Tipping the scale

Yesterday must have been a good day for mom. I held my phone at 6:10pm expecting a call and instead got the app notification she dispensed her meds. I'm going to go see her today for a couple hours.

Most of my life I have been thin, probably even a little underweight most times. From teenage to 40 I was between 95 and 105 pounds. (5'4 1/2"). It was hard for me to gain weight. But, pretty much since I had my car accident back in 2007 (age 43) and injured my back and neck my weight started going up. I wasn't able to be as active as I was. I've never exercised much, but back before I had the accident, I did do some and was trim and actually had a pretty toned stomach from exercises I did. I think that accident and changing hormones has led to the weight gain, along with now heading towards 60. I don't expect to be 110 anymore.

After we moved to Montana (and probably feeling lots more relaxed) I got up to about 130. When we lived that 9 months in our shop and while the house was being built - with no kitchen and eating lots of lighter meals, I lost quite a bit. I can't remember what I ended up back down to. I think I was about 115. Then we moved in the house and 3 years later I am at the heaviest I have ever been in my life. Our scale is still out in the shop bathroom, so I rarely ever get on it. My pants are way too tight now. I went out and weighed myself yesterday. 138 pounds. Yikes! 

Even without the scale in the house, I've known the past couple of years (and especially months) I'm gradually gaining (due to clothes getting tighter) but I really thought after dh's pancreatitis and gallbladder removal and us eating much lighter dinner meals now and hardly any meat, that I would start loosing at least little bit. But, no - I just keep going up. GAH!

I know the past several months has been way too much cookies (I keep making cookies!) and chocolates (dh keeps adding chocolates, usually a big bag of Reeses minis, when we shop). That has to stop. I've never been much of a lunch eater. Typically I snack over a couple hours on a couple of cookies, or some crackers. Nothing good or healthy. This week (even before weighing myself) I decided I need to try to eat a better lunch, so maybe I won't be so tempted to keep eating cookies and muffins. I am really not a sandwich eater, but I have been making myself either a lunch meat sandwich (1/2 a sandwich for this kind) or a fried egg sandwich. No cookies or chocolate (both are gone now, so that should help).

Before this week here is a typical day of my eating:

Cup of coffee when I first get up, about 7:15am- some sugar and a little creamer added.

About an hour or so later I almost always (95% of the time) have a glass of Carnation instant breakfast. That has been my breakfast since jr. high, LOL. Every so often I will buy muffins (like orange/cranberry muffins) and have that for breakfast.

Then between then and dinner, I will snack on whatever sounds good. I rarely eat chips or drink soda. In fact I don't drink much of anything other than the cup of coffee, the milk/instant breakfast and half glass of milk for dinner. Occasionally in the evening I will have a cup of tea, but not often. I'll grab 2 cookies. Then go grab 2 more.....or grab a handful of chocolate chips from the little container I keep them in.

So, the past week or two I have been making sure I bring up a bottle of water to my office. 16.9 oz, so I guess equivalent of 2 glasses/cups of water. I've also realized that I do not like cold from the fridge water, LOL. I'll only take a couple of sips and set it down. If I take a bottle from the pantry, I will drink half of at one time. Then later, finish the other half. Now that I'm getting in the habit of drinking this bottle, I'm starting to add a second one. It seems if I drink the water when I am a little bit wanting a snack, between breakfast and lunch that is tiding me over until I make my sandwich and then in the afternoon tiding me over until it's dinner time.

Then I'm drinking the other half of the water with lunch. Now, when I'm done with work and go downstairs to get dinner started, I drink another half a bottle. 

I made pizza for dinner Thursday night. I always only have 2 slices. I've never felt like that was over eating, LOL. But, if I feel like I need some dessert/snack later, I'm just going to have a cup of tea. We had 3 leftover pieces, so I just had one piece for lunch yesterday.

Hopefully I can get my weight back down in the 125 range. While even that seems high to me, it seems to be where I've been at most of the past 15 years and I can live with that and so can my clothes.

As I said, the majority of our dinners are much less than we used to eat, so the weight gain has me a little baffled. I'll bet 2 times a week (for months now) I just end up having a bowl of cereal, when dh asks for tomato soup or an omelette. Another night we'll have taquitos or egg rolls. I'll just have 2, that's it. A few nights we have some type of casserole or pasta type meal, but I don't eat a huge amount. I feel like I am eating the same portion sizes I've always eaten.

Obviously, I'm going to need to definitely cut out the cookies, cake, ice cream and chocolates! And most likely throw in some activity, if I want to lose some weight and at least feel comfortable in my clothes and not have to go out and buy larger size. So, that's my goal to work on. Kind of hard to get in that mindset when I spent 25 years trying to gain a little weight, LOL.

I will say that this week, most likely a combination of eating a decent lunch and the water, I have not experienced the mid afternoon tiredness I usually have, where I just completely feel like I need a nap. That's a huge improvement, in my book, even if I don't lose any weight.