Weight Loss Update – Week 7 & Soap Sale

Here are the previous posts on my very slow girth reduction progress: week 1, week 2, & week 5 but don’t go looking for weeks 3, 4 or 6.

I have still been far too sporadic with my T-Tapping.  But I have Tapped.  Since I started my sporadic Tapping I have lost more inches than pounds.  I had to purchased another tape measure, and I finally measured myself today.  Since July 26th I have reduced a total of 7 inches!   🙂  A little boost to help me with my consistency!

I knew I had reduced in ‘some’ areas.  One bit of proof… we went walking the other day at the park and I wore my new split skirt (purchased in late June).  It has an elastic waist… and kept slipping d-o-w-n…  Oops!  I had to tuck it into my bra in order to walk without indecent exposure.

My Labor Day Sale on Mae’s Handcrafted Natural Soap!  This link will take you to the page will all the details.  Don’t delay, the sale ends tonight!

Blessings, ~Mrs. R

Art is from art.COM.

Weight Loss Update – Week 5 & Soap Sale

Did you think I had forgotten you??  Were you waiting on the edge of your computer chairs… waiting with bated breath for my next ‘weight loss progress’ post??  Well it is finally HERE!  Oh… and there is a week 1 and a week 2, but don’t go looking for weeks 3 & 4.  Those posts just never got written.  Sorry…

Not that I have much to say today.  I have been sporadic with my T-Tapping.  And those days that I have T-Tapped I forgot to mark it down on the calendar.  So now to go back and report accurately… well that just isn’t possible! And I had a wonderful bible verse I wanted to share… but now can’t find the piece of paper I wrote the reference on… sigh.

I did weigh myself and have taken off 2 more pounds.  Not a stellar reduction, but I am not discouraged!  I will continue to persevere.  I know I need to be more consistent with the T-Tapping and I could probably stand to do some more tweaking on my eating plan.

I think the one thing that would help me the most is to actually get a weekly menu made up.  Standing at the refrigerator at 6 PM wondering what to fix for dinner is not a good thing.  I had made a menu preciously and loved it!  It was so freeing.  If I wanted to deviate I could do so easily, but I knew what I was going to fix and made sure I had all the ingredients on hand to do so.  I also found that I had more variety in my meals with a schedule.  Without one I tend to fix the same thing over and over because a) it is easy, b) the how to’s are in my head and c) I have the ingredients on hand.

I have followed my eating plan pretty well up to date.  Even with the Patriarch’s birthday celebration!  I made him a Willimasburg Orange Cake.  Well of course if was gluten and dairy free!!  Did you really need to ask??!!!  🙂  What you don’t see in my photos is that I made a single layer, cut it in half.  That made for a half of a two layer cake.  Much better size for our small family.  And baking by ratio means it is a simple thing to double or triple or more the recipe to suit your individual needs.

Then on the 13 of August we met Flopsy and her husband, the Geek, at the Patriarch’s favorite restaurant.  Staying away from gluten is SO much easier than that dastardly hidden dairy!  Ugh.  I did manage to find something that I thought might be ‘safe’ for me to eat and then asked all the standard questions about sauces and butter, etc.  Our waitress was wonderful.  I had ordered a salad and when it came it had croutons on it.  She asked me if she needed to have them remake it for me!  It was a lovely evening.  I literally could NOT eat all my dinner!  I took a few extra bites and then stopped.  I had to give myself permission to NOT eat all that expensive food and I didn’t take it home either.  I was SO full from my dinner that dessert was easily skipped by me!  Yeah!!

And I have some exciting news!  No, I am not pregnant, I wish!!  I know how you think!  I have “officially” launched my soap business as of the 20th of August!!  I have been busily making plenty of soap and started off with a Labor Day Sale!  This link will take you to the page will all the details.

That is all the news that is fit to print.  I will try to post more often… if WordPress would cooperate.  Or is it my computer?  Every time I try to do some action (save, upload a photo, publish, etc) the operation takes f.o.r.e.v.e.r and e.v.e.r and e..v…e….r……..  Hope I find the glitch soon!

UPDATE!  I did find and fix my own computer problem.  I am amazed… I did it all by myself!  My problem was… cookies.  I needed to delete them.  Appropriate for a weight loss post.  🙂

Blessings, ~Mrs. R

Art is from art.COM.

Weight Loss Update – Week 2

I am NOT fizzling out.  I am not giving up.  I have not left the building.  Honest I am NOT!  I have not had time to post… had an “interesting” week… or week and a half…

Tuesday (7/26)… the Lord in His gracious wisdom decided that the timing belt on our van would give out… bringing our only means of  transportation to a complete HALT.

van towed home

This was SUCH a blessing…
~that it was Tuesday and NOT Sunday when we were in the mountains
~that we were ONLY 2 miles from home and could easily walk home, got my exercise in a different form
~that Arrow’s swimming lessons are only 1/4 mile from home and we could easily walk there (our only hard appointment!)
~that we were able to get the van towed home for UNDER $50  🙂
~that we are a preparedness minded family and I didn’t NEED to go to the store despite not having been to the grocery store in 2 weeks
~that this kept me at home and not spending money I don’t need to spend… food isn’t my only “issue”… um… sin
~that The Patriarch has the skills & tools to fix our van, at home… even if it is in the driveway
~that the parts were UNDER $20… phew
~that we had previously purchased one of those ‘pop-up canopies’ which shaded The Patriarch while he worked
~God threw a curve ball to my “plans” and I didn’t give up in frustration!!

So instead of “my” chosen form of exercise I got a 2 and a 1/2 mile walk on Tuesday, a 1/2 mile walk on Wednesday, I “needed” to go to the store for milk on Thursday, which is a mile up the road – another 2 & 1/2 mile walk in that day!, and then a 1/2 mile walk on Friday.  I didn’t exercise on Saturday or today (Sunday), but will continue again on Monday.

I had been wondering if I had truly cut my portions in half and the Lord was so gracious to SHOW me that I had!  On our “Sunday Drive” in the mountains we were out later than we had planned.  I mean, you can’t MISS the one summer day in Seattle!!  So we decided to stop for dinner at a Mexican place.  I figured that fajitas were probably one of the healthiest & economical things for me to eat.  And since they put dairy in their guacamole I had to skip that too. We did get the “appetizer” chips and salsa… BUT I only had 8 – 10 chips. I ate each one slowly.  Stopped and had water between and WAS SATISFIED with only a few. When my meal came I could barely even eat half of it! I was not “stuffed” but comfortably full and again I ate slowly, drank water and put my fork down between bites.  I was shocked.  Pleasantly so!!  I took home the rest and ate it for lunch the next day.  Now you have to understand how it would have been ‘before’… We would have had a minimum of two servings of the chips and salsa with me probably eating most of one by myself. Then when the meal came I would have inhaled mine and then started looking around to see if anyone else had anything they might not want to eat…

Then, sitting in those hard plastic chairs around the pool during swimming lessons… you know the ones that are way to small to sit in comfortably… for a big lady anyway.  Well after the first few days of T-Tapping I could “feel” the difference in the chairs! They were still tight, but less painfully so. I have not measured myself, but will do so Monday morning and post those numbers with the week 3 update.

Then on Friday we were watching a movie and we were all going to have a piece of the Chocolate Peanut Butter cake (recipe below).  Now mind you this is really something that is allowable for me as it is made with beans!  I got served that piece of cake and then proceeded to completely forget it was there! It was well over half way through the movie before I noticed it and said, I really don’t even want this.  Arrow ate it and was thrilled he got to have a second ‘piece of cake’.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Chickpea Cake

gluten free, dairy free, grain free

1 1/2 cups sprouted or soaked and cooked chickpeas
3 eggs
3/4 cup sucanat
1/3 cup – half of it applesauce and half of it extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup cocoa powder

2 TBSP natural peanut butter
1 tsp baking powder
Dash salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease an 8″x4″ loaf pan and set aside.

Combine the chickpeas, eggs and sucanat in a food processor and blend until smooth. Add the remaining ingredients and blend until uniform, scraping down the sides of the bowl if necessary. Pour into the greased loaf pan and bake for about 40 minutes, until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. [I actually used my VitaMix, just load ½ the beans, all the dry things then the rest of the beans and the eggs on top. I think it would blend up without as much stopping and scraping down the sides.]

Serve in slices like pound cake or decorate as desired.

This can also be baked in a 9″ round cake pan if you don’t have the right size loaf pan. Watch for doneness after 35 minutes. If you don’t have cocoa powder, you can substitute 1 1/2 cups chocolate chips and melt in a double boiler and blend with the chickpeas and cut down on the sweetener.

I baked mine in a square pan. When I took it out of the oven I sprinkled chocolate chips aver the top and then let them melt and spread it like ‘frosting’.  I then put small dollops of peanut butter on top of that and swirled it in.  Pretty and tasty!  Sorry no photo… the pan is nearly empty and it’s not very photogenic.

I  have continued to read the book “Made to Crave”.  I have been answering the questions honestly and completely.  But not stopping there but then reading the next chapter and then the next…. and I am nearly done with the book.  I am then planning on starting it over and reading each chapter and answering the questions again.  More slowly this time.

There have been days this past week with emotional upsets ~ and I didn’t turn to any food for comfort or out of anger or… .
There have been days this past week with ‘trials’ and a forced change in plans ~ and I didn’t turn to food for encouragement or “I deserve this” lies.

Now tonight, our van is repaired.  I made a dinner that wasn’t very good.  I decided that I just wouldn’t eat any but the salad portion of it.  And I did have two pieces of the Peanut Butter Chocolate Bean cake.  Mind you, I have cut this thing into much smaller pieces than I normally do, but I had “beans” instead of the gristly, “icky” cube steaks and the icky, bitter kale (I do really, really like kale… but yuck).  I am not “full”, but not starving either.

So that is my update for week 2.

Blessings,

~Mrs. R