EAT-- Have I Talked About Oatmeal?

So for the first month I was on WW, my breakfast consisted of 2 eggs, a sprinkling of cheese and some canadian bacon, all mixed up in a bowl and microwaved. It wasn't a bad breakfast, points-wise, but if my doctor wants me to lower my cholesterol, eating 2 eggs every day is probably not going to help with that. And I kept hearing about oatmeal, specifically steel-cut oatmeal.  About how good it is for you. I wanted to give it a try, but two things held me back: 1) I was worried that because oatmeal does not have as much protein as my egg breakfast, it would not hold me the 4 hours I needed it to when I was at work, and 2) It takes 25 minutes to cook!  What a pain in the ass!  I don't have 25 minutes every morning to make oatmeal! I kept talking to my oatmeal eating friends, and they gave me a good idea for cooking it.  Just make a bunch of it ahead of time! So was continuing to think about it, because if anyone can overthink something it's me. Then one day I was at the grocery store with my friend Cari, and she walked me through the buying of the oatmeal and also some almond milk which she uses to make it.  Armed with my new healthy breakfast items, I decided to make 4 servings on Sunday night and eat them during the week.  So I did! I used 1 cup of oatmeal to 4 cups liquid, 2 cups water and 2 cups almond milk. I portioned it into 4 bowls so that I could just take out a bowl in the morning and microwave it. I added some blueberries to it and it was delicious!  Now I eat it all the time! Yay me!  Anyway, I heartily recommend it to anyone and everyone. It can't hurt!

EAT-- What I Learned Last Night

I am in a Bunco group.  This means that once a year it is my turn to host Bunco at my house.  Last night was that night.  This includes serving dinner for 12 people before the game. This year I decided to make it easy on myself and got pizzas from Papa Murphy's. I did my nutrition research beforehand, and decided to get one of the pizzas with their light crust, and I planned my portion along with my points. But here is what I learned: if I am faced with unlimited amounts of pizza, I will eat unlimited amounts of pizza! I had my 2 slices that I had portioned out, then a third slice of that one, and 2 more slices of the super cheesy fatty thick crust kind! The 2 pounds I had lost earlier in the week were right back on the scale when I weighed this morning, no surprise there. I think the lesson I can take from this is, pizza is my heroin, and I am rendered helpless in it's presence.  I need to just stay away from it when I can.

EAT-- What I Take

Here is another post from the WW blog, this one from 4/12/12:


This post is about nutritional supplements, which is just a fancy way to say vitamins! I am taking quite a few these days, most of them on the advice of doctors for various reasons. I take six pills and two gummy vitamins every day. Every morning when I take my pills I am reminded of when I was a teenager and my mom would take her vitamins. She didn't take a multi-vitamin, she had one bottle of every letter--A,B,C,E, etc. She was ahead of her time, since this was the 70's and the idea of taking all those pills was a foreign concept to most everyone. She kept all of her pill bottles in a wicker basket that she kept on the kitchen counter. Looking back, I do think they helped contribute to her good health.
So anyway, the wicker basket that used to hold my mom's vitamins now sits on MY kitchen counter, full of the supplements that I take! I love that I get to carry on the tradition, Mom would get a kick out of it! So here is what I take: Iron, Vitamin C, Red Yeast Rice, Flaxseed Oil, Calcium/Vitamin D, blood pressure meds, and Chewable gummy multis.
--Iron. About 9 months ago it was discovered that I was severely anemic. Probably has to do with the giant periods I had been having. My ferretin level was 8, the bottom of the normal range is 16. Today my level is 26, hooray! I no longer want to take a nap at my desk in the afternoon, that is a good thing!
--Vitamin C. Was told to take it with the iron because it helps the body absorb iron better. Of course there are other benefits too. I can tell you that during this winter cold season, I never got the bugs and viruses that were going around the office.
--Red Yeast Rice. My doctor told me to take this to help lower my cholesterol. I had never heard of it, but I went to the store and there it was! I am hoping that between my new way of eating and taking this, that my cholesterol numbers will be low enough that I won't have to go on medication.
--Flaxseed Oil. I take this to lower my cholesterol as well. I know that Fish Oil is more effective, but I do not like the fish burps, yes I have tried the good ones that say there are no fish burps, I still get them.
--Vitamin D/Calcium. I told my doctor I get really mopey in the dark of the winter and I don't want to clean my house. I asked her if there was a pill I could take that would make me want to do my dishes, and she told me Vitamin D! And that I should take it year round, since evidently we do not get enough light up here in the Northwest. It sort of works, I do my dishes more often and sit around less, although it is getting to be spring and that happens anyway.
--Gummy Multivitamins for Adults. I like the chewables because I just don't want to swallow another pill. They are not really sweet like a gummy bear, they taste more like a Sunkist fruit snack, kind of mild. And I think that because it is a chewable, that the vitamins get into your system faster. I take them before work, and by the time I get to work the B vitamins have kicked in and I'm all "WOOOOOOO! LET"S WORK!!!" My co-workers think I am crazy, I think I am healthy! I also take a prescription blood pressure medication. Hypertension runs in my family, but I hope that as I lose weight, I can lower the dose. And while I typed this, I took my pills! Have a great day!!


I still need to take pictures of my bike and talk about that, but this week is very busy for me.  I have Bunco at my house this Thursday and have a LOT still to do.

EAT--The Backstory

Here is the first post I made on the Weight Watchers blog, originally posted on 3/11/12.


"You all know how most of this story goes, so I will skip the part about how I have been overweight most of my adult life due to laziness and poor food choices. Let's skip to my last doctor's visit.

So a month or so ago, I went to the doctor for my annual physical. I worried as I fasted the night before that my blood sugar would be high and that I would get the news that I am now a diabetic, so welcome to Hell. So I was relieved when the bloodwork revealed that it was not diabetes that was going to kill me. Relief lasted about 5 seconds because I found out that what is really going to kill me is a heart attack. Maybe a stroke. Either way, it's not very pretty. My doctor had to double my blood pressure medication, and informed me I had 2 months to lower my cholesterol or she would put me on a statin drug.

I have felt hopeless about my health and my weight for quite some time. I felt powerless to do anything about it (see laziness above) and felt like at age 50 it was really too late for me to change. The good news is that my doctor told me it was NOT too late to change! She suggested Weight Watchers, which I took as a sign because I had already been to their website and had looked up the nearest meeting to me. So three weeks ago, I went.

Now, I had done WW before, about 15 years ago. They did have the points system back then, but it was different. This new program is a much better fit for me. I love the flexibility of the extra 49 points per week. If I overeat a little, I just count the points and eliminate the guilt that always led me to abandoning the program. Also, the e-tools make it so easy to track what I eat, no more writing and adding! In three weeks I have lost 9.4 pounds. This has resulted in a feeling that I had not had in many years, the feeling of hope. The feeling that maybe it's not too late to turn my health and my life around. The feeling that maybe my fifties are going to be awesome!

I am looking forward to my bloodwork in several weeks. Maybe it won't be the best, maybe I will still have to go on drugs. But today I have hope that things will change."


So there is the backstory.  Since this post I have lost another 10.6 pounds for a total of 20 exactly. This story is ongoing!

Out Of The Ashes

I have been having this huge urge to blog again. That is because whenever my life is undergoing major changes, I find I have a lot to say. I decided that I needed a blog that reflects what is going on now. So I took my knitting blog, Knitmare on Elm Street, and changed the name. This kind of makes me sad because I think Knitmare on Elm Street was the best blog name ever, seeing as how I knit AND live on Elm Street! But these things happen. Allow me to explain the change.

EAT-- About 2 1/2 months ago, I joined Weight Watchers. Even though I go to meetings, I use their website's tools to track what I am eating. On their website they have a community which includes a place to blog. I have put several posts up, but it seems silly to use their blogs when I have several blogs of my own just sitting here getting dusty. I will be reprinting some of those posts here, as well as talking about my weight loss (20 pounds so far) and what I eat.

KNIT-- As everyone and their uncle knows, I am a knitter. I made a promise to myself that I would be better at documenting what I knit. So there's that.

BIKE-- I made a list a while back of things I wanted to do when I lost weight. Number two on that list was Ride a Bike. I thought about it and decided not to wait. After weeks of research and coveting, I bought a bike yesterday! This blog will chronicle the process of me becoming a genuine bike rider. Because I am not that now.

And of course there will be posts about nothing as well. So I hope to have some readers eventually and would love it if I were an inspiration to somebody someday!