Atkins at the Beach

Ray and I are pictured here at the beach at Emerald Isle. We drove there last Saturday after a lovely lunch with my daughter and her family. We had fried shrimp, hushpuppies, fries, and cole slaw.  Not Atkins food at all, but we did have an Atkins meal bar for breakfast.

I know we are not a very good advertisement for Atkins. We stray too much. We can go along for 4 or 5 days and do so well. Then a dinner, convention, meeting comes up, and there we go again. We are still losing. Sometimes I wish someone would give me an IV and put me to sleep for a couple of months. It seems that I have spent my whole life dieting, and I really don't think it is the diet that is a mess. It is me. I hate exercise! I have to find something that I like that will move me around.

I like to sew (sitting), read (sitting), TV (sitting), Social Media (sitting), painting (sitting), crafts (sitting). I need to find a hobby that will get me out of the chair. Rheumatoid Arthritis has got the best of me. When we go walking or shopping, my feet, knees, and hips hurt and I cannot walk any distance. I have to hold on to the shopping cart or Ray's arm to stay steady. I want to lose weight so bad, but I just don't have the gumption. I have lost enough weight during my lifetime to populate a small town.

Ray is doing much better than I am. He is almost at his goal weight. We are going through his clothes and getting rid of everything that is too big. We should be able to give quite a bit to the Salvation Army. Why are men more able to lose weight faster than women. It  I put all my winter clothes in heavy plastic bags and labeled them. Hopefully, they will be too large by next winter and I can get new clothes. See, I have an incentive to lose. When I am on the Atkins program, I feel so much better. Why do I become a Carbohydrate Queen knowing that it is going to make me feel worse?

What is the answer? How do you get the mindset to lose? Where is my motivation?

GOD IS GOOD ALL THE TIME! ALL THE TIME, GOD IS GOOD!

Conventions are Not Diet Friendly

Ray and I are on the way home from the 90th Virginia Lions Convention in Bristol VA. It was a hoot. There was a dinner almost every time I turned around. We stayed at The Holiday Inn Bristol. The rooms were nice and clean, and the AC worked famously. Although, there seemed to be an electrical storm going on in the hotel. (1). My key had to be rekeyed 4 Times, (2) the indicator lights on most of the floors were out on the 2 elevators (a third was broken), (3) the microphones in the meetings were sporadic and worn out, and (4) I got tired of waving at spigots to wash my hands.

We drove up on Friday morning early after having an Atkins meal bar. They are scrumptious, then we stopped at Wendy's for a chicken wrap after we arrived for Lunch. It was quite tasty! Of course, we started the trip with a bag of baked chips and a bag of Cheetos, which are not diet friendly. Oh, well, we don't want our bodies to go into starvation mode, do we?

Friday night, we went to dinner at Cracker Barrel. I ordered the chicken and dumplings child's plate and Ray ordered Chicken Fried Steak w/turnip greens and a sweet potato. We knew that we were off plan, but isn't life that way sometimes? Saturday saw us having a Atkins Meal for Breakfast. Lunch was a buffet, but I think we were not too bad. There was coleslaw, sliced pork, broccoli, and mashed potatoes. Also, there was a dessert of your choice of cake.

Dinner consisted of crunchy chicken (it wasn't fried) with a mystery sauce on it, rice, tough vegetables, but canned biscuits that weren't too bad. Ray had Prime Rib (looked and tasted like jerky) mashed potatoes and the tough veggies. The dessert was spice cake with creamed cheese.

This morning, we went to a breakfast buffet in the hotel. We stopped and got fountain drinks, chips, gum, and Cheetos for the drive home.

When we get home today, we are back on Atkins. We have some frozen dinners in the freezer. We really were surprised at how good they are. So, even though we made bad meal choices over the weekend, it doesn't mean we are quitting. Thomas Edison failed over two thousand times before he was successful with the light bulb.

WE WILL NOT STOP! (we may slow down occasionally). Please share in a comment or if you would like to share your experience in a post, email to: barbarapduke@yahoo.com

Please don't send emails with advertising, forwarded emails, business offers, etc.

Check out Boomer-Mom.bloggspot.com later tomorrow.

10 Pounds Down

Imagine my surprise when I realized that 20 people had followed this blog. That is awesome. It means that other people are interested in losing weight too.

We purchased Atkins Snack and Lite meal bars and some Chocolate Peanut Butter Meal Bars. We also bought some Atkins frozen dinners. I like the chicken and turkey dinners, and Ray likes the meatloaf and Italian sausage dinners. I had to make a special place in the fridge to hold all that Ray bought. I also made some chicken soup with bouillon cubes, a little butter, and lots of salad leaves, like kale and mustard. Also, added some coleslaw mix veggies. Most of the veggies burn more calories than they provide when you eat them. The soup was wonderful. We have had two dinners out of the pot.

We have been trying not eating anything before bed. Those things tend to go right to the middle and stay there. Sometimes I do have a small piece of Cheddar Cheese when I take my bedtime medicine. Otherwise, they back up on me.

I absolutely hate exercise. Since the weather has been just right, I have decided to direct my exercise toward the garden. Here are some perennials that my mother gave me. Aren't they beautiful? I have been weeding the flower beds. I can surely feel the thighs shrinking. There were some weeds that were almost as tall as the flowers. It has rained quite a bit, so they were easier to pull out. If you look carefully, you can probably see the weeds. The red flowers are from an Abraham Lincoln Rosebush. They are like velvet and so red. On the other side of the bed, I have the JFK Rose which is really white. I have rose bushes all over. Seems like there is usually one blooming most of the time.

Then, imagine my surprise when I stepped on the scale this morning and I was 10 pounds down. It is the most wonderful feeling when you see that scale with less than there was last time. Another great thing was wearing my new jeans yesterday. When I bought them 2 weeks ago and brought them home, they were too small to get together around my waist and my thighs were tight. When I put them on yesterday, I could actually button the waist and the thighs were not too tight. The place to get to will be when they are baggy and I have to give them away.

I really didn't want to buy fat clothes, but over the past year, I have acquired a few.  Hopefully, soon, I can give them away and get back into my smaller clothes.

If anyone would like to comment or submit a guest blog, I would love it. It would be great to have interaction and encourage each other about our weight problem.

 This was me at Christmas, Look at those hips! Wow!

I always said that I am going to write the worlds smallest diet book and it is going to have 2 pages: first page says - Eat Less; second page says - Move More! If we could all do that, we would have a more comfortable life.

MOVE MORE - EAT LESS!

Atkins Forever

Pan Roasted Chicken

Well, here it is two years later and Ray and I are on a diet again. Some things just never change. We are in NC for the weekend. It was so nice last night on the porch. Snowball and Mitzee ran around like something was chasing them. I sure wish I had that kind of energy.

We are sticking with the Atkins plan of 20 carbs a day just now. It is not so difficult after the first few days. I have almost quit craving carbs. I just love sweet stuff, so we bought some Atkins snack bars. I thought they were expensive for Sam's but wonder how much they are in a regular store. We went to Food Lion and picked up some Atkins Frozen dinners and some strawberries last night. I just feel like we needed some potassium. I really think that it is necessary for us to have fresh fruit sometimes. I plan on losing about 50 lbs and Ray wants to lose 25.

I get sliced deli meat and cheese slices and make roll-ups. They are very good and very filling. Costco has Steak Strips that are so much better than Jerky. I can eat a piece of that with an ounce of cheese and it holds me for a while.

If you want to keep up with our progress, just sign up for the blog and updates will be sent to you.

Barbara and Ray