I have a goal
03 Apr 2012 1 Comment
in Uncategorized Tags: android, apps, catching up, exercise, goals
I signed up to do the NYC Aids walk with Nadine in May! I have been working my way up to doing a 5 mile walk regularly so that once the 10k comes I will feel fine at the end instead of feeling like I just got jumped by a pack of King Kongs. I also started using my mom’s Total Gym. I know, it sounds like a gimmicky thing (and it is) but it really does work pretty well for me. I’ve always been afraid of weight machines at the gym so this is way less intimidating. It uses your own body weight like a Pilates machine basically. You can adjust it many different ways and there are a lot of workouts on Youtube to use with it.
I am happy that I have a goal to work towards but I am already benefiting from it now. I gained a few pounds within my first month back in NYC (the food, OMG THE FOOD GUYS) but now I am back on the right track and lost 2 pounds. I am still using My Fitness Pal and it’s going well. The bar code scanner is really awesome compared to the WW scanner because it has found pretty much everything I have scanned. I tried so hard to find a WW alternative app for Androids but they are all quite terrible. I think I could write a better app with my butt. If anyone knows of a good one please feel free to suggest it to me. Anyway I just wanted to check in and will try to keep this up to date as the 10k gets closer!
Somethin’ ain’t right here
19 Mar 2012 Leave a Comment
I was having a REALLY hard time with MyFitnessPal recently and I was feeling very down in the dumps about my terrible progress. Only after 2 weeks of trying to stay under 1500 calories did I realize that my WW p+ allowance was closer to 2100 calories a day. No wonder it was really hard for me to be satisfied with only 1500 calories worth of food!
This is a warning to anyone using MFP: definitely customize your goal. I know they will do it for you but they seem to think that a 125 lb woman needs the same calories as a 225lb woman per day. I don’t get it. I will definitely be adjusting my calories down as I continue to lose instead of letting the website do it for me.
I have been doing a lot better now that I have somewhat of a routine here and more wiggle room calories wise, but there are so many more tempting restaurants to eat out at! I went to New York Burger Co. with my boyfriend this past Saturday and I didn’t even look at the calories. The good/bad part about living in NYC again is that restaurants have to list the calories of their menu!
I’m back baby
05 Mar 2012 Leave a Comment
I made it! My fiance and I moved from Florida to NYC 13 days ago. We are completely settled in but that first week was very hard when it came to trying to be healthy. Road food during the move, getting here and going out to eat, my mom bringing home food from the restaurant where she works (Uncle Jimmy’s BBQ in Bay Ridge – check it out) and not having money to go grocery shopping for healthy food.
I decided that I was going to get back on track the 2nd week (this past week) but it didn’t work too well. I have still been tracking on My Fitness Pal but it is a lot harder when I am not always in control of the food in my apartment or even worse when it comes from outside at a restaurant. I am SERIOUSLY trying to get back on track now and I am trying to adopt the “No Excuses” motto of this season of The Biggest Loser. I don’t really keep up with the show but I watch it on demand when I can, but I love that motto and the fact that they are excuse-busting during this whole season.
This weekend I went away to see some friends and we went to an all you can eat soup fundraiser.
(L-R) Missy, Nadine & me
I tried a hearty brisket chili and some surprisingly amazing vegan alphabet soup, as well as sampling other soups from my friends’ bowls. This is where the dilemma comes up of how the fuck do I track this?! I don’t know! I decided the weekend was a wash as far as counting calories and decided to enjoy myself. AND I DID! But now it is time to get serious again.
I am feeling kind of lost without the meetings of WW to keep me on track from week to week. The weeks kind of melt together when I am not expecting/looking forward to a definite end to the tracking week like a meeting or weigh in. Yes I weigh in on my own scale at home but it isn’t the same for me. I have to try really hard to get over my WW co-dependency I guess.
I used to like roller coasters
12 Feb 2012 3 Comments
This month has been insane for me. I had to cancel my membership to WW because of money issues. I am moving out of state very soon and need every penny I can scrounge. Instead I am going back to using My Fitness Pal. It is the best WW substitute I can think of and their Android app is on par with the WW app, bar code scanner and food database included. I actually think their food database is better than WW.
If you would like to add me on MFP and check out my food/exercise diary, updates or progress please click here Wendystarr @ MyFitnessPal. I look forward to going back to WW and having the support of the meetings but for now that is not going to happen. I could definitely use some supportive buddies to keep me on track at MFP though so if you are reading this and want to lose weight, I look forward to seeing you on there!
Vegans don’t care about the environment, they eat it
31 Jan 2012 Leave a Comment
in Uncategorized Tags: thumbs up, try it tuesday, vegan, vegetarian
The title of this post is from a joke by Myq Kaplan who is a vegan comedian. Anyway I tried another new thing and wanted to tell you about it. I tried Food For Life’s Cluckphrey vegan “chicken” patties. Nowhere on the box does it say the word chicken but… there is a superhero chicken punching his way through the logo. So yeah. It’s supposed to be chicken even if they won’t openly admit it. These patties were in one of those “for the love of all that’s holy please just buy this shit” reduced sale coolers at my local supermarket so I bought a package. I have had these things in my freezer since… June? July? Either way they have been taking up a rectangle of shelf space in my freezer for many moons. Finally last night I was heartened by the fact that I love Food For Life’s bread and bravely tried them.
Cluckphrey Vegan-Vegetarian Patties 3p+ each
I was pretty worried when I took these out of the package and they looked the same color as a piece of gefilte fish. They were white, but a creepy off-white color that food shouldn’t be associated with normally. They were breaded but according to the box they are “baked-not fried!” so I guess whoever made these did NOT bake them long enough to turn the breading brown somehow. The box suggested baking them in the oven so that is what I did. You can also microwave them but that sounded like a horrible to me & even the box tries to persuade you not to. I wouldn’t even eat a regular chicken pattie from the microwave let alone a vegan one that I’ve never tried before. They came out really nice & crispy golden colored in the oven. They looked just like a regular crispy (usually fried) breaded chicken patty to me. I put it them on a toasted onion roll (5p+ but worth it) and added a slice of tomato, a slice of 2% cheese (2p+) and had a bunch of broccoli on the side. It was great! I really liked them. The texture was perfect after baking them and was not mushy at all. I unfortunately can’t have a lot of soy in my diet or I would eat these more often. I feel like trying Food For Life’s other products is a good idea now that they are 2 for 2 winners in my experience.
A loss is a loss
29 Jan 2012 Leave a Comment
in Uncategorized Tags: exercise, road trip, weekly review, weigh in
My WW weigh in was yesterday as it is every Saturday morning. Since I went back to exercising this week I was expecting a decent loss. I didn’t get one. It’s ok though because I did lose a small amount. I lost .2 of a pound. BIG FRIGGIN WHOOP right? Well yeah it kind of is. As long as I am on the downward slope I am happy. I am going to look back on my week and review where I made mistakes and where I did well.
This week was the first week I have exercised since about a month ago. I was sick for 3 WEEKS with a chest/sinus/throat/ears/FML illness. I don’t know what it was because I didn’t go to the doctor. Stupid of me since I am lucky enough to have insurance, but I caught the cold from my boyfriend who seemed to get better after a week. I thought the same would happen to me. Nope! So anyway I exercised twice this week. I have been doing a cardio workout dvd that came with a resistance band to add strength exercises while keeping your heart rate up. At first I looked at the resistance band and thought “This is a stupid gimmicky piece of rubber and will probably be in the garbage or end up as a cat toy by the end of the day.” Once again I am a bad fortune teller because that thing works wonders. I felt my arm and ab muscles burning when I used it with the workout. Don’t underestimate the power of a rubber band.
The flimsy rubber band that can make your arms ache
My eating was just ok. I made a large spinach & center cut bacon frittata (I decided to use real bacon since it is 2p+ for 3 slices of center cut bacon woohoo!) early in the week which had me set for healthy breakfasts. That + my Food For Life bread + coffee was keeping me satisfied well past noon every day. I made healthy dinners including chicken stir fry with an entire head of broccoli in it, a WW recipe for whole wheat pizza dough and lean, pork tenderloin chops with brussels sprouts and potatoes. I realize the area I am having problems with is lunch. Man, why is lunch always my problem? I don’t like to eat salads very often because they make me feel diety and deprived unless they are on the side of something else. I am sick and tired of frozen dinners like Smart Ones, Lean Cuisine, etc. you get the idea. I loved my open faced sandwich from earlier this week but I only made it once. WHY? Instead of planning something, lunch time turns into Snack Parade 2012 wherein I shove random things into my face every couple of hours between noon and 4pm. ? A bag of 94% fat free kettle corn + a Larabar isn’t a lunch. Neither is a yogurt + 10 crackers. I am going to work on this problem from now on.
My motivation was not that great to be honest. I didn’t track as faithfully as I should have. My boyfriend brought home Cadbury eggs a couple of times, and yesterday we shared some Ben & Jerry’s Boston Cream Pie ice cream while watching Sherlock together. It was a great way to spend my night but not so great for my weight loss, especially because I didn’t keep track of how much I ate and therefore did not track it. I am going to remove 10 of my weekly points to estimate for that just to be safe and to start the week off with accountability.
I am about to go on a 9 day trip to my mom’s house in Brooklyn. This is going to be hard but my cousin is a WW member in Staten Island and I am going to see if I can go with her to her meeting while I am there. If not I am going by myself wherever the closest meeting is. I don’t want this trip to be a vacation from giving a shit about my weight or health. Fortunately my mom eats pretty healthy and I will be doing the shopping for her while I am there anyway. It’s a relief to have power over your own choices when you are in someone else’s house.
I stopped posting my tracker a while ago but I am going to keep it updated when I can. I have an app on my phone that shows me my tracker on my phone’s desktop and it is pretty motivating. It is a reminder every time I go to check Twitter or Facebook or reply to a text. I like that! So here is my updated tracker showing how ridiculously close I am to my current goal:
Newsflash: Swedes love sandwiches
26 Jan 2012 1 Comment
If you have seen either version of the movie The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo you may have noticed that everyone eats sandwiches, all the time. As you may not know I am Swedish and my mother was born in Sweden. I know, look at my long luxurious blonde hair, fair eyes and my long, lean body. Well guess what? Not all Swedes look like that. Just like not all Italians are swarthy. My super-Swede Great-Grandmother had red hair and grey eyes, so blonde stereotypes be damned.
One of the many sandwich scenes in The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. Sandwiches and coffee. These are truly my people.
I was raised with my mom, Grandma and Great-Grandma all eating Swedish food around me. My mother’s best friend, who is more like my aunt, was born in Finland and eats the same way too. I grew up eating Wasa crispbread, liverwurst, saft, pyttipanna, Swedish meatballs of course, pepperkaker, lots of Swedish pastries, jellies and condiments. We lived in a formerly very Scandinavian neighborhood in Brooklyn called Bay Ridge. If you watch Mad Men you may recognize the name of that neighborhood because it is where Peggy (a Norwegian) is from. She dates a man who is Swedish and says her mother will kill her for it. That is how Scandinavian this neighborhood was a few generations ago. They still have a Norwegian Day parade to this very day but really it is a celebration for all of the Scandinavians in the area.
We had a local Scandinavian delicacy shop that was within 10 blocks of my house growing up so we enjoyed a lot of ethnic foods. We also ate like Swedes without trying, little to my knowledge until I saw this movie. We always had cold cuts in the fridge and a loaf of crusty bread nearby for anyone who may want a sandwich. The weekly trip to the meat store always meant sandwiches for dinner that night and we loved it. Basically me and my family will get down on a sandwich anyplace, anytime.
There was one particular sandwich that made my mouth water when I saw this movie in the theater. Mikael makes a sandwich for his daughter when she visits him in Hedestad. It was an open faced sandwich made of grainy, dark brown toast, a white substance that I can only guess was spreadable cheese and was topped with cucumbers. I was sitting in the movie theater eating disgusting popcorn & wishing I was shoving that sandwich into my face instead. The sandwich stuck with me so I decided to make it at home and put my own spin on it.
My take on the Dragon Tattoo sandwich. 6p+ for 2 of these.
I started with Food For Life Genesis 1:29 Sprouted Grain Bread. I am not religious but this bread is a holy experience for me. It was suggested by my friend Nina at our WW meetings and everyone’s ears perked up, including mine. I am loving this bread and eating it every day lately in one way or another. It is somewhat expensive but is so worth it! I topped that with whipped cream cheese and it was the regular, full fat type. Listen…. I am from NYC and grew up eating bagels with cream cheese for breakfast. I cannot deal with fat free or 1/3 fat cream cheese. It tastes wrong and has weirdly hard texture to me. I topped the whipped cream cheese with sliced English cucumber because that’s what the movie sandwich had on it. I saw a ripe, juicy vine tomato sitting in my fruit basket and it called to me. I had to add it to my sandwich because in my mind tomatoes make everything better. I topped it all off with some basil, salt & pepper.
IT WAS GREAT. I could eat this every day. I enjoy open faced sandwiches so much because of the DOUBLE toppings. I mean what is not to like? The best part about sandwiches are usually what’s inside anyway. This sandwich was a great p+ bargain and kept me full while getting in at least 1 serving of vegetables as well. I ate a pear on the side and it was a very nice, refreshing lunch. Something about cucumbers always makes me feel like I had a refreshing meal.
If you love open faced sandwiches like I do, here is a useful little scan from (weirdly enough) Parents magazine with 9 examples of delicious looking ideas. I plan to try a lot of these and also make open faced sandwiches more of my regular rotation of lunches. Enjoy and add me on Pinterest if you’d like to follow my healthy recipes to come!
Notice any that look familiar?
What is going on here?
25 Jan 2012 Leave a Comment
This is my Power Foods cookbook plus the 2 different types of Kind rip-off bars. Why is the “Aloha! Almond Bar” so much bigger than the “Oh So Nuts!” bar? I have to say the Aloha bar is way better tasting and a bigger portion for the same 3p+ value, so if you are looking to try one of these get that one!
Foods…. new ones
22 Jan 2012 Leave a Comment
in Uncategorized Tags: my faves, thumbs down, thumbs up, try it tuesday, weigh in
As a New Year’s resolution I said I was going to try new foods and I am doing it! I don’t normally buy food from my WW center even though they have an entire wall of shakes, bars, candies, chips and other stuff. Today I woke up starving, drove to WW early and still had to wait in line to weigh in. After standing next to the wall o’ food for 10 minutes, I gave in and bought 2 boxes of mini bars that were on sale. One is called “Oh, So Nuts!” which is packed with peanuts, and one is called “Aloha! Almond Bars” and feature a tropical fruit medley including coconut (a weakness of mine). I weighed in… and I lost 2.2lbs! Somehow I managed to lose weight even though last week I was deathly ill and missed my meeting. Yay!
I haven’t tried the Aloha bar yet but I will report back on that when I do. I did try the nutty bar as soon as I sat down and I thought I would share my thoughts on it. These seemed to me like bootleg Kind bars which is cool with me. I love those bars and regularly fall for the impulse purchase at the Starbucks register when they sit there staring at me, all healthy-looking, delicious and easily purchasable. The unfortunate thing about the WW version is that they are TINY. I guess they are around half the size of a Kind bar. They are 3p+, which is about half the p+ value of a Kind bar. So eating 2 of them would be the same as eating one Kind bar. I guess the idea is to eat one mini bar and save your points since you wouldn’t eat half of a Kind bar and save half. If you do you are a weirdo and I want your name and address so I can tell everyone on the internet that you walk around with half-eaten snack bars.
I liked the taste and texture of the bar though. It was exactly the sticky, sweet, grainy and satisfying feeling of eating a Kind bar. It actually held me over until the end of my meeting and then I went out with my WW buddy Nina to try 2 other new foods. I tried the new “protein packed” (their words) chicken sausage breakfast wrap and the new iced skinny mocha latte at Starbucks. The latte was AMAZING. It tastes like frozen hot chocolate with a coffee kick and it was only 3p+ FOR A VENTI. A VENTI YOU GUYS (no whipped cream of course). This iced latte is officially my new Starbs love <3 I wish the peppermint flavoring was still around because I would love it with a shot of peppermint in it. Mmmm the possibilities.
The breakfast wrap was pretty disappointing though. It was full of mushy, gross “fire-roasted veggies” that all tasted the same somehow, an unnecessarily oily egg + a weirdly textured chicken sausage. I felt greasy by the time I was done eating it & it fell apart before I could finish anyway. Boo and 2 thumbs down. Starbucks food almost always sucks in my opinion so I don’t know why I bothered. Next time I need to remember to just stick to the drinks!
Fasts, cleanses, pills and fad diets
18 Jan 2012 Leave a Comment
in Uncategorized Tags: fad diets, lifestyle change
Last night a friend told me she was about to embark on a new lifestyle change. At first it sounded like a great idea. Cutting back on dairy, eating non-processed foods and making drastic changes in order to take control of her weight and health in general. I have been thinking about cutting back on dairy myself since I noticed a change in my skin when I eat less dairy. I recently bought Silk’s “Pure Coconut” milk alternative and I like it. My problem is that many dairy foods are power foods on WW and they encourage you to eat them to round out your meals and keep you full. I eat a lot of cottage cheese and yogurt because of how low p+ it is and how it really does keep me satisfied afterwards. However I am going to start changing that over to other proteins so that I am not so dependent on dairy for my satiety.
So the point is: I was on the same page with her until she linked me to info about this diet (which is actually a “cleanse”) and I read more about it. Now I am not on the same page at all. This diet claims to get you off processed foods yet you have to take 21 non-FDA approved pills per day and replace meals with shakes. You eat no protein and probably end up eating 1000 calories a day total during this phase. Granted this is the first 11 days but during the beginning of this diet you ONLY eat fruit, vegetables, a small amount of brown rice and you take pills upon pills. Umm what?
In my mind, if there was ever a sign of a bad diet it is one that involves powdered shakes and pills. That just rubs me the wrong way. Why claim to want people to be on a non-processed food diet and then make them drink a powdered food that would never exist in nature? I am also very skeptical of nutritional supplements because as you can read here they are not subject to FDA review or approval. The companies who make these pills are responsible for making sure they are safe, not making ridiculous claims about what they do and regulating the manufacturing of their own product. That is probably why diet pills and nutritional supplements like Dexatrim, Hydroxycut, Jillian Michaels’ own diet pill and a huge list of others have been sued if not completely taken off the market. It is an ass backwards process that makes no sense to me in this country. They should not leave it up to desperate people who are struggling to lose weight to test out these unapproved products, become sick from them and then take action against these companies.
A relative of mine went on Medifast a couple of years ago and it was a terrible experience. She did lose weight but it was unsustainable and as soon as she stopped the diet she plateaued. Also not only was it a horrible diet but it turned out to be a pyramid scheme where they try to get you to become a part of the company by persuading you to buy your own starter kit and sell the diet too. During the process she drank a shake for breakfast, a shake for lunch and had a very small meal for dinner. This same relative also took diet pills in the past which made her hair fall out. Another relative of mine took Dexatrim all through the 80s and now she has a heart condition because of it.
When I was 16 my mom took me to a diet doctor who wanted me to come in twice a week for shots and go on a strict diet plan. I have no idea what these shots were but considering the time (late 90s) it was probably Fen-Phen. I could have died if I decided to go through with this but even at 16 years old I knew something was not right about it. I have never been a proponent of letting drugs do something for you that will power can do. I don’t believe in short cuts and I know that they will come back to bite you in the ass later. In the case of fad diets you will lose weight but you will gain it back when you go back to “normal” or you will plateau and that will be the end of your magical short cut diet journey.
I guess I am just surprised that people will fall for fad diets and diet aids even though they have heard these stories and known people who have been affected by fad diets and diet aids. I understand the point of desperation where you feel like you need to completely overhaul your life and eating habits but if you are scared to tell people about the diet you are about to start then deep inside you already know something is not right about it. If you have to worry about what people will say then you know you are doing something that has a negative stigma or is dangerous.
The closest I have come to falling for fad diets myself was when I tried the South Beach diet. This diet was the hardest one I’ve ever been on and it did nothing for me. I was miserable and felt like I had no energy. It took me about 3 weeks to realize this was not for me and probably shouldn’t be for anyone. My boyfriend at the time, and his entire family, had lost weight on the diet so I fell for it. It happens. We all want to believe in a magic diet that will fix our habits forever. Nothing can fix your habits forever except for being consistent, persistent and doing what you know feels right.
I also did a diet program a couple of years ago which was a medically supervised program through a local university. It was a clinical study with 4 groups of people who either ate 1000 calories a day or 1500 calories a day. I was in the 1500 calorie group. I am almost positive that being on a 1500 calorie a day diet for a year ruined my metabolism. I was eating probably 1000 calories less than my body required just to function on the most basic level (like get oxygen to my body and keep my muscles and bones from losing mass) and it was very hard to do. I did lose weight but I have been plateaued since I stopped that program. I joined WW right after that program ended and I’ve struggled to lose weight on WW. I honestly think it was because of this program and I don’t want to see anyone else I know and love ruin their chances of long term weight loss like I seem to have done. Even though I do believe my metabolism is fucked because of this I am still not giving up. I won’t ever give up trying but I won’t use pills or shakes or shots or any other diet aids.
Pills and shakes will never feel right to me. Cutting out entire food groups will never feel right to me. Eating a fraction of the calories that you should have in any given day is a horrible idea, take it from me. I will never do it again and if I never lose another pound at least I know I won’t be losing muscle and bone density like I did when I cut my calories way back. WW may have its ups and downs but I feel like it is at the very least a healthy way to live. They promote eating more fresh fruits and vegetables, have now started promoting regular activity by giving the clients an activity goal every week, and they definitely don’t make you take any shady pills. They do have shakes available for sale in the meetings but I truly believe that it is because the older clientele still think that “Diet = shakes + salads forever” and don’t know how to adjust their mindset. It might take longer to get to your goal and you might have to put more work in to get there but you will get there if you follow the plan. That is why I am still on WW even though my weight loss has been stalled for a long time.
