Being Slothful Is Not Good, But Sometimes Is Therapy

Sloth is one of my major besetting "deadly" sins. And I've been really slothful this week. No exercise at all. Lots of sleeping. (Medication may need tweaking.) And, weirdly, though I'm menopausal, I've had a crampy "period". I think it's cause I lost 10 pounds in the last couple months and may have a reaction to the estrogen release. Not sure, prolly. At age 50, I'm not thinking I've starting popping out eggs again.

So, I had to scrounge in the back of the linen closet for a box of unused tampons leftover from my last Aunt Flo visit...

But I'm happy to update my ticker and stats with another slow downtick. I weighed in at 256.6 for a total of 42.4 lost.

And I'm very happy to see the slow, consistent progress.

The sloth is not so great. I'm glad I'm seeing the endo in a couple weeks, and I got blood taken out yesterday. It may or may not be the thyroid/med change. It may be the killer heat of August. 97 degrees yesterday with triple-digit heat index.

Whatever.

Appetite is good and NOT binge-y. I still am feeling calm about food, though I certainly could eat plenty if I don't watch it. I'm happy with a 1 to 2 pound loss a week and not feeling at all anxious. Whether that's related to the slothful lethargy, who knows.

I think if I can get past the sleepies and move more, I can up my loss.

Then again, moving more can up my appetite, too, so I worry about that.

I'll be back to Pilates next week (my trainer was on vacation last week), and that should help, too.

I'm eating pretty normal (though lower quantity) meals and less fruit than I was used to eating in a quest to have lower carb--not low, lower carb--meals. I had raspberries with my breakfast of caprese salad with EVOO and teriyaki wings. Yeah, teriyaki has carbs, but my mouth wanted it, so it was nicer to feel satisfied on a small bit of it. I have some pretty peaches I can have with supper. I find if I have my WonderSlim protein stuff between meals, the meals themselves tend to be normal (not my usual pig-out). And if I have something late at night, say 3 hours before bed, I feel a huge reduction in nightly food cravings and wake up feeling less crazy to have breakfast like usual.

So, while I am not a low-carber, I do seem to be a lower-carber (I have pasta, I have bread, I have potatoes, and I like fruit), meaning just cutting back on the quantity of my starch/fruit eating and increasing the protein (and fat) to compensate. This really does seem to be calming me...so far.

Hope your weekend is lovely. Mine has been restful and full of Japanese manga and a comedy flick and smooching hubby so far. Tomorrow is a family event, so I'll have to deal with the "how to face temptation" issue at the birthday party for my brother. I can see myself having to tote some lower-carb options or just saying NO to the rice and YES to the "ropa vieja" and salad. (Though it's really tough for a Cuban-born gal to have "ropa vieja" sans rice, I tell ya.)

Later, y'all....

The Sleep Factor, Confirmed Yet Again and Today's Food

I think a couple of times in the past three years, I've posted about how I do better on the scale when I sleep well and sufficiently (ie, 8+ hours). I find that the combination of morbid obesity and peri-and-menopause had caused me to have BAD SLEEP, when prior to this combo, I tended to sleep easily and well. Not so the last couple years. Sleep apnea and hormonal chaos really did a job on my ability to sleep deeply and adequately and, really, at any time. I used to be able to nap like a cat--at will.

But I had a lovely catch-up on lost sleep and the scale was nice for a peek weigh-in: 261.0   New low...again.

I hope I can somehow get my sleep back on track, but that usually means back to "vampire time" (ie sleeping days, awake nights), but I don't want to do that. I'm struggling to stay on daylight hours, but this makes life so much easier, if not Zs.

I had breakfast of pomodoro omelette (Diet To Go version), which is a high protein egg mixture firmly cooked with a creamy spinach and marinara sort of sauce combo with some asparagus on side. I cooked up a bunch of spinach with EVOO to up my veggie count and had some coconut water and coffee. Oh, and a slice of rye toast with Smart Balance spread. I had three pieces of avocado sushi with wasabi and pickled ginger for a snack.

For my next meal, I ordered vegetable pad thai with steamed veggies side order (cabbage, carrots, pea pods broccoli, squash). Hubby wanted cashew chicken (which he ate for early supper), and my pad thai is waiting for nuking when I'm hungry.

Summer Slimmin' Challenge Update: Hey, eating is good! Sleeping is not :(

I didn't sleep enough two days' running, so I crashed and took a nap from 5 to 7:30 this PM. I still feel out of it, but at least I'm not feeling that zombie-sleepy sort of thing.

I need to upload my last few meals (ie, lunch and supper yesterday and lunch today.) I'm doing fine. Had to miss breakfast (which I hardly ever do) cause I had some fasting labwork done at 1:15pm. There's a market a few steps from the lab, so I popped in and got some nice pre-cooked foods: ratatouille, balsamic tomatoes with basil, spinach with orzo, spaghetti squash, cucumber salad, vegetable barley soup, vegetarian lentil soup, curried chicken salad, and a couple of pork chops for hubby with mashies.

I came home famished and had 4 cups of mixed lettuces with a cup of the curried chicken salad. I also had a cup of lentil soup--very diet-friendly with no oil/fat, just a very translucent broth and nice firm lentils with a sprinkling of carrots and celery and onion. It's bland, but oddly comforting. I logged everything on  Sparkpeople: 636 calories.

I still haven't had "lunch", but might combine dinner and lunch since it's already almost 8.

No exercise--I admit, I still feel lethargic. Missing sleep is a bad idea all around, knocked me off my game. I felt great and energetic yesterday despite the record heat. Today, I feel mucky.

I commented on the challenge blogs that had updates as of 7:50pm.

I'm gonna have some (lots of) water and tea before deciding what to eat, and I'll check in later. Mebbe. :)

Honestly, Too Pooped To Blog Coherently

I only slept about 4 hours total last night--broken into 2 hours and 1.75 hours, with a restless break in-between when I read and stretched.

And I had to go to the doc. I am waiting for EIGHT prescriptions to be filled--and that's not all the prescriptions she gave me, just the ones I need now. One of my meds got switched for another.

I don't even know if I'm making sense. Heh.

:::slaps face to wake up:::

The cold front moved in (rain yesterday, glorious day today), so driving was nice in the lovely sunshine and cool air. My hair looks great with the low humidity--shiny and no frizz. Better yet, the change eased my breathing a bit. I'll take it. I did have to wear a mask from the house to the car, as The Door Guy is here fixing our broken front door. The paint smell, I don't need. I'm staying away from the yard and front areas.

My Pilates instructor has been so encouraging, despite me missing 3 weeks already. She said once I'm breathing okay and back at it, I'll regain strength fast. I choose to believe this. :) It keeps me hopeful.

Oh, and I ate too much Chinese at lunch. This is what comes of eating a too tiny breakfast (200 cals/4 points) out of fear of busting the scale at the doc's office. (I knew I'd weigh in heavier due to not sleeping enough--always happens.) I usually don't eat before I go to see my doc, but I was hungry. That'll teach me to go too long on too little fuel. Temptation is harder to fight.

But I'm gonna have my protein shake and fruit for a light supper and go to BED!!!!!!!!!! SLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!!!! SLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!

Sleep is such a gorgeous, gorgeous thing.

So, until tomorrow, I wish you all a lovely "what's left of Thursday"... :)

~~~

PS: I keep getting this box asking for user and password as requested by Twitter.com. Anyone else getting that on Blogger. It's annoying. I removed my twitter widget.

Totally Switched Sleep Schedule and Easy Cheesy Eggie-Veggie Scramble

Well, I flipped.

No. I didn't go nuts. (I think.) I am on a different sleep schedule.

I'm now up mornings. (Normally, I sleep days, am up at night.) Staying awake for over 24 hours in order to go to Josh's Organic Garden and Whole Foods, and then eating with hubby, that kept me up long enough that I zonked out in the late afternoon and got up at 4:30 am. If I can stay on daytime hours, that would be VERY convenient, as I have a medical appointment on Thursday. (Wednesday will be, I hope, my return to exercise day, back to Pilates after two weeks of wheeziness. I'm still feeling some congestion and breathing is off, but I'm definitely mending. fingers crossed...)

As an aside, got on the scale today (though I shouldn't have) and it was a bit encouraging. It was 276.8. So, down a pound since January 1, though it was only yesterday that I started eating right.

Breakfast today, first day when I have all sorts of happy, produce-type goodies in da house:

Easy Cheesy Eggie-Veggie Scramble--This is one of my fave "diet" breakfasts, though I make em with any sort of egg whites, fresh or carton. I have organic eggs and organic egg whites in the fridge, but I had this, too, and wanted more color this morning, hence the yellow fakeyness. I know, not "clean", but clean enough.

How I make it:

~I spray the pan with PAM Olive Oil organic spray. I heat up chopped fresh zucchini, mushrooms, onions, and red pepper until they're hot, but still with some crispness. (I hate soggy-mushy veggies.)

Note: I usually add tomatoes, too, and on occasion some spinach, but today, I decided to save the tomatoes for lunch or supper, as I have a beautiful organic, raw, fresh spinach-pesto I can use on them. Use all and any the veggies you like, just sop up the moisture after cooking, or your eggs will be watery and nasty.

~I dump them into a bowl and blot the veggies and the pan to keep from watering down the scramble.

~I respray the pan with PAM or use a little Smart Balance to oil the pan, and then I add the veggies back in and enough egg beaters/egg whites to cover most of the veggies. (Obviously, the more veggies, the more egg whites.)

~I cook them partway as if I were making an omelette (ie, raising edges to let runny egg bit get cooked under). When it's 3/4 done, I then scramble it until it's cooked to my satisfaction. I either sprinkled grated cheddar (low fat or regular, depending on what's on hand, but yeah, low-fat is better) or break up a slice of American cheese (low fat) and mix it in. The American melts better and makes a cheesy sort of sauce around the scramble. Nice.

Depending on how much egg whites and cheese (type) you use, it can run from 2 points to 6 points (for a bountiful serving). And you can get one to three servings of veggies.

I added about a cup's worth of chopped veggies this AM, so I got two servings. With my cup of fresh apple juice, I got 3 servings of fruits and veggies with my breakfast for 6 points. And it was yummy.

I decided to save the toast I would normally have had, cause I wanna have my Ezekiel Bread/Gardenburger/Cheese sandwich for lunch with fruit.

Tip for today: Get your veggies in. Aim for 7-9 servings or more to keep full and get those nutrients taht come in colorful produce. Whatever sandwich you have, load it with cucumbers, peppers, lettuce, and tomato. Avocado, while having more calories, has healthful fats and tastes wonderful with chicken and turkey or on veggie-cheese sandwiches. Maybe sprouts and slices of onion, if you like that. Take carrots and celery sticks for your snack, with something heartier, like hummus or a light yogurt dip for flavor. Have fruit for dessert or snack. Make a lite veggie soup for an appetizer (and batch the extra to take for lunch to work or have as a snack the rest of the week). Don't let any meal or snack be produce-deprived.

Happy Monday!