I'm Glamming It Up

Check out some of my latest press over at Glam.com in its "Meet the Publisher" series. I'm not sure how I'm considered a "publisher" exactly since the only blog that isn't really owned by another company is this little ol' one here, and heck, probably Blogger owns all this wonderful content I'm writing for all I know ;)

But, I'm so glad my little sister took some decent photos of me about a year ago. They have really come in handy with this sort of thing. I hate getting my picture taken. It's pretty much up there with root canals in my book, and she just about had to sit on me so she could slather all the make-up on me too, another thing I'm not so great at.

English Professor Plans Meth Lab

Last week, for whatever reason, I had another one of my mega allergy attacks. I never know when they are coming or why they come in the first place, but about every 2 or 3 months, sometimes longer sometimes shorter, one will stop by for the day and drive me crazy. Usually, it means a day full of sneaking my head off and going through at least a few boxes of Puffs Plus.

So, today during my trip to the grocery store for my usually weekly stuff, I had the brilliant idea of getting some heavy duty Claritin-D to stash for any future attacks. I knew they were no longer in the regular spot and that I had to get them from the pharmacy, but geez! I felt like any minute a bunch of cop cars were going to roll up to the store with a blow horn, "We know you are in there English teacher slash writer slash jewelry designer. Come out with your allergy pills and you won't be hurt!"

I had to show my driver's license, write an extra check because I had to pay for them right there (not with my other grocery items), the pharmacist had to fill out paper work, and I had to sign something. I guess I was signing a form that said I would not go home, crack open the box of 5 pills I just bought for $6.99, and start a meth lab or something.

I found some info about this and a coupon (of course after I bought these darn things) on the Clartin web site:

Federal legislation takes effect on September 30, 2006 that imposes a deadline on moving allergy and cold products containing the active ingredient pseudoephedrine (PSE) off store shelves and placing them behind the pharmacy or customer service counter. This legislation will make it harder to find longer lasting allergy and cold decongestants. Interestingly, many allergy and cold sufferers surveyed were unaware of the changes both in the law and on the shelf product reformulations.

Some how I can't image this deterring any real drug dealers out there.

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Tuesday, Already?

Yup, it's Tuesday already. I'm back to writing in my food diary. I'm still not thrilled about it, but I am better, adding more 'thoughts' and not just, 'crackers, 100 calories." But, nope, didn't lose anything this week. In fact, I'm up 1/2 a lb.

While I was pretty good at staying around 1700 calories, I've been just awful at keeping up with my exercise, and so I know this is the price I'm paying. Past experience has told me that even if I were to starve myself, dieting (for me) doesn't really work unless I workout too. But, I'm not totally discouraged. I did write in my food diary every day, and I did stick to eating prety well 99% of the week. That, at least, I will take as some progress.

Dear Diary, I Hate You

This has not been a good week. Things started to go downhill last Saturday when my DH had this brilliant idea of using large scallops he got at Sam's and dinner rolls to make little mini-scallop burgers. He marinated various scallops in various sauces, sauteed them, and then we garnished the rolls with a mixture of condiments.

I was being bad that day, so I didn't write down anything in my food journal. What's the point?

On and off throughout the week, I attempted to write things down again like I have been for the past few weeks, but for whatever reason, I just never managed to stick with it.

Knowing that weigh-in day is tomorrow, I called C. and explained my latest hurdle, and really, this has been one that I've had issues with forever. I really hate keeping a food journal.

"But," she protested, "You are a writer. This is what you do."

"Keeping a list of food and calories is not writing."

Then she put on her shrink hat and told me that I need to figure out a way to make it into something other than just writing a list of food. Make it a personal journal, a scrapbook, something that I would want to do.

"Yah, yah, yah," and I told her I'd think about it.

At first, I poo-pooed the idea because along with hating to write down my food, I am also not a big fan of writing long hand. I just don't do it very often, and since I write so much, I have trained myself to write on a keyboard. But, hardcopy journals are way more easier to drop into your purse, especially when you have a CLJ that doesn't allow you to use a computer for anything that could be considered "personal" use.

So, I thought about it today, and I think I have what I hope is a solution to my distain for the food diary. I dabble in paper arts, alterted books and such, so I have a small collection of paper-what-nots, stickers, decorations, etc. I went into my stash and pulled out some pretty stickers I've been hoarding for no real reason and decorated a few pages of my journal. Then I added a few thoughts like, "this sucks," and "I burnt my tongue on my lean cuisine pizza today." I will admit it was much better, but we'll see. Maybe I'm onto something here, a food dairy slash art project.

Pasta Diet

Someone sent me this via email, and I thought it was funny.

ITALIAN PASTA DIET -- IT REALLY WORKS !!
1. You walka pasta da bakery.
2. You walka pasta da candy store.
3. You walka pasta da Ice Cream shop.
4. You walka pasta da table and fridge.

You will lose weight!
And...
For those of you who watch what you eat, here's the final word on nutrition and health. It's a relief to know the truth after all those conflicting nutritional studies.

1. The Japanese eat very little fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.
2. The Mexicans eat a lot of fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.
3. The Chinese drink very little red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.
4. The Italians drink a lot of red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.
5. The Germans drink a lot of beers and eat lots of sausages and fats and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

> >> >CONCLUSION> >> >

Eat and drink what you like. Speaking English is apparently what kills you.

Tuesday Weigh-In 05/08/07

I had my official Tuesday weigh-in and considering I've had tummy problems since Saturday, I'm not too upset with gaining 0.2 lbs. Hey, it could have been 2 whole pounds versus tenths!

I'm not sure if I've been fighting off a stomach thing that's been going around at my CLJ or if it's that I've increased my fiber intake and have not been taking in enough liquids.

The latter is C.'s take on it. But, I'm feeling a lot better and hope to actually get a short work out in today. Just in case, I've made myself a huge thing of ice-tea and plan to try to be more conscience about drinking. C. is right to some extent. I have not been very good about drinking as much as I should (at least beverages other than wine :) , and I have been eating at least a salad a day (before my Saturday problems started). Now that things have settled down in tummy-town, hopefully this ice-tea thing will take care of that and I can try to get another pound off this week.

Breakfast at Bob's

A friend of mine whom I haven't seen in forever wants to have breakfast with me next week. I told her I'd lost a few pounds, and where does she want to eat? Bob Evans!

I know C. would be flipping out if I told her, but I think I can do this. In fact, last discussion with C. we talked about eating out. She says she just can't do it and lose weight. Me? I like to eat out, and I don't do it often. What I've been trying to teach myself to do, though, is not treat every time I eat out like some sort of special event, thus allowing myself to pig out (okay, my anniversary was special, but that comes once a year).

Part of me wonders if my breakfast friend subconsciously is trying to sabotage my diet. She's bummed about her weight, so even though I've only lost 2 messly pounds, she can't help but think of the most fattening place on the face of the Earth to eat.

But, I went to the BE web site and looked around. As I suspected, it doesn't look good, but I think I can get away with hot tea, water, an English muffin, and an egg or two. That would be filling but not way over the top. Actually, eggs are great because they are not real high in calories and their protein is wonderful.

Right now, that's my plan for breakfast at Bob's. On a good note, it will be after my weigh-in day, thus hopefully, I'll have some extra insentive to be good.

DNA with Dr.Hsien-Hsien Lei

Fellow pro-blogger Dr. Hsien-Hsien Lei has recently announced the birth of a new blog, Eye on DNA, and I just wanted to wish her the best of luck. Lei or Hsien, as some people call her, is a great writer who can really break down some intense scientific mumbo jumbo into verbiage that the average person can understand.

While it may not seem like DNA is related to fighting fat after 40, it actually has a lot more to do with it than you can image. I think many of us are predestined to a certain degree. Like it or not, as much as we can fight off the battle of the bulge, a lot of comes down to our genes and what our ancestors bestowed upon us, the good, the bad, and the fat.

Smart Snacking, I Hope

Two of my three classes are over with, and I just have to give a final (and grade the final, calculate, and upload of course), and then I'm done with class number three. This third class is my only traditional "in the classroom" class because my other two were web-based. Because of that and the fact that for the most part this has been a wonderful group of students - all women - nine total - and all but one really worked hard for me this semester - I wanted to treat them while they take their final, sort of ease the tension a little because I know they'll be totally freaked.

So today while shopping I had to figure out what I could get them that would not impact my diet. Obviously, these snacks are really for them, but I don't want to bring something that will tempt me, even if I only nibble.

As I strolled down the snack isle, past the Oreos, the Yo-Yos, the yummy wedding cookie with the white powdered sugar...well, you get the picture...I had to find what I'm calling "smart snacking." One wonderful find was a box of individually wrapped bags of gold fish crackers, nine a bunch. Ah, nine students, nine little bags, this was good!

But, I needed cookies too. I remembered that one student didn't like chocolate (I know, weird, yes), so I found a box of tea cookies; something like ten cookies only have 140 calories. Excellent!

Finally, for the chocolate lovers, I opted for a zip lock bag of Famous Amos chocolate chip cookies. Again, calorie count wasn't killer, but even better, they zipped up so if there are any left I can easily hand them to a student to bring home to one of her children.

I've really enjoyed this class. Most of the students were in my class last semester and have just been a wonderful way for me to return to teaching after stopping for about a year so I could write my dissertation. They are all so eager to learn and serious about school, so different than most of my web students who turned in just about every assignment late and had more excuses than you could imagine.

I remember one class when I was explaining how to find good sources for a research paper they were working on, and I mentioned the difference between something like People magazine and a peer reviewed journal. I told them that they were scholars now, so they had to be very particular about what they used to support their analysis. One woman's eyes just popped open when I said that. The look on her face was "Me, a scholar?" And, then she sort of sat up straight in her chair and looked right back at me, so proud of herself, as well she should be.

Young Dancer Needs Your Vote!

Ah, to be young again! This is my 17 year old niece demonstrating a number of dance methods including ballet, jazz, and tap. In fact, at the end of this video she has some wicked tap going on!

View it here and then go to Youth Noise to vote. She also has it posted there, but the quality isn't as good I don't think. Look for the stars at the bottom of the page once you get there and click to add your vote.

I know I'm totally prejudice, but I've viewed a number of the videos that are at the top now, and I think she beat them big time!

Shocked & Amazed

I came this close to not stepping on the scale today, even though I promised that Tuesdays would be my weigh-in day.

First, there was our anniversary dinner on Saturday night. Though I had plans to try not to leave there totally stuffed, I also knew this was going to be really hard, so I kept my calorie count down to about 500 before going to dinner that evening, living off of a little fruit and vegies most of the day. And, as I had predicted, even with bringing half of my entree home (macadamia nut encrusted snapper with vegies and rosemary infused potatoes), I still managed to feel like I needed someone to carry me out to the car.

So, okay, then back on track on Sunday. I did eat my leftovers, but other than that, I again relied on vegies and fruit to keep everything else low. I even skipped my one real glass of OJ for the week. (heavy sigh)

Monday, again I'm back on track. This day was our actual anniversary - 4/30 - celebrating 19 years - Wow! But I was good and by about 7p.m. had only taken in around 1,000 calories. C. also had suggested upping my water in-take to counter balance my Saturday fling, which I did. Thank goodness, too, because my adorable DH came home with German wine and yummy cheeses to sample.

So, that's why this a.m., as I rolled out of bed, it came to mind that maybe I should skip the weigh-in. I really expected bad news. In fact, as I planted my tootsies on the scale, I was thinking, "Just don't let me have gained anything, and I'll be thrilled."

But, no! I actually lost 2.4 lbs! Yes, I'm still in shock.

I went back to my food journal to see when I seriously started all of this and it dates back to 4/19, so that's 12 days, just shy of two weeks. It is still sinking in. This is actually working, even with my occasional tumbles off the wagon. My goal for the month of May is to get 5lbs off. That's about 1lb a week, so I think I can do it.

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