I don’t know who created the iPhone app that allows you to see what you’d look like if you gained 100 pounds, but it’s not funny. But the Today Show anchors seem to think is it. They would change their tune if this was real. Take a look at this link…
After 4 years of having lost weight and the daily work of keeping it off - something happened today that is truly remarkable. I went on a bender but what I wanted to pig out on was not delicious and so after three bites - I quit eating. I had shut the door to my office (Sneaky Fat Kitty had come to visit) and was ready to hunker down and eat - and after three bites I quit.
My boss Dave Bell used to give away one pound boxes of dark chocolate with his logo on the block of chocolate for Christmas each year. He didn’t do it this past year but he had two boxes left from the year before and one box from two years ago. I went into his office to do something and I spied the one box that was 2 years old. Knowing that he’d never give two-year old chocolate to anyone I talked myself into thinking that this would be okay. That he’d never miss it. And Fat Kitty doesn’t care how old the chocolate is - I mean this is one pound of luscious dark chocolate. She’s never been picky before.
So I tore open the packaging and looked at it. There it was - a pound of chocolate. My mind was telling me that this was not a good thing to do but then I walked over to the door of my office and shut the door, like I’ve done a thousand times before - knowing that I’m about to do something I shouldn’t do.
I sat at my desk and tried to break off a piece to eat. It was too hard to break so I got a knife and after a minute of sawing I was able to get a chunk ready to eat. I chomped down and felt the chocolate in my mouth. It was - WHAT - tasteless????? What’s going on here. So I took another bite and ate it and then another and this was not going as I had hoped because the chocolate was AWFUL! Hard and tasteless and old. So I threw away the remaining part of the chunk and then threw away the remaining block - box and all.
This might sound like a bad thing, but I’m choosing to see it for what it is - a breakthrough for me. I have over-eaten most of my life - many times and a variety of foods - and it never matter if it was delicious or not. It was just food and I was eating it. This was tasteless - and so I stopped.
Maybe Fat Kitty finally got picky about food, or maybe my good sense kicked in. I don’t know. I only know that this was another example of how good habits can overtake bad ones if you give them half a chance.
There are two more bars of chocolate in Dave’s office from a year ago - but he should not give them to anyone. If Fat Kitty won’t eat them - no one should.
A blog is about being honest - so when I am doing things that I question I want to share them with you - in case you behave this way on occasion too. We are not bad people. We just want to eat. But hopefully by me telling you this story it will make you feel more comfortable with being honest with yourself. If I can tell you a story like this - you, only talking to you, can surely be honest with yourself.
I was recently talking to someone on the phone about my weight loss and at the time she had not met me so wanted to see a before picture of me. I told her I lost 60 pounds and she thought that was incredible - until she saw my before picture. I could hear her voice change over the phone as she said, “Oh, you’re not that fat.” You just look kind of chubby.” I told her that I was 60 pounds overweight and lost it all and that’s not chubby - that’s fat. She took a second and then agreed. Yes, that’s a lot of weight to lose. And speaking for myself - YES it was… And I still work to keep it off.
But this morning I got to thinking about that conversation. When I was in high school years ago no one was fat. Maybe one or two schoolmates but not like today. I wasn’t even fat. I was “chubby” then. I needed to lose probably 20 pounds back then and at the time that was considered a lot to lose. But today, since 66% of the country is so overweight 20 pounds doesn’t seem like very much anymore. People who have weight issues are almost always 40 - 60 - 100 pounds overweight, so it seems to me that 60 pounds is the new “chubby”. My body mass index was in the obese range yet I was not the fatest person I knew, far from it. I had even allowed myself to think that I wasn’t all that overweight.
Now that I have lost all that weight I cannot imagine gaining even 20 back and to gain all 60 pounds - well, I will never do that. This is the first time that I can say that for sure. After almost (coming up on) 4 years since I started this journey and always thinking that I could gain it all back - I now know that I will not. I will never be fat again.
And you don’t have to be either. Let me hear from you. What can I do to get you started and how can I help you stay on a path that leads to a healthier you? I know you are beautiful - do you know that? Once you know that and truly believe it - your life will change in ways that you cannot imagine. And you are beautiful if you never lose a single pound. I’m not on the “everybody needs to lose weight” bandwagon. This is your life and should be lived on your terms.
But if you do want to lose weight - first you must realize that 60 pounds is NOT chubby.
I record Oprah’s talk show on my DVR everyday just to see what she’s got cooking (literally). She has so many great guests and she has a weight related show 3-4 times a month and they’re usually very informative.
Yesterday she talked about a book title, “Women, Food and God” and mentioned that she had an except from it on her web site. If you have not read the article in O Magazine (I subscribe) or read this book, I urge you to check out the article on www.Oprah.com - it was wonderful. Most of what the article talks about I found out for myself in my own weight loss journey, but when someone like Oprah puts it out there MILLIONS of people like me (in the overweight community) will be helped by reading it. My book is finished and I’ve written about much of what this book talks about - but I don’t know if or when my book will see a major audience, and this kind of message cannot wait. So - in the meanwhile - check out the article on Oprah’s site and let me know what you think.
I can’t believe the new year is here and I didn’t even post a blog the whole entire month of February! YIKES! I’m behind!
A lot is going on - but that’s no excuse. I’ve been finishing my book and creating new recipes and I have a few more irons in the fire for TV appearances so who knows what will be up in 2010.
My friend and confidant (and fellow RFP) Carol T from Biloxi, MS sent me an email a couple of days ago about Mississippi and how overweight the state is. I then turned on the TV show RUBY that I recorded from last week and Ruby is going to Biloxi, MS to see if she can remember her childhood and maybe connect why she is so overweight. As Ruby travels through Mississippi she stops at various places to eat and at each stop she is hit with Southern Fried Comfort Food like no body’s business. I know all the dishes and how they smell and taste. BUT I now know how to cook them in a way that doesn’t make me gain all my weight back. Carol’s email was about how she and her husband had gone out to eat at one of the Casinos and she was the only normal weight person in the restaurant. Not surprising…
I don’t know how I can show people the way I cook but I’m determined to do it. I could cook for Ruby and she wouldn’t have had to say NO to everything on her trip to Mississippi. The South is so notorious for cooking with butter, sugar and for frying everything - and I mean if we could figure out a way to fry tap water I think we’d do it. I mean, back in the day I even fried my own potato chips.
There is a way to prepare food so you don’t have to live a life of NO. Let’s face it we can say no when people are around, but something takes over when it’s just me alone in my kitchen with my friend the refrigerator. Fat Kitty knows all my buttons to push.
Make sure, if this is you, that you have good choices around when that voice comes calling for you. Mississippi is number one in obesity, but it doesn’t have to be that way forever. I’m sorry we even have that as a statistic but every year that goes by, as the country gets fatter, we have more fat statistics. I was reading the other day about when portions started getting larger and it was 1970, when they first started to increase. No secret that was the same year we had an explosion of fast food joints. By 1976 obesity was on the rise. So, it’s not hard to put 2 and 2 together here. I was plump in 1970, but not fat until the late 1970’s so I fit right into this trend. I’m just another test rat the fast food industry is playing with. I got super sized portions and my body super sized along with it.
So, Carol if you’re reading this, I understand your concern, but as we both know you have to be ready to hear information before you can act on it. For years I turned a blind eye (and fork) to my weight and food issues. As I watch Rudy on her TV show try to find the answer to why she overeats I wonder if she’s ever considered this. Maybe she does, just because she does. Maybe there isn’t a dark horrible answer to why each of us stuffs our mouths full of food that is bad for us. Maybe we just do this like someone else who likes to paint with water colors. Maybe we just do because we just do. I have quit trying to find the answer because in all my searching it never helped me lose weight and keep it off. Accepting that maybe this is just a part of me (meaning my desire to overeat) that will never change has helped me more than any other single thing. It allowed me to create my recipes and enjoy them without guilt. NO guilt, that’s what I want. And I wish you the same happy life. If you never lose weight, you are beautiful - remember that. Simply beautiful.
What a great experience this radio show is turning out to be. I set out to help people change their lives if they have food or weight issues - but this show helps me just as much. This morning right before we started Seth said he forgot to play a request for a lady and could we play it during the show. Of course I was fine with that but I had no idea what the song was - It was “Lord I Hope This Day Is Good” by Don Williams, which is just about one of the greatest all time country songs EVER! As I listened to it play I thought this is what we all struggle for and hope for - a good day. Lord just let this day be good and let me be good and eat well and nourish my body in a non-destructive way. My whole day started at that moment. It was already a good day but that song sent it through the roof.
And I hope if you’re reading this that you’re having a good day too. I wish that for you everyday.
72 calories each! AND HERE’S THE RECIPE! You’ll need:
1 Cup yellow cornmeal
1/2 Cup Self-rising flour
1/2 Cup Whole-wheat flour
1 tsp baking powder
dash of salt
1 T Splenda for baking
1 egg
1 1/2 Cup skim milk
1/2 Cup chopped onion
4 Chopped green onions
4 chopped Jalapenos
Butter flavored cooking spray
Large skillet and spatula
Mix all dry ingredients together well. Add egg and milk and mix thoroughly. Add onions and Jalapenos and mix (and this is optional if you don’t want them spicy, plain they’re very delicious too). Spray skillet with butter flavored cooking spray (you’ll do this in between each batch you cook) Turn your heat to medium and allow the skillet to heat up. Drop by spoonful a portion of the mix onto the cooking surface, like pancakes, and I used a large skillet so cooked four of these at a time. Once the cake bubbles through, again like a pancake, flip and cook until golden brown on each side. The diameter of each should be between 3-4 inches each. This recipe will give you at least 17 cakes each - so once prepared you can store in a baggie what you don’t eat for the next day. And these will freeze too.
I ate mine plain, but my son used the sugar free Smucker’s Apricot jelly and made sugar free syrup. (To make this all you have to do is place about 1/4 cup of any sugar free jelly in a microwave bowl and pop it in the microwave for 30 seconds on high and it becomes instant syrup)
So enjoy!!! REALLY delicious and can you believe 72 calories each.
Here’s the total breakdown..
Calories 72, Fat 0g, Fiber 1g, carbs 14g
Now go enjoy!!!
Happy Holidays,
Kitty
Last week during my radio show, “Seth and Kitty Weighing In” (which is every Thursday morning at 8:00 am on WONA in Winona, MS with Seth Kent) I had a listener call in to see if I could convert a family peanut butter cookie recipe to a lower calorie version of the same thing. The original recipe was 118 calories per cookie so it was pretty high. These are 90 per cookie so almost saved 30 calories per cookie. And HERE IT IS! I call them CashNut Brown Sugar Cookies! Check out the pic above!
They have, per each cookie - 90 calories - 10.4 grams of fat (but that’s only 2g Saturated Fat) - 1.3g of fiber and 8.5 carbs. And this is how you make them:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees - then mix together -
1 Cup creamy peanut butter
1/2 Cup Splenda brown sugar blend
2 Medium eggs whites
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
1 tesp baking soda
And you’ll need 12 whole cashews to top them for baking. 1/2 for each cookie..
Once everything is mixed well drop by spoon onto a nonstick baking sheet (Don’t use any cooking spray. I tried it on a few and they burnt on the bottom.) I got 24 cookies out of the recipe. After they are all on the sheet take a cashew half and press it down in the cookie. The original recipe for these cookies says they will melt down and become more cookie shaped but this recipe they didn’t do that so you’ll need to press them down slightly. Bake for 25 minutes but check after 20 to make sure they are not too done.
Then enjoy. In my mind 28 calories saved on a cookie means I can have 4 cookies instead of 3. I mean who in the heck eats one cookie?! They probably aren’t reading this blog because they more than likely don’t have food or weight issues…like I do.
This is the subject we talked about on the radioshow, “Seth and Kitty Weighing In” on WONA last Thursday and I felt it deserved a blog.
Should you or shouldn’t you even attempt this? I mean there are so many temptations around this time of year and a feeling of deprivation could take over easily if you start saying NO to everything. I know that I was always afraid of the Holidays. I knew what I was capable of regarding food, so as Halloween ended and I saw Thanksgiving and Christmas approaching - I would almost panic wondering what kind of mischief Fat Kitty would get me in to this year. She rarely let me down. So I’d come out on the other end of January ALWAYS heavier.
So is it a good idea to actually diet as the Holidays approach? That’s a question only you can answer but I do have some thoughts on what you can do.
I was always afraid of failure, so rather than all out diet during this time of year, maybe pick a few days each week that you know you’ll be strong on. I have already done that and mine are Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. If you wonder why I didn’t put Wednesday in there, well this is because I know myself so well now - and I know that if I put too many days together in a row I might feel trapped and do something I shouldn’t. Now this doesn’t mean I plan to overeat on Wednesday - it just means I am giving myself that day to think about it. And I don’t even plan to overeat on the other remaining days, but what I have discovered is that if I give myself the chance to stay focused and not put too much pressure on myself, I’m more likely to not eat wrong any day of the week.
So this works for me and I thought I should share it because it might not be something you thought about. In the days to come, heading up to Christmas, I’ll share more tips of what I do during the Holidays, to stay on track. My recipes have made my life so doable - but I don’t kid myself that the grocery stores full of candy canes don’t have a pull on me. They do and I still have to enter them to buy the food I do eat.
If you are struggling - write me with your struggle and I’ll try to figure a way to help you too. Losing weight is not easy and keeping it off is even harder - but it IS something you can do. I failed my whole life till now - so if you feel like one more try is more than you want to attempt during the Holidays, why not try just one day a week - then add another day you feel you’ll be strong - a month might go by and you’ll wake up and you’re strong more days than you’re not. We have been programmed to think that dieting and losing weight is all or nothing. Well, how well is that working out for our nation that is 66% overweight or obese? Not so good I fear.
My way is certainly food for thought - pun intended.
Happy Holidays!
In an effort to help you through the holidays in a low cal way - I have a gravy that I make that I totally forgot to share…and it’s so close to the real thing you simply won’t believe it!
Kitty’s Lighter Weigh Copyright Dave Bell Associates, Inc.
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