Chinese New Year: Genevieve

Last night, we had a huge Chinese New Year dinner at my house. While it was extremely delicious and amazing, I did a pretty bad job with moderating what I ate. We had a lot of family members over from my dad's side of the family and I think everyone had a lot of fun. Really, when we first started the blog, one of the first things I thought of was Chinese New Year. I knew it wasn't going to be helpful for me at all, but it's only once a year that we get to have all this rich food. We had peking duck, sticky rice stuffed in a chicken, ox tail stew, shrimp, chicken skewers and a lot more. I'd say everything was a success, except for a few glitches and mishaps... but it wasn't too significant.
My brother had friends from school over and after my friend and everyone else left, we played a game of apples to apples, which I've never played before. If you haven't played it before, I suggest you grab some friends and go out and get it, because it's probably the most fun game I've played in a while.


Genevieve

Aunt Sue: SlimFast

Does anyone have any feelings about meal-replacement shakes? I've started drinking SlimFast sometimes for breakfast and at other times when I get home from work. This is certainly not something I'd have a second helping of - so that's good. And it works OK in the evening. But when I have one for breakfast, I'm hungry soon afterwards. Breakfast is always a challenge for me. I never leave myself enough time in the morning to actually prepare a meal. I'm not even sure that SlimFast is the best of its kind because there are a number of different brands. Any thoughts on this?

Aunt Sue: Dressed in black

I'm dressed like a Greek widow today - all in black. Not for any reason other than a vague notion that it's slimming. I have had mixed success today - mostly good but I've had a number of small cookies that one of my coworkers brought in. I'm going to the gym tonight for at least half an hour. So that would make it a largely good day.

Speaking of largely, I've been piling up my fat clothes to give away. Not sure that's a good idea when I'm still fat but I don't want to wear them anymore. I'd rather go Greek widow than mother of the bride. I don't actually look like this photo, by the way. I think it's from Zorba the Greek.

Aunt Sue: A smoky breakfast

I really do have to get more practice cooking. Just one week after making bean soup that was still crunchy days later, I made a breakfast for my nephew, Genevieve's brother, that was fair to not-that-good. Plus, there was a smoky incident involving the muffins. He was a good sport, but I really do have to become a better cook if I'm going to eat more healthfully. In the past, I've relied on frozen Weight Watchers or Lean Cuisine dinner, but that gets old after a while.

My niece said something in her last post that really resonated with me. She said it has hit her recently "how much I should want to lose weight." I feel like that all the time. I should want to do this. I do want to do this. But...... It seems to me sometimes that if I really wanted to be thin, I would be. And yet, I do want to be thinner but I'm obviously not committed to it.

A nutritionist told me once that thought follows action. I was able to stop drinking almost 17 years ago by joining AA and following a plan, in that case the 12 steps. So maybe I should give Weight Watchers another try. I'm already signed up for the online plan and I'll give that a shot again before I try meetings again. Perhaps the online plan and communicating with other bloggers would be a good combination.

Anyway, onward.......

Extra time: Genevieve

I haven't been posting much because of school. School is also why I haven't been able to get to yoga for the past week. This week has been full of tests, papers and projects, that I'm almost positive that my teachers like to watch us suffer. Except for my American Lit teacher, she's an angel. Speaking of Ms. W., she just gave us a cumulative vocab quiz put together by her son, Gabe, and the main character of all the sentences was her huge cat, Woogie. She was also diagnosed with diabetes.
It has only just recently hit me how much I should want to lose weight. And I do, it's just that I guess I don't really know when to stop. Some days I'd decide to cut some things out of my meals for the day, but I don't stick to it. A lot of things that are happening with my friends with the way people compliment them, and I think it's making me realize what I really have to do. This next week, I don't care what my crazy Finnish chemistry teacher assigns, I'm going to make it to yoga. I'm also going to choose something to cut out of what I eat. It's hard to know what to have in the house and what not to have. That's probably the hardest for me. Whenever there's food that my parents buy in the kitchen, I just assume that it's okay for me to eat it even if it's not helping me lose weight.

Aunt Sue: Floyd

I had a pretty good day today in terms of my diet and I think that was because of the day I had yesterday. I have this tuxedo cat named Floyd who used to be over 20 pounds. In December I took him to the vet because he was choosing alternatives to the litter box, which was very unusual. He was diagnosed with diabetes. The vet recommended changing his diet first and asked me to come back in a month. Well, I did start feeding him the high-protein food she recommended but I didn't bring Floyd back for two months. I was sure that he was getting better - not really a diabetic at all. But I did bring him back yesterday and Floyd has lost three more pounds, a lot for a cat and an indication that the diabetes is not under control. So we're most likely going to go from diet to medication before considering insulin.

I love this cat. He's a dog in a cat suit. Vets have told me for most of his 14 years that he needs to lose weight. And I've pretty much ignored them because he was healthy and he's got a big frame. But now he's not healthy. I wish I had taken those warnings more seriously because it would kill me to lose this cat.

And the thought has been occurring to me since that I've been warned for years about the dangers of obesity but I've pretty much ignored them. I've been basically healthy and I too have a big frame. But I wouldn't describe myself as healthy now. I've got a number of weight-related health issues. And I need to take those warnings more seriously.

Anyway, I had a NutriGrain bar for breakfast, sushi for lunch and a cheese sandwhich for dinner. Not too impressive, I know. But I did go to the gym after work. Progress, not perfection, right?

Aunt Sue: My confinement

   I'm sorry that I haven't posted at all this week. It has been a strange week - I feel like I've been trapped in my house by a mountain of snow. I wasn't fabulous as far as my eating went this week but no bingeing, which is an improvement for me.

   I made some fairly terrible Navy bean soup. The beans were still crunchy after cooking for 12 hours! And it was pretty flavorless. That didn't stop me, of course, from bringing a container over to my friends Bucky and Billy. Billy is a great cook and he's always sending over wonderful food. I wanted to reciprocate, losing sight of the fact that I'm not a very good cook.

   I actually really like to bake but I'm terrible at it. I always make one tragic mistake. For example, one Christmas I was going to make a rainbow cake - white cake with swirls of red and green. Well, I didn't red and green food coloring but I had blue and yellow and thought that would be pretty. The cake actually tasted pretty good but it was Herman Munster green.

   Anyway, I'm going to keep trying to cook some decent, fairly healthful things and hope I don't poison myself in the process - or my friends.

Aunt Sue: A minor correction

Hi Genevieve......You're right. I think it was your mother and other aunt who made fun of the very idea of my parfaits. I stand corrected! I'm going to make some bean soup tonight so I'll let you know how that goes.

I think we should push for a pound off each this week. But mainly to eat more healthfully and exercise a bit more. And to keep in touch through the week, because that contact with you is what I like best.

Weigh-in #4

Today, Aunt Sue and I weighed in again and Aunt Sue is down another pound, weighing in as 220 pounds. I stayed the same this week, since I irresponsibly denied the offer to go to yoga with my dad this week. He's been going to yoga every Wednesday and Monday since September and I have to say, he looks pretty toned. My sister, mom and I noticed it in the past month whenever we were all together. Usually I go on Sundays with my mom, but a lot of the time, things come up and we're not able to go. So this upcoming week, I'll go to yoga on Monday and Wednesday with my dad and then on Sunday with my mom, sticking to the exercise regime that I haven't been keeping up with.
Aunt Sue and I talked this morning and we're shooting to lose a pound each.

Also, Aunt Sue, I don't remember ever scoffing at your yogurt! I've never had one of your parfaits....


Genevieve

Aunt Sue: A snowy day

It's a snowy Friday afternoon and I've had kind of a sloppy day. I had to mail my mother's birthday present today but by the time I left the house. the post office and FedEx were closing early because of the weather. I finally found a UPS office, paid $25 to get the present to Florida in time and also put the wrong address on the package. So it's been that kind of day.

But I'm determined to get a handle on my eating and not be sloppy about that today. This week, there was a birthday party at work and I'd been pretty careful for a few days, so I thought I'd have some of the desserts. They all looked good and before I knew it, I had a plate full of cake, pie and cobbler. I set it on my desk and looked at it for a while - a heap of sweets. And I did eat it but the image of that plate has stayed with me. What am I doing? I'm more careful about what I feed my pets than I am about what I feed myself. That plate has come to seem pretty gross to me.

I'm a recovering alcoholic who has been sober for almost 17 years. I have always understood that my sobriety comes one day at a time. I need to apply that same mantra to my diet. So for today, I'm going to eat like I'm feeding someone I care for.

Weigh-in #3

This morning I weighed in and lost .4 from the last weigh in. It's not much, but I wasn't really keeping up the the apple, salad, and exercise, because of the concert I was in for school. But now, I don't have to be at rehearsals until dark and I can catch up with some things.
Aunt Sue, on the other hand, is down 1.4 pounds since the beginning of our project, which now brings us down to 97.6 pounds to go!

I think this week, I can do much better and Aunt Sue will do even better than she already has.
Also, my workload for school shouldn't be as much as the past two weeks, since it's the beginning of a new quarter.

Genevieve