Clean Bill of Health

My doctor could not find any lumps or asymmetry to match the results of the mammogram, so I was given a clean bill of heath. What a relief that was!

This month has been so hard for my weight loss - my breast cancer scare, stress at work, and the one year anniversary of my brother in-law's death have been wearing on my willpower.

Even through all this stress, I have been able to keep my weight stable pretty stable!

I am working hard to keep my weight loss trend going!

A new thing that I am doing is offering rewards to Aaron too. I am basically bribing him to make sure he encourages me to be active.

At the end of the week, we go to the book store and each get something if I am successful!


Today for lunch I went to Einstein Brothers' Bagels.

They have this new "under 400 calorie" menu and I tried their "Ancho Chicken Wedge."

It was really yummy and spicy! A toasted folded whole wheat tortilla, filled with ancho chili marinated chicken breast and grilled peppers and onions with some jalapeño cream cheese.

I really liked it. It was nice and hot and full of flavor!

When I was looking it up on the internet after lunch I came across a blog comment which went like this: "The Ancho Chicken Wedge was tiny!!! I had to eat two of them and I was still hungry. So not worth the money!"

That comment really surprised me.

First off - it wasn't "tiny." How big did she expect 350 calories of chicken and veggies with cream cheese wrapped in a tortilla to be?! It's like those 64 calorie beer commercials. Most people are eating way more calories than they realize.

I thought it was a very satisfying lunch-sized portion. It was about the size 3 stacked CD cases. That should be plenty to fill a human stomach.

Which leads to the next thing that stuck in my craw. That she HAD to eat two of them. As if the Einstein Brothers held a gun to her head and made her get that second Ancho Chicken Wedge!!!

She did not HAVE to eat two. It is not the fault of the Einstein Brothers that she chose their store for her gluttony.

I was satisfied hours later on my lunch... I couldn't imaging scarfing down two and STILL being hungry?!! Wow, and ick... that is one over-stuffed stomach.

Lastly - Cost
I paid $4.95 for lunch and I didn't think I was being "ripped off" but I guess if you drop $10 to eat it twice and still feel hungry -- I can see where a person would feel ripped off! But just because you want to eat more than enough for two people does not mean the food was over priced.

I guess the moral of today's post is:
Learning to be satisfied with proper sized portions saves you 50% on lunch!

"Suspicious Mass"

I am waiting to find out if a mass in my breast is cancerous.

I am hoping for a "false positive." I just wish I knew if I had it or not! Not knowing is nightmarish.

I see my doctor again on Friday, but that doesn't mean I will find out anything. She might order more tests, and I will just continue to not know...

Anyway!

I got up early today and ran for 32 minutes on the elliptical trainer.

Breakfast was a serving of cream of wheat with a packet of cocoa powder. I thought about just using sugar from the shaker... but that would have been a disaster. I know how many calories are in the packet. I wasn't sure how many calories would be in the sugar I would "sprinkle" on.
270 total calories for breakfast.

Lunch will be a Amy's Kitchen Frozen meal - cheese tamale (360) or palak paneer (270).
I also have some vanilla Activia yogurt in my mini fridge for later this afternoon. (110)

Happy news, my car is done at the shop and we can pick it up!! Some jerk hit/scratched it up really bad in the parking lot. I never realized how much I love my car until I had to use the loaner....

I also got my braces adjusted today. I felt like she was trying to defuse a bomb attached to my teeth - with all the wire snipping and twisting. My next adjustment isn't until June.

It was snowing/raining when I woke up today. The weather is very wet cold and depressing, but the grass is getting green again and some flowers are already up!

Springtime in Wisconsin is always like this: Snow on Tuesday, in the 80's by Friday.


I am going to be tweaking the code again slightly, and putting up version 2.0 of the calorie calculator application.

Same Site, New Name

"Jessica's Weight Loss Blog" will now be known as "Less Jess - Over 100 lbs lost!"

In the past auto-links to my site couldn't cope with the apostrophe and it looked like this:


"Jessica's Weight Loss Blog"

How ugly!


"Less Jess" matches my site's address, and the "Over 100 lbs lost!" should draw in new readers.


This morning I got up early and did some circuit training.

I went through my MP3s and created a playlist of "pumping tunes." I picked peppy songs that were between 2-3 minute. When the song changed, I changed to a new exercise. I either ran on my elliptical trainer, lifted free weights, or did some type of sit-up for my circuits.

(I used the same song for my warm-up and cool-down.)

Warm-up
Run, Arms, Abs
Run, Arms, Abs
Run, Arms, Abs
Run, Arms, Abs
Run, Arms, Abs
Run, Arms, Abs
Cool down
Stretch out

It took about an hour and felt great!

Breakfast today was a mashed avocado, with a tablespoon of tomatillo salsa verde, and 2 oz of shredded Wisconsin cheddar cheese.

This is not my normal breakfast, but my avocado was prefectly ripe today! Yum!

The “Out-to-Get-Me’s”

I used to think Cadbury mini eggs must have crack-cocaine in their shells because they were so addicting, but now I know the drug in them that had me hooked was sugar.

Sugar really is a drug. What it does to the body is just as extreme as any other drug (rots teeth, diabetes, obesity and all of it’s complications... ) but sugar is in nearly everything we eat! From the cereals that starts our day to our pasta sauce at dinner, there is sugar in nearly everything.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) 1999 data the average American ate 158 pounds of sugar each year.

Sometimes it’s hiding under a pseudonym: beet sugar, brown sugar, cane-juice, cane sugar, corn syrup, dextrose, fructose, fruit juice or fruit juice concentrate, glucose, high-fructose corn syrup, refiner’s syrup, sucrose.... Just waiting to wreak havoc on your insulin levels.

I have fought a sugar addiction for years. Dessert wasn’t a once and a while treat for me - it was a daily requirement. I still struggle with my weakness for sugar to this day.

So far this week I have successfully avoid a big basket of Easter candy, the entire 50% off Easter Candy aisle, and homemade chocolate chip cookies someone brought into work. It was really tough. I don’t think people who have never struggled with sweets can understand what an achievement that is.

I used to feel like “The whole world’s out to get me!” but no one ever forced food into my mouth and made me chew at gunpoint. I was the one who ultimately put it in my mouth and ate it. I take responsibility for that now.

I used to use the “Out-to-Get-Me’s” to hide my own failure by placing the blame on someone else. We all know that nobody is perfect, it is just so hard to admit when you are the one that isn’t perfect!!!

When trying to lose weight you will have days when you will just plain fail. It is not cool, but is a hard truth some dieters can never recover from.

They see that one mistake as a complete failure, and since they have “failed” at weight loss, might as well keep eating.

This is not the mind-set that will lead to success!!

What if we applied this logic to learning how to walk? Would you just give up on a little baby who tries to take her first steps and falls down? (Bah! She’ll never walk!)

Of course not!!!

Learning to be healthy is like learning to walk, and there will be stumbles along the way, but eventually you will learn how to live a healthy life and stick with it!

My motto is: If at first you don’t succeed - do something easier.

And as long as you continue to live healthy, eventually you will be healthy!

Cheers,

Jess

March Recap.

I lost a total 3.50 pounds in March! (6.50 down so far in 2009.)

I've really got back in the groove. I hope to keep this trend going this April.

My husband wrote me version of the Calorie Calculator for my Blackberry Curve!


The following is an extra geeky paragraph you can skip:
He used Java Platform, Micro Edition (Java ME) which provides a robust, flexible environment for applications running on mobile and other embedded devices—mobile phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), TV set-top boxes, and printers. Java ME includes flexible user interfaces, robust security, built-in network protocols, and support for networked and offline applications that can be downloaded dynamically. Applications based on Java ME are portable across many devices, yet leverage each device's native capabilities. Very cool!



Soon as it is ready I'll post a link. :)


My new goal is to workout a minimum of 30 minutes, 3 times a week and if I can do it I will get the next volume of the manga Loveless!

Yea!!! I love this kind of manga/anime! *droolz* The chance to read the next volume is very motivating!! I can't wait to read what happens next!