Last Post for Awhile

We are leaving for Italy in less than 2 hours but I wanted to touch base to let you know how I'm doing on day 23. Not great, but in a far better place than I was three weeks ago. And it's never bad to go to Italy not weighing in at your highest ever weight!

I'd like to think I won't gain more than I've lost over the past three weeks, but only time will tell.

Ciao for now. I'll be back... and ready to recommit.

Day 23: 44.4 lbs to go

You feel like you're sacrificing... but it doesn't show on the scale

The key lime pie I didn't eat

I'll admit to being a little disappointed. You know how when you're watching what you're eating and you feel like you're sacrificing so much... and not only does the scale not budge, but it goes up a little? Frustrating, right? That's the point I'm at right now.

I can even list most of the things I haven't had over the past few days. Just say no, right?
Today: Italian cookies, an Italian hot pressed sandwich, key lime pie, gobs of ranch dressing
Yesterday: Cheese and crackers, mini quiches, Olive Garden breadsticks!
Sunday: Fried calamari, French fries, beer

Get the gist?

I've also done plenty of things right. So maybe it will all work out eventually. But yikes, only 9 days until we leave for Italy. I wanted to have lost 10 lbs by departure time. Only kidding...


Day 14: 46.4 lbs to go

The honey cake saga

This evening was the monthly Sabbath potluck dinner at my synagogue. Since it was the Friday before the start of the Jewish New Year, we decided we were going to try to have a holiday themed dinner. I decided that it would be a great idea to make honey cake. I've made it the past two years and it's been a big hit. I wanted a taste, but didn't want the cake in the house. This plan seemed ideal.

The cake was as easy to make as I remembered. Throw a bunch of ingredients into a bowl in the proper order, pour it into a loaf pan, pop it in the oven... and a little more than 30 minutes later, cake will be done.

As I was cleaning up, I noticed that the flour I used was self rising flour. Wondered if that would be a problem since the recipe also called for baking powder and baking soda. Nothing to do but try to bake the cake and find out. Into the oven it went.

I turned on the oven light after about 13 minutes to see how things were looking. And they were fine. I'd been worried the cake might rise too much. At 13 minutes, didn't seem to be the case.

Totally different story at 30 minutes.

Holy cow!

That's what I opened the oven to find. A mess. Sometime between minute 13 and minute 30, the cake had exploded - all over the oven. It was crusty on top... and around the edges... and more like pudding in the middle. It was a mess!

Quickly ran over to my computer and typed "accidentally used self rising flour" into my search engine. I guess I'm not the only person to have made this mistake. I read that it could make a cake too liquidy. Um, yup. It will cause something to rise too much. Yes, it did that, too.

Clearly I couldn't serve this cake to the folks at the synagogue. But in the process, the Chef and I started picking away at the crispy parts, commenting on how delicious it tasted, even if it looked truly terrible. I had enough ingredients in the house (including all purpose flour) so I started again from scratch!

Cake #2 looked beautiful when it came out of the oven. Just perfect. But as it sat there, it got more and more and more deflated. The Chef was aghast. "You aren't going to bring that to the synagogue, are you?" Well, I sure didn't want a perfectly good cake... okay, perfectly good except for being deflated and cracked on top... in the house. That I could pick at and eat, bite by bite.

"I'm bringing it," I declared.

"Can you please make it clear that I didn't bake the cake?" requested the Chef. I told him I'd be happy to admit to my mistake, but that it still tasted delicious and everyone would enjoy it.

I had no plans to eat a piece, having eaten enough of the first disastrous cake at home. But there was my forlorn little cake, on the buffet table, covered with someone else's spiced apples to cover up the deflated, cracked top... with only a few pieces taken out of it. I felt so sorry for this maligned little cake that I had to take another little piece. Just a little one...

Before I go to bed, I'm off to track my daily intake in myfitnesspal. Then I'll remind myself that tomorrow is another day.

Day 10: 45.8 lbs to go

Florida Bucket List - Another Check

When we moved to Florida, I created a bucket list. It has things like:

• visit The Everglades as an adult
• go to Sanibel Island
• learn to kayak
• swim with manatees
• go scalloping
• go to St. Augustine
• visit South Beach

As time goes by, I'm getting to check more and more things off my list. Today, I went scalloping for the first time. It was so much fun. Our boat captain said it was like an underwater Easter egg hunt. After I'd been out awhile, I decided it was more like snorkeling with a big bonus.

While we were boating out towards where we'd be looking for scallops, the captain was giving us instructions, dos and don'ts. I had visions of me being a scalloping failure, not being able to find any scallops - or worse yet - finding them and not being able to capture them. Not to worry. I was able to see them... and I managed to pick up 14 of them. And yes, Chef, a few moments during the nearly 2 hours that I was out in the water, I did pay more attention to photography than to finding scallops. But that's par for the course for me!

Because we live so close to where we'd gone scalloping, after we got off the boat and the captain told us that he needed an hour to an hour and a half to clean all the scallops, my friends and I came home and then one of my friends went back after showering to pick up our scallops. We definitely got more than what we found. I didn't expect to have enough for dinner. But we had a nice baggy full!

In the car driving home, we'd talked about scampi so I mentioned that to the Chef when he asked what we were having for dinner. We didn't have lemon so off I went to the grocery store to pick up some lemons. By the time I got home, the Chef had found and printed out a recipe for Bay Scallops Scampi.

Neither one of us slept last night so the Chef asked if I'd mind cooking. He'd chopped the onion for me but could I do everything else? SURE! I looked at the recipe. It seemed basic enough. More fat than I'd probably choose to use, but I was tired, too, so decided to just follow the recipe as written. It was delicious! Snorkeling burns enough calories that I had more than enough to indulge with the extra fat. Yummy meal... and to think that I gathered (some of) the scallops! Very exciting stuff.

It's day 9 and I'm still doing fine. Two more weeks to go until I get a little reprieve. I think I can do it.

Day 9: 46 pounds to go

Day 6 and all is well

Just a quick check in so you know that I haven't fallen off the wagon or thrown in the towel.

I've made it through the long holiday weekend just fine. We went to a family dinner yesterday and when I was asked (repeatedly) why I wasn't having dessert, answering, "I've decided not to eat pasta, bread or dessert before we leave for Italy." That was acceptable to all.

Teeny tiny homemade bagels

Of course, then I came home, was hungry so did eat a little teeny tiny bagel that the Chef had experimented with the day before. Seriously, it was teeny tiny. Had that with some lox and cream cheese, onions, tomato and capers, and I called it a day!

Today I didn't eat evenly enough throughout the day but when I finished logging in all I ate at dinner on myfitnesspal, I was well within my calorie allowance. I even had enough calories left for some dark chocolate tonight.

Plan for tomorrow, get back into the pool.

Day 6: 47.8 pounds to go

Everybody, into the pool

Yesterday, I got back into the pool. After one day of good eating (probably not enough eating, actually), I decided that it was time to get back into the pool.

I woke up super early to make sure I'd have time for breakfast before getting to my 10:15am water aerobics class. Obviously, I'm not a morning person... but I probably didn't need to wake up before 7am to get to a 10:15am class! The class was much more difficult than what I remembered it to be. But I made it through just fine. I even swam 8 laps once the class was over, the very first time I swam at all since last year. (Did I mention that I injured my knee last August and it still hurt to get into the pool as recently as May?) I felt good after the class although by bedtime, I was sporting some kind of weird muscle pain in the middle of my back. And it's still there now, a day later. No pain no gain? I don't think so.

Last night I got to decide what to have for dinner. My husband (from now on he will be referred to as Chef) wasn't happy about what I chose and he complained while preparing it, but we ate it and he didn't really complain about having kasha for dinner. Tonight he's once again asked me what he should prepare for dinner. It puts the pressure on me to decide well since we obviously can't always be eating just what I want. He does 99.99% of all  the cooking and we have to have a way to figure this all out.

We had lunch out again today. The portion of Caprese salad that I got was larger than what I expected. When Chef said he was still hungry after what he'd eaten, I offered the remainder of my salad to him.

"Don't you want that?"

"Well, yes, of course I want that. But I really would prefer not to eat it. I'm really trying to be careful about what I'm eating."

"Okay. Are you going to be this careful about what you're going to be eating when we're in Italy?"

I had to admit to him, and to myself, that no, I don't plan to be this careful about what I'm eating while we're in Italy. I mean, seriously, this is Italy we're talking about. I just spent mega bucks so we can go on an historical pizza tour in Naples. How careful am I going to be? Pizza is my all-time favorite food, we're going to the place where pizza was invented. I plan to eat every last bite of everything that we're offered while on our tour. Every last bite.

I don't eat much pasta here. It's not something I'd choose to order most of the time. Will I eat pasta there? I'm sure I will. I won't eat meat there. I'm a picky enough meat eater to begin with and when out of the country, nope, no meat. If I'm lucky I can get Chef to split pastries and desserts with me. And I'll just have to monitor myself when it comes to bread and cheese. I'm pretty darn good at self-monitoring myself with regard to alcoholic beverages of any kind so I'm not too worried about that.

Here's a funny thing about sharing, though. Italians in Italy, they just don't do it. The last time we were in Italy was five years ago. We went out with cousins of Chef. They heard us debating the merits of sharing this - or that - and they laughed. Why weren't we going to order our own appetizers or our own dessert? They just didn't understand. Thank goodness that Chef, while born in Italy, has adopted American habits about sharing food.

No exercise today. Had an appointment this morning during water aerobics time. Plus not sure I really want to get back into the pool until the pain in my back has lessened. I'm hoping that will be by tomorrow.

I'm going to keep on keeping on. Knowing that right now I only have to commit to this for 21 more days (and one of those days is a day I plan to fast), I think I can, I think I can, I think I can...

Day 3: 51.2 pounds to go (I'm going backwards. Not off to a very good start, am I?)

Attempt 6000 at getting back to my goal weight

Bye bye cannoli! See you in awhile.

Today is day one. Again. And maybe 6,000 is an overestimate of how many day ones I've had since September 1998. The moment when I fell off the wagon. (There have been 6,202 days in the past 17 years.)

17 years?!? Yikes! I made it to my goal weight for the first time in September 1987. You do the math. I was at goal for 11 years... and then I wasn't. Today I'm 6 pounds heavier than I was the day I first joined Weight Watchers in March 1987. Keeping with this math theme, I got to goal weight in 6 months in 1987. I'm now 17 years older... so maybe it will take me a year or two. But... if I can stick with this over the long haul, no matter what I weigh in 6 months, it will be a whole lot less than I weigh today.

The big jolt today was seeing my triglyceride number today. The highest it's ever been in my entire life. That was scary. My cholesterol has been higher... but my triglycerides have been and continue to be my biggest problem.

I think my husband finally got it.  I think. I hope. I pray. He does all the cooking in our house. Well, almost all the cooking. Every once in awhile he puts up with my "healthy cooking." For me, it's easier to have him cook. I think he understands how freaked out I was by that number. More freaked out than by the number on the scale. Or the size of my clothing.

Did he suggest we eat lunch out so that he could have what he wanted (which included this cannoli)? And so he could see what I'd order? I won't ask and he won't tell. But while he had chicken piccata, which I had a bite of (and it was delicious), I had a salad and a cup of brothy mushroom soup. And when he ate his cannoli, I drank my third glass of Pellegrino sparkling water.

And for the first time ever, ever, while not exactly making separate dinners for each of us, he cooked the pasta and potatoes in a separate pot from the vegetable bean soup he made for me.

The icing on the cake.... just a pun I couldn't resist... was eating his dessert after dinner in the other room while I cleaned up. Icing on the cake... ha, ha, ha. I crack myself up.

Today is day one (again) on myfitnesspal. And tomorrow I'm back in the pool in the morning for water aerobics.

I've got just 23 days until we leave for "the trip of a lifetime" to Italy. Italy. Yes, the place of cannolis and chicken piccata. Here's my logic for doing this now:
a) I've got the fear in me. That triglyceride number was scary.

b) I feel like crap all the time. I've been feeling like crap for a long time. And unless something changes, I will continue to feel like crap. Do I want to leave for a vacation trip to Italy feeling like crap?

c) If I wait, I'll most probably be able to maintain my current weight, as I've been doing for the past year or so. Then I'll go to Italy... and eat some things I could never get at home. It's almost like waiting for Monday to come to "restart a diet." If you notice, I'm writing this on Tuesday. I'm not waiting until Monday. I'm not waiting until after I get back from our trip weighing even more than I weigh now. I'm doing this now. Maybe between now and September 24th, I can make a dent in this weight loss. And hey, if I come home from Italy weighing exactly what I do now, that's okay... because this is the trip of a lifetime. If I don't start today, for sure I won't come home weighing what I weigh today. For sure.

d) I know from experience that the thought "Okay, this is only for the next 23 days" will make it easier to stick to. I can do anything for 23 days. Also from previous experience, I know that any success I have between now and then will be motivating. It will get me into the frame of mind that while I'm on my trip it's okay to eat what I can't get at home... but I don't have to eat the whole plate of it. If I can get it at home, skip it. (Who am I kidding? Most of what I'll see there will not be things I can get at home!) This way of thinking should make it easier to get back to healthy eating once I'm home. I know all this. I do.

Here goes...

Day 1: 49.8 lbs to go