Crest 3D White Whitestrips Professional Effects

I realized the other day I still had a gift card from Amazon to use that was left over from Christmas. I contemplated a new video game (I am a video game nerd.) but I decided it wouldn't really be a present for me since my husband would surely rogue it. Therefore, I decided since I was trying to lose this weight, I would do something for my appearance.

After reading many reviews and searching out friends for advice, I decided to try the Crest 3D White Whitestrips Professional Effects. I will be starting tomorrow, and I thought the blog would be a great way to visualize the changes.

The product touts the following: "After 10 days, you'll get long-lasting, professional-level whitening." and "Noticeable whitening varies by person, but most people start seeing whiter teeth after 3 days, with full whitening upon completion. Crest 3D White Whitestrips Pro Effects gives you a smile makeover in just 10 days."

I use a strip a day for 20 days. I figure I will take follow up pictures at Day 3, 10, & 20. Here's hoping!


Day 0



Legacies & Bequests

This past week my husband and I finally sat down with our lawyer and created not only our living wills, but also our dead wills. It’s a hard thing to do, I’ve found, facing your mortality. However, there are two little people depending on us now.

It actually has refueled my fire to lose this weight. I hadn’t lost my previous fire, mind you, but I have gained more fuel. I would much rather be able to take out the guardians from my will in twenty years then have to rely on them.

A new study out shows women start to feel old at 29. (You men are different sorts; you don’t start to feel old until late 50’s.) I don’t know if I feel old at 30, but I definitely no longer feel that I am immortal. I no longer have that teenage ideal that I’m going to live forever. I think that’s part of the reason I started losing weight; I realize I can’t eat, eat, and eat and expect to live into my 80’s or 90’s.

I have to do this for myself, my kids, and my husband. I also want to use my 401k. J

3rd Weigh In - 3/28/2011

Today's Weight: 298.6

Slow and steady wins the race, right? At least I'm below my goal for the month - 300. I wonder if you are supposed to alter your goals if you beat your goal weight? For example, next month my goal weight is 295. However I hope to keep up 5 pounds a month weight loss, I wonder if I should alter my goal weight for next month to 293?

Hmmm.

Stuffing to Sedate

The other day at work (I’m quickly learning via this blog that we gab a lot at work.) we were discussing cravings. My friend had mentioned that she was craving ice cream. My other co-worker said she was craving cake. These are two very normal cravings. They turned to me, and asked me what I was craving. I tried to think about a particular food I was craving, I really did. However, the only thing that I kept coming back to was, “I am craving food.”

Food? What do you mean? I mean I crave food. It almost doesn’t matter what type of food it is. I crave mass quantities of food. “I want to eat until I get that full feeling in my stomach, then that quashes my craving.”

It’s sad, but it’s true. Because they are nice friends, they started thinking about the type of food I could do that with. “What about popcorn? Veggies? You could eat chicken like that.” The sad reality is I can’t do that.

I can’t eat until I’m satiated. In my mind I know that if I do, I’ll be giving into something weird psychological issues in me that will just open the door for mass quantities of bad food. Nope, there will be no binges! I’m sure somewhere in here I probably need to go to see a shrink to figure out why I want to eat until I’m sedated, but I’m on a debt reduction plan, people! No money for a food shrink because I’m already seeing my Dave Ramsey shrink, ha ha.

Oh yeah, I'm eating Chinese take-out tonight because of the basketball games. If that isn't a true test of resisting food binging, I don't know what is.

On Being Called Fat

Yesterday a friend at work was complaining about her life in general, and how depressed she was. I thought for a moment and then asked, "Why are you depressed? You have lots of things going for you."

In all honesty, she does have a lot going for her. She has a great job, a great house (I know, I've been there!), 2 healthy kids, and a husband. She takes at least 3 vacations a year, and she always wears the latest fashions. She answers, "A stranger and my husband have called me fat this week."

It turns out they didn't really call her fat, but it was implied both times. Her husband was nagging her on the foods she ate and telling her she needed to get up and go back to the gym (and not in the nice supportive way.) The stranger was a young college girl who was supposed to give her a spray tan. The young girl told my friend she "wouldn't feel comfortable giving her a spray tan."

She is a big girl just like me, so we often have frank conversations about weight. We both know we're fat; but we don't want others saying it. For some reason, if we talk about it - it's okay. If others talk about it, it sends us into a spiraling dump. I feel bad for her, she's an emotional eater and this recent hurt has sent her running back to food.

The really bad part is there is nothing I can say to her; I would have reacted the same way probably.

I Fell Off My Pink Cloud with a Thud

Big girls need big diamonds. ~ Elizabeth Taylor

The post today is in remembrance of a great woman who not only embraced her curves, but made them work for her.

I hope one day I can say I reached my goal weight, kept my wonderful curves, and made them work for me.

RIP, Elizabeth Taylor~ 3/23/2011

World Water Day!

Uhh, what's a half flush in the loo?

I realize that World Water Day doesn’t quite entail making sure you drink your 64 ounces per day, but it sure gives a good platform for talking about it! While the world’s top engineers, scientists, and business folk attempt to hash out our future water needs, I decided to take a minute to hash out my WIO, water-intake objectives.

I used to loathe drinking water. Growing up, I never drank just plain water. It was always diet coke/diet pepsi, sweet tea, kool-aid, or some such drink. I don’t think to this day I’ve seen my parents order water at a restaurant. But in my deepening research into weight loss, I’ve found that water is the best drink of choice to lose weight.

Just like T.B. (Taco Bell), water works into my goals this year two-fold. Cokes/tea have gotten stupid expensive at restaurants, some charging as high as $2.19. I find that mind boggling, and I have vowed in my debt-reduction plan to never again pay for my drink at a sit-down restaurant. (Fast food joints are still pretty reasonable on drinks, although they are still high.) Secondly, it helps me shed pounds.

It took a very, very long time to get used to drinking water. At restaurants, it has to have ice. However, when I’m drinking it throughout the day to get my 64 ounces in, it has to have no ice. I don’t even attempt to understand myself, I just go with it. 

It also took a very, very, very long time to get used to the frequent bathroom trips. I’m thinking, based on my week so far, I’ve gotten adjusted. I hope. People are looking at me funny at work.  I imagine they either think I’m doing coke in the bathroom or having horrendous diarrhea.



2nd Weigh In - 3/21/2011

Today's morning weight:   300.2

Woohoo!... so close to that "not going to be 300 ever again" mark I can taste it. However, I will probably wait until I'm solid in the 290's before celebrating that...my weight tends to fluctuate up and down before settling into one position. I don't want to celebrate not being 300 ever again and then pop back up there the day after.

Heavy's on tonight! Today is a good day all around.

Seasoned Meat or Not, I Don't Care.

As I mentioned before, I am currently on a debt reduction plan as well. I am not blogging about this; I find that debt reduction happens very slowly and there's not much interesting to say about it. Or maybe I decided to blog about food because it is my passion as opposed to bills..bills..bills.

Either way, one of my debt reduction goals happened to coincide with my eating plan - I needed to greatly reduce the number of days I eat out. If I was guesstimating, I would say I ate out 5/7 lunches and 3/7 dinners per week. That was a massive source of income lost. But I digress; this post is about my weight loss goals.

So now I'm down to eating lunch out once a week, and eating dinner out twice a week. Lunch has to be $10 or less, my dinner has to be $20 or less. (For a reasonable eating out total of $50 a week, much better than the previous $200+) Because of this, I am very picky about what restaurant earns my business.

I say all of that to say this - I love Taco Bell. I don't care if their beef is real seasoned beef or not, it is good - cheap - and fits into my diet. The following was my lunch today:

2 Fresco Style Crunchy Tacos
1 Side of Pintos & Cheese
1 Medium Diet Pepsi (that's another reason I love T.B. - they have Pepsi products.)

Mmmm, Taco Bell. All under $5. Only 460 calories!

Food Burial

I managed to find some time last night to watch Heavy, one of my favorite shows on television today (the other two being Mike & Molly & The Middle.) Last night's episode featured the short dude and the chick that was leaving her husband. So while watching the show they have a "Food Burial" exercise. The participants buried their trigger foods in the ground, saying goodbye to them forever.

It started me thinking about my own personal trigger foods. After much thought I determined that while I do not think I have "trigger" foods (my preference is any food in mass quantities), I do have certain foods that I could sit down and eat the whole {fill in the container blank}. In no certain order, the following foods/drinks could be eaten by me in one sitting.

1. Chocolate Zingers. I am not a big sweet eater, but oh my goodness. Chocolate Zingers. The sweet cake treat from the heavens. In a "normal" sitting I would consume 4 of these babies with a tall glass of milk. I have once eaten a whole box with 2 glasses of milk once. Did you know that's 1800 calories with milk and all?
2. BBQ Fritos. Hands down the best fritos out there. The normal amount for me would be 1/2 a bag, but on occassion I have inhaled the whole bag. 1500 calories.
3. Pepsi. Fully loaded Pepsi, that is. Generally just a 20 ounce will do me, but I have scarfed down 2 20 ounces at a time. 500 calories.

Normally, when I'd go to the gas station or whatever for something, I'd pick up #1, #2, and #3. A big grab bag of fritos, 3 pack of Zingers, and a 20 ounce Pepsi. I won't lie - that still sounds pretty darn good.

But I am not going to go get it. First of all, I'm a cheapskate and on a simultaneous journey to get debt-free this year, so I'm not about to spend $5 on crap. Secondly though, I don't need it. I'm not going to kill over and die if I don't eat Zingers/Fritos/Pepsi.

Will I ever be able to eat a normal portion of these things again? I don't know, honestly. I can't answer that right now. For now, I'm NOT eating them. Food Burial.

Samoas are the devil.

It's interesting how long Girl Scout cookies will last around the house when you are actually eating the serving suggestion.
Also interesting to note the actual serving of Girl Scout cookies. Samoas (my personal favorite) have 140 calories, 7g of fat, and 55mg of sodium for the serving size.
The serving size is 2 cookies.
Are you kidding me? I don't think I've EVER eaten just 2 samoas at a time in my life until this year.
But alas, here I am, whittling down my 2 boxes of Samoas 2 cookies at a time.
Last night I could have eaten the whole box, without flinching. But I didn't...and now I have more Samoas to enjoy at a later date.
At least that's what I keep telling myself.

1st Weigh In - 3/14/2011

Okay, well, I've technically been weighing in since January 1st, but this is the first official weigh-in for the blog.

Today's weight: 302. Notice no more "ish" next to the 302. Before, the weight would be a little over 302, with the scale saying 302 at the very least. Now it is 302 officially, no weeble-wobbles.

Anyway, there ya go. No measurements yet, I'm still trying hard to find my measuring tape. I know as soon as I go buy another I'll find my old one, so I'm resisting!