Thursday, May 31, 2012

Day 7: Zermatt to Lauterbrunnen

Today we woke up to some clouds. The weather forecast said rain in the morning and clearing in the afternoon. This worked well for us because we were just doing a lot of traveling today. The traveling here, as I have said before, is so fun. The day began with a ride done the hill from the hotel to the train station in a tiny electric bus. The wheels are small on the bus making the ride very bumpy. I kept saying weeeeeeee! As we rode alllllll the way down the narrow, windy roads.
The next travel method was the train that took us back to our car. Alongside our train was the Glacier Express that you can take from Zermatt to St. Moritz. It is a pretty looking train and I bet is fun to ride. I took some pics of it as we rode our little train back down to the car. We drove the car along the freeway for a little while then we came to a place where we had to make a decision. We could use half a tank of gas, drive 250 miles over windy, steep switchback roads and over two alpine passes.....or.....we could drive our car onto a train that would take us through the mountains in only 15 minutes for only 25 Swiss Francs (about $28). We chose the latter. It was super cool to drive onto a train and park the car. Then we just sat there in the car while it rushed for about fifteen minutes through a tunnel. When the train stopped, we just drove off....kind of like cattle. And we were on our way again.
We stopped in a town called Spiez that sits on Lake Thun. We went to the château and for $12 we took a tour. The castle is something like 600 years old. We were able to rom freely amount the different rooms which were sparsely furnished but the walls and ceilings were ornately carved and painted. Outside there was an area that they used to use as a jousting practice. I got to get up on a fake horse and try it out. We also climbed the bazillion stairs that reached the tower lookout. It was gorgeous. Giant open windows faced four directions. You can look out into the harbor, the mountains, the lake and the rolling vineyards. With the light rain everything was bright green and smelled fresh. With the aromatic cool air blowing through the windows I wanted to stay up there all day. But there was more to see.
Before we left we went to the chapel for a visit. It must have been all done up for a wedding because it had flowers everywhere. We strolled the grounds, admiring their beautiful gardens then went to have lunch in the car facing the lake. We had bought fresh meats, cheses, breads and strawberries at the train station in Zermatt before we left.
On we drove to Lauterbrunnen. We checked in to the hotel and found our rooms. We paid a lot to stay with the view of the waterfall but it is SO worth it. Right outside my bedroom is the famous falls and the valley with the steep cliffs rising on either side. I can even see the Jungfrau. We had time to kill so we walked down to the train station and bought tickets to Wengen. The train to Wengen is the same one I took eleven years ago with my exhusband. There is a famous story or our misadventure trying to ride it which I will tell in a moment

This is a partial blog that I never posted due to internet failure in a little mountain town. I am posting now for anyone who might like to read a little bit
Alas, there comes a point in most blogger's lives when he or she says....I know it has been a long time since my last post but....


 And here I am saying just that. I have my reasons, just like everyone else does. My reasons is that for the last year I have been afflicted with severe Rheumatoid Arthritis. Sure, I have had RA since I was about 10 years old but somehow, in the last year and then some, it decided to get really crazy on me and spread from just my knees and toes to my hands, hips, ankles, elbows, wrists and back. At first I had no idea it was my arthritis. I went to the emergency room thinking I was basically dying. The doctor just looked at me and said, it is rheumatoid arthritis. Then he gave me a six month prescription of Vicodin. The Vicodin was ok but I had to do something more so I saw a Rheumatologist. He put me on some meds that are actually meant to treat malaria. I was still in pain and I was on my way to Europe so my dr also put me on Prednisone.
When I got back from my trip I went off the Prednisone slowly. I still found I was in pain so the RA dr then put me on another drug on top of the malaria drug. This drug is meant to help organ transplant patients not reject the organ. That makes a bit of sense since I have an autoimmune disease which means my body is rejecting my...er body.
That new drug made me throw up for about the first hour of work every morning. I had to go off of it. There are other drugs out there for RA but I make wine for a living and I pretty much need to drink alcohol. A lot of these drugs do terrible things to a liver, specially when alcohol is involved. So currently I am back on Prednisone, the malaria drug and pain killers waiting for the next drug to prescribed.

As someone who has been trying to blog about health and weight loss and all that fun stuff, I sure got unhealthy and fat. Well, not fat but if you do not know the bazillion side effects of Prednisone, some of them are "Moon Face", deteriorated bones, excessive belly fat, increased sweating, nervousness, personality changes, itching, swelling tongue, lips, cheeks, chin...sounds fun, eh? It basically makes you a troll.
So trying to eat healthy has been difficult. Sure, I am eating relatively healthy, save for the junk-food-weekend-movie-binge-fun-time, but eating healthy feel so so so futile when on this much medication. Medication that is actually targeting to increase your face and belly fat. Where is the medication that gives you boob fat?? Tell me where those meds are?! Oh well. Here we are with what we have.
Now it is summer and I am not fat but I am not terribly thrilled with my waist and face. I watched Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead and was a bit inspired. Not by the weight loss but by the fact that a man who was taking similar medication as I (he has an autoimmune disease as well) ended up no longer dependent on the pills.

I am going to give a juice diet a try. Not so much like what Joe Cross, the filmmaker and star, did. He juiced fasted for 60 days. I hope to just supplement a good diet with juices. I bought a moderately priced juicer and I will see how I feel after ten days of adding "micronutrients" to my regular diet in full force.

Friday, September 2, 2011

100 Day Diet - Day 23



I had to choose a magazine with Hugh on the cover *sigh*

I read an interesting little clip in Men's Health Magazine called 15 Ways to Rev Up Your Metabloism. I have blogged about the various ways to help speed up your weight loss and many of the things I have mentioned are on this list but there are a couple things on this particular list that I have not heard of before. I thought you might find it interesting and informative too.
Eat it.
The first thing is says is Don't Diet. This is something that I think we have all heard by now. If you starve yourself, your body thinks it is never going to see food again and begins to store fat. Then, as you burn calories, it burns them from your muscles. Muscles are a major fat burner on your body, so if you are getting rid of that, you are doing even more damage. On the diet I am on now, I am trying to eat all day long. The only time I do not eat is right before bed, with the exception of last night which I will get to later on. I try to have three meals and two snacks and to never be hungry except for at breakfast time.
Get plenty of sleep.
The next thing they say is to get plenty of sleep. If you don't get enough sleep your body is under a greater amount of stress and is less able to function properly. It also gives you less energy to burn off those extra calories. I always try to get eight hours of sleep a night. I don't always succeed but at least I give myself the time to lay down and rest.
Protein Protein Protein
The third thing is to eat more protein. I did not realize exactly HOW much protein one is supposed to be eating in a day. I was quite surprised to find out it is about .4g to .8g times pounds of body weight a DAY! That means I should be eating 60 to 100 grams of protein every single day. I don't even know how this is possible but they suggest that you add a serving to every meal. I do have an egg every morning and some sort of meat for lunch and/or dinner but perhaps I should try to ramp it up a bit.
Organic foods just taste better.
Next, they say to eat Organic whenever you can. The toxins in the pesticides are detrimental to weight loss among other things. It is more expensive but to save the full cost just buy the things that you know would have more toxins in them if they were not organic. This basically means, anything you eat the skin of should be organic. I already have learned to eat mostly organic because if my fruits and veggies are not, I dislike the taste. Once you have tasted farm fresh foods you simply can not go back to regular supermarket produce. There is so much more flavor when the fruits and vegetables are had crafted and cared for.
I wish my office looked like this when I stood up.
The fifth thing they mention is to move around a little more. They suggest that instead of sitting at your desk for long periods of time, stand up to do some of your work. An example would be to stand up when you are talking on the phone. I have to get up a lot at work but I do find myself sitting at my desk for long periods of time. After reading this article I have decided to stand up and do ten jumping jacks at least once an hour. I even set a little alarm. This will be easy so long as I have the office to myself. Once my office mate moves back into the room, which will be in a couple months, I might not be able to do that so easily. But we shall see!
I love my fried egg on toast.
I will go over the other ten in a later blog. I have bored you long enough
Yesterday I had my usual fried egg with tomato and mayo on toast for breakfast. I had cantaloupe for a morning snack. For lunch I had leftover tortellini with home made tomato sauce for lunch and yogurt for my afternoon snack. For dinner I ate a bunch of fruit.

Day 23 loss: 0.7 pounds
Total Loss: 7.7 pounds
Goal: 27.3 more to lose

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

100 Day Diet - Day 21


I wanted to do this 100 day diet so I can lose weight and then I would be able to come back to the blog and follow the same plan anytime I wanted to lose weight again in the future. I didn't factor into the equation Harvest. I make wine for a living. For people in this industry Harvest is the big deal of the entire year. This year it came late but it came nonetheless. I got distracted. I always get distracted. But this distraction is the mother of all distractions. I was not ready to adjust. I think I am sort of adjusted now to the 6 or 7 day work week and the 14 hour days.
So what I am trying to say is, sorry for not keeping up with my daily updates. What have I been up to the last two weeks? I have been a very bad girl. I have been going out to dinner, lunch, even breakfast. I just dont have time to cook. Plus I am very tired so when someone says "Let's just get take out.", it sounds like the best idea on the planet. I won't go into detail but I have had Vietnamese, cheeseburgers, sushi, Cuban, sandwiches, home fries, burritos, breakfast burritos, ice cream, pizza, cake, more cake, pie, coke and lots and lots of buttered popcorn, to name a few. It is difficult when the person you live with is not watching what he eats too but he is on track with me now and we agreed to only have take out once a week.
I have fallen into a little bit of a routine. For breakfast I have a fried egg on a piece of toast with sliced tomatoes and mayonnaise. I love this breakfast so much that I always want at least two but I restrain myself to only one. For lunch I have different things like an Amy's Vegetable Barley Soup or a piece of baked chicken that I just tossed in the toaster oven the night before. For a snack I have fruit and plain almonds. I am just starting to check out yogurt too. I really like this Aussie Dark Chocolate From Down Under I found at the store.


I will try to check in more often, I promise.

Today's loss: 0 pounds
Total loss: 7 pounds
Goal: 28 to go.

Thursday, August 18, 2011

100 Day Diet - Day 9


I woke up craving protein so I had a fried egg on top of two of the bf's slices of pizza from the previous night. I know it is a bit of overkill but I have been spending the past few nights next to the bf's pizzas, take out and coconut creme pies. I had to break at some point.

I had the soup for lunch along with a bunch of strawberries and blueberries. I have so much fruit I dont quite know what to do with myself. I find that I am eating so much fruit that I am not drinking much water because I am perfectly hydrated from what I am eating.

I went to my parent's for dinner but there was a ton of unusual traffic due to some stupid man with a gun holed up in a hotel near the freeway so by the time I got there, it was too late to eat if I wanted to keep with the "not eating four hours before bedtime" thing.

This week is shaping up to be unhealthy for me. Not enough eating and when I do eat, it is weird things. Let's hope I even out by the end. The weekend is coming and I always screw up on the weekends.

Day 9 weight loss: 0.2 pounds
Total weight loss: 7.2 pounds
Goal: 32.8 pounds to go

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

100 Day Diet - Day 8



There just isn't enough protein in my Souper Soup. I spent the previous day eating only fruit so, naturally, my body was craving protein. I did not provide it with enough with the soup alone. So, for the whole day, I was tired and feeling run down. I had a large bowl of blueberries for breakfast and about a cup and a half of soup for lunch. I planned on having raspberries for dinner but I had a doctor's appointment and forgot all about dinner until I got home.

My doctor's appointment was regarding my Rheumatoid Arthritis. I have been struggling on and off with the disease for most of my life beginning when I was diagnosed with Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis (JRA) at the tender age of 10. I have been able to manage the pain with various over the counter pain killers and anti-inflammatory medications. This past year the disease spread from my knees to my hands, wrists, elbows, ankles, toes and shoulder. I was put on Plaquenil (Hydroxychloroquine) and Prednisone. The Prednisone (steroids) worked great on the pain but they have nasty side effects like belly fat and face fat gain (moon face). As I slowly went off the Prednisone, it became apparent that the Plaquenil was not working.
This leaves me sitting in the doctor's office, forgetting to eat my dinner. The doctor put me back on Vicodin so I can ease the pain as I go off of the Prednisone. The next step is to go off of the Plaquenil and try something different. Sadly, it is advised not to drink alcohol when taking this medication. Oh well, the doctor said he would try to work something out with me seeing as how I make alcohol for a living.

Stressful, sleepy day. I do not recommend this day's meal plan to anyone. I even slept bad. Next time: much more protein.

Day 8 weight loss: 2 pounds
Total weight loss: 7 pounds
Goal: 33 pounds to go

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

100 Day Diet - Day 7


I had to make up for the naughty things I did over the weekend. I have to say, I do not regret the things I did because I had so much fun doing them! But if I am seriously trying to do a 100 day diet, I can't be taking days off every weekend.

After our movie night on Saturday, we had a ton of leftover fruit that never got used. I decided to spend the whole day of day 7 eating nothing but fruit. I had a big basket of strawberries for breakfast, a bowl of blueberries for lunch and some raspberries for dinner as I drove home.

It didn't make it easy for me when the bf is sitting next to me on the couch with an entire coconut creme pie on his lap, offering me bites. I managed to refuse these offers and go to bed on time. I actually got about eight hours of sleep!

Before I went to bed I made my super soup. You can reference an old blog of mine to see the recipe. I had researched a lot of different ingredients to come up with this soup. I added in foods from four categories: Fat melting, Detoxifying and Cleansing, Protein and Flavor. I also added foods like ginger to sooth the stomach during the tumultuous dieting period.

It took me no more than 10 minutes to blend up about 5 cups of the super soup. I plan on having that all week long.

Day 7 weight loss: 1 pound
Total weight loss: 4.9 pounds
Goal: 35.1 to go.