Day 29 - Pickles Rule!!!

Wahoo pickles, so much food for only 5 calories! that is all....

Day 26

More tropical inspiration, but this time from the Hana Highway.
Anyone interested in planning a trip? We'll look great on a tropical isle, hair blowing in a Jeep with the top down.



Can anyone else believe that it's almost been a month?

(Picture ©Jenny, 2005)

Day 25

Day 25, people - pretty impressive!!! Go team!

So, we are about to go to Applebee's. This is going to be fun, and we can all stay within our limits. I might even have dessert. I have over 600 calories to eat left, and I might just do it!
We will see.

aaaannnnddd..... we're back!
I started writing before we left for dinner, but didn't publish. We are home now, had a great time, and I did have dessert, and it was good.
See you all Saturday.

Day 24....

I'm learning how nice it is to have prepackaged foods, being able to count calories with some accuracy. Without, it's only a guess. I looked up the calorie count for a slice o' pizza, and there are too many variables to get an answer. I must say, that the trick is to start paying attention to what a certain ammount of calories looks like, feels like, and fills up the tummy like. Then, be ready to identify that same look, feel, and fill when eating non packaged food.
Wait, I suddenly have the need for some tropical inspiration....
Aaaahhhhh, that's better. (Picture ©Jenny, 2005)

Yummy Treat Idea

Hey everyone! I talked to the owner lady of the coffee/frozen yogert shop "Java" something or other, that's in the shopping center by Sizzeler off Alta Murrieta. She says that the soft serve frozen yogert is fat free, sugar free, low carb, and 10 calories per oz. Her small yogert cup is 4 oz. So, I think we can get a big one without going out of our comfort zone. It comes in Chocolate and vanilla or swirl, (some of both). We should try some this weekend. The lady also said that they are open 6am to 6pm. Closed Sunday's, but she just sold the shop and the new people will be opening on Sundays too. I think it's as close to ice cream were going to get. I like it even not on a diet.

Calorie Calculator

http://www.freedieting.com/tools/calorie_calculator.htm#

Here's a pretty cool website I found. You can figure out how many calories it takes to maintain you present wieght and how many you should eat to lose weight. Check it out.

Day 22 - 3 weeks complete

Good Job everyone!! We rock! I think we're all doing well here. Seems like just normal life now... I'd just like to figure out a little more variety though. But really all in all, this has been pretty darn successful!!

Day 22 for Reela

Can't really add much to what Cat said except that at this point I've lost 21 pounds but, I've been stuck there for a couple days. I guess it's time to try to trick my body into losing again by starting a work out regimine. Oh well I know this day would come.

Sunday/End of Week Three

Weigh in today went OK. At least I didn't gain any. Coming off slowly for me, Scott is loosing much faster. Only one pound more this week for me. I am feeling good and I didn't gain so all is well. I just have to keep the motivation up so I don;t give up. Had a Southwest Chicken Panini for dinner last night and it was great. Put some lettuce in it too it was very flavorfull. Saturday was easy because I was stuck on the edge of the road selling stuff with my sister. I brought the SB Ceaser Chicken wrap due to the fact that I wasn't going to be able to heat anything up. That worked out well. I should have brought some lettuce to put in that one too, next time I will know. It was good anyway. I bought some fruit and stuff from the produce vender that sat up his stand next to us yesterday, got strawberries, a giant papaya, and some aspergas. Now that it's getting into summer fruits and vegggies we need to take advantage of the better prices and good fresh foods that are low in calories. I cut up the stawberries and sprinkeled equal on them and a little light whip cream, yummy desert last night and now bad on calories. I cut up some papaya for breakfast this morning, Nice tropical flavor to start off our Sunday morning. Well, Going to go out and get the yard done this morning, then work on the housework for awhile, vaccuum and stuff. It gets away from me fast, but I need to keep myself active, so might as well be productive. Hey....what movie did you guys see?

Day 20 - Lazy Saturday

We're just haning today (hoping I don't get called for tech support at the school).

Nice day outside though... Maybe some yard work later...

Keep it up everyone!

Day 19 - More Compare and Contrast

By popular demand, a more recent picture of our 300th cache.
Well, I'm only looking at myself - and I see a difference. I'm larder at 300 than at 100!!!
But, I think today I'm smaller already than this picture.

No time to blog any further rirght now. Blog away my friends.
Jen

Okay, okay, I'm back.

Okay, so I've been totally lame about contributing to the blog. Day 18 of the new way of life (we are not dieting!) and at this point I've lost a grand total of 19 pounds. So far I've been coming in under my target of 1500 calories. Pants are fitting better, sleep is better, I have more energy, and I can actually tie my shoes without gasping for breath, life is good. You're right Jammy, tanning is not good motivation for me so maybe Mike and I need something else, so how about this one? I want to fit in one of these some day soon.

Day 18 - It's After 5

After 5, and no one has blogged yet. Here I am! I'll blog. I'm talking to Scott on the phone right now, and finding out what his hang ups are on blogging. It's okay, Scott. We won't take it personally.
Here is our picture of the day.

It's our 200th cache. Let's compare with our 100th cache.

Compare and contrast for yourself. I know I did!
Scott, you are a great self portrait taker!

I can't wait to post a picture of our 400th cache. We should be looking very slim by then!

And, watch out for #500! Wooohooo!

Day 17 - More Motivation

I figured it was time to post some more motivating pictures for the group. This one is of the resort Atlantis. I've wanted to go here since it opened, but I don't think of it come vacation planning time. Yes, I know it is a commercialized resort, but sometimes you just want to relax in pure luxury.
I'm guessing that not all of us would find this to be their vacation destination. So, find yours (in your head) and think of how great you will look and feel when you get there! Motivation!
On another bit of motivation, I went to the tanning salon last night. Yes, I always find that to be motivating. Reela and Mikey, I don't expect that you would relate to that.

Cat- I got that SB Wrap at Target, in the refrigerated section (so not frozen - yea). I'm hoping to find more like it at the market refrigerated isle - maybe by the Lunchables.
I am at home with an upset stomach. We'll see what I can eat today. Usually when my stomach is upset, and I do want to eat something, all I want is a quesadilla. That's not so much on this diet, at least for me. I fear going overboard.

Day 16 - I'd eat that even if I wasn't on a diet!

Here is a picture of my lunch today. I found somthing besides a frozen Lean Cuisine to eat for today. It's a South Beach Diet Grilled Chicken Caesar Wrap. Pretty tasty - and yes, I'd eat it even if we weren't on a diet.
As you can see amongst the workings of my desk, we have grilled chiken breast cuts, 2 tortillas, Parmesan Cheese!, and light ceasar dressing. Plus - sugar free jello for dessert. Yum! All of this for 230 calories! What I have to watch with South Beach products is the fat content. I guess that's not as important if you follow the SB diet, but I'm watching fat intake. My rational - even if we're counting calories and portion size - if you want to get rid of fat, don't eat too much fat. This container had 10 grams of fat (not bad, but I didn't use all the dressing provided to cut down a little).
So, I want to enjoy what I'm eating. I have done so, for the most part. There are foods I miss, really!!! I'd start to write about them, but I don't want to dwell on them.

16 days, eveyone! 16 days! That's 16 days of eating well, no fast food, and lots of cash in my wallet!

Stay strong, my fellow dieters!

Monday's

It seems like Monday's are actually easier to stay with the plan. It's back to a routine, lunch and snacks are packed and ready to go. Can't over-do it because I can only have what I brought! Weigh in went OK. I'm down a total of 12 lbs. Scott's at 17 lbs. I tried on some clothes over the weekend that I thought might fit....not yet! Maybe at 20...I'll try again. I've kept it under 1200 everyday so far. I realize that it took longer than two weeks to put it on, I have to be patient that it will take quite awhile to take it back off. I need to stay motivated. Any words of wisdom? How you all doing?
So far today..

140 Oatmeal
60 Yogert

Winding down week two

Tomorrow morning we will weigh in for week number two. Every day is getting easier to stick with it. We cooked chicken breasts on the BBQ tonight and stir fried some veggies with spicy seasonings. It was really good, filling and I think the whole thng was only about 275 calories. We cooked up extra meat to make salads for tomorrow or whatever we want to make out of it. I put itailian seasoning on it, no salt, and it's great. I think our stomachs are shrinking because it's taking a lot less to fill us up. Hope the Palm Springs thing went OK.

140 Oatmeal
100 yogert
100 shrimp cocktail
140 Nutri-grain Bar
275 chicken dinner

755 (Time for a late night snack!)

Day 12 - Palm Springs Day 1

Hi all, today, Jenny and I have to go to Palm Springs to do family stuff. Painful because that restaurant is up there that (Las Cosuellas?) I've tried to go to 3 times and never got in. Well good! I don't want to go there again anyway! Yeah, so there...

It's going to be difficult spending time with my family because we tend to eat and socialize. I guess my brother that's coming in from AZ is also dieting so that should help out (the dieters will out number the non-dieters :) Anyway, I think we're all doing really well!! Glad to hear about your good blood pressure Cat!!

I think we've made into the zone where we have a pretty good eating pattern established. Speaking for myself I'm really not so much hungry anymore as long as I keep myself fully hydrated.

Congrats on keeping with it everyone!!!

Day 11 - Jenny's stuck in traffic...

... and she's hunrgy and depressed :( She doesn't even have a 100 calorie snack pack :(

Day Ten and all is Well...

Ok. I can do this. Day 10. It has really been getting easier. I'm no longer hungry at night when I go to bed. I actually was under calories for the last few days and feel fine. I did notice that my blood pressure is up, but that could have very well been going on for some time. I'll take it today and tomorrow then decide if I should have my doctor check it out. So, I'm going to start watching the sodium intake too. The one thing about these diet dinnners is that they are low in the flavor catagory and we tend to load on the salt. Jammie suggested "Mrs Dash" instead of salt to bring out flavor in our foods.
I'm also drinking boat loads of water. Luckily the restroom is only 20ft from my desk at work! We've been snacking on the 100 packs. They're great. Maybe next week we'll be ready to kick it up a knotch and throw in some excersise. Any other "No Salt" ideas?

Day 10 - that's double digits

So, Cat and I passed each other on the way to work this morning (and I saw her)!

I don't have any witty banter for today, maybe one of you will and can be our inspiration for the day.

Just to let all know here, I think I do have a 4 day weekend planned for Memorial Day weekend. Huzzah!

Calorie Count:
breakfast bar - 220
snack - 100
panini lunch - 320
carrots - 40
12:21 total - 680 hmmm... a little high, but okay!
Jen

Day 9 - yep, 9

Hmmm, not much to say today but it is easier to diet when you're busy!

Day 8 - The Advice Column

Okay people, today is about giving advice. I need advice.
Tomorrow I have a meeting, off site (out of my office building), with a catered lunch. I already know how yummy those cream cheese sandwiches are that we ordered for lunch. So, how to stay on the diet with this situation? I am willing to bring my own food, but any suggestions, since I don’t think I’ll be able to get to the microwave?
Mike, no slurry salad suggestions for this one, please ;-).
Please advise, and also let the group know what you need advice on, if needed.
Jen

Soylent Salad post

Hey all! I just put up the recipe for the Salad Slurry. Lemme know what you think :)

Day 7 for Reela

What Azurcat said, ditto. Not doing nearly as well as mike but still sticking to it. 1070 calories so far today and only dinner left. Like Cat said 9.6 pounds... not too shabby. I agree with one of Mikes earlier posts, this time seems a little easier than before. I think it might be due to the fact that we're all doing it together (like a fellowship? scary). Keep coming back, one day at a time, work it cause it your worth it and all of that jazz. Stay strong brothers and sisters.

One Week

Wow! We actually made it one whole week. I'm feeling really good about that. It seems to be so much easier this time. I'm not the only pilgrim on the boat. The wiegh in this morning went fairly well. Scott lost 9.6 lbs. I lost 7.8 lbs. Not bad. Better than gaining, that's for sure. I hope that every week will show improvement. We went to the store again today and got some more meals, some more snacks and drinks. I think once we get in the groove it will be even more easy to stay on the wagon. We also bought some Healthy Choice meals, the calories are on the mark and they seem to be bigger portions. We will have one tonight and see how they taste. I LC Pizza for lunch with a spinich salad and it was all good. We chopped the stupid bushes off that were hanging obver the walkway, mowed and trimmed the lawns and did some clean up in the garage. It was warm out, I feel like we got some excercise and things look better. Trying to stay active is important.

Day 7 - That's right, one week!

Hey gang, we made it through a week. Yea team! Keep up the good work.
So.... Mike and I are exhausted - we had a barking dog next door to us ALL night. It was crying, howling, and barking all night. Mike went over and rang the door (yes, it was that bad), and as we suspected, no one home. By 3 a.m. (I think), we called the police. They were here quickly, and although they really couldn't do much, they did check the house out, etc. I think he left his card on their door as well. At least it was reported. If the neighbors are gone again tonight, I'm calling animal control.
I am so tired.
I have a new breakfast reccomendation - Egg Beaters. I got Egg Beaters with cheese and chives. 35 calories for 1/4 cup, which is equal to 1 egg.
I scrambled it up, put it on a white corn tortilla, and had a 105 calorie breakfast. Very satisfying!
I've been investigating options for us to go out to eat. Where as we do need a lifestyle change, we also have to enjoy what we are doing, and since it seems we have enjoyed going out to eat in the past, I want to blend our 2 worlds.
Here are some thoughts:
Applebee's - has the Weight Watcher menu. I have had the confetti chicken, and it's good.
Claim Jumper - not even linking to this one, because afer research my thought is: stay away!
Subway - might be a great break on a caching day!
Charo Chicken - we'd have to watch what we order here, but we could be good!

That's all for now. I need to take a nap.

DAY 6 - the Dreaded weekend!

Here we go, this'll be hard for me. Some time to lounge around, which used to be lounge around and munch all day...

Here's an old typical day's intake-

#15 breakfast from Jack-in-the-Box - 600 Calories (ouch! bad start!)
homemade quesadilla - 150 (tortilla) + about 200 (cheese)
starbucks - (mmmm, frapuchino season! Java Chip, no whip!) - 370 calories
early dinner - (how about Chili's? I want my baby back baby back...) - 1460 calories (holy crap!)
And starbucks again - 360 (no whip raspberry mocha)

total - 3140 - yikes, can that be right?? Sheesh even if I only ate half of my dinner, that's 2410 for the day without a midnight snack!

oh yeah, then I can't sleep because my stomache's all messed up... hmmm, wonder why!?!?!

Good luck

Did anyone notice that we are on Day 5 on 5/5? It must be a good omen!

Day 5 Support

Ok.....I'm here. (sort of) You mean I'm the only one who actually had to get up and go to work today. Bummer. I have a few minutes to sneak and post something. Jammie, I know what you mean about being at home. I have the most trouble when I'm at home. I tend to migrate to the fridge. Or, I'll be walking through and find myself standing in the pantry...looking, looking, then wondering, HEY! What am I doing in here? It's these little formerly un-noticed habbits that got me in this condition. I've been looking at the sale flyers for grocery stores this week. You know I've never done that before. I toss them with out a second glance. I need to go back and stock up on the yogerts and frozen meals. I don't mind them at all. The can of soup is easy too and tastes great. Yes, day 5 and we're all still on the wagon! Go team. Here comes our first weekend. I think after the first week it will be easier. I've been going to bed at night with that empty feeling. I think it's my shrinking cake bucket. Sunday is weigh in day. I hope at the least I didn't gain!

DAY 5

I think shopping is going to be at least half the battle here.

I personally am liking the 100 calorie snack packs. We have Oreos and Chips Ahoy and they also make a good popcorn snack pack (very filling for 100 calories!).

The frozen dinners seem to be working well for me as well. Easy and fast - although they usually need some heavy seasoning.

For this to work for me it has to be easy. Just grab a pack and go then later the math is easy doing the blog :)

Practical Issues

Okay, here is what I know about $$$ for diet foods:
WalMart had Lean Cuisine for $2.16.
Jody reported to me at work that Stater Bros. has them for 5 for $10!!!
We know that yogurt was 20 for $10 at Vons.
SuperMarket sales usually go Tuesday to Tuesday (I think), so I'm not sure of the current status of those prices.

I hear you all on not feeling with it due to low calorie intake - I can feel myself getting loopy!

Feel free to do your own posts as well as commenting on ours!
Not much time to blog today, so comment and post away!
Jen

Thoughts on Healthy Geocaching

Ok, our typical geocaching day -

1. Discuss where we want to cache
2. Discuss the level of difficulty and terrain we want to tackle
3. Setup, run and install the pocketquery
4. Get some coffee and get in the Cahe-mobile
5. Geocache!
6. Eat
7. Geocache some more!
8. Discuss the world's problems and formulate solutions
9. Maybe get desert and more coffee
10. Discuss our next geocaching outing


Looks like a fun day!!

Unfortunately the way we've been caching has been eliminating any slack space I have left on my belt.

I think with some simple tweaks we can turn this pattern around and make this a healthy event.

First off (an obvious one) - pick caches with harder terrain. A higher terrain equates to more physical exertion which leads to more calories burnt.

Next is to replace my typical Starbucks grande raspberry mocha (440 calories) with perhaps a grande nonfat sugar-free vanilla latte (160 calories). Good start - same caffeine kick.

Along similar lines, I think a well outfitted Cahe-mobile needs a lot of cold water and low-cal munchies in it. Look under that parking lot lampost cover, chug some water. Divert a muggle, eat a carrot stick. Also packing your own snacks means more money for geotoys!

Now the hard part. It's been a hard days cache with higher terrain, we're all tired (but hydrated) and have a feeling of accomplishment finding these harder caches even though we now smell like sage (as we always do after climbing the hills in southern California). We deserve a good meal!!!

Well, the sage helps with us being to gluttonous because we don't want to stink up a REALLY nice restaurant. The trick here is to not feel like we get to eat more because we did the harder caches. I think the smart thing to do might be to save a particular cache we've been wanting to do for AFTER dinner. That way we won't want to eat that much and feel bogged down with rich food. We'll still be running on adrenaline and this will put less emphasis on the eating part of the day.

I think this cheap trick might work on me. As we are talking about where to get dinner, chug a bottle of water and eat a couple handfulls of those aforementioned carrot sticks. Then by the time we get the the restaurant, I'll order less food.

Then after dinner we can grab that last cache of the day with a feeling of accomplishment both in caching and being more healthy, and of course grab that second low cal starbucks because we're going to be good and skip desert. I suppose we could skip the starbucks too, but c'mon, baby steps here!!!

Please comment!!!

The Hand

Today I'll write about the hand. Quite a useful tool, isn't it? But what is it's place on this blog? How does it help our dieting?
First off, you can make a fist with your hand, and then shake it at other drivers on the freeway. Oh, no, I wouldn't do that, and that doesn't seem to fit with our diet.
So what else? Ah, yes. The palm of your hand is a measuring tool. It measures the perfect portion for you! I keep trying to convince the Lean Cuisine that it is smaller than my palm, so I must need more!

Other thoughts on the hand. I look at my hand and think, "Well, I haven't gained any weight in my hand." But then, I realize that sometimes my rings don't fit like they used to. I am still willing to blame that on the heat, but reality sets in after a while.

You know, the URL for this blog is cacheanddiet... so let's also post about caching.
I have an idea for another themed cache. More on that later, but here's a clue - CYOA (and that does not stand for Cover Your Own A**).

Last bit - my meal plan for the day: had an oatmeal bar this morning (220 calories, more than I have done for breakfast), a Lean Cuisine for lunch, and something similar for dinner. We stocked up on snacks last night (Special K bars have 90 calories each). Jody just walked in with other diet friendly snacks! The diet is spreading all over my work! KEWL!

Day 2 - ThinQuest2006 Continues

I am keeping with the theme of posting Hawaii pictures for inspiration. This one is a personal favorite, as Mike and I had it blown up, printed, and framed for our hallway.
(© Jenny, October 2005)

Day 2 has started strong for me. Another yogurt and water. I can see that I am going to need some more breakfast options. I'm enjoying the key lime yogurt, but I don't want to overdo it.

Hope to hear from you all soon,
Jen

The End of Diet, Day 1

Okay, so it's the end of Day 1. I actually just wanted to play around with the blog some more. I'm going to drink some water so that I won't think I am hungry now...

I am adding this picture of Maui's Big Beach (© Me, October 2005) for inspiration. Hope it helps someone!

Sweet dreams!
Jen

Today is the day...

So, I feel overly gluttonous after last night's pig out at Malic Jespar, oh, Claim Jumper.
But today is a new day! Today, we diet.
I'm at work... actually bored since the meeting was cancelled. No one is here, so I tend to get things accomplished much faster that way (imagine that). But really, without anyone here, I also distract myself - thus the blog.

So, my diet, day one, starts with me forgetting to take any food with me to work. That's okay - I wanted to join the Great American Spend-a-lot anyway, so I went to the market. Mike, wait until you see the orchid we bought to participate in the Spend-a-lot.
So, how have I done on the Diet, Day 1 (yes, I have decided it's a title, and I will capitalize it)? Okay, I't 11:18 and I had yogurt, water, and Coke Zero. I feel fine - not even ready for luch! I'll probably eat lunch (I got a Smart Ones at the market with the Orchid) and take a walk on my lunch break.
Okay, now your turn to post comments... how are y'all doing?
Jen