nearly halfway to the finish line.
Just slow and steady. I haven’t weighed this little since the 1970’s.
Size 12 jeans, my friends. Size 12. They’re stretch—so it’s cheating. But the size 14’s were sliding off.
We’re continuing the same campaign. Breakfast is small serving of sausage and eggs. Lunch is a frozen Atkins dinner or Atkins bar. Sensa is helping us beat the munchies. And supper is one of the following, each: a hamburger patty topped with cheese and sometimes bacon and sometimes jalapeno, served with half a steamer-bag of broccoli or green beans, cauliflower broccoli mix, or brussel sprouts. Or chicken strips heated with oil and rolled in parmesan cheese, served over broccoli. Or chicken strips cooked with cheese, spices, jalapenos and canned chilis, dusted with taco spice. Or chicken strips with bamboo strips, veggies, and a tablespoon of curry sauce and coconut milk. Or 1 piece breaded fish with half a packet of steamed veggies and a side of mayo/lime juice/dill. And sometimes, for one of our ‘lighter’ suppers, a dessert: half cup of ricotta mixed with coconut or maple flavoring and enough Splenda to make it sweet.
And it sure makes a difference. We can’t go pig out now. We have to get one dinner and split it or bring half home. Our total food demand has sunk below the serving sizes of our favorite restaurant, and this is a Good Thing. We can have wine or rum now and again, Champagne now and again.
And size 12 is about as low as my jeans size goes: my height and bone structure dictates that. Maybe a 10, since I understand manufacturers have moved the target, but likely a 12. So the local clothes bank is going to get some more outfits.
Yay me!
In 1973, I wore a size 14. I used the measurements I had then to find what size that girl would have worn today. It was a 2 or a 4. Don’t despair of a 12 or even a 10 tall!
Yay you!
I’m down to my 14 Dockers that are loose! And my dressy 12 slacks now fit. I can’t get much smaller because I often have to get a tall for the leg length. 30″ inseam is just too short while 32″ inseam is a little long. I get 31″ when I can find it which isn’t easy. BMI is now under 24 which is just what the doctor ordered.
Are you saving any money on the slimmer diet?
Definitely. Our Atkins meals cost 3.00 each, whether I use Atkins or my own materials.
We rarely eat supper out now.
Typical supper out for 2, with drinks—40.00, not including tip, and it could run more. 3.00 or more for breakfast, and often lunch out, too, at about 12.00 each. This was a big budget hit. 3.oo + 20.00 + 12.00 = 35.00 per person a day, x 2.
Now I cook almost every meal, which means we’re spending 3.00 breakfast + 3.00 lunch + 3.00 supper, at 9.00 a day x 2. So 12,775 per person for a year, eating most meals out, or 25,550 a year for us two. Compare that with 3285 per person for a year, 6570 for two. Or a savings of 18,980 a year. We’ve done this for two years now, and it’s far more than paid for the car.
Speaking of diets…and cars…we got the Prius with a full tank of gas in mid-July. We gave it 7 extra gallons for a 300 mile round trip in September, just topped off the tank and, as it happened, used all of what we’d put in on that trip. A couple of days ago we actually went to the gas station for the first real fill-up, which took 9.5 gallons. We’re getting, average of highway and town, about 50 mpg. The Subaru used to use 14 gallons on the 300 miles…we recall needing to refuel: and it had about a 14 gallon tank. The Prius has a 10 gallon tank, and we’ve effectively filled it once since mid July, excluding the 300 mile 7 gallon side trip.
It’s still new enough when we gassed it up, we were confronted with a blinking light we couldn’t identify and spent a while buried in the manual. Seems our GPS usually sits in front of that light: it’s the security system telling us it’s alive. We were afraid we had a malfunction.
10,000 miles at 25 mpg = 400 gallons at 3.70 a gallon…1480 a year for gas.
10,000 miles at 50 mpg = 200 gallons at 3.70 a gallon….740 a year for gas.
10 years ownership (to match our Subaru’s record) means 14900 gas versus 7400 means we save 7400 in gas we won’t burn during that 10 years. Won’t pay for the car by any means, but it does make up the difference between the price of a hybrid and non-hybrid. So our weight-losing diet that let us afford the car has a little added help from the car being on a diet—so to speak.
A very deep, sincere “good for you!!!!!”
You’ve done amazingly well, and as someone in the same decade (62ish), it’s difficult and awarding!
Very interesting – I don’t remember ever seeing sizes 2-6 in stores in the 1960’s and 1970’s. a 12 is by no means a plus size – it’s what we used to consider slender!! Congratulations and well done!!!!
That would be rewarding, not “awarding”, but you and Jane deserve personal awards at the very least!
Congratulations on the continued weight loss. That’s wonderful news, and I’m so glad for both of you.
I splurged and had Pad Thai last week, now I’m trying to lose the weight I gained from that! Good point about the restaurant meals; back in the day when I weighed 20 -25 pounds less than I do today, I hardly ever ate everything on my plate at a restaurant and nearly always took leftovers home. Today restaurant servings are even larger, and at my heaviest I was cleaning my plate. I remembered that not long ago, and am trying to change my ways.
This ‘Sensa’ stuff is pretty good if you use your head…it’s never going to substitute for will power, but it reinforces it. It’s a powder you sprinkle on the food you do eat, to curb the rebound hunger. And if you do have the urge to snack, you go in, take one of the Sensa ‘straws’ and mix the contents in a beer stein of water. It takes vaguely like diluted orange juice, and at least for me, it turns off the hunger signal cold. You may not even want all the mug, but drink it anyway.
It’s not cheap, but you can get it at Costco and probably Sams Club. We find that it’s real valuable to keep us from nibbling on ‘allowable’ snacks, which can put you right onto maintenance instead of weight-loss, which over all can be discouraging. The turn-off of the hunger trigger is quite real. Last night after a good supper, I wanted dessert. Wanted it badly and because of the size of the meal, no, I shouldn’t have one of the diet bars. Went for the Sensa instead, and after one mug, the desire to snack was quite turned off. So Sensa is never going to test well, because so much still depends on the individual’s will power to go for it instead of the sweet. But it will turn the signal off. If you’d offered me a chocolate sundae after I’d had the Sensa, it wouldn’t have been appetizing—and things that make other things ‘unappetizing’ don’t sell well. But if diets shipwreck on ‘nibbling,’ this is a real help.
How is the weight loss going to effect your skating? Lighter is less work, but less padding against falling …
Alas, Jane and I haven’t been able to skate for 2 years. Our coach retired, and Jane’s illness back when got us off the ice. She may be able to go back, but a couple of years out of practice means I’ll have to go back at a little more risk of falling for a while, and I’m not as young as I was when I started. I’m a little spooky about it, though my bone density is quite good.
Ya. Much better to avoid breaks. A few years ago an older friend who had strong bones and was really fit slipped and managed to break her shoulder – the tiny bone that is that connects the ball of the shoulder with the rest of the humerus. Very nasty. Luckily I was with her when she slipped so was able to get an ambulance asap (though at first she insisted that she was fit enough that I could drive her to the ER. It has made me a bit paranoid.