It´s not only food where you have to watch your portion sizes.
I found that out recently when taking the time to read the instructions on a bottle of liquid laundry detergent.
So, these bottles have caps which double as a measuring cup, too. And for the longest time, I had assumed that the size of a cap full was the recommended amount to pour into my washing machine.
Guess what- the instructions (printed very small, with an illustration I could only decipher with the help of a magnifying glass) mentioned something about a "line" up to which you were supposed to fill the cap to get one portion of detergent. So, I went looking for that line- and discovered it, after some seeking, about a third of the way up from the bottom on the cap´s inside.
And I had kept wondering why those bottles were running empty all the time! Knowing now that I was using triple the recommended amount, that particular miracle got its scientific explanation...
So, the next time, I used that line as a reference point. And while I was at it, I also looked for a similar marker on my fabric softener´s bottle cap, which in that case meant having to fill the cap less than halfway.
From the results, there was no difference.
The same principle applies to shampoo, shower bath, or dishwashing liquid. Most of the time, half the amount you are used to pouring from the bottle would do the job as well. Actually, using as little as possible may save you hard cash in more than one way, for example by using a lot less water to rinse the shampoo out of your hair.
Some brands try to discourage that kind of frugality by making their product very liquid and the openings on the bottle very large in diameter, making it near impossible to pour a small amount.
In that case, I refill the product into a bottle with a pump on it that gives single portions.
Total savings on cleanliness from watching portion sizes? About fífty to sixty percent. Plus, less impact on the environment. Win-win for everyone -except the people who sell those products...
Julia
2012/01/31
2012/01/30
Weekend before the Big Frost
From what the weather guys are telling us, Father Frost from Russia is about to drop by for a visit in our usually benign middle European climate. So, I took my fur-lined jacket out today, and the warm tchapka I got myself before Christmas. Before anybody flames me for wearing fur- the tchapka is made from fake fur, and the jacket is a hand-me-down from MIL, so, as those animals were probably dead before I was born, and I acquired it as a gift, I think it´s doing more honor to the shades of the original owners of those pelts to wear the jacket than it would have been to throw it out. Besides, what with the momentarily limited range of my wardrobe due to those sixty pounds I lost, it also is the warmest jacket I own, a lot warmer than my woolen coats. With temperatures of twenty degrees centigrade below zero in the forecast, it will also be necessary.
After all, those sixty pounds lost mean I lost a major part of my body´s insulating fat layer. I had noticed already that I feel the cold a lot more intensely than when at my top weight. But then again, that´s what slim people wear sweaters for, isn´t it?
The weekend, with some heavy snowfalls, was spent at home. Once again, frugality and weightloss were clashing, because the best-by dates on some not-so-healthy stuff in the fridge (namely some salami and sausages) were running out. I decided to go off the wagon for the weekend and use those up in two traditional recipes that are, unfortunately, rather greasy and carby. The resulting two-pound uptick was expected, and I hope it will be back off by the end of the week.
If somebody says here, why did you have that stuff in your fridge at all, these were leftovers from MIL´s visit, intended to be used up then, so, the most I´ll plead guilty to here is poor meal planning.
The jump in weight, disproportionally again to the total amount of calories ingested, once more drove home that the common potato- a main ingredient in most of the traditional dishes hereabouts- to me is sheer weight poison. If I want to keep having some of the good taste of childhood, I´ll have to find ways to take the potatoes out of those recipes, or at least greatly reduce the amount.
Anyway, what´s left in my fridge is more diet-friendly, as in chicken breast and vegetables, so, I´ll just have to avoid buying junk again.
I don´t know if it´s the cold, but I have found myself craving greasy food (as in bacon) a lot more than usual. That´s another trip I have to get off, or else I´ll keep going over my calories.
But then again, I had my fill of some of the traditional favorites over the weekend, so, abstaining from them again might have become a bit easier.
And maybe I´ll use more calories when it´s that cold.....
Julia
After all, those sixty pounds lost mean I lost a major part of my body´s insulating fat layer. I had noticed already that I feel the cold a lot more intensely than when at my top weight. But then again, that´s what slim people wear sweaters for, isn´t it?
The weekend, with some heavy snowfalls, was spent at home. Once again, frugality and weightloss were clashing, because the best-by dates on some not-so-healthy stuff in the fridge (namely some salami and sausages) were running out. I decided to go off the wagon for the weekend and use those up in two traditional recipes that are, unfortunately, rather greasy and carby. The resulting two-pound uptick was expected, and I hope it will be back off by the end of the week.
If somebody says here, why did you have that stuff in your fridge at all, these were leftovers from MIL´s visit, intended to be used up then, so, the most I´ll plead guilty to here is poor meal planning.
The jump in weight, disproportionally again to the total amount of calories ingested, once more drove home that the common potato- a main ingredient in most of the traditional dishes hereabouts- to me is sheer weight poison. If I want to keep having some of the good taste of childhood, I´ll have to find ways to take the potatoes out of those recipes, or at least greatly reduce the amount.
Anyway, what´s left in my fridge is more diet-friendly, as in chicken breast and vegetables, so, I´ll just have to avoid buying junk again.
I don´t know if it´s the cold, but I have found myself craving greasy food (as in bacon) a lot more than usual. That´s another trip I have to get off, or else I´ll keep going over my calories.
But then again, I had my fill of some of the traditional favorites over the weekend, so, abstaining from them again might have become a bit easier.
And maybe I´ll use more calories when it´s that cold.....
Julia
2012/01/27
Great expectations vs.baby steps
It´s the beginning of the year again, and magazine stands are full of glossy magazines with title stories of "ultimate diets" promising losses of ten pounds or more in ten days.
If I were to bet on the outcomes of all the people who try out these, I´d probably come out on the side of a sure win were I to bet on them- not losing ten pounds to begin with, -regaining more than they had lost in the first place after going off those diets again.
Actually, the bogosity of those claims is pretty much self-evident if you do a little number-crunching first.
One pound of fat would be the equivalent of 3500 calories. Ten of them would be 35000 calories.
To lose one pound of fat a day, you would have to create a caloric deficit of 3500 calories.
Now the average daily caloric needs of us sedentary office workers are about 2200 calories a day. Less, even, if like myself you have botched your metabolism with long-term yo-yo dieting.
Which spells out plainly that in order to lose a pound of fat a day, you would have to eat nothing and expend an extra 1300 calories on top of that. Make that two hours of uninterrupted jogging.
Would you do that for ten consecutive days? Of course not, if you want to keep functioning. When you eat less than your basal metabolic rate, your body starts to digest, not the fat you want to get rid of, but instead the muscles you probably want to keep, and which you need for that two-hour run, too.
Besides, the body´s survival instincts would kick in quickly, making you think of nothing else but when you will be able to eat for the next time.
So, if those diet plans tell you you can eat anything at all and not exercise, what they will allow you to get off your body will, for the most part, be water. If you start out on an eating plan with highly diuretic properties, you may be able to see the scales go down some two or three kilos in a week. But guess what- as soon as you resume normal eating, your poor dehydrated body will quickly fill up its water stores again, bringing those same two or three kilos back within a mere matter of days. Fast loss, fast regain. That these kilos tend to bring along a couple of friends because your body is ravenous to fill its nutritient stores back up, and therefore keeps you eating until you have consumed enough of every nutritient you ran short of, is what keeps, after such a diet, the weight seesaw going in an upward direction. Not exactly what we want.
Still, those numbers on the glossies, impossible as they are, influence how we perceive our own success rates.
There was a study (I forgot where I read it, so no link, sorry) where they asked people about how much weight they expected to lose when on a diet. The average expectation, as far as I remember, was to lose at least two pounds a week.
What happens with that kind of expectations is that we believe to have failed as soon as we lose less than that. All too often, that´s what drives us to retire to the vicinity of the cookie jar and give up the hope of ever getting back to normal weight.
Been there, done that.
Now would you be satisfied to lose just seven tenths of a pound in a week?
Before you raise a wail of "but I´ll stay fat forever then", that´s exactly what I have been losing for one year and five months now, on average. And the most I ever lost in a single week was 2.46 pounds.
You still with me?
Are you ready for some more numbers?
You know what that adds up to, after 73 weeks? Fifty-five pounds, that´s what. Plus of course the nine pounds off my highest recorded weight I had already condensed before getting real serious about this.
Or, in other numbers, BMI going down from 40 to 30.4.
Morbid obesity stage three down to almost just overweight.
A paltry 0.7 pounds a week is what got me there.
And, of course, patience.
But it can be done.
When you read up in the net about weight loss methods that work, you will probably find a lot of articles that claim that at a BMI higher than 35, or at BMI 40 or more, the only chance to get that off will be bariatric surgery of one kind or another.
To me, that never was an option. First of all, these procedures are not done as often in Europe as in the USA. Besides, they are usually not covered by health insurance, unless the patient is already in a life-threatening condition or severely crippled by that weight. Even at BMI 40, I would, by that standard, not have qualified. And, on a very personal level, the thought of having my bowels cut up and maimed just to lose weight was so revolting that, in my humble opinion, that should always be a last-ditch option. I wasn´t yet in that last ditch when I started to recondense myself.
And I succeded.
The first thing I had to toss, of course, was all those unrealistic expectations about how and how much to lose. No, you don´t need to have your stomach banded or cut up to lose weight, and no, you won´t lose those two pounds a week, much less those ten pounds in ten days. Oh, and no, you don´t have to put in two hours of jogging a day, either. If I excercise, it´s rarely more than thirty minutes at a time, and I´m not even too regular about it. Of course, regular exercise might be helpful, but it´s not the most important part of losing. Watching what you put in your mouth is. And knowing that, if you want the extra pounds to stay off, you´ll have to watch that for the rest of your life, so, the menu plan you chose to lose better be one that you know you will be able to live with for the rest of your life, too.
Which pretty much nixes those "diet" suggestions in the glossies anyway- or would you want to eat cabbage soup only for the rest of your life? Nothing against cabbage soup there, it can be delicious when well seasoned, but I for one would refuse to make that my one and only meal if I could avoid it.
Sustainability is the buzzword here. In my experience, a way of eating where you are not allowed to eat your favorite foods isn´t sustainable. What if your favorite is pizza, or chocolate cake? I have had these too, during those one and a half years. In controlled portions. And that´s what kept me from going for the whole cake at once. Plus the knowledge that, if I do slip up, I can get back on the wagon the very next day. It´s the long-time results I´m after, after all, and, if I say so myself, my long-time results show that I must have been doing something right.
Yes, it´s just baby steps of 0.7 pounds a week. But they got me where I am today, to a place I had, to tell the truth, almost given up hope I could ever return to.
And baby steps can get you to the place you want to be. Just because one isn´t Usain Bolt doesn´t mean one won´t be able to walk, not run, those 100 meters, even if one has to use a walker to do so. For almost everybody, there is some kind of baby step you can do to deal with your biggest problem, be it weight or something else.
Just take that step, and remember that even a small step brings you closer to where you want to go.
Julia
If I were to bet on the outcomes of all the people who try out these, I´d probably come out on the side of a sure win were I to bet on them- not losing ten pounds to begin with, -regaining more than they had lost in the first place after going off those diets again.
Actually, the bogosity of those claims is pretty much self-evident if you do a little number-crunching first.
One pound of fat would be the equivalent of 3500 calories. Ten of them would be 35000 calories.
To lose one pound of fat a day, you would have to create a caloric deficit of 3500 calories.
Now the average daily caloric needs of us sedentary office workers are about 2200 calories a day. Less, even, if like myself you have botched your metabolism with long-term yo-yo dieting.
Which spells out plainly that in order to lose a pound of fat a day, you would have to eat nothing and expend an extra 1300 calories on top of that. Make that two hours of uninterrupted jogging.
Would you do that for ten consecutive days? Of course not, if you want to keep functioning. When you eat less than your basal metabolic rate, your body starts to digest, not the fat you want to get rid of, but instead the muscles you probably want to keep, and which you need for that two-hour run, too.
Besides, the body´s survival instincts would kick in quickly, making you think of nothing else but when you will be able to eat for the next time.
So, if those diet plans tell you you can eat anything at all and not exercise, what they will allow you to get off your body will, for the most part, be water. If you start out on an eating plan with highly diuretic properties, you may be able to see the scales go down some two or three kilos in a week. But guess what- as soon as you resume normal eating, your poor dehydrated body will quickly fill up its water stores again, bringing those same two or three kilos back within a mere matter of days. Fast loss, fast regain. That these kilos tend to bring along a couple of friends because your body is ravenous to fill its nutritient stores back up, and therefore keeps you eating until you have consumed enough of every nutritient you ran short of, is what keeps, after such a diet, the weight seesaw going in an upward direction. Not exactly what we want.
Still, those numbers on the glossies, impossible as they are, influence how we perceive our own success rates.
There was a study (I forgot where I read it, so no link, sorry) where they asked people about how much weight they expected to lose when on a diet. The average expectation, as far as I remember, was to lose at least two pounds a week.
What happens with that kind of expectations is that we believe to have failed as soon as we lose less than that. All too often, that´s what drives us to retire to the vicinity of the cookie jar and give up the hope of ever getting back to normal weight.
Been there, done that.
Now would you be satisfied to lose just seven tenths of a pound in a week?
Before you raise a wail of "but I´ll stay fat forever then", that´s exactly what I have been losing for one year and five months now, on average. And the most I ever lost in a single week was 2.46 pounds.
You still with me?
Are you ready for some more numbers?
You know what that adds up to, after 73 weeks? Fifty-five pounds, that´s what. Plus of course the nine pounds off my highest recorded weight I had already condensed before getting real serious about this.
Or, in other numbers, BMI going down from 40 to 30.4.
Morbid obesity stage three down to almost just overweight.
A paltry 0.7 pounds a week is what got me there.
And, of course, patience.
But it can be done.
When you read up in the net about weight loss methods that work, you will probably find a lot of articles that claim that at a BMI higher than 35, or at BMI 40 or more, the only chance to get that off will be bariatric surgery of one kind or another.
To me, that never was an option. First of all, these procedures are not done as often in Europe as in the USA. Besides, they are usually not covered by health insurance, unless the patient is already in a life-threatening condition or severely crippled by that weight. Even at BMI 40, I would, by that standard, not have qualified. And, on a very personal level, the thought of having my bowels cut up and maimed just to lose weight was so revolting that, in my humble opinion, that should always be a last-ditch option. I wasn´t yet in that last ditch when I started to recondense myself.
And I succeded.
The first thing I had to toss, of course, was all those unrealistic expectations about how and how much to lose. No, you don´t need to have your stomach banded or cut up to lose weight, and no, you won´t lose those two pounds a week, much less those ten pounds in ten days. Oh, and no, you don´t have to put in two hours of jogging a day, either. If I excercise, it´s rarely more than thirty minutes at a time, and I´m not even too regular about it. Of course, regular exercise might be helpful, but it´s not the most important part of losing. Watching what you put in your mouth is. And knowing that, if you want the extra pounds to stay off, you´ll have to watch that for the rest of your life, so, the menu plan you chose to lose better be one that you know you will be able to live with for the rest of your life, too.
Which pretty much nixes those "diet" suggestions in the glossies anyway- or would you want to eat cabbage soup only for the rest of your life? Nothing against cabbage soup there, it can be delicious when well seasoned, but I for one would refuse to make that my one and only meal if I could avoid it.
Sustainability is the buzzword here. In my experience, a way of eating where you are not allowed to eat your favorite foods isn´t sustainable. What if your favorite is pizza, or chocolate cake? I have had these too, during those one and a half years. In controlled portions. And that´s what kept me from going for the whole cake at once. Plus the knowledge that, if I do slip up, I can get back on the wagon the very next day. It´s the long-time results I´m after, after all, and, if I say so myself, my long-time results show that I must have been doing something right.
Yes, it´s just baby steps of 0.7 pounds a week. But they got me where I am today, to a place I had, to tell the truth, almost given up hope I could ever return to.
And baby steps can get you to the place you want to be. Just because one isn´t Usain Bolt doesn´t mean one won´t be able to walk, not run, those 100 meters, even if one has to use a walker to do so. For almost everybody, there is some kind of baby step you can do to deal with your biggest problem, be it weight or something else.
Just take that step, and remember that even a small step brings you closer to where you want to go.
Julia
2012/01/26
It´s easy...until it´s not
For seven years, I had been nicotine-free. Then, I slipped up with a single cigarillo. Two weeks later, I was back to smoking a pack a day.
Dumb, isn´t it? Even dumber when I stopped exercising soon after because I preferred sitting on the balcony smoking to getting sweaty running through the park, and besides, I was so fast out of breath... And even dumber when I had to work the cost of smoking into our budget. Let´s just say at the price of cigarettes today, a pack-a-day-habit would consume more than what I have to pay for utilities each month, so, nothing to sneeze at.
And, of course, my cough is back.
Quitting should be easy, after all, I have done it once already. And there really isn´t a sensible alternative.
But the last time I quit, I gained those very close-to-sixty pounds I just condensed.
I´m scared of gaining again. And I´m scared of climbing the wall with cravings.
I must remember this is an addiction. For seven years, I could get up, go to work, work, and come home and relax, without lighting up. I could do it without climbing the walls, too, without snapping at people, and for the last year before my relapse, without eating everything that wouldn´t eat me first. I could watch an entire movie withouit fidgeting halfway through it because I wanted to go out for a smoke.
I want that feeling back.
At the same time, I´m absolutely scared of quitting.
Damn that cigarillo.
Julia
Dumb, isn´t it? Even dumber when I stopped exercising soon after because I preferred sitting on the balcony smoking to getting sweaty running through the park, and besides, I was so fast out of breath... And even dumber when I had to work the cost of smoking into our budget. Let´s just say at the price of cigarettes today, a pack-a-day-habit would consume more than what I have to pay for utilities each month, so, nothing to sneeze at.
And, of course, my cough is back.
Quitting should be easy, after all, I have done it once already. And there really isn´t a sensible alternative.
But the last time I quit, I gained those very close-to-sixty pounds I just condensed.
I´m scared of gaining again. And I´m scared of climbing the wall with cravings.
I must remember this is an addiction. For seven years, I could get up, go to work, work, and come home and relax, without lighting up. I could do it without climbing the walls, too, without snapping at people, and for the last year before my relapse, without eating everything that wouldn´t eat me first. I could watch an entire movie withouit fidgeting halfway through it because I wanted to go out for a smoke.
I want that feeling back.
At the same time, I´m absolutely scared of quitting.
Damn that cigarillo.
Julia
2012/01/25
One week on the lips, three weeks on the hips?
That´s at least what it looks like now. Of the seven pounds of baggage I reacquired over Christmas, three have gone off again and four are still sticking around. I´m not surprised because the last weeks had been somewhat hectic, and eating therefore a bit below par. But the main thing is that the weight curve is moving downwards again, and I have a full three weeks to go before the next family event throwing a wrench into my eating habits. I´ll see how far three weeks of strict adherence to low-cal and low-carb eating will take me. What I have noticed already was that the last weekend off plan gave me not only two pounds of water gain (luckily off again by now), but also a bad case of an upset stomach.
That seems to be what eating more than a minuscule amount of carbohydrates will do to me these days, plus serious fatigue and trouble concentrating.
When I look at it from that point of view, those pastries on Sunday so weren´t worth it. Nor were the potato dumplings, and the two rolls for breakfast. None of that was good enough to warrant alternating between stomach cramps and runs to the powder room for two days straight.
Perhaps this is a good sign. If my body refuses to properly digest junk food, that indicates that it likes the other, protein-rich stuff I usually feed it a lot more. Talk about somatic intelligence...
Ayway, I´ll see how far down I can get this time. There´s after all still that mirage of being just overweight less than six pounds away.
Julia
That seems to be what eating more than a minuscule amount of carbohydrates will do to me these days, plus serious fatigue and trouble concentrating.
When I look at it from that point of view, those pastries on Sunday so weren´t worth it. Nor were the potato dumplings, and the two rolls for breakfast. None of that was good enough to warrant alternating between stomach cramps and runs to the powder room for two days straight.
Perhaps this is a good sign. If my body refuses to properly digest junk food, that indicates that it likes the other, protein-rich stuff I usually feed it a lot more. Talk about somatic intelligence...
Ayway, I´ll see how far down I can get this time. There´s after all still that mirage of being just overweight less than six pounds away.
Julia
2012/01/23
The sum of little things
Buying just one thing at a dime-and-dollar store. Eating just one piece of candy. Bringing home just one item.
For most of us, these would be filed under "small indulgences". The things we do "because we deserve it". The things that "cost just a little bit".
But these are also the things that get us into trouble, if repeated more than rarely. For my money, it makes no difference if I spend one dollar ten times, or spend ten dollars at once. For my weight, there´s in the long run no difference between a once-a-day-one-piece chocolate habit or eating a whole bar once a week. For the fight against clutter, there´s no difference between bringing home one small item at a time daily or bringing home seven once a week.
Still, the threshold to cross before doing something that is against our better interests is a lot lower when we perceive the transgression as a small one. And it gets even lower when it´s coupled with a feeling of entitlement.
Which is exactly what a lot of stores prey on. One of the most dangerous shopping traps for me, in the past, was a chain of stores that, originally, sold just freshly-roasted coffee. And then the owners had the idea of including other merchandise, namely, household stuff. They started selling coffee drinking paraphernalia first, as in coffee machines and cups, and graduated to garments, tools, kitchen stuff and decorative items. The kicker being that they have a different set of merchandise every week, so, there is the added pressure on the customer because the item may be out of stock the next time they come by.
I used to drop by there every week, not for coffee, but for those pretty things they had besides coffee. Most of the time, I came back with something that, the day before, I didn´t even know existed. so, definitely not something off any long-time wish list. And those somethings added up, financially as well as clutter-wise.
Had I wished so, I might have gotten myself a complete set of table decorations every year for Easter or Christmas, or a new set of garden tools every spring, never mind that last year´s ones were still good and stored away somewhere.
The realization that there was a regular return of themes in their merchandise helped me to see the most recent set of merchandise as just another variation on a theme they had had already, and, if I had bought the items the first time they came around, I didn´t need another edition just because this time they were yellow and the first time they had been red.
What also helped me was adding up the total cost of those small indulgences and measuring it against the cost of those items on my all-time wish list that I had always put on the back burner because they were so expensive. Turned out that, if I had restrained myself from grabbing the small stuff, there might have been enough money saved to go for some of the big-ticket items.
Which is why I have stopped indulging myself with little things. They usually end up cluttering my flat anyway, the pleasure to be had from them is mostly short-lived, and buying them keeps me from achieving the bigger goals I have for my flat and my lifestyle. I can appreciate that something looks pretty, but I don´t have to buy it to enjoy it, especially not if I already own something to do that item´s job.
The number of those items that see regular use is rather small, anyway. So, I still look at their merchandise when passing that particular shop, but I rarely even enter to see what they have inside, and even more rarely do I buy something. Actually, I only buy something there if it is something I have had on my wish list for a while. The last thing I bought from there was a pair of chef´s pincers for turning around bacon when frying it. That was something I had seen in a cookware shop and refrained from buying at the time because they were pretty expensive, so, when I saw a similar item at a highly reduced price at the coffee sellers´, I took it home and am using it daily when preparing our bacon-and-eggs breakfast.
Then again, in my book, something that sees daily use is not exactly an indulgence, even if I could get around using a different instrument for the job ( I used to turn the bacon with a fork).
But the number of things I would use daily is small when compared to that of things I used to bring home just because they were pretty.
Knowing the difference keeps a lot of clutter out of my home and a lot of cash in my pocket.
Julia
For most of us, these would be filed under "small indulgences". The things we do "because we deserve it". The things that "cost just a little bit".
But these are also the things that get us into trouble, if repeated more than rarely. For my money, it makes no difference if I spend one dollar ten times, or spend ten dollars at once. For my weight, there´s in the long run no difference between a once-a-day-one-piece chocolate habit or eating a whole bar once a week. For the fight against clutter, there´s no difference between bringing home one small item at a time daily or bringing home seven once a week.
Still, the threshold to cross before doing something that is against our better interests is a lot lower when we perceive the transgression as a small one. And it gets even lower when it´s coupled with a feeling of entitlement.
Which is exactly what a lot of stores prey on. One of the most dangerous shopping traps for me, in the past, was a chain of stores that, originally, sold just freshly-roasted coffee. And then the owners had the idea of including other merchandise, namely, household stuff. They started selling coffee drinking paraphernalia first, as in coffee machines and cups, and graduated to garments, tools, kitchen stuff and decorative items. The kicker being that they have a different set of merchandise every week, so, there is the added pressure on the customer because the item may be out of stock the next time they come by.
I used to drop by there every week, not for coffee, but for those pretty things they had besides coffee. Most of the time, I came back with something that, the day before, I didn´t even know existed. so, definitely not something off any long-time wish list. And those somethings added up, financially as well as clutter-wise.
Had I wished so, I might have gotten myself a complete set of table decorations every year for Easter or Christmas, or a new set of garden tools every spring, never mind that last year´s ones were still good and stored away somewhere.
The realization that there was a regular return of themes in their merchandise helped me to see the most recent set of merchandise as just another variation on a theme they had had already, and, if I had bought the items the first time they came around, I didn´t need another edition just because this time they were yellow and the first time they had been red.
What also helped me was adding up the total cost of those small indulgences and measuring it against the cost of those items on my all-time wish list that I had always put on the back burner because they were so expensive. Turned out that, if I had restrained myself from grabbing the small stuff, there might have been enough money saved to go for some of the big-ticket items.
Which is why I have stopped indulging myself with little things. They usually end up cluttering my flat anyway, the pleasure to be had from them is mostly short-lived, and buying them keeps me from achieving the bigger goals I have for my flat and my lifestyle. I can appreciate that something looks pretty, but I don´t have to buy it to enjoy it, especially not if I already own something to do that item´s job.
The number of those items that see regular use is rather small, anyway. So, I still look at their merchandise when passing that particular shop, but I rarely even enter to see what they have inside, and even more rarely do I buy something. Actually, I only buy something there if it is something I have had on my wish list for a while. The last thing I bought from there was a pair of chef´s pincers for turning around bacon when frying it. That was something I had seen in a cookware shop and refrained from buying at the time because they were pretty expensive, so, when I saw a similar item at a highly reduced price at the coffee sellers´, I took it home and am using it daily when preparing our bacon-and-eggs breakfast.
Then again, in my book, something that sees daily use is not exactly an indulgence, even if I could get around using a different instrument for the job ( I used to turn the bacon with a fork).
But the number of things I would use daily is small when compared to that of things I used to bring home just because they were pretty.
Knowing the difference keeps a lot of clutter out of my home and a lot of cash in my pocket.
Julia
2012/01/18
Danger zone
Journalling what I eat on Sparkpeople is still an educating experience.
After having been off plan over the holidays and the resulting seven-pound regain, I have re-started my food journal on the weekend, only to find myself massively over my daily calorie allotment for three days in a row.
The culprits were to be found in the daily intake breakdown they give you which shows, not only the daily totals, but also the calories in each food eaten in order of decreasing amount, so, the top item in that list is what gave you most calories on that day.
In this instance, it meant finding things on top of that list which I had, when ingesting them, not even intended to be a full meal, entering them under the category "snacks".
That single slice of gouda cheese I ate when coming home. Those two handfuls of mixed nuts that I just had to have after a long workday "just to tide me over till dinner". Those were, on two respective days, the top runners for the day, giving me some 20 per cent of my total intake. The problem being that, having counted these as "just a little nibble", I still ended up having a full dinner after eating them, none of the ingredients of which came even close to the impact of the preceding "snack".
Huh? I could have stayed within my limit if I had not had those caloric bombs as a snack?
Actually, it´s more a matter of convenience than anything else. I try, for reasons of frugality as well as time constraints, to do all of my grocery shopping on one day a week. Thus, I prefer to buy my veggies frozen so I won´t have them go bad before I can eat them. Frozen veggies, in turn, mean having to heat them up, and that means cooking. Which I do every evening for dinner.
The danger zone, for me, is the time between coming home from work and starting to cook dinner.
It´s about eight to nine hours since I had breakfast then, and even with a protein shake at the office thrown in, I´m usually ravenous on coming home. I´m also quite wired usually, having a job that brings a lot of stress.
Hunger+stress=the munchies. Simple as that. And that´s when I grab things that don´t need preparing and fill me up quickly. Things like cheese or nuts. Being hungry, I usually eat these fast, being stressed, I chomp them down without pausing to taste or feel what I´m eating. Which in turn leads to the subjective feeling of not having eaten much.
The food journal is a great tool for getting out of denial on that point.
Now I have to find a way to turn that realization into something useful.
The stress I´m in at work, I can´t change.
But I could avoid becoming ravenous if I were to have, not one but two protein shakes at the office, one of them at the end of the workday so I´m not as hungry when arriving at home.
And I could try to break the connection between coming home and eating, perhaps by exchanging those nuts and cheese for a cup of tea to sit down with.
I could also try to prepare dinner an hour earlier. DH has been grumbling about our eating dinner after eight PM anyway. But that´s what happens because we eat so much upon coming home that we are just not hungry any sooner.
I could also try to have something less caloric on hand to munch on until dinner´s ready.
No matter how I do it, I have to stop stuffing myself with calorie-dense foods when coming home. If I don´t, I have no chance of continuing to condense myself.
Julia
After having been off plan over the holidays and the resulting seven-pound regain, I have re-started my food journal on the weekend, only to find myself massively over my daily calorie allotment for three days in a row.
The culprits were to be found in the daily intake breakdown they give you which shows, not only the daily totals, but also the calories in each food eaten in order of decreasing amount, so, the top item in that list is what gave you most calories on that day.
In this instance, it meant finding things on top of that list which I had, when ingesting them, not even intended to be a full meal, entering them under the category "snacks".
That single slice of gouda cheese I ate when coming home. Those two handfuls of mixed nuts that I just had to have after a long workday "just to tide me over till dinner". Those were, on two respective days, the top runners for the day, giving me some 20 per cent of my total intake. The problem being that, having counted these as "just a little nibble", I still ended up having a full dinner after eating them, none of the ingredients of which came even close to the impact of the preceding "snack".
Huh? I could have stayed within my limit if I had not had those caloric bombs as a snack?
Actually, it´s more a matter of convenience than anything else. I try, for reasons of frugality as well as time constraints, to do all of my grocery shopping on one day a week. Thus, I prefer to buy my veggies frozen so I won´t have them go bad before I can eat them. Frozen veggies, in turn, mean having to heat them up, and that means cooking. Which I do every evening for dinner.
The danger zone, for me, is the time between coming home from work and starting to cook dinner.
It´s about eight to nine hours since I had breakfast then, and even with a protein shake at the office thrown in, I´m usually ravenous on coming home. I´m also quite wired usually, having a job that brings a lot of stress.
Hunger+stress=the munchies. Simple as that. And that´s when I grab things that don´t need preparing and fill me up quickly. Things like cheese or nuts. Being hungry, I usually eat these fast, being stressed, I chomp them down without pausing to taste or feel what I´m eating. Which in turn leads to the subjective feeling of not having eaten much.
The food journal is a great tool for getting out of denial on that point.
Now I have to find a way to turn that realization into something useful.
The stress I´m in at work, I can´t change.
But I could avoid becoming ravenous if I were to have, not one but two protein shakes at the office, one of them at the end of the workday so I´m not as hungry when arriving at home.
And I could try to break the connection between coming home and eating, perhaps by exchanging those nuts and cheese for a cup of tea to sit down with.
I could also try to prepare dinner an hour earlier. DH has been grumbling about our eating dinner after eight PM anyway. But that´s what happens because we eat so much upon coming home that we are just not hungry any sooner.
I could also try to have something less caloric on hand to munch on until dinner´s ready.
No matter how I do it, I have to stop stuffing myself with calorie-dense foods when coming home. If I don´t, I have no chance of continuing to condense myself.
Julia
2012/01/17
Coffee cup
Spending my time sitting at a desk full of paper files and electronic equipment for a living, the question of what to put my beverages into to avoid accidental spills happens to be an important one. When I found my lidded to-go tea cup, I already thought I had found the optimum vessel. One thing still remined unsolved by that- the big coffee question. I don´t like to use instant coffee powder, preferring my coffee freshly brewed. As we aren´t supposed to have electric coffee makers in our cubicles, I started using a french coffee press instead. The only disadvantage to that was that the coffee cooled down rather more quickly than I had time to drink it up, leaving me with somewhat less than optimal enjoyment of my beloved cuppa.
I was overjoyed when I found out that the makers of my teacup-to-go also have one that is in reality a french press to go, with the wire-mesh stamp integrated into the lid, but otherwise exactly the same as my tea cup, which means these are heat-insulating as well, and, because you pour the water in there boiling and drink directly from the same cup you brew your coffee in, there´s no loss of heat by pouring the coffee into a different cup.
I was quite excited about these, so, when I saw them in an advertisement on sale for less than half their usually steep price, I immediately drove to the store that had them to secure me one.
What I found out when using it was that I need just two teaspoons full of ground coffee to brew me some 400 ml (that´s two cups) of coffee, so, one packet of ground coffee lasts about five times as long as if I were to use an electric drip coffee maker. What with coffee prices having risen quite a bit, that cup will have amortized itself long before the end of the year. And the insulation on it is so good that the contents keep warm for well over two hours if I have an interruption during my coffee break.
The tea cup, of course, is still in use, too. After all, one can´t stress the importance of hydration enough. And when it´s as cold outside as it is now, that definitely doesn´t mean cold water for me!
Julia
I was overjoyed when I found out that the makers of my teacup-to-go also have one that is in reality a french press to go, with the wire-mesh stamp integrated into the lid, but otherwise exactly the same as my tea cup, which means these are heat-insulating as well, and, because you pour the water in there boiling and drink directly from the same cup you brew your coffee in, there´s no loss of heat by pouring the coffee into a different cup.
I was quite excited about these, so, when I saw them in an advertisement on sale for less than half their usually steep price, I immediately drove to the store that had them to secure me one.
What I found out when using it was that I need just two teaspoons full of ground coffee to brew me some 400 ml (that´s two cups) of coffee, so, one packet of ground coffee lasts about five times as long as if I were to use an electric drip coffee maker. What with coffee prices having risen quite a bit, that cup will have amortized itself long before the end of the year. And the insulation on it is so good that the contents keep warm for well over two hours if I have an interruption during my coffee break.
The tea cup, of course, is still in use, too. After all, one can´t stress the importance of hydration enough. And when it´s as cold outside as it is now, that definitely doesn´t mean cold water for me!
Julia
2012/01/16
Calm after the storm
This weekend was the first time in over a month that we neither had anything urgent on our plates nor anything coming up to be nervous about. Just catching up on the backlog in our household that had been created by being out and about most of the time, puttering about with the floral decorations a bit, and apart from that, just relax. It was a badly needed break for both of us.
This being the first full week I´m working this day, I´ll also have to get back into my pre-christmas eating patterns if I want to reach my next minigoal of leaving morbid obesity by my b-day in March.
I have actually been taken aback at how fast the pounds have gone back up as soon as I was going off plan.
But then again, I´ve had plenty of proof in the past that I must absolutely stay watchful if I don´t want to gain everything back. Even if I believed I was eating "normally", what I gained shows that I have been overeating by some five hundred calories a day on average, plus water retention. So back it is to weighing and journalling every bite that crosses my lips. With my body being condensed by about sixty pounds, the margin for slipups has become decidedly smaller, as my basal metabolic rate, which was low to begin with, has gone down by about three hundred calories a day.
Which means that as soon as the weather gets a bit warmer, I´ll have to get back to walking. Thirty minutes of walking fast with my sticks equal about those three hundred calories, so, if done daily, would offset the effect of the lowered BMR. Except it´s still ice cold and dark in the morning and I´m admittedly not a morning person anyways. So, I still have a grace period of about two months where I have an excuse not to exercise. Actually, I have been looking into buying an elliptical for at home, but these things are huge and expensive, both of which are, at least for now, a good enough reason for me not to buy one, after all, come spring, I can do the same workout for free again without squeezing that big machine into our already crowded living room.
Not exercising has, by the way, already had a negative effect on my back, so even if there weren´t the question of weight, I would have to get back doing it to avoid another slipped disk or such.
Can you tell I hate exercise? Yet the human body seems to be built to require it, so, it´s not a question of what I want but what I need to do.
Perhaps I must just pick my momentum back up. After all, I have been exercising regularly for the second half of 2010, and not-so-regularly for several months in 2011, and I was, at the time, feeling good. I have to remember that feeling, not how good it would feel to sleep in for another half-hour.
And I also have to start taking my protein shakes again. After four weeks without, I see a noticeable change for the worse of my skin´s condition, so, unless I want that Shar-Pei look, I have to re-nourish it fast.
Good intentions... now I must only put them in practice.
Julia
This being the first full week I´m working this day, I´ll also have to get back into my pre-christmas eating patterns if I want to reach my next minigoal of leaving morbid obesity by my b-day in March.
I have actually been taken aback at how fast the pounds have gone back up as soon as I was going off plan.
But then again, I´ve had plenty of proof in the past that I must absolutely stay watchful if I don´t want to gain everything back. Even if I believed I was eating "normally", what I gained shows that I have been overeating by some five hundred calories a day on average, plus water retention. So back it is to weighing and journalling every bite that crosses my lips. With my body being condensed by about sixty pounds, the margin for slipups has become decidedly smaller, as my basal metabolic rate, which was low to begin with, has gone down by about three hundred calories a day.
Which means that as soon as the weather gets a bit warmer, I´ll have to get back to walking. Thirty minutes of walking fast with my sticks equal about those three hundred calories, so, if done daily, would offset the effect of the lowered BMR. Except it´s still ice cold and dark in the morning and I´m admittedly not a morning person anyways. So, I still have a grace period of about two months where I have an excuse not to exercise. Actually, I have been looking into buying an elliptical for at home, but these things are huge and expensive, both of which are, at least for now, a good enough reason for me not to buy one, after all, come spring, I can do the same workout for free again without squeezing that big machine into our already crowded living room.
Not exercising has, by the way, already had a negative effect on my back, so even if there weren´t the question of weight, I would have to get back doing it to avoid another slipped disk or such.
Can you tell I hate exercise? Yet the human body seems to be built to require it, so, it´s not a question of what I want but what I need to do.
Perhaps I must just pick my momentum back up. After all, I have been exercising regularly for the second half of 2010, and not-so-regularly for several months in 2011, and I was, at the time, feeling good. I have to remember that feeling, not how good it would feel to sleep in for another half-hour.
And I also have to start taking my protein shakes again. After four weeks without, I see a noticeable change for the worse of my skin´s condition, so, unless I want that Shar-Pei look, I have to re-nourish it fast.
Good intentions... now I must only put them in practice.
Julia
2012/01/13
Floral decorations, minimalist model
The big family celebration I attended this week was, of course, the occasion for giving plenty of flowers to the person being celebrated, so, at the day´s end, there were more than a dozen big floral arrangements standing in my relatives´ living room, made from beautiful flowers and some of them so full that it was difficult to find a vase big enough to hold them.
Apart from the fact that the recipient rightly pointed out that she´d rather have had one bouquet at a time for a longer period of time, instead of having the room full of flowers for a week or so and then nothing, what struck me when looking at this abundance was that the sheer amount of flowers did actually make less of an impact than a single bouquet, and that the most visually interesting arrangements, to me, were those that showcased just a few exquisite blooms, while the ones that were made from many flowers were, in comparison, looking a lot less interesting.
It´s a mistake I used to make with the floral arrangements at home, too. I used to have several silk flower bouquets that were filling their respective containers to the limit. When I started to minimalize my decor, these went out and weren´t replaced.
What I did wrong when making them was thinking that I had to have a lot of flowers for a bouquet, when really the sheer mass of blooms would be looking so cluttered that the beauty of the individual flower had no chance at all to be seen and appreciated.
Once again, it´s the question of enough versus too much.
So, when I had the chance of visiting a shop close to where my relatives live that has the most stunningly lifelike silk flowers, I decided to try a different approach this time. No more than three of the same kind, and some greenery or branches for a background. It´s not Ikebana minimalist, but the resulting arrangements look a lot better than what I used to have. And they sure brighten up our apartment in this dreary weather.
The best thing about those flowers is that they will, being made of silk, last a long time, so the investment I made when buying them is also sustainable. Real flowers are beautiful, too, but for decorating my home I prefer silk flowers- they don´t spoil, need no care except dusting from time to time, and, considering the high prices of real flowers, give you a lot more mileage for your bucks than the real ones.
And I don´t think I´ll tire of the new arrangements the way I had been visually tired by the old ones.
Julia
Apart from the fact that the recipient rightly pointed out that she´d rather have had one bouquet at a time for a longer period of time, instead of having the room full of flowers for a week or so and then nothing, what struck me when looking at this abundance was that the sheer amount of flowers did actually make less of an impact than a single bouquet, and that the most visually interesting arrangements, to me, were those that showcased just a few exquisite blooms, while the ones that were made from many flowers were, in comparison, looking a lot less interesting.
It´s a mistake I used to make with the floral arrangements at home, too. I used to have several silk flower bouquets that were filling their respective containers to the limit. When I started to minimalize my decor, these went out and weren´t replaced.
What I did wrong when making them was thinking that I had to have a lot of flowers for a bouquet, when really the sheer mass of blooms would be looking so cluttered that the beauty of the individual flower had no chance at all to be seen and appreciated.
Once again, it´s the question of enough versus too much.
So, when I had the chance of visiting a shop close to where my relatives live that has the most stunningly lifelike silk flowers, I decided to try a different approach this time. No more than three of the same kind, and some greenery or branches for a background. It´s not Ikebana minimalist, but the resulting arrangements look a lot better than what I used to have. And they sure brighten up our apartment in this dreary weather.
The best thing about those flowers is that they will, being made of silk, last a long time, so the investment I made when buying them is also sustainable. Real flowers are beautiful, too, but for decorating my home I prefer silk flowers- they don´t spoil, need no care except dusting from time to time, and, considering the high prices of real flowers, give you a lot more mileage for your bucks than the real ones.
And I don´t think I´ll tire of the new arrangements the way I had been visually tired by the old ones.
Julia
2012/01/12
The silence of the wolves
So, the dreaded event has come and passed. I went to that family celebration, and I met my critics in person for the first time in four years. I also met a number of old acquaintances I had not seen for as long, and each of them complimented me on my new weight. From "them", not a word on it. It´s more than I hoped for.
Otherwise, the general mood was that of a pack of wolves faced with a newcomer, not knowing how to treat each other, being extremely careful not to step on any conversational land mines. Normalcy that was not. Not even the semblance of it. But we went through the motions of acting civilised, making small talk and pretending the big bang had never happened. I guess that is the maximum I could hope for, considering how much I dreaded that event and meeting them.
Knowing that that meeting is now a thing of the past instead of looming before me means knowing that now I can go back to doing things, weight-loss-wise, not in order to prepare for that meeting, but for my own sake.
On the one hand, that means no more deadline ahead. On the other hand, the knowledge that I had to go and see them and the desire to be as slim as possible until then has perhaps been too big a part of my motivation to lose weight.
Now that is gone, I will still have to get myself back on track with eating and exercise. I have had a seven-pound regain over the holidays, which I want recondensed as fast as possible, and I´m still clinically obese, which means that I missed last year´s goal, too.
So what do I aim for this year?
Getting below morbid obesity is, of course, still top of the list. Getting back to "normal" BMI would mean condensing another 37 pounds, or almost twice my annual losses from 2010 or 2011, so I don´t think it would be realistic for me to set that as a goal.
Then again, I didn´t start losing in 2010 until late August, and in 2011, there was a six-month stretch of plateaus and regains that effectively stalled my weight loss half of the time. Were I to go down with my weight at the rate I did during the periods of my big weight losses, and not hit another plateau, I could indeed be normal-weighted by the end of the year 2012.
But first I have to get back into the groove of recondensing, which means re-starting to journal what I eat, and being extra careful about carbs.
Three weeks of having to eat a "standard" diet with bread, potatoes, and sugar in it have been working havoc on the control I had over my eating impulses, too, which means I´ll have to apply more willpower than what I needed by the end of last year.
They also had a detrimental effect on my digestion, which I hope will disappear fast when I return to the way of eating that helped me lose those first sixty pounds. If I regard the experience as an experiment, I have proved that I feel less good all over, have poor digestion, and gain weight, as soon as I eat more than minuscule amounts of carbohydrates.
Luckily, the temptations in the shape of Christmas sweets and cakes have mostly left the house by now. The last unopened package of stollen I gave as a hostess gift to my relatives. Let them eat cake, as Marie Antoinette was supposed to have said, while I will return to a way of eating that is better for my body, and my shape.
I´ll see how far that takes me.
Julia
Otherwise, the general mood was that of a pack of wolves faced with a newcomer, not knowing how to treat each other, being extremely careful not to step on any conversational land mines. Normalcy that was not. Not even the semblance of it. But we went through the motions of acting civilised, making small talk and pretending the big bang had never happened. I guess that is the maximum I could hope for, considering how much I dreaded that event and meeting them.
Knowing that that meeting is now a thing of the past instead of looming before me means knowing that now I can go back to doing things, weight-loss-wise, not in order to prepare for that meeting, but for my own sake.
On the one hand, that means no more deadline ahead. On the other hand, the knowledge that I had to go and see them and the desire to be as slim as possible until then has perhaps been too big a part of my motivation to lose weight.
Now that is gone, I will still have to get myself back on track with eating and exercise. I have had a seven-pound regain over the holidays, which I want recondensed as fast as possible, and I´m still clinically obese, which means that I missed last year´s goal, too.
So what do I aim for this year?
Getting below morbid obesity is, of course, still top of the list. Getting back to "normal" BMI would mean condensing another 37 pounds, or almost twice my annual losses from 2010 or 2011, so I don´t think it would be realistic for me to set that as a goal.
Then again, I didn´t start losing in 2010 until late August, and in 2011, there was a six-month stretch of plateaus and regains that effectively stalled my weight loss half of the time. Were I to go down with my weight at the rate I did during the periods of my big weight losses, and not hit another plateau, I could indeed be normal-weighted by the end of the year 2012.
But first I have to get back into the groove of recondensing, which means re-starting to journal what I eat, and being extra careful about carbs.
Three weeks of having to eat a "standard" diet with bread, potatoes, and sugar in it have been working havoc on the control I had over my eating impulses, too, which means I´ll have to apply more willpower than what I needed by the end of last year.
They also had a detrimental effect on my digestion, which I hope will disappear fast when I return to the way of eating that helped me lose those first sixty pounds. If I regard the experience as an experiment, I have proved that I feel less good all over, have poor digestion, and gain weight, as soon as I eat more than minuscule amounts of carbohydrates.
Luckily, the temptations in the shape of Christmas sweets and cakes have mostly left the house by now. The last unopened package of stollen I gave as a hostess gift to my relatives. Let them eat cake, as Marie Antoinette was supposed to have said, while I will return to a way of eating that is better for my body, and my shape.
I´ll see how far that takes me.
Julia
2012/01/07
New year, old weight
Here it is- the new year, and my first official weigh-in. Seven pounds up over the holidays, in total. Definitely not what I wanted. I know part of it is water retention- I usually regain something between two and four pounds in water weight whenever I eat more than my usual amount of carbohydrates.
The regain is even more vexing because I have that family celebration ahead I already mentioned, and I won´t be able to recondense those holiday pounds before having to go there.
Still, I am fifty-five pounds down from what I weighed when "they" last laid eyes on me.
I´ll see if that shuts them up at last, though I´m not too confident that might happen.
Building up my confidence before going there is something I need to do badly. After all, I have suffered from their criticisms all my life. And I find that even being away from them for more than four years the very thought of going there makes me feel edgy and defensive. Thank goodness that DH has experienced the way they treated me, too, and is coming along to back me up. There would be no way I´d go there alone.
I´ll see how it works out meeting them this time....and I must not allow the fact that I am still clinically obese to undermine my confidence.
I wished that was over...
Julia
The regain is even more vexing because I have that family celebration ahead I already mentioned, and I won´t be able to recondense those holiday pounds before having to go there.
Still, I am fifty-five pounds down from what I weighed when "they" last laid eyes on me.
I´ll see if that shuts them up at last, though I´m not too confident that might happen.
Building up my confidence before going there is something I need to do badly. After all, I have suffered from their criticisms all my life. And I find that even being away from them for more than four years the very thought of going there makes me feel edgy and defensive. Thank goodness that DH has experienced the way they treated me, too, and is coming along to back me up. There would be no way I´d go there alone.
I´ll see how it works out meeting them this time....and I must not allow the fact that I am still clinically obese to undermine my confidence.
I wished that was over...
Julia
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