Day 27 of Phase 4 Challenge: Where we jump around celebrating Japan's win, and where my panties are getting baggy, and where I wanna go out, and where there's not much else to say, really...

Scale: 226.6

Salty cheese x2 uptick. Was hoping to see a nice round 226.0  Weigh-in for Challenge, well, sent it today so I don't risk missing the deadline on Sun noon. 227, rounded up. I believe that's an official 2 lbs gone this week. (Or is it three? Ya know, I gotta check.)

Yeah: 2.2 lbs. Would have been more had I not gone on the Salt Wagon yesterday. :)

Yesterday:
Calories: 1194
Exercise: walking, stairs, jumping jacks
Mood: very good
Hunger: minimal to moderate (early versus evening)

Got up earlier than usual to watch Japan kick Aussie butt for the Asia Cup. Hubby found a site to stream the game form Qatar. It's the only team I'd get up for early. I've enjoyed rooting for them since the World Cup. Delighted they won. Rooting hard for my man Eiji (Kawashima, goalie). He's so fierce looking, then so goofy when he smiles when they win. HAH. The Lee guy who got the goal is super cute. Adorable. I imagine schoolgirls with his poster up in their rooms next to J-Pop-pers.

Today is lovely and cool and I wanna go out. Gotta go wash the curls and find underwear that fits (my undies have gotten baggy in the butt).

Other than that, I got nothing. Just wishing us all a great weekend of NOT overeating.

Ja ne...

Day 26 of the Phase 4 Challenge: Where there are 96 Days to Go and In Which I'm Feeling Lethargic...then don't feel lethargic and laugh and walk my way back to ENERGIZED!

Scale: 226.2

Whoa. Almost a pound down from yesterday....

I slept a lot. Eleven hours. I started feeling that little lethargy come in yesterday and it hit today. I go through those cycles. I will need to check my blood pressure to make sure that going back to less sodium hasn't plunked my pressure too low again. I did get woozy once yesterday.

Had only two meals yesterday (hit the sack and skipped dinner). I bought extra nice ingredients to add the to quality of my food. Breakfast was a Greek Omelette--2 eggs, egg whites, oregano, Mt. Vikos gourmet barrel-aged feta, a cup of cooked organic spinach, java, water. So good. It was only an ounce of the feta, but it was so tasty. Lots and lots of oregano. Mmmm. Crisp graps on the side.

Lunch/DinnerWhatever: Rotisserie chicken breast to which I added some spices, beautiful fresh asparagus sauteed in minimal EVOO with garlic, artichoke hearts with lemon juice and garlic. Cantaloupe and raspberries on the side.  I had a square of dark, sugar-free chocolate as a treat.

Since I didn't have my usual yogurt, I took calcium supplements, and magnesium.

Really delicious. I so enjoyed my food yesterday. The 866 calories tasted like a lot more, I can tell you, just by having spices and those quality and fresh ingredients, so many colors and bursting flavors. I was happy. Yum.

Hope the mango I got is good. I want to have it later for dessert.

A cold front came in yesterday, and the walk was pleasant with the cool win in my face.

I have no appetite right now. None. But I'm gonna go make a meal and hope that spurs the salivary juices.

Allan's email told us that there are 96 days left in this challenge phase. It feels like a long time...more than 3 months....but it will pass as quickly as this month has been passing. It's gonna pass ANYWAY, so might as well let it pass healthfully and end up trimmer.

I've slacked with the strength exercises. No excuses. Just have. It's on the agenda for today, but feel free to kick my butt over it. The lethargy took over....

Happy Friday, folks. Feel the freedom from fat coming? It's already partly here, right, but it's coming!

Update: Lethary has moved on. The walk helped oodles. The stairs...well, only made it to the third one though the pace was relatively fast. I got woozy. Getting cool in Miami and I love it!  Talked to my health insurance nurse (they check on me every 2 months), and she said I sounded great, upbeat, motivated and happy. I realize that I keep hearing this lately. I keep being told I look good, smile a lot, look happy and energetic. Hubby came into the kitchen yesterday, from where he was noshing in the living room, setting up our evening's anime streaming, as I was fixing my second meal,  and said, "I love hearing you laugh." He hugged me and was grinning. Yep...I was laughing in the kitchen. I've been laughing a lot. Even over the phone, the nurse sensed my joy. :D  I would not trade a binge for this. This is amazing, feeling like this.  While walking, the UPS guy shouted, "Looking good!" I've been getting some, um, male looks on my walk. Maybe I am looking good....maybe? ; )

Day 25 of Phase 4 Challenge: 72 lbs down; appetite had mild upsurge last night, then calm again; Deliveries of goodies; Stair exercise and the crunchy knee; and the 9% and the Challenges....

Scale: 227.0

That makes a nice, even 72 lbs lost.

Yesterday:

Calories: 935
Exercise: Walking, stairs
Mood: calm, good
Hunger: minimal except for an evening uptick

Felt really suddenly with appetite while we were trying out some new animes last night. Caught me by surprise, as I've had a nice tamed appetite beast lately.

We were enjoying sampling Welcome to the NHK, about a quirky hikkikomori, his neighbor, an anime otaku, and the gal who wants to get him out of his reclusive ways; and Hayate, The Combat Butler, about a kid with shiftless parents and bad luck (even Santa won't give him a Christmas present), but whose fighting skills and haplessness lead him to end up as a rich gal's protective butler (and it's funny!) Also got to watch the third episode of Kimi Ni Todoke (very sweet, gently paced, often hilarious school romance, definitely NOT for guys), and the latest episode of Wandering Son (school life with a cross-dressing boy, his "might be gay" best pal, his sister, and circle of friends, and how they are coping with life issues). Hubby likes Infinite Stratos now (very predictable futuristic mecha school life meets "harem" thingie, that is funny, so I enjoy it.) If I can laugh, I like it.

So, there I am, anime-marathoning with the hubster, and I am HUNGRY.  I make him pause the streaming and make a quickie bit of egg white and fat free cheese with two cups of decaf tea and water. After an hour, I'm settled. No mad rush to eat more.

I ended up with fewer calories than I realized when I sparked them. I guess cause I had nuts, in my mind it was "Nuts, lotsa calories." But I weigh them, portion them carefully, so it ended up not so much.

I hope today the hunger stays DOWN. :)

I got deliveries: nuts of different sorts from The Nutty Guys (had a groupon, decided to try). Eh. The ones I get from Fresh market are just as good if not better. No big whoop. The other one was from Netrition: my EZ Sweetz sucralose drops for my coffee; low carb tortillas; no-sugar strawberry preserves I like in my yogurt and (when I allow it) my toast; sugar-free dark chocolate bars for my upcoming birthday party (my family is chockabloc with chocoholics, and I wanted the option without the sugar).

So, back to yesterday:  I went outside to do my stair stuff. I made it to the fourth stair sequence, but the crunching in my R knee was...well...quite offputting...disturbing. I wondered if I was further damaging it, quite frankly. Does anyone else's knees crunch? Ew. My L one, with the messed up ACL, will make snapping and popping sounds, and it will sometimes just give way (really unstable, and I cannot do pivoting sorts of moves without risking a jam or give-way). But the crunch is even ore disconcerting than the snaps/pops/creaks. Ew.

I envy y'all with great joints. Really, I do. :)

Anyway, if you haven't seen Allan's chart over at Almost Gastric Bypass, go take a look. I'm the fifth name down on his chart: "Mir". Pretty nifty, huh? The tortoise just hangs in there and does okay....

Have a Thursday your body will thank you for, k?

Day 24 of Phase 4 Challenge: Yesterday's Particulars, Calm Mood Persists, Hot Cake Hankering, the Joy of a Flatter TumTum, the pain of hips that endured too much fat for too long....Litany for Fearful Overeaters (with apologies to Frank Herbert),

Scale: 227.4

Movement in right direction continues to cheer me.

Yesterday:
Calories: 1074
Exercise: walking (flaked on the strength ones, so must face them TODAY, scared of stairs)
Mood: very peaceful and content
Hunger: minimal

I'm less "high on happy", but still feeling good. It's a tranquil sort of happy. I'm moving slowly and with pondering. My pondering told me that hot cakes sounded good for breakfast.

Okay, I've been eating almost 100% clean--eggs, egg whites, veggies galore, some fruit, lean meats, cheese, nuts, Greek yogurt, water. The only "unclean stuff" was my sucralose and the occasional low-carb, low-sugar nibbly treat. Some days, not even a single sweet nibble.

My WonderSlim hot cakes are low cal, lower carb, higher protein, but not "clean". Didn't care. Wanted hot cakes. So, I made a smaller portion of egg whites and veggies and had my hot cakes and my java and water, and it was gooooooooooooooooooooooooooood. And I feel very satisfied. Fewer than 300 calories. :D

Sooooo....Yeah....backtrack: I liked waking up today. It was slow and easy and some trailing dreams lingering in my eyes as I opened them. Nice dreams. I felt my body, as I do when I wake up, and it felt...smaller. The belly felt flatter. Okay, liking it. I got up naked and went to the mirror. Yeah, looks flatter. Boobies look flatter, too, but not going there. Tranquil, tranquil....

I like how my hands can lay on my torso when I lay on my back (and yes, I'm back to sleeping in my fave position, thank you weight loss). It's not trying to stretch over the fat barrel of my torso. My hands were comby. My elbows flush on the mattress at my waist. It was nice. Real nice.

Then I thought about the strength exercises and shuddered a bit. I've been putting them off.

I've seen blog entries lately on fear--fear of failure, fear of socializing, fear of dating, fear of one's own fat body, fear of the future.

I'm a champ at fear. I am a worry wart, an anxious Annabella. I have sabotaged myself over and over out of assorted fears, including fear of failure.

I almost didn't join the P4 challenge out of fear of 1200 calories and the exercises we'd have to do. Seriously, how defective am I?

I'm no longer afraid of 1200 calories, as I barely make it some days and don't even bother to try and make it others when eating has no allure.

Exercise is still a fear-generator. I have discovered that my hips are WORSE than I realized. My knees and right ankle--I knew those were crap, especially the L unstable knee. And while after age 49, I noticed increasing aches in my right hip, since losing weight and beginning walking and doing squats, I have come to the realization that my hips are really not so good. I have more mobility there since the fat has moved out of the way to some degree. (I have a lot less thigh and hip and pubic fat.)

My hips hurt EVERY DAY. When I walk, the first few minutes are painful, then things ease up.

I think the thing that may have happened (and this will be another subject to discuss with my ortho come the future appointment I will make when I'm ready to ratchet up activity and see if my knee has a fix) is that I damaged those hips through nearly 20 sedentary years. Years of sitting with little movement. Years of fat causing pressure on those joints--and abdominal obesity like mine has to be hard on that area, has to be! Years of deforming movement requiring the hips to be a way that's unnatural, unintended.

Well, the damage is done. But the fear remains. So, I brought back an old habit of mine from my teen years (when I was more risk-taking than now). I brought back the Litany of Fear.

Did you catch that reference? No??

Pity. You've missed one of the grandest reading experiences science fiction has to offer. My fave sci-fi novel: DUNE. I have read it at least 14 to 16 times since I was 16...the age at which I discovered it and my passion for this genre.

Here is the Litany of Fear, a chant used by characters to calm and center themselves when they were in dire situations:

"I must not fear.

Fear is the mind-killer.

Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.

I will face my fear.

I will permit it to pass over me and through me.

And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.

Where the fear has gone there will be nothing...... Only I will remain."

 

I wish I had heeded this message fully when I was younger. I might have accomplished a lot more of what I wished to in life had I not been crippled by self-doubt, insecurity,  and fear.

One could easily rewrite it for a particular situation:

I will not fear lowering my calories...
I will face 1200 calories..
I will allow it to satisfy me, nourish me...
Where the extra calories and fear have gone, nothing will remain, only a slenderer me.


I will not fear stairwork....
Where the fear is gone, there will be nothing ...only I with stronger muscles.

I will not overeat.
Overeating is a mind and body killer.
Overeating is the little-death that brings the big-death sooner
I will allow the urge to overeat pass through me...
Only I will remain.


I will not fear the stressors and emotions that make me want to eat...
Stress is the mind killer....
I will let those feelings and fears and anxieties pass through me...
Only I, calm and centered and undefeated,  will remain.

Something like that.

This is part of my day today. Not fearing. Letting it pass through me. I will remain..and it will be a better, less anxious me. A stronger me.

I hope if you are, like me, one of those people riddled with self-doubt, fears, whatever: use the litany. If it  helps, why not?

And let's get over our fears --of giving up food luxuries for a while or forever, of moving a body that hasn't been used to movement of certain kinds (or any), of a changing body (not always for the best, as we saggy-skinners can attest post-weight loss), of a changing life.

Change can be scary. But change says LIFE. LIFE IS CHANGE. I wanna feel MORE alive.

Have a Well Wednesday. Eat soundly. Move . Drink clean water. Love yourself enough to change for health....