Odd Habits

I have a lot of peculiar eating habits, and I thought that I'd list them just for kicks and giggles.

1. I eat my deserts with a baby spoon, which is a little bit smaller than a teaspoon, because it makes the entire process last longer. It feels comfortable to me. 
2. I pay careful attention to my food, which in turn makes me very sensitive to which item on my plate should be eaten first. If I plate of grapes (for example), I can debate with myself for longer than ten seconds about which grape should be eaten next, or first (Should I eat this grape? No... Perhaps this one...? I wouldn't dare! Maybe this grape, after that grape [and so on and so forth]?). It doesn't necessarily matter where each grape is. It's a matter of which grape feels right. 
3.  It makes me very annoyed and uneasy when someone interrupts one of my meals. It makes me so uncomfortable, that I feel as though I should start over with my meal as soon as I'm left alone... which often causes me to eat a bit more than I'd like to. If I have fifteen blueberries and am interrupted after I've eaten three of them, I'll go into the fridge again and add three more in order to start over again properly.
4. When I eat breakfast, lunch, or dinner; I have two seating places that I choose from. One of them takes place on a bar-stool in my kitchen, whilst the other takes place on my bad as I sit cross-legged, with my back straight against my pillow. 

That's really all of the senseless habits that come to mind. I'm still taking part in the SGD. I'll update the page tonight with my food diary.

I hope that everyone's having a lovely day so far! Stay well and don't feel discouraged! <3

-Melany

Weight: 114 113 112 111 110 109 108 107 106 105 104 103 102 101 100 99 98 97 96 95

Height: 5'4"

Points: 31

(I've forgotten to keep track of my points as of late... I believe that I was offered a cookie as well as some meals, but I won't count any of it because I'm not certain)

Tea Blends

I pulled this from Teavana's website, because I love tea recipes (especially the idea of mixing the black Mate teas with a chocolate tea). You should be able to order them online if you click the links below each picture.


Tea blending is the creative experience of mixing more than one type of tea together for a unique taste, aroma or health benefit. If you are able to visit one of our many Teavana stores across the country you can experience tea blending "face to face" by having our Teaologists brew a special blended tea for you.  Teavana Teaologists are experts at mixing loose teas together and creating custom tea blends for boosting the complexity of the taste. Since it is hard to get an idea of how tea tastes and smells complement each other online, we have added a few tea blend suggestions below.

Many herbal tea blends are packed with the delightful taste of fruits and herbs, especially when mixed with other flavored loose teas. Rooibos teas add more fruit flavor as well as adding antioxidants to your cup. Plus, when mixing rooibos tea into an herbal tea blend, the resulting blended tea still remains caffeine free!

Popular Tea Blends

An energizing chai tea blend of mate and white tea: 

Samurai Chai Mate	White Ayurvedic Chai Tea

A Teavana classic tea blend of jasmine green tea and tropical rooibos tea: 

Jasmine Pearls Green Tea	Rooibos Tropica Tea

A coffee lover's blend of chocolatey MateVana and spicy chai tea: 

MateVana Herbal Tea	Rooibos Chai Tea

A delicious green tea blend with peaches and strawberries:

Peachberry Jasmine Sutra Green Tea	Strawberry Lemonade Herbal Tea

This fruity green tea blend makes a great iced tea:

Fruta Bomba Green Tea	Apple Lemon Pomegranate Rooibos Tea

A blend of white and herbal teas bursting with flavor:

Youthberry White Tea	Wild Orange Blossom Herbal Tea

A fruity choice for calorie-counters:

Weight To Go! Pu-erh Tea	Raspberry Riot Lemon Mate Tea

A healthy white tea blend that adds antioxidants to your cup:

Youthberry White Tea	Body + Mind White Tea

Tips to Trot

Tips to Trot
How to make weight loss easier

I wanted to make these more specific, so I read some articles to confirm them before posting them here. You're welcome to skim through the details and read the highlighted words instead.

1.  Eat dairy. Dairy decreases the body fat stored in your cells by roughly 69%, and also raises your body's core temperature. It has protein as well, which will help you feel full for longer. Just be sure to choose low-fat products (as opposed to cream).
2. Run. 'Weight-bearing' exercises strengthen bones, and any exercise burns calories.
3. Walk. Park your car farther from building entrances and always take the stairs. 
4. Avoid purchasing any food in bulk, no matter the price difference.
5. Organize your kitchen. The more lovely and organized it looks, the less you'll want to disrupt it. 
6. Plan your meals. If you have a problem with binging, chances are that you've forgotten how to tell whether or not you're hungry... or often ignore your hunger pangs until your appetite overwhelms you, causing you to binge. If you eat on a schedule, you can control things better.
7. Don't weigh yourself excessively. Weight fluctuates with water and such, so it won't give you an accurate picture. Set a date to record your weight instead. 
8. Don't drink alcohol. It will hurt your ability to make good food choices, and hangovers will always make you crave carbohydrates and greasy food. 
9. Do not take laxatives. Your body will become dependent on them, which will make you very constipated in the future. Everybody poops eventually. You don't need laxatives to do so. You need apples and probiotics (probiotic pills can be bought at grocers and drug stores).
10. Eat your food from a blue bowl or plate. Studies show that we tend to avoid eating blue foods, because the color is synonymous with mold, poison, and other distasteful things.
11. Pay attention to your portions. Your stomach is about the size of your fist, so your meals needn't be larger to fill you. 
12. Eat soup. Contrary to popular belief, water only stretches the stomach (fills you) for a short period of time. Soup, however, can fill you about an hour longer than solid food can.
13. Go to bed hungry.  I haven't tried anything more effective than this.
14. Fidget. Don't sit still. Jiggle your legs.
15. Eat spicy foods. The capsaicin in peppers decreases appetite and raises body temperature... which increases one's metabolism by 8% for roughly two hours. Black pepper, in particular, helps to dissolve fats.
16. Use cinnamon. Cinnamon improves your body's response to insulin, which helps it break down blood sugar.
17. Every time that you have a craving, force yourself to wait for thirty minutes. If you still crave food after the time has past, then you're legitimately hungry. Have some food.
18. If you can't fight yourself, binge on berries. They're high in fiber, which is very filling. They are also quite low in calories, so you can eat mass quantities of them without damaging your progress too severely.
19. Play a video game. I always lose weight when I'm hooked on a video game, because I forget to eat. As odd as it sounds, I've heard similar testimonials without asking.
20. Educate yourself. If you're familiar with the calorie content in your food, you'll be more likely to make good choices. 
21. Stay hydrated. It's nearly impossible to exercise whilst dehydrated, and very dangerous for your heart. 
22. Be creative. Paint, draw, or make crafts. Keeping your hands busy helps to quell the anxiety, and being creative takes a lot of thought... requiring a lot of goal-oriented concentration. 
23.  Freeze your food. I keep my fruit in the freezer so that it has to thaw a bit before I can eat it, which gives me time to decide whether I really need to eat it or not.
24. Do something with numbers. One of my favorite ideas that I've read, is to go outside, lay on the grass, and count the leaves stemming from the branches of a tree. Counting has a very ritualistic effect on the mind, making it a cathartic process. If you have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, however, working with numbers will only cause further anxiety.
25. Take a 'Before' picture of yourself (at the beginning of your weight loss journey) and tape it to your bathroom or bedroom mirror.
26. Eat before going to the store for groceries. The theory that people buy more fatty food whilst hungry has been both tested and proved. If you don't want to eat, try to at least have some caffeine. 
27. Don't sabotage yourself. One bought of overeating won't make you gain weight. Do not tell yourself: "I've blown it, so I may as well eat the kitchen." That's retarded, and you know that. 
28. Know your 'safe foods,' and know your 'binge foods.' The easiest way to become familiar with what your brain craves irrationally, is to put yourself on a diet and then slowly return back to your normal eating. As you ease out of it, add two or three foods back into your diet each day. If one of them sends a binge-signal to your brain, then it's a binge food.
29. Take your vitamins. Being malnourished will make you crave food for nutrition (often high in fat), as well as a plethora of other serious health problems (for instance: anemia and hair loss).
30. Get a job that requires you to move around. You'll burn a lot of calories, and usually won't have much time to eat nor dwell on food. Just avoid the food industry (or risk reeking of food every day).
31. Eat before going to work. It can be difficult for many people to eat in the morning, but you'll be much more mobile, alert, and motivated if you do. In turn, you'll lose more weight from working.
32. Don't eat past seven o'clock. Your metabolism is slowest at night.
33. Create a website or keep a journal to record your progress. Make worksheets for yourself to fill out weekly, asking questions like: "Was this week successful toward my goals? What went well for me? What went badly?"
34. Keep a food diary. Be aware of what you eat. Myfitnesspal is a good tool to use. It's an online support community as well. 
35. Go outside. Being in a different environment gives your mind something else to focus on.
36. Get enough (not too much) sleep. Both extremes lower your metabolism significantly and cloud your mind. 
37. Go to sleep early. It's easy to overeat at night.
38. Drink green tea. It contains antioxidants which help fight infection, and it raises the metabolism. 
39. Stay healthy. When your body is run-down, it signals your brain to eat carbohydrates and other simple foods that produce energy ('pick-me-ups'). Keep hand sanitizer around the house.
40. Find a friend for support. It helps to stay motivated when you have someone who is encouraging you and holding you accountable.
41. Remove yourself from the couch, and embrace your goals.

 

I wanted to post this as a blog entry, since it's easier for some to read posts rather than pages. I hope that it helps!

Chocolate Fudge Soda!

I've been too involved with organizing my room to create a proper post, but I must share this. I bought a pack of these the other day.

This most amazing invention ever:

 

It tastes like a carbonated Yoohoo and it doesn't have any calories. I've been having it for snacks and desert over the past few days. Amazing.

Note: It does contain Aspartame, which quite possibly might give you cancer; but it tastes so good...

Waltzing Through Woods

I've been waltzing around in such a fog as of late. I feel like my words are even a bit lackluster. I've lost a great deal of weight, but I'm torn between feeling proud of myself and uncertain. My mind is starting disassociate, which hasn't happened to me since last January. I'm not sure whether it's in part due to Manic Depression, since it's cyclic. If so, then I'll fade into a psychotic depression. I can only describe my last episode as 'weird,' because I stayed in my bedroom the last time that it happened, fearing that a man (any man) might break into my home to hurt me.  I kept a bottle of Febreeze by my bed, under the idea that I could protect myself by spraying him in the eyes.

This went on for a week, after several weeks of feeling like I was walking around in a fog, watching the world through an isolated globe of my own. It spun without me, as I stayed quiet in my alternate reality. The ceilings danced. People spoke to me from someplace far away (real people... Not imagined ones. They all sounded muffled, as if my ears couldn't quite grasp their words). Everything was so strange to me.

I'm not sure where the transition was, or even how I could have slipped into a peculiar week of paranoia after living in a dream. I'm growing so tired from Bipolar Disorder. My boyfriend (soon to be discarded, sadly) keeps talking about it; trying to gain my respect for having such knowledge on the issue, which he doesn't. Maybe this is a good time for me to disconnect from the world for a bit. I won't hear his caustic words anymore, nor from anyone else.

Weight: 114 113 112 111 110 109 108 107 106 105 104 103 102 101 100 99 98 97 96 95

Height: 5'4"

Points: 31

Myfitnesspal

I've been away for some time, mostly due to some 'boyfriend troubles' that have been forced upon me... all of which has taut me that I was right to be alone with my sketchbook, paints and thoughts.

I changed my MFP (myfitnesspal) account, because I wanted a new slate to begin again. There was so much negativity written within the diary pages of my last one. To those who aren't familiar with myfitnesspal, it's a very well designed diet journal. It has a wonderful database of calorie counts and exercises... and it has an app, which is quite convenient (a portable food encyclopedia, really). I recommend making an account. My diary's public on it as well, so you're welcome to peruse my calorie intake any time.

My new account name: MelanyShies

I'm sorry that this is such a short entry. My mind is so cluttered right now...

                                                  

Weight: 114 113 112 111 110 109 108 107 106 105 104 103 102 101 100 99 98 97 96 95

Height: 5'4"

Points: 31

The S.G.D.

I started the S.G.D. with my sister today, which may or may not be a reiteration. My memory becomes that of a nut whilst I'm manic (I'm still manic; but in a happy, energetic, and overall better peace of mind). We will both be recording our progress on my S.G.D. page, so feel free to snoop; chime in; or join us (please do!).

I feel like a bit of a cheat, honestly. In my manic state, I've had a potato; cherry (yes, one cherry... I can't even remember why); two small tomatoes; some cocoa and tea; and grapes, which I have yet to finish eating. I think that the lot of it amounts to three or four-hundred calories. I've been smoking a little to ease my bounding thoughts, but cigarettes really aren't the most splendid of appetite suppressants. I say this, because I've watched many a corpulent man suck down a cigarette or two. Alas, now I must have a cigarette after typing all of this. It's a tedious habit, and it reeks to high heavens. No jacket is safe. No pillow case is fresh. Everything just smells like cigarettes (ah, but how we smokers grow to love that smell). Really, though... do not start smoking, if you haven't already. All that you will be doing is procrastinating on quitting smoking, which usually causes angry madness. So don't. ...and now, off to the porch, I go!

A Few Staples for the S.G.D.

It's certainly important for one to stock his or her fridge before dieting, so here are some foods that I found helpful during my last real stab at the S.G.D.

Frozen Veggie Bags

These are both convenient and tasty (I didn't count the sauce towards my total, so I advise against such tedium). Just toss them into the microwave and heat them! Cheers!

Apple

Apples are amazing and they contain pectin, which makes them naturally filling.

Frozen Fruits

Frozen fruit can be snacked upon for a very long time, and it's rather low in calories.

To all who are joining: Best wishes...! Stay strong, loves.

 Weight: 114 113 112 111 110 109 108 107 106 105 104 103 102 101 100 99 98 97 96 95

Height: 5'4"

Points: 31 (The Roman Numerals were becoming tedious)... I think that I may have turned down a meal today as well, but it's been a rather long 'day' with all of the insomnia.