skinnification

Applebee's Plans to Slim Down Menu:

"Clearly, this is all part of the whole 'Oh, my God, we have an obesity epidemic' thing," says Hope Warshaw, a registered dietitian and author of Eat Out, Eat Right. Even then, she says, "It's a very good thing for people who are watching their weight."

Applebee's is adding approximately 10 items to their menu featuring the Weight Watchers brand, and each item will be accompanied by its point value. Tests will begin this fall, but the items won't appear in all Applebee's menus until late 2004. But the analysts quoted believe it isn't long before other casual and family dining establishments and fast food restaurants follow suit.

7.24 Recap

Weight: 189.5
Steps: 5738

Yesterday I fell off the wagon and was dragged along behind it. Because Jason hasn't been able to get out for the past couple weeks, my job interview on the south side of Denver was a chance for freedom. We called a friend who lived in that area and met up for lunch at Old Chicago, where I had a personal pizza and a huge Casear salad. Then we went to see Pirates of the Caribbean, where I somehow managed to forego my usual popcorn and coke combo (the #1 at all AMC theatres). It wasn't easy though; there were actual tears shed, and Jason promised to buy me jewelry to cheer me up (though I have yet to see any shiny baubles coming my way!). When we got home, I lay down on the bed and, not knowing how tired I was, drifted in and out of sleep. Jason came in and we lay there for a while before taking a bath and then making taquitos for a dinner. I think yesterday qualifies as my day off for the week or month or however often I decided to take a break.

My foot soreness during workouts is getting bad enough that we're going to order some of the flat foot insoles for me to try. I learned the medical term for what my feet do when I walk -- over-pronation. Basically, when I walk, the inside edge of my foot rolls to the ground because I need more leverage to push off. I've had this problem my whole life; when I was a kid, we used to go to the doctor to get custom-made arch support inserts for me to slip into my shoes. But my feet grew too fast to make them practical or inexpensive, and when we couldn't afford them anymore we stopped getting them. Usually, I only feel soreness when I've been on my feet for long periods -- several hours in one stretch, like when I was working at Central Market -- or doing a lot of walking. Like I am now. I don't plan on halting my workouts or spending the rest of my life only being able to pedal a bike, so insoles it is. I'd like to get some good walking shoes, but they're beyond my severely limited price range.

Taking Amy's recommendation to heart, I tried the elliptical machine first thing this morning during my workout. It wasn't a bad experience, but I was only able to stay on for about 10 minutes. I need to build up some strength in my legs! I moved over to the treadmill and did 45 minutes at a pretty good clip. Before heading down there I had planned to do a little biking as well, but my foot was sore and I decided to go ahead and stretch everything out and head home. The good news is that Jason is going to start coming to morning workouts with me. He'll spend his time on the other side of the room, doing strength training to add some muscle weight. We think that might help him avoid another lung collapse (although he's stopped playing the trumpet and we're pretty sure that's the cause of all this). In any event, the more fit you are the easier it is to recover from illness. So working out certainly can't hurt.

Dividing Buttocks Exercises Geographically.

Really, what else can I say?

7.23 Recap

Weight: 189.5 (-1)
Steps: 12861

In addition to my morning circuit yesterday, Jason and I went for a walk in the evening around our apartment complex. Unlike Texas, where it takes all night for the ground to cool off, Colorado is very pleasant in the early evening. And our complex is at the top of a hill and has a panoramic view from downtown Denver all the way to the Flatirons. So getting me to take a walk isn't exactly pulling teeth.

Today I'm taking a break from my morning workout to get ready for (gasp!) a job interview. It's only with a placement agency, but I'm hoping at least some part-time work comes from it. I'm feeling more and more guilty about Jason having to support me while I'm unemployed. I'd like to feel like I'm contributing beyong washing his underwear and cooking his dinner. So... wish me luck! Hopefully I can pick up my workout later today and avoid the post-work hours crowd at the fitness center.

I've hinted at it before, but I haven't talked about using NutriDiary as my main tool to log my eating, exercise and weight loss progress. So far, I'm loving it. The program is meal-centered; you enter each meal you eat, along with nutritional info, and the idea is that you tend to eat similar meals so eventually you'll have a database of meals to choose from as you log your day. It keeps track of calories as well as all the nutritional info for the day, and recommends how much you should eat based on your current activity level and whether your goal is just general health or weight loss. You can also generate reports about weight loss, BMI, body fat percentage, calorie intake, and nutritional info (although my period of use is too small to really take advantage of that function yet). The initial setup may be slightly time-consuming -- entering meals is the major task -- but now that most of the foods I eat regularly, including snacks, beverages and supplements, are in the system I just log them and go. Here are some screenshots to give you an idea of the interface:

• my start page -- here you can see my progress so far, including weight loss and calorie distribution.


• my log for the day -- I keep this page open in my browser all day and just update as I go. At my fingertips I have a running tally of my calories for the day -- ingoing and outgoing -- as well as my daily nutrition requirements. I'm too high in a danger area like fat or cholesterol or too low in an important area like fiber or calcium, the nutrition summary clues me in. I can also see what I've eaten so far today, how much water I've had and what exercise I've done. This is also where I go to update my weight and body fat percentage to track progress.


• my meals -- I create each meal, entering all the individual elements (either by using their extensive ingredient database to figure nutritional info or by entering it myself from a package). I can log meals here if I choose, but I usually do that from my log page unless I have to add a new meal.


• single meal analysis -- each meal has a page showing its nutritional breakdown and the percentage of fats, carbs and protein as well as each of the foods in the meal.

I wanted to take an omega-3 supplement because I knew of the benefits of these fatty acids -- mostly, improved circulation. What I didn't know was that researchers have found a link between omega-3 fatty acids and depression and other mental health problems:

"In the study (Archives of General Psychiatry, 5/99), 30 patients with manic depression--also called bipolar disorder--received either fish oil or olive oil (as a placebo) along with their standard medications, including lithium and Depakote. After four months, 65% of the fish oil recipients improved, compared with only 19% of the olive oil group. The results were so impressive that the researchers halted the study early so that those in the placebo group could begin taking fish oil if they wished."

Continue reading Prozac of the Deep...

I forgot to mention it earlier, but I've been getting more headaches in the past week than normal. In fact, every night for the past four nights I've had one, and last night I woke up at least five times because of it. I didn't want to take any ibuprofen, but this morning I broke down and did it so I wouldn't feel sick through my whole workout. Jason suspects it's because of my period; I'm on the brown week in my 28-day pack, and the reason I'm on Loestrin and not a higher dosage drug is because I'm prone to headaches. I'm inclined to agree with him, although I've also had no caffeine (with the exception of the ibuprofen) since last Wednesday, so maybe I'm in withdrawal still. Any ideas?

7.22 Recap

Weight: 190.5 (-1.5)
Steps: 14982

Thanks to putting the pedal to the metal on the recumbent bike, I was way above my step goal for the day yesterday. The number was also filled out by a trip to the grocery store, where we went down every aisle and picked up every healthy snack we could think of. It was a challenge finding things both Jason and I could and would eat; he's trying to put weight on, and I'm trying to take it off. We've decided that for breakfast and lunch we'll go our separate ways, but we'll have dinner together with me eating smaller portions and him eating seconds.

That last sentence sums up my major lifestyle adjustment goal for this whole thing: eating less. The foods we have around the house aren't necessarily unhealthy. We snack on trail mix bars. We don't have potato chips or sweets. We hardly ever eat fried foods, and since we moved to Colorado we've eaten out much less. My problem was that I could never master moderation. I would have a trail mix bar every hour, or eat two or three servings of food at each meal. Cutting down the amount I eat rather than significantly changing what I eat has been the first major step in reforming my eating habits. There have been other little changes -- more salads, yogurt instead of ice cream for an evening dessert, less salt and butter -- but overall our grocery stock isn't that different.

In an effort to find vegetables I will eat -- right now, red leaf lettuce and spinach are about it -- we bought a can of french-style green beans last night, as well as some cubed ham to toss in with it. Jason said his mom made it for him like that when he was a kid and he liked it, so I figured it couldn't hurt to give it a try. We'll see how it goes. His dad also made this great spread for whole wheat bread out of spinach and water chestnuts. I was apprehensive when they had me try it over Christmas vacation in California, but I actually enjoyed it. So, I need to get the recipe for that as well. Jason's parents have been on a low-carb diet for the past several years, and I'm sure there's quite a few recipes they'd be happy to hand down.

Lucky for me, our local Super Target was having a huge sale on their own Origin line of dietary supplements when we went grocery shopping last night. So we got two-month supplies of Calcium + D and Fish Oil (for the Omega-3 fatty acids) for $1 a bottle (about $6 all together). While shopping, we also picked up:

• Four pairs of socks with Coolmax. I used them in my workout this morning, and they were heavenly. My feet were as dry as a bone. My next purchase is some Flat Feet Insoles; a decade of marching band rollstep helped me train my feet to roll centrally, but the inside of my foot is still where my shoes wear out first. When I concentrated on rolling down the middle of my foot or slightly to the outside during my workout today, my feet hurt much less.
• Target's generic version of Metamucil. I had wanted to get the Metamucil caplets, but they were twice as much as the generic powder. So, nasty orange-flavored sludge it is. I wonder if I can mix it in with my apple juice instead of water...
• Quaker White Cheddar Corn Cakes. They're something for me to snack on while I watch TV, and they're the closest I'm going to get to the salty, buttery movie theater popcorn I can't live without. We bought low-fat string cheese for a snack as well, and some no-fat refried beans and spinach flour tortillas so I can make the quesadillas I love.
• More apple juice. We buy a gallon of apple juice every time we go to the store whether we're out at home or not. We tried the generic Target version and it tasted nasty, so we buy Mott's instead. But a lot of times they're sold out of it. So we stock up whenever we can. Last night we got the last gallon.
• Skinny Cow ice cream sandwiches. I've heard about these for years but never taken a chance and tried them. We bought two packages, vanilla and peanut butter cup, and Jason and I both had a vanilla sandwich last night after dinner. They were amazing! Definitely something I'll want to save my daily calories for.
• Frozen strawberries, bananas and low-fat yogurt. I tried the Dannon Light 'n Fit Smoothies ("Only 80 calories!"), but they had a pretty nasty aftertaste (for me, anyway. Jason had some of mine and didn't taste it). So we're taking matters into our own hands.

I remembered to do Pilates last night, although I'm still having trouble just doing a simple roll-up. I asked Leia why I'm so challenged; she said it's my boobs. True, I'm a bit top heavy (36DD). But I've also got thighs the size of a speed skater's (without all the muscle). Shouldn't the two balance out?

This morning, I did a Precor circuit (all the machines in our apartment complex's workout center are Precor). 35 minutes walking at 3.5 mph, 10 minutes jogging (jogging!) at 4.5 mph, and 15 minutes on the recumbent bike. I'm working up to the elliptical; that machine scares me. All together, I travelled about 4.7 miles, which means once again I'm going to have a high step count. Doesn't bother me in the least. Now if only I could tackle the uncomfortable problem of boob sweat...

Skip Breakfast, Get Fat:

"Americans who regularly skip breakfast are 4.5 times more likely to be fat, researchers found.

Someone who eats breakfast at home might settle for a small, convenient meal, Kava says. 'But if you go out, there's all kinds of tempting things like bacon and eggs and hash browns. Maybe you tend to indulge a little bit more. You don't have to do the work or clean up.'

And what about the link between skipping breakfast and tipping the scales?

'You have not broken the fast soon enough to only need a moderate amount of calories,' says Gail Frank, a professor of nutrition at California State University at Long Beach and a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association. 'You are starving. How does the normal person respond? They eat, and they keep eating to compensate.'"

A visual demonstration, if you will, courtesy of MyVirtualModel.com.

Before:

And after:

Jason's comments when he saw the pictures a couple nights ago: "That's about right. Except your boobs are bigger."