself wishing somebody would come up with a chocolate soda. Then I realized - it already exists! I had forgotten all about Canfield's Diet Chocolate Fudge Soda, which I see in the supermarket from time to time, though I don't get it very often. The problem is that it doesn't really taste like chocolate. I want chocolate pudding or chocolate milk or something like that. The Canfield's soda has a taste all its own...it doesn't really count as chocolate.

Keeping My Journal

2004-11-30T14:38:00.000-05:00

I have a really hard time remembering to keep my food journal. I pay something like $15/month (or is that per quarter) to the Weight Watchers website so I can keep it there, but I frequently forget to use it. I almost never get all of the food I eat in a week actually journaled. I've tried a variety of other options - paper journaling, a bead bracelet I made to represent points (like these), all kinds of things. I never remember to get it all down. And if I forget to journal, I wind up giving up on the diet for the week.

I didn't journal what I ate yesterday, and because I had a vegan club sandwich for lunch and some leftovers for dinner, I have no idea how many points I used yesterday. I will just have to start my journal today and hope I didn't go too far over points the rest of the week!

I only had a couple of points for lunch, so I think I will go get a snack. I want a Reese's peanut butter cup or a Slim-A-Bear Klondike bar, but if I can stifle that urge I will get veggies or fruit or cottage cheese.

Down Two

2004-11-29T08:52:00.000-05:00

Wahoo! I am down two pounds this week, to 170.5! That's pretty good considering I had a Thanksgiving meal in there. But I didn't have any leftovers. Okay, I have to run to work!

Post-Thanksgiving

2004-11-27T20:25:00.000-05:00

Well, I think I did reasonably well on Thanksgiving. I only went back for two additional helpings, one of my wife's mashed potatoes and one of my dad's sweet potatoes. I did finish a piece of pie that I didn't like too much, mostly because the person who made it was nearby. It's not like being in a restaurant where I am comfortable leaving whatever I don't want on my plate...this was a potluck, so I ate the rest of the piece of pie even though I didn't like it very much. I'm not sure how I'll end up doing in terms of gaining or losing this week. I ate a bunch of grapes today, so my tummy is not feeling too great right now.

Forgot My Lunch Money

2004-11-24T08:37:00.000-05:00

Ooooops. This does not bode well for my eating habits today: I forgot my lunch money. I had gotten cash at the ATM yesterday, and for some reason I put the cash and my card into my pants pocket instead of my purse. Of course I'm not wearing the pants today, so I have no money and no card with which to get more money. I sent an e-mail to the only person in the building who I feel comfortable borrowing money from...hopefully she'll be willing to lend me $10 or so. I also left my water bottle in the car today (the bus was about to leave as I pulled in, so I grabbed my bag and jumped out of the car, forgetting the water bottle), so I can't even fill it at the sink! If I don't get money from somewhere, I will be subsisting on Starbucks cinnamon chewing gum and leftover Halloween candy until I can get home. Not what I'd like to do at all.

Added: Phew! After a scare this morning when I thought the co-worker referred to above wasn't here today, it turned out she was just running late. She's going to buy me lunch - and thank goodness, I'm getting hungry!

Drinking Water

2004-11-23T12:39:00.000-05:00

It occurred to me that once again I have not been drinking enough water. I am a diehard soda drinker, but I'd gotten used to water for a while. I haven't had any in a long time, though, so today I bought a one-liter bottle of bottled water at the snack bar. I'm finding it a real drag to force down. I polished off a 20-ounce bottle of soda in no time flat this morning, but now I'm only about a third of the way through this bottle of water. I've heard all the tips and tricks before, so I know how to make my water more enjoyable, but I still don't like drinking it. I actually rather enjoy mixing in a packet of Splenda, but I'm trying to make myself drink plain water. I quit biting my nails cold turkey five years ago and I haven't bitten them since, so I'm just trying to make the jump. (Doing fancy things to water is too much hassle, too. I like just buying the bottle and drinking right from it.)

Today I had some potatoes for lunch, with a small salad. I probably should have just gotten a big salad instead, but I was really hungry for those cooked potato wedges. They're not fried, but they're not just steamed...there's some kind of oil on them. Boston Market makes something similar, but theirs are cooked even more than these were. I wish the salad bar here at work was fully stocked - they only have carrots once in a great while, and they take away my sunflower seeds for a few weeks at a time.

I'm not thinking about exercise too much right now; that will come later. For the moment my focus is on drinking more water and eating mostly appropriately. I already had an apple as dessert with lunch, but I might get a Carborite cookie later in the afternoon. I'm not on a low-carb diet but it is significantly reduced in calories - only two WW points for the whole cookie.

A New Week

2004-11-22T16:05:00.000-05:00

It's a new week. I struggled at the end of last week, and we went out to a show last night so I had dinner out. (I got a salad and had the dressing on the side, but then I had a candy bar for dessert.) But Monday mornings start my new week on the Weight Watchers program (which I follow online only, and not very well at that), so this morning I weighed myself. I weighed in at 172.5, which is up from last week (bah!) but I'll take it. This week is probably going to be a total writeoff because of Thanksgiving, but I'm going to spend the other days trying to eat healthy to offset the holiday meal. I'm a vegetarian, so I won't be having big helpings of turkey with gravy or anything like that, but there is always plenty to eat at my parents' church's potluck dinner. I'm not into denying myself on the holidays - in fact I consider it almost rude to only eat a salad - but I will try to at least exercise portion control.

So far so good today, although I had a bagel for breakfast because I had to get up insanely early and therefore hit my snooze button and didn't have time for a more sensible breakfast. I don't feel too guilty about the bagel, and I didn't have any dessert after lunch (which happened kind of late, around 2:45). I'm getting to be in the mood for a snack (it's not quite dinnertime), so I will probably have some carrots. That sounds good right now!

Tradition Ramen

2004-11-21T13:47:00.000-05:00

I absolutely love Tradition-brand ramen. Unlike Maruchan or Top Ramen, it's actually low-fat! It costs about five times as much as the major brands, but I don't actually mind. I'm used to paying more money for vegetarian food (a package of veggie lunch meat costs more than actual lunch meat, for example), so I don't mind paying more for something that's healthier. It's a total of six WW points for the package, and I usually add in some frozen veggies. And that's what I had for lunch today! I am trying to resist the urge to have a chocolate-covered peanut butter heart from a box of candy. I am drinking straight from a two-liter bottle of Caffeine Free Diet Coke. Must resist candy!

Welcome to Diet Grrl

2004-11-20T18:36:00.000-05:00

I've had this Blogger account since February 15, 2001 and I have never done anything with it. Today I got an idea for an entirely new separate blog (this makes three that I run, plus a couple of mirrors) and I realized I could use this account for it. I deleted all of the old posts (they were archived elsewhere anyway) and I'm starting fresh. This also means that I get to use just about any design I want to, rather than fitting it in with my skinned site! Right now I'm using one of the lovely Kristine's designs, but once I relearn the Blogger template tags I may seek out an appropriate design for this blog's subject.

Which brings me, of course, to the subject: my diet. As a teenager, I kept my weight around 110 pounds and I could eat just about anything without gaining weight. I was cute at that size, and I have a lot of really cute clothes from those days. But a combination of factors (the most important being a stint on steroids for an immune disorder) has caused me to gain a significant amount of weight since then, and I've been trying to diet for a couple of years now. When I realized I needed to start dieting (prior to this I hadn't noticed the gain), I was 168 pounds. I made it down to 134 with the help of Weight Watchers, but I gained it back. My maximum weight now is 173, which I reached after a cruise in the second half of October 2004. Damn, they feed you good food!

I have major problems with self-discipline, just like everybody else. I lead an extremely sedentary lifestyle, so I've been trying to control my weight by controlling what I eat, but of course that's a difficult process. I beat myself up over candy constantly. I'm now going to use this journal as a way to be accountable to myself. I'm not going to record exactly everything I ate, but rather generalities (a salad, steamed veggies) and also emotions. If I have a piece of candy, I'm going to write down how I feel about that. I'm hoping to get friends and family to read this journal so they can keep me in line and provide feedback and constructive criticism. We'll see how it goes.