Confessions of a yo-yo dieter.

I believe in science. I believe in being reasonable (except during PMS), rational (cough PMS again) and following evidence while making decisions. I love chemistry and biology. That being said there is one area in my life where I am completely willing to believe almost any claim put forward. Diets. I have never really liked my body and have pretty much been on a diet from the time I was 17. I have tried almost everything that seemed in the realm of reason to help. I do exercise at least 3-4 times a week and take a nightly walk, except when it is too cold, see previous posts on how I feel about the (shudder) cold.

I hope that someone somewhere can benefit from all my diet experience. Also, because I am tired of all the crap propaganda that preys on people like me who will drink the latest snake oil in the hope of loosing five pounds.Really I want to loose 15-20 but I will take five and be glad.

Diets I have tried:

Wheat free, dairy free:
I lost weight on this one, for a time. I also worked out five days a week and ate nothing including crap like puffed millet. Really who enjoys that crap. My bird likes to eat it but he also eats his own poop so I am not sure he is a ringing endorsement.  I  did get pretty thin but people said I looked like crap. My skin was pale and I was definetly deficient in nutrients. I did this when I was 20 so I think if I did it now I would do better but honestly, I love carbs. Way way too much to give them up.

Atkins: holy horror. This one started out good. Then I hit a week and a half and started feeling horrible. I ended up doing things in a bathroom you don't want to hear about and that were not repeated until I was pregnant with my son. I gave up pretty quick and put back on all the weight. Woo hoo...go me.

Zymax: http://www.diet-pills-compared.com/Zymax-Diet-Pills.html
So I thought my sister was insane when she went on ephedrine based pills only to realize during this post that I did the same thing. Oops. So much for research when you are 24. I actually got compliments on this one. I lost about 7 pounds and people said I glowed in that non pregnant way. Then I started having heart palpitations and shaking so I decided to stop and guess what...I gained back the seven pounds.

Meal Replacement:
So one of my friends lost a lot of weight using a meal replacment so I thought I would try it. Hers was way too expensive so I found one on Amazon. Called Garden of Life Raw Meal Replacement. After reading all the good things in it I was pretty damn excited. This was totally going to work.
http://www.amazon.com/Garden-Life-RAW-Meal-2-6lb/dp/B0031JK95S/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1301920965&sr=8-6


I lost five pounds while on it and still take it from time to time but my FIL, who has a PHd in Chemistry told me there was a whole crap load of chemicals so it cooled my adore a bit. Also a draw back was the TASTE. If you can imagine licking dirt, grass, maybe manure off a spoon and follow it up with an aftertaste of the flavor brownish green (if brownish green had a flavor). It is vile. To take it I use very cold water, half apple juice, plug my nose, chase with water and sometimes I still gag. I think I lost weight in the beginning because it literally killed my appetite. You can't eat anything without this taste following you around.

 I am trying to build muscle so maybe next time I will just try whey protein.

South Beach:
I actually do a modified diet on this one. I am still trying to use the 40-30-30 diet. It worked ok but I couldn't find anything in the book I would actually consider eating. I have a small problem with being a picky eater. Ok, not so picky because I could eat crap all day long.  If Little Debbie made it it probably added at least 5 pounds to my thighs. I like artificial flavors better than regular ones. I have no idea why. My palate has improved with age. It used to be that of a 4 year old and maybe now has made it to the sophisticated age of a 15 year old boy. But really, why can't they make a diet book with things that you actually want to eat instead of stuff that sounds like something someone would feed prisoners as a torture device?








Thyroid Diet:
As seen in previous posts I do have a thyroid problem, which doesn't help my weight issues. So I do adhere to some of the recommendations of this diet but I love the brassica family so I do cheat.

Drinking ice water:
Supposedly you can burn 100 calories a day if you change from drinking tepid to ice water. I did that for a long time but not much results. My husband did the math and it seems sound but who wants to drink ice water in the winter.

Green tea:
My sister sent me a study that showed people who drank 4 cups of green tea were 5 pounds skinner at the end of two months than those that didn't. Guess what I have two cups a day of?




40-30-30
I am still doing this one. It seems to really help with my insulin issues. It is hard for me to get that much protein so I usually have a tablespoon of cottage cheese with every meal. Weight loss, not so much but I feel pretty good.

Tonsillectomy: really effective. I lost eight pounds.  To illustrate how craptastic my body is most people loose 15-30. But not me. After two weeks taking an hour to eat a pudding cup I lost 8 pounds. But I will take that. It was horribly painful and I didn't get it done for weight loss. Insurance wouldn't have covered it. My tonsils were unusually large. After extraction they found they were 3 and 5 times the size of average tonsils. It took a long time to gain the wight back. Mostly I gained it from getting mono about 8 months later. Bonus, I found that with a proper airway I could exercise better and not cramp up all the time. I also stopped snoring. Bonus for DH. 

3 day detox.
Sigh, I am starting this one in a few days. I will let you know how it goes...hey, it could work. ;) Shakeology is what my friend lost a lot of weight on but she also does PX90 and a bunch of other work outs. Plus, she was always skinny to begin with and the excess weight was from two pregnancies with three kids.


Hers is a three day regimen but they don't have that here. Hopefully I will loose the coveted 5 pounds again. Anyway, keep you posted.




Other crap I have used:




 Come on you know you tried it too.


That crazy ab contraption similar to thisAb Rocket Abdominal Trainer


My other friend lost a lot of weight by gaining a bunch of muscle. I am trying that one next.

Shit my Kids Ruined

If you saw the post below and wanted the entire story, or maybe you just need to feel better about the crap your kid has destroyed here is my submission to one of my favorite websites Shit My Kids Ruined. They have so much traffic, it hasn't made it up there, but honestly I think it is a way better story than a kid who spills a box of cereal or some flour on the floor. Yes, that is annoying but any parent who aimed her puking child at her body to avoid cleaning the carpet, because you know that cleaning you is easier and will result in more sleep for you, at 2 am can attest those aren't the spills that really ruin anything.

And our story begins...(cue soft spring music...maybe Tchaikovsky)

It was time for another renovation, brought to you by me because I can't seem to help myself. It was time to make our master bedroom a place of calm tranquility. Free of child toys and a place that would be conducive to romantic interludes. (cue Barry White)

I picked up some great Scandian Brazilian Cherry  flooring from Craigslist. Got a pretty good deal. 250 square feet of flooring for 600.00. I have to say, I like the brand better than Bruce which seemed to have more warped pieces but the tongue cracked  a lot during installation. We tried different pressure settings but that was just the way the wood crumbled. I like Bellawood better because the pieces were nice a straight but you have to deal with the devil Lumber Liquidators to get it so I am not sure it is worth it. That is a whole other story, and a good one, but for later.

I made some cornices. In case you can't tell, I like me some cornices and started to paint the walls. Then as things happen, my son got sick. Really sick. I came downstairs for 10 minutes to give my child his meds and make sure he was comfy. It was eerily quiet, which is mostly a tip off that bad things are happening but sometimes I will deal with the mess just to get a break. Bad idea this time. My husband asked if I had seen our daughter. I went looking and found this:

I did what all good mom's do. I got my camera.

Thankfully the carpet was coming out anyway. It just came out three weeks ahead of schedule.

On three of the four walls. Good news, it was Benjamin Moore, I am a paint snob, and with a lot of scrubbing it came off great. My triceps hurt the next day but how mad can you really get at this?

She was so proud of herself.

If you give a girl too much medication...

She will redecorate your whole house

Below is my version of If you Give a Pig a Pancake.

Last year I had mono all summer. By fall I was itching to do things but the doctors discovered I have a thyroid problem. I had been monitoring it for several years and it finally decided to start acting up enough for me to become a pin cushion every six weeks and get an ultrasound every six months. So I started meds and then they upped my dose. I felt pretty good. Really really good in fact. I was like a toddler on a basket of Halloween candy.  Found out later it was a wee bit much, but man was I a one woman team of accomplishment. Maybe a "little" irritable and twitchy but my house is starting to look great. They downed my meds and suddenly I was getting half as much done but probably a nicer to deal with.

So enjoy my trip into insanity. My husband didn't, but my house sure did.All these projects were completed from mid September to mid November.

One late September morning, I looked at my drapes and decided I no longer liked them. So I took them down. While taking them down I got a good look at the wallpaper border in the kitchen and decided that it too had to go.

 So I removed it. The walls didn't look good with it off so I painted...

 The entire downstairs.

While painting the downstairs I looked in my dining room and decided it need a window treatment. So I made one. Through the window I saw some really ugly bushes.

So I decided to rip them out.My husband came home from work and said, "honey where is the hedge?"


 And plant Blueberry bushes in their place.


And since I already had a shovel in my hand I might as well take out some other bushes while I was at it.



Now I was all sweaty so I decided to take a shower and found that I really hated the flooring in my bathroom.(That is my daughter who decided to help paint the walls on a different project and a whole other hilarious story)

So I tore it out and put down tile.

Very satisfied with the new tile I decided to treat myself to a nice game on the computer, but when I got to the office I noticed the wallpaper was peeling so I started taking it off.  (old picture but you can really see the paper)

a

 And noticed that the carpet was in really bad shape. So I ripped up the flooring and put down hardwood.

 

Then I discovered the walls needed paint too.

So I painted the room.

If they up my meds again, I might decide I no longer like the drapes in the living room.

Adventures of a repressed farmer

So what can a repressed gardener do over the winter? Way too many things. Planning and planning and planning and maybe some more planning to the point your husband thinks moving to a southern location might work just so you can get outside and start planting three weeks earlier or...channel that energy into fun projects. I found time to do both.

I love home improvement. Not as much as my growing things but breaking things or building things can help me pass the winter season. I love the winter as much as a cat loves taking a bath or maybe as much as my son loved taking his first bath.

My mom should have named me Demeter, as it was she stuck me with the name April which was probably just as prophetic. I could easily climb under a blanket in January and hibernate until mid March. Bears have the right idea and I think that I have ample fat stores that could support that kind of lifestyle. In addition, I have more blankets than the average toddler, in various colors and fabrics of course (I love you Target), the weight alone could crush a small mastodon. So if I am not being clear, I really hate winter. A lot. Really. A lot.

But I did get some interior work finished so here is my first project:

Painting and flooring in the office.

Old ugly peeling wallpaper and nasty 20 year old carpet...

I am not thrilled with the wall color but I painted it, fauxed it twice with two different techniques so I just wanted to be done. I don't like painting with blue. For some reason the color multiples and looks way darker than you expect. My husband really wanted blue. He does a great job with the fact that I use flowers (not cheesy yucky ones but nice attractive and stylish ones) in my decorating with what can only be described as an alarming frequency and passion. Flowers are pretty and make me happy.

So while the end result isn't the epitome of office sophistication I was hoping for, I have to admit it looks a lot better. Bonus, the hardwood flooring doesn't bother my husband's allergies.