That Time I Started Losing Weight for Real

I’ve put off blogging about this for quite some time.  Weight is just not a fun subject to talk about.  I’ve struggled with my weight for the past 8+ years.  Although, I remember thinking I was fat when I was in high school (and weighed 120 pounds!).  I think most all women have body image issues, regardless of their size.  I am no exception.  

My weight started piling on after I got divorced in 2007.  Surprising, right?  I’ve heard a lot of people say that they lost tons of weight after getting divorced.  But not me.  

I had been married to an extremely emotionally abusive person for years.  He called me fat (when I weighed 135 pounds, well within my range for my height), made me go to Weight Watchers, made me go to the gym (and timed me on each machine), and watched every single bite I put into my mouth.  I wish I was exaggerating but I’m not. 

When I got divorced, I started eating.  I felt that was the ONE thing I finally had control over.  I thought to myself “he’s not here anymore!  I can eat what I want!!!”.  I was FREE!!!!!!  And so I ate.  And ate.  And ate.

Not that I blame him 100%, because obviously I chose to eat poorly and make bad decisions regarding my health.  I am accountable for my actions for sure.

Over those 8 years (from the time I got divorced until today) I’ve tried various things to lose weight.  Mostly Weight Watchers.  Now, I do believe that Weight Watchers works.  Especially when you follow the program exactly and eat all of your fruits/veggies/healthy fats, etc.  But I found myself eating a lot of crappy stuff (I would eat 24 points worth of crappy food each day instead of 24 points of healthy food).  I felt sluggish all the time, even when I was following the program and losing weight.  I was eating WAY too many carbs, sugars and fats.  

So….when we got back from Europe, I decided to make a change.  I started a new kind of eating:  Low carb, low sugar (and when I say this, I mean pretty much no carbs, no sugar).  Low fat.  Little to no processed foods.  Lots of veggies (but no carb-filled veggies like potatoes and beans and corn).  Some fruit (but not the super high sugar fruit).  Protein (chicken, fish, lean beef). Smaller portions.  A gallon of water a day.  No soda (including diet soda).  Black coffee (I drink black coffee now!).  Lots of vitamins.  Lots of walking. 

And is it working?  Yes.  The pounds are falling off.  I have lost 16 pounds so far.  Is it easy?  No.  Although it gets easier every day.  Is it worth it?  Yes.  Will I eat this ‘strict’ forever?  No….I do plan to incorporate a few more carbs/fat….but not yet.  In a couple of weeks I will incorporate some other foods and try to maintain my weight loss for 3 or 4 weeks.  Then I plan to get strict again until I reach my goal weight.  I still plan to stay low carb/low sugar, no processed foods, etc forever.  And yes, I will have 'cheat' meals every now and then.  In fact, since I've started eating this way, I've had two cheat meals.  Not cheat DAYS, just meals.  It set me back a bit, but not much because I got right back on track both times and the weight continued to fall off.

I have a long ways to go, but this is the best I’ve done in quite some time.  And I FEEL better physically, not just because of the lost weight.  On Weight Watchers I would lose weight but would still not sleep well, I would get ‘lack of caffeine’ headaches and feel sluggish from the carbs and sugar.  Now?  I have a lot more energy, I don’t feel sluggish at all and I’m sleeping pretty darn good.  I think it’s because I’m off of all processed sugar (I still eat fruit).  If you have Netflix streaming, watch the documentary ‘Fed Up’.  It’s all about America’s sugar addiction.  Studies have shown that sugar is more addicting than cocaine (they show brain scans that prove it).  And it is added to EVERYTHING.  Now that I’m really paying attention to food labels I am SHOCKED at everything they add it to.  Pretty much everything in the center grocery store aisles.  It’s the 2^nd ingredient in peanut butter.  Peanut butter!  It’s even in things that you wouldn’t expect it to be in (like the Chili-Lime cashews at Trader Joe’s).  Spaghetti sauce.  Salad dressing.  Canned soup.  Infant formula.  All frozen meals.  If it’s processed, it’s going to have sugar.  Insane!

Here's what our pantry looks like now:

Top 3 shelves: vinegars, salsas, mustard, seasonings.  A few canned products (mostly tomatoes).  Canned chicken and tuna.

And my storage bags ha ha. I use these for EVERYTHING.  We do a lot of 'batch' cooking so these are great for portioning out chicken, veggies, etc. for our lunches.  Just this morning my husband grilled a bunch of chicken and I now have 30 individual baggies full of grilled chicken for our lunches.

Bottom two shelves:  Rice (for the dogs when they get upset stomachs), some nuts, and a few baking mixes that I'm saving for a rainy 'cheat' day ha ha.  Oh, and some olive oil.  Looks kind of bare!  But I'm okay with it.

So that is my weight loss story for now.  I will keep plugging away and hopefully the pounds will continue to fall off.  I can’t believe how much better I feel already!

P.S. – my mother-in-law and husband are eating this way too.  I won’t reveal numbers, but they have both lost a lot more than me and look great!

Tidying Up - Handbag

Do you ever have those projects that you put off forever and then when you finally do them you can't believe how little time it took and what a big impact it made?  And then you kick yourself for not doing it sooner?

Today I completed one of those projects.  It's been on my list of things to do ever since we got back from Europe but I just kept putting it off.

What was it?  I CLEANED OUT MY PURSE.

Yep.  I had cleaned it out (kind of) once after we got home, but it still needed a good cleaning and I wanted to switch bags too.  I was still using my cross-body bag that was too large for everyday use.

Just to show you how badly it needed cleaning, here's what i found in the bottom of it:

Awwww.  A Paris train map, my ticket to the Rodin museum and a random train ticket.  #memories

First things first, I got rid of all of the junk in my purse.  Like a smushed granola bar.  Multiple gum wrappers.  Old receipts.  Loose Benadryl that had fallen out of it's container.  Stuff like that.

Then I organized what was left and what would go back into my purse:

The top zippered pouch is for bills to be paid and mail to deal with.  I pay bills once a week while I'm at work, so any bills/mail that we get during the week I put in this pouch and stick it in my purse so I always have them with me.  I also keep receipts in here.

French tracts!  We always have to be prepared in case we meet a French speaking person.  The tract holder was given to me by the sweet sisters in Belgium. 

And my coupon envelope of course.  I also store gift cards in here.

My two Moleskin notebooks.  These little notebooks are the best!  I use one for my ongoing lists of things to do, projects, etc.  The other one is my daily food tracker.  

My makeup bag.  Am I the only one that keeps their makeup in their purse?  I don't wear much...there are 5 things in this bag:  My mineral powder, mascara, lip gloss, Carmex and another tube of lip balm.  It's not a large bag at all.

My new Louis Vuitton wallet.  I finally am using it! (I was scared to for a while ha ha)

My business card holder that was a gift from the branch in Belgium.  It holds French JW cards, plus a few of my husband's business cards and also our information cards we made for the convention.

And my planner of course.  I have to have a paper planner.  It keeps me sane.

Everything fit neatly into my light blue Coach bag:

The side pockets hold a pack of Kleenex, two pens and a pack of gum.  I also made sure there was plenty of room for my iPad (mini) and my phone.  I have room to spare AND it zips!!

And there you have it.  A nice, organized, cleaned out purse.  It only took me well over a month ha ha.

Judge a Book By Its Cover

This past weekend, Hastings was having an amazing book sale.  Buy one used book, get the second and third for $1 each.  Their used books are already reasonably priced, so it was a great deal!  My husband and I had all kinds of fun driving to a few Hastings locations searching for books.

The Hastings book section is fairly large.  It’s divided by Fiction, History, Biographies, Reference, Language, etc.  Whenever we go to Hastings to look for books, I have a method for my madness.  First, I check for old copies of Gone With the Wind (none this time).

Then, I head to the language section to check for French learning books.  My husband found some used ones and we narrowed it down to 3 to add to our library:

Then I check the medical/health section for any anatomy & physiology books for work (none this time).  I use them a lot when writing appeal letters.

After that, I head to history and biographies.  Then onto Classics.  I picked up two classics this time:

Then FINALLY I head to the fiction books.  I have a list of books I want to read, so I search for those first.  Then I look for my favorite authors to see if there’s anything new.  Then, after that, here’s what I do: 

I judge books by their covers.

Gasp!!  I know, I know.  But it’s true.  When I’m looking for a new author or just new books that I’ve never heard of, I look at the covers.  There’s not any one particular thing that attracts me to a certain book cover.  If I see one that I like, I pick it up and read the jacket flap.  If it looks like an interesting read, then I check it out on two different websites (from my phone):  Goodreads and Amazon.  If it got a good rating on both sites, then I will get it.  Here’s a few that I had never heard of before, but I loved the covers and they got good ratings:

 But I don’t always judge books by their covers.  Like this one:

Normally, I never would have picked up this book.  The cover didn’t appeal to me.  BUT, the author did.    Julian Fellowes?  Yep.  The creator of Downton Abbey.  Yes please!  (AND the book got good reviews).

And this one:

I LOVE historical fiction, so I had to get this one.

Sometimes the books that I judge by the covers are great, sometimes they are duds.  But at these super cheap prices at Hastings, it’s a risk I’m willing to take ha ha.  

We also ended up with lots of history books and Tom Clancy books.  I like the history ones too, but my husband is the history buff.  And Tom Clancy is pretty much the only fiction books he will read, so he rounded out his collection.

We bought 3 new books as well.  One all about the Tower of London.  

I’m excited to read it!  We also got ‘Scorch Trials’, which is the 2^nd book of the Maze Runner series.  

And Johnny Tremain.  I had asked my husband what his favorite book was as a kid and he said Johnny Tremain.  

I had never heard of it, but I found it at Hastings and bought it for him.  Apparently it was a Newbery winner and everything.  It’s about a 14 year old kid in 1773 Boston.  I believe that everyone should have a copy of their favorite book as a kid.  I had lots of favorites, but the one I remember reading the most was ‘Ramona Quimby, Age 8'.  Which I own of course.  :)   

It was a great day and a great sale!  We had so much fun.  Buying books for cheap like this is perfect for me.  Lately I’ve stayed away from the library because I take forever to read books.  It’s because I usually am reading 6 or 7 different ones at once.  I realize this is unusual, but it’s just how I like to do it.  So it takes me forever to finish reading a book (way longer than the library allows, even with renewing it).  Oh well.  But with buying them I can take as long as I want!! 

I hope Hastings does another sale like this one again (the sale ended on Saturday)….but not until I’ve already read some of my new books!

Misc. Europe

*Netflix streaming in Europe has different shows.  Like Big Bang Theory.  Every night, hubs and I would prop up my laptop and watch Big Bang theory on streaming Netflix.  However, it’s not available on Netflix here in the states.  Also, some shows are a bit different.  Like they have ‘House’ and it’s the exact same episodes, but it’s called ‘Dr. House’. 

*In Europe, public bathrooms are few and far between.  The only places required to have public bathrooms are restaurants.  There are some paid restrooms like in train stations (like .50 to .70 usually) and they are quite clean (we used them more than once).  But it’s not like you can run to a gas station or run to Target or Walgreens to use the bathroom.  I cannot tell you how many times one of us said “I have to go to the bathroom, is anyone hungry?”.  Ha ha.  Because we knew by eating we could use the restroom.  And the bathrooms are all downstairs in the basement.  And about 50% of the time they are unisex.  Yikes.   

*The Euro is funny.  The lowest ‘paper’ money is a $5.  There’s a $1 coin and a $2 coin.  Well, we would withdraw money and when we paid for something would only use the paper money and just kind of forget about the change, because that’s what we do at home.  Our U.S. change usually just goes into our change jar (and forgotten about).  We realized on our way to Belgium we had almost $40 worth of change (mostly the $1 and $2 coins).  We used a lot of it to tip the maids every day in our hotel room, but then we would accumulate more throughout the week.  So then at the airport on our last day there, we had like $25 in change still.  So I marched up to a food shop to get us some breakfast and the bill came to $20.10 and I plunked down all of my change.  I was only embarrassed for about 10 seconds.  The guy counted it all quickly and didn’t make a big deal about it.  I apologized but he didn’t seem to care at all.  Money is money, right?  We ended up with less than $5 in euros to bring home.  Not bad!

*If you speak even a LITTLE French, it makes all the difference in the world in how you are treated there.  The French people were incredibly nice to all of us.  In fact, we thought the people there were friendlier than the people in London.  And don't even get me started on Belgium...the friendliest people EVER!!

Upgraded

While we were in Atlanta awaiting our flight to Brussels, we had some time to kill.  So we ate some dinner and then decided to just see if they had any upgrades available on the super long flight to Europe. 

They did.  At a cost of course.  But, it wasn’t as bad as we expected.  On Virgin Atlantic planes, there are 4 classes:  First class, Premium Economy, Business Class, and Coach (in that order).  We ended up upgrading our tickets to Premium Economy (right behind first class).  It was soooooo worth it.  The seats are larger, they recline more, and the food and service is about 6 steps up from Coach.  Before we had even sat down, a flight attendant came around with Champaign.  

Then they brought around menus for our dinner.  Menus!  

Then we got to watch movies, TV, and play games on the little TV screens in front of us.

Then they brought around more snacks and candy and all of the free drinks we wanted.  

They also gave us these cute little pouches with socks, toothbrush, toothpaste, an eye mask, pens, and ear plugs.  Oh, and mini ‘Snuggee’ blankets to use.  I loved mine so much I kept it ha ha.  It was perfect and such an enjoyable flight.

And there was never a line for the bathrooms.  And they didn’t stink like regular airplane bathrooms usually do.  VERY important.

While I don't think it would be worth upgrading on a continental U.S. flight, I think we would do it again in a heartbeat for international flights.  It made such a difference!

The Grosvenor

Hotels in London are expensive.  Especially in Central London.

When we first researched hotels for our trip, we knew that we wanted to stay close to the main ‘attractions’.  Since we were only going to be there for two days, we didn’t want to spend all of our time riding the tube into the city (because there ARE cheaper hotels outside of the city, but then you’re spending at least 45 – 60 minutes on the tube to get to Central London).

So we decided to splurge and stay at the Grosvenor hotel  (pronounced ‘Grow-vin-er’…the ‘s’ is silent)on Buckingham Palace Road, especially since we were only going to stay 2 nights.  It’s about a 2 minute walk from Victoria Station, which was incredibly convenient.

The hotel itself is beautiful and OLD (built in 1862).  The floors creaked when you walked down the hallways.  The lobby was breathtaking!  I just wanted to hang out in the lobby ha ha. 

Our room was lovely, nice and modern.  Here was our view (not the best, but that’s okay).  There was TONS of construction going on in London!  It seems like everywhere we went there was construction happening.

We had free wi-fi.  No free breakfast (this is very rare at most European hotels), but that’s okay.  There were plenty of places within walking distance.  And the breakfast room was gorgeous.

The concierges were all wonderful.  They gave us clear instructions about which tube to take to get to the Tower of London.  Their restaurant recommendations were always good.  And they were just very friendly.  They arranged a cab for us to take us to the train station when we left for Paris.

The whole experience at the hotel was wonderful.  I would definitely stay there again!

What We Bought

We did some shopping during our trip, but not anything major.  We didn’t have a specific ‘shopping’ day.  As we were walking around, if we saw a shop that looked interesting, we ducked inside to check it out. 

We each have certain things that we like to buy while visiting someplace new.  For me it’s books about the places I go, especially ones with a lot of pictures.  For my husband, it’s mugs from Starbucks for whatever city he’s in, and art.

We like useful ‘souvenirs’.  We usually stay away from the typical souvenir shops with the little trinkets (keychains, magnets, etc.).  We like more specialized shops.

In London, I bought two books.  One about the Tower of London, and one called The Death of Kings (a medical history of the Kings and Queens of England).  It’s very morbid and gross and I love it! (sorry these are sideways)

In Paris, I got a wallet from Louis Vuitton.  I got it on the Champs E’lyses and it was made in France (of course).  When we were in Montmartre, I picked up scarves for the ladies in my family (and myself).  We also bought a small painting from an artist in Montmartre.  It was a fun experience.  We only talked to him in French.  He told us that he lives in Normandy (where he gets his inspiration) and comes to Paris every other week to sell his work.  The painting is on canvas but is currently at the frame shop getting framed…I will post a picture of it when it’s done.  It’s very Monet-like…impressionist.  The colors are very pretty.

I also bought a book from the used booksellers along the Seine, and my husband bought another small painting on canvas (also being framed).

I bought a book about the Rodin Museum.

And I bought a travel wallet.  I love it!  It has a section for documents, passports, and tickets (‘billets’).  It came in sooo useful for the rest of our trip.  I got it at this place that kind of reminded me of Pier One and World Market.  They had some really cool stuff.

And….I think that was it for France.

In Belgium, we got a few more things.  In Bruges, I got a book (on Bruges).  

We got a heavy bottle opener.  And a Delirium Tremens beer glass.  

We picked up some chocolate for my boss, Josh’s co-workers, and our favorite French-Canadian couple that live here in ABQ (who specifically asked if we would bring them some Belgian chocolate).  And…I think that’s it.  Of course, we were given a ton of little gifts from the brothers and sisters there.  Magnets, keychains, lace (!), chocolate, tract holders, bookmarks, pins, pens, little miniature witnessing carts, earrings, etc.  So many cute things!

I looked for more books, but had a hard time finding them.  So I think I’m just going to go online and get them.  I still need a book on London and Belgium.  I’d like to find some specific books too…Ghent and Loppem (and possibly Brussels), but I may have a hard time finding those.  I also would like to find a book on Amsterdam, because I didn’t get one when I was there in 2009.  We’ll see.  I didn’t need to buy books this time on the Louvre, Versailles and Paris because I had picked those up the last time I was there.

It’s probably silly to buy heavy books as souvenirs, but I love my book collection of the places I’ve been.  I look through them a lot!