Finally Getting Fit

I’m posting this a bit late, but I reckon you all will forgive me.

This week turned out to be a lot of crazy in a basket as the anniversary weekend ended and road trips and volunteering began. I feel like I haven’t really had the chance to sit and relax since last week. Even now I’m not really relaxing because I am working on getting all my blogs up to date. (I’ll be doing some back posting, so don’t be surprised to see posts from earlier this week that weren’t actually up earlier this week.)

The good news is that I had a lot of fun last weekend. You can read about how the anniversary went here.

The not so great news is that I’m not looking forward to stepping on the scale this Monday. I felt okay at the end of the weekend because I enjoyed myself but didn’t go overboard, but since then I have really been feeling the stress. Stress is definitely not good for weight loss.

I have been feeling stressed because I work at home and love what I do, but it’s frustrating because I wish I could pay the bills off faster. There is a job I can apply for, but it could mean that I don’t get to post as much and might even have to give up one or two of my blogs.

Not good.

I have been having such a hard time staying away from my comfort foods, but the good news is that I have succeeded in still staying away from bread and pasta.

So, slowly but surely, I am getting back to the nitty gritty of work. How are you doing?

Today marks the first official day that I can have (granary) bread again. And (wholemeal) pasta. And sweet potatoes, fruit, light yogurt, skim milk, red wine…

…but I don’t want to. Except for possibly the light yogurt, I find myself reluctant to come off phase one of the SBD. I don’t really want to start integrating those sorts of things back into my diet. Not yet, at least.

This feeling is actually quite a common phenomenon for people on the SBD and Dr. Agatson acknowledges that. Thankfully, he says it’s not a big deal if you want to stay on phase one longer than the minimum two weeks. The only danger is that you might get bored with the strict phase and lean back toward your previous eating habits.

I’m honestly not worried about that. Getting so addicted to the carbs and sweets last time has pretty much scared me enough to keep me on track. For a long while, at least.

I’m glad to have a bit more freedom back when it comes to eating for when I eat out, but honestly? They have some fantastic salads in my local venues as well as a lot of accommodating places that will adjust the menu. All of which makes it easier to stay on phase one.

I am happy to get some of the dairy products back. I haven’t been drinking coffee because I only like it with milk in it, and I like yogurt a lot, so those will be two things I will enjoy having the option of once again.

All in all, I’m very glad I got through phase one without ‘tripping up’. I feel better than I was, I’m not getting so tired all the time, my digestive system is doing a lot better, and I’m no longer having skin reactions to my food.

I haven’t been on the South Beach diet long, but I have already begun to take advantage of some of the recipes offered in the back of the book (along with meal plans). I have a hard time with my sweet tooth (among other things) so when I saw you could have dessert even on the strictest phase…

Well…

All the desserts in Phase One involve ricotta cheese, but that’s not too bad. I’ve found that the lemon and lime desserts didn’t have enough flavor for me to feel like I was truly having any sort of ‘dessert’. However, I am someone who likes coffee and I love the mocha ricotta crème.

As you can probably find the recipe all over the internet already, I don’t think it’s a bad thing if I share…

Mocha Ricotta Crème

110g (4 oz) low-fat ricotta cheese
½ teaspoon unsweetened cocoa powder
¼ teaspoon vanilla extract
1 sachet sugar substitute
Dash instant espresso powder
5 mini chocolate chips

Mix together the ricotta, cocoa powder, vanilla extract, and sugar substitute in a dessert bowl. Serve chilled with a dusting of espresso powder and sprinkle with the mini chocolate chips.

Personally, I skip the sugar substitute and the mini chocolate chips as well. The first because I don’t do sugar substitutes and the second because I didn’t have any mini chocolate chips (or regular, for that matter) in the house. I also add in some slivered almonds.

This little dish satisfies my taste for coffee and my ‘need’ to be a little ‘naughty’ and have dessert.

Mind you, it’s not sweet and doesn’t taste like chocolate, but out of all the recipes there, this is the one I prefer.

Well, after a sort of slap in the face reminder about how serious insulin resistance is, I have decided to give the South Beach diet a go.

I went on the South Beach diet a few years ago and got pretty good results while I was on it. I didn’t have any sort of support system though, so I ended up stopping and wondering what the point of it all was anyway.

South Beach is the diet recommended for everyone, but especially for people with blood sugar problems, be them diabetes or insulin resistant (prediabetes) related. The creator of the diet is also very up front and honest, which I like. He’s also very focused on the eating six times a day thing, which gives South Beach a lot more brownie points in the ‘making sense’ department in my opinion.

I have realized lately that something has to give. I’m not losing weight like I should be. And while that’s not to be unexpected of me with insulin resistance and possible PCOS, it doesn’t mean that it’s impossible for me to lose weight. I just need to find the right way for my body to do it.

I’m going with South Beach because I have an addiction to bread. Bread, pasta, rice, more bread, and then even more bread. I have also been having problems with chocolate cravings, and I recognize that I am getting myself well and truly addicted to the stuff.

So wish me luck. I will definitely be reporting how it goes here. I’ll be starting next Thursday. (Why? So I can have a few days to clean up my eating before hitting the strict phase.)

Best of fitness to all of you.

Having the option of coffee (caffeine), chai (caffeine), or tea (wholesome goodness of grossness) to drink this afternoon while working my arse off to cover blog posts while my husband and I are away on vacation, I immediately disregarded coffee. I have yet to figure out how to operate our new coffee maker.

Between chai and tea, my choice would usually be chai. So you can imagine my surprise when I found myself reaching for the sample of tea I received in the mail last week. I paused to consider a chai once more, but I yawned and figured that tea of any kind would probably be better for me.

Now that’s what I call living the lifestyle.

I didn’t think about how the caffeine/sugar in chai would probably be bad for me and my diet and how I would have to watch what I ate for sugar content for the rest of the day. No, I just figured tea would be better for me.

Too often I, and many others, forget that weight loss – true weight loss – isn’t about the temporary fix. It’s not all about doing whatever it takes to get to that ideal weight regardless of the consequences. Those sorts of diets and actions will get you nowhere but gaining back all your weight and then some after the goal is achieved.

That is, if it is achieved at all.

Given that this is something you will ideally be doing for the rest of your life, it’s good to celebrate the small changes you make. The automatic habits you develop when it comes to your health.

Celebrate because you’re doing one of the hardest things out there – changing your life.

There is so much out there to read when it comes to health. I catch myself letting hours slip by as I read this about weight, that about food…

Instead of doing a post for each cool/interesting/whatever link I find, I am going to put up “headlines” posts every now and then full of links I’ve found in the past whatever.

I hope you enjoy and find things that interest you.

Junk-Food Dieters – An article talking about the new wave of junk food dieters and what the cost of diet soda, sugar free gum, and other junk food do to your body even if you don’t put on the pounds. “According to their credo, low-calorie is good; no-calorie is better — even if the food contains more chemicals than a can of hair spray.”

20 Worst Foods When Eating Out – While some things are obvious when it comes to the calorie load, your ‘low calorie’ choices might not be as great as you think. Going beyond just the calories as well, you can see even the best of the worst of the list are very bad.

A New Diet Equation – We all know the bottom line to losing weight is to burn more calories than we consume. But there’s also the fact that we’re all different and that’s why one diet never works for everyone. So what can you do? Where you pack on the pounds could be your answer to finding out what works best for your body.

That’s it for today. If you have any links you think I and the readers here would like to read, feel free to send me the link using the ‘contact me’ button under the site description on the right.

It’s no secret that I’m anti-McDonalds, but this isn’t a rant on how evil it is or whatever else comments I could say about the corporation. This is merely a video I would like to pass on so you can make your own judgments.

Author and Obesity Activist Julia Havey has kept a McDonald’s burger and fries with her for over three years now. No shrink wrap, no preservatives – just a McDonald’s happy meal in a lunch box. Nothing beyond that.

And yet, somehow, the McDonald’s burger seems to be aging better than every skin-cream addicted, botox-loving person out there.

Scary stuff.

I think the thing I really can’t get past is that the fries are still golden and greasy. You would think they would at least have dried out completely by now or be falling apart like the hamburger bun is starting to. But no, still greasy, oily, and the same colour.

And people are feeding this to their children? Gross.

The thing is, most people don’t chew properly. Even the people who do chew properly get things stuck in their intestines. We’re talking whole pieces of broccoli sometimes. Just imagine what McDonalds does when it gets stuck in your body.

That’s right – a whole lot of nothing because it seems to be a bit impervious to the natural laws surrounding ‘real’ food.

I am tempted to buy my own little happy meal and see this happen with my own eyes, but I don’t think I could keep that smell in the house. I just hope this video gets around and wakes people up a bit.