For Real (and a recipe)

I'm starting over again...well, not starting over. I'm starting to continue again. Every break I have taken has been brief and not resulted in weight gain, so I'm not starting over.
As of Tuesday:
No potatoes, no chips, no crackers, no desserts, limited cheese, no pop.
3-4 vegetable servings a day.
2 fruit servings a day.
No napping...we'll see how this goes.
Limited snacking/carbs.

I want to lose 10 pounds by Thanksgiving. This deadline should help me stay motivated.

And now for a recipe. I can home this weekend to make banana bread. Obviously that isn't the only reason I came home. It is a holiday weekend. Not to mention Greek Rush is going on at school and I want to stay as far away from that as possible. How many girls in single file lines dressed all the same can I stand to see in a day? Not too many, so I'm glad I came home. But I digress...

I wanted to make banana bread. I've been craving it something awful. But I want healthy stuff. Is that possible? I don't want to sacrifice taste for health. So I'll let you know how this went. It is a modified recipe I found online. This recipe sounded good, but I knew I could make it my own. So this is what I did...

Banana Mocha Chip Muffins
Ingredients                                                            Directions

1-Mash bananas in large plastic bag. To bag add flavoring of your choice, dash of salt, maple syrup. Close bag, mash. Refrigerate overnight, or freeze for 3 hours.
2-In large bowl combine oil and brown sugar. Whisk until combined.
3-Add eggs to mix, then stir in banana mixture, and vanilla.
4-Stir in salt, flour (little by little), and oats.
5-Add baking powder and cinnamon sugar to hot coffee. Stir mixture and add to large bowl of batter. Add flour as necessary for consistency.
6-Stir in Nuts/Chocolate chips.
7-Pour mixture into greased muffin tins, filling each cup 2/3 full.
8-Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Bake 12-15 minutes or until they pass the toothpick test.
9-Cool, eat, enjoy?


Step 9 has yet to be tested. I'm experimenting. I'll let you know how they taste.

Instead of muffins I made banana bread. I used my mom's hazelnut flavoring that she uses in her coffee to sweeten it a bit. Whole wheat flour tends to make things taste drier so I needed to sweeten things up. I got a medium (8"x4"x4") and a small (6"x3"x3") loaf out of it. Placed the pans in a casserole dish filled with water for even baking. I baked the at 350 for 54 minutes. And dumped them out to cool right away. After 5 minutes I put them in a ziplock bag in the fridge. (BAD IDEA...locks in the moisture). Let cool completely, then wrap with tinfoil. Freeze if you're not going to eat it all within the week. They smell delicious. Can't wait for breakfast. Hope no one eats them. I did get a taste of the bits caked on the pan...very good warm.

Some Ideas

I have some ideas for this blog that I'm going to carry out.

First: "What I Ate Wednesdays"
This should be good for me. I'm going to list every single thing I eat on Wednesdays. Every last morsel.
Yesterday was a very naughty Wednesday, but if I imagine I could have an audience knowing everything I shovel down, I might do better.

Second: "Monthly Measurement Monday"
The first Monday of the month, I will measure myself and share my results/progress.

Other Things

Being healthy and happy is not all about losing weight. For me, I think it's more about routine than anything. Consistency.

Since I got here I've made some other changes.

1-I floss my teeth every night.
I'm sick of going to the dentist visit after visit, and hearing "you need to start flossing." I've never had a cavity in my life, but apparently gingivitis is much worse. I hate flossing. It makes me bleed, but I'm told if I did it more I wouldn't bleed so much. So I do it daily.

2-Washing my face
Additionally, I have never been one to wash my face. I don't even get my face wet in the shower unless I'm crying or need to let out some steam. I get the occasional pimple or two, but I've never really considered it a problem. I don't wear makeup, so I don't really have too much to clean off my face. But since I've started washing it, my face seems softer, and even cleaner. I still have those pimples, though.

3-Taking my allergy pills
I have terrible allergies. Honestly, they're really bad. I never think about taking anything for them, though when I'm on top of things I take a Zyrtec before bed and a Claritin when I wake up. I've often said I'd only take these if someone gave me one of those weekly pill cases and filled each day for me. I remember filling these things with my grandma as a kid. Thinking back on that now, I hope she double-checked every day. Because she had a lot of pills in each one and I was really young to be that responsible. Anyway, I invested in my own containers, finally, and have been taking both every day.

4-Drinking Water
I know, this is obvious, right? But I don't think I'm getting enough water in my diet. I should be drinking at least 64 ounces. I have a water bottle that I want to fill and drink 4 of each day. That is my goal.

Getting Informed, Reading, What Works for Me?

In the beginning I just thought I knew what to do. I had to change my ways. Everything I'd been doing all along was wrong if it resulted to me being 200+ lb. So I just ate what I thought was good for me and exercised as much as I thought I needed to. From August to November I'd lost 8 pounds. It was a long and slow process at that point, and I was struggling as it drained me mentally. Then I found a website called caloriecount.com. With that and the exercise I was already doing I brought my weight loss to 15 lb.
Eventually counting calories was seeming to be second nature, but again I didn't see the scale going anywhere.

So I invested in a book. I wanted something with personal stories. Something "Chicken-Soupy"
so I found Chicken Soup for the Healthy Living Soul: Weight Loss Edition it was unfortunately a very quick read. So I began journaling. And I decided I'd read each entry 100 days after I wrote it to remind myself of my struggles and successes and hopefully motivate? In the meantime I purchased 100 Days of Weight Loss which has a task for each day from 1-100. It was intended for beginners, and by that time I'd lost 20 pounds on my own and didn't consider myself a beginner. I'd also quit Calorie Count by the time I started the journal. I felt I had a knack for what I could eat. Soon I was feeling moody again and restarted Calorie Count with a different name, solely for the forums and to hear from other people about their stories. Eventually those were making me more upset. Too many stories about people not needing to lose weight but still getting down on themselves. I often felt like their depression in a better situation than I was in, only made me more upset about my appearance and weight. So I stopped calorie count all together.

Over the summer I don't want to say I lost track...I didn't read or journal anymore. I didn't eat the best. I worked out daily (excluding weekends) until mid-July when I only went to the YMCA occasionally. I don't want to make excuses. But I stopped going right around the time my iPod was stolen. That really is when I lost track for one reason or another. By the last three weeks of my summer I didn't go to the YMCA at all, except for a bike class twice a week. But I'd even stop putting much effort into that. We got a puppy and I was eager to get home to her and play with her. I chose her over exercise. But I don't see a problem with that. Over the summer--be it fat, muscle, or both--I lost 6 more pounds. I haven't read 170 on the scale since mid-July, and I'm very satisfied with that.

I heard about Daphne Oz while watching The Doctors. She was overweight in her childhood and early adulthood, and she too lost weight when she went to college. At this point I'd realized I got the fitness stuff figured out more or less. But eating right has been a challenge. So I invested in her book The Dorm Room Diet. I am also back on calorie counter to count my calories, and I'm blogging instead of journaling this time around. I have a full journal of entries I can go back to for support. The remaining 85 days of 100 day weight loss to tackle here and there, and Chicken Soup that will never get old as long as I take a break from it occasionally.

I like to be informed and aware that I'm doing this right. Something is going to click for me eventually. I know I can't ignore my success, or that in a way something already has clicked. But though things are getting easier, I'm still finding it difficult.

The First Few Days Back at School

Being back at school is good for my weight, and surprisingly my confidence too? The latter is reversed from what I expected.
When I got on the scale yesterday I discovered it was 2 pounds lower than my scale at home. Since the school's scale is what I'd been using all along, I can truly say I lost 6 pounds this summer. Bringing me to a 36 pound deficit and with only 31 pounds to go.
I'm trying to get back into some sort of workout routine. Going daily isn't quite what I'm looking for. I'm aiming for daily, but at a consistent time, and consistent activities from week to week. So I'm still trying to refigure all of that out.
Eating right is easier again. I love cooking my own meals, and I'll really miss that. But at least not too much has changed from last year.
With the exception of a line in the dining hall that serves the "healthier" options. I went in it to get the grilled chicken the other night and they told me I couldn't only get it if I had a food allergy because that stuff was specifically for people with food allergies. The alternative? A chicken patty with tomato sauce and melted mozzarella on top. Seriously? How is that an alternative to grilled chicken? Lots of people were upset, and I sent an email to the campus nutritionist. I explained to her that I used to be obese and am still trying to lose weight. Even without obesity in my history, I'd expect to have access to the grilled chicken, or something equally as healthy as an alternative. We all pay for our meal plans, we all should have equal access. I get that food allergies are very severe, but this is unfair. There are a lot of changes around campus due to the freshman class having a ton of allergies to everything known to man. We have signs on buildings now that say "no balloons allowed" because of latex allergies. Yes, allergies are scary. And fatal!
Coming to college is a learning experience. And people may hate me for saying this, but I don't really care. The world isn't going to baby you forever, so someday you're going to have to deal with your allergies yourself. This means avoiding certain things and doing the research to know what you can't eat. It takes work. Your parents can't just send an email requesting you to be pampered and treated special because they're scared you're going to die. I don't want to make light of the situation, or sound overly cynical, which I'm sure I'm doing a great job. I just feel that some responsibility needs to be taken on behalf of the students this affects. Because the system wasn't like this last year, and I'm sure there were several students on campus who ate at the dining hall, had food allergies, and survived without the special treatment. Something needs to change and it needs to change soon.

My journey so far...

I am 5'6". I have been since age 12, and I don't think I'm shooting skyward anytime soon.
I tipped the scales at 210 pounds post a broken leg my senior year of high school. Only about 5-10 of those pounds can be attributed to the inactive time, however. When I started my freshman year of college in the fall of 2010, I weighed 202 lbs. I'm proud to say I dealt with the transition fairly well, and found that I could lose weight. At the end of the first semester I was 185. At the end of my second semester, 172. That's about 15 pounds per semester. Negative fifteen pounds each semester. I didn't gain that dreaded freshman fifteen.

I was nervous to go home for the summer. I like it at home much better than school--to an extent anyway--mainly because of family and my best friends. I struggled to be personally happy at school...probably because when I wasn't in class, doing homework, or sleeping, I was working out. That's an exaggeration...I work hard, but I'm not compulsive. I lost my weight the healthy way. At home I lose my self control. I could veg on the couch and eat while I watch TV all day. I didn't want to go backwards.

My parents got a family pass to the YMCA, and I worked out regularly...though not as regularly as I do at school. I quickly realized that I can do it at home, though I maintain rather than lose weight because it is easy for me to eat everything in sight...

I've learned that the reason I can lose weight at school is because it is all I've ever known about life in this environment. My home environment has never been one where I am conscious of my habits--just my feelings. Where I am now is the appropriate environment for me to be healthy. It's strange, but it's a psychological barrier that I need to overcome and just be health-conscious all around.

In short, I now weigh 166.0 pounds! At my height, that's almost average. I was once obese! I am happier, more confident, and healthier than I have ever remembered being. I haven't weighed what I weigh since 8th grade! It is unbelievable. I don't remember ever wearing a size 11 or medium tops fitting appropriately loosely. I haven't been this thin since my mom bought my clothes and just knew what sizes to buy me. I haven't been this thin since a time I didn't need to care what size my clothes were. It's unbelievable, baffling, stimulating, and motivating all at once.

I am going to throw myself the biggest personal party when the scale reads 150. That is my current goal. Ultimately I'd like to reach 135 to say I did it. And to be happy, anywhere between 135-145 is fine with me.