This is not an April Fool’s joke. Really. I decided to start a diet blog on April 1. This will continue on a daily basis until I have lost 20 pounds. Realistically somewhere between 3-4 months if I behave. Posting daily is part of the accountability that should hopefully help with that. If you are at all interested in trying to lose weight or want to hear about healthy recipes occasionally, please follow along.
This started two days ago when I had my yearly doctor’s appointment and asked my doctor, “How much should I weigh?” Doctors like questions like that. Her eyes lit up. “How tall are you?”
“5′ 3′” She walked over to a chart on the wall and said, “Okay, your healthy range is 107 to 135 pounds. If you can get to the high end of that it would be good.”
I thought about that. My scale at home says I weigh 153. The one at the gym says 157. Since I usually weigh myself at home, in the morning, I’m going to go with 153. It makes me feel a little better. Twenty years ago, I weighed between 128 and 133. My weight has always bounced around a bit. Thing is, I like food. A lot. You might even say I’m a little obsessed with it. I’m always thinking ahead to my next meal or what I’ll be cooking or where I’ll be going out to eat. At my age, that’s what we do for entertainment, go out to eat or have people over and cook in. So the bottom end of that range will never be my reality. I decided on 133 as a target goal.
Yesterday, someone on Facebook posted a graphic of a woman doing squats and a challenge to do them for 3 weeks. I went to the gym yesterday for the first time in months. Did the elliptical for 25 minutes. Went back this morning and did it for 28 minutes and then did 25 squats.
I’m not someone who can stick to a rigid diet. I like food too much. I also like wine and have no intention of giving that up. My diet plan is simple, eat less, make smarter choices and exercise more. Each day, I’ll check in with how the day went. Some of my food choices may seem odd, not typical diet fare. But I do believe you can eat anything you want and lose weight if you focus on eating less of it.
So, breakfast today was leftover chicken marsala and roasted fingerling potatoes. A small amount. After gym snack was a banana. I have a hair appointment at 11:30 so will have a small, 100 calorie bag of popcorn before I go and a cup of chicken rice soup for lunch when I get back.
Tonight will be my first challenge. I’m going out to dinner with friends….will try to stick to veggies and a piece of fish maybe. There will be wine. 🙂
Another challenge for me is that I’m trying to also eat dairy and gluten-free because I’ve found that I’m intolerant to both and feel much better when I avoid them. But…cheese! I love cheese, and pizza…..so sometimes I cheat. LOL But when I do, I pay by feeling sick, so I now cheat less and less. I will be sharing any gluten and dairy free recipes I try that are amazing…..here’s my first one for the best roasted potatoes I’ve ever had. Ever. This recipe was from a Plated meal that I had. I get two meals delivered weekly, all the ingredients ready to be cooked…and plated. The potatoes I’ll be making over and over.
About 12 fingerling potatoes, halved and then halved lengthwise.
1.5 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
2 springs of rosemary, leaves removed and chopped.
Heat oven to 425. Line a cookie sheet with tin foil. In small bowl, mix oil, mustard and rosemary. Put cut potatoes on foil, pour oil mix over and them toss potatoes until evenly coated. Season with salt and pepper. Put all potatoes cut side down, then roast in oven for 15 minutes.
I will be weighing in once a week, on Friday mornings…and will report the results…..good or bad.
Happy Friday!
~Pam