Sweet Corn and Maple Peanut Butter

What a great weekend! Good friends, good food and lots of fun.

We went to the Great Vermont Maze in Danville, Vermont for our annual hike through the corn. We figured it out in just under an hour which was a record breaking time for us.

This year they were celebrating 100 years of the Long Trail which is my favorite trail to hike in Vermont, especially the section along the ridge of Mt. Mansfield where the views are spectacular. We're planning a hike out to the highest peak (the chin) sometime in the fall so we can check out the foliage with the rest of the leaf peepers.

Not only did I have a blast running through the corn and figuring out the maze but I got to stock up on the most amazing maple peanut butter. The Curtis Vance Memorial Orchard always has a farm stand at the entrance to the maze where you can sample their jellies, jams, dilly beans, zany zucchini, maple peanut butter and other freshly made goodies.

I look forward to getting this maple peanut butter every year and every year they tell me they will ship it anywhere but that could be dangerous for me. I did make a point to buy it before we got lost in the maze because they sold out of it last year by the time we got out. I was so disappointed I didn't get my fix last year so I made up for it this year. We got three (small) jars and two of them have already disappeared. Damn, I'm not even a huge peanut butter fan but this stuff is amazing. I spent way too much money on peanut butter, blueberry jam, apple butter and salsa but not only is it all delicious, it was for a good cause.

The Vance family has a dream. Their dream is to find a cure for ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease) and to help others celebrate life and to remember their loved ones - by visiting the orchard, basking in the scenic views and getting lost in solitude, while being surrounded by "the fruits of life." Many members of the Vance family have suffered with this disease and I couldn't help but think of my dear friend Lisa who lost her battle with ALS last December after suffering for over 6+ years so this fund raiser is close to my heart.

If you live in the area or plan to be in Vermont in the next month or two you should definitely take a trip and get lost in the Great Vermont Corn Maze. Don't forget to stock up on peanut butter. MMMmmmmm.....

After working up our appetites in the maze we stopped at Marty's 1st Stop for steaks that we cooked on the open fire along with sweet fresh picked corn and potatoes. This piece looked a little funky with another cob growing out of it but it tasted just as sweet as the normal looking ears.

Now who wants to try some maple peanut butter?

April was a Push

As most of you already know, I love to play cards, usually the Texas Hold 'em variety. In addition to friendly local Hold 'em tournaments, I've been known to make a donation to our Native American friends now and again at Foxwoods or Mohegan Sun in Connecticut. When I go to the casino I usually head straight for the blackjack tables where, as you probably know, when your hand matches the dealer's hand you don't win but you don't lose either, it's called "a push." Well, my weight loss for the month of April was a push. Today I weighed in exactly the same weight as I was on April 1st. I was up as much as 5.3 pounds and down a mere .2 during the month but ended up with a push. Better than busting out, right?

I worked out consistently, I ate pretty well, I didn't binge, I didn't drink and I didn't even lose a measly tenth of a pound the whole damn month. It's crazy but I'm really not too upset about it. I've been very consistent with my workouts and have been hitting the weights more often so I'm just going to continue what I've been doing in addition to paying more attention to what I'm stuffing in my face.

Since leaving work at the end of November, I've lost a total of 26.4 pounds which averages a little over 5 pounds a month which is ok with me. I'm determined to kick it up a notch and show a good loss for the month of May. It's time for me to push it. Who's with me?

Chocolate Love

Who doesn't love chocolate? We even have science to help us make the argument that it's good for us. Chocolate tends to be one of those trigger foods for me, especially if it's covering a salty pretzel.

One of my friends had such a strong addiction to chocolate she actually went to a hypnotist to help her get over it. I'm amazed she hasn't eaten it or had the desire to eat it in over ten years (!). She isn't even tempted by it in the slightest. I wish she had used the hypnotist to help her quit smoking but I guess she wasn't ready to give up the cigarettes and felt the chocolate was doing more harm (??). I'm doing my best to avoid chocolate right now but I can't imagine living the rest of my life without sweet chocolaty goodness.

I can't wait for Easter this year because I gave up alcohol for Lent (what was I thinking?) so I'm looking forward to having a tall cool glass of something with vodka in it more than chocolate eggs and bunnies. I'm still baffled how a holiday about the resurrection of Christ turned into a rabbit delivering baskets full of chocolate and sugar but anyway ....

I recently received a Virtual Chocolate Easter basket from the beautiful Tammy at From Fat to Fab. She is so sweet - thanks Tammy! There's a very good reason you should grab a virtual Easter basket and pass it on to your blogging buddies.

Here's the deal:

HERSHEY’S BETTER BASKET BLOG HOP RULES:

•Copy and paste these rules to your blog post.

•Create a blog post giving a virtual Easter Basket to another blogger – you can give as many Virtual Baskets as you want.

•Link back to person who gave you an Easter Basket (THANKS Tammy).

•Let each person you are giving a Virtual Easter Basket know you have given them a Basket.

•Leave your link at BetterBasket.info/BlogHop comment section. You can also find the official rules of this betterbasket blog hop, and more information about Better Basket with Hershey’s there.

•This started as a meme of Hershey donating $10 per each blog participating to the Better Basket Blog Hop to Children’s Miracle Network up to $5,000 – but after so many bloggers participating, Hershey decided to donate a total of $7,000 honoring the kindness of blogger community. Let's see if we can get them to donate even more money to help those kids.

I tend to be a rule breaker but I'm going to do my best to follow them this time for the cause. I'd love to link to everyone but I have such a long list of cheerleaders and inspirational blog bunnies I'll have to narrow it down to just a few.

Hilly at Hillybean

Cammy at The Tippy Toe Diet

Lori at Finding Radiance (John won't have to put this basket on the high shelf)

Julia at Jewlia Goulia

LAF at Walk in Loveliness

Manuela at A New Decade

Chris at A Deliberate Life

Janell at Thufferin Thuccotash

and

YOU! I'd love to personally pass out even more baskets to every single one of you but I'm lazy and it's beautiful out so I don't want to spend any more time indoors on the computer. Even if you don't celebrate Easter, just celebrated Passover or could care less about chocolate, please grab yourself a basket of virtual chocolate and pass it on.

The best part of receiving this chocolate Easter basket is that it has zero calories and will not end up on your hips. Go ahead and enjoy your calorie-free chocolate, put your cottontail on and keep the baskets hopping along!!! :)

HAPPY EASTER!

Frustrated

Back in January 2008 I worked up the courage to divulge my weight here on this blog. I've been tempted to delete that post ever since but forced myself to keep it on there so I could look back and see how far I had come once I got to my weight loss goal. Even though I ranted and raved about how much I wanted and needed to lose weight I ended up gaining an additional 16 pounds to reach my highest weight ever in November 2009. Talk about frustration.

Every other time I lost a significant amount of weight I did it by severely changing my diet and hardly doing any regular exercise. I've always been active even at my highest weight but playing on the weekends didn't make up for sitting at a desk for 40+ hours, lazing around and stuffing my face all week.

In the 80's I spent almost a year eating nothing but JC food out of a box to lose 50+ pounds. I couldn't continue to live on that stuff although I've heard that the JC food out of a box has gotten much better since then. I wanted to be able to eat what everyone else was eating and didn't want to live on cardboard boxed food forever.

In the 90's I lost over 60 pounds by avoiding all "white" foods. I still can't believe I was able to do this for so long. I love all those white foods which are so bad for me and give me nothing in return but more fat on my a$$. I amazed myself by staying away from the white bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, flour and sugar but I couldn't keep it up forever. I stayed on my own modified version of Atkins/South Beach and the weight melted off but I couldn't live a life without bread and pasta. I knew my Italian Grandma must have been doing flips in her grave. Life is not worth living if you can never eat a piece of bread or pasta again. This wasn't something I could sustain for a lifetime. It worked until I accidentally ate a crouton and blew right back up like a balloon hooked up to a bottle of helium.

By the time I got laid off from my daily dose of high stress in November 2009 I was bursting at my pant seams at my highest weight ever. I was so miserable and depressed about my work situation it was hard to stay focused on anything else. I binged and grazed all day long to keep my emotions and frustrations inside instead of lashing out and telling those abusers how I really felt because I thought keeping my job was more important. I paid the price in pounds.

I've been away from the corporate hell hole for almost 4 months now and have lost an average of 5 pounds a month. Five measly pounds a month is far from rapid weight loss and I wish it were falling off quicker but I'm happy it's coming off consistently.

I have been religiously attending the gym and getting my sweat on like a good little bunny. I've been rocking that elliptical machine in 60 minute intervals an average of 5 days a week and recently started throwing some weights around. I've been playing on my Wii and wearing a pedometer and striving to get those 10,000+ steps a day. It's not coming off fast but it is coming off.

I'd like to pick up this turtle pace so I'm going to tackle my diet in addition to cranking it up at the gym. There's a novel idea, huh? Combine diet and regular exercise to get results. I think I've heard a few people say that's the key to the weight loss mystery. I don't know why it has always been one or the other for me.

I haven't had any severe binge episodes since I escaped the stressful work situation but I haven't really gotten super strict with my diet either. I've basically been eating what I want in moderation but if I want to speed up the process I'm going to have to sacrifice a little and learn to stop eating at night, cut down the weekend snacking and turn down the fattening foods in social situations where I tend to get in trouble.

I'm not discouraged but I am frustrated that I'm not losing at least 2 pounds a week. It's time for me to put the two pieces of the puzzle together and get this game on the fast(er) track.

Greed and Gluttony

Ahhhh...sinners have so much more fun, don't they? We covered at least three of the 7 deadly sins today - envy, greed and gluttony.

B and I decided to stay home this weekend instead of going up north since the snowmobile trails are either closed, barely covered or iced over from the warm temperatures and tons of rain. I hope we get some good snow soon so we can salvage the riding season. Too bad all that snow slamming the south couldn't make it's way up to the mountains of Vermont.

To cheer ourselves up we decided to pay some restitution to the Native Americans and make a deposit down at Foxwoods. It must have been the full moon messing with my mind for me to think it was a good idea to throw some money away. I'm still not even getting my unemployment checks but why should that stop me from donating some money to the Indians. We went down hard and fast at the blackjack table but we had a good time and didn't lose too much.

Our friend came down and met us at the casino and after trying a few pulls on the slot machines we headed to Mystic Pizza for a big greasy lunch. I got a turkey sandwich but had some very greasy onion rings, a small sliver of pizza, and french fries. I overdid it for sure.

We hadn't seen our friend since the end of November so we got to exchange Christmas presents which is always fun no matter what the date on the calendar. My friend makes us the most delicious homemade Christmas cookies every year and she had a big batch waiting in the deep freeze for us for over a month. It didn't matter that the cookies have been frozen though because they were just as good as if they were freshly baked. I'm so stuffed but keep breaking off a little piece of cookie here and a little piece there. It really is a sickness when you can't stop eating when you are bursting.

I feel pretty gross right now and almost wish I could make myself throw up. I think lots of people who have a binge eating disorder wish they could be bulimic, at least we'd be able to get rid of that full, bloated feeling and not have so much evidence of our binges hanging off our bodies. I had way too much junk today and feel absolutely disgusting. My stomach is ready to explode and I have a slight headache from all the sugar.

It's funny how quickly our bodies get used to eating healthy foods and when we slip up and go back to eating crap we feel disgusting but we still tend to crave the junk food no matter how gross it makes us feel. Why is that?

I'm going to have to do double time at the gym this week to make up for this one day of excess but it was worth it.

Thematic Photographic 85 - I'm Hungry

This week's Thematic Photographic theme is "I'm Hungry."

I took this picture over three years ago but I'm not sure if I even felt true hunger back then because I was constantly eating. I never gave my body time to get hungry because I was constantly stuffing fattening food down my throat. I was so disgusted just looking at the evidence in the trash so I took this picture to remind myself how awful I felt after eating that crap. That day I vowed to stop the out of control eating and get healthy, lose the weight and (FINALLY) keep it off.

Over the past 20 years I've been on almost every diet out there except for the really crazy no food diets because that's just not possible for me. The biggest lesson I've learned from all those diets is that you can lose weight with any diet but if you don't learn how to eat right you will have an endless ride on the weight loss roller coaster. I know women who go to WW but instead of learning how to eat right they starve themselves all day so they can drink beer at night. How crazy is that?

I'm learning to feel hunger again and know that I will not starve to death before my next meal. I'm hungry for a healthy life. What are you hungry for?

Carmi at Written Inc. is our Thematic Photographic leader. If you want to learn how to play along, click here for the details.

I'm Back

I made it back to the wagon with a little help and encouragement from all of you. I was determined to prove I can turn things around and not let a few slip ups set me up for a free fall down the rabbit hole of bingeing and having to suffer a big gain. I think I've got things under control now. We'll see how long it lasts.

I resisted the muffins/pastries/croissants/bagels and stuck with the fruit for breakfast, had a healthy lunch and relatively healthy dinner and did not give in to the urge to snack and binge. I feel better now that the high concentration of sugar flowing through me has been diluted by fruits, veggies and chicken.

It's good to be back. Thanks for all the support. You guys are the BEST!

Slippery Slope

It seems that one bad decision tends to lead me down the wrong path every time and I need to find my way back on the weight loss wagon. Ever since "the birthday cake" I have been eating more than I should and even bought and binged on chocolate covered pretzels (a trigger food for me) the other day.

Enough is enough. I'm clawing my way back. I will not give in to the muffin's siren call today, I will stick to the fruit, eat a healthy salad for lunch, go shopping for healthy dinner stuff and get back on the wagon.

Sometimes it isn't just that one piece of cake or one slip up but what you do after that that really matters.

Let Them Eat Cake

UGGHH!! I ate way too much birthday cake ....

My birthday was weeks ago and I got through it without having any cake but I certainly made up for it this weekend. My SIL made a delicious white cake with white frosting and rainbow sprinkles for me last night so, of course, I had to eat it. It was really good but I wish I didn't eat it. I definitely have eater's remorse.

I wish I had been strong enough to turn it down but I'm not (yet). Unfortunately, I don't think I'll be seeing a loss this week. Looks like nothing new going on here.

MMMMmmmmm ... cake ... mmmmmmm .....

Still Resisting ...

I'm on a roll. It has been 5 weeks in a row I have resisted the temptation of the free muffins. I was so stressed out today and almost caved in but I flexed my resisting muscle and stuck with the fruit. It helped that by the time I went back into the lounge ready to stuff my face the muffins were gone. It was a close one but I did it. Now if I could only control myself every other day and night of the week I'd really be on a roll. Baby steps ...

Nothing is Free

My firm has laid off workers, cut out their 401(k) match and scaled down and cut back many other things but the one thing they haven't cut back on is free breakfast on Thursday mornings.

The Thursday morning feast consists of fresh hot bagels, croissants, pastries, muffins and big platters of fresh fruit. I always try to stick to the fruit and can usually get out of the lounge without grabbing some calorie bomb but the last few weeks I had been indulging in half of a delicious carrot muffin along with my fruit. I knew I shouldn't but I did and it needed to stop.

I'm happy to tell you I resisted the urge to indulge today. I was determined to stay away from those muffins because we all know that muffins, even "carrot" muffins, are just cake in disguise and there is nothing healthy about them. I know better. Some Thursdays I would just eat my regular oatmeal breakfast so I wouldn't be tempted by all the fattening breakfast treats but I needed to work my resisting muscles and just say no. It's hard to pass up something for free in these tough economic times but even if it doesn't cost me money it cost me dearly in other ways.

I'm happy I was able to resist those yummy muffins and just enjoy the fresh watermelon, cantaloupe, berries and honeydew melon instead. I had to stay away from the lounge for the rest of the day because I knew if I went back in there I would be tempted but those muffins. Getting out of there with just my fruit was enough temptation.

I need to remember that just because it is free doesn't mean I have to eat it. It is not calorie free and I would need to pay for it in sweat and tears.

No more free muffins for me!

Convenience Food?

It conveniently makes you fat.

How many different kinds of snack foods are out there? Thousands? Tens of Thousands? Seems like millions. Every store is a minefield of candy, chips, cookies, crackers, sugary treats -basically garbage. This garbage is strategically placed at the checkout line so I can't avoid seeing it, wanting it, trying to resist it, knowing I don't really want it if I REALLY want to lose weight. If I see it or smell it, I want it. If it's in my house, I'll eat it. I'm like Pavlov's dog conditioned to salivate over junk food and give into every temptation.

It seems they are coming out with new variations of junk food every day. It makes me sick just thinking about the amount of junk I've eaten. It doesn't seem humanly possible. Do we really need more varieties of this processed crap? Will the market ever be saturated with snack food? or will we just keep getting fatter and fatter? SUPER SIZE EVERYTHING = SUPER SIZING YOUR ASS!

I feel like I'm on a treasure hunt every time I try to find a healthy alternative. When the whole low carb Atkins craze was the rage the market responded by taking the carbs out of everything and marketing it to the thousands of people who were craving that sweet taste. It didn't work. People would eat the low carb substitute and be left hungry for the real thing. It was the same when any kind of "fat" was the enemy and the market responded by taking the fat out of everything only to replace it with sugar.

Isn't there enough of a market out there of people who want healthy choices? Why is it so inconvenient to eat healthy? I wish it were just as easy to find a side of broccoli as it is to find a side of fries. I'd love to be able to walk into the convenience store and grab something healthy. Where is the market for the people who don't want to mainline sugar?