Lady Shanny Says

As I mentioned earlier, I made a doctor’s appointment so I could get some sound advice on my current eating and exercise plan. 

The first thing we talked about was the caloric intake and what was feasible for me.  Currently I am at 1250/day and that’s where I was planning on staying.  Dr. R feels that is lower than is neccessary for ongoing weight loss (these opinions are obviously for ME and should be used by YOU with caution).  He figures that around 1350-1400 is a reasonable range and will still net weight loss at the end of the day (or week, as the case may be).  In that same vein he firmly stated that the rate of my weight loss is no longer a good thing.  With less than 30 pounds left to go the losing should be slowing down. 

The next thing we talked about was metabolism and whether or not it is possible to screw it up with diet. He maintains that it has never been scientifically proven that a low amount of calories for a long period of time followed by a reasonable increase will cause you to gain tonnes of weight.  What he did say (and forgive me, it was a lot of info in a short time so I will tell you what I understood) is that there are different versions of metabolism.  I didn’t understand exactly what he was saying but the general idea is that there is a limit to how much you can burn through ketosis (which is not a bad thing!).  Once that limit is reached, you don’t get any additional benefit from cutting more calories.  Once that ketosis limit is reached your body switches to a different sort of fat burning.

We talked about why I’m cold all the time and he said that it totally has to do with the weight loss, it has to do with the fact that my body was used to be insulated by a layer of fat that is no longer present.  Unfortunately, there is very little that I can do about it and just need to wait it out and that eventually my body will adjust to the new circumstances.

We also talked about how many calories I should be adding back for exercise.  Based on what I do and for how long, he figures that I should be putting about 200-250 back in.  Now, surprisingly he said that adding the 200 back in is sufficient for the increase that he suggests in the first paragraph.

He suggested also that I start to phase out Weight Watchers.  That surprised me a little.  What he said is that WW is great for teaching portion control and calorie content and getting you on your way.  He said that WW is not a forever plan.  For someone like me who has already lost a great deal and has only a small(ish) amount left to go that I need to start developing my own plan for how I’m going to live the rest of my life.

So, how do I carry all this out?  For starters, I will still be going to the weigh-ins every week.  That part is non-negotiable.  I think once I reach the target (below 170) I am going to stop going every week.  I know that once you are a lifetime member (goal + 6 weeks maintenance) you are supposed to weigh in once/month and that’s what my plan is (although I will have to purchase a scale for home because I won’t be able to stand not knowing for a whole month!). 

As far as increasing calories?  I’m going to monkey with it a bit.  Actually I’m going to combine some principles of the CORE plan with the points counting plan (FLEX).  I am no longer going to assign a points value to fruits and vegetables.  That frees up around 4-5 points daily and that should bring me right in line.  So I will still have 25 points/day but I will be over every single day.  That would make me insane to see the tracker be over so I will just assign the produce as 0 and still be on target.  I still need the accountability of the points program and I’m still learning some of the portion control lessons so I can’t ditch the points altogether.

It’s funny, because after he said that I need to eat more, the fat girl who lives inside me was pretty excited and thought that was a golden ticket.  It’s NOT!  It doesn’t really change anything that drastically.  He also mentioned that while I do need to eat a few more calories every day that they need to continue to be the healthy and nutritious ones that I am already eating (almost like he HEARD the fat girl inside start cheering!). 

So that’s where I am.  Still following WW but modifying it to suite my own needs even more than I already had.  Starting to build my own plan for longterm health, adding in some extra calories to cover off the exercise as well as allow me to eat more and dealing with being cold until my body adjusts.

All in all I’m very glad that I went.

Before we get to the post, the Results page is updated and I’ve added a new recipe to the Recipe of the Week page. 

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I learned two things today, both of which were taught to me by unlikely professors.  Let’s begin.

What A Banana Taught Me Today

I am currently at 25 points/day which is 1250 calories, give or take.  I knew that this week or next I would be ‘required’ to drop another point and come down to 1200 calories/day.  A lot of the ill feelings that I was having last week (see previous post) were due to the anxiety I now realize I was feeling about that.  Tarable and I were chatting today and as we were talking it became clear to me that I am not willing to reduce the amount of calories that I eat, now or ever.  It became clear to me that my body and mind were trying to tell me something over the last couple of weeks and I wasn’t listening.  The idea of getting healthy is not exclusive to my body, it also has to do with my mind.  A huge part of this is emotional and mental and I was trying to block out the messages I was getting.  So how does a banana figure in to this?  A banana comes in at 2 points.  I had been cutting a banana in half so that I was able to maintain my points target for each day.  Today, being weigh-in day, I eat dinner later and as such tend to forgo any snack afterwards.  Also, on Tuesday nights I pretty much eat as much as I want/need without worrying about points (it’s free time right after weigh in and before the new week starts on Wednesday morning).  So this morning I put the full banana on my cereal.  Want to know what happened?  I was not miserably hungry from 10:30 until noon like I normally am.  I know it’s only an extra half a banana and it shouldn’t make much difference but it really does.  The banana taught me that there is no room left in my diet (by which I mean the foods I eat every day) to cut anything else out.  Here’s my every day…you tell me where I should cut something out:

Breakfast:  yogurt, 1cup Fibreone cereal w/ 1/2 cup of goat milk and banana (7 points)

Morning Snack:  yogurt (1 free point from exercise)

Lunch:  Tuna sandwich (flax bread), some cucumber, an apple and 6 almonds (6 points)

Afternoon Snack:  an orange, a cheese string and 6 almonds (3 points)

Dinner:  any one of the items from the Recipe of The Week (or similar) (around 7-8 points)

Evening Snack:  an orange or some almonds (1 point)

And so I say, where should I cut?  When Weight Watchers tells me that according to their program when I hit my ’goal weight’ I should be eating 21-22 points?  Where in that menu above should I cut another 3-4 points out?

I say, I AM NOT CUTTING ANYTHING OUT!!!!!!!!  I would be more comfortable adding back another couple of points but I’ll wait until my body has stopped losing to do that.  In the meantime?  I AM NOT CUTTING ANYTHING OUT!!! 

On a similar note, I have a doctor’s appointment on Thursday to discuss this.  I made the appointment before the banana taught me today’s lesson but I’ll still go just to pick his brain.  He’s a very good doctor and I want his opinion.  I already know what I’m going to do but it will be nice to have his 2 cents as well.

What The Snow Taught Me Today

Oh, the snow!  There was SO much snow.  Walking to work was quite the challenge this morning, what with the 8″ that I was marching through.  It was wonderful though and white and quiet and reminded me so much of all the mornings that my twin sister and I used to walk to school when we lived up north.  So what did the snow teach me?

The snow taught me that it is by far easier to walk in someone else’s footprints than it is to blaze your own trail.  I know that probably seems pretty obvious, but wait!  Even easier than walking in someone else’s footprints is walking in footprints made by someone whose stride is similar to yours.  That happened to me this morning.  Some random person had walked my same route before me and their footprints and mine lined up pretty perfectly, making my journey a little easier.  How does this relate to weight loss?  I told my friend on the phone tonight that I feel like I’m his puppy, following right along behind him, stepping in his footprints in the snow.  He has been where I am, his stride is similar to mine and we’re both headed to the same destination.  It is so much easier having someone else marching a ways ahead of you, giving you footprints to follow.  It doesn’t mean that I have to expend any less energy on the trip, it’s not a cop-out like that.  I still have to make my own way, but how much nicer is it not to have to be the one to cut the first path! 

It snowed like crazy here today which meant that I was trapped on my street until around 6pm when the snowplow finally came.  I’m actually not that wussy, it’s just that I live on a really steep hill and after having hit the ditch once last year, it’s not worth the chance so I stay home.

Once the snowplow showed up I hustled my ass to get my stuff ready to take to work tonight after the hockey game.  At the hockey game one of the player’s daughters was there and was eating a Subway sandwich.  I HATE Subway.  The smell sickens me and I can make a better sandwich at home.  So why was I so twisted while she was sitting there eating it?  Why did I give a crap that her sandwich was probably 20 points and not something that I will be choosing to have in the near future? 

I’ve been thinking a lot about the weight loss this week, in fact it’s in my head constantly.  I’ll be glad when weigh-in for this week happens and I can finally shake this.  I guess probably because this is all uncharted territory and I’m wondering how the loss will slow down, if at all.  One of the thoughts that I have to keep smacking out of my head is “I’m not going to get much past this point.” and I don’t like it.  The difference between the first and the last picture is startling, I’ll admit.  But the fact is, compared to a normal weighted person, I am still considerably overweight (according to BMI, I am only one point away from being in the Obese category!) and I want the fat to go.  Yes, I’ll let my body stop where it’s meant to stop, but I do not believe this is anywhere close! 

Also?  Why does being tired masquerade itself as the urge to eat?  Not hunger but the “I need something” thing.  Even when I know that I’m tired it still happens?  Why is that?  Also?  Why is the act of putting food in one’s mouth a comforting thing?  It’s supposed to be a survival mechanism and we’ve turned it into an event much of the time.  How does one get back to the ‘eat to live’ mentality rather than the ‘live to eat’ mentality?  Is it possible?  Or will someone like myself who has long used food for comfort always have to fight the battle?

I know this post is kind of random and the thoughts are all over the map, but that’s how I’ve been feeling over the last week.  Disordered! 

Journey in Pictures is finally updated. The difference between the current picture and the one before it is a touch over 16 pounds and about a month and a half.

As I suspected, there is not a huge difference between the current and the one before although I can definitely see that things have gotten smaller.

Also!!!! Penguin has just posted the reviews for 3 more items. Don’t forget to click on the word ‘PENGUIN’ at the top left of the Penguin Reviews page to get to the most recent reviews.

UPDATE:  You can go to the Journey in Pictures page to see the transition, but I put together the following image and thought you might like to see it.  The difference between the left and the right is 20 weeks and 55 pounds!

Good Morning!  Did you have a good sleep?  They keep saying it’s supposed to snow here today.  People here generally turn into raving lunatics behind the wheel of their 2 tonne death machines as soon as a flake hits.  On the upside at least it won’t be as cold!

You know when you have a low grade fever and you just feel generally icky for awhile?  Well I have the opposite of that.  I have a low grade chill almost all the time and I am generally miserable with it.  I’m good for about an hour after I exercise and then the cold sets back in.  I’m presuming it’s because of the weight loss so I’m willing to stick it out instead of spending 100% of my time under my electric blanket.  But it’s not fun and I really miss being able to feel my hands!

That’s enough of my ramblings.  I have some site updates to tell you about.

Journey in Pictures - will be updated today or tomorrow.  I’m getting my hair cut today and then will try to get the picture taken.

Recipe of the Week - has not been updated in a while.  I have a new recipe that I was planning on trying tonight.  If it goes well I will put it up.

Ask Lady Shanny - is updated.

CONTESTS - the comment contest is going well, the Ask Lady Shanny contest is NOT!  The entries into the Ask Lady Shanny contest are so few I can count them on one hand and still have fingers left over.  I hereby promise not to harp on this one anymore.  The column was originally supposed to be a trial to see if there was interest.  Since the interest appears to be pretty sporadic, I will answer the couple questions that I still have waiting in the wings and then we will call it done.  If you do want to send something in, you will still be entered in the draw and you will still have your question answered.  If not, no worries.

There is a little conversation going in the comments on the previous post.  The general idea is that once you get to a certain spot in the journey or spent a certain amount of time doing it, the motivation and drive that we had at the beginning can start fading and we’re trying to figure out why that is and what to do about it.

 I think Tarable’s comment about this being ‘normal’ is really accurate (and GoGo’s comment about the habit as well).  The problem with it is that for years, like most of you I’m sure, I’ve spent a LOT of time thinking about food.  Thinking about eating it, preparing it, shopping for it, feeling bad or good about it, measuring it and restricting it.  And now?  It is no longer interesting for me to think about.  It just is what it is and that scares me a little.

What I have to remember/realize is that what I’m perceiving as waning motivation is actually just all those thoughts having been moderated into normalcy.  So when I just do what I need to do by habit without giving it too much thought, I perceive that I’m failing in some way when in actuality I’m winning in the best possible way.  I have to get over feeling like I’m not giving it my all when I’m not focussed on it all the time.

This is not to say that I don’t still need to pay attention to my choices, just that I can do that and then let it go rather than dwelling and obsessing on it.

I think I said it before, I believe that where I am in the process is probably a place where many people lose the battle.  It isn’t shiny and new and exciting anymore, it just ‘is’ and it is more likely that I need to shift my mindset rather than try to regain what I had at the beginning.

First, the results page is updated. 

Second, have I freaked you guys out with the contests?  I have had LESS comments by about 250% since the contest started.  Don’t freak out!  It’s not like the prize is a million dollars and you have to feel bad about throwing your name in the hat! 

Something came up this evening and I wanted to address it.  What I ate and what my habits were prior to September 4, 2007.  Not good, let me tell you.  Dear Friend mentioned that for me to have had such a drastic change either I must’ve been eating A LOT before or I’m starving myself now.  Let me assure you, it is definitely not the latter (she said as she spooned black bean and corn chili, rice and sour cream into her mouth).  I had some ridiculously bad habits before.  I didn’t eat all day long and then went way, WAY overboard when I got home.  As far as giving you a rundown on what I would have eaten on any particular day?  That is not going to happen.  I have a certain amount of shame about that and I’m not really that interested in broadcasting the idiocy.  I will tell you that much like I do now, I would get ‘addicited’ to one particular thing (whatever that was at the moment) and go nuts.  I still have those same tendancies now but they are well controlled.  I eat the same thing for lunch for a couple of months and then I switch to something else.  Similar idea, better control.  I have said before (and stole the phrase from my friend) that I can account for every single pound that I was and am overweight.  I ate for comfort and to avoid paying attention to certain things that were going on or had happened in the past.  The more I could feel bad or guilty about what I was eating, the less time I had to dwell on what was really bothering me.  I also hadn’t clued in to the fact that it wouldn’t be the last (insert food item here) that I would ever have.  I didn’t realize that the first one was enough to satisfy me and no additional quantity was going to make it taste better.  I didn’t get that just because I loved it for one meal didn’t mean that I had to then eat all of it.  The ‘it’ll still be there tomorrow’ part never really clicked.  Now?  Different story.  The chili that I’m having right now I had for dinner yesterday too.  One of my favourite things is jasmine rice with this chili on top, heated up to sizzling and then sour cream and rock salt on top (7 points, btw).  So when I had it last night and then came to the end of the bowl the urge was there to serve myself some more.  The urges are still there.  It’s what I do about it.  I put the leftovers in a container and now I’m sitting here tonight having and enjoying the same thing.  I now realize that it’s not better having eaten it all in one sitting.  You don’t enjoy it as much when you’re stuffed and not paying attention to what you’re eating.  I’m enjoying it far more this evening than I would have if I’d eaten it all last night.  That’s about as much information as I’m willing to give about my previous eating habits.  Maybe that will change but I really doubt it. 

Let’s talk about something else now.  Let’s talk about the fact that the excitement has completely worn off now.  It’s been 20 weeks that I’ve been doing this.  20 weeks that I’ve been teaching myself good habits, thinking about this all the time and giving it close to all of my thought.  And now?  It’s just life.  It’s just the way it is and the newness has worn off.  I don’t doubt that a lot of people lose their drive and desire right around now.  I look pretty good and I feel great and this isn’t exciting anymore.  So how do I keep the motivation to keep going?  I remind myself every single day that the REASON that I am happy(er) with how I look and how I feel is BECAUSE I work at it every day.  The reason that my pants fit better is because I no longer eat mindlessly.  The reason that I feel better is because I keep a close eye on how I’m feeling at any given time and I compensate where needed to correct when needed.  That phrase that is in bold above is going to be the one that keeps me going for the rest of my life, repeating over and over in my head.  That phrase is going to be the rest of my weight loss and the entirety of my maintenance.  I will always be a fat person who happens to have lost weight.  Always!  I am a person given to excess and I will always have to watch what I eat and how much exercise I get.  I know that now and that makes maintaining a healthy lifestyle for the rest of my life feel less daunting.  It’s no different than how tall I am or what size shoes I wear.  It’s a part of me and will be dealt with accordingly.  I don’t go into the shoe store and buy a size 6 and expect them to fit anymore than I will eat crap and lay around and expect it to keep me slim and healthy.  It’s the way I’m made and I have to deal with that.

That’s it for me, I’m off to a rare weeknight hockey game. 

So before I go, say it with me: “I hereby recommit myself 100% for the next 7 days to this choice that I’ve made to be healthier!” 

As of last week I am now officially in uncharted territory as far as my weight ( I should qualify that by saying that the last time I ever remember my weight was 164 pounds when I was about 15-16…I’m talking about as an adult).  This weekend I zipped over to my mom’s and put on the dress from THIS post…and it FIT!  It was a little snug in the boobs, but that’s to be expected since I didn’t have the boobs I have now when I was 17. 

It got me to wondering if there is such a thing as old fat and new fat.  Is there a cellular difference between fat that was gained more recently or fat that has been in the same place for over a decade? Is it like trying to remove a stain?  The surface stain that only showed up recently is easier to remove than the ground in, baked on stain that’s been around for ages. 

I wonder if that’s why the last pounds are harder to lose?  (not that I’m yet at the stage where I’m thinking about the last pounds).

I was also trying to research the actual act of losing fat.  It’s quite a bit harder to research than one might think (especially when one only uses Google to do the searching).  Someone once told me that fat cells don’t actually go away for a very long time.  Whoever it was told me that they are like little balloons.  They deflate and that’s why a person gets smaller but the actual deflated little cell stays in your body, right in the exact same place it has always been for something like 7 years.  After 7 years (or whatever the ridiculous time frame is) it will be reabsorbed into the body, never to be seen again.  Those deflated little balloons are just sitting there waiting for the opportunity to reinflate as soon as they get the chance.  Ever wonder why you are able to regain weight so quickly?  I think this might be why.

I still have just shy of 40 pounds to lose and all of them are old fat so I’m going to be my own experiment. Anyone who has any additional information to add to my ongoing research of old fat vs. new fat is more than welcome to chime in.  If you have any reliable links, please leave them in the comments.  

YAY!  We have two contests going on this website.  Go to the sidebar and click on CONTESTS for details.

Both the contests will give you a bonus entry for any post that you write on your website that links to either of the current contests.  Please make sure that you LINK to the contest so that I get a pingback otherwise I won’t know about it.

GOOD LUCK! 

I find still find it so amazing that I can pour my heart out and go on for 3 paragraphs about what a headcase I am and you guys come through with comments that make me laugh, make me think and make me appreciate every single last one of you.

So I have an offer for you.  I was thinking about holding a contest.  The idea in my head is along the lines of a comment-contest.  I was thinking for every valid comment that gets posted (eg. nothing shorter than 15 words) during a certain time period the commentor will be entered in the draw for a kick-ass prize package (you could end up with a bunch of entries if you comment on lots of posts).  What do you think?

I want to do this for a couple reasons.  First, there is no way that I can mail you all a token of my appreciation but I want to express how much I value you guys and the only way I could think to do that was to do a contest.  Second, there are people who read every day who don’t comment, WHICH IS FINE, but I would like to meet a few more of you.  I get an average of about 350-400 views a day and certainly nowhere NEAR that many comments.  Perhaps a little contest is a good way to get people to say hi?

So let me know if this sounds like a good idea.  The prize package is going to be GOOD.  If you guys decide you want to do this, I’ll write a post outlining the rules and the prize package.

UPDATE:  Ask Lady Shanny is updated.  Since the questions aren’t exactly flooding in, I figured that you guys need incentive.  Completely aside from the contest that we might be having above, for ONE MONTH (January 19, 2008 - February 19, 200 for every question that you submit to Ask Lady Shanny, your name will be entered in a draw for a $10 Starbucks giftcard.

Guideline:  unless you have a specific question about a specific food, the food questions (eg. how do you get your veggies, any secret food/supplement you take) have already been asked and are waiting in the queue to be answered. 

Use the Ask Lady Shanny page on the left hand side to submit your questions.

Draw will take place at noon on February 23, 2008 (PST) and the winner will be contacted by email.  If the winner does not respond in 10 days, another winner will be chosen.

Have you ever done something and known right from the start that you shouldn’t?  Have you ever made a decision and even while you were giving your answer there was a voice in your head yelling “DON’T DO IT!”, but you ignored that voice?  The answer to those questions for me is “Not very often”.  Usually I don’t figure out it’s the wrong choice until well, WELL after the fact.  Usually when I’m doing something or making a decision, I truly think there is nothing wrong with it.  Even much, MUCH later I have been known to defend some pretty marginal decisions.  At the TIME, it seems like the right thing to do.  At the TIME, I think I have everything under control.  Today though, I had that voice screaming at me and I chose not to listen.

Alright, if you know me in real life, chances are I’ve already whined to you about how badly my leg hurts right now.  The top of my right thigh is completely covered in a giant bruise and the mucsle underneath is screaming and crying.  The ouchie started on Monday, got worse on Tuesday and I couldn’t figure out why the actual skin on my leg hurt.  Even the friction of my pants was causing it to hurt.  So when I took my pants off on Tuesday night I noticed that the entire thing was a big ugly bruise.  I think I must’ve torn a muscle and that’s what’s causing the bruise and the pain.  Like a trooper (read:  martyr), I walked to work this morning and thought I would just ‘push through the pain’.  Turns out, that actually makes it hurt worse!

So this afternoon when I was hobbling around making OW faces, I happened to stumble (quite literally) across the person I’ve been trying to avoid for months.  Not being one for letting a bit of sympathy escape me, I outlined what my problem was.  Person then asked me how I was planning on getting home since walking there didn’t seem like much of an option.  I said that I hadn’t quite figured that out yet, and then it happened.  He offered to give me a ride across the bridge to the train station.   Had I been in a clearer state of mind I would have hands down refused the offer.  But pain will make you do funny things.  At least that’s what I’m blaming it on.  I said no to begin with and then I was handily manipulated.  The phrase “You won’t even let me give you a ride when you’re injured?!” came out of his mouth and I caved.  Now, you should probably know that the big code-like ‘I said No’ thing from THIS post was him asking if he could take me out for lunch.  I had phoned him back that day and explained that I was not willing to go due to past feelings and that I was finally over it/getting over him.  He got irritated and ultimately ended up hanging up on me.  So this afternoon after the last month of a distance between us (a distance I created and was quite happy with) I let myself get sucked in and allowed him to bridge that gap.  And I feel stomach twistingly guilty about it.  I know I have nothing to feel guilty about, it was a 6 minute car ride and yes, I am in a great deal of discomfort with my leg.  But somehow I feel like I’ve completely let myself down, that by getting in that car and letting him do something that was just for me, that I’ve negated all the effort and mental struggle of putting him behind me. 

I’m feeling completely drifty right now and I don’t like it.  I know in my heart that I’m not going back down that road, that I have put that behind me and it’s over and done with.  I know that one car ride does not a lifetime make, but I can’t help the feelings I’m having. 

So now my leg is still hurting and I feel like crap emotionally.  Nice!  Dammit woman, LISTEN TO THE VOICE NEXT TIME!!!!

Yup, tonight was the night.  I have left the 200’s behind and am not looking back.  I am so, SO happy about that!  I know I’m not done yet, there is still more to go but I feel like the hardest part is behind me.  I don’t know if that’s true, but I almost feel as though anything on top of this is just icing.

I was running late all afternoon as was the WW meeting so instead of sitting here and celebrating my achievement, I have to go and make my lunch and then get to bed.  A little known fact about Lady Shanny.  I am always nauseated when I wake up in the morning.  If I don’t get enough sleep it is way worse.  I don’t know what it’s about, it’s been going on for years now, even on the weekends when I sleep until I wake up naturally.  It is significantly worse if I don’t get enough sleep or if I’m woken up from a nap or sleep suddenly.  It does go away after about a half hour but it takes longer if I haven’t gotten enough sleep.  This morning sucked pretty hard so tonight I will be in bed by 8:30…which is in 8 minutes…off i go.

*teehee….YAY ME!!!!!!!!*

This evening after work I changed my clothes and then went and sat and chatted with a long-distance friend.  This is someone who used to work in our office with me and who I am still very close to, even though he has now been ‘deployed’ across the US and Canada.  He’s back in our office for a project and what totally warms my heart is that even though we hardly see each other and we don’t talk often, we can pick right back up where we left off.  I don’t think that there has ever been a conversation that we’ve had where we didn’t end up laughing.  Do you have someone like that in your life?  Someone who totally gets you and uses yours and their bits of crazy to make you laugh?  Anyway, the chatting went on for quite awhile and then I decided it was time to get walking.  Unfortunately I didn’t realize quite how late it had gotten and it was past the ‘curfew’ that I set for myself for safely walking through the marginal neighborhood to get to the bridge.  I could have walked.  Chances are that nothing would have happened.  But when a good friend offers you a ride home?  In a warm truck?  With chatting and laughing?  Ummm…yes please!  The alternative was a walk home in the dark with bitterly cold wind and rain.  Do I feel guilty?  Not in the slightest! 

Tomorrow is a big day…I hope.  Tomorrow I hope/plan/pray to be finally out of the 200’s when I weigh in.  I have 1.2 to lose to hit 50 pounds lost and be officially out of the 200’s.  Obviously I would like to drop a little more than that so that I am securely out of the 200’s but I’ll take what I can get.

Now that I’m approaching a large milestone, I’ve been giving a couple of changes some thought.  First, I think I do need to eat more as far as exercise points go.  I need to make sure that I’m losing fat and not the little muscle that I have.  I think those big losses just before Christmas probably prove that that is exactly what’s happening.  Now that I’ve lost a good deal and I look good (if not quite there yet), I think I have the wiggle room to slow it down a little and make sure that I’m not screwing things up.  Obviously the desire to get the body that I want is strong and in the beginning you couldn’t have paid me to slow it down.  That said, I’m not quite sure how I’m going to do it yet because still I have a mental block about it.  All the advice that you guys have given me is true and logical and obvious.  And yet as someone who has always struggled with too much food and not enough exercise, I am having a heck of a time forcing myself to do this.  I never thought that I would ever have a problem forcing myself to eat more food, but that is right where I am. 

Along the lines of food quantity, I am starting to practice something else that is completely foreign to me.  Even though I have dismissed junk food and eat clean, whole foods the majority of the time, I still haven’t had any problem whatsoever with eating until I am stuffed.  This is typically only a problem at dinner time because I don’t have time to go crazy at breakfast and lunch is brought to work with me.  When it comes time to eat dinner though I do get a little anxious that I’m not be able to eat enough food.  So what I started doing (my NY resolution) was eating more vegetables.  I have a passion for cooked brocoli and I’ve been eating that along with whatever is on the menu for the meal.  The thing is, I’ve been cooking and eating so much brocoli that I feel stuffed and uncomfortable following dinner.  So starting today I reheated some chili and didn’t worry about cooking the brocoli.  I needed to be able to see that I was fine with eating the cup of chili and half cup of rice and being done.  I figured if I was still starving that I could always steam some brocoli after the fact.  Yes, it is important to get vegetables but what am I teaching myself when I do this?  That I need a huge quantity of food to feel satisfied?  Or do I need to teach myself another lesson?  That there is always the option of more but that there is no good way to UNeat something.  So I will start following the CORE plan mentality (not the actual CORE plan) of eating only to satisfaction/satiety.  If I end up with extra points left at the end of the day and am not actually hungry then there is always the option of almonds which are loaded with good fats and fibre, not very filling and quite high in points.  

Since my tummy area is a definite problem area for me (and 1.8 billion other people) I figured that it couldn’t hurt to quit stretching it out every evening.  Your stomach is a muscle and if you leave it be, it will shrink and tighten up a little.  That means that the next time you go to eat, it will take a smaller amount of food to get to the satisfaction feeling.  I looked online a bit and couldn’t find anything concrete but the prevailing comparison is that your stomach when empty is around the size of your fist, maybe a bit bigger.  The kind of icky thing is that it can expand to hold up to 4 litres of food or fluid.  4 litres!  (that’s a little shy of a US gallon for you Imperials out there).  So put your fist out.  Even put both your fists together.  Now imagine how much food you would have to eat to get that general size to expand to 4 litres.  It’s no bloody wonder that when we’re pigging out, whether it’s on junk food or brocoli, that we feel tired and lethargic and that our tummy actually feels distended and uncomfortable.  We just forced our body to instantly accomodate something very large with no warning.

I think that thinking about meal quantities in terms of actual size of space available will assist in keeping me a bit more restrained as far as overstuffing myself.  And paying attention to when I’ve reached ‘done’ may actually help me reduce the tummy trouble area.

One other thing that I’ve been thinking about is exercise.  I’ve been thinking so much about what I’m going to do and how I’m going to switch it up that it’s been weighing heavy on my mind these last few days.  So I’m done thinking about it.  I’m not going to quit walking to work.  I’m in this until at least fall of this year (if I have to suffer through winter-walking you can bet your ass I’ll be basking in the glory of summer walking!).  Because my commute is mostly on foot I don’t get home until later in the day than I would like.  That doesn’t leave much time for much other than dinner, dishes, making lunch, a blog post and a bath before it’s time for bed (I know, I’m very exciting!) so there is no point in even starting to look at any evening exercise options at least until it’s light past 4:30 in the afternoon.  I’ve realized that my statement earlier about no longer being challenged by the exercise was a bit of a falsehood.  I was not challenging myself any longer.  I was going at the same speed that I had started out at and obviously that is no longer good enough.  So I’ve picked up the pace (turns out I can walk faster) and I’m getting a pretty good exhertion going.

So I have some stuff to work on over the next couple of months.  Eating only to satisfaction/satiety, getting the most I can out of my walks by pushing myself and learning how to incorporate extra food for the exercise without feeling like I’m a cheater.  As always, I’ll keep you posted.

Wanna see what I did today?

All courtesy of the lovely country that is the USA. 

PS.  The 6 blocks of cheese that you see here?  They are not all for me!  Tarable, I think your cheese needs have been met!

Mistakes are life’s way of teaching us something.  Yes, I know that sounds cliche and trite and cheesy but it’s so true!  If you can recognize what went wrong, why you reacted the way you did and what you would do differently next time then it makes the mistake a little easier to stomach.

I received some news at work yesterday that made me extremely upset and and caused me to react in a way that did not do anything to make me look strong or in control or stable.  What my reaction did do was cause me to look irrational and fragile and emotional.

Now I should state that I do not believe that a person should block any show of emotion behind a mask of apathy.  What I do think is that there is a time and place for that emotion to come through and at work or in front of people that you respect is not the place for it.  While I may believe that, I have a tendancy to not carry it out in my actions. 

I am an emotionally charged person, everything that I think shows on my face and I tend to form attachments to people where I probably should maintain a purely professional relationship.  It’s definitely something that I have to work on because the kinds of reaction that I am given to do nothing to move me forward in life or get me to where I want to be.

It sometimes takes someone that you respect to point it out, to remind you of it and to otherwise tell you to pull it together!  I am very fortunate that I have a good friend who is willing to do that.  I had every right to be upset about the situation, it’s my reaction at the moment in the face of unexpected news or decisions that don’t go my way that I need to work on.

I was told that this year’s motto is going to be “No more crying!” and that is something that I will work on.

Good morning,

It’s been a rough couple of days and I haven’t felt like saying much.  I’ve answered the next question in the Ask Lady Shanny column.  You can go check it out.  It was a question I got a little later on but it’s such a good one and I think many people will benefit so I decided to answer it this week.  I posed a question at the end of the column and would be quite interested in hearing what you guys think.

Since I don’t feel like saying much, I’m going to take a bit of a cop-out on a blog post today and get Penguin to do some reviews.  He’s been testing and sampling and trying quite a bit of new stuff and I think it’s time he put flipper to keyboard and let you guys know what he thinks.  He’ll start work on it now, while I go back to bed.  He’ll continue to work on it later, while I watch football.  When he’s done I’ll let you know by updating this post.

Update: Penguin did his duties and reviewed some products for you.  Click the word PENGUIN at the top of the Penguin Reviews page and it will take you to the first of 4 reviews he did today.  Penguin has a couple more items to review but his flippers where getting tired and the Seattle Seahawks are playing a second round playoff game right now and he wants to watch. 

Update #2:  At some point this morning, this website surpassed the 13,000 visitors mark.  13,000!    Both Lady Shanny and Penguin are so shocked that this website has become so popular.  We would like to thank everyone who visits daily, everyone who comments and shares a little about themselves and everyone who has us linked or recommends us to their friends!

This is going to be a bit of a rushed entry on my part.  A discussion was started in the comments over on Tarable’s website in regards to whether it is or is not appropriate to comment on people’s weight loss.  There were only three of us in on the discussion so I wanted to hear other people’s opinions.

To make it easier for you, I work down the hall from Tarable and Princess Darcy is my sister (who does not work with us). 

Princess Darcy Says:  Also, I have a question…(and I’m not sure I can make it sound not rude, so bear with me and know I don’t mean it rude at all!)
When I lost a lot of weight, ppl used to say that to me too… have you lost weight or how much have you lost or ‘you’re looking good..wink wink’. And I used to think it was in very poor taste. Because to me, it’s the polar opposite of not having said ‘my, you’re looking fat today’, ‘how much have you gained’ etc… so I was just wondering what your take on it was? Because to me, it’s quite rude, and would be the same as saying to someone, wow, you’re smelling a lot better… which obviously means that previous, you stunk… I hope that didn’t sound rude… I’m sure the person that mentioned it to you was someone close to you or someone who’s opinion you respect and wasn’t just a new dude on the plant floor, but still it begs the question…
and btw, you do look fabulous!

Lady Shanny Says:  I agree with Princess Darcy…somewhat. I’ve actually been giving this some thought myself but from a different perspective.I’m starting to find the whole weight loss thing self-serving. At no other time in life do people approach you and make comments about how wonderful you look. It’s almost as though I wonder if we gain weight (subconsciously of course) so that we can lose it and have everyone be bowled over by how wonderful we look.I get where Princess D is coming from in that yes, it is the opposite of asking someone how much weight they’ve gained. But the fact remains that if you have more to lose than a couple of pounds, people noticed that we were fat. We wear our secret on the outside. To dupe myself into believing that nobody noticed that I was carrying around an extra 80 pounds would be the equivilant of jamming my head in the sand.

Tarable Says:  Princess Darcy,  You have totally and completely freaked me out now. I JUST had this EXACT conversation with your sister. We said some of the VERY SAME words that you just said.We said that some people feel that it’s improper to comment on somebody’s weight loss because they would/should never comment on it if somebody was gaining.“My my Tarable, you look really fat today”

Princess Darcy Says:  I suppose I agree that it’s no secret that when you’re fat, you’re fat. However, Alcoholics carry their secret on the outside too some of the time… ppl know… they don’t say anything, but they know… so when someone drys out, do you then run up to them and congratulate them on being strong enough to kick their addiction? Not unless you are very close with that person.
My point I guess is thus:
Being overweight is a stigma. People tend to think you’re dumb, smelly, gross, unkempt, unhealthy etc… (not all people, but it is a direct stigma). So they feel ENTITLED to then comment on the difference… It’s just like when ppl say ‘oh, you’re looking so stylish today’, and I want to say ‘what, I look like a friggen bag lady the rest of the time?’.
Personal preference I suppose that people keep their opinions to themselves, unless they’d like to share something personal and private about themselves that I can comment on at will…
D
P.s. dammit… now you’re going to start looking for those cameras and microphones I put up…

Tarable Says: No I totally understand what you are saying. And I happen to agree with you. I hate the stigma that goes along with being fat. And I think people do feel that they are entitled to comment when you change yourself from being so dumb, smelly, gross, unkempt, unhealthy to being a more worthwhile human being just because you’ve shed some weight. Really, that train of thought is terribly wrong.

*************************************

Last night and this morning, I must admit, I had a break with reality as far as weight loss is concerned.  Fortunately, my dear darlings set me straight and I was able to give my head a shake and clue back in.

I referred to my two previous week’s weight losses as small when in fact they are pretty much right around normal.  2.2 and 1.4 are both good losses and not something to sneeze at (or bitch about).  In my own defense, the week right before the Christmas break I had a very major loss (6.2lbs), and I guess I was hoping to hop right back on that wagon and keep going.  The weeks following have been average and in fact if I take out those two huge loss weeks the average comes out to 2.3lbs/week.

I guess I just got caught up in the mindset of getting the weight off as quickly as possible which is not only stupid but dangerous.  I have since taken my own advice (and that of Comrade GoGo and Tarable) and remembered that the weight didn’t get there overnight and it’s not coming off overnight.

I should clarify that at no point did I ever think of cutting back calories or overdoing exercise (the comment I made about adding in more exercise was simply because my body has adjusted to the walk to and from work and I feel that I am able and willing to add in a little more) to speed this process along.  100% of the time I realize that whatever I do to get the weight off must be sustainable and because I am inherintly lazy, I would never keep up with something that took up too much time or was too hard to stick with.  I was just bitching and un-rightfully so.  I’ve clued back in. 

Thank you and good night.

That title sounds really bitter and twisted, doesn’t it?  I’m actually not.  I’m just truly not surprised that I wasn’t able to leave the 200’s tonight.  I would have needed to lose 2.8 to be officially out of them and given the ‘issues’ that I had body-wise this week, I knew that wasn’t going to happen.  So next week I am fully confident that I will be completely and totally out of the 200’s, FOREVER!

The chick at the meeting tonight told me that I need to eat more of my activity points.  This is a bit of a conflicted issue and there are two schools of thought on it.  One, you should eat ALL your activity points.  Two, you should eat some or none of them.  I’m in the ’some or none’ group.  I walk 5km each day and I only allow 1 activity point to cover that.  When I did the huge walk on Saturday (5 miles) I only gave myself 3 activity points (150 calories, give or take).  I’m going to wait and see what happens on the scale next week when my body is back to normal before I increase the amount of activity points I’m using.  I am of the mind that eating extra would undo the benefit of the exercise.  However, because this is a learning process and I’m learning to listen to my body and understand what effects my actions have, I am willing to possibly increase the amount I’m eating.  I don’t really think that has anything to do with the last three weeks being only small losses, I think Christmas, New Years, my birthday and that time of the month probably factor in far more.  We’ll see.

About the exercise.  Since I did the walk on Saturday, the walk to and from work is a piece of cake.  I was talking to a friend about it the other day and I agreed that it is not a longterm, sustainable method of exercise.  First because the driving of my stuff to and from work twice a weekend and the getting ready at work in less than ideal conditions is starting to wear on my nerves.  Before the Christmas shutdown I knew I was getting burnt out.  I enjoy the actual walk, it’s the other bullshit that surrounds it that I’m starting to not like.  But I will keep doing it at least until the summer.  Second, it’s not really hard enough work anymore.  I physically cannot walk any faster than I already do and running with a backpack is probably not so great on my back.  So I’m not sure what I’m going to do.  I think I may need to add in some eliptical machine stuff to make sure that I’m still getting as much cardiovascular benefit as I was at the beginning.  That or doing a long, intense walk on the weekends.  I’m not sure yet, suggestions are welcome (bearing in mind that I will NOT be going to the gym).

That’s it for me this evening.  It’s been a long few days and I will be tucking into bed early.

No, I really do!  A shiny one on a pretty pink lanyard.  I could so easily have stayed home today, wrapped my heating pad around my tummy and slept all day long.  But no, I got up, walked to work and worked the entire day with the worst cramps I’ve had in months!  They say that the less fat you eat and the more exercise you get, the easier of a time you have it but I don’t know if I buy in to that after what happened yesterday and today.  Does anyone have any good tips on what foods to eat, beverages to drink or exercises to do that help with the cramps?

I’m a little worried about my weigh-in tomorrow night, what with how terrible I’ve felt for the last couple of days.  If I lose 2.8 I’ll be officially out of the 200’s.  I don’t know that I’ll get there (at this point, I’ll just be happy for a tiny loss) this week but it’s coming and I’m excited for it! 

Tarable and I were talking today about sustaining weight loss.  (Actually, we had a good conversation about something else too, which I’ll discuss in a moment).  The lowest that I ever remember getting was 208 and that was about 6 years ago.  I didn’t actually DO anything to get the weight off and so when the mystery thing that I was doing stopped working, I had no earthly idea how to turn it back on.  This time though, I am all over it!  I know exactly how my body works, how it processes food, how it responds to exercise.  I also know what my limits are and what I am and am not willing to do to get where I want to be.  I think that knowing your boundaries can be just as important as any other aspect of this.  I know that I am NOT willing to go to the gym at this point.  I know that I am NOT willing to put out anymore effort exercise-wise at this point.  I know that I am NOT willing to cut out all treats, now or ever.  Those are all boundaries that I need to be aware of because that means that for me to continue to be successful, I have to operate within the framework of both the limits that I’ve set for myself and the limits that are inherent to me being who I am.  Declaring that I am going to start visiting the gym 3 days a week (or even one) is a recipe for disappointment because I know me well enough to tell you that I won’t go, not one time!  Declaring that starting tomorrow instead of walking I am going to run the 2.5kms to work and back is a silly thing to even dream up because it is simply not possible for my body to do that at this point and wishing it true unfortunately doesn’t make it so.

This time I have set groundwork and done actual listening and learning to make sure that I know why my weight loss is working.  I know now that maintaining a watchful eye on the scale and on my plate is extremely important.  I know that exercise makes me feel better and look better and lose better.  I am congnizant of how my clothes fit, what I look like in the mirror and how I’m feeling.  I believe it’s when you stop watching yourself carefully that things go awry and weight comes back.  I know how easy it would be to give myself the approval to go ahead and binge and over-indulge because I’ve done so well thus far.  I know that I could very easily reward myself with food for being so diligent over these last months.  It’s definitely a harder road when you are honest with yourself and paying attention and learning to let food be sustenance rather than the answer to every question.  They say ‘ignorance is bliss’ but I say that ignorance is the quickest way to destruction.  I don’t know if you can find bliss by weighing and measuring food, by marking down what you eat, by exercising even when you don’t want to.  Maybe bliss is elusive and just a pipe dream created by people with their heads in the sand.  Or maybe bliss is looking good in a nice pair of jeans, being proud of yourself for pushing through, knowing you’re treating yourself in the best way you can.  I’m not sure how you’ll define bliss for yourself or even if you believe that it exists.  What I do know is that the ignorance that got me to more than 80 pounds overweight was no bliss that I ever want to relive.

Switching gears (sort of) for a moment.  Since the first of January there have been a multitude of new blogs being started and restarted outlining the weight loss hopes and aspirations and goals of a wide variety of people.  I’m excited to see all these people making a committment to their health.  I’m also sort of leery about how some of them are going about it.  From my point of view (and I’m not an expert, I’m a realist) the bigger the change and the more of them you decide to make all at once, the smaller your chances of success with any of them, both short and long term.  I remember when I started WW a little over 4 months ago.  It was all I thought about and all I talked about and all I did.  It consumed me because I knew that I had to give it all my attention and all my focus.  Other things in my life slid by the way-side while I got used to the new routine and the new way of thinking.  Eventually the actual WW program started to get a little easier to carry out every day and I became ready to start incorporating exercise.  Once I started my walking program, that took up all my mental focus.  The eating was already becoming second nature so I was able to focus a great deal of my time and attention on the exercise.  I have to be perfectly honest, if I would have done both at once, I would not have lasted one week at either of them, it would have been too overwhelming and way too much of a shake up.  People crave consistency and comfort and generally try to avoid change.  That’s why sometimes when I’m reading these new websites about how much exercise the person is going to start to do all of the sudden or how the person is going to lose weight, quit smoking, start exercising and stop drinking beer all at once, I get worried about them.  I worry because I know how much mental focus the first few weeks of a change takes.  I know that it can be exhausting and upsetting and trying and no fun at all. 

I certainly do NOT wish to be heard or seen as a wet blanket or unsupportive or condescending or rude.  I sit here in the evening and go through the Tag Surfer and I think positive thoughts for the bloggers that I read.  I also wonder if these bloggers understand how much they are biting off, if they understand that making these huge changes are the reason that it hasn’t worked in the past.  I wish that they understood that the smaller the change the easier it is to adjust to.  The weight did not get there overnight and unfortunately, no matter how hard you work or how miserable you make yourself, it’s not leaving overnight either.  I agree that a major effort with major calorie awareness and major amounts of exercise are going to produce some quick results.  But is that effort sustainable?  Is that something that you can forsee yourself doing for the rest of your life?  Because that’s what it is.  If you don’t want to gain it back then whatever and however you decide to do the weight loss has to be sustainable for the rest of your life.  I wish all of you all the success and all the pounds lost in the world.  But please, don’t set yourself up for failure!

Someone once told me that in exercise you need to find your limit.  Find the point where you literally could not go any further or push any harder so that you know where you are from an athletic point of view.  Well, I found mine today.

This morning I woke up and decided that I was going to go out to Iona Park.  If you don’t live here, let me explain.  Iona Park is actually a waste water treatment plant out by the Vancouver International Airport.  There is a huge pipe that runs from land 2.5 miles out into the ocean.  They’ve flattened off the top of it so you can walk on it.  And that’s what I did.  It’s a 5 mile round trip (8km) and I did it in about an hour and a half. 

Holy LORD it was windy.  It’s windy weather right here anyway but walk on a pipe two and a half miles out into the ocean and the wind gets absolutely ridiculous.  Click HERE to see some pictures.  It was so windy and cold that my skin would start to hurt after just a couple of minutes of exposure, hence the bundling up of the Shanny.

So, back to this limit thing.  5 miles, as fast as I can go is my limit.  There is no more.  That is the most that I can do in one go, the hardest that I can make my body work.  And I am totally fine with that.  There was one guy who got there at the same time as I did and ran the entire thing.  Do I feel bad because I can’t do that?  Not at all!  I feel absolutely fantastic and proud and empowered and satisfied with where my ability is.  4 months ago I wouldn’t have walked down the street or gone up a flight of stairs without feeling like I was going to expire.  And now?  5 miles!  I completely maxed out my breathing and I’m positive that my heartrate was way up there.

It’s all good.  Of course with all that wind and the sweating, I again have a chill but I have all day of football watching and Sex & The City viewing and laying about on the couch to get rid of it.  I EARNED the right to spend the rest of this day laying around!

It’s alive!!!!!!  And wordy!  Although, what did you guys expect?  I’m a verbose person on the worst of days!

I’ve set it all up under the Ask Lady Shanny page on the left.  It’ll be much like the Recipe of the Week page where you go to the main page and then just click the links to get to what you want to see.  That way they are all together and available for easy viewing. 

That’s also the page that you ask the questions on.  Ask the questions, ask the questions, ask the questions.  Just think, you ask it and then someone (me) writes an entire post devoted to you and your question as well as linking to your website if you have one.  What could be better?  The entire internet (that comes to this site) will know who you are and have access to your website.  See what I’ve been reduced to?  I’m trying to bribe you with fame.

ASK THE QUESTIONS!  Please?

Sometimes we need to be reminded of things.  Sometimes we forget really obvious things and need a refresher course.  Sometimes, once we get the refresher course, we learn something else and the whole world just becomes a little clearer.

I left work today at 5, having had my afternoon snack at 3:30.  Walked home, changed clothes, made a grocery list, went shopping, went to work and picked my stuff up, stopped and got gas, went to the electronics store to get a DVD and then came home, changed again, unpacked groceries and just about self combusted.  I couldn’t figure out why I was so cranky.  Why did I just about chuck my iPod across the room?  Why was I butterfingering everything up?  Why was I snapping at my bird and myself?  5 hours had gone by and I hadn’t eaten anything since the orange and 6 almonds I had at afternoon coffee and heaven knows, between the walk home and all the stuff I did once I got there, I burned that off and then some! 

So, I popped a chicken-style patty in the oven (Penguin will review these this weekend) and had a M*Chicken-style sandwich.  And now?  I feel much better.  I feel back to earth and not in danger of harming the first person I come into contact with.  So I relearned the lesson that “Shanny gets cranky when she hasn’t eaten!”.  I remembered one of the reasons that I got to where I had 80+ pounds to lose.  I used to go all day without eating anything and then be so beside myself when I got home that I would eat the entire day’s calories and then some (and the food choices were NOT good ones).  I can’t imagine going an entire day without eating now.  Crazy!

But over and above that, I started thinking about if I could turn off Crazy Homicidal Shanny in under 10 minutes with a simple sandwich, how much food affects our bodies.  When I was in the grocery store this evening there was a very large woman buying groceries ahead of me in line.  I, bored, was perusing her grocery cart as she unloaded it.  No veg, full fat dairy, no whole grains, no lean protein, just crap.  Chips and chocolate bars and canned gravy and canned meat (?), bakery donuts, pasta and more kinds of sugary cereal than I knew existed.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I am NOT being judgey!  To each their own and Lord knows, I didn’t get to be more than 80 pounds overweight by making the smart choices in the grocery store.  But it got me to thinking about how food affects our bodies.  It got me to thinking about the crap that gets passed off as food.  There are so many things that you can buy at the grocery store that your body has not got the first clue how to process.  Your body knows it needs to make what you give it into fuel to burn and when what you give it can’t be converted into anything useful, you’re not allowing your body to function the way it was intended to.  And you get fat!

So no, I should not have gone 5 hours on only an orange and 6 almonds.  But when that happens (and it will happen because life happens) I can at least be confident in the knowledge that I am better off having had that and then nothing rather than filling the gap with a bag of chips or a chocolate bar.

Does this post even make any sense?  Now that I’ve eaten dinner, I’m suddenly incredibly tired and a little foggy.

One more thing.  Tomorrow is the first edition of Ask Lady Shanny.  I think I may have explained the column wrong.  You don’t need to ask questions about me.  They can be completely general or random.  They also can be about me and how I’m managing the weight loss thing, but it certainly is not limited to that.  Ask anything that your heart desires!  I have questions from 3 different people.  I’ll randomly draw one for tomorrow and then save the others for future editions. 

1.  I’m sitting here under my electric blanket (turned on HIGH) with a toque on and about 3 layers of clothing.  The temperature in here says 24C.  Why, you ask?  I caught a chill.  How, you ask?  OK, it’s really, REALLY windy here right now.  So on my walk home, I had my new wool and thinsulate toque on and tied under my chin to keep the ear flaps on my ears.  It’s not that cold outside but I didn’t want my ears to hurt from the wind.  Mr. Wind decided that it would be great fun to make me walk into it 3/4 of the way home.  I worked up quite the sweat exerting the same amount of effort it would take to drag a dead buffalo uphill.  Then, almost there, the wind shifted and I had to fight not to take flight, so I ran.  Now, good and sweaty I got onto the train.  Unfortunately, there was some issue further up the way so we sat on the train, marooned in the middle of the track for around 20 minutes.  In the hot train.  The train that, incidentally, smelled of mothballs…and was really hot!  By the time we finally got to my stop, the moisture and rain and damp had soaked through all my clothes.  Wind hits Shanny.  Shanny gets chill.  Shanny can’t seem to shake the chill, even after a hot shower, hot dinner and the plethora of blankies.  Shanny thinks that if she gets sick because of refusing to be daunted by weather then she is going to be very, VERY upset.

2.  Recipe of the week is updated.  On another food related note, the easiest way to make your tuna salad not dry and disgusting (without adding half a jar of mayo) is to not completely drain the tuna.  Drain it a bit, but don’t squeeze every drop of moisture out.

3.  OK, we’re still talking about food for a minute.  Turns out that even after all these months, I still can’t be trusted with sugar in the house.  The other day I was at the grocery store when they put all the holiday chocolates on sale.  I figured since there was some pretty fancy stuff there (all for 99 cents) that I would pick up a few and throw them in the freezer for treats or gifts or…something.  HA!  Not such a brilliant idea.  Now, I should mention that I only bought the little sampler packs (you know, the ones with only 3 or 4 chocolates?) and only one of those sampler packs is ‘missing’, but come ON!  No restraint!  Well, that’s not true.  I guess I must have some restraint because all the rest of them are still in the freezer.  But they are going to have to go somewhere else.  So even though I ate that, I still am going to stick to the rest of my day.  I have an orange and a piece of cheese planned out for later and I’m going to just pretend that the chocolate incident didn’t happen.  I marked it down on the food diary but that’s as far as this goes.  I’m not going to make myself feel bad about it.  In fact, after I type the period at the end of this sentence, I’m not going to think about it again.

4.  And finally, I am still constantly amazed by the difference when I make good friend choices as opposed to bad friend choices.  Good friends call you and check up on you when you leave a sketchy comment on facebook.  Good friends MSN you and when you’re too crabby and irritable to chat, they phone you the next day and make you laugh.  Good friends offer you the use of their ducky, just in case you need to focus for a minute.  Good friends text message you back, even when it’s inconvenient for them.  Good friends are good!  Bad friends are a waste of time!

5.  OK people, I need your help.  Don’t make me look stupid.  The first week of Ask Lady Shanny is coming up.  One person, ONE PERSON sent me an email question for the column.  The rest of you?  Hundreds of you who come here everyday?  Not a single question?  Nothing?  Nada?  Come on!  Let’s have fun with this.  The only way that I can create the fun though, is for you guys to send me some questions.  It doesn’t have to be life altering or anything like that!  This is not a column for heavy, hard to deal with advice.  This is supposed to be fun.  So send the fun!  Go on over to the left there and click on Ask Lady Shanny.  Type a question in the box and let’s get this party started!  I’m going to keep mentioning this until I’m getting questions.  Don’t make me get naggy! 

OK, that’s it for me!  I have to go get into bed.  I wish my blow dryer was here because my hair is still damp from the shower and I don’t think that’s going to help my chill situation.  Maybe I’ll run the curling iron through it instead and end up with a mess of frizzy curls and dry-ish hair.

Do you ever have those days?  Where you should have just stayed in bed?  Today was terrible!  I won’t go into detail, but it was a sucky, SUCKY day.

I walked today for the first time in 14 days and I am feeling it in every fibre of every muscle of my body.  Everything is achy, my back hurts and I caught a chill.  Next time I decide that I should take a 2 week break from exercise, remind me that the first day back to it sucks bobo (and also that the first place to suffer from the lack of exercise is my tummy area).  The good thing is that I really did need the break.  I was feeling a little burnt out and tired and sick of it all and now after a little rest I’ve regained my motivation to keep going. 

I weighed in today (at a different meeting) and I lost 2.2 pounds.  That’s GOOD!  That means that over the 2 weeks of Christmas holidays I lost 2.8 pounds!  Yay!

I have an excellent recipe for you tomorrow; Slightly Spicy Black Bean and Corn Chili.  I’m eating it right now with some jasmine rice and a little dollop of sour cream and it is beyond heaven! 

Off to eat a bottle of Motrin with a Nyquil chaser.  Bye for now!

PS.  P4pretention, your comment on my last post absolutely slayed me!  I laughed until I couldn’t breathe!  Thanks!

Routine!  I miss you!!!!!!!!!!  Thank God that tomorrow, life returns to normal.  I’m not going to lie, it has been really nice getting ready in my own house every day and napping when I felt like it and making different stuff for lunch and not having anyone else around unless I wanted.  But it’s time to return to reality.  It’s time to get some exercise (my plan to exercise on my eliptical lasted 4 days…until I fell off of it and tweaked my hip and smashed my shoulder against the deep freeze.  I’m fine now.) and get to bed at a regular time and get back to all the stuff that comes with reality.  Oh, it’s time!

I lazed around ALL DAY today, only getting out of my pajamas to have a bath and then change into different pajamas.  And now, I am going to dig my pretty pink lunch bag out, make my lunch and pack up all my stuff to take to work.  Tomorrow is walking day!  YAY!  I never would have believed that I would come to crave exercise but it really does make me feel better.  It helps to moderate my food choices and burn off excess energy and sweat out toxins.  It gives me time to listen to music and be outside and enjoy this new, mobile body of mine.  I have missed you, walking!

One more thing (and I’m looking at you sheepishly through the computer screen).  In two of the three posts I wrote yesterday, I completely discredited resolutions.  But I’ve made one ( ).  I am going to make the effort to eat one vegetable side dish every day.  Not to say that I don’t currently eat veggies, I do.  I include them in things that I cook.  But I don’t feel that I get enough of them so I am going to make a conscious effort to include more of them.  The problem for me is that I do not eat raw vegetables.  The only raw vegetable that I can stomach is cucumber.  Fortunately in this age of technology, you can get decent ones year round because they are grown hydroponically.  So yesterday I had steamed brocoli and today I had cucumber.  It’s not a huge change, but one that should benefit me over the long term.  And to make sure that I’m paying attention, I will log the vegetable choice in my daily food tracker (normally I don’t write down anything with zero points value).  Wish me luck!

Goodbye Christmas holidays.  You’ve been a nice break but it’s time for you to go.  See you in another year!