There's a lot of eating ahead ... my strategy to stick to the diet

So, you all know I'm on a diet and I'm counting my calories and it has been going well. I've lost 3 lbs so far, just under halfway of my goal. Yes, I know, it was not a huge goal to begin with, but it's still taking effort to get there.

I'm just reflecting on my coming month and I think that my dieting might be a little challenged in the coming weeks and month.

This Saturday, we are heading to a wine masterclass where we will be tasting wine and having that paired with chocolate. I estimate that there will be about one small glass worth of wine to be had and several pieces of chocolate, so I estimate that I will clock up about 300 calories there.

Then we are going out with friends for dinner and we are planning on 2.5 bottles of wine between the 4 of us, plus likely a 3 course meal. I can't even begin to count how many calories there will be there.

Following that, in the next week we are having a big managers get together over two days and there will be a fancy lunch in a very nice restaurant on the first day, which will be 2 courses - starter and main or main and dessert, and a really, really fancy dinner in the evening. That will be 3 courses and a whole bunch of wine. Again, the calorie counting is going to be challenged.

Then the next day, we are having a catered 2 course lunch in the office, cooked by a friend of ours who is a Masterchef. The food will be awesome and again, many, many calories.

After all that, a week later, we have signed up for 2 degustation wine tasting dinners which are both I think 4 or 5 courses each of meals with matching wines. Lots of food, lots of wine, calorie count indeterminate.

Honestly, I don't even know how to begin counting the calories in a fancy meal.

I don't want to not eat and be a total downer for everyone, but I also don't want to blow my diet.

I am thinking hard about what to do so that I can enjoy the evening but also not set myself back after all the hard work I've put in to lose the weight and be able to keep it off.

I think that I will probably be leaving a lot of food on the plate, just eating part of the meals and where I have choices of what to order, I will do my best to order meat and vegetable dishes, staying away from any carb laden meals or meals with lots of creamy sauces.

With the wine, one small glass, which is 120ml is 82 calories. If I sip, and only taste, I can space out my drinking and stick to just one or two small glasses.

Another strategy I will employ too is when there's going to be one big, fancy meal in the day, I will make sure that any other meal I have will be very, very low in calories, such as perhaps an apple and a slice of cheese and keep the calories under 150 for the meal, so that I have a lot more calories to "spend" when I am at the fancy meal. That would, of course, be hard when I have the day where we are having two fancy meals, lunch and dinner, but I will try to be careful.

I guess the point that I am trying to make here is that life happens and there will be events that can throw a spanner in the diet works. The trick is not to deny or deprive yourself, but to work out how to best enjoy yourself, enjoy the event and not totally blow the diet.

I don't think it will be easy, and I'm pretty sure that there will be times when I am going to be over the calorie count for the day (and many times when I just won't even know how to count the calories since I didn't prepare the food myself!).

I'm thinking watching portion sizes is going to be key and in a lot of instances, just "tasting" rather than consuming everything.

All that said, I don't want to be a party pooper either, so I will do my best to order wisely, eat what is put in front of me and be as gracious about it as possible. I definitely will not be reciting calorie counts to everyone at the table and spoiling their enjoyment of a very nice meal.

And when it is all over ... hope and pray that I have not put back on any of the weight I have lost.


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A 300 calorie day ... what !?!?!

I think I might have hit a new low yesterday!!

I woke up in the morning yesterday not feeling very well and my stomach was bothering me. Now, when it comes to not feeling well, I'm a complete wuss. A lot of people soldier on. Not me, I curl up in bed, sleep and maybe feel a little sorry for myself, but mostly, I curl up in bed and rest.

Since it was a work day, I went to work, upset stomach and all but I could tell as the morning progressed that I would not make it through the day at work.

I left work about midday and went home. Stomach was still not my friend.

It was lunchtime and I wasn't feeling particularly hungry, but I felt I needed something and decided to have something rather bland, so had some basic crackers and some packet soup.

My lunch totaled just under 300 calories.

That was all I had for the day!!

It was not intentional. I didn't feel well, I was stressed out from somethings that happened in the evening, I was not feeling hungry and ended up not cooking dinner. Then I went to bed early.

This morning, I woke up on an empty stomach. A very empty stomach, actually.

Did a sneaky weigh in but weight stayed the same - that is not unexpected, but I found I felt really, really good waking up on an empty stomach.

I did not feel hungry at all and felt quite energetic.

Now, I'm not saying have 300 calorie days all the time, but once in a while, it won't hurt.

I'm back to a normal calorie count diet today, which is my 1300 calories, and hoping to come in just under.

One day of a very low calorie count does help with the diet occasionally, just don't ever, ever starve yourself. That's not healthy.



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Portion control is really important

It's been slow going but I'm into week 3 of the dieting process. I feel like I'm getting better at the impulse control where food is concerned and I am not so obsessed about the whole food and eating thing. I still think about it, but it's not ruling my life quite as much as when I started out.

One thing that I have learned recently though ... portion control.

A few nights ago I cooked a really yummy pasta dish for dinner and I was careful with the amount of food I put on my plate and ended up with a reasonable portion but still enough to make me feel full after eating. That was about 1.5 cups of cooked pasta plus assorted stuff mixed into it, and about 550-ish calories, which is very respectable for a dinner portion.

However, we had a whole heap of leftovers which is often the case when I cook pasta. The beloved likes to take leftovers to work for lunch and they make a quick, easy and tasty dinner for a night or two during the week.

This time, we had three large size portions leftover and they were all about 2, perhaps 2.5 cups worth of pasta.

I decided that I would just eat one portion that was packed away instead of just eating part of it and having bits of leftovers on top of leftovers in containers in the fridge.

Well, that was a mistake. One large leftover portion was 850+ freakin' calories!!! That totally blew my calorie count for the day. Fortunately for me, it was not huge in terms of blowing the calorie count for the day since my day time calorie consumption was quite low and I had plenty to spare, but I still ended up 100+ calories over. Of course, I didn't realise this until after I ate the meal and I calculated the calorie count, although I had an inkling when I saw that it was a lot more food on the plate that the first night when I had good portion control going on.

Over the course of the week, I did eat all the leftovers, and each night, I blew my calorie count for the day, by just a little bit. Not a lot, but just enough to make me feel somewhat guilty, so I am so glad that all the leftovers are now finally gone.

Would I have been better off just tossing out the extra food? Perhaps, but I find it hard to do that and I also find it hard to leave food on my plate, though I'm getting better with practice, particularly while eating out, and they serve very large portions.

A little update, so far, I have lost 3 lbs. I was quite pleased a couple of days ago when I did my weekly weigh in and found that I had dropped another 1 lb taking my total to 3. I think I've mentioned that it's slow going, but I'm pleased with the downward progress.

The beloved is doing really well too. He's been at it about 10 days and he has lost 7 lbs. He went away on a business trip and business trips are always awful when it comes to diet and exercise, but while away he managed to lose 1 lb rather than put on weight. I'm so proud of him, and also a little jealous that the weight is falling off him a lot faster. That said, he has a higher weight loss goal than I do.

A few things that we have changed that is helping - no more chocolate after dinner, and if we do have it, we only have one small piece that is the equivalent of 75 calories. That's one Lindt ball. We've been having an apple for dessert after dinner, because we do like something sweet after dinner. An apple is a fabulous dessert, only 45 calories for an apple.

I can't remember if I have told this story or not, but at the very beginning of my diet, I had an apple for dessert and the beloved had a whole Kit Kat bar. My apple was 45 calories and his Kit Kat bar was 900+ calories. He was appalled and I was feeling pretty damn righteous. :-) But for the beloved, knowing how many calories that Kit Kat bar had in it, has really helped him to watch what he puts into his mouth.

We are both continuing to watch out diet. I've got 4 more lbs left to go, but once I reach that, I might stretch myself and see if I can't go a little further. I'm pretty sure that would make my doctor very happy as it reduces my risk of diabetes greatly.

If you're doing something similar, I wish you all the best. Be encouraged and be patient.


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Progress is slow, but I keep going

This post was written a while ago and I'm just now posting it. I am still on my diet, or rather I am getting back into my diet, so all of this is still relevant. And also, I'm sorry for not posting for such a long time. I realise that I have neglected my blog.

Progress has been slow this week but I continue to persevere, which at times is hard, because I am not seeing quick, immediate results.

I keep having to remind myself that I need to be patient and this is a slow process.

I thought I'd provide a recap of my week so far, it's only Thursday, so I only have 4 days of a recap for you, but to be honest, I'm doing this more as a reminder to myself than anything else.

I have a 1300 calorie a day allotment that I can consume each day. It goes up a little bit with the walking I do, but not by much.

Monday: Calories left = 119

Tuesday: Calories left = 470 - this is a particularly good night. We had steamed vegetables, mashed potatoes and gravy for dinner and that's a very low calorie count.

Wednesday: Calories left = 276 calories - I was a little naughty here. I had a piece of coconut covered, toasted marshmallow and a chocolate covered marshmallow as a treat. That was about 150 or so calories.

Thursday: Calories left = 276 - I had a glass of wine with dinner here and we also had pasta.

Looking back, I have to say that I am pretty pleased about the fact that I've been coming in under my calorie count each day, some days more than others.

I remember reading once that you need to not consume 1000 calories in order to lose 1 lb. So all the leftover calories are a good thing, because the more leftover calories there are, the more it will add up to the 1000 calories to equal my 1 lb of weight lost. Of course, I have to put in a small disclaimer here to say that I do not remember where I read this, so don't quote me on it.

Another thing that I've noticed, which I talked about previously is the hunger pangs, here and here.

I am getting to the point now where I am not that hungry throughout the day, though that is not the case everyday, since today I felt a bit more peckish that other days and felt like I needed an earlier breakfast.

I used to get quite hungry by the time dinner rocked round, but I have noticed in the last 2 or 3 days that that has subsided. I get home and I am quite comfortable until dinner time. I am not starving, as I was in the beginning, nor am I hungry, as I was a week in. Now, I feel just fine, which is a very good thing.

My boss, who has been on a rather crazy, strict diet says that after a while, you just don't need food anymore and you start to feel rather righteous about not eating and scoff at people who do. I don't know that I will ever get to that point since I'm not doing it crazy like he did.

In the beginning, I was also constantly thinking about food and when I could eat next. That has also passed and I am not doing that anymore too. That's a very good thing, because I feel a lot less like I am obsessing about food all the time.

So that's it for now. The journey continues and I press on ....



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An update on Plexus Slim, a continuing weight loss journey

As you may have read from my previous post, I tried Plexus Slim. The process did not go great for me.

I've read people claiming to have lost 40 lbs in 2 weeks or something crazy like that, but that did not happen for me.

This is what happened:

For the first 15 days, you can read in detail here.

After that, I continued to take it daily and while I did not lose any weight, in general, I noticed a general slimming in my overall body shape. I did write a small, follow up update here too.

That's all.

I have considered taking it further and getting another 30 or 60 days supply to see if the weight does come off, but I started calorie counting and that's been a different journey.

I ultimately decided not to spend the money in getting more Plexus Slim because it is expensive and I did not want to spend that much on a diet drink.

If I had more funds available to me and if I had different priorities, I would probably spend the money and give it a few more months, but right now, I'm not wanting to spend the money.

I'm continuing on my weight loss journey without Plexus Slim.

I guess the point of this post is to say that weight loss is a journey and most often, it is a slow journey.

There is no quick fix.

There is no miracle cure.

You eat less.

You exercise more.

You work at it, and you work HARD at it.

It's continuous work.

It's persistence, and yes, sometimes it gets tiring.

For those of you looking to lose weight, do what is right for you. There are tons of process, methods, fads, out there.

Pick one that fits with your lifestyle.

Pick one that you can do and more importantly, you can STICK to.

All the best with your weight loss journey.



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Windows Movie Maker not working on Window 7 64-bit - SOLVED!!!

First of all, I apologise, this is not the right forum for an IT related blog post, but I do not have anywhere else to put it and I felt that after 2 days of struggling, I ought to write this up somewhere, to help others who have this problem.

I have recently upgraded my operating system to Window 7 64-bit Ultimate Edition. I was running on the 32-bit version previously and everything was hunky dory until my hard drive died and I needed a new hard drive and a re-build (another long story!!).

Since then, I have been progressively reinstalling software that I use regularly back onto the computer.

One of the programs (which is where this is sort of relevant to this blog) is Windows Movie Maker, which I use to edit my videos to upload to my youtube channel.

I know it's not the greatest program out there for movie editing, but it does what I need it to do and for my limited editing needs, it is sufficient.

Since I could not get Movie Maker to work, I tried buying Pinnacle (cost me $59.95) and instead of working, after I installed it, it wanted me to buy more software in order for it to even begin editing. Bah! I am going to return the software and get my money back!! Plus, it was complicated to use and I'm not prepared right now to invest in the program and the learning curve.

Then I found another free video editing software which was more advanced than Movie Maker, but when I tried to use it, the video and sound would not sync up and play seamlessly and it was not going well.

So, I persisted in trying to get Movie Maker working.

Originally, I had installed Movie Maker from Windows Essentials 2012.

I was getting this error message:

 "Sorry, Movie Maker can't start. Make sure your computer meets the minimum system requirements before trying to start Movie maker again, and then try to update the driver for your video card if Movie Maker still doesn't start." 

I then troubleshooted (is this a real word?) it and tried:

1. Updating drivers (but it looked like my drivers were up to date)

2. Installing Windows Movie Maker 6 (which didn't do what I wanted)

Then I found this forum which after reading through many posts and 3 pages of back and forth, claimed to have solved the problem.

The two things that I took away from the post was:

1. Install DriverMax to update all your drivers

2. Roll back to Windows Essentials 2011 for Movie Maker.

I bought DriverMax 30 day pro version for $10USD and used it to update about 20 out of date drivers on my computer. My computer is from 2006 and quite old, even though it has new RAM and a new HDD. I'm resisting spending $1500 on a brand new computer right now. Tyres on the car just cost $1250!!

After I updated the drivers, I rebooted the computer.

Then, I uninstalled Windows Essentials 2012 along with Movie Maker, and restarted the computer.

After that, I installed Windows Essentials 2011 Movie Maker. Movie Maker was the only program I selected to install.

Once it had installed, I launched Movie Maker, all the while holding my breath and lo and behold, instead of the error message, IT WORKED!!!

Happily, I've now got Movie Maker working back on my computer again. It's not the best movie editing software out there, but it's enough for my needs.

I sincerely hope this post helps others who have this problem as well.

ps. The only drawback from using 2011 instead of 2012 is that the videos save as WMV files instead of MP4 files, which means the file sizes are larger. It will take longer for my videos to upload, but I think I can live with that.

pps. I edited a video that I had previously edited in 2012 (I forgot I had done it before) and the result was - 2011 = 1.39Gb in a WMV file, 2012 = 400Gb in a MP4 file. That's a huge trade off in size. This will take me at least 5 times longer to upload to youtube.

I tried installing 2012 again on top of 2011, but 2012 would not work. Got the same error message, so it looks like I am stuck with 2011. :-( and :-) at the same time. 


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Weekend naughtiness, counting the cost and paying the price

This post is about my weight loss journey ... what *did* you think it was about? Naugthy! Naughty! :-)

I just spent my first weekend with my new diet and let me tell you, it was not good.

First of all, as I had mentioned earlier, I had that frozen yogurt treat. That was yummy but full of calories.

Then on Sunday, I had scrambled eggs for breakfast, which actually was pretty good. Not that many calories. Eggs are good for you.

But then, I made this incredible mushroom soup for dinner that night and I think that the soup had way more calories than I counted. I'm fairly certain of it ... maybe. I don't actually know since it's hard to actually calculate the calories ... okay, so I just did some math, and the soup was actually pretty good. It only had 331 calories per serve in it. That was a lot less than I thought. I guess it's because it was entirely a vegetable soup, so even a big bowl like the one I had, did not have a lot of calories in it.

Anyway, I was over my calorie count on Saturday because of the frozen yogurt, and I was just under on Sunday.

Either way, this morning I woke up at 138 lbs, which is 1 lb higher than when I started this whole thing.

I'm hoping that it's just the whole swing up, swing down, that happens to our weight based on food intake, etc., over a few days rather than actual weight that I have put on. I guess I won't know until I check myself a few days on.

The few things that I have learned though, because of the weekend, is that:

• I have to be extra careful about my food intake over the weekend.
• It's not possible to relax while on a diet. Seriously, the moment you take your eye off the ball, the whole thing falls apart.
• It's necessary to be patient, there will be ups and downs.
• It's also necessary, to continue to be really OCD about everything.
• Everything matters. Everything thing you put into your mouth no matter how insignificant it may seem counts. For example, I love coconut water, and I would think nothing of a can or two a day for a refreshing drink. Do you know that darned drink is 161 calories? When you're only allowed 1300 calories a day, that's a whole lot of calories to give up for just one drink!!

So, I'm back on the wagon and so far have only consumed 210 calories today.

Plus what I've heard is right, after the first 3 or 5 days, you don't feel hungry anymore. At least, I don't throughout the day, but I do still get very hungry by the time dinner rocks round, if I haven't eaten by 7pm or so.

The journey continues ... wish me luck ... :-)


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