TT Thursdays : 7th week weight loss challenge, steady as she goes

TT Thursdays : 7th week weight loss challenge, steady as she goes

A couple of weeks ago, I talked about emotions triggering eating.  Recently I came across a Mayo Clinic article:  Weight loss: Gain control of emotional eating: Find out how emotional eating can sabotage your weight-loss efforts, and get tips to get control of your eating habits by Mayo Clinic Staff.  I said keep a food mood diary which is their first suggestion.  I wrote about using distractions to breakaway from negative thoughts that trigger eating and that showed up under their “fight boredom” bullet point. One point that they bring up that I hadn’t thought about was :

Tame your stress. If stress contributes to your emotional eating, try a stress management technique, such as yoga, meditation or deep breathing.”

I don’t do yoga, meditate or deep breathing to de-stress.  For me, it’s what I put under “distractions” that de-stresses me.  I write/photograph or read.  When I am writing poetry/stories, photographing or reading, it’s like I step away from the world.  If I lay in bed and read for an hour, I often get up feeling like I’ve just had a nap.  When I am doing those things, sure other thoughts even negative thoughts pop up, but they go back out again quickly.  They have no power.  The focus quickly returns to the activity.  These particular activities, for me, are meditative.  For other people, it might be gardening, cooking, or working on a car.  I think we all have something that does that — rests our minds/emotions even while we seem to be using our minds/bodies at the same time.

Thinking about it, I realize that critical writing doesn’t relax me.  If I’m writing and thinking every step of the way, “is this good”, “is this what I want to say”, “is there a better word”, then I don’t go into that meditative writing stage.  The meditative state is the other kind of writing when the words just blurts out on the page, stream of consciousness style, that that happens — even if during the stream, I tweak words for better ones.  Rewriting is definitely not meditative for me. So I think the same activity can be meditative and nonmeditative, it just depends on whether you are doing them with the noisy critic turned on in your head or if you are doing it in a flowing stream.  It’s why the same activity can be relaxing or stressful.  Do you have a favorite activity that is like that? Like when you do that thing, it serves as your daily meditation.

On Soups

Rie, a friend of mine, is very thin.  She loves loves soups.  Soup is not an appetizer for her, it’s a main dish.  I’ve been good about choosing salads and garden omelettes lately but I think I might try doing soups.  Arizona is so hot, you need a lot of fluids.  Although I drink a lot of water, I miss the tastiness of colas and lemonade.  So I was thinking maybe if I replaced those liquid flavors with soup liquid flavors.  I’ve started collecting some soup recipes to try out.  I haven’t done these yet but I thought they looked pretty and tasty.

Easy Thai Shrimp Soup
Chicken Avocado Lime Soup

Cleansing Detox Soup


Carrot And Moong Dal Soup

Our HealthyWage Coach introduced us this week to the HealthyWage Pinterest Soup page which is where I found these

 

So last week in my HealthyWage Weight Loss Challenge Progress I reported  237.3 pounds. Now I am at 234.8 pounds so lost another 2.5 pounds.  I feel like the ant with the grasshopper sometimes.  I see things like lose 20 pounds in 10 days or 45 pounds in 30 days and it sounds a lot sexier.  It’s hard not to reach after the quickie results but I want long-term change which means changing the way I think, how I choose food, how much I build movement into my life, etc.  Pain in the butt.

I remember how easy it was in my twenties.  I ate anything, drank anything, and could run around like a demon.  I thought I was fat back then.  I’d like to smack that me up the side of my head, “You idiot, 135 pounds at 5’7.5″ is not fat! It’s slim.”  It is truly weird how we see ourselves at any age.  I remember diets were easy.  I’d do the apple diet and lose 15 pounds in a week.  The apple diet?  You can only eat apples for 3 days.  I think it’s really a fasting diet because trust me, after two days of only apples, you don’t want to touch an apple on the third day so the third day you don’t eat.  Now, as I cut off carbs (80% of my diet), soda (80% of my liquid intake), and generally cut back on everything else, instead of my body flinging off 15 pounds in a week, it took a month.  It’s as if my fat cells were screaming “No, no, we won’t go!”

At least the pounds are going even if it is little by little so I’m happy with that.  Also my highest walk day is now 9,338.  My backpack broke though so I’m not carrying as much on the bus.  I need to get a new daypack.

P.S. Friday 9:34pm.  I was in a rush to finish this yesterday — finished close to midnight so didn’t get everything in.  So here’s the last bit on my progress report.

On the HealthyWager challenge, I am still a little behind.  There was one day I actually was in the green for about 12 hours and then it slipped away again.  Sights.  The good news is that I have completed the 6% challenge so I am good there.  Yay!!! The final weigh-in is between August 13-27th so I just have to remember to make my final video then. I am now ranked 61 out of 463 so I’m happy with that.  I don’t know how much I’ll win on that one yet as it’s a potluck challenge where the pot is divided among all the winners.

Weight loss: Gain control of emotional eating
Mayo Clinic Staff

From Amazon:


Soup of the Day (Rev Edition): 365 Recipes for Every Day of the Year

New England Soup Factory Cookbook

Clean Soups: Simple, Nourishing Recipes for Health and Vitality

Amazon disclosure: “We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.”

HealthyWage Disclosure:  I am signed up as a HealthyWage affiliate.  If you join through the links above, I’ll get a commission.  However, they also have a friends link, if you join up by clicking this friends link, it adds a $40 to your HealthyWager award if you complete your goal and $40 to my HealthyWager award if I complete my goal.  We don’t get the $40 if we fail.  I think the $40 is for HealthyWager challenges only and not the other ones like the 6% individual challenge or the team challenge. The HealthyWage affiliate link doesn’t matter if anyone succeeds but there is no benefit for the friend, just for the affiliate no matter what kind of challenge they join. I think joining through the friends link also lets you view your friend on the dashboard: you’ll see their name and what % they’ve lost so far but not the actual weight.  That’s private unless you make it public.

 

22 Replies to “TT Thursdays : 7th week weight loss challenge, steady as she goes”

  1. Thanks for ones marvelous posting! I actually enjoyed reading it, you can be a great author. I will remember to bookmark your blog and may come back later in life. I want to encourage continue your great work, have a nice afternoon.

  2. I love soups too. I had a bowl of soup for breakfast this morning. It’s a meal for me too.

    I’m so proud of you for your weight loss. You’re doing fabulous.

    I too was very thin in my younger days. That change when menopause hit. I’ve battled the same 20 pounds since. I too thought I was fat back then. Funny how that worked.

    Have a fabulous day and weekend. ♥

    1. They do soup for breakfast often in Japan too, miso soup. That’s simple to make. I can do that.

      Thank you for the encouragement. I appreciate it. I hope you’re feeling better and can eat more than soup.

      Yeah, if we only knew then what we know now. Thing is that “ideal” i had back then of slim was way too skinny — now I don’t want to be that slim. Honestly Twiggy is not a good look when you’re older. Women who carry 10-20 pounds extra are better off when they’re over 50 because calcium is stored in fat cells so they are less likely to have osteoporosis. So a little fat is a good thing. So you sound like you might be alright to me. To me, you picture you look like you’re healthy and slim. Not skinny but slim which is a good thing. i have way too much fat though. I no longer want to be 125-130 like in my 20s but 140-160 would be good,just enough to fill out a few wrinkles but also no longer overburdening my knees and back.

    1. Yes it is but I’m finding you get used to it … mostly. It’s hard that Sumiko gave me a 20oz bag of dark chocolate. I stuck it in the freezer but still….

  3. You are moving right along. Healthy is better, and much more realistic and sustainable. I’m a big soup lover myself, and its often dinner at our house. Enjoy!

    1. That’s a great idea — soup for dinner. Thank you so much for the continued encouragement.

  4. Oh yeah, I miss my twenties when I survived off of chocolate and Pepsi. Paperwork stresses me out so I find myself looking for something to chew on…and yes, photography to me is meditative and very therapeutic. Very! I find my stress level is high I just need to disappear with my camera for a bit. Keep up the good work and thanks for sharing your journey with us.

    1. Me too — those days when you could eat anything and never be tired. Same with me, photography seems to do that for me too. It’s like you focus just on the perfect moment in the viewfinder

  5. I admire the way you think and look at various aspects of your weight loss. You aspire to give others food for thought (punny of me. Lol). Thank you for your insight.
    I am extremely proud of you! You are doing fantastic. Keep it up and you will reach your goal in no time.

    1. Thank you. lol, “food for thought”. I do try to make it not just me going on and on about losing the weight. Hopefully I’m on track to win the $780. I amlosing slowly but consistently. I might try betting on another one too. I finished one challenge — the 6% loss one. Thanks for being supportive.

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