Jasmyn

We all know that in the long run, dieting is bad for us. Our bodies always catch on to what we are doing and try to get back to their set point. We put on the weight as fast as we can as soon as we stop dieting. I have learned a lot about set point from the Seth Roberts and SLD. That’s the Shangri-La Diet.

As soon as I stop dieting, boom, the weight is back with a vengeance. The funny thing is that my body not only regains the lost weightmuch quicker than I lost it, I usually put on more than I lost. I think that is my body’s way of compensating. My body is smart. It wants to regain MORE weight, just in case there is another famine.

I am very healthy this winter, far more healthy than previous winters.

1. I am using my light box daily

- This is helping greatly! I am not sure whether it produces serotonins, or how it works, but I feel good, and the seasonal blahs are gone. This is in the middle of a very grey and very cold Chicago winter.

2. I am working out just about every day for at least 20 minutes.

- I have such a variety of stuff to do in my house, that I never get bored with my workouts! Lately I am enjoying the treadmill. I can walk a lot longer than I could on the streets. I put a DVD in my laptop, which keeps me occupied while I walk.

3. I am back to doing the Shangri-La plan. This has served me well in the past. I put on holiday weight, and was up to around 150. Now I am back to 145.

Hah! What we eat and what it means.

Sign outside a church near the University of Chicago.

That’s my latest update. I weigh 145 as of this morning. FitDay says I am moderately overweight. I am wearing a Size 14 or 12. My goal is 130, so I am still up 15 pounds.

These are ideal weights for my height, small, medium, and large frame. I think I am large framed. At any rate, I feel great. Since we are what we eat, I must be oily. I am back to doing Shangri La, and, and yes, that means I am drinking oil again! Hey, whatever works, right? It does suppress my appetite, by tricking my body into thinking it has met its quota of food to meet its set point, so hunger can shut itself off.

Here is an explanation of Shangri La that I just posted in the forums.

http://www.weight-loss-forums.buddyslim.com/best-diet-plans/2813-shangri-la-diet.html

xoxox

Jas

Very strange to have flowers still blooming in Chicago in late November.  Ahh yes, I always feel like Martha Stewart this time of year. I am happily preparing for Thanksgiving. I am back on the Shangri-La Diet and it seems to be working. I added some sugar water, and started using flaxseed oil instead of extra light olive oil. Tweaking it seems to have made a difference. I barely had any appetite yesterday.

For anyone not familiar with the Shangri La Diet, it is based on eating tasteless calories. I lost 15 pounds really quickly on it when I first started doing it, but have been on a plateau the last few months.

I feel great from using that silly little light box. Whoulda thunk it? My mood has improved tremendously. I know it is working because I still feel good even though the sun has not been out in days.

That old familiar carb craving thing is going on with me. Do you ever get an insatiable desire for carbs? My inner cave woman is saying “Winter is coming, hurry up and put on some fat so you can make it through.”

It’s also a litte loneliness issue for me. For years, I was the one who hosted all the family holiday dinners. In 2004 my mom passed away. We were a family of three children, all girls. My sister in the middle and I have never gotten along all that well. Sometimes I think she hated me because I took away her baby of the family status. I was cute, smart, and in her face bratty.

After Mom died, my sister decided to cut off all ties with me. She will not speak to me or see me, nor will her two daughters, who both have kids, my great nieces and nephews. It hurts. My son still talks to his cousins. My daughter did for awhile. When she turned 20, she said “Mom, if they could do that to you, I feel like they could do that to me. I don’t want to have anything to do with them either.” Now my daughter does not see my sister’s side of the family. This doesn’t sit well for me. In my idealistic mind, families are forever.

In my mind, you can’t pick and choose your family, you just accept them, flaws, eccentric ehavior, and all. Sadly, not the case with my sister. She felt she could just “divorce me” from the family because she doesn’t like me. The other sad thing is that at the same time, after my mother died in 2004, one of my sister’s two daughters decided she will not ever see her sister again.

On Thanksgiving for the last two years my daughter and I have traveled to California to be with my son. It has been really nice. This year my son didn’t seem too thrilled when I suggested we were coming again. I decided to make Thanksgiving here. It will be nice for sure, I have good friends coming, but no family other than my daughter.

So I’m a little sad. Grieving for Thanksgivings past, when my mother and father were alive, and we had huge, happy family gatherings. Grieving that I am Suzy Homemaker without a husband. I know we will have a lovely time on Thanksgiving with friends. But the holiday season gets me down every year.

Part of it is that being Jewish, we never celebrated Christmas at home. Now I do! I go overboard with the gifts. I love going to Midnight Mass with the bell chorus and candles. But there is still a little twinge of being left out. The mainstream has Christmas and we do not. Chanukah was a pretty minor celebration in our lives. We got gifts, but it wasn’t an important holiday like the High Holidays and Passover. We did not get together with the extended family like we did on the other holidays.

So now you know it. I am a holiday addict. I love having people over and cooking amazing meals. I love the preparation. The cleaning. The whole thing! I am looking forward to later today washing a tablecloth by hand, then starching and ironing it when it dries.

I want that lonely feeling to go away. My irrational mind says to eat something with fat and carbs. Last night I craved waffles. The thing I have to always keep in mind, is that overeating doesn’t make it better. My tummy feels full for a minute, but this type of carb craving does not go away after I eat. It makes me want to eat more and more. As soon as I eat something I am hungry again. I do not get full from eating when it is emotional carb craving.

I have to remember that overeating only works against me. It makes me fat when I want to be healthy and slim.

I’m going to go work out now. I know I will feel better and my rational mind can kick in and say “You’re nuts to eat like that.”

That’s the sound of me ticked off. I am ticked at myself. I did exercise yesterday. 20 minutes of yoga in the morning. In the evening, a 25 minute run that burned 164 calories (big deal), went 2.4 miles. at 5.8 mph.

I am ticked at myself because I must just be eating too much. This morning I weighed 145.2. The same darn weight I have weighed since August. At 5 ft. 2 that is way too heavy. I think the weight chart puts me at overweight until 130.

Okay, I’m done complaining. On to realizing that tick, tick, tick, is also the sound of the clock ticking off my precious time here on earth. I do love being human. I am really grateful for the good stuff. All in all, I have a fantastic life. Why is it necessary to get so negative and whiny? Well, I guess it isn’t necessary, but it sure feels good to be negative.

But I get a lot farther with being positive. It’s like being negative draws me into a whorl of nothingness. Sure I can get sympathy. But is that what I want? I would much rather be living my life to the fullest, figuring out what the heck my calling is and doing it. I do think it all boils down to one simple thing. Love. Being kind to other people. Hold out a helping hand wherever I can. If I could only control my negative thoughts. Sometimes I think they are like poison. Negativity comes so much easier than positive thinking. So if I know that success comes from a positive attitude, why the heck to I waste time with negativity?

Tick tick tick. That’s the sound of the clock telling me to get ready for work. At a job that is meaningless to me but innocuous and makes money.

Time to get more positive and start doing things I am destined for. I paint. I play guitar and piano. I garden. I design landscapes. I am taking mandolin lessons. These are the things that speak to me. These are my callings. I feel like I should be doing them full time, concentrating on my art. I wish I could be doing my arts full time and not have to worry about money.

Been craving chocolate like crazy the last two days. I promised myself that on this “diet” I would not deprive myself; if I want something I eat it.  Just try to be smart about it and not binge.  Yesterday I bought myself a mini Toblerone. Yum, and only 125 calories. So far so good. The day before, I had a chocolate toffee bar. Today I am craving chockies again. I wonder if eating sweets causes the craving for them. I have often wondered about that. Sometimes I think it’s better if I never eat sweets, then I usually don’t crave them.  Ahh, wine and chocolate, my two weaknesses. Well, I have another weakness, no calories, though. Younger men.  There, I said it. Just don’t ask me how young. I’m a little aggravated with myself that I am not losing weight the past couple of months. I would love to start Phentermine again, but I can’t afford to be as nutty as it makes me. I get very out of sorts and on edge.   I am still doing the oil, two tablespoons twice a day, and it is suppressing my appetite to some extent. At least I am not gaining weight.  Frustrated! Fooey. I want to be 130 so bad I can taste it.

 I was scared to try it. I knew I would fail. But guess what? I did it! I ran 20 minutes straight. The Couch to 5K plan that I have been doing jumped suddenly from 8 minutes of running to 20 minutes. It was hard. I was out of breath, but I did it, I did it.

For some reason the scale has been going up. Maybe it’s my inner cavewoman trying to store up some fat for the long winter. I’m not happy about this, but I have been hovering between 148 and 150. Up about 5 pounds.
This weekend is the Bar Mitzvah in Minneapolis. The one where I wanted to look great for seeing all the cousins I haven’t seen in years. So I got a haircut that I hate, and I feel fat. Isn’t it amazing how we can sabotage ourselves into having a rotten time just because of our perception of how we look? I am way too obsessed with how I look.

I don’t know why, but this cracked me up. I was in an international grocery store, and saw this sign over the produce department that said “All Day Freshness”.  Very Engrishy.

Snapped this picture at dawn with my cell phone.

 You guys, thank you so much for the insights. It sure is mental. Isn’t it amazing that things like diet pills can trick our brains into not sending the hungry signal to whatever it is that makes us hungry?

I had a nice day today. Drove a pediatric infectious disease specialist around. What a sweetie. I learned that we should all positively get flu shots and shingles shots.

My pants seem bigger. I still haven’t gotten the ones I wear at work taken in. I have black suits I wear, lightweight wool.  I think I like how it feels to have to keep pulling them up. I like looking in the mirror and seeing how floppy the legs are at the thighs. I do feel better.

I think this running and walking is really doing the trick. I think it is why we all are doing so well. It’s amazing. Whoulda thunk it? That walking could melt pounds away? With all the exercising we had been doing not doing anything, that it was just plain walking that would do it.

By the way, I have not been drinking. I miss my wine, but I think it makes me eat too much

Something about that 145 mark. It’s a psychological barrier. I think I may be on the way down again. Today and yesterday I was 144.8. Very satisfying! I finished Week 4 of the Couch to 5k runs. Feeling good! I got a hair cut yesterday and it’s a bit too short. Amy says I look like the mom in the Partridge Family, lol.  Went to eat last night at the Lakeside Cafe. What a fantastic restaurant. It is vegetarian and yum yum yummy.

Things to be happy for today:

(And if you are listening up there I know I am supposed to be atoning for my sins today, sorry, but I am happy)

1. I am running, I really am! I ran 3 minutes And it felt good!
2. My weight is going down

This is a cool little gadgt available in iGoogle! It shows a moving average, so you can weigh every day.

I did NOT drink last night, and I really missed it.

The scale is royally pissing me off. Last night I gave up my beloved glass of wine. Drinking wine is my dieting downfall.

This week I had company over for dinner, and I drank at least half a bottle of a lovely Merlot. Not a bad thing in itself, but I wasn’t really hungry. I had even thought about skipping dinner, but I didn’t. I made chicken breast marinated in fresh lemon and oregano, rock salt and pepper. I also made new potatoes sprinkled with parsley. I had a very small amount of the potatoes and ate one half of a chicken breast. I wasn’t really hungry.

BUT, I got so sloshed, that after dinner I mindlessly found Amy’s bag of Trader Joe’s multi-grain pita chips with sesame seeds. I ate the whole darn bag! Something like 600 calories. Geez. That bag had been staring me in the face all week, no problem.

I think drinking stimulates my appetite. I love my glass of wine with dinner. I love to drink while cooking. But, if I want to lose weight, I guess I have to give up drinking. I feel very resentful of this. I don’t want to give up my wine.

I know this thinking is dangerous. This kind of thinking has had me throwing in the towel and eating whatever I want. Which was fine 20 years ago when I didn’t have a weight problem.

I am angry about having to diet. I want to be able to eat and drink whatever I want.

But I want to be thin more than I want to eat whatever I want. I just have to remember that. I want to be thin. And I will do whatever it takes to get there. Yeah, that’s right, damn it.