The Diet Naked Blog

Google and Dairy Queen

My statcounter tells me that people find my blog by searching for points values of yummy Dairy Queen treats.  All because I once mentioned that an easy way to get fat is to order a Georgia Mud Fudge Blizzard as a late-night treat while running errands (instead of ordering an ice cream cone). 

So, as a public service, I offer the following information about Dairy Queen nutritional information:

A small vanilla ice cream cone from Dairy Queen has 230 calories (4.5 grams of fat) which calculates to about 5 Weight Watchers points.  (That's a little less than a candy bar for those of you keeping track at home.)

A small Brownie Batter Blizzard from Dairy Queen has 620 calories (26 grams of fat and a shocking 74 grams of sugar).  This calculates to over 13 Weight Watchers points--the point calculator actually doesn't go that high! 

And who orders a small Blizzard anyway?  A medium Brownie Batter Blizzard has 950 calories (108 grams of sugar!) and a large one has 1350 calories (59 grams of fat and 152 grams of sugar!).  I can't even tell you how many points that is, but I do know this--it has so many points that you could not eat anything else for the whole day if you intend to stay on your Weight Watchers program.  (My point allotment was usually about 26 points a day.)

So, the moral of this story?  By all means, go to Dairy Queen this holiday weekend . . . but do yourself a favor and order a small ice cream cone, or better yet, a sugar-free fudge bar which only has 50 calories.  Then savor every bite.

Ten Foods You Should Eat

Here is a list of foods you should eat!  Have you eaten any of them lately?   (That reminds me--I have salmon in the freezer that I need to thaw.)  I've had skim-milk and those Wasa crackers and blueberries recently.

The secret to losing weight is not to stop eating.  Instead, you must incorporate healthier foods into your diet and find what real, whole foods you really enjoy.  That list is a great place to start.

Official Thursday Weigh-In

I had to wake up at 6:21 a.m. this morning (bah!  this is summer!).  The scale showed 200.4 pounds, which is a loss since last Thursday.  However, I've been scale-hopping and had seen that number last Friday, so on one hand, I was a little disappointed.

I went back to bed and slept--in between tending to my daughter, running her bath and stopping the bathwater (in the nick of time, narrowly averting a flood!).  When I got up again to shower at 8 a.m., I weighed again and this time?  The scale said 200 pounds, even.  Ha!  Apparently, the scale doesn't like early mornings, either.

But 200 pounds is good.  It feels surreal to be teetering on the edge of 200 pounds since the last time I weighed that was nine years ago.  It seems like actually losing fifty more pounds can't possibly happen.  I'm not even sure what my body will look like--I'm so used to the way it is now.  Truthfully?  I'm a little scared.

But boy, do I feel a ton better since losing 26.4 pounds.  (And my husband says I don't snore so loudly anymore, so he feels better, too!)

Check in and let me know how you're doing . . . even if you're off-track a little.  That's okay.  You can start again today (just in time for the weekend).  Just keep heading in the right direction and eventually you'll get there, no matter how small the steps and how slow the pace.

Top Ten Reasons I'm Fat

A newspaper article today caught my eye with its title "10 things that make us fat (besides food).  (Click that link and read it . . . I cannot reprint it here due to copyright concerns.  Go ahead.  I'll wait.)

And now, I present my top 10 reasons I'm fat:

1)  Eating too much food.

2)  Eating the wrong foods.

3)  Eating more of the wrong foods.

4)  Eating until my pants grew too tight and I had to buy new pants.

5)  Sprawling in the recliner instead of pedaling the exercise bike.

6)  Using food as a reward, treat, celebration, friend, consolation prize and bribe.

7)  Eating too much while not paying attention to the fact that I was eating.

8)  Eating more than too much.

9)  Drinking milkshakes.

10)  Carrying on a forty-year love affair with sugar.

(I do think there is a lot of merit to the suggestion that a lack of sleep can cause weight gain, only because I personally have attempted to perk myself up with food when what I really needed was sleep.  Let me assure you that "I am tired," followed by "What can I eat?" is nonsensical and will only make you fatter.  The rest of the reasons seem kind of silly to me, but since I am not a researcher nor a scientist, I will let you be the judge of that.)

What Grandma Gave Me

You should know this about me.  I have curly hair.  Not as curly as Keri Russell in her Felicity days, but curly with spoinging, ringlet sort of random curls.  Occasionally, I go to a salon where a stylist spends an hour blowing it straight and cutting it with razors and snipping it with shears.  I go home with smooth, shiny locks and wake up with with snarls and tangles and frizz. 

At some point, I stopped fighting nature and my curly hair is just curly hair.  (Only, I didn't capitulate entirely--I still pay a colorist to put in foil highlights.) 

I thought about my struggle against nature this morning while I smoothed products into my hair.  Although I stopped battling my curly hair, I still put up my dukes and fight against the genes my family gave me.  I have to.

You see, my 100-year old grandmother still worries about her weight.  And though her bones are frail and brittle--her wrist feel exactly like I imagine a handful of hummingbird might feel--she still fills in a size-14 dress.  She passed down the voluptuous mama genes to my mother and my mother passed them to me. 

Which doesn't seem fair since my grandfather passed his very tall, lean genes to my uncles and quite a few of my cousins.  Only a few of us received grandmother's dumpy genetic make-up and her ample lap. 

So, I come by my body-type honestly.  (I am grateful for the added inches that DNA threw in there somewhere, so at least my curves are stretched out more than those of my 5'3" mother.  I thank my 6'2" dad for that.) 

But coming by my body-type honestly is no excuse.  As I tell my son, the Reluctant Student, if spelling doesn't come easily to you, that just means you have to work harder.  Losing weight and maintaining a healthy body has proven more challenging for me than for my cousin who struggles to keep enough weight on her bottom to hold up a size 2 pair of pants.

That doesn't mean I can just give up and have a milkshake.  I have to work a little harder, pay more attention, make better choices than the woman who inherited "thin" genes. That's not fair, but life isn't fair. 

I will never be super-skinny--my grandmother has seen to that--but I can be at my optimum weight.  Blaming genes for the size of my jeans won't help matters.  But I am determined to do the best I can with what I was given.

(And then, when I'm 100-years old, like my grandma, I will eat brownies for lunch if I want and I will stop complaining about my waistline and fretting about my weight.  I also plan to wear slippers all day and possibly even a fuzzy pink nightgown with ruffles at the hem.) 

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Carmen over at "Mom to the Screaming Masses" has a great post about body image and daughters.  Check it out. 

Finally, Feedback!

Finally!  Someone said to me, "Wow, you really have lost weight!  How much?"  And I murmured, "Twenty-six."  And she said, "I can really tell!" 

I find my self-perception of my weight and my appearance is wacky.  I said a long time ago that I don't feel fat . . . and it's true.  The weird thing is that I feel like myself, no matter the jiggliness of my mid-section or the stoutness of my arms.  That's why I need to weigh myself.  I need feedback, and when the world isn't hollering compliments to me, I start to wonder if I'm delusional. 

Maybe I'm as fat as ever, I think.  Then I remind myself of the evidence--a pair of size 16 Eddie Bauer khaki pants that I bought without trying on (at Value Village, my favorite retail-therapy outlet).  Those pants fit!  And the scale really did read 200 pounds and it really did says 226.4 pounds when I started this adventure.  I really have lost 26.4 pounds, even when all I see in the mirror is the roundess of my belly.

When feedback is bad, I tend to ignore it.  If I know I'm gaining weight, I avoid the scale.  I don't look in mirrors.  I pick clothes that are more stretchy and forgiving.  I plug my fingers into my ears ("La la la la la la la!  I can't hear you!") and rebuke the feedback.

Perhaps that is part of the problem.  Instead of welcoming all the feedback--good and bad--I refused to hear the dissenting voices ("Look, Mel!  You're up to 215 pounds again!  Ouch!  These pants won't zip anymore!") 

I have to say, though, that I am so glad that people didn't ever peer at me and ask, "Have you been gaining weight?  I can really tell in your chins."

I'm learning to accept feedback and then respond sensibly.  For instance, when I saw 226.4 pounds on the scale, I didn't say, "I am too fat!  I may as well eat more ice cream!" 

And when I saw 200 pounds on the scale, I didn't say, "Let's celebrate . . . with ice cream!"

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Be sure to mosey on over to Big Slice of Life, Small Slice of Cheesecake, where Jenny has launched a Month of Motivation. 

Easier than Exercise

Here's a cool site where you can calculate how many calories you burn during various activities.  For instance, I would burn 169 calories walking at a medium pace for thirty minutes.  If, of course, I walked at a medium pace for thirty minutes, which I have not done recently.  (I ride a recumbent bike in my bedroom after the kids are in bed--that's the only consistent way I can exercise.)  Anyway, what was I saying?  Thirty minutes of walking would equal 169 calories burned.

Compare that to how many calories are in a Twix candy bar.  That's right, 286 calories for peanut-buttery goodness.  How long does it take to eat a Twix candy bar?  Well, I've been known to eat, um, how shall I say this . . . several candybars in the course of, well, twenty minutes.  You do the math.

Today's "duh" moment:  Not eating the calories in the first place is a lot easier than exercising them off after the fact.

Yes, I'm 41 years old, but I'm still learning these important facts of life.  What new things have you learned lately?

Persistence Pays Off

Admit it.  You knew I couldn't resist the call of the scale.  And I didn't.

This morning, the scale gave me the satisfying news that I'm not a giant fat cow.  Oh wait, that's not what I meant to say.  That sounded sort of self-critical, didn't it?

Well.  The scale displayed the magic number 200.  Do you know how long it's been since I've weighed 200 pounds?

Nine years.  Nine years ago, I peed on a pregnancy test stick and received the shocking news that I was pregnant.  (The doctors said that was unlikely to ever happen and we hadn't used birth control since 1989.)  At the time, I'd "slimmed down" from my then-all time high weight of 193 to 188.  Or so.  Who can remember these trivial details?

That summer, nine years ago, I twisted my wedding ring off my swollen finger and it hasn't been back on since.  (Well, it has, but not until I had it enlarged last summer.)  Ever since that summer nine years ago, my weight has varied between 203 and 230 pounds.

Which, if you had told me I'd be over 200 pounds for nine years, I would have slapped you and maybe even called you a bad name.  This weight thing was supposed to be temporary and I was going to return to normal ASAP.  I read diet books, joined Weight Watchers, exercised, lost and gained the same thirty pounds.  And finally, a break-through!

Well, better late than never.  As the National Weight Control Registry reports:

"Most registry participants (90%) reported previous attempts at weight loss. For most participants, these attempts consisted of weight loss followed by weight regain. Few participants successfully lost weight and maintained the weight loss on the first attempt. Most registry participants had used numerous popular diet programs."

You just got to keep trying.  So do I.  We can do it.

Don't Eat This Stuff!

Here's a blog I happened upon which lists ten foods you should never eat. 

That list reminds me of the day I discovered how many Weight Watchers points are in my favorite meal at Wendy's.  My daily point allotment was 26 points.  A Wendy's chicken breast sandwich (not grilled, including mayonnaise), medium fries and a Diet Coke cost me almost all those points.  (Perhaps that included a small Frosty.  I can't remember.) 

I thought to myself, Well, now, that explains a few things, doesn't it?

Official Thursday Weigh-In

Drat.

This morning, the scale showed I weigh 201.8 pounds.  The savvy reader will note that this is four-tenths of a pound more than last week.

I blame almonds.  Grabbing a handful of almonds more than once a day has become a little habit and when you consider that an ounce of almonds--that's fourteen delectable nuts--has 160 calories in it, you can imagine that the calories pile up if you have three or four handfuls (small handfuls, but still!) a day.

So, this week, fourteen almonds a day.  No more.

I had to slap a little reality into myself this morning after seeing the numbers on the scale.  Last week, I felt jubilant to see a similar number.  This week, not so much.  But I must consider the big picture.  I have lost twenty-five pounds.  I am making permanent changes to my eating habits.  I am making discoveries about my misuse of food.   

I'm up four-tenths of a pound, which is disappointing, but merely a momentary pause in my journey down the scale.  I'll make an adjustment (apples rather than almonds!) and continue in the right direction.

How about you?  What feedback did the scale give you?  What changes are you making?