I’ve been approached by a few people, so I figured this would make a good post topic. I’ve been taking Alli for about two months now, maybe more. For those of you who do not know, Alli is an over-the-counter low dose of Orlistat. It prevents your body from absorbing any fat that is consumed. Simply take a pill with any meals that contain fat and let it do the rest of the work for you.

Since Alli prohibits the absorption of fat, any fat that you eat will be passed. Yes, your poop looks kinda odd, but it’s just the fat coming out with the poop. Another benefit for me (serious TMI here) is that is made me regular. I’ve always had stomach issues and while on that stuff, I’ve become clockwork!

The stuff they tell you on the box and in the books is that you can loose up to 50% more weight. So in the time you would loose 10 pounds, you could loose up to 15. I’m aiming to loose 30, so 45 would just be gravy!

Now, I have to say that it’s not a miracle cure. You still need to 1) watch your diet and 2) exercise. These are both a *must.* If you have more then the allotted fat amount, you will experience what they refer to as “treatment effects.”

IF YOU TAKE ALLI REGULARLY AND CHOOSE TO SKIP A PILL TO SPLURGE, YOU WILL CAN EXPERIENCE TREATMENT EFFECTS!

Trust me; I learned this the hard way. Just don’t cheat and / or splurge unless you are prepared for the consequences. It’s serious for those who are trying hard and want that extra bit to help them stay the course. Once you have a treatment effect you won’t want to make that mistake again.

If you follow a low fat diet (like Weight Watchers or South Beach), you will be in luck. This does NOT work with diets such as Atkins. There is simply too much fat in it and you will be a walking time bomb of poop…. But(t) worse.

Don’t be afraid to try it – I like using it and have been finding it helpful to use.

The dieting had stalled for a week or so. I didn’t fall off the wagon, but I certainly was hanging off the sides and holding on to dear life.

I had run out of Alli, was short on cash to buy some more and just started eating off routine.
..and those damned M&Ms! Lol

..actually, there is still ½ a bag in my freezer. I hope for them to stay there for a very, very, very long time.

So, back on the wagon. Stayed on points yesterday and that included a super-hard workout at the gym, a make-shift dinner via Starbucks and a nice big latte (skinny of course!)

Today I am also perfectly on target. I planned my dinner already. I am going to have a Boca burger on toasted bread with a slice of pepper jack cheese, some steamed veggies and a bag of baked chee-tos (100 calorie bag of course!).

I’ve learned that my breakfast tides me over longer when I add 2 hardboiled egg whites to the mix ( I don’t like the yoke). So while I am at the grocery store this afternoon I will buy a dozen eggs and boil them up. No sense for me to buy hard boiled eggs in the café every day.

So my weight has luckily maintained. I’ve got a new jar of 120 Alli pills, nothing but time to spend at the gym and a healthy grocery store trek ahead of me.

Can we cross our fingers and dream of 196 on Monday????

I’ve been doing really well with my WW points. I do not rely on activity points to get me through my day and I’ve barely touched any weekly points. I am consistently searching for different low point foods. Since I am no longer cooking for two, and now have a kitchen 1/3 the size of my previous one (and that was small to begin with) I’m really not cooking. I used my microwave for the first time yesterday – only to heat up a lean cuisine meal and some popcorn later on. I have a feeling I will be living like this for a while now. Do you think I can manage to have a $0 bill from the gas company this month? Lol

Here is an average food day for me

Breakfast (5 points)
WW bagel
Wedge of laughing cow light cheese
Tub of jam / jelly
Decaf coffee w 2% milk and a splenda

Lunch (4-6 points)
Lean Cuisine / Healthy Choice / WW meal (4-6 point range)
Sometimes supplement with veggies, salad or soup from the cafe

Snack (2 points)
Yogurt (WW or Dannon light n fit)
Piece of fruit

Dinner (4-6 points)
Lean Cuisine / Healthy Choice / WW meal (4-6 point range)
Or
Sandwich consisting of turkey and cheese on WW bread or pita

Dessert: (3-4 points)
WW ice cream novelty
Popcorn

Daily total: 18-23 points.

I suppose that is why I have been having such good weight losses. I am seriously under my points. I am supposed to be eating 25 points per day. Plus I am taking Alli on top of all this.

Ok – lesson learned. I need to throw a mid-morning snack into the mix or having a bigger dinner or SOMETHING. I don’t want to mess up my metabolism by eating too little. Then I’ll freaking just gain everything right back.

Last week I used about half my weekly flex points. This week I have not touched them, and I am hoping not to this week… but I guess we’ll see what happens tonight. I’ve decided that I am going to go directly to Daniel’s house and pack up my wine, wine holder and jewelry armoire. While I am there I will begin packing books into boxes and trying to fit a couple more things into my Jeep. With luck I can get this narrowed down to one more trip after today.

After I pack up, I’ll head to the wine shop to have a glass with a couple of friends. I am going to take it easy considering all the lovely activities of this past weekend. And no xanax for me today (or not since the ¼ I took this morning when I could not stop crying at my desk.)

Ok – all done with lunch. Off to take my 15 minute walk and getting back to the routine.

I want to eat everything in sight already; I suppose this is not a good “mental start.” Don’t worry; not everything in sight has made it into my mouth.

I’m eating my Luna bar now…. only 15 minutes after consuming lunch.

I had my three bites of whole wheat pasta with a HUGE 2 point salad to boot. I went to the salad bar at work and loaded up on all the 0 point veggies, 1 table spoon of parmesan cheese and 1 tsp of olive oil. As soon as I had this monstrous healthy salad in front of my – I didn’t want it anymore. Figures, right? Nevertheless, I ate it along with my pasta.

I’ve consumed 14 points so far. Part of the problem was that I consumed too many breakfast points, 8.5 to be exact. I had 1.5 cups of cereal instead of 1 cup… I didn’t want to leave just ½ a cup in the bag… I should have just thrown it away! In addition, I need to decide if I want to make any changes regarding my morning beverage. Lately I have been drinking decaf with 2% milk and splenda. The milk is 1 point. Now I could just take some of the skim milk from my cereal and put it into the coffee….. HOWEVER, I’m not big on skim in my coffee I really prefer 2%. OR I could switch back to tea, which usually does not include ANY dairy or sweetener…. I’m thinking that sounds like the better route.

I also need to LOAD up on the fruit and veggies. Next week will be another Peapod delivery, so that should be ok soon enough. What the HECK am I going to do over the weekend???? I seriously need to brush up on my WW knowledge; it’s been far too long!

Heather blogged about an American Heart Association sanctioned diet. It is a rather strict diet, consisting of around 1200 calories per day, for three days. Not only is it low cal, but it appears to be quite lean, and consists of food combinations that are supposed to be successful on a chemical level.

I’ve decided to give it a try. No silly, not this weekend. But in the near future. I chose May 6-8th to be my dates. I have to wait until after my next peapod delivery, so that I actually have the food in the house, and I refuse to go to the grocery store until I can get better at grocery shopping.

The diet can supposedly help you drop 10 pounds over the three days. I am assuming there is a detoxification process that will be going on. The diet states that you can repeat it four times a month, ultimately loosing up to 40 pounds in one month. Now, I realize this is crazy, and I don’t want to live on a diet as limited as this, but I think that if this is successful, I can repeat it again in late May and once again in mid-June.

I was just playing around with number, and if I am successful at this, and even loose only 5 pounds per try…. Well, I just might be able to go to England weighing 180-185 pounds and possibly being in a size 14 again.

Ahhhh…. Just the thought of that is heavenly.

I like to have cereal for breakfast, when I get to work. I can’t seem to eat breakfast as soon as I get up. I need an hour or so to do whatever it is that needs to be done. For the past few months I have been buying Kashi Heart to Heart with blueberry clusters – great stuff. It’s very high in fiber and has a great flavor.

This week I decided to switch things up a bit. I purchased Kashi’s Good Friends Cinna-Raisin Crunch. First of all, it was about 60 cents cheaper then the Heart to Heart – for the same size box!

When I opened the box, I was pleasantly surprised. It was pretty cool looking! I was not greeted by bran sticks, there was a happy medley of bran “logs” flakes, raisins, and I am sure more stuff.

I then poured out 1.5 cups into my bowl, sprinkled ½ a packet of Splenda on it and covered it in skim milk. As I dug my spoon into the bowl I noticed how think it felt. I knew that this bowl was going to keep me full for a while!

A few minutes later the bowl was empty again, and I was quite full. I was very pleased with the cereal and then decided to give it the full test. I compared the nutritional factors with my old stand-by.

Again – Good Friends won! Not only is it LOWER in calories, but also fat, sodium, and carbs (just barely) ALSO is higher in fiber, potassium. The only plus on the hart to heart, is that it has 8 grams of protein whereas the good friends only have 4.

I think I found a new cereal to enjoy!

Lunch Review…

I’ve avoided pre-packaged foods for quite some time. But I have learned that they help me stay true to both my diet and my finances. With my Peapod delivery last night, I obtained a small collection of frozen meals.

Today I ate a Café Steamer by Healthy Choice. This was a General Tso’s Chicken dish. Since I make most of my own food, I was quite skeptical. I was wondering if there would be any flavors that even resembled the sweet-tangy-spicy-ness of General Tso’s.

The meal came in a “Unique Steam Cooker” which meant a plastic colander sitting atop a plastic bowl. I cringed at throwing away that plastic, here you go Earth – have a few more steps for my carbon footprint!

The directions called for 3-5 minutes. I chose 3 minutes since this box had been sitting in my lunch bag for the past 5 hours, and not in a freezer. Of course I was too lazy to check out the consistency when I took it out of the microwave.

Yes, the rice was partially frozen…. Well, there were a few ice particles – but they quickly melted once I pulled out the colander and stirred all the juices in.

Here is part of my confusion. The purpose of that “unique steam cooker” was so that it steamed – not boiled in its juices. Well, there was a small puddle of water that was all mixed in with the sauce… so I steamed it then put the juices back into the bowl?

I guess it’s good that I am not THAT picky!

Anyway, I mixed it all up, sauces, rice and breaded chicken. The flavor was quite nice. The sauce was thick and spicy and did genuinely remind me of a meal from the Chinese place on the corner. The one part that.. well, it was acceptable for me, but I am certain others would cringe…. But the chicken was breaded and the breading was all damp and spongy.

Like I said, I’m not all too picky. I’d probably buy it again if it was on sale. If its not on sale, I am sure I will pass over it.

The nutritional factors are ok. 430 calories, 9 grams of fat – 1 of them are saturated. 5 grams of fiber, 17 grams of protein. As with all pre-packaged meals…. WAY too much sodium, 600mg to be exact.

So that’s my story. Healthy Choice’s Café Steamer’s General Tso’s Chicken.

yea! Happy little mile-ston on the left there! WOOOHOOOO

Maybe I can hit 185 before England???? 10 weeks, 2 days and counting.

Jenera’s post from yesterday and some conversations of recent are continuing to give me a kick in the rear.

Now presenting – GOALS FOR APRIL (not to be confused with April)

• Continuing to drink 100 ounces of water a day. I do a great job with this Monday through Friday. Now I need to work on the weekends as well.
• Exercise will be broken down into a few components.

1. I will begin taking Yoga classes at a local studio. I am going to start with once a week for April. As a sneak-peak into the future, I want to bump this up to two or three classes a week in May (maybe even later in April.)

2. Continue walking, but more frequently, and add some distance. Once a week I am going to walk the “big loop” close to home, which is about 5 miles.

3. I will go to the gym and sweat it good three times a week. The other two days I will walk for 30-45 minutes.

• Calories – I have started a trial of eating closer to my basal metabolic rate. I had a trying few days, so I cannot confidently say if it is working or not. I am going to continue to take this approach for two more weeks. If I see results I am happy with, I will continue. If I do not see such results, I will switch back to the 1500-1550 plan I was previously on.
• Check-in on my progress regularly, meaning that I will use this blog as my opportunity to food journal and keep myself honest on this plan.

As a reminder to all, especially myself, in less then 90 days I will be in England. Obviously I won’t be sporting a bikini…(and who would in cold and rainy England!) but if I could be a size 14 (I am currently a 16) I would feel extremely accomplished.

I had a quick conversation with my Nutritionist this morning; my last post generated these questions. I’ve decided to tweak things a little bit. I am going to use the Herris-Benedict equation, shared by Jenera a month ago or so.

My Basal Metabolic Rate is 1725. Considering the fact that I sit in front of the computer every day, 10+ hours a day… I consider myself to be pretty sedentary. This means that in order to maintain my weight, I should consume approximately 2070 calories per day.

I’ve been consuming closer to 1500 per day. As of today, I am going to increase this number to a range between 1650-1750 per day. This is supposed to be my optimal range for weight loss. In addition, it’s time to throw in some high-impact. I am still going to walk, but I am going to begin throwing in some intervals of jogging…. Working my way up to being able to run again.

This summer I am going to see if I can start doing 5ks again. This would be a great goal to work towards as well as a wonderful activity for both Daniel and I to do together on the weekends.

Ok, back to the food. I am trying to figure out how to break down these calories. I am thinking three meals and three snacks…
Breakfast: 350-400 calories
Snack 1 200 calories
Lunch 400-440 calories
Snack 2 200 calories
Dinner 400-440 calories
Snack 3 100 calories

Total: 1650-1780

Well, something is working. Today I saw my weight hit a low that I have not seen in quite a few months. If I continue at this rate, I should expect to be out of these pesky 200s quite soon!

My overall goal is large, so I really don’t want to focus on that at all. I do not want to discourage myself. I am going to work on it step by step.

My first goal is to get to 199 and stay below that number for a few weeks. We all know about those minor fluctuations, especially during certain times of the month. I want my fluctuations to be less then 199. I never want to see that evil 2-something again… even if it is 200.1

Eliminate the 200s from my life!

Once I achieve that goal, I will think about the next one. In the meantime, I will focus on how I will achieve my goal.

I am eating 3 servings of whole grains per day, 6 servings of produce, 100 ounces of water, and *some* form of exercise every day. I committed to one of the fitness instructors that he will see me at the gym every day this week, because of this I am feeling much more motivated. I do a 30-minute power walk daily, a few times a week I want to add a full-body routine for toning. On Friday, I am going to make the same commitment to him as I have my Biggest Looser Weigh-in.

Did I tell you about the Biggest Looser contest I joined? It’s through the fitness center at work. It’s a 13 week challenge. We had our measurements and body fat tested in the first week…. We will again halfway through and at the end. There are individual and team prizes. Last year I was on the winning team although I lost about 3 pounds overall. This year I am charged, determined and will succeed. I don’t need to win the challenge, I need to loose the weight and feel good about myself, one step at a time.

Sabotaged!

I went to the café to get my veggie plate. Our cafeteria has many options. In the hot lunch line there is a veggie plate option with a reduced cost. For a mere $2.50 I can get a large “to go” container filled with 3 vegetable side dishes. There are between 3 and 5 vegetables offered a day, so you can usually pick your preferences. The veggies are all steamed, no butter, no oil – nice, healthy meals.

When I arrived at the café, all my plans were thrown out the window! There was only one vegetable choice, mixed corn (yech!) There were potatoes, beans, and a whole bunch of other stuff not no three sides of vegetables! I turned my nose up at the soups, avoided the hot wings, pizza and grill line like the plague! My only options were sandwich line and salad bar. I thought a whole wheat wrap would be a nice alternative. Whole grains are wonderful. I can get roasted turkey, load up on the raw veggies, a little mustard and splurge with a slice of reduced fat cheese! Once I had the perfect wrap in my hands, I then went over to the salad bar. I knew I needed more veggies. I was going to be strict! No macaroni salad, anything covered in oils – nothing like that. I got a nice bowlful of mixed baby greens, some shredded carrots, a table spoon of grated parmesan cheese then I had the wonderful inspiration – mandarin oranges! I put a nice scoop of them on my salad. I turned my nose up at the dressing as well. They tend to be higher in saturated fat, so I opted for some olive oil and sherry vinegar.

Although it was expensive ($6.50) it was quite yummy and very filling! I went to www.myfooddiary.com and logged in my meal. The salad was approximately 190 calories, the majority coming from the olive oil. Then the shocking new came. That “perfect” wrap was not so perfect, 450 calories! SO what began as a nice, well rounded lunch punched me right in the gut! 640 calories in total. This brings me to 1196 for the day. Now I am going to have to get creative for dinner… I was planning on making turkey sausage and veggies…. Well, unless I just have the veggies and Daniel gets the sausage…. Heck, maybe that is a good idea.

It's only fair...

I think I figured it out. With each size I get into I will purchase the following:

• 2 pairs of pants
• 1 dress
• 1 skirt (ok, maybe 2)
• 3 tops
• 5 pairs of underwear

I think that is fair to tame the shopoholic and reward / incent the weight loss….

Not to mention I already have some “skinny” clothes tucked away…. Just a few sizes to small. They fit me wonderfully only a few years ago, and my work clothes really are of a classic style, so they won’t be outdated when I get into them (notice the WHEN, not if!)

Some days are harder then others, with regards to the diet. I did ok yesterday. I consumed 1596 calories, too high. No exercise either. I have no excuse, I should have made the time. I know I say this time and time again, but I often find it difficult to peel myself away from my desk and go over to that fitness center. I need to remember that I am my priority, not working 10.5 hour long days. Heck, 30 minutes at the gym and I’ll still put in 10 hours at my desk.

Why am I struggling with this so much?

Needless to say, I will be going to the gym on my lunch break. Tomorrow I won’t be able to work out, but I am assuming I will get a lot of walking in, since Daniel and I will be in the city for a taping of Letterman…. Speaking of which, make sure to set your DVRs to record it! Maybe you will see us on the camera. I’m thinking of wearing my new favorite red sweater…. So look for red!

It was a good day, but I still need some polishing. Here are my results of last night. I had to display it as pictures because it really made me happy to see such verbiage…

While I am at it, I figured I would show you my smiley faces.

This is all courtesy of http://www.myfooddiary.com/

…oh, and the scale said 208.6. Yea, I know. I wasn’t going to weigh myself regularly, but the more I look on-line to more I read that weighting regularly is good. In fact – check this out…

1767 calories yesterday (1639 net). Much higher then desired, but livable. According to www.myfooddiary.com if I ate like this every day it would take me until 9/2009 to meet my goals! Eeek.

I know what my mistake was yesterday… it was having my lunch early and then getting cereal from the café. The cereal is in these unnecessarily HUGE servings. These bowls are roughly 1/3 larger then the recommended serving size. Going forward, I am going to make sure I eat ONLY the cereal at my desk, if I am having cereal at all.

Also, I am only allowing myself to eat three items from the café, turkey chili (they make an awesome one on Thursdays), soups (only healthy ones, luckily they provide all the nutritional factors so that I can make smart decisions), veggie plates (3 steamed vegetable side dishes) and baked potatoes (they have a baked potato bar once or twice a month.)

I don’t even want to have the salad bar anymore. I get tempted by some of the fattening things on there… like tuna and macaroni salad or tomatoes and cheese marinated in olive oil.

So like I said, I identified my downfall from yesterday, I am using it as a learning experience and moving forward. Today I am on target for a better day, and I am determined to keep up with it.

(oh... and the scale said 209.4 again)

…although I am a little bummed about my calorie intake. It’s not crazy bad, not at all. But I am on target to consume 1700 calories. 200 more then my goal… SO I am pretty much negating what I accomplished by working out. I could easily consume more, too. But I am going to limit my dinner to 4 oz of boneless skinless chicken, a baked potato and whatever type of frozen veggies I decide to heat up.

I’m blaming my tuna sandwich. Instead of having my morning snack of fruit, I had to have that damned tuna sandwich. It was supposed to be my lunch, I load it with a ton of minced veggies and its very low in mayo… but I was craving it, so I had that as my snack instead of my lunch… then when lunch came around I went to the café and got a bowl of cereal. I should have eaten the cereal at my desk. That freaking Special K with red berries was 270 calories! While my Kashi is 200.

Oh well, lesson learned. …Better luck tomorrow….

I think I have said this before, but I am saying this again. I cannot loose weight by diet alone. I average 1550 calories a day, but my weight is not going in the right direction. Today I weighed 211.0 That is almost two pounds higher then last week!?! WTF???? Yes, I did go way over my calories on Saturday. I drank 5 glasses of wine over the course of an afternoon and evening. That resulted in 2644 calories that day, but all other days I was ok. Here are my results:

Tuesday: 1703 (net 1503)
Wednesday: 1609 (net 1570)
Thursday: 1533
Friday: 1457
Saturday: 2644
Sunday: 1587
Monday: 1562

Looking back, I see that I did nowhere near enough exercise. One day is not good enough. I am going to challenge myself to work out 4 times per week… starting today.

I am torn on whether or not I should maintain my calories intake around 1550 or if I should increase it to 1600 on the days that I exercise. I know that I am going to be hungrier these days. I think I am going to start at maintaining the calories intake and see how it goes from there. The exercise should shake things up and help me to start seeing those numbers go down. I hope.

My mind is finally wrapping around vegetarian ideas. It took a while to get there, but I think I found the highway entering the right state…

Lat night’s couscous gone wild got me thinking… if you have lots of flavor and fun stuff to add into the mix, good hearty grains and a protein source, you can do most anything.

Again, lets take last night’s recipe as an example. I can substitute pretty much any vegetable… celery, carrots, onions, eggplant, squash…. I can’t really think of anything that wouldn’t work. Next, lets look at the protein – last night I chose pinto beans. I can substitute pretty much any other type of bean… tofu would work too. Liquids – again, substitute away. Wine, beef stock, veggie stock, soup mix (rather not and stick to less processed products). Grains – lets go with brown rice, millet, bulgur, barley or whatever instead of couscous… I just have to moderate the amount of liquid and cooking time…

…speaking of cooking time… instead of the 20 minutes or so this took me, I can put it all in the crock pot so that the flavors have the time to fully emulsify. I think I would only do that for two things 1) heartier grains like millet, bulgur, etc…. and 2) tofu as my protein of choice.

My mind is racing with all the things that I could pick up at the grocery store and make some fun vegetarian based meals….

I did well yesterday. 1703 calories consumed yesterday, I burned 200 via exercise, giving me a net 1503 calories. My handy-dandy web tracking home, www.myfooddiary.com gave me 9 smiley faces for the following:

• I burned 200.3 calories in exercise
• High fiber breakfast
• Meeting my water consumption goal (and far exceeded it because I am aiming for 105 ounces a day)
• Eating fiber rich foods all day
• 130% daily recommendation of calcium
• 185% daily recommendation of vitamin A
• 105% daily recommendation of iron (I’m sure it was more because I also take iron supplements for my never-ending anemia)
• Yea – no dessert!

I did get two sad faces…. They are somewhat common, meaning I get these once or twice a week. I really need to figure out how to eliminate them from my diet:

• Saturated fats accounted for 10.9% of my diet – they should be under 9%
• I consumed 2415mg of sodium, I should stay under 2400mg.

My crazy couscous was good! It is a meal worth adding to my vegetarian repertoire. I’ll make sure to post my recipe up in a bit.

…damned “recipe.” Twice I had to fix the spelling of that word.

I’m on a good track for today, wish me luck with keeping it up. I want to see a HUGE loss for next week :)