#165 Temptations (01/14/13)

Well today seems to be testing my will power a bit.  Normally on Tuesdays work brings around a tea cart with a sample of cookies.  This is a fun treat option once a week.  Today they brought it around and will also be bringing it tomorrow, the proper day.  I did have a herbal mint tea no cream or sugar, and resisted all the cookies, even though there were some interesting new ones available from a gourmet pack of chocolate covered cream looking cookies, or the wafer tubes with chocolate in them, one of my usual weaknesses.  Sometime ago it would have taking a sumo wrestler to hold me back from taking one, or four. 

As another temptation today, work offered pizza, which is not a usual thing.  For some reason, today, that didn’t even register as an “ooh that sounds good.”  All I could think of was the grease pooling on the cheese and it didn’t appeal to me today.  There have been days in the past the sound of a good cheesy pizza was the fabulous idea for snack, or dinner, or breakfast, or sometimes lunch. 

Maybe I’m just coming down with the flu, or maybe I’m getting willpower of steel resisting evil food temptations.  Well; probably not either, just getting better in general at excuse #4 Food weaknesses and #6 Resisting Peer Pressure for Food. 

As far as caffeine update, I have been limiting myself to one 16 oz coffee per day.  The first few days were a bit of a snooze by the time I got off work, but I managed.  I’ve been doing this for one week now.  If I must have another cup of coffee, it must be decaf.  This is to have weaned off for if (when) I get pregnant.  I don’t want to have a fetus vibrating from my caffeine consumption.  I don’t think I will be able to wean off the morning cup, but we will see how things go.  

#158 Christmas Baking & Diets (12/20/12)

My willpower over Christmas baking is almost nil.  We are trying to be good and do up lower calorie jams, candied ginger (high sugar, but you only eat one or two), etc for our general baking.  But then there is the stuff out of the daily recipe book that we are trying.  December seems to be mostly deserts.  We have skipped a bunch for caloric reasons, but some are just too tempting to skip. 

Then a co worker of mine gave me some homemade fudge and a marshmallow chocolate log slices.  My wife and I have been sharing them.  However on the day that I received them and they were sitting on my desk, they were calling my name and I couldn’t resist trying some of them. 

The other day, my wife’s desk was the hub of activity so all of the boxes Christmas chocolates that customers were leaving for the office sat on her desk.  She had greater will power than I would have; she just tried two of the truffles and skipped the Pot of Gold.  I would have tried some of each I’m sure.

Our MIL brought over some Christmas baking too.  Some cakes and something else that is perfectly dangerous.  Popcorn Twists Caramel Corn.  We have been pacing ourselves on eating that, and we are probably thankful that she only gave a small container.  This is a recipe that would be diet derailment to make I’m sure, because I wouldn’t stop eating until it’s gone. 

At Christmas there is just a myriad of things to try and most of which are delicious.  It has been a lifetime habit to try at LEAST one of everything offered.  It is a very difficult habit to break.  At this point I guess the compromise is not to try everything on the same day.  Try one or two things today, another tomorrow etc, instead of trying everything now, and seconds on things tomorrow, with new options as well. 

The other hard thing is, with most items being other peoples homemade baking; it is very difficult to log it on MFP.  I am trying to log with best intentions, but finding it frustrating and a little annoying to see my calories be over most days this past little while.  But I am trying to log to be true to the system, and that is helping keeping me from grabbing another nibble in the late evening.  

I guess this is Excuse #10 – Holiday Cheat/Treats.  There really isn’t a rebuttal for this.  It is just that, an excuse.  Just break the habit and remember moderation is the best I can do.  I’m working on curbing that habit, but I don’t think I will have that licked this holiday.  The goal is to not gain weight though, so let’s see how I do.  We are also keeping priority on making some time to work out so maybe, just maybe there will be a loss in the next two weeks. 

#128 Timeline of IUI (09/11/12)

Well, it has been a fairly long journey to get to this point, and it is going to be a bit longer.  The trip started pretty much at the beginning of this year when my wife tried to quit smoking.  That took a few months, then testing for Rubella, and getting on the wait list for the fertility clinic.   It was about five months ago that we got the phone call about when we might get our first appointment.  After testing, purchasing sperm and more testing we now have a new timeline. 

The surgery to remove the polyp in my uterus is scheduled for mid November.  That is another two months away, then another cycle after that for our first attempt.  Late November would be my first ovulation after the surgery.  That is too early in my opinion, no healing time.  However the next ovulation would be over the Christmas/New Year period, which after reading a few other blogs, I’m not convinced our clinic will be open those days.  I’ve emailed the clinic to check. 

On the upside, that gives me more time to lose weight, on the downside, that is lessening the possibility of my Grandma flying over for the birth, even now that is a remote possibility.  My boss is happy of the delayed timeframe.  She is in slight denial that I would be leaving for maternity leave.    

As my other posts before this one, New Month, New Vigor or New Month, New Motivation, I need to kick up my weight loss again.  I don’t think I’m the only one that goes through this cycle of three steps forward and two steps backwards, or should I say three pounds lost, and two pounds gained.  As long as it doesn’t turn into two pounds lost and three gained, repeatedly it is still technically progress. 

So now I need to get rid of the cruise pounds, and continue on my weight loss lifestyle.  Going from full buffet for a week to normal is a hard transition.  I just had three cookies with Tea Tuesday.  Not a good diet choice.  Our vegetables haven’t been cut yet for our lunch salads either; Sunday had very good reasons, Monday medium good reason.  But tonight it is the night they have to get done.  I think my body is craving the veggies again. 

My current goal is to work out on Tuesdays and Thursdays, NO EXCUSES.  The closer I get to possible pregnancy the more worried I am that I will be put on bed rest because my body can’t support the weight of baby and pregnancy gain.  Well, today is Tuesday, and I have a million other things that need to be done, but I NEED to put working out in the top three. 

On the fertility goals, I have also put an email into our friend who is a Fertility Acupuncturist, who owns a clinic that focuses on Fertility, which also has massage, and chiropractic, along with a few other services. Currently I have three extended medical plans which has coverage for such things, and two of which have amounts that expire at the end of the year, thus, I might as well use them up.  So I am trying to be one relaxed cookie by the time I go for the first IUI treatment.  If only the plans also covered Manis/Pettis, that would be the ultimate relaxation day. 

#51 Cookie Monster Eating Back Calories (05/15/12)

Overall in a day my wife and I are under on our fat content %.  Hard to believe I know.  We tried to eliminate all excess fat items, and switched to lower fat ones ie FF Yogurt, FF Dressing, Light Cottage Cheese, light cheddar some of the time, lean meats etc. But apparently that was a little too much.  Too little fat in your diet and one of the major issues is, you hair falls out.  We haven’t hit that point as we do have some fats in our diet, but I think we need to balance off the carbohydrates with a little more fat.  This for me is a hard pill to swallow, as most of my life “FAT is the enemy, cut out fat from your diet to lose weight, etc.” But we are trying to have a balance diet, so if we increase the fat, our carbs should go down, provided we keep to the calorie allotment. 

To help bring up our fat content we have introduced 2% cottage cheese, and OMG Homo Milk.  That is 3.25% creamy milk.  I grew up on homo, but in adulthood switched to 2% in an attempt to limit fat.  As why I’m here, that really was a drop in a bucket that didn’t help.  The down side to having yummy milk in the house, what goes well with milk?  COOKIES. 

This past week my wife and I have been under our net calories near the end of the day.  This is due to Fitbit adjustment and or exercise credits.  To top off the calorie balance we have been having milk and cookies.  So that is upping our carbs (sugars) along with the milk to bring up the fat, therefore not really increasing our fat %.  However, the cookies are also trying to sneak in other areas.  Today is tea Tuesday, which also has cookies available and because I have been having cookies, I’m almost craving them.  I don’t think I will be able to resist tea and cookie(s).  Another sneaky cookie, on the weekend morning, I had a cookie with my coffee.  A long time habit I had well into my adulthood, once again 2% milk to save fat, but having cookies for breakfast.  I know how I got here; not very good choices.  Don’t dwell on the past, just try and not have history repeat itself.

My challenge to myself this week was to be as close the net 0 calories as possible for eating, to try the “Eat more to lose weight” but what is another food that is good for topping off calories, that is mostly eek, FAT.  Plus eating in late evenings isn’t very good, but I don’t want to eat too much during the day and end up going over.  This is a delicate maneuver.....calorie balancing.  I’m sure I’ll get the hang of it soon enough. 

In general cooking I’m going to start to include olive oil to help increase a little, but that can be another slippery slope, literally.  Those fat calories add up quickly.  For every gram of fat it is 2.25 times the calories per gram of carb or protein. 

Today I’m starving.  Not too sure why.  I’m not very active, eaten a little less than usual, but not that much less.  Weird.