Motivation

RANTING BURNS CALORIES!

This is an open, ongoing, support-encourage-motivational-RANTING thread. Feel free to skip to the end, or spend days reading through all of this ...

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I have decided that "Diet" is a 4-letter word.

I find myself muttering and uttering the word around my house these days with loathing and vehemence previously reserved only for comments directed toward liberal politicians. In fact, I seem to be talking to myself a lot more these days .... sort of a running, sarcastic commentary on all the foods I can't eat, or on various other related topics. I wonder if there is a link between calorie-deprivation and Tourettes Syndrome? Grrrrrrrrr.....

I am now on Day 8 of the dreaded D-word. This is already the longest period of time that I have ever successfully remained on a diet. And I seem to be growing grouchier and feistier each day..... at least when I am alone and no one is around to hear my running rants. (My wonderful DH has heard some of my more memorable rants on the subject of broccolli and reports that I am hysterically funny when I am hungry!) I am counting carbs. I am counting calories. I am counting fat grams. Sheesh ... now my math anxiety is about to kick-in!

Mini Rant #1 .... what masochist decided that the serving size of cereal was anything less than 2 cups? Have you ever measured out 2/3 a cup of cereal? Or even a full cup? And placed it in a bowl? Those few little flakes and pieces just sit forlornly at the bottom of the bowl, shivering and lonely, even when we dribble on a few meager droplets of skim milk! Sheesh. Well, I can tell you that there is simply no way that my oversized body is going to be happy with that tiny amount of cereal ... so I have been eating TWO servings for breakfast. SIGH. And while the side of the box says that I can supplement the cereal with some fruit, they probably don't mean eat 45 cherries with your cereal -- much less 1/2 a watermelon, huh?

Mini Rant #2 .... Things NOT to say to someone who has told you that they have just started on a diet:

1.Good, you sure needed it.
2. It's about time.
3. Really? It doesn't look like it.
4. Again? Haven't we heard this before?
5. Gosh, how much weight do you need to lose?
6. What do you weigh? I've always wondered.
7. I never need to diet, I have a fast metabolism.
8. Really? I can eat all I want and never gain weight.
9. Is THAT why you are so grouchy?
10. I sure hope you plan to exercise a lot more.

AAAUGGH! All of these responses are just the thing to make me even grouchier .... so just smile and say something encouraging and supportive, ok? I will let you know how it is going.

_____

=^..^=  Molly 

WELCOME TO MOLLY'S MOTIVATIONAL RANT / CHAT THREAD ... FEEL FREE TO SHARE YOUR RANTS, TOO!  YOU CAN EITHER READ FROM THE BEGINNING OR JUST JUMP ON IN ON THE LAST PAGE ... JOIN US! 

stayonpiste ... yay for you getting a digital scale .... I really like ours... well, MOST of the time! (hee hee hee!)  I hope your doctor adjusts your meds the way you want them adjusted!

So far, we like the new treadmill. I've burned 200 calories on it so far today (goal is 300)... and my DH used it, too. It's so nice to be able to just get on it ... work out/burn calories ... go do errands, and then go back a few hours later!

Today was a day of many FIRSTS for me .... I had hummus for breakfast on toast with sliced tomatoes, I had Thai-style mustard greens, turnip greens AND collard greens for dinner, and I made quinoa for dinner, too.... it was fabulous with pinjur sauce!!!  (What's quinoa, you ask? Check my journal!) (Pinjur sauce is a spicy tomato-eggplant-pepper sauce from Macedonia!)  

Who says "diet food" has to be dull and boring?

=^..^= MOLLY

 

(sigh)

It's a beautiful Autumn day here, the sun is shining, and I seem to have my respiratory bug back ... coughing and a sore throat and the overall "oogies." Drat, drat, drat. I stayed in bed until 10am and took a long hot shower before venturing out for my usual breakfast of Kashi Go Lean/Almond Breeze and Flax Seed Toast with a protein. 

I will try walking on the treadmill some, but don't want to start coughing with this bug and my chronic asthma, ya know?

My DH leaves in about an hour for the airport ... he'll be out of town for the next four days. I get so bummed and sad when he's gone ... I am SUCH a noodle about these things. And, these will be the first four days since my diet started without his calming, moderating, supporting presence.... EEEEK! 

This also means I need to go to the dentist all by myself on Wednesday to finish getting my roots scraped. That was such a dreadful experience last time (with him) that I am not at all looking forward to doing it on my own.

=^..^= MOLLY

Hi, I'm new to CC (first week and yet to find any friends ) and I have to say you have had me in LOL (which in turn had the kids saying "whats so funny?") with this rant section. 

I have over 100lbs to lose and will visit your rant section often, for plenty of laughs.

My husband is in the gaurd and so he to is gone from home from time to time also, normally this is a time when I don't eat at all for a day or so and then binge on all the wrong things.  But you sound like a much stronger person than me!

I also wanted to add I'd buy your cookbook or watch your show if you ever do either!

 

welcome taypet, we can ALWAYS use more ranters on our merry little thread! Not only does ranting burn calories, but so does laughing! (I don't overeat, I "under laugh" .... that's my story and I'm sticking to it!)

My rant for this evening is why do paper cuts hurt so much!? Arrrgh. I got a nasty one this morning, and I keep seeming to bump it, bruise it, get salt on it, or otherwise make it hurt even more. Yikes, what a whiny noodle I am with my DH gone, huh? He's only been gone one day, and I am missing him terribly. Oh well, at least I remembered to feed the dogs, let them out, let them back in, and work on the treadmill like I'm supposed to! It's now 8:45pm on Sunday night, and I still have enough calories left for popcorn later, yay me!

Today was fine, just not terribly interesting or exciting. I ate three healthy meals and one healthy snack, and I'm on track for my daily calories. I had 12 servings of veggies. I've been dutifully monitoring my blood sugar. Dinner was a mix of fresh veggies and leftovers. The dishes are done and the kitchen is spotless. I worked out 4 times today on the treadmill, for a total calorie burn of 400.  I've been trying to drink lots of water ... and I'm doing OK. There is still a load of clean, dry laundry in the dryer ... but I was thinking about saving it for tomorrow.... hee hee hee.... is that amazingly decadent of me, or what?

If only I could train the kitties to scoop their own box, life would be dandy! Oh well, we can always dream, right?

Keep on ranting! Tomorrow is a new day. Let's do this ... one meal at a time, one day at a time, one pound at a time!

=^..^= MOLLY

 

Rant for the day.  Extra pounds dressed in healthy food clothing.  Last week I wrote about the benefits of turkey bacon (farce farce).  This week.....Low Fat Frozen Yogi.  It is always dangerous when DH does grocery shopping.  We end up with boxes of Ho ho's and containers of Pringles and now 4 (that's right 4!) half gallons of Breyer's ice cream.  By the way, he can eat this stuff and lose weight.....yeah.....he's one of those.  Anyway, in his effort to be supportive (which I view as very sweet and don't want to discourage this behavior) he brings me home this little pint of Low Fat Frozen Yogurt.  Isn't that sweet?  However, the frozen yogi was manufactured by non other than the anti-diet company, Hagen Daas.  Yes, it was low in fat......but that was about it.  a 1/2 cup serving had the same number of cals. as the cookies and creme ice cream from breyers.  The H.D. also had alot more sugar than the regular stuff.......why ?  Why torture us?  When we walk through the grocery store having to scour over labels and make comparisons, munch our healthy snacks, use fake butter on our popcorn and dream of yellow streams of butter lathering our popcorn......why must you taunt us with low fat frozen yogi?  Is nothing sacred?

I dream some day of a food store we can go to where EVERYTHING in it is diet-friendly in an appropriate portion size. (Note the word "appropriate" in that sentence!)  Everything in the store is healthy, low fat, low sugar, minimally processed, organic, tasty and inexpensive.... the labels are all large, easy-to-read and standardized, and the store has special signs that point to the lowest calorie and/or best tasting option available.  There could be one small, locked section in the back where we can buy Doritos, Cheez Whiz, and real ice cream for our spouses ... and they would TRIPLE COUPONS!!!!

Ahhh.... to dream the impossible dream ..........

I am sure I will come back from my planned trip today to Whole Foods with my fair share of grocery-store related rants. I want to buy 8 oz of either sushi grade yellowfin tuna or sushi grade bluefin tuna, plus some tomatoes, mushrooms, spinach, brussell sprouts, asparagus, apples and (drumroll please), my first ever red bell pepper. (I'm trying something new!) It sounds like a small, reasonably simple list ... but I wonder how much that will run me? Any guesses?

=^..^= MOLLY (one rant burns 5 calories!)

 

It's quite simple, actually.

If they take an ingredient out of something, they have to replace it, right? And why repace it with something healty when they can keep profits up by including only the most addictive ingredients?

Did you ever wonder if the food manufacturing businesses are in conglomerates which include weight loss poduct/scheme companies???

 

OK, I haven't made it to the grocery store yet because I've been trying to figure out the latest military pay snafu .... grrrrrrrrrr. 

The short version - today is payday and there was no direct deposit made to our account. Went online, and there was no paystub, either. Called the pay people at the base and they said that I needed to email them the problem. (Sheesh, my telephonic "we didn't get paid" wasn't clear enough for them, apparently.) So, I emailed them.  DH finally was able to call me back (he is out of town and largely "unavailable" for the next 4 days)... only to tell me that he called the pay people, who didn't know what the problem was, didn't know how long it would take to find out what the problem was, and didn't know if anyone else has the same problem.  He was promised a return phone call to me within two hours.

Need I mention its been more than 2 hours?

Need I mention that (silly me) I had plans to pay bills with that paycheck?

Need I mention that it will probably take them until Nov 1 or Nov 15 to actually get our Oct 15 money to us, absent some miracle.

Need I mention that the ENTIRE time DH was deployed to Iraq, each and every one of his paychecks was wrong?

Grrrrr...... surely all of this ranting is burning calories, right?

=^..^= MOLLY

Yes.  I do think that the food companies and the diet industry are in cahoots and I think they are all funded by the government.  See, they knew Molly was going to whole foods today so they won't give her the paycheck....It's all a conspiracy.

Sorry to hear about the paycheck headache...

Typical case of the military's

  "Hurry Up and wait syndrome"

I'll pray  they  figure  it  out  quickly  dear for you tonight.

Thanks for the prayers and good wishes ... no return phone call to me or to DH from the nefarious and apparently befuddled "pay people." I tried calling back and (surprise, surprise) there was no answer ... and they do not have voicemail in that department. (No wonder, huh?)  So ... I went grocery shopping and came home to find (surprise, surprise) BILLS in the mail. Grrrrrrr..... and I grouchily transferred money out of savings to pay them. Grrrrr.... Grrrrrrr......

I've only done 308 calories on my treadmill today, and I wanted to do 400 calories. Oh well, maybe I can get another 92 calories burned before it's time for bed. I don't know if I am just an overachiever, or I am setting my exercise goals to high, or I am just grouchy and whiny because (1) my DH is out of town; (2) I have a raging case of PMS; (3) the darn military didn't pay us today; (4) I have to go back to the darn dentist on Wednesday to get my roots scraped; or (5) ALL of the above. I think it's ALL of the above ... what a toxic combination, huh? rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant

Has anyone had puffed millet cereal? They had it at Whole Foods and it's only 60 calories a cup. I bought some ... but it looks pretty ... ummm.... tasteless and boring. I was thinking of adding Walden Farms calorie-free chocolate syrup to it when I add my 1/2 cup of unsweetened vanilla Almond Breeze. Or maybe I will just treat it as low calorie croutons and sprinkle some in my tomato soup. (It's not sweetened in any way.)

Rant on, peeps. And watch out for those darn pay people, k?

=^..^= MOLLY

My wonderful almost 13 year is so thoughtful... she made some jello yesterday and offered me some.  Of course I said yes to a small portion, but since we've been out all day and I've not made them do their chores today, we have no clean bowls.  But my child hand washes two bowls and brings them to me to make sure they are clean enough...

Now here she stands with a nice clean bowl, wiping it dry with her T_SHIRT!!!!

What is it with kids? Are clothes dish cloths?

So I say as calmly as I can, "well it was 'til you did that?"

"Oh!" she says "This ones mine, I'm going to dry yours with paper towel."

Humm, do you believe her? cos I was doubtful and  ended up fixing my own portion just to be on the safe side.

But why? do they do this!!!!!

(I'm sure I lost at least 50 Calories ranting and dealing with this tonight) 

Puffed cereal! My favorite!  I always eat mine with a flavored non-fat yogurt (Yoplait vanilla, cherry or blueberry are my favorites).  I LOVE all the puffed cereals - wheat, kamut, millet, rice, corn - wheat is the best; rice gets a little soggy.  Or, mix them all up, and you get Kashi 7-whole-grain puffs!  I don't know what the other 2 are. :)

I know this may sound strange, but I actually go to sleep thinking about having it for breakfast, and am disappointed if DH has cooked something else - even if it's pancakes!

PAY UPDATE:  The Colonel I spoke to today assured me that we will see my DH's missing 10-15-07 pay on 10-25-07. He had no real explanation for how they managed to drop my husband completely out of the military pay system, and blamed it on the ending of the old fiscal year on 30 Sep and the beginning of the new fiscal year on 1 Oct.  (Of course, no one else got dropped.)  He apologized that no one responded to my emails or telephone calls yesterday.  (Guess I'll just cross my fingers for the next 9 days and hope that we get paid then. Better late than never, I suppose?)

JOB HUNTING: As part of the application process for trying to obtain a seasonal position with the IRS, I drove 40 minutes across town for my 9:00am appointment. Since they said that the doors opened at 8:30am, I decided to be early and showed up around 8:20am.  Apparently, 200 people had an appointment for 9am. When I got there 40 minutes early, I was the 64th person in line. (Yes, I counted ... I spent 40 minutes in that line!)  Smart people had brought books, newspapers and Ipods. Silly me, I had just brought my application paperwork and all the forms they'd emailed me.

It took just over three hours to (1) get fingerprinted (which we had to stand in line for); (2) fill out three additional forms they neglected to email everyone (I couldn't help but think that maybe next time they should email us all 7 forms, instead of just 4 of them)  (3) add some additional "mandatory" information to my resume (SSN, supervisor's name, street address of each employer); (4) and hand the paperwork to a person who checked my ID and the forms to determine if I was eligible for the position. I was also able to turn in my transcript. Finally, I was given another HUGE packet of forms to take home and fill out IF I receive an email or letter offering me the position. (Apparently there is no interview process ... we will be ranked based on the online application/test as well as our qualifications.) My hope is to get offered the position (hundreds and hundreds qualified applicants for 40 openings, they said), AND to get ranked high enough to get days rather than swing shift. And if they don't hire you, you don't get a letter or email, it seems.

Because I was on the run this morning, I didn't have my usual cereal and toast for breakfast.... I had double the toast with spinach hummus and some cheese ... 295 calories. Lunch today was fine ... not fabulous, but fine....a Gardenburger-Portabella with Pinjur sauce on a toasted English Muffin, plus brussell sprouts and a radish-and-tomato salad. 400 calories, 5 servings of veggies.

This afternoon, I need to get some paperwork done, and I need to get on the treadmill. Right now, I have absolutely no idea what I'm having for dinner..... if I can't decide, chicken is my usual default choice. If I get really motivated, I'll make some bulgur to go with it.  My DH is still out of town, I still have a raging case of PMS, and I am still freaked about having to go back to the dentist tomorrow.

=^..^= MOLLY

Original Post by zarelha:

Puffed cereal! My favorite!  I always eat mine with a flavored non-fat yogurt (Yoplait vanilla, cherry or blueberry are my favorites).  I LOVE all the puffed cereals - wheat, kamut, millet, rice, corn - wheat is the best; rice gets a little soggy.  Or, mix them all up, and you get Kashi 7-whole-grain puffs!  I don't know what the other 2 are. :)

I know this may sound strange, but I actually go to sleep thinking about having it for breakfast, and am disappointed if DH has cooked something else - even if it's pancakes!

I am used to having Kashi Go Lean as my cereal, and I have these great TINY little cereal bowls that are just perfect for a cup of Kashi and a half cup of unsweetened vanilla Almond Breeze.

Last night, I decided to have a bowl of my new puffed millet as a snack. I placed a cup of it in the bowl, as usual, then added the Almond Breeze. Apparently puffed millet .... ummmm.... floats .... and I had an impressive little waterfall of overflowing millet ALL over the counter. I started giggling, which started me coughing, and I ended up with puffed milliet ALL over the counter, the floor, and me! (Static electricity made it stick to me!)  I was still finding little millet puffs this morning! NOTE TO SELF: Use bigger bowl for puffed cereals.

=^..^= MOLLY

Molly, I am LOL thinking about the puffed millet flood! And, you're right...they do seem to exhibit "static cling". I agree with zarelha that they're great on top of yogurt...plus, they tend to "stick" to the yogurt and, so, don't escape onto the kitchen counter. At least, it made you laugh and it sounds like you needed a good chuckle. It is unbelievable how our military folks are treated...we all know even the government could do a better job of "getting it right the first time"!

Well, my doctor said my thyroid levels are fine and he's ordered a pulse oximetry to check to see if I have sleep apnea. I guess if I "pass" all the tests and still am tired, maybe he'll up the thyroid dose. Meanwhile, I can't imagine how weird it will be to try to sleep with something pinching my finger all night!

And, I've had to cut calories again to get the scale moving. What, by the time I get to my goal weight (I should live so long!) I'll be existing on maybe 1,000 cal/day??? I'm planning to average 1,600 cal/day and see if that works...grrrrr

JJ

Molly- Don't worry about not getting on the treadmill last night to burn those last 90 calories.  I think you burned them all and then some dealing with the military and the pay snafu.  My DH was a Marine once upon a time and unfortunately, this happens more than it should

Dealing will military about missed pay= 100 calories per dealing

Molly - how did you like the red pepper?  Also good luck at the dentist. 

My rant today is why is it so easy to "fall off the wagon" food wise and so difficult to haul yourself back up again?  I ignored my inner voice and indulged in hamburger, fries, rotisserie chicken (ate the skin too) sauce ... well it's been a tough few days.  I feel sluggish, bloated and gassy and can only blame myself.

Feel better this morning, have had a serious chat with myself and am doing well so far.  Problem is that I think last night's dinner hasn't digested yet and I don't feel hungry at all.  Had a small breakfast, jusst finished an apple and will have soup for lunch.  Walked on the treadmill for 20 minutes and expect to feel more myself later. 

I've been feeling decidedly un-ranty lately, which is very unusual to me! However today I am back in full flow. Why oh why do restauants and cafes not have low fat salad dressing? I mean why offer the healthy option of a salad and then only have mayo and full fat caeser to go with it? Hmm?

Idiots.

I hate how my body is completely unpredictable. I know that the scale lies, etc.... but even so.

Two weeks ago I was sick for three days. I ate little and lost three pounds. Now, I'm just starting to get over a week-long, miserable flu. During this week I ate more than planned - there was a weekend in NY, there was pizza ordering last night. I rebounded a bit. So now it's like I didn't lose a single pound all month.

Grrr....