Playing a game, training for the Auroville Half and meeting goals

That's another weekend run by with my finding it ever impossible to squish in everything I wanted to accomplish.

But on the fitness front, I must acknowledge it was a good one because I managed to do a Jillian Micheals 30 DS workout, got a 6k run in on Sunday morning and even managed a small game of badminton, after almost no workouts last week. Its a little hard to believe that I tried to play a physical sporty kind of game, because I never EVER wandered into games voluntarily. If someone had told my 20-year old self that I'd run a half marathon in my life, I would have totally laughed in their face like it was a joke of sorts. Yesterday, even knowing that I could hardly grip the bat right, I readily ventured to learn, making mistakes in front of others and guess what???? NOBODY judged me for being a bad player! That was simply unbelievable for me.

With the Auroville Half announced at 9th February 2014, that leaves me with under 3 months to train. While I am not exactly going to do the Hal-Higdon this time around, because honestly I don't yet know how many days of the week, I will get to workout on. What I am going to instead focus on is to get a long run in on the weekends and train as best as I can on the other days. But having done a half once, I know that it's tough business and no amount of training may ever be sufficient for someone like me!My aim will be to atleast get  2-3 15k+ runs in.

I will try and post my workout schedule here to give me some more accountability. 

On the food front, while I have almost gone "off" fatty deep fried food, my sugar intake with coffee/ tea stays. As far as the carbs go, I try and keep grain consumption to only lunch and dinner. I have still not made it to goal weight of 67 kg. But I am thinking even 69.9 kg before the turn of the year should be awesome!!! Are you ramping up to achieve your 2013 goals??? Leave me a line!

Eating right - Taming the mind!

Hi guys!!!

I guess I done being upset and have cheered up and ready to roll!!!

I have been eating REALLY healthy! This last weekend made me realize that I might be an all new person! The Scientist's brother and his wife are moving to Bangalore soon, and there were here scouting for a home and all! We were on our toes the whole weekend and spent some real good family time. Even though there were a couple of lunches out I still stuck to my eating plan. At home also I did not greedily lap up the carby goodness I made for the family. I balanced it out well, eating a small part of that and primarily filling up with the vegetable and fruit I planned for myself!

I have learnt over the last 2 1/2 years to not be shy of the effort I am putting into weight loss. Like I tell people I am not interested in dessert or pizza since I am working mighty hard in the direction of shedding the pounds.  When people look at my plate and ask why the bread is missing I am not shy of telling them that I am working on cutting the carbs since that has lately really hindered my weight loss numbers.

Infact when we were out to an official party in the Scients's workplace on Saturday, even though I served myself a piece of chocolate fudge, a scoop of ice cream and a liberal helping of gajjar ka halwa, I did not get past only a few bites of the halwa and decided to trash my plate after having eaten only the chocolate fudge which was -divine!!! The old me would have easily polished off that plate and possibly even gone for a second round!!

Taming my mind has been a long painstaking effort. Many days I crave for a little sweet after lunch. My mind does dart to the chocolate Reeses that I have stored in my pantry. But I ably manage with sugar free mint or some seedless dates! That does not however mean that I have become a food Hitler of sorts!! I still take my tea and coffee with sugar. I also allow myself a couple of sweet breakfasts like a mixed dal kheer which I make with jaggery or a pumpkin custard ocassionally. I continue to eat bananas, chikoos and mangoes!!

The difference is that now I can put my fork down easily and say I'm done eating! Mostly it has been the reward of having a healthy body that has kept me going forward even in the recent time when I felt like I was going through a tough phase! In the past I would eat if I was sad! Or happy.

Changing ones eating habits is VERY hard. You can't revolutionize over night. Its small steps, falls, going back and retracing that will take you a long long way to reaching any goal. Having gone through most of that battle myself and still facing that food temptation many times, let me assure it's possible. Its only a question of turning that switch on in your mind!

Friday post - have done vs have to do and my lunch plate pictured

I have been stuck in the 77-79 rut for a long time now ( Since last July, almost) I keep losing and gaining the same 2-3 kgs over and over again. And anything I try to do to get my weight to touch 75 or under - i.e calorie restriction or stepping up work outs is not working.

 

Obviously I needed to change up some things. Here is what I have done/have to do :

 

1. (have done)Rev up metabolism by changing the exercise - splitting my exercise sessions in two. I have been trying to sneak in the Jillian Michael -30 day shred level 2 in the evenings after work. So far, I am enjoying it. Lets see  if the scale actually will move.

 

2. (have to do)Run What started with a severe pain in my right upper thigh had now resulted in sharp pains in my left knee. Obviously I was stressing my left leg because the right was in pain. I have not run all of this week, except Tuesday and decided to miss both my pump sessions. I instead did yoga yesterday and gave my body a stretch and the 30DS work out in the evening!I will still try to get an intense session in the morning.

 

3. (have done) Grain  - and that is where I think I need more change. I have gone off rice. Well almost. I guess I can never fully. Instead I eat whole wheat rotis and pasta, broken wheat - dalia , oats and millet flours. I could replace that with a lentil & soup for dinner, and a fruit later at night if I am hungry. Always easier to say and very difficult to do!

 

4. (have to do) Banish the sugarAlthough I do stay away from sweets - I take sugar in my coffee and tea, a bit of jaggery here and there, hidden sugars like in my yogurt, some craisins or dates at times. I am sure I will do better if I can totally cut out these sweetening additives. Honestly instead of cutting out more food, i'd rather exercise a bit more!

 

5. (have done& have to do) Up the veggies. I don't love raw veggies.I am however trying to make up salads and raitas to bulk up my meal. Still I could probably work on that as well!

 

Anyway, while I work on getting closer to goal weight, I'll share a picture of my lunch plate with you:

thats Chinese style whole wheat fusili pasta with red and yellow peppers, baby corn and soya nuggets with a yogurt

 

Usually the yogurt would be my snack, but I'm PMSing and sugar craving, so I was just being nice to myself! Lemme know if anyone really wants the recipe, I will be glad to share!

 

Finger Millet Banana Cinnamon Pancakes or Crepes?

Do you fantasize about food?

 

I'll admit I do. Sometimes when I see a few ingredients a recipe pops in my head and I cal already visualize how looks and tastes. Many a time, a recipe I envisioned does not look like how I expected it to, but tastes very good.

 

Have youread Enid Blyton novels - secret seven and famous five and how the kids would pack a basket of scones, pound cake, hamburgers and hotdogs? Even though I don't eat ham or any meat, I still used to drool seeing them.

 

Such is my experience with pancakes. Honestly, I don't remember to have eaten them ever. Also remember I don't bring eggs into my home. I do eat them very rarely outside, but am not a huge egg fan! I always had a craving for the perfect pancake.  I had decided that my wait was over and that I was going to try my hand at it, no matter what!

 

I started out with the idea of fluffy pancakes but ended up with soft crepes which were a bit hit in the Sugar household. I'll give you guys the recipe without further ado.

 

Ingredients for Finger Millet Banana Cinnamon Pancakes (Also gluten free)

Overripe bananas - 2 mashed well with a fork
Finger Millet Flour (Ragi flour) 1.5 cups
Flax Meal : 2 tablespoons
Rice Flour 2 tablespoons
Jaggery 2 tablespoons
Cinnamon - a pinch or two for flavouring
Oil for the crepes

I started out by getting all the above ingredients except oil in a widish container. The bananas stayed a bit lumpy here and there but that worked just perfect for me. I then added water to get a consistency of a dosa batter. I let the batter stand for a while to let the jaggery dissolve well. This is how my pancake batter looked:

I then took my regular dosa tava and smeared a bit of oil on it, fearing the batter might have a tendency to stick to the griddle. I was right and it did take me a couple of attempts before I could get a non shredded pan cake.

To get to the step above, smear a ladleful of batter on the griddle. I kept the size smaller tha my usual dosas. Wait patiently till one side cooks and the sides seem to let off from the griddle. Flip over without tearing the pancake. Wait for that side to cook as well.

And enjoy:

 

 

I ate it as it was. There were pieces of warm gooey banana and I loved it. The sweet was just  right for me and as I said all at home liked it. It also kept me pretty filled. Definitely a Sunday morening breakfast!!!As they say - Tasty bhi, healthy bhi!!!

 



Kellog's Cereal, Misleading Advertisements, weight loss and body image

There is this bill board opposite my house, and most of the hoardings on it always awaken the rebel in me. For a reason. First it was some hospital advertising some heart surgery. Then it was as assisted coneption centre and now the kellogs-k wedding season  ad. Have you seen this advertisement about how to look great this wedding season? This particular hoarding encouraging every woman stopping at the signal to take the Kellogs K challenge angered both the feminist in me and also the one who is painstakingly trying to get rid of that extra weight through a healthy diet and exercise.

 

Those of us trying to lose weight, or atleast I  struggle with problem foods (sweet foods and rice), portion control and body image problems. Even though I know I do look far thinner than before the fact that the weighing scale still shows a 78 just kills me. Everyday, I wake up, try to exercise as hard as I can, cook food that is fresh and healthy for my family and me and try to make better choices when I am offered biscuits and samosasat official meetings.

 

Only incidentally I had glanced upon this at the supremarket on Saturday. Please zoom in to get a better look:

On the left in my hand is a box of Organic Millet (ragi) Flakes by a brand called Beginnings. On the right is a box of  Kellog's Oat Bites, a product of the same guys who think weight loss is all about eating two bowls of the cereal two weeks in a row.

 

While I must admit to not being a technical nerd, alayman can see that the Kellog cereal has twice as much sugar and fat and only half the fibre as in the box on my left. The protein content is a bit higher in the Kellog's carton. But all we dieters know how the consumption of sugar leads to the consumption of even more sugar. Ofcourse, I do not advocate to cut out sugar or any other food group, I am only appalled at how these MNCs seem to get their way into the average Indian household and replace the wholesome Kanji Maav with their Sugary Highly Processed nonsense. Infact they even go as much to say that if you only ate their product for breakfast and lunch/ dinner for two weeks you will become attractive.

 

Seriously guys if you had a 200 calorie breakfast and 200 calorie lunch/ dinner along with a maintaining an exercise routine and a calorie restrictive diet to aid weight loss, ofcourse you will lose weight. Infact you will lose weight  no matter what you ate that cost you only 400 calories - breakfast and lunch put together.

On the other hand eating a high sugar cereal like this one is most likely not going to keep your hunger pangs at bay. Eating sugar causes your body to want more sugar and trust me it is very very difficult to control that craving. Instead filling up with healthy proteins, fibre filled veggies and complex carbs is likely to keep you filled up for longer and make your weight loss effort more sustainable.

 

Yes eating a cereal is a matter of convenience for many of us, and I certainly do buy a box or two of the cereal in my left hand in the picture above. I add sliced bananas or any other fruit, some chopped nuts and top it with milk to get a quick but healthy and filling breakfast. I do get hungry in about 2- 2 1/2 hours and I carry a salad like this:

thats grated carrots, fresh pomogranate, roasted peanuts, chopped coriander with a dash of salt, pepper and lime juice tempered with mutard seeds & urad dal


At the end of this post, I'd like to ask you dear reader for how many of you is weight loss as simple as just eating the same food out of a box for two weeks and seeing results at the end of it? Am I over reacting? Or do I have a point?

The opinions in this post are my own and based on my own experience, and not intended in a deragatory matter. No product referred to above paid me to express positive or negative views. Please treat this as without prejudice.

 

Palak soup for the soul!

Do you love soups? I do. I am a soup fanatic. If I was cooking only for myself and did not have to care for the carb crazy husband, I will survive only on soup.

On the other hand I am so NOT a salad person. I think I have a strong dislike for anything uncooked (Other than fruit) and cold (other than dessert). Hence it is only unwillingly that I try to eat things like cucumber raita, sprout salad, carrot salad etc. Veggies like carrots, radishes and beets, I make either into a paratha after grating and adding to Chappati dough or into  payathankanji.

I discovered that as much as a soup may sound fancy, it is actually very very easy to prepare and gets done in a jiffy too.

Palak( Spinach greens) soup for the soul:

1 bunch palak - stems and all - chopped roughly
1 large onion
green chillies 2 or more as per heat requirement
garlic (if you like the flavour, I don't)
2 teaspoons all purpose flour (maida)
milk 200 ml
grated cheese (optional)
Oil - 2 teaspoons
Salt to taste
desired garnish

Heat oil in a wok. Add the onions saute until they turn pink. Add salt as well. Now throw in the chopped palak and chillies. Mix well. Add about a cup of water , cover and cook till almost all water is evaporated.

Once evaporated, cool the palak onion mixture unless you want your kitchen walls painted green.

Once well cooled, add the 2 teaspoons of maida and grind into a bright green smooth paste. Transfer back to the wok on a low flame to let the maida thicken the soup. Keep stirring lest the misture gets lumpy. Add about two cups of water ( or less as needed)Fold in the milk to and simmer until the whole house smells of palak soup. When still hot you may add in the grated cheese. ( I used mozzarella which was sitting in the fridge for too darn long)

You can garsh with grated/ crushed garlic/ chilly flakes/ oregano/dried masil/ parsley.

Serve. as is or with whole wheat pasta/ some home baked bread :)

This is the toddlers bowl with rice and a few drops og ghee. He loves it this way:



 

 

 



And here's my lunch:

Thats a salad with moong sprouts, peanuts, pomogranate, grated carrots and cucumber and crumbled paneer sprinkled with salt and pepper. Very healthy and fairly tasty too :)

And oh!! I have updated a picture from the Contours Womens Day Run. Please do go there and be your sweet selves, dear readers :)

and also updated my work out page, after a well deserved prod from Gowri. Thankyou.


 

Boring breakfasts?

hey guys!!!

I don't know whats up, but its looking like many of my weight loss blogger friends are busy-busy. Not me! I'm in a food funk though. I just don't know what to eat. Specially breakfasts. I usually have lentil based crepes, cause that keeps me filled up. Or fruit shakes with some protein powder in it. But lately, that just does not hit the spot and I feel like eating something else. The fruit I've bought lately is lots of mango, because thats in season, and I cannot help but buy mangoes because they look so yummy! But I guess I'm tiring out a bit on that front. I really need some variety now. Suggestions? Anyone?

I prefer a nice heavy breakfast for two reasons:

1. I need to refuel after morning workouts

2. I like to keep food free till lunch

Oatmeal just does not do it for me, and I get hungry in two hours flat! Neither am I too much of a cereal fan. So, what to have for a good heavy nutritious breakfast about 300 calories? That has a good bit of protein to it? I don't make eggs at home, so I'm really in  a fix.

So I'm going shopping today to reload on fruit variety and exotic vegetables. Otherwise eating is on track, and so is exercise!

Buttermilk Rice In A Tambrahms DNA!

Being TamBrahm the love for butter milk rice is coded in our DNA since generations immemorial. Buttermilk rice is usually the cure for all ailments. Naturally so, because of the probiotics in buttermilk and the low fat but high energy nature of rice. Teamed with plain salted, dehydrated (sundried) citron pickle, it is the ultimate cure for gastric troubles, upset stomachs and even as a soothing meal in hot summer months.

During my childhood, I remember us children being given buttermilk rice around 2 in the afternoon, after our morning session of outdoor play was over. It was a perfect meal, because it was yummy, filling and cooling for the rancid summer months of Chennai.

Manytimes, after a heavy meal, you find a tambrahm grandmother insisting that a small bit of buttermilk rice be ingested to ensure that the digestive tract is kept in good health. Sometimes it is referred to as if it is virtually caloriefree. Only after calorie counting these last few months, have I been iformed that a cup of white rice has about 250 calories *gasp* 

The reason I went into the flash back above was because, over the last few days, I am facing some bad stomach related issues. Mostly "gas" problems due to bad eating hours. My first thought was to soothe my stomach with the said butter milk rice. But fearful of the calories that rice is loaded with I held back. My situation worsened, and physical discomfort grew. I gave in, and resorted to the old cure. I also visited the doctor today, who recommended I eat buttermilk rice.

Doubtless, I feel far better. The grandmother's cure worked after all, along side the doc's meds. As for my weight, that's a different story. First focus is on getting better. Getting back to gym and office. But while at home, I shall take a noonly siesta.

The winds of change & just for laughs!

Yesterday, as I walked into my home from work, the Scientist exclaimed that I looked like a College Girl! Yes the Scientist, is a complete sweetheart that way, and if not for his support, I wonder how far along I would have come on this journey.

Yes, I have decided to be patient, and shut up and not rant about the number on the scale. I am going to be the quite, diligent worker, who goes about my business, and leave the rest to happen as best as it should. I must click a picture of myself. May be there will be a halo?

As I have said, Maami’s absence leaves me with a home full of work to be done, and then there’s the job and the gym and generally life which also demands my time. On the professional front, I am in a bit if turbulent weather and am listening to the winds of change. Foodwise, I have stopped journaling, because I am a superwoman, and when I close my eyes at night, the number of calories I have consumed in a day does a thank-you ballet in front of my eyes. But seriously, I have been eating a cookie here and there, some ice cream from the freezer, some sweets from the promotion party at work place and the such. I don’t think I’m losing weight, but also hope I’m not gaining. The gym continues to be my early morning temple of routine and my only source of endorphins. Will you be offended if I say I have begun to find great joy in doing 10 unassisted machine pull ups? Or running a 5k on the treadmill? Please don’t be. I am, but a mortal whose only goal of life, right now, is to get thin!

Sorry, that was my attempt at humour. I cannot tolerate the other serious things that are going on in life right now. So some laughs? Anyone?

Eating while working out! A blessing that came to me :)

I saw this post at The Tippy Toe Diet and it brought a lot of things into the right perspective about how to eat while strength training or intense cardio training. Please head to Cammy’s blog and read it, specially those of  you who, like me, are engaging in an intense form of physical activity.

I strength train 2/3 times a week and cardio 2/3 times a week for roughly an hour (warm up/stretching time etc included) and found through a very very bad way that I was just not eating right AT ALL. I mean, I do understand that we need to create a calorie deficit and all. But I went to an extreme and found my entire system shutting down by 5 p.m, which meant I was feeling sleepy and was unable to focus on work or think straight. I just wanted to go home, curl up and go to sleep.

As if a prayer was answered, I saw this yesterday and have figured out my eating options while still being within calorie range. I feel much better today. So its still possible, I realized, to create a calorie deficit without burning out!

Ok. I’ll shut up now. Please head here, all of you!

But also let me know how you guys do it. It will really help!

April Goal & 90/10 eating plan

3 months gone by and I have 13 kgs to hit goal weight. I really need to heat things up a bit and tighten loose corners if I want my stubborn old friend - Mr Adipose tissue that became my tenant to be forcibly evicted from his home i.e my body. Looking back I may say that these 20 kilos have been relatively easy to lose. Pregnancy and dual fracture weight have come off within 1.5 years.Wow!! did I just say easy? I must reconsider!

As many wise weight loss bloggers such as Vicky time and again reinforce, it is supremely important to address the food component of weight loss. They repeatedly stress that no amount of exercise may be enough to burn what you eat, and mindful eating is therefore very very important.

At this point in my weight loss journey I find exceptional wisdom in these words, and must therefore really tighten my eating rules to reach goal. Here are my eating rules for April:

1. Limit refined carbohydrate to once a week.(No to the rice which is regularly creeping into my lunch plate)

2. Stop snacking specially when not hungry.(No to the biscuits and chips I have taken to lately!)

3. Try the 90/10 rule that Lori has done ( stay on plan 90% of the time). Assuming I have six meals a day (one prework out, breakfast, lunch, dinner and two snacks) means I have a total of 42 meals a week. 10 % means 4 meals. That should give me some leg room for indulgence!

4.Summer is hot this time, and fluids must be monitored. So that is in the goal list too :)

Since workout wise, I'm doing the best I can, I plan to stay on track. Same goes with food, weight and exercise journal.I really have high hopes for April!

TGIF, a little secret and just a happy post :)

Its Friday. Can you believe it? I’m happy though. I always look forward to the weekends. There used to be a time in my life when I loathed weekends. My person life was spinning out of control and I hated to be home with my thoughts. I resorted to food for comfort, as a way of rebellion and out of complete helplessness. Mentally, I was a mess and physically I was driving myself towards another disaster. Nearly five years later. I am still paying for the abuse I threw at my body, in terms of the five star (candy) bars I used to devour in the dead of the night!

Despite knowing how badly overeating hurts me, I still find myself reverting to my old habits. The only argument in my favour is that I snap out of it pretty fast. Like this time after vacation eating, I went right back into exercise mode.

I have signed up to have a personal trainer at my gym. Let me promise you, it costs a bomb. But can I whisper a little secret – Oh my God! I love it. My body demands and craves for exercise. After an hour of a combination of squats, lunges, pull ups, crunches and other exercises, I feel awesome, stronger and happier. And all that hard work keeps my eating in check too.

I have found that I make better food related choices and decisions when I exercise. Its possibly the thinking that when I’m working so hard, I should not mess up by eating a bakery goodie. Or may be it’s the endorphins?

Anyway, I really wanted to share my experience with exercise, with those who are trying to lose weight in some part of their life. What is your experience with working out? Lemme know. Or do a post and leave me a link J.

Facing my trouble areas!

My alarm was set to 5 a.m for this morning. Before I knew it I was cardioing my way through my work out. Yes my muscles thanked me profusely for having given them some work after a long break. I enjoy working out.

But my hard work is easily thwarted by poor eating ways. I went right back to poor eating over the vacation. I polished off more than half the anniversary cake and found myself fighting far too hard to stay away from the dessert section at the buffet. Although we did stay away from the buffet itself most meals, the cake and the carbohydrate overdose won over my will power and I conceded to gaining 1.5 kgs in 4 days. During my stay at Chennai, however, I behaved impeccably and food was just fuel.

Much damage was also done in the Saturday evening and Sunday following our return. Pizza, burgers and icecream was not refused. Vegetable and fruit supply was low. Banana Chips were singing lilting romances to my name.

Food wise, today was not bad. But not as good as it was immediately before the vacation. I don't believe I was stupid enough to squander away my hard work!I was craving sugar as I began typing out this post. But writing this down has  lifted the fog from my mind. My goal is clear once again. And I vow to do all it takes to win this battle against food!

I have logged back into my food and weight journal. And I'm off to lay work out clothes for tomorrow morning. Afterall, what matters is not those few days I mess up. But how fast, I can get up, dust my butt and get it going in the right direction!

Right guys?

What I did this weekend

I have had a splendid weekend. It was almost perfect.

Friday night kind of set the tone for our week end, with a celebratory dinner (we bought a house, remember?) at the Taj West End, Bangalore.The Indian restaurant - Masala Kraft, has a delectable spread, and is true testament to the glory of dining at the Taj. The original plan was to go by ourselves, but Chittu called himself in at the end.

Dinner, was rounded off by baked Anjeer Halwa for dessert that the Scientist and I split. I am on a diet, I remind myself. But it's a celebration. And thats OK. I got right back on track, with an early morning run Saturday. It felt great. I did a few laps in the neighbourhood park, and jogged back home.The whole run was a jog. But, Man, was it good! We spent the morning and early afternoon shopping for necessary groceries, got home for lunch, and crashed out on bed, along with the toddler. Now I know why they call the elliptical low impact. We met the Scientist's friend and his wife for dinner. They are expecting their baby in early January. So we imparted some unsolicited  parenting gyaan. Hmm.. since we had dinner at a restaurant, I tried to stay on plan, by avoiding the roti and skipping dessert.We walked back home, watch half an hour of "How to train a dragon", and were ready for the bed.

I headed for a run again this morning, with sore muscles of my legs, abdomen, glutes and back. But I figured, doing the run will still make me feel better than if I did not do it. So there I was - sweat-shirt clad, in the misty wintry bangalore morning,  working my ass off (pun intended). The Scientist fixed my elliptical, while I finished veggie shopping for the week. We were meeting the Scientist's colleagues for lunch, during which I kind of stayed on plan, by watching the rice, and skipping the very tempting sweet dish, and the acclaimed samosa.

I have learnt that it is a matter of the mind. I tell you, it was never this way for me. The toddler wanted to have the samosa. So I fed him half a samosa, without feeling tempted, and gave the rest to the Scientist. Dealing with food has never been this easy for me. I don't feel like I am controlled by it any more. Instead I control food.

Right now, my back and thighs are hurting very badly, and I think I will use a hot-water-bag to ease the pain. As I type this post, the Scientist is putting Chittu to sleep, after which we will watch the rest of "How to train your dragon".

So how was your weekend?

Weight Update: I have been maintaining a steady 82.3-82.5 kg. I shall be patient, and the weight will go.

Addressing my rants.

Remember my rants all of last week? Well, it appears that my body was doing some adjustments. Noteworthy things that happened this week:

·         The scale has begun to show lower numbers. So much for my fight!

·         I had ONLY ONE mint Oreo (the real one, not the bad stuff Britannia sells in India) from an entire packet that the husband bought and devoured by himself.

·         I took only one sip from the large coke that the husband got free for buying movie tickets using Citibank card. I trashed the rest, and the popcorn. It makes me bloated. I’m proud of myself.

·         I also had only half a californian cookie, out of the three varieties that the husband bought at cookie man. (do you see a trend? The husband is beginning to grow the devil’s horns? And I have displayed great strength at resisting food)

·         I have, this first week of November December, kept at adhering to my monthly goals. So, food & exercise journal is going good, as is added evening exercise twice a week.

·         The inches are going on my lower body, which allays my fear that I was losing weight only on the top.  

Moral of the story: I’m too good.

Nah. But seriously, all that it takes to say NO to a large coke calling out my name that pre-planned decision to say NO. Believe me, it was not this easy the last time. But I have been persistent.

Sneak Peek - Updates!

Belch! Hello! How are you doing, dear reader?

I’m feeling better than yesterday. The pain has significantly subsided, after taking the meds the doc gave me y’day. He’s also asked for a scan and an x-ray. Ouch! What a bother. I hate waiting at the scanning centre, plus I’m not sure if they need an ocean in my body to do the scan. (You know about it right? That your bladder/intestine/stomach.. basically everything needs to be filled with water for them to be able to do the scan.) So I hate it, and don’t think I’m going for it. Plus as I said, I’m feeling a lot better today. Just very belchy, but better.

What I instead plan to do is go for a walk in the park with the toddler. Basically leave the baby with the babysitter, and take a nice brisk walk. The winter is always making my hands and feet cold, and so I think a warm-up will be good. I did some yoga this morning, because it is low impact and all. So I am wishing for a little bit of cardio. Is that me talking?

For breakfast I had some pomogranate and plenty of watery buttermilk (with salt and asafetida). Lunch was two and a half methi rotis with dal and boiled veggies. The other half was taken by the little fellow who has shown a great love for rotis & parathas. I’m planning to do some soup ( broccoli & cauli) for dinner, with a bit of brown rice may be? Wow!! doesn’t that sound good?

Also I’ve been seriously thinking of going to the gym, because the weight seems to not be budging. But fear of eating up my baby-time is one big reason I rethinking. I’m going to think a while. That’s going to be a tough decision.

Sneaking a post from work. Am going to run.

Adios!