Haunted by Weight Gain - But Now There's a Plan

It's warm out again, 66 already today whereas yesterday didn't quite make 49. I went for a dog walk with my usual corduroy pants, a long sleeve cotton shirt (at least major sweater season has been over) and a wool shawl. Too warm! I had to come home and find a t-shirt, jeans and drop the shawl entirely. Have plenty of short sleeved shirts, the problem is jeans. At the end of summer last year I bought a few pairs of jeans and some capris all in size 12. I can't fit in them. Those 15 pounds of holiday fun have made it impossible. Plus some of my size 14s sit too far below the waist so I have the dreaded muffin top look. Crap.

I've got one pair of 14s on now that fit pretty well and minimize the muffin top look as much as possible for a waist band that sits below the navel, and found a couple of other pair that I hope will work when I try them on later. It seems impossible, around here anyway, to buy jeans any more that don't sit low on the hips. It's one of the reasons I had to stop buying my favorite corduroy pants from JCPenney, they made the rise even lower and seem to want to fall off. I bought 2 pair about the time JCP went nuts with their "new plan" (since failed, people love their coupons) and returned the one I didn't wear because they felt ridiculous. Haven't worn that other pair more than twice.

These past few weeks I've been trying to lose weight, as has Hal, but we seem to have better luck talking each other into having one more scoop of ice cream or opening that bag of chips. I had lost 3 pounds but know I probably gained those and more back in the last month. Guess my heart just wasn't in it. But a few days ago things changed. I do not know exactly what but it's almost as though my brain had a sea change. I'm tackling portion control. I was cooking a cup of rice with dinner. That's a cup of cooked rice per person. I had dropped it to 7/8 cup, then 3/4. Technically, that's still a lot of white rice and it's full of starch, carbs and calories.

When I was downstate visiting Hal's sister a few weeks ago I ordered fish and rice at a restaurant. I did not get more than probably 1/2 a cup of rice, and it was enough. Had one of those cartoon light bulbs go off over my head. So about a week ago when I made fish I cooked only 1/2 a cup, so we each only got 1/2 a cup. Dinner was good and filling anyway. I actually cooked 12 oz of fish that we split instead of 1 each, sure a few more calories, but less than the rice we would have before. Those fish were only 70 calories each.

Another day I made meat and rice burritos. We were eating 2 each and feeling bloated at the end. Instead I made one each. We were satisfied and happy. A couple days ago I made a Mexican bean, rice and duck casserole. We ate less than we normally would, maybe a little more than we should have though. It's not easy changing bad habits. But this is the way it's going to go from now on, I hope, less food especially of the carbohydrate kind.

It also means no ice cream, fewer cookies, one or two biscotti with tea rather than 3, that sort of thing. And we are eating lots of fruit. Raisins, tangerines, oranges, pineapple. We've probably been doing this faithfully about 5 days now. I don't see a difference yet (I do plan on weighing myself this week to see where I am starting, oh boy) and I am going downstate for Memorial Day weekend and that will undoubtedly throw a wrench into things, but if I try harder (and now it feels like I can) maybe a couple months from now at least the muffin top will be gone.