Shazam!

I've gone off of weight watchers.  The program worked for me at one point...but it stopped working for me.  I have my theories...but I'll keep my mouth shut.  Regardless, this time I am going it alone.  I've tried to surround myself with a support system....friends that are on the same page, challenges, blogs...you name it!   Sherry and I are working up our own plan.  It's called the Shazam plan...and it is a plan for LIFE.  It is a plan that realizes that there WILL be days where you just want to eat everything and honestly, you almost can't help yourself!   Think the cracker debacle.  That wasn't as bad as it could have been....I consciously made the choice and I worked my arse off to negate the calories in those crackers, strawberries and fruit dip. And I still lost at my next weigh in..BIG time!   That's what it's about...SHAZAM!    There will be situations that you have little control over.  I didn't ask my friend if I can share, so I hope she's not mad...but she went to a birthday party this past weekend.  She was there 6-7 hours...over a meal time.  They offered an overabundance of food.  Pizza....two different kinds of Doritos and much  more, nothing of which could be at all construed as healthy fare.  Drinks were regular soda and fruit punch.  Control was taken out of her hands.  She made the best choices and in small quantities but she didn't beat herself up over eating food that she may not normally have chosen....she knows that these things will happen and immediately got back on track.  SHAZAM!    This is LIFE!   My manager at work is on this journey.  Yesterday I asked her if she tracked over the weekend. She immediately jumped in and said "ohhh I fell off the bandwagon...I do know where I messed up though.".  It was a birthday celebration that knocked her down...hers (and seriously, if someone surprises you with a birthday cake.....isn't it rude to not have at least a small piece....when it's YOUR birthday???)   I just laughed and said...I didn't ask if you fell off the bandwagon...I asked if you TRACKED through it, or if you gave up.   She looked at me and grinned and said "I tracked every bite...and I wasn't over by that much if I want to be honest with myself"   SHAZAM!   The shazam plan is full of exercise and activity...but it's also saying that sometimes things will happen.  A tire will go bad and you won't be able to make zumba  (yup, the shazam plan encountered that two weeks ago) .....the flu will hit keeping you from exercise.  Whatever.  It's LIFE.  This journey is not about being all hard core.  It's about accepting life's idiosyncrasies and not letting them derail you.  This journey is about figuring out how to live in order to really LIVE. 

Why I am soooo dead set against going about this journey so totally stringent upon my eating rules and my exercise plan is that I know first hand what happens when one leads a life of denial and utter strictness.  If you've been following my blog for any time, you will know that I have lost the weight before.  I lost a total of 135 pounds.    I did a lot of that by denial.  I just said no.  Absolutely not, I will not have dessert.  It worked.  I was hugely successful.  (if you call 135 pounds successful!)   The problem occurred when I was out in the real world after I had reached my goal weight (where my doctor wanted me to be, which weight watchers accepted with a note from him...and that number was 180 pounds).  The problem actually occurred when I went on vacation the first time after reaching my goal.  It was ugly.  I started strong....but then I splurged ONCE.....and once because TWICE...and two times became a daily occurrence.  It was ugly!   (tasty, but ugly!)   I had lived in my exercise bubble of 'everything is perfect....very little desserts....no slacking on exercise' for so long that when I got out in the real world and encountered some issues, I fell apart.  I never recovered.  That started my downward spiral.  (read the blog entry detailing the vacation....it's ugly!  Be forewarned....I didn't realize that it was the beginning of my  downward spiral so I was very flippant about my eating transgressions.)  I cut loose on that vacation because I hadn't lived in the real world......not again. I will be firmly entrenched in the real world while I lose this weight.  I will have my cake and lose weight too!   I will just be eating the cake sparingly.....working my arse off to negate calories if I do splurge....hopping back on track when life causes me to stumble.

Ahhh yes, that brings me to cake..... Sometimes in life we just really really really want to have our cake and eat it too.  In the past I have purchased these warm delight minis to have around the house.  They aren't too bad.  But they are pricey.  But they work to satisfy that craving.  I have my cake fix but don't end up with a 9x13 pan of cake with only one piece out of it.  We all know how long it would last with only one piece out of the pan.  Not long.  So while this convenience food is more expensive than I would like, I have been more than willing to pay.  That is until this week.  I found  recipe.  It's most commonly referred to the 3-2-1 cake.  You'll understand it soon enough.....

 The mix is a box of angel food cake mix and a box of regular cake mix.  You can use any flavor that you want.  For my first attempt I choose devils food cake. (only because it made me laugh mixing angel food with devils food).  Wow, I dont' know what happened to that picture, rather blurry!

 

 

 

       Take the two boxes of cake mix and combine them together well.  I did mine in bowl, but  a gallon ziploc bag would work very well (and then can be used for storage also). 

At this point your cake mix is ready for storage.  I store a lot of things in 1/2 gallon canning jars.  Use whatever airtight container you have around the house.

Now comes the 3-2-1 part.  When you need a quick fix for a cake....place three tablespoons of the mix into a small bowl or coffee cup.     Add two tablespoons of water.  Mix well.  I noticed that  it had a very bubbly and frothy feel to the mixture.  It made me nervous, but I forged ahead.

Microwave for one minute.  Voila!  You have cake!   Top it with fruit, or cool whip or even ice cream (depending on your available calories for the day).  The top looked very bubbly and light, you can tell there is angel food cake mix in this mixture, when I dipped my spoon into the 'cake' it looked just like a normal cake.  I served mine with ice cream and it was a pretty good cake fix!  Ohhhh the cake, turned out to be 126 calories...the fat free vanilla ice cream was 90 calories...not  bad, a dessert for 216 calories!...and the best part...no temptation to eat the leftover pieces this morning for breakfast!  And price wise...I spent $3 for the two cake mixes...and it will give me 32 little cakes.  I used to spend $3 on a box containing two prepackaged cakes and they were 150 calories.  I win all around!

SHAZAM!

Have my cake and eat it too

As I'm embarking on this journey for the second time in my life.  I sit back and look at my first attempt at losing weight.  It was highly successful.  I managed to knock about 130-135 pounds off of my body. I was able to see myself at a thinner weight.  I was able to experience the joys of being thin.  I bought really cool clothes.  (that's what's it's all about isn't it?)   I stayed near my lowest weight for quite some time.  But ultimately,  I wasn't able to maintain.  Why?   I have tons of excuses.  I lost the support of my weight watchers meetings and the friends I had made at the meeting literally the same night I made goal. (they closed down my meeting and not other meeting would work well enough with my schedule for me to attend regularly...well one did...but after I started attending that one, they cancelled that meeting and combined it with another......I must be the kiss of death for weight watchers meetings!)  Vacation occurred...and well that is kinda self explanatory.  But you know what, I need to look at this realistically.  I can make excuse after excuse about why I failed.  But I need to delve deep and find the real culprit so that I can keep it from happening again.  So after looking deep, what did I find?  While losing the weight the first time around I was absolutely fanatical about my weight loss.  I said no to cake.  I said no to cookies.  I ignored fattening foods like they were the plague.  This is good because honestly, does anyone really need to eat those empty calorie fattening foods all the time?   No, we do not.  However, I forgot that this was life.   Serious deprivation.  I was single mindedly focused on losing weight so I didn't eat cake.  My treat if I had a few calories left over at night was to drink a small glass of fruit juice.....or to drink a diet soda.  Yeah, really.    So when I reached goal at weight watchers, I let out a sigh of relief and when we left for vacation shortly thereafter I cut loose.  I said to myself, "Well I'm at goal so I dont' have to worry about losing this week."  So when the waiter would ask if I wanted dessert I would promptly answer, "Why yes!"   It started me on a bad habit....without the support of the meeting I struggled to get my focus back.   I slipped NOT because  of vacation.   I slipped NOT because of the cancelled weight watcher meeting.  I slipped because I had not learned how to PROPERLY have my cake and eat it to!

So fast forward to years later.  It is January 15, 2013. (yesterday).  A customer here at the bank brought in a cake.  Her food is usually to die for.   She announced that it was eggnog flavored.  Seriously?  I've never had an eggnog cake.  I wondered what it tasted like.  I pondered it.  And then I decide.  This is NOT a deprivation.  This is NOT about me curling up in a corner and refusing to participate in life.  I went back to the counter and I got myself a piece of cake.  Did I blow my day?  Absolutely not.  Even while I was eating the cake, I had myfitnesspal pulled up on my computer screen in front of me and I was looking at what adjustments I could make to the rest of the day to make this work.  It was actually easier than I though because since I had the cake at 11:30, I really wasn't all that hungry for the food in my lunch box.  I ate my green beans and I ate the carrots out of my lunchbox and left the rest and with just a bit of tweaking to my dinner menu, I was fine.  (conversely I would have been fine anyway because I knew that I was going to zumba and that I hadn't planned on utilizing those earned exercise calories..)   I literally had my cake AND ate it too!  And guess what....it WORKED.  I did do zumba and I also added 30 minutes on the exercise bike (just cuz I wanted to, not because I felt guilty or felt like I needed to) and this morning, I couldn't resist....a sneak peak on the scales shows me down further!  :-)  (ps sorry for the crappy cake picture...but hey, I was in the middle of savoring that delicious goodness and couldn't be bothered to stop for a better picture...and yes, I savored EVERY morsel....SLOWLY!)

The trick of this path that I am on is contingent upon one main thing.  I have to know my level of focus and determination before I make the choice to do something like have a piece of cake.  I made cookies last week. I still lost 3 pounds.  How?  Because I felt strong and knew that I could stop at one cookie.  I ate the cake because I KNEW that I could adjust enough to work it into my food plan.  Next week a co-worker is leaving.  On her last day we are having a potluck to bid her adieu.  They asked me what I was bringing.  They stared at me as they waited for the answer.  I honestly didn't know what to say.  Finally I answered.  "If I'm feeling strong, I'll make cookies or something snacky....if I'm feeling weak, I'll be bringing a bag of chips or something that doesn't require me to resist temptation as greatly as baking cookies does"   That my friends sums it up.  Shazaam!

squirting the icing into my mouth!

Well, I was feeling sick today. I came home from work and was still feeling a bit peakish. SO I decided to decorate the cake. Well, I got sidetracked by the Kirby salesman that came to the door. YEAH YEAH YEAH>..I"m a sucker and let them in to give me a demo. NO, I did NOT buy. HOwever, I'll admit to being quit impressed with the machine! AND, I got my living room carpet not only vacumned but also shampooed! BUT, it put me behind in my cake decorating. I didn't get done until right around 4pm. No lunch. Yeah yeah yeah...bad thing. Yeah, I kinda squeezed a 'bit' of the icing into my mouth. Uhhh a good bit! Well, I was cleaning up and taking pictures of the cake and all that. Todd came home and I was talking to him. We were hungry and TOdd wanted tacos....nothing like a bad meal! ARRGGHH

I'm going to have to be super good tomorrow, Monday and Tuesday!!!!! I have also decided that I'm not weighing myself tomorrow and maybe not monday. That way I can recoup a little without the disappointing gain. Tuesday I'll face it! :-)

Meanwhile, as you can see the cake turned out fairly well. I"m happy with it. I'm still not a big fan of the confederate flag....er the naval confed flag...and the second or third one at that. Oh well. BUt apparently it's a big southern rock thing...lynard skinner and the free bird or something. LOL

Did get on the bike and rode for just under 10 miles. SO at least I have that. I've also started doing some weight with my arms during the first 5-10 minutes of my ride on the exercise bike. I can feel it in my arms...boy are they sore!