#mayamha

Not only are they absurdly similar, but sometimes the ice cream has more protein and less sugar than the “healthy” protein bar.

I lost just over 4 pounds this week!!

And while I’m totally thrilled, I know the recommendation is 2 pounds a week because more isn’t good for you, so I looked into it again. I hadn’t read the reasons why in quite a while.

The main reasons to not lose more than 2 pounds a week are risk of muscle loss (doesn’t apply because I’m gaining -- another pound just this week), gallstones (had my gallbladder out years ago), nutritional deficiencies from a crash diet (doesn’t apply because I’m not on a crash diet at 1200-1600 calories a day and one day a week where I hit between 1800-2000) and I’m taking vitamins and supplements), and metabolism drop.

The metabolism drop seems to happen in people who exercise too much and crash diet. I began staggering my exercise in the last 2 weeks after reading that exercising the same amount every day can get you stuck in a rut, which I got into about a month ago.

Once I started staggering my exercise, weight came off even faster.

The reason I didn’t want to do surgery and/or a heavier weight loss regimen was because I don’t want the excess skin that comes with doing that. The excess skin thing freaks me out and I don’t want to have to get more surgery to take off skin.

I certainly don’t want to run the risk of having to cut off tattooed skin!

Exercise usually fixes that unless you lose weight so fast your skin elasticity can’t keep up with it.

So I think I’m doing okay? My skin has been keeping up, I’m gaining muscle, I’m not crash dieting, and I’m not exercising so hard that I’m having related issues.

THAT MEANS I CAN JUST ENJOY HAVING LOST 4 POUNDS THIS WEEK!!

I’ve now lost 83 pounds total!

I’m trying to go longer between weigh-ins because I don’t want to get obsessed with it, but a few nights lately we’ve had white potatoes, and white carbs can really mess with my metabolism and make me gain easily.

I got on the scale to check that and also my water intake (smart scale) and I lost 2 pounds and my water intake is doing well so YAY!!

I can’t afford to get new clothes, but a lot of my clothes are falling off me. I’m cinching things up and using safety pins and it’s working for now.

I’m averaging about 3.5 miles a day walking and another 6-10 miles on the recumbent bike. Only 2-2.5 miles of walking is on the treadmill. The rest is in the middle of the night when we take Roo out for a walk after people go home.

Last night when we went out for the walk at the local park’s parking lot, a couple cars came in and parked for a minute, then the one took off and the other gunned it while in reverse and backed right into a tree.

He hit it so hard he went up the tree a little, got stuck, then the car fell back down. He crunched his bumper up good.

Serves him right. Ever since the pandemic has been going on, people have been driving like they know they won’t get caught doing anything. We have to be careful crossing the street because instead of people going 10 or so miles an hour over the limit in the neighborhood, they’re going 30-40 over it and not bothering to obey any stop signs.

We’ve heard a lot of accidents, especially at night.

This wasn’t the first time we saw somebody driving stupid and hitting something either.

People are also using a lot of off-road vehicles and racing around and using parks and parking lots as obstacle courses.

I suppose it’s better than where we used to live where my cousin still lives. They’re going outside and doing target practice with guns, knives, fireworks, small explosives, etc. Apparently some people have been hit by random stuff.

There are gunshot monitors in throughout the neighborhoods down there but authorities aren’t following up unless there are reports of someone getting hurt by something. And in a lot of areas down there nobody reports things.

Yay! All your hard work is paying off you should be proud! As someone else who needs to lose a labrador how long has your downward progress been happening? Stick with it! I lost 40 and then gained it back even though I went slow 😣  gotta watch those bad habits creeping back

Two years ago when mom got diagnosed with cancer, we changed the way we were eating. I lost somewhere around 25-30 pounds then just from cutting out processed foods, backing off white carbs, and switching from table salt and granulated sugar and stuff like that to pink salt, honey, etc.

I didn’t limit my food intake or begin exercising though, so 25-30 was all I lost then. My body felt better and the issues I used to have with my stomach went away, which was awesome!

I’m including that weight I lost in my total of 83 because I want credit for it, but the actual weight loss since I started trying of 53-58 pounds more is since October/November of 2019.

Roo NEEDS to walk. She’s a Terrier and I felt responsible for giving her what she needed even though we were told she was a very inactive dog when we first adopted her (she was inactive because she was recovering from abuse and once we had her she blossomed and let loose her full Terrier energy!).

So I started walking with her on very slow, very short walks in August/September of 2019, but then by November I had built it up to walking 1 mile a day because that seemed to be what she needed.

I kept building it up until January when we were doing 2-3 miles a day and about 4-5 miles on Sundays. For the first time ever I made a New Year’s Resolution, and it was to take care of myself more. That’s when I changed my eating habits again and actually worked at portion sizes and healthier stuff.

So the 53-58 pounds has been since November of 2019.

About three different times now I’ve hit plateaus that discouraged me a little bit. I let myself feel bad about it and get upset for a few days, but then went back to working at the weight loss.

The last time I got stuck was about 3-5 weeks of gaining and losing the same 5-10 pounds no matter what I did. My mom did a little pep talk and said this is when most people give up, so I didn’t give up. But I did mope about it for a few days.

Each time I get upset, I back off on the exercise, but I try to not just go wild with the eating, which maintains my weight instead of making it explode.

So after the last time I got stuck, I changed my portion sizes again and started to stagger my workouts instead of hitting it hard every day. Now I alternate between workouts at around 1-1/2 to 1-3/4 hours and every other day just kinda moving a bit and keeping active with gentle stuff like housework or gardening and slower walks with Roo.

My goal is to feel good. I don’t plan on ever being a 115 pound person and I’m not even considering it. If I hit the goal I have in mind and I’m comfy, I’ll stay there even though it probably isn’t considered a weight a doctor would be thrilled about. If I get there and I wanna lose more, I’ll try for more.

I read that body builders eat a TON of calories one day a week. Terry Crews, I believe, said he eats an entire pizza just for lunch on his “cheat” day. It keeps you from getting stuck in a rut where your metabolism compensates for your activity level and food intake and also let’s you have a little treat, so Sundays I eat a frozen pizza or pasta with cheese and ketchup or other comfort foods like that and I don’t do any exercise other than taking Roo over to the park where she can run.

I’ve tried dieting when I was younger, and it never worked because I just had the goal of losing weight and I really didn’t like the things I was doing.

Changing from the goal of weight loss to a goal of just feeling good and eating things that make me feel good totally changed my outlook on it and I’ve never been this successful before!

At my most recent weigh in on Saturday I’d lost another 2 pounds officially.

I say officially because I also gained almost 3 pounds in muscle, so I lost more than 2 pounds in fat, but overall I’m 2 pounds lighter.

that my parents are like “we’re having that again today right?!!!”

I pan cooked chicken tenders first, then took them out and added sliced up Russet potatoes, heavy whipping cream, grated Parmesan, Italian seasoning mix, garlic, and fresh spinach.

Once the potatoes were a little cooked, I put the chicken back in, covered it, and let it simmer for a while.

It was so creamy and... well a comfort dish.

But now I’m out of Russet potatoes (I don’t keep many around these days because my mom and I haven’t been eating white potatoes, but with her diverticulitis flare-up I’ve made us white potatoes a few times in the last couple weeks).

So tonight I’m going to pan cook some chicken tenders and try some frozen tater tots. They’re from a local organic store, so they don’t put extra crap in it. I can add my own seasoning.

PROTEIN CHEESE CRISPS

Ingredients: 2 Cups Cheese 1/2 Cup Whey Protein Isolate

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 350F fan

Put the cheese in a microwave safe bowl and heat for 1 minute. Dump the Whey protein in immediately after it’s done.

Mix together with a fork or spoon, and once cooled enough, use your hands to blend it

Flatten it on a nonstick surface until rectangular and fairly thin

Use a rolling pin to get it REALLY thin (more than I did above)

Use a pizza cutter or knife to cut out squares or triangles

Put the pieces on parchment paper or Silpat sheets

Bake them for 8-10 minutes (mine were so thick they cooked for 15)

These are a great crunchy snack with protein. They can be used in a keto or low-carb diet and there’s no corn products or sugar in there.

I made them way too thick, so I’m going to try another batch with a different kind of cheese and make them thinner.

You can use any kind of cheese. I used mozzarella for the ones above, but I’m going to try cheddar. One batch is supposed to make like 40-50 crisps, so I clearly made mine WAY too thick :D

Sweet Potato Dip / Sweet Potato Drizzle

I wanted a drizzle for veggies that wasn’t heavy and cheesy, and I looked online for something, but didn’t find anything I liked, so I started throwing things together.

Because sweet potatoes vary so much in size and I’m not sure what you’d like to use this recipe for, I’m not going to give specific measurements.

For Veggie Topping/Drizzle = More Cream For Dip = Less Cream

Ingredients: 1 sweet potato heavy whipping cream cinnamon honey salt

Instructions:

Peel, dice, and cook the sweet potato. I steamed mine in the microwave since texture isn’t an issue.

Put the cooked sweet potato pieces in a blender and start off with 1/2 cup of heavy whipping cream, a pinch of pink salt, a pinch of cinnamon, and maybe 1 tablespoon of honey.

Blend on high until its moving freely in the blender. If it doesn’t move, continue adding more heavy whipping cream. If you’d like dip, add cream until it’s just moving enough to blend. If you want drizzle, keep adding cream until it’s moving as easily as a morning.

Add cinnamon and salt a little bit at a time and keep tasting until it’s so good you can’t wait to eat it :D

If you can’t figure out what it needs but it tastes like it needs SOMETHING, add a little more salt.