If books could make me thin

I would be.
Sigh.
So today
Weight - 139
Breakfast - 1/2 cup coffee with 1 T half and half and 4 drops of vanilla stevia
grits - 1/4 cup dry cooked with a bit less than 1/4 cup shredded cheese
Green tea
Lunch - salad - greens, blueberries, homemade pickles, tomatoes, hemp seed, chia, sunflower seeds, homemade oil and vinegar dressing.  Almonds - about half of a 2 oz bag - so one oz - 170 cal or so
water
Dinner - my weak point - oven roasted potatoes and sweet potatoes, corn - 1/2 ear, broccoli, and a small slice of veggie pizza - deep dish chicago style, cherries, water

I have decided to write a blog about all the books that I have read and am reading about being thin and healthy because I have read so very many books about it that if reading books could make you think and healthy, then I would be.  Here is that blog https://danabjornstad.wordpress.com/

Thinking about vegan

So, two years later, fatter than ever - need to lose weight. Ugh.

I have read a bit about the vegan diet and have been thinking about it.  Thought I might try it today.  So far, not working.
Breakfast - coffee - 1/2 cup - with stevia and half and half.  Should quit coffee again.
Sandwich - spelt bread with avacado
Snack
part of a multi grain granola bar, apple, chamomile mint tea
Lunch - salad fresh picked from garden with lettuce, spinach, chard, snap peas and snow peas, then not from the garden tomato, blackberries, olive oil and vinegar homemade salad dressing, multi grain organic soft pretzel with some hummus - then - well, we have some ice cream pie in the freezer.  I don't think it is even legal to start a vegan diet when there is ice cream pie in your freezer.  So I had a small amount.  Really, it was small.

Two weeks, two pounds

Well, this I my second week of the 5/2 diet and my 4th "fast" day.
So far, I have lost two pounds.
Not great, but better than nothing.
I think I have stuck to the 500 calories today.
I am not sure because keeping track of things and counting calories is a pain.
Today I had:

coffee w/ half and half
1 egg white
some carrots, cherry tomatoes and  blackberries
water

salad - greens, blueberries, pickled okra, two strawberries, an egg white, a little bit of sunflower seeds, oil and vinegar dressing - not much of it - and a pickle, two chips (yes just two), about 10 nuts
water

water, ribbons of zucchini (one zucchini), two asparagus and 4 mushrooms w/ some no sugar spaghetti sauce.  I thought it would be good.  Meh.  It was ok.  Nothing fantastic.  Not the same as actual noodles.

Second "fast" day

Ok, it is Thursday, and today is my second "fast" day.  I am supposed to only eat 500 calories today.  So far, I have had coffee w/ a little half and half, 3 hardboiled egg whites, and a bag of carrots, cherry tomatoes and sugar snap peas.  I am estimating that at about 200 calories.
So, I still have 300 calories to eat tonight.
I was hungry off and on during the day today - I did not eat anything until 1:35 other than the coffee.
I just kept reminding myself that I have fasted for Yom Kippur in the past and for Passover - although that was many years ago.  Lots of people do one day fasts for religious reasons all the time and I think Muslims do it for a month at a time, although they probably do not limit their diet to 500 calories during the time that they do eat. 
I wanted to eat the moment I walked in the door from work today - that is just habit I guess.
I will see how I do this evening.
That will be the toughest time for me.

So, for dinner I cooked onion, mushrooms, kale and a few cherry tomatoes.  I used a little oil and butter and put a bit of goat cheese on top. 
I am estimating about 200 calories there.

I just had to change out of the pants I wore today because they were digging huge ridges into my fat stomach.
Incentive to keep dieting I suppose.

Ok, a couple of hours after dinner and my stomach is rumbling and grumbling - not from being hungry, but from eating all that kale. 
Ugh..

Lose weight or buy bigger clothes?

I think I would prefer to lose weight.
I tried on some clothes in stores in the past few days and that was horribly depressing.
So, I am trying again to lose weight.
Yesterday I survived the "fast" day on the 5:2 diet if I did it right.
Pants size 10 are tight.
I want to get back to wearing sizes 6 and 8.
I am recording what I eat to see if that helps.
Really.
Gonna do it this time.

5:2 Diet

Well, as this blog evidences, I have gone through many "diets" and none of them ever work.
I am now once again to fat for my old fat pants and my new fat pants are tight.
I weigh now what I did at nine months pregnant in each of my pregnancies.
Ugh.
So, now I am reading about the 5:2 diet that a friend told me about.
I really wish that you could lose weight from reading about diets and get fit from reading about exercise.  I would be thin and in great shape!
On the 5:2 diet you eat whatever you usually eat for 5 days.
But, for two days of the week, you only eat 500 calories or 25% of what should be your normal food intake for your height and weight. 
Since I am short, my "fast" days should probably be less than 500 calories a day, but I am going to ignore that right now.
Also, counting calories is MATH - and I really do not like math.
I got the myfitnesspal app on my phone, but it does not really do exactly what I need.  I don't eat things that lend themselves to counting calories in a simple way.

So, I thought today would be a good "fast" day since I work this evening.
Nights are my worst times for eating properly.
I have not read the whole book yet, and after doing so, I may change what I eat more.

Today, I had coffee w/ half and half and vanilla stevia in it for breakfast. 
I suppose I should measure the amount of half and half I use in order to have an accurate idea of calories.  I am going to guess 2 Tablespoons because that is what they list on the box of half and half and it is probably close to what I use.
That is 40 calories.
For snack, I had a banana. 
Estimate 90 calories.
I had salad - with lots of stuff which would be too difficult to calculate so I took 130 calories that was listed as a salad w/ chicken on the app.
In my salad was: lettuce, chard, a little bit of carrots, cherry tomatoes, two or three strawberries, blueberries, some other veggies that were in the salad bag and the dressing was the juice of half of a lemon, some red wine vinegar and a bit of homemade oil and vinegar salad dressing. 
I did not have chicken on it, instead, I had an egg white.
And I was still hungry.  Imagine that.  So, I ate all of the leftover spaghetti squash with some no sugar marinara sauce and estimated it on the app as 126 calories.
That may or may not all be correct.
That puts me at 386 calories meaning I only have 114 calories left for the night. 
That does not sound great, but I will be at work, so perhaps it won't be so bad.
I will take a salad to work. 
I had salad w/ a bit of turkey lunchmeat in it. 
It probably went a bit above the 114 calories.
I was very hungry and had a headache and rather grumpy before dinner.

Guess what I am Wearing?!

Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2013
Today, I am wearing my old "fat" pants - the ones that I could not fit into for the past two months.
They are a bit tight and I have a muffin top in them and they make marks on my hips and stomach, but I can fit into them again and that is a victory!
Since changing my diet, some of the stuff I used to eat does not even taste good any more.
Chips - like the tostitos I used to eat - now taste like ick - crunchy, salty gross cardboard or something.
Today's food - so far
Breakfast - coffee w/ vanilla stevia and half and half
a hardboiled egg
banana
a few blackberries and strawberries

Brought for lunch - salad, berries, cherry tomatoes
and rice w/ some chicken, cheese, kale, mushroom in it to heat up and eat

not sure about dinner yet.

So happy I can squeeze back into these pants!  Now I need to get them fitting properly again, then loose, then down to the next size.