Kathy\’s Diet Journal

On Sunday, June 22, I started a climb up a hill that ended with me standing on the Great Wall of China. It was an awesome moment in my life.  It was at least 85 degrees and the humidity here feels worse than home - if that’s possible!  I have never sweated so much in all my life.  My son, Dave and I had to walk up this path a long way with vendors on each side trying to sell you all kinds of junk.  Then we got to the steps.  And the cable car - I tried not to look down.  After the cable car, there were more steps.  We got to the platform at the top and while I rested, Dave went up on the great wall.  He was gone about a half hour.  I sat there and thought that I had come this far, I had to climb the oversized steps and stand on the great wall.  It was worth it and as Confucious says, I am now a hero because I stood on the Great Wall.!!!!

     A special thanks to my son, Dave, who had the patience to help his old, arthritic mother make the climb and come down the hill afterward.  Despite drinking tons of water, I only went to the bathroom 3 times all day.  Once when I got up and once at the restaurant before we went on the Great Wall.  That’s a whole different experience - Chinese bathrooms are basically a drain in the floor so practice squatting now if you plan a trip to China!  And the last time was on the plane ride home at 7 P.M.  The rest of the water, I sweated out.  My clothes were soaking wet.

I got another comment from a negative person.  They said I needed to stop eating treats and eat fruit.  I published it this time because it was a light bulb moment. 

The last negative comment totally devastated me.  But this time, I thought you don’t know me and you’ve maybe read a week’s worth of my meals so how do you know that I don’t eat fruit and I haven’t been writing what I eat every day. 

 My first response to that comment is that I was leaving for China for 26 days and did not have a lot of fruit on hand and didn’t want to buy some and just end up throwing it away.  I was basically eating what I had in the house and still trying to keep it to a decent amount of points. 

But the light bulb moment was the fact that perfection is my middle name.  When I receive a criticism, I have to stop and regroup because that has ruined my perfection at the moment.  Does that sound familiar to anyone???  I think it may be a major breakthrough for me and perfection.

Since I wrote last, I have traveled halfway around the world.  I made it to China with no problems and with my luggage.   And celebrated my birthday yesterday with my son, dil, and 2 grandsons. 

 The weirdest thing is how you are flying and you lose 12 hours.  I left Mon. morning at 9:30.  I had eaten breakfast at home. I ate soup and salad at Detroit airport and then early evening ate an airline chicken dinner (3oz. chicken, tops!)  Fell asleep and every couple hours got up and walked and I tried to drink lots of liquids.  At 1 a.m. Pennsylvania time, they woke us up and fed us - I got an omelet but realized that they were really feeding us lunch and now it was 1 P.M.   Later on the same flight I got a chicken and rice meal but couldn’t eat the chicken at all!  But that was dinner and I landed in Shanghai at 8:55 their time. It was still 8:55 in Pennsylvania. 

I have been writing down my food intake in a notebook.  It really hasn’t been much.  I have totally controlled snacking - it’s been no snacks for the past two days.  I’m going to try and continue that pattern and see how it goes. 

When I go away, I tell myself that my goal is to not gain any weight.  I would not like to gain any weight while I am in China for 26 days but since it is that long, I would like to lose 2 to 5 lbs.  I think that is reasonable.  I will be staying at my son’s house so it will be possible to stay with my usual eating habits. 

I will also check in here, at least, once every 5 days. 

My new mini goal is to lose 15 lbs.  I’m going to lose 15 lbs. or more by Oct. 31, 2008.

After a disappointing gain of 2 lbs. last week, (total lost 21.2) I weighed in this morning.  It was the last weigh-in until I get back from China on July 11.  After I weighed myself this morning, I thought I would have a 3 lb. loss.  I get on the scale at Weight Watchers and I lost 5.2lbs for a total of 26.4 lbs lost!!!  So I made my goal of 25 lbs. and I also finally lost 10% of my original weight in August of 2006.  Time for a new goal and ticker!

Breakfast

• yogurt smoothie
• 2 crumpets with marg.

Lunch

• turkey on a roll with marg.
• green pepper and dip
• cantaloupe
• WW peanut bliss and choc caramel bars.

Just realized I never finished this - it probably had something to do with my weigh-in on June 5 where I gained 2 lbs.  Talk about discouraged. 

It’s been a good week overall.  And I’ve also managed to get to Water Aerobics twice.  I should be able to go on Thurs. too.  Yea me!!

I am surviving the last week of school.  I have a challenging group this year and it has been fun to come up with fun things to keep them busy. 

 Yesterday I had something for dinner that was very satisfying.  I haven’t fixed pasta in ages.  Anyway, I had saved the angel hair spaghetti from when I made the pasta salad on Sat.   I had turkey meatballs in the freezer and I am trying to clean out the freezer before I leave for China so that was my inspiration.  I added spaghetti sauce and had a very nice dinner. 

Breakfast

• cheesestick
• yogurt smoothie
• Hostess muffins

Snack

• WW caramel bar and peanut bliss bar

Lunch

• Turkey on roll with marg
• Utz chips
• pasta salad
• apple

Dinner

• pasta salad
• Utz chips - they are now gone - I bought them for Game night and should not have brought them home!!
• hot dog and veggie corn dog - cleaning out the freezer - leaving for China in 13 days!!

Lunch