Aunt Sue: Special occasions

Hi Genevieve,

Good for you for getting back to the food and exercise plan right after a big dinner. I know that you, your mom and sister don't eat out together often, so that was a special occasion.

It started me thinking that the challenge for me is always to get back on the horse like that after a special occasion. For example, if I know I have dinner plans on the weekend, I would probably rule out watching what I eat until after that date. If I know I have a few social engagements over the course of a few weeks, I might adopt a "what the hell" approach to eating for the month.

It should work that you enjoy the special occasions and take good care of yourself in other ways the rest of the time by eating healthfully and exercising. But that's never been the way I live. I'd like to change that.

Feed a cold?

I had a pretty good day today, although it got off to a rough start because I went to a lab for some tests and wound up accidentally showing my urine sample to a group of complete strangers. I thought I was returning the sample cup to a lab room but walked in to some kind of meeting instead. "May I help you?" one of the suited men asked. "I don't suppose I could interest you in a urine sample," I replied. Not surprisingly, they declined and directed me elsewhere.

But I digress. I have a cold and I'm assuming that the old adage "Feed a cold, starve a fever" aren't actually words to live by. Normally, I do indeed live by those words but haven't really today. I'd like to, though. So my goal for the rest of the evening is to get through it without consuming mass quantities of anything. I'm going to make some of that Teavana tea you gave me for Christmas.

Anyway, sorry about the pee story. I've been wanting to tell someone about that all day. --- Your Aunt Sue

Feeling a little less fat

Hi Genevieve,

I put the word 'fat' in the title in hopes that it might attract a search engine and put us in touch with other people trying to lose weight.

Anyway, I have really enjoyed reading your posts and appreciate your honesty. What you wrote about raiding the kitchen while you're babysitting reminded me of how I was when I was about your age. When I was babysitting, I would go to the kitchen after the kids were asleep. And I'd take food in a way designed to make sure the parents didn't notice it was gone. For example, I'd only choose things they had a lot of and I'd reshape the food packages so that they still looked full. It was weirdly sneaky considering I was always told that I was welcome to whatever was there. I just think food and eating have always had an element of secrecy for me.

I've been doing ok on our plan - eating the salad and apple and drinking the four glasses of water a day. I plan to exercise tomorrow, Thursday and Friday to meet our three-times-a-week agreement. I like this modest plan because it makes me feel successful, although I certainly have not been perfect. I had a candy bar yesterday and some pretzels and cookies today. But not mass quantities, which is an improvement.

I've been aware of how much more I eat than my friends do. I had dinner out twice with friends and each time I stopped eating when they did and asked for the rest of my dinner to be packed up. And I just at the rest of the food when I got home.

It's been good to watch how I am about food these past few days. But mostly I like being in touch with you every day. Talk to you tomorrow........Aunt Sue

1/12/10: Genevieve

This morning, I had some of that leftover smoothie and corn muffin for breakfast, since having only the smoothie yesterday didn't keep me full. Once again, I had my sandwich and an apple for lunch, a usual for me at school. I haven't been keeping up with the salad a day goal, which is a little sad seeing as it's the first goal. However I found a salad recipe that's supposed to be healthy but delicious, which I want to try soon. There were a small amount of snacks during the day, but for a very legitimate reason. The first reason: today in nutrition we did a dairy food tasting, so my teacher brought it a bunch of healthy diary foods like low fat chocolate milk, yogurt, cheese, etc. Then for dinner my mom and I split a can of soup, went to yoga, and then had a chinese "pork bun", which is generally probably not too healthy to eat, but I think since it was for dinner, it seems reasonable.

And I still have to finish all of my homework.


Genevieve

Day 2: Aunt Sue

My first day on the Genevieve/Aunt Sue plan went pretty well. I drank the water, ate the apple and had a spinach salad. I usually work Sundays but I was off yesterday and it's freezing outside, so I spent most of the day reading magazine articles on weight loss and watching police procedurals on TV, which for some strange reason seems to be a key component of relaxing for me. I can actually do a fair imitation of Mark Harmon's expressions in NCIS.
Anyway, there were a few bumps. I decided to have some cereal for a snack and ate half the box. I think I've got to stick to keeping oatmeal or Grape Nuts in the house because I'm not tempted to eat those in bulk. Also, I was looking for recipes without my glasses on and saw what I thought looked like a good pasta dish. When I put my glasses on to look for the recipe, I saw that it was actually a big ashtray filled with cigarette butts in a story about smoking. Not sure what that means. But yech.
I'm off today and back to work tomorrow. I'll have salad tonight for dinner, have the apple, drink the water and stay away from cereal!

The First Step

We are Aunt Sue and Genevieve and we are starting our weight loss plan today. Our goal is to lose one hundred pounds in total. We are going to create our own plan by pulling pieces from a variety of other diets and setting specific goals each week. We are looking forward to supporting each other, writing to each other and being in touch with people with similar goals. We live in different cities, but we have always been close. Our specific goals this week are to: drink four glasses of a water a day, eat an apple a day, eat a salad everyday, and exercise for at least 30 minutes or more three times during the week. Other than that we are going to start being mindful of what we eat and blog each day about what worked and what our challenges were.