Paleo update

This is my 3rd week on the paleo/primal life style.  I love it.  Its easy, it's effective (I've lost 22 pounds) and it's tasty.  So much makes sense now.  I never understood why I always felt like crap after I ate of bowl of pasta (I love(d) pasta..!!) There were things I just didn't digest well, things I craved and I'm talking serious binge worthy cravings.  It sort of reminds me of alcoholism, it's as though I kept tempting myself by allowing sugar, flower and wheat in my diet.  These foods triggered insane cravings in me.

Craving talk aside, my body is shrinking, I fit in a pair of jeans that I couldn't fit into 3 months ago (before paleo).  Right before I started I still had to wear a long winter coat and last week it got chilly outside so I put it on while I sat on the porch with hubby and the coat was baggy in the tummy area.  This is progress and it'll only get better.  How can I knock something that is making me lose weight, feel better, is good for my health and so much more...

I believe I'm 90% paleo because I'm still eating some dairy in tiny quantities; butter (on mashed cauliflower or other vegetables), cheese (in salads) and dressing (on salads) and diet soda.  I plan on creating my own paleo friendly dressing this evening, tons of recipes online and I might even tackle paleo mayonnaise (easier than you think).

This is a tasty, healthy and effective way to eat in my humble opinion.

Of course please check with your doctor before starting any new diet.

Thanks!

Sassle!

Blog Name Change... I've gone Paleo!

I changed the blog title.  You see I went and gone paleo/primal on myself.  I love it, day 5 of my paleo journey and I've already lost weight, 13 pounds to be exact, though I'm thinking the first 10 are water based because I did a heck of a binge the weekend before I started.  Cake and chips with anything my heart desired.

I have no idea how this came about, I don't know how I ended up at Elana's Pantry blog and thru there I heard  the term paleo and remembered I had a Facebook friend who told me she ate primal/paleo.  And things just sort of took off from there.

You see I believe eating the South Beach way prepared me for this, it showed me which way I liked eating the best, I just can't do weightwatchers, I tried.  I tried so many different plans that worked but temporarily and still made me feel hungry, confused and worried that I would crave sugar for the rest of my life.  

At Overeaters Anonymous they suggest we cut out sugar and flour.  I've cut out sugar, flour and wheat.  I feel great and most of the time I'm not even hungry.  I won't get into details just yet what the diet consists of but I'm satisfied and this is on Day 5.  This is the only eating plan where I don't feel like I am cheating.  This is the only eating plan that makes sense to my body.  I can't wait to see the continuous results on the scale, in my clothes and how I'm feeling.  I want to tell the whole world about this, but for now I'll just share it with you.

You can get a ton of great information from Marks Daily Apple on the topic, oh and check out the success stories on Marks blog, the one that really interested me was this one.

Thanks for visiting!
Sassle!

The 3 Things I know for sure that have worked for me

I have been having a hard time.  I have been thinking a lot of weight loss, which route I want to take, overeaters anonymous etc.  But that's all I've been doing.  Thinking.  Which is bad for me since I suffer from a thinking disease (AA'ers and OA'ers know what I mean).

I found an old spread sheet that I found online almost 10 years ago, it's a Weight Watchers spreadsheet by this guy called Ray Ruediger and here is a copy of the spreadsheet.  It's the old fashioned Weight Watchers point system saved onto excel.  It's pretty awesome, back in 2003 I lost a ton of weight using this spreadsheet.  Every day I wrote what I ate and counted my points and just lost weight, that along with Leslie Sansone's Walk away the pounds I actually lost 93 lbs.!  Pretty awesome huh?

So I know 3 things for sure:

1. The South Beach Diet works for me.
2. Weight Watchers works for me.
3. Leslie Sansone's Walking Away the pounds works for me.

Now with the above knowledge and going to Overeaters Anonymous, I think I can and will manage the weight loss in a healthy manner.

Right now I am allowing myself 34 points a day (based on my weight) and I have decided to bring back Leslie Sansone into my life.  She had helped me shrink my waist to a ridiculously small size way back so I figured I'd give it another go.

I slept funny last night and woke up in pain, right shoulder blade, neck and shoulder are killing me, but I decided to try this mini-walk from Leslie 

Do you see how brilliant this woman is? It's only 3 minutes, I can do 3 minutes (you can do 3 minutes) and I did and all it did was make me want to do more! Um, I haven't yet, I just did the three minutes and felt the need to share the news with you guys.  But seriously, isn't this brilliant?  So I think after I iron my clothes for the week (in the next 30 mins) I will attempt her one mile and see how great I feel after that one.  What my whole point is the woman had me with three minutes, she knew I could do it and would probably want to do more and if I can't do more right away I will do her three minutes a few times a day, though I'm not sure how many calories I'll burn in such a short period of time but any exercise is better than none.

I feel good, feel positive and feeling hopeful.

Thanks for stopping by!

Sassle

Hi! My name is Sassle and I'm a compulsive overeater.

I just joined OA (Overeaters Anonymous) today.  Since I am a veteran of 12 step fellowships (Hello AA) I decided after seeing myself destroy my health with sugar, fried foods and flour.

I will try to post my experience with the program, I have a temporary sponsor who already gave me homework.  I am to list my red light foods, green light foods and orange light foods.  For example a red light food for me would be donuts, cake, cookies, chips, french fries, cheese burgers... you get the point, anything that I can and will binge on.  My green light foods would be something like spinach (no other come to mind all of a sudden).  Orange light would be whole grain bread which I'm thinking probably belongs in the red light group because whenever I'm on a "diet" suddenly I can go bread crazy.

I have spent the weekend researching OA and have been very pleased with what I have found, there is a world of support out there and quite frankly I'm tired of doing this alone and failing.

Part of my recovery is writing so I think I'll be doing some of that here on the blog, hopefully some of my experiences can help someone else as well.

Thanks for stopping by!

Sassle

Learning Balance on the South Beach Diet

I started my new job last Wednesday, so far so good, I love it, I'm down 17.5 lbs in less than a month.  Today I went shopping with my Mom, I was in need of nice clothes for work that fit.  I had a bunch of summer tops but they don't really give you that professional feeling plus they weren't flattering on me.

So I bought a nice fall coat, a blazer and about 6 or 7 blouses.  Everytime I tried pants on they were too long, I didn't realize how short I am until today.  I need to shop in the Petites section for women 5'4" or smaller (I'm not quite 5'4").

Aside from that all is going well, I'm sticking to the plan, trying to go out every day at every chance I can get.  I need to up my exercise quota but I also need to learn some balance.  How do I balance work, cooking 3 square meals a day, exercise, pets and finding me time.  I know its doable, women do it all the time, I just have to learn how.

I made a delicious dinner tonight, I made South Beach Friendly Tacos and they were a hit!  I've started looking up recipes because even though I can eat the same thing over and over again without complaining too much, I'm not the only one eating this way.  Also I'm trying to find quick South Beach Diet Phase 2 ideas (thank goodness for Katlyn's website).

I have a family dinner to go to today, not really looking forward to it, simply because it means I have to eat something that I don't know if its SBD friendly or not.  We're going to my stepsisters house, so I will need to watch my portions, remember no dessert, try to get out of there at a decent hour and chill a bit before bedtime.

I've already made breakfast for the week, I had ran out of skim milk mozzarella cheese so I put low-fat feta cheese, I think it'll taste great.  I even managed to iron all my clothes and now all I need to do is cut up some lettuce (with the lettuce knife) and other salad treats for lunch and dinner for the week, I think if I have everything prepared ahead of time it should leave me with more time for myself.

I have to go, thanks for stopping by!

Have a glorious Labor Day!

Sassle!

South Beach Lifestyle still going strong

I spent all day Saturday and Sunday sending about 30 plus resumes to potential employers.  On Sunday I received an email asking for an interview, I went today, it went very well, I think I have the job, keep your fingers and toes crossed.

In the meantime, I'm still on plan, I've down 12 pounds since August 10 (wow times flies) which is pretty darn good, I guess I'll never lose the 20 I envisioned for myself in the first two weeks but I'll let these 12 go, plus Wednesday is the 2 week deadline.  Today we had a busy day, hubby & I both had appointments and had to grab a bite in between, he had the fettuccine alfredo, chocolate cake, white bread and my cheat was a Cesar salad with croutons.  So I feel as though I haven't done nearly as bad as he and have stayed more on plan than he, not that it matters, it's my body I'm trying to heal.

I had gone to the Doctors this a.m. as well, found out I had high blood pressure, next week they'll put me on some MAP thing for 24 hours to see how it does in order to decide if I need meds or not.

Overall I'm in a good place, when I put on my clothes for the interview, I felt good, I still wore my Kymora Body Shaper and my stomach did look flatter (not flat, but flatter) maybe it's the 12 pounds, I have definitely debloated.  Weird how one can feel sexy at my weight, but that's how I felt today pretty darn sexy, though it was a bit awkward when the Doctor was checking my breathing with his stethoscope and he had to push my Kymora.  Though he was gentleman enough not to say anything about it.

The mentioning of the Kymora reminds me that I have yet to wear my Body Wrap from Shapewear I might try it on this week for my next interview, I think it might feel more comfortable than the day I bought it, where it was over 100F outside, I was 12 pounds heavier and had just ate lunch.

Well that's it for today, wish me luck that one of those jobs come thru, I have agencies that have called, I have another interview, who knows I might actually get hired for a regular 9 to 5 job.

Thanks again for visiting!

Sassle

Walking, Burpees, Tabata... Have I found my dream exercise?

Burpees

I love the internet!  Yesterday while searching for other SBD blogs, I came upon this Log My Loss which is an inspiring blog.  I was reading about his program and saw that he did this form of exercise called Tabata so being the curious girl that I am I had to research it and that brought me to burpees.

I think burpees are the exercise I've been waiting for my whole life.  For beginners like myself there are different ways of starting out, I did a search on youtube and the one that impressed me most, or made it seem doable for a woman my size was this one.



After watching it I felt as though I can at least do what she's doing and then when you see how far she's come in three weeks well heck that just encouraged me more.  Burpees work the whole body, you need no equipment, just enough space to do them and they burn a ton of calories.  I'm starting the burpees today, the beginner ones, I'm still looking in on if I should do them 2x or 3x or more a week and for how long, but my goal is to do them tabata style (that's a whole other post) where I would do 20 secs of burpees, 10 sec rest, 20 sec burpees you repeat this up to 8 times which totals about 4 mins of exercise and apparently is the longest 4 minutes of your life.  I am still studying as much as I can on the topic and will share as I learn.

Now if you want to know more about Tabata or Burpees, you can click on the links.  I think they'll explain it way better than I can.

Now before I go, I'd like to add that hubby, myself and our mini doxie went for an 8 block walk, I found a site called Gmap Pedometer that helped me figure out based on the route hubby and I took the almost exact amount of distance we walked and calories spent.  So according to Gmap I walked 0.87 miles that's 1.4 km in Canadian :) and I burned 180 calories (based on today's weight).

Also since starting on Wednesday I have dropped 7 lbs and I believe it was all water because I've had to pee endlessly since I started this lifestyle.  I don't remember peeing like this the two other times I followed this plan (February 2009, January 2011), but I'm not complaining.  Though it's a pain in the butt to wake up every hour to pee, but in time It'll stop and normalize itself.

On Aug 22 I have an appointment with my family doctor, I've had him since 1990 and well I haven't been to a doctor in over 4 years so I will request some blood work etc since I have no idea if I'm diabetic or not or how my heart is doing or anything.  Keep your fingers crossed please, I think I'm doing ok, I believe I'm blessed but I guess I won't know till he tests me.

Well I guess that's it for now... I'm still on plan, still going strong, still feeling good and still reaching out...

Have a blessed day everyone!

Sassle!