My Diet without the word 'Die'

I have finally found the courage to make that leap of faith and start a Blog about losing some of my extra weight.  I refuse to call it a diet.  Anything with the word 'die' in it does not sound like a good thing to me. 

To tell you the truth, dear Blog, I started trying to lose weight 5 weeks and 3 days ago.  I have been wanting to lose weight for some time, and out of fear (no, not fear of failure but because of health issues), I kept postponing it.  Why try something that might kill me? What if I should fail? I had done enough of that in my life experiences. There were periods of time that I felt like the word 'failure' was my middle name. 

But one day - and I cannot remember the exactly reason why - could have been because I was just fed up with everything, I said to heck with it, if I die trying to lose weight, at least I will lay in a casket a few pounds lighter.  So off I went.

In 5 weeks plus 3 days, I have lost 10 pounds.  Holy moly.  Did not expect that to happen.  And hence came to idea to start blogging about how I am losing weight.  And of course, with the whole world reading this particular Blog Spot - sure, sure - I feel motivated enough to put myself out there and chance the ridicule of not losing any more weight.  But wait (oh how I love using words that sound the same but are spelled differently), I do need to think positive.  I WILL lose the weight I want to lose.  Especially with the world backing me up and encouraging my efforts.

So what, do you ask, Dear Blog, is the secret to my having lost 10 pounds in 5 weeks and 3 days?  Well it is not by die-ting.  It is merely be deciding to be a bit more active.  The first thing I had done was post some old pics of me on my Facebook wall.  They were pictures of my wonderfully thin and young body - of a few years ago (ok ok not just a few - but many years ago). But the ultimate reason for my wanting to lose weight was to feel better.  To have more self-confidence, and one cannot have any selfc-confidence without the word 'self' being in there.  It was time to my my-self first for once. 

Having had some health problems in the past, and being on heart meds, has not been easy - gosh at times it has been downright dreadful.  A-fib has me on Warfarin (Coumadin) and it is well known (at least by coumadin users) that the K blocker (K helps the blood clot and so Warfarin blocking K in the blood makes it clot a lot less) - anyway as any 'user' knows, it has been known to have people put on 10 pounds easily during the first few months.  A few years on it and one puts on way too much weight.  Or at least that made sense to me, although I knew that my lack of exercise might also have had something to do with the pounds being gained. 

But so what? I wanted to lose weight. It was time.  I was getting older and as I gazed at my younger self on my FB, I knew I needed something.

So - let's see - I could starve myself.  That was one option. But that did not sound very appetizing.  I might get hungry and go for a Big Mac or something as dreadful.  Eating better sounded somewhat nicer, but hey, I still wanted some pasta once in a while.  Thankfully I was not a junk food junkie. I did not even like chocolates that much - oh I could eat one or two, but I could also not eat any. Ice cream? No, that never did appeal to me. The one sweet I had trouble resisting was anything with peanut butter in it.  So all I had to do to limit any sweet craving was forgetting about getting those yummy peanut butter fudge thingies one can buy at the local corner store. Not a problem if I never went there.  But never eating pasta? Now that was another story. I loved my mac and cheese casseroles, my spaghetti, my rice (with sweet and sour meatballs of course).

So I looked around. I did not have far to look. There behind me (literally) was the basement home gym that we had done up for our son.  In there was a treadmill, a stationary bike that recorded time and calories, and a rowing machine thing.  That looked do-able - even to me.  I had once, a long time a go, joined a gym and lost some weight (not that I really needed to lose much then, but it took next to no time). There was also a benchpress for free weights, but I was being realistic and knew I would not be lying down on it. I also knew that somewhere in the other basement room was an old stomach cruncher thingie.  And I also had these elastic pull weights that I had used a few years back when I had had 2 frozen shoulders.  So yeah, I could start exercising instead of - what? - being on FB for a few hours or playing computer games at other sites. 

The first time on that bike was torture. Boring as heck since the TV in the exercise room had been disconnected so my son could have cable on his huge flat screen TV (not in exercise room by the way).  So - now what? Give up?  Well, I have been told that I can be stubborn (I don't believe it, although I will admit that maybe I can appear to be ;o)  -  Then, I started listening to music on the computer and a Eureka moment happened.  I took out my CD player and old CDs and started exercising while listening to the 'oldies' - my fav type of songs. 

A week later, I weighed myself and saw I had lost over 2 pounds. Good grief. Was this really going to work?  I continued and now, 5 weeks and 3 days later, I have lost 10 pounds - with quite a few more to go (pounds and weeks).  I know I am not there yet, because no-one has looked at me and said 'wow, have you lost weight?' - at least not yet.  So I let the scales tell me that for now.  My clothes also tell me - especially my bras - believe me there were many times when the thought of a breast reduction sounded wonderful. 

What I do is 36 minutes plus 30 some seconds on the bike while listening to music (have progressed to an MP3 thanks to my wonderful son, then I do floor exercises (am into crunching up 60 reps up, then crunking on each side 60 reps each and back to front for 60 more reps, then I do the rubber thingy for arm strengh 50 reps on each arm.  Takes me about 45 minutes - 50 minutes top. 

I am finding myself also trying to fool my body's metabolism.  I eat more - sounds ridiculous? Yeah. But I used to skip lunch - now I have my Special K cereal (commercials do have an effect) with a banana (I need to eat a banana a day for low potassium),  - then comes lunch and low sodium soup or something similar. Mid afternoon, I eat 6 small crackers (low fat ones) Supper time is supper time and I don't pay much attention - I do love pasta remember? But I have found that I am not as hungry as before (maybe because I have eaten a good breakfast, lunch, snack before supper - also I drink about 6-8 glasses of water each day.  And - just to make sure my body does not store that extra fat overnight, in the evening, I eat 6 small carrots with a low fat teaspoon of cream cheese - yummy. 

I always weigh myself in the mornings after going to the bathroom.  Don't ask me why - but I think I read that was the best time of day to weigh oneself because one weighs less then.

I will keep blogging my progress every 2nd day.  Hopefully before Easter, I will have reached a goal that I will be proud of.  By summer time, I will be fit.  And slim.  But alas, not younger.

If anyone has any die-ts on how to become younger, let me know.  In the meantime, I think positive and know that I am doing my body a favor. And most importantly, I am doing my self a favor.