Showing posts with label weight loss. Show all posts
Showing posts with label weight loss. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 9, 2015

Weight Loss Resolutions and Wireless Weight Loss

FTC disclaimer:  I am part of the U.S. Cellular Better Moments Blogger brigade, but all thoughts and opinions are my own.

U.S. Cellular offers a FREE PRINTABLE Parent Child agreement to help you discuss safety of the Internet, cell phone usage, limits, and courtesy with your teen or tween.  You don't even need to be a U.S. Cellular customer to access this, although I have been for 10 years and highly recommend them. 


Long time readers of my blog will remember in May 2013 I attended a fitness camp for people to help them integrate faith into their fitness routine.  All of us were overweight, and it was physically the most demanding five days of my life.  But I'm glad I went.  I made friends, gained two pounds (it was likely muscle as we were doing weight training!  The next week I lost seven pounds) and learned so much.


Tuesday, June 9, 2015

Who's The New Kid by Heidi Bond Book Review

FTC disclaimer:   I received a copy of this book free from the publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review.  All opinions are my own.  Many of my blog posts also contain affiliate links.

So why did a newlywed of less than three weeks and someone who is not a mom sign up for a blog tour of  book written by a mom who helped her child fight obesity?  It's obvious that I am not reading this to try and help my child -- but the subject interested me.  I was the one in school who was overweight.  I remember one time a teacher said we could write our nicknames on our papers we turned in.  Mine was handed back with "Use your real name."  Evidently, it was acceptable to use "Bubba" but not "Short, Fat, and Ugly".  As an adult, I now see why my teacher said that, but at the time I thought, "That's just my name."

Saturday, August 24, 2013

Book Review: Why Diets Don't Work

Why Diets Don't Work: Food Is Not the Problem by Joyce Tilney

My rating: 1 of 5 stars


Losing weight is all about balance.  There’s a balance of eating right, exercise, and the spiritual aspect of it.  That said, I was excited to be able to review the book “Why Diets Don’t Work Food is Not the Problem”.  My excitement, however, was short lived.  This is nothing but a book on the spiritual aspect of losing weight.  I don’t believe you can only focus on one aspect of something and expect results.  Exercise is not mentioned until page 83 (out of 84 pages of text, not including appendices.)  Even then what is said about exercise is the author “heard the words”  (I’m assuming from God but it doesn’t say) to “walk on purpose for His purpose”  (whatever that means!) and she followed.

On page 62 she admits she has never studied nutrition.  Let me remind you the title of the book is “Diets Don’t Work:  Food is Not the Problem”.  If she never studied nutrition, I question anything she states in this book because if I am looking for information on weight loss I believe it needs to include nutritional information.  One piece of advice she has is to say aloud, “No, devil, I’m not hungry.”  (page 37)

On page 17, she asks how did we “get saved?”.  The answer she gave was based solely on Romans 10:10 but her emphasis is on us.  “The words we spoke out of our moth had the power to deliver us from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light” [sic]  While that is what Romans 10:10 says, I believe this is prooftexting because the author’s statement leads me to believe OUR words are responsible for our salvation.  If that is the case, why did Jesus even die for us?  Ephesians 2:8 tells us it is by faith we have been saved and not by works, that it is the work of God and no human can boast.  It appears she put the emphasis on us speaking rather than on God doing the actual work of giving us salvation.

This book could also use some editing.  The author never uses the Oxford comma and because of her excessive use of three items in a row that made me pause nearly every time wondering if the last two were combined or if she meant three different ideas.  The phrase “lightbulb moment” was used more than it should have been in a book this size.  A final note, if you are not familiar with Pentecostal terminology you may not find this book easy to read as she often uses phrases that are more unique to those churches, nor do I need to hear rhyming phrases.  (An example is on page 10 “A lack of perception leads to deception.”)  This book may make a good sermon with cute phrases, but as something to read, it fell short.

FTC disclaimer:  I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.  All opinions are my own.



Thursday, August 1, 2013

Are You Pressing the Lever on McDonald's Monopoly?

I love entering sweepstakes.  I love the thrill of winning, the hope of winning, just imaging I might win.  It's McDonald's Monopoly time again, and so I will eat at McDonalds maybe once or twice with the hope of winning something.

But did you know that you can send off for free game pieces?  Do the math.  You can send off for game pieces with a self-addressed stamped envelope, costing around $1.00 in postage, plus the cost of the envelopes.  Or get the same amount of game pieces by buying large fries ($2.09).  Of course you would get the fries, but who needs almost half a day's amount of calories to get a couple game pieces?

The rules say 1 in 4 win.  Last year I sent off for a number of game pieces, as I have done in years past.  In previous years I won more food than I could eat (and ate more than I should!)  I won nothing larger than an Extra Value Meal, but I still won tons of food when I sent for thousands of game pieces.  (Of course this was YEARS ago when they had the Best Buy dollars with the pieces and I had quite a bit I was able to spend at Best Buy, but I'm talking just the Monopoly section of game.)  This meant I ate at McDonalds a lot more often, and in so doing that wasn't a good choice nutritionally to eat there so much even if it was free.  After all, keep in mind the results of the University of Wisconsin study that showed that while upsizing a meal costs 67 cents at the register, over a lifetime it costs up to $7.72 in added medical costs.  Is that really a value for your 67 cents?  You can read that study here.

This week I had some free egg white McMuffin coupons if you made a purchase.  So I decided that my mother and I would use them.  We each ordered a hash brown, and an egg white McMuffin.  We did this two different days.  We did not order drinks.  Had we not had the coupons, I would have paid right about $15 for four muffins and four hash browns.  So paying $4.24 wasn't bad in terms of financial outlay when we got breakfast.

Each food item had two game pieces on it, for a total of sixteen pieces.  From those, I won three medium fries.  (value $1.69 if you are going to be eating fries.  I'm trying to go for healthier options overall these days.  This size fries has 380 calories in it.)  I also played all my codes online and won a Redbox movie rental.  (Value $1.50, but I won't use it so will give it to a friend.) 

The odds of winning are remote.  I think many times people don't realize how remote it is because there's the "reward" of free fries.  I studied psychology in school and I remember a study where if a rat was fed at random times when it pressed a lever,  it would press the bar much more often than a rat that was fed when it pressed the lever every X number of times.  So we peel a game piece, win free fries, and we're ready to press the lever again, so to speak, since we're rewarded at random intervals.   What if we knew that we'd only win every other time we visited?  Or every third time?   In addition, there's the collect and win, and while I know people who have won cars, cash, trips in sweepstakes I don't know ANYONE who has won in the collect and win portion of McDoanlds Monopoly.  But we peel a game piece and we get excited because we don't have Pacific yet, and we faithfully paste it to our board feeling accomplished even though we'll likely never see the rare game piece that will allow us to win a sports trip we probably might not even want to pay taxes on.  You will also see posts on Facebook with people asking for a rare game piece and saying they have the others in the grouping and if you have the piece they need, then they will split the prize with you.  (Having a rare game piece is the only reason I would say to start eating at McDonalds until you get the other pieces you need, but the easiest prize to win in the collect and win game has odds of 1 in 152,520,645.  It goes up to 1 in 5,945,378,686.)  That's almost one in six billion.  Your odds of winning Powerball are much better than that!

Read the rules of a contest, see what the odds are then enter wisely.  With no Best Buy dollars on this one anymore, I might decide to eat at McDonalds during the Monopoly game, but it's not going to make me eat at McDonalds more often.

Has anyone else figured out what they have spent at McDonalds above what they normally would have during Monopoly and what they have won from that?  Yes, some people will win, but to me it's not a wise financial move nor wise health move to be eating at McDonalds more often than I normally would in hopes of winning. 

You can check out my other related blog posts here:

How to Win Sweepstakes and Prizes
How to Win a Skill Contest
How to Win a Voting Contest
How to Win in Twitter Parties
How to Win Amazon Giveaways
How to Win Blog Giveaways
Where to Find Sweepstakes to Enter
What to do when you wi n a prize.
Should You Keep the News of Winning a Contest Prize a Secret or Tell Everyone?
Are People who Win Prizes Just Lucky Ducks?
Entering Sweepstakes and Public Assistance Like SSI and and Disability
WIN your Christmas
Are you Pressing the Lever on McDonalds Monopoly?

Monday, May 27, 2013

I'm home from Faith and Fitness Week!

I didn't abandon all my faithful readers!  I spent the last week in north Texas at Faith and Fitness camp sponsored by RetroFit Ministries.  During this week I had the opportunity to train with some of the best personal trainers in the United States including John Heart who is the 2013 Mr. America for weight lifting.





We spent four hours a day working out.  That included everything from weight training with John to water aerobics.





You can see me in this photo in the front right.  I posted this on Facebook and told everyone that I looked like I was about ready to pass out, but I do have to say it was an amazing workout!
(Photo courtesy of RetroFit Ministries.)

There were also three former Biggest Loser contestants there.   Such a sweetheart was Alex Reid from Season 14.




The camp was organized by Ken and Austin Andrews from Season 11.  Here I am receiving my "Dare to Soar" award at the end of the week.  (Austin is on the right and Ken is on the left.)




I'll be sharing more about the camp soon.  It was an amazing, life changing experience and I am so glad I went!


Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Tough Week for Weight Loss

This past week has been a tough week for weight loss for me.  To begin, something out of the past started weighing heavily on my mind.

Then there was the "normal" stresses of the week.   First thing that happened was a $300 item I sold at Amazon.com was returned saying it was an unauthorized purchase.  I was thrilled to have sold that because that more than paid the rest of the expenses for the camp for me.  I did get it returned and it's still brand new, and I can resell, but I lost $20 on shipping it.  (The amount given to me to ship it wasn't enough to cover all the expenses, but I didn't mind because I was able to get so much more for it there than eBay.)  THEN someone changed a listing from a single item I was selling on Amazon to a multi-pack.  I'm now wondering if it was changed BEFORE or AFTER my three orders yesterday.  I've currently pulled my items until it gets fixed.  (And hopefully it will!)

Then the car needed work.  Not just one new part as we thought, but it's still in the shop and it's going to be about five hours of labor.

My wound from the toilet seat cut I incurred at my dentist's office started draining again.  I'm hoping that doesn't mean another trip to the doctor.

I'm getting nervous. . . I created this ticket to show how soon I leave for camp!


Monday, April 29, 2013

How are you losing weight?

I posted my weight loss on my Facebook status today.   For those of you wondering, it's 14.6 pounds in the last five weeks.   As expected, someone asked how I am doing "it".  The bottom line is eating better and moving more, but I know that's not the answer they wanted, they wanted something a little more in depth.

Today I'm going to talk about my morning routine and breakfast.

When I get up, I weigh myself.  I want to have an idea what is fluid retention and what is weight gain. I actually count my weight loss one day a week, but I want to know what my body is doing in the meantime.  (This doesn't work well for everyone, but because of some fluid retention problems in the past, a doctor suggested I do this.)

I start on making breakfast.  A few years back I found a crust-less quiche recipe that I have cut in half and often make for breakfast now.  I take 1/4 cup milk, 3 eggs, spinach (it's low in calories, so I don't skimp on it) and a pinch of shredded cheese plus pepper and garlic powder.  It tastes better with cheese baked in, but sometimes leave this out.   I mix this together, pour in a silicone muffin pan which I have prepared with a non-stick spray.  It bakes for 35 minutes at 380 degrees.  The original recipe was a little different, and it called for 30 minutes at 375, but I like my food very cooked, and just this side of burnt.

When I stick them in the oven depends on what exercise I'm doing that day.  I really like Walk Away the Pounds, and if I'm doing Walk Away the Pounds (High Calorie Burn 2 Miles) then I'll stick the eggs in the oven right before I start because the two mile section on this takes approximately 30 minutes.  (This morning I had five extra minutes before breakfast was ready.)  If I'm doing Walk Away The Pounds Express 3 miles, I pause the DVD player after one mile, and stick the eggs in then, and once again, when I'm finished, breakfast is ready.

This is what the eggs look like when I get them out of the oven:



Then I cut them in half, take a slice of 2% cheese and divide it among the 10 halves.  (Again, it's not much cheese but the cheddar peps up the taste and only adds 45 calories!)  Finally, I'm a West Virginia girl, so I grew up always eating ketchup on my eggs.  When I went to college in Tennessee,  some of my friends had NEVER heard of this.  To cut down on calories, I have switched from ketchup to salsa.  Plus it gives it added flavor.  I love spicy food at any time, so this is a great substitution for me.

In the coming days I'll discuss things like what I eat for dinner, eating out (and you'd be amazed how much more often I'm eating out now than before!  There are some healthy options out there!)


Friday, April 26, 2013

Keep Doing What You're Doing.

"Keep doing what you're doing."  Those are great words to hear from the doctor.

I've lost 13 pounds since I last saw the doctor, (I have myself down as losing less than that, but last time I went I was likely wearing a sweatshirt, and we're into t-shirt weather now, so that could account for a little of it.)

My blood work has improved (although there's still room for improvement) and he gave me the information I needed for Faith and Fitness Week.  I can't believe how quickly that is approaching -- in less than a month I'll be home from that!

It was nice to finally hear a GOOD report from the doctor, and I'm hoping this is just the first of many!

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

"Don't Call It Fat Camp"

In my journey to lose weight, I decided to sign up for the Retrofit Ministries "Faith and Fitness Week".  In junior high someone called one of those ads in the back of Teen Magazine to have a brochure sent to me about a fat camp.  I was nicknamed "Short, Fat, and Ugly" in junior high and I never requested the information, so I know it had to be a fellow classmate.  Truth be told, I always wanted to go to a fat camp, so when I signed up for this, I kept thinking, "I'm headed to fat camp."

Last night Austin Andrews called me to finalize my payment for the week.  He was on Season 11 of Biggest Loser, so he totally understands what it's like to be the one made fun of in junior high. 

The moment I told him I posted on my Facebook status that I was headed to Fat Camp, he said, "Don't call it fat camp" and told me they were trying to get away from that image.  Instead, we're going to learn things like nutrition, how to deal with issues that caused us to become overweight, and work with personal trainers to find exercise we enjoy doing.  Instead of a last chance work out we'll be going on a last chance prayer walk.  Sounds like I can do it right?  Well, I know I can.

In February of last year I was tweeting during an episode of Biggest Loser, and Austin tweeted the following to me:

Believe me, you can! It will be the HARDEST THING you have ever done, but you can do this.

I wrote that down on a piece of paper and hung it on the wall of my bedroom.  I saw it daily.  Finally the day came where I hadn't lost anything, and I took the paper down and ripped it into pieces.

Last year was a bad year for me, I was in the hospital for 9 days on IV antibiotics and then on oral antibiotics from February through December.  I didn't feel like exercising or eating right.  Who feels like exercise when you are on antibiotics?  As for food, it's so much easier to stick a frozen pizza in the oven when you aren't feeling well than to chop up a salad.

But I'm ready to do this.  In fact, I am doing it!  Check out my weight loss ticker from the last month!




I also decided it was time to add something back to my wall. It has been months, so I decided it was time to make another.  This time since I'm doing the hardest thing I've ever done, I'll look at it as encouragement instead of guilt because I'm not doing something I should because I'm doing this and I CAN DO THIS!