Catch-19

We bought a car recently. A new 2010 Toyota Venza. We really didn’t plan on doing that, but my venerable and ancient Ford Explorer finally gave up the ghost and we had to replace it with something and this is what we got. Great car, BTW.

But one of the results is that we have much less disposable income. This has actually tunred out to be a good thing. We’ve chopped out a lot of expenses that should have been canceled ages ago, we’ve stopped going out to eat except for twice a week, and because we’re cooking most days, out diet has improved dramatically.

But we are still looking for ways to cut costs. After a few weeks of keeping strict eye on what we spend, it became clear that we spent a lot on bottled sparkling water. Specifically Poland Springs Plain and Poland Springs Lime. Yum. But at $1.40 a liter, and me drinking more than 1.5 liters a day, it was getting to be too much. The solution was either drink plain filtered water (BOO!) or find something cheaper. So I found the Sodastream!

And so far so good! The unit is not high end, made of plastic mostly. But I got the cheapest one and expected as much. That said, it doesn’t feel cheap or flimsy. The bottles that come with the unit screw in securely and fairly easily. The design isn’t perfect and can be a bit difficult to screw in with one hand while holding the lever with the other, but you get the hang of it quickly.

The carbonation is perfect, you can make it as fizzy or flat as you want. The instruction say 3 pushes for a standard level of carbonation, but I’ve found I need 5. That means my cost per liter is a little higher, but still under 50 cents. And the fizz lasts. I drink what I make fairly fast, so I can’t say how long it holds it’s fizz, but certainly it has held for 24 hours with very little difference.

The flavor of the water is exactly what I was looking for, and Rowen says the lemon lime flavor was the equal of sprite or 7up. I felt the lemon lime wasn’t quite as good, but still quite delicious. But I don’t plan on drinking sodas from it anyway, just the very lightly flavored waters. And the water flavors are great so far. And I love that I can put as much as I want. I prefer a very lightly flavor, and so the flavors last longer. I haven’t tried any of the other soda flavors, but I’ll looking forward to it.

The biggest drawback was that I needed a few extra bottles. It comes with a pair of 1 liter bottles and I just ordered another pair.

It’s really a success for us. In just over a week it’s entered into heavy daily use.

The weight loss has slowed down a bit, but I expected that. It’s not possible to lose almost a pound a day and stay healthy. I’m currently at 260 and I suspect I wont break 255 for maybe 10 days. The new goal is 230 by my birthday, July 8.

But what’s been surprising is the things that have come with the weight loss. An obvious one but one I didn’t think of is no more pain in my ankles. I wasn’t exactly hobbling, but they were giving me some trouble. Now that’s gone. Next is my skin. I have always had bad skin, I still have bad skin, I will always have bad skin. But! not as bad. I attribute that more to my improved diet than the weight. Also, I think my brain is working better. I feel like my memory is sharper, and my thinking clearer. That might just be the result of having a better outlook in general, but my gut says that it’s in part due to better health. And the TMI portion of this post: my bowels are more regular, and I fart much less.

Glad you kept reading?

I was just reading older posts looking for one that described how I measure my weight and got to reading this one: Weigh In.

The bad news is that I went back up to 300 lbs after that. The good news is that it’s been coming down in the last 5 months. And since the 1st of the year I’m down 10 lbs to 275 lbs.

How I did it is the most basic formula for weight loss. Move more, eat less, burn more calories than you eat. I’ve started taking Taekwando classes 3-4 times a week and getting on the recumbent exercise bike for 45 minutes 5-7 times a week. And probably most significantly, I’ve drastically controlled my eating.

The eating is the hardest part. Now I have one slice of bread with a low calorie yogurt based spread for breakfast with a cup of decaf (artificial sweetener, but I’m cutting down on that too) - 165 calories. Lunch is 2.5 oz. of tuna mixed with 2 tsp of salsa (all natural, really good stuff, Green Mountain Gringo) and 4 tortilla chips - 190 calories. Now even if I add some fudge room to those numbers I’m under 400 calories for breakfast and lunch combined. For dinner I have whatever I cooked. I’m cooking fairly healthy, but I know I can do better. The key at dinner is that I use a tiny plate and don’t fill it. And I eat only a tiny portion of ice or potatoes, probably the size of a matchbox, the rest being vegetables and meat. And I have a salad before every dinner with 2 tsp of low fat vinaigrette dressing. I don’t have a good way to gauge the calorie count for dinner, but I don’t think it’s more than 1000. So for the day, I’m under 1500 calories, at least. I really think I’m closer to 1200. But that’s just week days. And I forgot about my treat. In order to curb cravings for candy and chips and chocolate, I get a single piece of See’s Candy chocolate at the end of the day, they run anywhere from 50 - 120 calories. And I usually have a piece of fruit and some carrots, too.  So lets call it an even 1500.

And it’s working. 10 lbs in19 days. I don’t think I can keep that rate up for more than a month or two. It will slow down, but I’m ready for that. I think I can achieve an average weight lose of 2 lbs a week from now until June 1st. If I do that I’ll have dropped an additional 38 lbs, putting me at 237 lbs. Damn near to my goal of 220.

The key for me is not getting off track. I do this regularly where I get something good going, one little bump in the road derails me and I never get back on. The last time it was a cold. I got sick for a week or two and never went back to exercising. Don’t know how I’m going to combat that. I think this time I’ll keep exercising, no matter the circumstances. Even if it’s a feeble slow crawl on the bike, if I stay in the routine of getting on it every day I think that will help.

And back to what started this post, the way I measure my weight: I weigh myself everyday, when I’ve been at or below a particular 5 lb weight range for 7 days, I consider myself to have achieved that weight. So for instance. I got down to 275 on the 1/12 and stayed at or below there until the 1/18, so I now weigh 275.

Wish me luck for today. I believe I’ll be at 270.

I broke 265 today. I’ve officially lost 40 lbs since about August of last year. If I attain 45 or 50 lbs by the end of this August I’ll be perfectly happy with that. Nice and slow with no backsliding.

The bad news is that I haven’t been to the gym in 2 months. I still do an hour a day on the recumbent stationary bike, but I really have to get back to the gym. There are, as always, lots of good reasons I haven’t been. None of them make me very happy with myself. I’ve decided to start back next week. By then Rowen will be out of school and I she can hang out at the babysitting area in the gym for the 45 minutes we’d be there.

I’m wearing 42 in. waist pants now. That’s down from 48 in. waist pants. This makes me so happy. I’ll really rejoice when I get to 40 in. Then I’ll be able to shop at normal people stores. Plus some of my old t-shirts will fit again.

So go me!