Author: TechyDad

20 Pounds In 20 Weeks: Week 5: Snack Time Sweets

20lbs in 20 weeks, Fitness, Food, Weight Loss

This week was another surprise.  Given the big drop last weigh-in, I was expecting a one pound drop.  I wound up with two pounds gone.  With four weeks to go before we leave, hitting 190 before the Magic Kingdom seems quite doable.

Starting Weight 205
Current Weight 193.5
Goal Weight 185
Lost 11.5
Left Until Goal 8.5

One thing that is always tricky when we start watching our weight again is snack time.  When one isn’t watching one’s weight, it is easy to listen to the beckoning of cookies and cakes.  You can fall into the pattern of filling your stomach with sweets.  When you begin watching your waistline, your natural inclination is to eliminate the sweets.  Of course, once you do this, you begin craving them more than ever.

While you might think you should resist these urges at all costs, that would be a mistake.  I’m not saying you should indulge in a nightly hot fudge sundae with every topping possible.  Instead, take a path of moderation.  If you’re craving ice cream, get some fat free ice cream or frozen yogurt.  You could even add a little chocolate sauce and whipped cream for an extra indulgence.

Of course, since “a little” can quickly morph into “that looks like a little but it really is five servings”, a kitchen scale and a good set of measuring cups are invaluable.  Since we’ve been watching what we eat, we’ve found some good snacks.  Besides fruit, we’ve been snacking on Reece’s Puffs cereal (1/2 cup = 2 points) or sliced strawberries with chocolate sauce and whipped cream (also 2 points).  These snacks provide a good taste of chocolate, peanut butter and/or other sweetness without a ton of calories and fat.

What not-bad-for-you snacks do you partake in to get rid of a craving for sweets?

Aloha Friday: A Valentine’s Gift

Aloha Friday, Holidays

On Monday, couples all over will celebrate Valentine’s Day.  They will surprise the ones they love with flowers, chocolate, and jewelry.  These may be the traditional Valentine’s Day gifts, but they aren’t ones I can rely on.

Flowers are nice, but B doesn’t like them.  She has said on multiple occasions that she doesn’t like watching them die.  Chocolate’s out too.  While I’m chronicling my weight loss attempt, B is also attempting to lose weight.  Giving her a large box of chocolates doesn’t seem very supportive of her efforts.  In the case of jewelry, there is a money issue.  Every time we turn around, it seems like we need to spend more money on something (the house, for instance), so it seems frivolous to toss a few hundred dollars on a piece of jewelry that B may or may not like.  (I have a bad track record with jewelry gifts.  There’s a good reason why we picked out B’s engagement ring together.)

Then again, we do have a trip to Disney World coming soon.  There are plenty of things there that could catch B’s eye.  So this year, I’ll likely get B an IOU for one gift at Disney.

My Aloha Friday question for today is: What did you get the one you love for Valentine’s Day?

Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the McLinky there if you are participating.

Aloha Friday by Kailani at An Island Life

Aloha #74

My Three Year Old Scientist

Geeky Pursuits, JSL, Science

0210010733_Cropped This morning, as I was preparing lunches and snacks for NHL and myself, JSL came into the kitchen to play.  As he usually does, he was taking magnets off the fridge and repositioning them.  Then he took a turtle magnet off and looked at it.  Glancing to his side, he spied the dishwasher.  The turtle magnet got put on the door to the dishwasher and JSL was amazed.  It stuck in place!

He quickly brought this fascinating fact to my attention.  “Daddy!  Daddy!  It sticking!  See?!”

After entertaining himself with his new magnet-location, JSL did something that impressed me.  He took the magnet off the turtle and tried sticking it to the cabinet.  Why did this impress me?  Simple.  He was experimenting.  He had found a new and interesting phenomenon and was testing the limits of this.  Magnets stick to fridges (known) and dishwasher doors (new). Do they stick to cabinets?  No.  What about walls?  Also, no.

He asked me about the sticking so I took the time (which still packing lunches) to explain to him that magnets stick to metal which the fridge and dishwasher have in them.  He asked what else was metal and I mentioned that the oven might be, but he would need to try it out.  He excitedly put the magnet to the oven door and… it fell off.  So much for that theory.

Still, his excitement at testing a new theory fills my geeky heart with joy.  I know that NHL has an inner geek (he loves Star Wars, is enthralled by super hero cartoons, loves playing on the computer, etc), but I wasn’t completely sure about JSL.  I’d say this is some good proof that JSL has a bright future on the Geek Side!

P.S.  Sorry for the cell phone photo above.  As I mentioned earlier, I was rushing to make lunches/snacks and get NHL to school.  I didn’t have time to get my camera out for a proper photo.

No Time For Photos

Life, Photography

Today is Wednesday. Usually, this would mean I’d be posting some fun or interesting photo I took for Wordless Wednesday. Sadly, I don’t have any photos to post. I don’t mean that I don’t have any fun or interesting photos. I mean I have *NO* photos at all.

The past week or so has been hectic.  Between room cleaning, snow and ice clearing, freelance work, a website I had an idea for and the various other “normal life” things that take up my time, I’ve had no time or energy to wield my camera as of late.

I’ve seen plenty of things that would make for great photos: colorful, cloud marked skies, snow covered trees, cars that haven’t been moved in weeks which are buried in snow, sparkling ice on a bush.  However, as I’m noticing these things I’m either driving (stopping in the middle of the highway to take a picture of the sky isn’t too safe) or running late (if I need to drop NHL off to school in 5 minutes, I’m not going to stop to take sparkling ice photos).

Hopefully, things will calm down in the next week or so and I can resume taking photos again.  I need to practice with this camera as much as I can because I’ll be taking tons of photos when we go to Disney World!

Finishing What I Start: Progress Report 1

Cleaning, Finish What I Start

According to my goals for 2011, I was supposed to have my To Do List Whiteboard hung up by the end of January.  Well, it’s now February, so how did I do?

Sadly, I must report that the whiteboard remains in its temporary location on the floor.  I couldn’t find the hanging materials I wanted to use at home and repeated snow storms meant that trips out were limited.  This will have to wait awhile longer before it is completed.

Still, January wasn’t a total loss.  One day, I decided to take the boys upstairs.  You might remember that we wanted to turn the upstairs into a play room but it was too crowded with junk.  Well, I had enough space for the boys to play while I cleaned.  Then B joined me and we spent quite some time cleaning.  After taking out a few bags of trash and removing a lot of empty cardboard boxes, I figured out that the mess was more manageable than it first appeared.  By moving the boxes we needed to go through towards the walls, I was able to open up the room a lot more.

We’ve had a few more cleaning sessions and the room still isn’t 100%, but it is extremely more usable now than it was before.  The remaining cleaning seems, in large part, to be:

  • Old computer equipment – I’ll need to go through these and figure out how to store or get rid of it.
  • Boxes of old papers to shred – Too many to do with our own shredder.  We’ll need to wait for a public shredding day and take them there.  Meanwhile, I’m sure we can find some out-of-the-way storage spot.
  • My big desk – Originally, I bought this when I was working from home out of our apartment.  Now, it’s just a space hog when a much smaller desk would do.  Might see if someone would like to buy it, but this would likely have to wait until Spring.  Getting it out will be enough of a pain without dealing with snow/ice during the process.
  • Old toys – There are quite a few toys here that both NHL and JSL have outgrown that are just taking up space.  We’ll need to see if we can donate them somewhere.

The boys have taken a huge liking to this upstairs room and keep asking to go there to play.  I had originally slated this to be completed by November, but, the way things are going and given how in love the boys are with the room, we’ll likely finish much earlier.

1 … 198 199 200 201 202 … 300