Day 5

breakfast : 2 cups coffee
early lunch : quinoa salad with grated carrot, walnuts, avacado, cucumber ; thai curry with lots of veggies eaten as a soup without rice.
evening: watermelon slices, 1 cup coffee
exercise : 60 mins walk
dinner : 2 whole wheat rotis with opu lentils curry

About 3-4 years ago, I once stopped by my co-worker( and very good friend GG - http://g3pedia.blogspot.com/ )'s office. She is a go to resource on almost any topic under the sun - very well read and well informed; It's hard not to be impressed by her wit and dazzling brilliance. Hence I started calling her encyclopedia ; when my friends and I urged her to start a blog, I insisted she aptly name it so and she has. More than anything else she's always ready to help or at least point you in the direction of help promptly!!!
So I mentioned to her that day that the happy hour was going on in full swing with many goodies - brownies and all. She gave a reluctant lip curve and said " I don't want to waste my calories on brownies". Her response surprised me and then it set me thinking. I had never heard someone put it quite that way. As I pondered over it, it made me realize that when you are trying to lose weight or maintain your weight loss, you are on a calorie budget. It's very similar to being on a tight financial budget where you don't have room for impulsive, frivolous purchases. Working on a calorie budget, you only eat what is really meaningful to you, not things you feel 'meh' about. I am not a big dessert person, I am not a big chocolate or ice cream person, not a big fried snacks person but I have let myself become just a 'big person' eating a little bit of things I don't care much about, here and there. So, as I read from somewhere 'Don't put it into your month if it's anything less than a 10 on 10 for you!'
And while on this subject - just like how if finances are tight, you may not want to buy the curtains your mom wants you to buy or the dress your friend wants you to buy, but may be saving money to buy what is close to your heart - in the same way, you may not want to eat a cake, a pastry or a hundred other things, but may want to indulge in one treat you really care for. Friends and family will question you - it's very common to be asked 'Oh, I thought you were dieting' or ' how come you didn't want to eat x, y or z but are eating this?'. Just stay unperturbed and focussed. It's your budget, you control what goes into your mouth!

Days 3 and 4

Day 3:

breakfast : 1 cup coffee, 1 whole wheat sandwich with peanut butter, 1 cup coffee
lunch : 2 whole wheat sandwiches (at the beach) with onions, tomato, avacado and cucumber smeared with peanut butter and a 1 tsp of basil pesto - yumm!!!! , 2 tbsps of pasta I made for the rest of the family
exercise : walked about 2.5 mi on beach sand.
late afternoon : some strawberries
dinner : made rice, rasam and potato curry as DD asked for this. Made quinoa for myself to eat with rasam. Pressure cooker safety valve went kaput, it knocked over the pot of rasam - all in all a huge fiasco! Salvaged some white rice for DH and the kids. Ate watermelon slices, quinoa with potato curry - was dead tired at the end of a day at the beach, followed by cooking, giving a shower to both kids and dealing with the kitchen mess. Was totally let down after losing the rasam.
confession : unending headaches coupled with DS not letting me have 3 hrs of continuous sleep at night led me to have sugar in my coffee. I feel so bad, but sugar in my coffee is letting me carry on with all the other rules. I am going to get a grip on all else and then try again at giving up sugar in my coffee. I read from a weight loss blog about how not to use a setback to stop and go back to old ways. If you eat a handful or a couple of handfuls of chips, don't go all out and eat the whole bag, or put off eating right for the whole weekend or until next month. She says , "If you have a flat tire, you fix it and move on, you don't sit and poke holes in all other tyres".

Day 4 :

breakfast : 2 cups coffee, wheat noodles with vegetables
mid morning snack : 2 figs, some watermelon
lunch : 1 cup of remining wheat noodles with veggies
exercise : 60 mins brisk walk, rest of the family enjoyed hot fries after a walk in the cold breeze- I watched them eat!
evening : 1 1/2 cups coffee
dinner : bhel puri with onions, tomatoes,cucumber,carrot and peas.  Realized after eating a plateful that puffed rice is also a version of rice and hence may have been another violation :-(((

Day 2

Breakfast : 1 whole wheat sandwich with peanut butter, 1 cup of coffee

midmorning snack : 1 cup of coffee, 1/2 an avacado

lunch : 3 watermelon wedges, 1/2 cup oatmeal with vegetable sambar ( yep, I can eat oatmeal with sambar, rasam and other curries)

evening snack : some baked pita chips with guacamole, 3/4 cup coffee

evening snack 2 : 1 slice of wheat bread with peaut butter before walk at 8:30 pm

Exercise : 60 mins brisk walk from 8:40 to 9:40 pm. That was the first time in the day I could leave the kids to DH and do my physical activity.

Dinner : 3 figs, 1/2 cup oatmeal with lentils curry and some puliyogare gojju on the side. The tart tangy gojju was very satisfying; the remaing 1/2 avacado, some yogurt.

Musings for the day :
Need to plan meals better. Wanted to make a salad today for dinner. Had to take both kids for DD's icecream social prior to school start the following week. Taking care of two kids 24 x 7 leaves me with hardly any time for myself. I am still cooking white rice for the rest of my family.
Thanks to DH for relenting to my insistence and taking the kids to the park while I independently proceeded for my walk. Dinner was late again, need to get that under control.
Was very very tempted to add 1/2 a tea spoon sugar to my coffee this morning, but resisted it.
My sister had to give up sugar when she had gestational diabetes with her second one. After childbirth she hasn't gone back to taking sugar in her coffee and tea, it's been five years now.  My MIL who was prediabetic gave up sugar in her beverages a few years ago. Now her sugar is in the healthy range and even the doctor told her she could add sugar in her coffee. When I asked her why she still continued to not take sugar, she replied saying ' Once I've quit, why go back to it? Today my sugar is under control but by starting to take sugar, what if new issues surface?". I remembered these 2 women, let out a big sigh and ditched the sugar. Giving up sugar in my coffee is undoubtedly the most difficult thing for me. 2 days done!  At roughly about 6 tsps a day, 15 cals a tsp - this works out to be about 8-11lbs of body fat in a year.  With all else remaining as they are, I can easily stand to benefit from not gaining that kind of weight over one year.
   I read a few weight loss success blogs before I go to sleep. Always helps reignite that motivation. Will share a few good ones in my next post!

Day 1 -

Happy Independence day!!!!

Breakfast :1 cup coffee ,1 whole wheat sandwich with almond butter

mid morning snack : 1 cup coffee and 2 figs

lunch : pita chips with guacamole, 1 serving of  brown rice with ridge gourd and lentils curry

evening snack : 5-6 almonds, 5-6 walnuts, a cup of coffee

dinner : a small bowl of vegetable soup, whole wheat sandwich with hummus and a few pita chips with guacamole, a small cup yogurt and 1 cup grapes

Exercise : None :-((((

In summary : Must get a workout in tomorrow, felt very bad about not being able to do it today. Coffee without sugar made me somewhat irritable and tired. Dinner should have been early, but was at about 9 pm today.  Murphy's law - Hubby brought home many sweets - coworkers returning from India gave away a lot of sweets. Was a little hard at 7:30 pm to see hubby and DD savor the pedas slowly and sadistically! I swept the kitchen floor more furiously and left the place. Biggest pat on my own back : resisted Tirupathi laddoo which is my all time favorite sweet. Made DH put a half in the freezer for me, didn't want him to save any other treats. Lord Venky, please give me the strength to persist. Defintely announcing this to the whole wide world has made me stay serious ,focussed and accountable.

Sugar free for 2 weeks - join me?

Hello all! I am back after yet another long break.
Cannot believe my daughter is starting school in one week and my second born is already a year old. It's been wonderful spending one hundred percent of the time with thing1 and thing2 - tantrums, meltdowns and frustrating moments included .
After we settled down from jet lag and celebrated DS's birthday and ayushya homam and a couple of festivals, I am desperate to kick start my weight loss efforts yet again. For the last decade I have been struggling with this issue. Take 2 years off for each pregnancy and post partum phase - that's still a whooping 6 plus years. I realize now that a lof of the things I used to do in the initial few years were plain wrong - skipping breakfast, eating sugary cereals,  significant portion sizes , eating a lot of white rice on most days and so on....
Weight loss strategy that works - yields favorable results is different for each one of us. It's like finding the right key to a lock from a bunch of about 150 different keys. For some the third or fourth one may be the right one; for yet other folks it may be 120 down and still trying! Not to say that this is entirely a matter of chance , random luck. What I mean is until you figure out what affects you, what exercise activity you enjoy and can sustain, what time of day works for you, which foods are agreeable to you and so on, the battle keeps continuing.
Anyway without making any more excuses I want to hit the ground running.  I have been reading a lot about sugar, refined foods and the havoc they wreak on one's system.  Dr.Lusting's Sugar- the bitter truth (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM) is a compelling scientifically backed presentation. Watch this 90 minute video when you find some time, it's hard to ignore its message once you've seen this.  I also read the Sugar busters diet book -
http://www.amazon.com/Sugar-Busters-Cut-Trim-Fat/dp/0345425588
Like many testimonials I've read online of people who've gone sugar free and improved their health I am tempted to jumpstart my efforts with a cleansing sugar free diet.  I completely acknowledge that temporary efforts only provide temporary results, and that anything I do should be sustainable in the long term - a lifestyle change. That said, this 2 week programme is aimed to tame our sugar cravings, to open our eyes to the sugar that is all around us in the form of energy bars and suaces, from ketchups to most fat free food we assume are healthy. Hopefully this will lead us to nix sugar from our diets most of the time, so we can eat an occasional pastry or one gulab jamoon once in a while. So this effort is aimed to get fit and not just to get rid of the fat, to get healthy and have more energy, to end up feeling like a million bucks instead of spending that kind of amount on hospital expenses two or three decades from now.
 This time, with an intent to make this real I want to invite folks to join me in this challenge. This is not a fad diet knocking any group of nutrients off the list. Only processed foods( most of them with added sugar), refined junk is eliminated. A large variety of foods are permissible, providing plenty of options.
 I am going to be doing a vegetarian version but folks joining me are welcome to choose any food of their choice as long as it adheres to the rules below. If you do have to skip one or two days for important occasions, that's alright, join me for as long and as far as you can! If you're joining in, please respond in the comment section here, so we stay accountable to each other.

The plan : To go sugar free for 2 weeks starting Aug 15th - Jai Hind! through Aug 29th

How do we do this : 
Below is a list of allowed foods and those that are off limits. Follow the list.
Incorporate at least 30-45 minutes of exercise of your choice for a minimum of 5 days a week.
Eat breakfast, a midmorning snack, lunch, a late afternoon snack and an early dinner.

Foods not allowed :
Read labels of every single thing you buy/cook with to check for sugars.

table sugar and foods made with it like sweets, salad dressings, ketchup etc.
white rice, white rice flour and white flour( maida) - this includes bagels, pasta, pizza, doughnuts and so on and baked fare - white bread,cookies, cake,biscuit, cereals and breakfast bars , candy and YES chocolates
High fructose corn syrup
foods with added sugars like dextrose, maltose and any other -oses
anything with molasses, any sypup like maple syrup, agave nectar and honey
potatoes and all things made from it - chips etc.
corn and corn based items
bananas, raisins*
fruit jucies , sodas, soft drinks
idly, dosa and their variant *
canned products with added sugar - eg canned fruits and beans
jams and jellies
all processed food - fried snacks

Allowed foods :
Oatmeal
Brown rice
whole wheat or 100% whole wheat ( not just wheat - products tend to have added sugar)
Quinoa, flax seed, bulgur( cracked wheat), barley and other whole grains
whole wheat bread, pastas made from whole wheat, whole wheat couscous
all vegetables with the exception of potato. Go easy on carrots and beets.
Unlimited amounts of green leafy vegetables, cucumbers etc.
All fruits except banana - I have not taken pineapple,mangoes, apples and watermelon off the list, but go easy on them, they are high in natural sugars
sweet potatoes
nuts and nut butters
popcorn without butter occasionally
low fat milk, yogurt, cheese in moderation

A word of caution :
Since weight loss is a primary goal here, remember to be cautious of oily foods, butter, meat intake. Eat fruits judiciously and avoid them after your evening snack. Nuts and nut butters are preferrable to regular butter. Midmorning and late afternoon snacks can be any one of these- fruit , a fistful of nuts, some cottage cheese, whole wheat pita chips with no added sugar.

* I would not eliminate any fruits in the long run, their fibre and nutritive value far outweighs the sugar in them, if eaten in moderation. Same goes for idly dosa and poha - these are healthy breakfast/tiffin options and anyday better compared to boxed, frozen fare with a shelf life. Same for honey. But to make any significant strides by cutting out sugar these must be eliminated for the said 2 week programme.
I am also not a fan of sugar substitutes - be it Splenda or Stevia or truvia , for me those are off the table too.

Comments , suggestions and ideas are most welcome.