Tag Archives: exercise points

Weight Watchers Points Plus Program

27 Jan

Or as I like to call it WWPPP…actually, lol, I don’t call it that, that’d be even weirder then saying the whole name. I just call it WW still, or the Plus program, anything but the entire name cause that is just toooooo long.

I wanted to put pics with this post, to show you the new WW stuff (aka tools and books) I have that go along with the program buuuuut I may have slightly misplaced the cable to attach my phone to my laptop so I can’t upload the pictures, oops. I will however keep searching for the cable and upload the pics as soon as I can. 🙂

One of the biggest changes tool wise is that now you have to use a Weight Watchers calculator, this is what you use to calculate how many points you get per day and how many points a serving of food has. You can also use it to track what you eat everyday and it stores the information in its memory for a week so you don’t have to use a handwritten tracker anymore if you don’t want to. I however prefer writing down in a little book what I eat and the points values, I like the tactile sensation of writing and it helps me to be able to go back and look at foods I ate in the past. Also, I remember better what I have handwritten down as opposed to typed, shrug, just how I roll. You can use the calculator for the Filling Foods WW Program also, and even, *drum roll* as a regular calculator! Oooooh, the complexity of this little machine lol. 😛 It is pocket sized, blue, easy to use, has large font, really, can’t go wrong. I, being the weird person that I am, will miss the little cardboard slider that I used for the old program, it was easy to casually slide it to the appropriate numbers without really taking it out of my purse at a grocery store so I could calculate the points of a food I was considering buying without anybody seeing. Also, I’ve been through a lot with the little thing, I’m a tad attached to it. I am going to cut the emotional string bond I have to it (is that even a possible thing to have?? lol) and lend it to a friend who isn’t looking to follow the plan completely but wants to be able to track her food at least a bit to get a better idea of how she is eating.  It’s usefulness will be passed on. 🙂

Something else I also have is this decently sized Weight Watchers PointsPlus Getting Started book, it has 102 pages, including charts to help you plan your meals, recipe ideas and a walking plan if you need/want help with becoming more active. As I was reading it I felt like I should be taking notes or something because I kept thinking “oh this seems important to remember” but there is only so much you can remember when reading a new informational book over the course of days. So I went back through it and put those skinny post its on “important” pages so when I need to look something up I can find the most likely pages the information will be on. It now reminds me of my text books in university…yes, I was that girl lol.  😛

After that the next book I have is the Weight Watchers PointsPlus Pocket Guide, which I am sorry to say wouldn’t fit in to any pocket I have…well, maybe my winter jacket pocket but that’s about it. Luckily I am a girl and it is socially acceptable for me to carry almost all my worldly possessions in my purse so phew, the “pocket guide” can come out with me. This little book is packed with useful information, it has an A-Z Food List with points, Weight Watchers food list (including lots of yummy sounding WW foods we can’t get in Canada), dining out ideas, a help guide to reading a menu, food substitutions, condiments and seasonings worth zero points, and a handy quick guide to portion sizes…all of that is just in the first section! The other sections have Power Foods, good health guidelines, aisle by aisle shopping guide, holiday help, weekend ideas and charts to calculate Activity Points. I’ll give more detailed info on what the book says in posts to come. 🙂

Lastly, well almost lastly, I have the Canadian Complete Food Companion book and the Canadian Dining Out Companion book. The food companion not only has a huuuge listing of foods with their points values it also indicates if something is a Power Food and not to be outdone in usefulness the dining out book has an A-Z list of dining out foods and menu items from over 45 restaurants with their points values and an ethnic and regional section with foods listed and the points values for the foods.

If you attend the meetings, which we all know I don’t, you also get these weekly booklets, although, they are so tiny they are more like a flyer. Each flyer has an inspirational story, a recipe, suggestions for your week or how to make something easier or better use your time. There is a ‘moving more’ page with some simple exercises and a suggestion for something to try this week as a challenge. I think I like the recipe page the best lol.

So there we have it, my new tools and books to help me on my journey of trying the Points Plus Program. 🙂 Wonder how long it will take for them to look as worn and used as the books I had for the old program? I’m betting not long at all! lol

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Well, I Tried, Kinda…

13 Dec

So after my not very fun last post I decided I need to stop screwing around and get with the program again, I don’t mean get with the Weight Watchers program specifically, more of getting with the Healthy Lifestyle I am trying to create for myself. Course, that being said yesterday I under ate again, *rolls eyes*, more out of habit then anything else I think…

Today I made an actual meal, a proper dinner, with food groups an everything! I haven’t done that in ages! I had a skinless boneless chicken breast, corn and green beans and cut up pan fried (with one of those healthy sprays not butter) sweet potato. See? Food groups! 😀

I know stomachs don’t actually shrink when we stop eating as much as we used to, they just get used to being filled to only a certain amount and apparently my tummy is not used to being filled by a proper dinner amount of food anymore cause I couldn’t finish my dinner. Oops. I ate most of it but some of the veggies ended up in the fridge, along with some of the chicken…I managed to eat all the sweet potato, shocking huh? 😉 lol

This might seem like a great step towards eating normal, healthy portions again buuuuuut that’s pretty much all I have eaten today. I had part of a pear for breakfast but it tasted funny so I stopped eating it, that’s totally my fault as it’s been in the fridge quite a while lol. After the pear I had 3 peach halves from a can of fruit I opened the other day, which, really, is like eating 1.5 peaches so that’s pretty good, right? Maybe? Sorta? teehee Um, anything else? Oh yeah, I had a spoon with a bit of light peanut butter on it and a bit of nutella on it, lol. Normally I would at least of put that on some bread but I have run out of bread and am contemplating not buying more since I go out of town in 6 days. I know I could put it in the freezer before I leave and that way I will have bread when I get back but I dunno, just hasn’t happened yet, shrug.

I figure eating a proper meal is a good step towards eating properly again, now I just have to manage to do that more often then not lol.

I didn’t get to the gym today but I did spend a good couple hours scouring the kitchen. See, the people who lived here before us apparently didn’t mind living in filth, ugh, and since my roomie an I are not the most on the ball people when it comes to unpacking, organizing and cleaning we are still working to make this place pretty…or at least sanitary lol. I thought she’d be a lot more “we must clean! we must clean!” cause of her daughter but nope. Of the two of us it seems like the mess here bothers me way more then her but I refuse to do all the cleaning, and organizing, and setting up in the shared rooms when it should be an equal work shared situation, in my opinion anyways.

Well, people are coming over tomorrow evening and she swore she was coming home today to do some massive cleaning in the living room etc. I figured I’d be nice and clean the kitchen…uh, I guess I should admit my car insurance guy was coming over today to give me the papers for the new year and I didn’t want every room he saw to be messy so I figured clean the kitchen and dining room areas and keep him sorta confined there and I wouldn’t be so embarassed lol.

I digress, oops. The point of all this is that sure I didn’t get to the gym but I was moving the fridge and the stove and on my hands and knees scrubbing the floor, cleaning every surface, moving stuff around to make the kitchen look neater, I was working not just sitting on the couch reading a book and chilling with the cat…much to the cats dismay I might add. He kept looking at me like “what the hell are you doing woman? this is our cuddle time!” lol, poor cat. I wouldn’t say I earned any kind of impressive amount of exercise points but I was slightly active, so yet another step towards getting back on track with my Healthy Lifestyle. Woohoo!

On a totally different note:

I received a comment on my blog from a girl named Amanda who is working on her doctoral dissertation, she needs volunteers to do an annonymous survey about if your partner undermines your weight loss. I followed the link she put in her comment and it seems to go to a legit page. When you’ve done the survey you can enter a draw to win $100. I don’t meet the criteria for the survey (you have to be in a current relationship for min 2 years and be on your weight loss journey for 5 consecutive weeks) but doesn’t mean some of you might not want to participate and be eligible, shrug.  Here is her link:  http://tinyurl.com/Clark-Study.  I kinda wish I could read the dissertation as the topic is interesting.

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Those Sooooo Weren’t Healthy

13 Nov

I had the most oddly delish pancakes today, Mmm!Mmm!Mmm! 😀

I went for brunch and got Pear and Coconut Pancakes – pear and coconut infused pancakes, topped with sauteed pears, a lime mascarpone cream and drizzled with house made vanilla syrup. There were 4 nice an thick pancakes on the plate when it was served – can anyone say “goodbye flex points and daily points!” oh, don’t forget to wave madly as the points go bye-bye lol. 😉

After eating 2 of them nice n slow so I could savour them I was stuffed, hmm, that should be Stuffed with a capital S cause man I was sooooooo stuffed. After two pancakes! Crazed! I was grateful though cause not like those suckers are good for me in any way. lol. I ate the remaining 2 later in the evening for dinner and that was my entire food allotment for the day…not including a hot chocolate (so shoot me, it was chilly out!), a cup of tea, some diet coke and now some water…least I got some fluids in there…right?

I just did a points check on the pancakes and frankly, I think I was better off not knowing – what the hell does the restaurant put in those things? OMG. The fiber is 5, so yah! The calories are 1170, so holy F! And the Fat is 56, kill me, *groan*. That is a whopping 27 points, 27! It’s like I can feel my arteries clogging up a little bit more with each passing minute and my ass getting wider the longer I sit here and type. *double groan*

How do people go to brunch every week and not get obese? ugh.

We did go for a walk after brunch, we were both full and wanted to walk it off a bit, it was a very slow walk, we didn’t go all that far and we stopped and just watched the boats on the water and the moutains in the distance for a good chunk of it…so really, I guess we didn’t walk so much as meandered then paused then meandered to the little shop we got our hot chocolate from lol. Does meandering count in the battle to burn off the amazingly high amount of calories just eaten? I feel it should but I’m pretty certain that is wishful thinking lol. 😉

I had intended to exercise in the afternoon but that didn’t happen, sigh, so I’m for sure gonna hafta do something tomorrow to make up for this disaster. *rolls eyes* I hate make-up-for-disaster-food-days exercise routines, they are always harder, double sigh.

I haven’t really started tracking yet even though my life is getting a little bit more settled since the move…the oven still doesn’t work, huh, just remembered that, I’ll hafta call the building manager tomorrow…but despite the slightly more settled aspect to my life I am still not tracking, still not exercising (except for boxing twice a week – and only once last week cause of the holiday) and still not eating properly…I know this even though I am not tracking cause I am at least sorta trying to track in my head and everyday I know I am not doing a very good job food wise. blarg.

I think tomorrow will have to be a fresh start, I’ll start tracking again, start making healthier food choices, start exercising in some manner everyday…just start doing all the things I know I am supposed to be doing but stopped cause of the move.

So, since tomorrow is a fresh start I think I will no longer regret those yummy pancakes, they were unknowingly my last hurrah before getting down to the serious business of making myself thinner before I go home for Christmas! Only 36 more days…crap! Only 36 more days??? I didn’t realize it was so close! This really is crunch time! lol 😉

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I Cheer Blue

18 Oct

For the past two weeks I have missed the majority of The Biggest Loser episodes because my Dragon Boating was moved to Tuesdays. I tuned in this week just in time to see Bob ride a bull, Bonnie fell during the challenge, the red team finally won a challenge, Bonnie is pissed with Anna (her trainer), the blue team managed to not lose the weigh in, oh, and for some reason one of the guys on the black team didn’t have his weight loss count towards the team’s total…I’m not really sure why…

Even though I didn’t get to see the entire episode I still saw lots that kept me entertained. 🙂

This is the second season I have watched where instead of sitting on the couch and eating ice cream or cookies while watching I use the contestants as inspiration while I work on my (admittedly slower) weight loss journey. I don’t really “connect” with the contestants, it’s not like there’s been a contestant that I say “I so feel that person, we have so much in common” but that’s ok cause watching all of them while they push through their bad days helps me think I can push past my bad days.

I don’t like how they divided the teams this season, based on age…it seems like the older team, the Blue Team, is getting picked off one by one. I have this tendency to cheer for the underdog, in movies they usually win lol, but in real life rooting for the underdog doesn’t always guarantee you’ll be cheering for the winning team. 😛

I am not so delusional that I think either of the women left on the Blue Team will actually win the contest – I’m betting on the big guy on the Black Team whose the ex-football player. I mean, c’mon, dude is huge! Of course he’s gonna lose the most, he has the most to lose. Even though I know neither of the women on the Blue Team will win I am still cheering for them. Two of the oldest people on the ranch, with a new trainer, and more physical limitations then the other younger players…doomed I tell ya, doooooooomed! I keep wondering if the other teams will take pity on the Blue Team and do something to help them but I doubt it, they all want that big prize at the end and I don’t think any of them would dare risk their chance at winning it. lol. Human nature. 🙂

Today I ate:

1 Yoplait Light yogurt red velvet cake = 2 points

1 Weetabix = 1 point

1/2 C 1% milk = 1 point

1 banana = 1 point

leftover Coconut Shrimp Bites = approx 3 points

2 pcs toast = 3 points

1 fried egg = 2 points

1 cheese slice = 1 point

20 grams Vegetable Thins crackers = 2 points

1 pck Thinsations Peak Freans = 2 points

1 Thinsations Fudge Dipped Bar = 2 points

Total points eaten = 20

Exercise points earned = 3

I had to guesstimate on how many points the leftover shrimp from Red Lobster were, there were only like 5 in the container so I don’t think it was a crazy high amount of points eaten but just in case I guesstimated low I’m not eating anymore points today (even though I earned 3 exercise points). This kinda sucks cause I am still a tad hungry but oh well, shrug, I’m just gonna drink more water and/or tea and hope I’m actually just dehydrated and not for real hungry.

I’ve been enjoying my Yoplait Light yogurt that I got from the states on Sunday, so far I’ve had the Blueberry Pie and the Red Velvet Cake flavours. 😀 I blindly choose the yogurt flavour from the fridge so I was happily surprised when I got the red velvet cake flavour today – I’ve been psyched to try that one lol. There was a funny aftertaste with the blueberry pie flavour and the red velvet while yummy didn’t actually taste anything like red velvet cake lol. I have eight other flavours to eat so I’m reserving judgement on them all until I’ve gotten to taste all ten I bought. Then I will write a proper review on the Yoplait Light yogurts. 🙂 cause ya know, I’m sure you all care what I think about the yogurt line lol.

Go Blue Team Go!…might as well get my cheer on while the Blue Team still exists lol

Oh! and word of warning, if you get the Coconut Shrimp Bites from Red Lobster and microwave them to warm them up they explode in the microwave, a lot! lol. Luckily the container I warmed them up in had a cover so the batter that was being removed via the heat waves splattered onto the insides of the container and not all over the inside of my microwave. lol. I think I saved some calories by losing all that batter from the shrimp… 😀 lol

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Christmas Phase 1

13 Oct

Yes, I am aware that Christmas is still far away (73 days!) and most people if they are thinking of it at all think of it in passing or in a “meh, lots of time to get ready” kind of way. I am not that person. lol. I LOVE Christmas time. The music, the way people are nicer on a daily basis, the decorations, the ice skating, the hot chocolate, the buying of presents, the wrapping of presents, seeing the pretty wrapped presents sitting under a tree just waiting to be opened, having an entire day that is guaranteed to be spent with family, the love I swear I can feel emenating from the households and wrapping the earth in warmth, the magic that is in the air…heck, on that one day I even love the snow! lol

Christmas though (in my world) must be dealt with in phases…or I suppose you could say stages…because not only do I want to be able to get gifts for all those I will be visiting when I go back to AB I also want to send gifts to my family in England…this takes a bit of planning though. If I want to send a parcel to England cheaply and have it get there in time for Christmas I have to mail the package in October…crazy huh? I very rarely manage to do this so I spend an exhorbitant amount of money to send the packages quickly so even though I mail them late they get there on time. I am determined to not have to do that this year, determined!

I’m also that crazy person who shops for Christmas presents year round…starting with the boxing week sales that pop up every-frickin-where right after Christmas. Before the first week of January 2011 was over I had already purchased many of the presents I am giving to people for this year, what can I say, I love a good sale. 😀

It’s hard shopping for people that are overseas, because you might find the abso-perfect gift for them but it’s heavy, or an ackward size/shape or explodable and all of those conditions make hassles for shipping.

Luckily this year everything seems to be working out, I only have 2 more presents to get and I already know what they are and where to get them from so I’ll be doing that tomorrow then it’s off to the post office to get the parcel in the mail, yah!

Mailing the first Christmas parcel always makes me feel like the season is that much closer – and I can’t wait! 🙂 I spent this evening writing Christmas cards and wrapping presents and it was so much fun I can’t wait till I can do it again…course Phase 2 won’t happen until end of November or sometime in December when I will wrap the gifts I am taking to AB or giving to friends who are here…something to look forward to! 🙂

I almost made some hot cocoa to drink while I was wrapping presents cause hot cocoa and Christmas just make a good pairing in my opinion but I resisted cause I wanted to use my points on actual food…although, I ended up eating some chocolate buttons so that’s not exactly food lol.

I also almost dipped a spoon in to the Nutella jar while waiting for my water to boil for my evening cup of tea. I was all “go for it, I exercised, one spoonful won’t kill me or derail my entire healthy eating plan” but after I sorta shouted/groaned out loud (not even kidding!) I turned away from the cupboard that has the Nutella jar in it and reminded myself that I don’t need the Nutella, and if I have a spoonful of it then I will feel like a failure for not sticking to my points. Now, in all honesty, I could have had a spoonful of Nutella and not gone over my points, well, not eaten all my exercise points, but I didn’t want my food journal to reflect that. I feel stronger mentally if I don’t cheat with my food and the more days in a row I go without cheating the easier it is to resist the various temptations that pop up…does that sound crazy?

It’s like how the more days in a row I exercise I get physically stronger, the more days in a row I follow my eating plan and don’t cheat I get mentally stronger (uh, in the food area of my life anyways lol). That strength is a good thing to build up because when something truly tempting comes along you can lean on that strength and it’ll get you through the hard part. If I have followed my eating plan properly for 5 days (for example) and on day 6 someone puts a slice of cake under my nose it’s easier to say no to the cake because I don’t want those 5 days to be overshadowed by my giving in and eating the cake…I probably sound cooky…lol

Today I ate:

1 Hearty Medley’s = 3 points

1 pc toast = 1.5 points

1 fried egg = 2 points

1 cheese slice =1  point

1/2 C maple baked beans = 2 points

1 chicken breast = 2 points

1 tbls olive oil = 2 points

mixed veggies = 0 points

1 light babybell = 1 point

20 gram Vegetable Thins crackers = 2 points

28 grams pretzel crisps = 2 points

1 pck chocolate buttons = 3 points

Total points eaten = 21.5

Exercise points earned = 7

The olive oil was used to cook the veggies, they were the last of my grilled mixed veggies from M&Ms Meat Shops. Normally I cook them in the oven but they cook at a totally different temp from the chicken so I tried cooking them on the stove top this time. They turned out pretty decent and I kinda wish I’d tried cooking them that way earlier on. I have always stuck them in the oven and even though I cook them for a shorter length of time and on a lower temp then the package says to some of the veggies always got burned…as in to a crisp, they were black charred pieces that fell apart when I tried to move them. lol. Cooking them this way, none of them burned, they all tasted yummy and they took a lot less time. Bonus!

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Fish Cause Me Stress

12 Oct

I haven’t cooked a salmon steak in a while, months an months I think which is sorta weird since for a while I was eating them at least 2 times a week. I buy them from M&M Meat Shops and they are way delish, they come in a variety of flavours (different sauces) and in my opinion are a win-win option for dinner cause they are easy to cook (for someone who isn’t me lol), taste great, are only 3 points and are the perfect size for your protein. 🙂

Here is my dilemna when it comes to cooking the salmon steaks though, I suck at cooking! and when it comes to cooking meat, poultry or fish I have stress because I worry I am going to poison myself by not cooking it through properly. I have no desire to be throwing up my dinner due to my inability to cook the meat, poultry or fish properly…does anybody have that desire? Doubtful! 😛

Well, tonights salmon steak had a sauce that is freakishly similar in colour to the colour of the fish…uh, durn. That’s problematic. sigh.

Part of my stress comes from my stove, it cooks hotter then it should so for everything I put in it the temp is 25 degrees lower then what the cooking directions instruct (so instead of heating the oven to 450 I heat it to 425) and I always cook/bake the food for anywhere from 2-8 minutes less then what the cooking directions are. I know I have to do this or risk whatever is in the oven becoming a blackened lump of charcoal, ick. Well, the act of cooking an animal product for less time then what the package says to causes me worry cause in my head if the package says “cook for 17 minutes” it should be cooked for 17 minutes or there is risk of my dying…dramatic? Yes. So what? lol

The salmon steaks are supposed to be cooked for 17 minutes but I always put them in for 15 minutes and they turn out fine. This evening though something just didn’t seem right…When I took the fish out of the oven it looked not as cooked as I recall the other salmon steaks looking. Normally some of the sauce is burned around the circumfrence of the fish but not this time…at first I thought score! I finally didn’t lose any sauce due to burning it! Yah!

Well, by the time I got part way through the fish I was noticing the colour and texture of the fish didn’t seem quite right…it was reminding me of sashimi (the colouring anyways) and wasn’t very hot. I put the not-hot issue down to me eating my rice and mixed veggies first, shrug, figured the fish cooled down quicker then I expected but the colour…well…no explaining that away lol It got to the point where instead of eating the fish I was pulling it apart trying to figure out if the funny colour was the sauce, or the lighting, or my cooking…in the end I couldn’t tell and didn’t want to risk eating even more of it in case it was not properly cooked so in to the garbage it went…which sucked cause I was still hungry! lol

I had a bowl of cereal afterwards to make up for the smaller then planned dinner. 😛

Today I ate:

1 Hearty Medley’s = 3 points

1 fried egg = 2 points

1 cheese slice = 1 point

1 piece toast = 1.5 points

1/2 C maple baked beans = 2 points

1 salmon steak = 3 points

mixed veggies = 0 points

1/2 C brown rice = 2 points

1 tbls soy sauce = 0 points

55 g Flax Plus cereal = 5 points

1/4 C 1% milk = 0.5 points

1 pckg Special K Fruit crisps = 2 points

1 Weight Watcher’s one bite coconut chocolate = 1 point

Total Points Eaten = 23

Exercise Points Earned = 7

On the acting front my agent is already proving her worth. 😀 She called me today to find out what I am doing tomorrow and on Monday, there was a toothbrush commercial she wanted to submit me for. Like I was gonna say I was busy? lol I told her I was available so she submitted me. Unfortunatly I didn’t get the audition. Now, before you think my not getting the audition is my fault let me explain how this whole system works. Your agent gets informed of a production that needs actor submissions, they contact their actor and make sure the person is available, they submit their actor, the casting directors receive like 300 and up submissions all for one part, they go through them in the order they receive them and once they have about 20 actors chosen to see they stop looking at the rest of the submissions. By choosing 20 actors to audition they are booking themselves for an entire day which is why they don’t look at more then that. So even though my agent was on the ball so are other agents in this city and more then likely I was in the group of people that didn’t even get looked at. Lame huh? The only hope is that the people they audition they don’t like so they will do a second round of auditions, lol, if they do that they look at the original submissions so maybe they will choose me then. But really, it’s one of those don’t hold your breath situations. lol.

However, when she called to tell me she hadn’t heard back in regards to the submission for the toothbrush commercial she let me know she had a voiceover job she wanted to submit me for and was I cool with that? Of course I said yes! lol.

Two submissions in one day and I haven’t even been signed with her for a week – awesome! 😀 Even if I don’t get an audition for the voiceover job it’s all good cause the more times she submits me for auditions the more casting directors see my portfolio and the more likely they will eventually be all “let’s see what she’s got”. Also, a lot of casting directors like to wait until you have been submitted for three projects they are working on before calling you in for an audition because they want to see that you are persistant and serious in this business…they don’t wanna take their time giving an audition to someone who is only “trying out” acting and not serious about it…it’s the Rule Of Three.

I figure I didn’t poison myself with the fish as I haven’t had to go running to the bathroom so bonus there and while I’m a bit bummed I didn’t get the toothbrush commercial (I have really good teeth and a decent smile!…thanks to my parents paying oodles of money to teeth people over the years lol Thanks mom and dad! 🙂 ) I’m hopeful another audition will come up soon…least my agent is actively working on my behalf – so she’s already doing better then the last agent I had lol. 😀 Score!

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Cold Feet

11 Oct

Brr. It’s been getting chillier and chillier over the past week or so and today my feet really felt it. You might think that’s weird, that it is my feet that are noticing the cold, but it’s not, you just don’t know the context for which the cold feet were happening. 😛

Because of the long weekend Dragon Boating got moved to today (Tuesday) which weather wise turned out to be a great stroke of luck since the weather yesterday was craptastic. Rainy, cold, windy…nasty weather to have to be in let alone be rowing in! Today started off raining but by the time I was going to the docks the rain had stopped and there was no wind, yah! There was a bit of a chill to the air but if you were dressed appropriately all was good. Well, when rowing I wear flip flop sandals, they cost me a wopping $4 at WalMart, I bought them specifically for Dragon Boating, I figured I wouldn’t be upset if the water damaged them cause they were cheap and if the boat tipped and I lost them to the depths of the water well, that’s ok too. 🙂

However, right as we were getting in the boat it started to rain, sigh, and since it had been raining earlier in the day there was a decent amount of water sitting in the bottom of the boat – these two events created the conditions that caused my cold feet cause well, my feet were sitting in water and getting rained on…Brr!

Once rowing it was fine cause you’re so busy rowing you don’t notice that you are cold and getting rained on. lol The only part that I ever notice getting cold is the hand that holds the lower part of the paddle cause that hand gets dunked in water with every stroke. That poor hand, the fingers go numb every time. Luckily part way through the evening we switch what side of the boat we are sitting on so both my hands get the opportunity to freeze lol. 😀

I was fine once I got home and had a hot shower but the weather is starting to affect me in ways that aren’t about rowing…

Everytime I eat I want something hot, salad weather is definitely over, sigh. Today I had oatmeal, soup, cooked chicken breast and hot mixed veg…that’s a lot of hot food! And don’t forget the endless cups of tea lol.

Normally when the weather cools (well, for about the past two years or so) I start making big amounts of soup, stew and chili, then I freeze them in single servings so that whenever I want something hot I have one perfect portion ready to go. I don’t want to do that right now though cause of moving at the end of the month…I am trying to not buy any new frozen foods or dried foods, I will buy milk, bread, yogurt, fresh fruit and fresh veg but that is it, for everything else I am just going to eat what I have and if I run out, well, oh well, shrug.

This is for two reasons, the first is moving is frickin expensive and this will help me save money and the second reason is that I want to move as little food as possible. If I force myself to eat through my food reserves then that is less stuff I have to move and somehow fit in to a smaller kitchen. Makes sense, right?

The only sucky part to this plan is I really really like soup and I don’t have enough canned soup to get me through till the end of the month so I will run out for sure…which, well, will suck. It’s the same with my much loved maple flavour baked beans, I could happily eat those daily but only have one can left, sadness. If nothing else I’ll be having interesting meals for the next few weeks, eating combos of whatever I can find. lol.

Today I ate:

1 pckg Quaker Hearty Medley’s = 3 points

1 can Fiesta Vegetable and Black Bean Soup = 4 points

2 pcs bread = 3 points

2 tsp margarine = 2 points

1/2 pecan tart = approx 4 points

1 chicken breast = 2 points

1/2 Cup brown rice = 2 points

mixed cooked veg = 0 points

1 tbls soy sauce = 0 points

1 Weight Watcher’s lemon cake = 1 point

Total Points Eaten = 21

Exercise Points Earned = 3

Soooo, could’ve done better, could’ve done worse.

After Dragon Boating 7 of us went to this bread bakery/cafe place near the water, they bake “traditional artisan breads in stone hearth ovens”. The place smelled yummy! I was just going to get a tea but one of the guys asked if I wanted to split a tart, he really wanted one but he also over the span of the past year lost a bunch of weigh so he tries to watch what he eats. He knows I have been doing the same thing so I think he figured if we split something neither of us would be eating too too many calories lol. I caved and said yes. *hangs head in shame*

It was a very yummy tart, and at least I only ate half and not the entire thing *I whine defensively* 😉

When I got home I pulled up the cafe website and found that they don’t provide nutritional information, grr, so I have emailed them asking for the info for the pecan tart that we ate and hopefully they will get that to me. For now I had to approximate the points value. I figure that tart could be anywhere from 6-10 points, which means for me since I ate half I’m looking at anywhere from 3-5 points, sigh. I chose 4 points lol. 😛 I hope I get the info from them soon and that I am not too far off…

Slightly ridiculous though, that this is supposed to be my super strict week and I ate half a tart…apparently I lost the full understanding of “strict”.

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My First Food Was: Banana

29 Sep

Now, I don’t mean my first food when I was a wee little thing and finally getting to eat something solid cause that was probably something gross, like Pablum, ugh. 😛

What I mean was my first food that I ate yesterday. As those of you who read my last post know, I’ve been dealing with an unwelcome guest named Stomach Ulcer (bad ulcer bad! tsk tsk! *shakes finger*) Well, on Tuesday of this week I could finally go back to the doctor and get a new (and hopefully better) drug. When I told him how I was doing and how the drug I was currently on was doing absolutely nothing good for me we chatted a bit and then he wrote me a new prescription, yah! He also gave me 5 weeks of samples for the drug he just prescribed, so I can try them for 5 weeks without having to fill and pay for a prescription and then if in 5 weeks the drugs are fully kicked in and working I can fill the prescription but if they aren’t working I can go back to the doc and get the next level of drug without having to pay for drugs that don’t work…does that make sense? I feel like I rambled…

Yesterday was Wednesday and by the time I ate something I had taken two of the new pills – cause I take one at night and one in the morning. I actually felt…hungry! And not the gnawing growling pain my stomach had been feeling before that wasn’t really hunger but tricked me in to thinking it was hunger…this was real hunger, with hunger growls an everything! Haven’t had that in a while lol.

I decided to have a real breakfast – the anticipation for food, real food not Weetabix cereal, was intense lol. I fried one egg and one slice of tomato then put those and one cheese slice on a piece of toast, then I had a second piece of toast with 1/2 tbls whipped peanut butter and half a cut up banana on top. I figured if I was still hungry after all of that I’d eat the other half of the banana but when I was picking up my plate to take my food with me to the couch I couldn’t resist picking up the left over half of the banana. I ended up eating the banana first and omg it was soooooo good! I mean, bananas are good under normal circumstances but eating one after over a week of eating pretty much nothing but Weetabix cereal, it was like a flavour party in my mouth lol.

I just sat and savoured that banana 😀

Now, I started off with what I think of as a good choice for a first meal on the new meds. Simple, tasty, multiple food groups – and I ate it slowly keeping most of my senses focused inwards to my stomach just waiting to detect any pain or unhappy sensation so I could stop eating asap…is it a little sad that eating brings fear now? *thoughtful face* I am never one to take the totally safe route though, sigh, so I also had a cup of tea with me. I have had NO caffeine since this whole ulcer thing happened cause duuuude, caffeine+ulcer=massive pain! After I finished the food I started sipping the tea…at first it seemed ok and I was all ready to celebrate but before I was able to drink half the tea it happened…it started with some stomach clenching, a squeezing sensation, then bam! Pain! and the unhappy gurglings of a pissed off ulcer. Erg! stupid.stupid.stupid me. *rolls eyes* I immediately stopped the tea intake and swapped to a glass of milk and then some water lol. Can you say Damage Control? 😛

The rest of yesterday was a bust cause the pain from the tea didn’t really go away, it stayed low level but was always there. blerg. Because of that I ate stupidly lol. Those who have had ulcers know that a lot of people gain weight when they have an ulcer cause they tend to keep eating in an attempt to alleviate the pain but the food in the stomach is what is causing the pain…mean little cycle that. shrug. So, once the pain kicked in I kept wanting to eat, luckily (luckily?!) I’ve been dealing with this for over a week so I know eating will just make it hurt more sooooo I tried to be careful but really, I wasn’t lol.

Today I took a new approach. I started my day with the dreaded Weetabix cereal (yup, back to that again) but I topped it with cut up nectarine, yum! I only needed half of the nectarine cut up so I ate the other half after I finished the cereal. I made tea again, I can’t help it!, but with the awareness I probably wouldn’t get to drink even half of it, this time I stopped drinking before the pain could happen and I chased the tea with a glass of water so yah for me beating the ulcer! Yippee! lol.

I found that I was getting hungrier sooner then I normally would, after about 1.5 hrs or so instead of 3 but I think that’s cause (1) I’ve been half starved for over a week and my body is pissed and (2) I’m eating smaller amounts at a time so it’s not enough to keep me full for 3 hours. As a result I ended up having a snack of yogurt, then a meal of veggie soup with two pieces of bread with margarine on them and a Weight Watchers lemon cake thingy (fyi, the cake thing was way good!). Then I went to boxing, then I had half a fajita premade salad topped with half a cut up chicken breast. 🙂

All of that used up 19.5 points and I get 20 a day. I wanted something as a sweet but I’m much more aware of my stomach now and what it can handle and I knew eating a chocolate something or other would make it unhappy (sadness) so instead I made a cup of cocoa (which might seem weird but it’s made with milk so it’s actually quite soothing) and I had a package of Weight Watchers sourdough pretzels. I probably could have done without the pretzels but, well, I don’t have a good excuse for why I ate them…shrug, it’s me, I just ate them. lol.

So I’ve eaten 5.5 of the 7 exercise points I have earned…could’ve been worse I s’pose. 😛

Another happy thing (on par with being able to eat normal food again!) is that I have been able to exercise again, wOOt! I got to go to Dragon Boating this past monday and I boxed today! 😀 I can’t believe I am so happy I got to exercise but I am. lol. I only managed one boxing class last week and no dragon boating so it’s great that this week I got to go boating and boxing – and neither time did I end up doubled over in pain or feeling like I was gonna pass out (like last week’s boxing class) 😀

It seems I am fairly back to normal…kinda…I’m getting wicked heartburn late evenings, something I have never had before, but I’m hoping that goes away after I’ve been on the drugs a bit longer. I didn’t realize heartburn was so uncomfie, and I apologize for all the times I saw heartburn meds ads and scoffed at people who said they needed drugs for heartburn, it really is nasty and heartburn sufferers now have my total and complete sympathy…hmm, I just realized it’s 12:39am and no heartburn…maybe mine has gone away?? Oooooh, here’s hoping! *crosses fingers*crosses toes*crosses eyes…wait, that doesn’t work, I can’t do that lol 😛

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Stupid Move

30 Aug

I picked up a shift today so I was up, dressed, purdy’d up, fed and out of the house by 9:45am which, compared to how I normally spend my days, is early. lol.  😀

When I was done work I had to stop and get gas for the suv and the gas station had a Tim Horton’s in it, oh danger zone! Now, the provincial law here is that you have to pre-pay for gas so I always pay at the pump, this means I don’t have to go in to the store and see all the junk food that might tempt me but they were having a sale on smallish sized bottles of pop, 99cents for a 414ml bottle and I really wanted a half n half (I’ll explain what that is in a sec…) and I figured I could afford to spend $2. When I was in the store I remembered I need milk and decided since they were also having a sale on that I’d pick it up there instead of making a special trip to the grocery store for it – it’s all about saving gas in my world lol.

Well, I magically ended up at the Tim Horton’s counter, weird how that happens huh? 😉 They had my absolute fave donut in stock and I was unable to resist, I mean, come on, with tax a donut is a whopping $1.01 and it tastes sooooooo good! The only down side is that I thought I’d be able to get the nutritional info from the website, normally Timmy’s is really good for that, but of course that’s like the one frickin donut they don’t have info for. lol. I got the Toasted Chocolate Coconut donut, and I’m gonna admit, I enjoyed Every.Single.Bite. 😀 Since I couldn’t find the donut’s nutritional info I took the info from a chocolate glazed donut…I know it’s not right, but the donut was chocolate, although not glazed, but I figure the points for the glaze will stand in for whatever the points for the coconut is…does that make sense? It does in my head…

Well, now I am regretting that donut. *groan* Not cause of the points, the calories, the fat the general lack of nutritional value that it didn’t add to my body lol, I am regretting it cause I am uber hungry but don’t have points to eat. Aaaaaahhhhhh! Hungry! erg.

I earned 3 exercise points today and have eaten 22 points today which means I have eaten 2 of my 3 exercise points and I don’t like eating all the exercise points that I earn in a day…I prefer to not eat the exercise points cause then it means I am losing weight faster…in theory…but every now and then, it means I am feeling starved cause at some point in the day I made a stupid move food wise and instead of filling up on a proper meal I fill up on oh, say, a donut *rolls eyes* and that leaves my tummy saying “hey, moron! I still need food down here! what the heck are ya doin? you think that donut was a meal, cause it wasn’t, and I’m gonna make you pay for that aaaallllll night, sucker!” I swear, that’s exactly what my stomach says to me!

This used to happen to me when I first started Weight Watchers, I’d go to Starbucks and get my Iced Chai Latte and then suffer later that night cause the latte was like 6 points so drinking it meant I missed a meal and by the time I went to bed I felt like I hadn’t eaten in years, lol, yes, I know, dramatic, but when you’re used to eating whenever and whatever all of a sudden restricting yourself tends to freak out your tummy. lol. Well, today is like a flashback of that, my stomach is all about wanting food and my brain is all “No!” I’d say I wonder which will win but I know it will be my brain because I can’t eat this late at night when I don’t have my medication, as it is I ate dinner later then I should have but that couldn’t be helped so tomorrow might be a bit harsh…ugh…but, on the plus side I’m hitting up the docs tomorrow so I may get the right prescription, or at least ‘a’ prescription and I may soon be medicated, yah!

Today I ate:

1 Cup cooked oatmeal = 2 points

1 Activia yogurt = 2 points

2 Weetabix = 2 points

1/2 Cup skim milk = 1 point

1 Kashi pumpkin spice bar = 2 points

1 Coconut Donut = 6 points

1/2 Coke, 1/2 Diet Coke = 1 point

1 Cup brown rice = 4 points

1 turkey hot dog = 2 points

mixed veggies = 0 points

1/2 tbls soya sauce = 0 points

Total Points Eaten = 22

Exercise Points Earned = 3

Oh, so the half n half I mentioned above, it’s equal portions of Coke (or Pepsi) and Diet Coke (or Diet Pepsi). KL got me drinking this and I could shoot her for it cause I never drink my points but the combo of the two pops (the regular and the diet) is so tasty. Way back in the day (like I don’t even remember how many years ago) I used to drink Coke, and man, I drank it like it was gonna run out the next day and I had to get as much of it as possible into me as quickly as possible lol. Eventually I forced myself to start drinking diet Coke (I used to hate hate hate it but I retrained my taste buds, not an easy thing to do! lol) and I drank just as much if not more diet Coke as when I drank the regular Coke, after all, there were no points for a diet Coke so it made it the perfect drink, taste but no points. 🙂 lol.

For some reason diet Coke stopped tasting good, I don’t know why, it just started tasting icky and everytime I drank it I got sick feeling to my stomach so, sadly, I had to stop drinking it. I had hoped that if I took a couple months off from drinking it I’d be able to go back to it but nope, it still tastes icky.  😦 I didn’t want to go back to drinking regular Coke, and even if I decided the points were worth it it’s too sweet for me now, damn my changed tastebuds!

So, for all the above mentioned reasons, shrug, I stopped drinking pop. Some months ago I experimented with Diet Ginger Ale and found I could drink that, it tasted good, had no points, and didn’t make my tummy feel sick so when I wanted pop at least I could have it again but really, I just kinda stopped drinking it…Now, thanks to KL introducing me to this half n half combo I have found that I can drink cola again, it tastes good, it doesn’t hurt my tummy, make me feel sick or taste gross, and well…it’s not as many points as a regular pop, although it is more points then a diet or say, glass of water *rolls eyes* lol

I don’t drink this combo often, but for a couple days now I have been craving it so I bought the two small bottles, one of each, and have enough pop to have the drink twice. Really, I could have just had it as one drink but I thought I’d spread it out a bit…This may work out ok or this may become something I crave a lot and either cave and get or don’t get and well…think about having all the time…guess we’ll see how it goes 🙂

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Errand Day

18 Aug

Alrighty, so today was Errand Day, um, yah? lol. I actually like running errands – most of the time. I mean, I’m doing stuff that will (usually) in some way benefit me and what’s not to like about that? lol. I wasn’t in too much of a rush with the errands, I knew I probably wouldn’t get them finished in time for my Boxerfit class tonight but since my entire weekend is booked and this was my only time slot to get them done I figured I just might have to sacrifice the class tonight. Besides that perfectly reasonable reason for not hitting up Boxerfit class I also have: (1) last nights class contributed to the arthritis in my left knee flaring up (yes, I have arthritis, no, I am not old – I got a knee injury eons ago and severe arthritis in the knee is a never ending reminder of that *rolls eyes) and (2) the location Thursday’s class is at doesn’t have free parking and it’s farther away then the Wednesday and Friday classes so if I am gonna hafta miss one I’d rather miss the Thursday class (although, missing Thursday’s class means I miss my quick flirt session with the yummy Australian guy that works the front desk at that gym, *big dramatic sigh* 😉 )

Where was I going with this? Oh, right, Errand Day…wow, talk about getting a blank about the purpose of writing about Errand Day lol. Oh right! Ok, well, I ate my first meal of the day, did some stuff online, made up an old school list (on paper! crazed huh?) to make sure I didn’t forget to do anything, then I numbered everything on the list so I did everything in the most timely order (anal aren’t I? lol it has more to do with trying to conserve gas and not backtrack, shrug) then out into the world I went!

I immediately regretted going out so early cause I was being exposed to…dun dun dun…the sun! Ack!!! Since my burn I’ve been trying to do stuff in the evenings, when the sun is going down and is less damaging to my pasty white delicate recently sunburned skin. Only problem is stores have this tendancy to ya know, close at night, stupid closing hours, and if I didn’t go out until the sun went down I wouldn’t have been able to get everything done, shrug, so brave the sunny outdoor world did I! 😛

One of the things on my list was going to Tim Horton’s, this was going to be my second to last stop and was meant as a kind of treat – why I thought I deserved a treat for doing errands I do not know, I just did. shrug. lol. Well, when the time came to go to Timmy’s I refrained, yah! I decided I didn’t want to spend the points on the Iced Capp (which normally I totally think is worth the points, oh it’s so yum and if you get it made with milk instead of cream it’s not nearly as bad for you but still just as tasty!) and by that point I was really hungry and the one little timbit I would have gotten myself would have done nothing to fill me up so really, why go? I figured it was a better plan to wait till I got home where I could make myself a healthy dinner (yeah you read that right, I totally missed a meal cause I was so busy running errands – no wonder I was so hungry, eesh). My plan got a teensy tiny bit messed up though cause my last stop was Safeway to see if the Chicken Breasts that I tried to buy yesterday were in stock, the guy yesterday said they would be in stock today so I had it in my brain they would be and already had my dinner planned – I was gonna make a salad and have one of the cooked (duh!) chicken breasts cut up and put in the salad, I was very much looking forward to this dinner. It’s simple I know, and maybe doesn’t sound all that exciting but oh well, I really like it. 🙂

I had to buy another salad, I bought one yesterday but am saving it for Saturday, so I got a second salad then went to the frozen meat section and guess what? The shelves were just as empty as yesterday! I asked a guy at the meat counter if he could check the back and he said he had checked just a bit earlier for a different customer and there were no more back there, sigh.

Now I was kinda screwed, my dinner plan was thrown out the window and I was in a grocery store, wandering aimlessly, while hungry!…never good! *scared face*

I really wanted meat! Which is kind of a rare thing for me, I mean, I like meat but very rarely crave it and I don’t generally eat it on a daily basis but today my body was all about wanting meat. I looked at boxes of frozen burger patties but they are like $14 and I can’t spend that, so then I looked at the raw meat thinking I could just make my own (I seem to be doing that a lot lately) but I really wasn’t in the mood sooooo I continued to wander…

By the time my wandering was over I ended up with: salad, maple leaf ready to serve skinless chicken breasts (the kind all cut up ready to be put on salads etc), provolone cheese from the deli, 80grams of schneider’s low fat deli chicken breast, the deli’s home made mac n cheese, um…hmm, I think that’s it, but that’s bad enough! Turns out the cheese is 3 points for 1oz (1 slice), holy crap! for cheese?!?! I guess I got so used to eating Light Cheese I forgot how bad for you “normal” cheese is, I just thought it’d be nice to try a new kind, sigh. The salad, ready to eat chicken and deli meat chicken I don’t feel bad about, they are all healthy (in fact, I ate the salad with 25 grams of the Maple Leaf chicken tossed in for dinner, yum!) but the mac n cheese?!?! *groan* WHAT was I thinking? *double sigh* I know what I was thinking…I was thinking I was frickin starving and that in such a state of hunger a salad with some meat on it didn’t seem like enough to satisfy me (even though I know it is!) so I bought the mac n cheese thinking I’d have it with dinner, or maybe instead of the salad…stupid. stupid. stupid.

Now I have a horrendously bad for me mac n cheese in my fridge and I am gonna hafta eat it cause I can’t afford to waste food but geez, even while it’s gonna taste delish it’s gonna kinda suck. I never thought when I started all this something as simple as mac n cheese would be able to put me into spasms of conflict. *rolls eyes*

My Errand Day closed with me taking apart my dining table so I could replace it with a rockin ooooooold table that mom and dad let me pinch from the house on my last visit. It’s actually a little desk type table, I think once upon a time it was one of those little desks that had a mirror on the back and women used to sit at to do their makeup or something. Whatev, for some reason I really like the table but the only place it could fit was where my dining table was which is perfect cause the table I had was crap and too big for the space anyways. I also attempted to use the snake thing I bought during the day in an attempt to clear out a clog in my shower drain, I don’t know what is down there but I end up in ankle deep water everytime I shower and if that isn’t bad enough weird stuff is starting to come up from the drain, like flecks of I dunno, rust or something, ugh, it’s disgusting. The snake thing didn’t work, the head of it won’t fit down the drain so I hafta take it back, but the drano I also bought made it a little bit better so maybe whatever is down there will eventually go away?

So that was my day, oh, I’ll recap points for ya real quick, I earned 0 exercise points (sigh), I ate my daily 20 points and I also ate 1 flex point…it could’ve been worse and it could’ve been better – I’ll decide how I feel about it later lol. 😀

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