Well, didn't make it to the gym today. Alison woke up with a hugely swollen eye, the result of a bug bite. I didn't want to take her to the drop-in babysitters looking like that before I got her checked out, so we stayed home watching tv until her appointment. Nothing much to do for her eye, other than give her Benedryl and watch it. It might still look pretty bad tomorrow, but should look better by Thursday.

Food journal:

1 bowl of bran flakes w/milk
14 oz. glass of water
1 bran muffin
large mug of English Breakfast tea w/2 teaspoons of sugar
3 chocolate covered pretzels
1 bowl of bran flakes w/milk
14 oz. glass of sweet tea

Not much to say today. Didn't put up my food journal yesterday. It wasn't as bad as Saturday, but wasn't as good as today (at least so far) either. I had a great workout this morning. I managed to go more than 3 miles between my actual workout time and cool down time on the cross trainer and I did well with the weights, too.

Food Journal:

1 bowl of bran flakes w/milk
14 oz. glass of water
20 oz. bottle of water
1 bran muffing
large mug of English Breakfast tea w/2 teaspoons of sugar
7 yogurt pretzels
2 chocolate pretzels
1 bowl of Bean w/Bacon soup
14 oz. glass of sweet tea
1/2 egg roll
4 oz. low fat cottage cheese
1/2 can pineapple in juice
14 oz. glass of water
cauliflower
au gratin beef casserole
14 oz. sweet tea
large mug of decaf English Breakfast tea w/2 teaspoons of sugar

I had a total binge on yogurt covered pretzels this afternoon. The good news is that they are almost gone now and will no longer be a problem. :)

Well, I stepped on the scale this morning to find that I lost 3 pounds this week. Yay me! However, today is Saturday, which is a notoriously bad eating day. Today would have been better, but we went to redeem some coupons that came in a card Alison brought home for Mother's Day. At Harry & David, I got two truffles and a chocolate covered cherry, and then we bought chocolate and yogurt covered pretzels. At Bronner's I got a free ice cream with 1 topping, which we all shared. We haven't eaten the Rosettes from Zhender's Marketplace yet. Saturday is also movie night and Alison wanted popcorn, so I had way more than I really needed to eat. Oh well, tomorrow is another day, and at least we were walking around for most of the afternoon.

Food journal:

2 bran muffins
14 oz. glass of sweet tea
1 bowl of bran flakes w/milk
7 chocolate covered pretzels
5 or 6 yogurt covered pretzels
1 chocolate covered cherry
1/2 chocolate truffle
1/2 mocha truffle
vanilla ice cream w/chocolate sauce (shared with Kevin and Alison)
1 slice of pepperoni pizza
2 breadsticks
1 small iced tea and a partial refill w/5 packets of sugar (I really need to start tucking some packets of Splenda in my purse so I don't have to use sugar)
way more buttered popcorn than I should have eaten
14 oz. glass of sweet tea
2 chocolate covered pretzels
2 yogurt covered pretzels

So this is the conversation on the way home from the gym today:
(wiggling tooth around) Mom, look at my tooth.
I can't really see it from here, how is it doing this morning? Is it still in your mouth?
Umm, not anymore, I just pulled it out. Oh no, I dropped it.

Fortunately we were very near the high school, so I whipped into the parking lot and hopped out of the car to look for the very first lost tooth. It had dropped into a fold in her shirt or shorts and when she stood up it fell to the floor. We made it home without losing it again, and it is now ensconced in the tooth pillow waiting to put it out for the tooth fairy tonight.

Food journal:

1 bowl of bran flakes w/milk
14 oz. glass of water
20 oz. bottle of water
large mug of English Breakfast tea w/2 teaspoons of sugar
1 bran muffin
1 McDonald's cheeseburger, plain
15 French fries
1 large McDonald's sweet tea, half ice
4 oz. low fat cottage cheese
1/2 can pineapple chunks in juice
corn
broccoli
skinless chicken thigh
14 oz. glass sweet tea
1 small scoop of Country Inn ice cream (this ice cream is so good, it tastes like a bowl of cinnamon & spice oatmeal)
large mug of decaf English Breakfast tea w/2 teaspoons of sugar

Friday night is ice cream night for our family during our local ice cream shop's season. It's about 1 1/2 miles from our house, so, weather permitting, we ride our bikes there and back. Tonight, we thought we were going to have to drive because it was pretty cloudy and looked like rain, but while we were eating supper the clouds cleared and we got to ride. Fortunately there was a little breeze, because it's been pretty hot and humid the last few days.

Dedication: going ahead and working out despite showing up at the gym and finding out you can't use the showers, restrooms or drinking fountains because the place is running on generators. That also means the a/c isn't working either, so the only thing circulating the air is a few small fans that don't really do anything. I shortened my cross trainer workout by about 5 minutes, because I still wanted to be able to do weights and I already needed to go to the bathroom before I even started. I didn't drink any water when I finished the cross trainer, even though I was dying to, so as not to make the urge to go any stronger. I made it through the rest of my workout and then drank my entire bottle of water in the time it took Alison to buckle herself into her seatbelt. Oh, and did I mention that dh (and I'm pretty sure that d does not equal dear) works out at 5:30, so he could have called and told me about the situation so I could have made sure I went to the bathroom before I left the house?

Food journal:

1 bowl of bran flakes with milk
14 oz. glass of water
20 oz. bottle of water
1 bran muffin
large mug of English Breakfast tea w/2 teaspoons of sugar
salad -- romaine lettuce, turkey, shredded cheddar cheese, lite honey mustard dressing (less than 2 tbsps)
14 oz. glass of sweet tea
4 oz. lowfat cottage cheese
1/2 can pineapple in juice
14 oz. glass of sweet tea
Ham mini sub on wheat w/American cheese, a little lettuce, tomato, salt and pepper, a squirt of light mayo and a squirt of honey mustard
20 oz iced tea w/Splenda
part of a bag of Cheetos (shared w/Alison and Kevin)
20 oz. bottle of water
large mug of decaf English Breakfast tea w/two teaspoons of sugar

Thursday nights are tap class for me. I am wiped out and strangely starving, but will try and avoid the urge to eat something. Hopefully the tea will help.

I might have been hungry before bed last night, but surprisingly I wasn't hungry when I woke up this morning. I managed to evade the after lunch munchies by taking a nap. I hadn't intended to do that -- I am working on scraping all the paint off our kitchen cabinets so we can repaint them -- but suddenly I couldn't keep my eyes open. So nap it was.


Today's food journal:

bowl of bran flakes with milk
14 oz. glass of water
20 oz. bottle of water
bran muffin
large mug of English Breakfast tea w/2 teaspoons of sugar
peanut butter and jelly sandwich on multigrain bread - I tried to go light on the pb&j, covering the bread with a very thin layer, rather than slathering it on
14 oz. glass of sweet tea
4 oz. lowfat cottage cheese
1/2 can of pineapple chunks in juice
14 oz. glass of water
14 oz. glass of water
mashed potatoes (they are another weakness, and I ate more than I should have, but not as much as I normally would have eaten)
peas
roast beef
14 oz. glass of sweet tea
large mug of decaf English Breakfast tea w/2 teaspoons of sugar

My mom called this morning to tell me that she had been at the calling hours before the funeral of one of her cousins yesterday. Sandy was 52, and by all accounts was the picture of health. She ate right, liked to exercise (running, yoga, etc), didn't smoke. And yet a few days after her birthday in May, she began treatment for what they thought was pneumonia, only to find a tumor in her lung. Further investigation revealed the cancer to be everywhere. She had no idea. Her husband remarked that two months ago she was jogging down Michigan Ave. in Chicago, and now she was gone. Kind of makes you stop and think, and wonder if it's all worth it. But I'm not going to use that as an excuse to eat everything in sight, so here is my food journal for today:

1 bowl of bran flakes with milk
14 oz. glass of water
20 oz. bottle of water
1 bran muffin
large mug of English Breakfast tea w/2 teaspoons of sugar
1 small pancake w/syrup
3 sausage links (tried to stop at two, but I love sausage)
14 oz. glass of sweet tea
4 oz lowfat cottage cheese
1/2 can of pineapple chunks in juice
brown rice
green beans
pork chops marinated in honey, mustard and ginger ale
14 oz. glass of sweet tea
large mug of decaf English Breakfast tea w/2 teaspoons of sugar

Good grief I'm hungry tonight. My tea is brewing right now, so hopefully that will help. Maybe in a few days I will no longer feel like eating everything in sight.

Ok, so I've got a pretty good exercise routine going. I spend 30 minutes on the cross trainer, "running" just under 3 miles. My thought is that when Alison is back in school, I'll try and get that up to a whole 3 miles. Right now, I'm trying to keep to a time limit. After the cross trainer, I stretch for a few minutes and then spend about 30 minutes +/- a few minutes using the weight machines. They have them separated into a row of upper body machines and a row of lower body machine. I alternate, doing upper body one day and lower body the next, so that over the course of two weeks, I've done each 5 times (except for those weeks when we're not home for part of a week).

So my exercise program is in place and now I need to stop eating like a truck driver.

I've read that people who keep a food journal are more successful at their weight loss program. That is makes them really stop and think about whether or not they really want to eat what they're about to eat because it's going to be there for a family member or weightloss partner to see. Well, I got to thinking, what better way to keep myself accountable than to put my "food journal" on my blog where anyone that happens by can see it. So here it goes.

1 bowl of bran flakes with milk
14 oz. glass of water
20 oz. bottle of water
1 bran muffin
1 large mug of English Breakfast tea w/two teaspoons of sugar
1 bowl of Campbell's Bean with Bacon soup
14 oz. glass of sweet tea
14 oz. glass of water
4 oz. lowfat cottage cheese
1/2 can of pineapple chunks in juice
1 pancake w/syrup
3 sausage links
14 oz. glass of sweet tea
1 large mug decaf English Breakfast tea w/ two teaspoons of sugar

When it comes to my tea, I'm a southern girl at heart I love sweet tea, and I'm not going to give it up. I'm compromising, though, and using half sugar and half Splenda. Now, there have been a few times that I really wanted to go get something else to eat. After I put Alison to bed I really wanted to get the rest of the ice cream that was in the freezer, but I didn't. I guess maybe they're right about the food journal thing. Only time will tell, I guess.