mizducky's migrations: a weight management blog with attitude

Weekly weigh-in: "An elevated area of relatively level land"

As in: I'm plateauing again, or still:

• Today's weight: 203.0 lb
• Change since last week: 0 lb
• Cumulative weekly weight loss: 131.0 lb
• Average weekly weight change: -1.52 lb

Eh. Considering I'm in the middle of yet another crazy barely-time-to-turn-around week, I'm fine with maintaining that status quo. Actually, I think I might have actually shown a lower number on the scale if I hadn't indulged in a bunch of dill pickles over the weekend. There's something about the heavy brine in pickles that makes me retain water like a sponge.

Oh well--I suspect I might succeed in showing a loss next week at last, after hiking a hunk of the AIDS Walk this coming Sunday. Provided, of course, that my knee doesn't freak out on me like it's been threatening to do over the last few days. At least, with these modern-day fundraising walks, you get to collect those donations regardless of whether you walk a single step. But I do hope I can try at least a bit of the walk, just for the personal moral victory of it all--let alone the bit about making a visible statement for the cause.

MedlinePlus: FDA warns Hain over stevia use, calls herb unsafe

Link: MedlinePlus: FDA warns Hain over stevia use, calls herb unsafe.

Okay, this pisses me off. The FDA is harshing on Hain, a longtime natural foods manufacturer, about the use of stevia--even though it's been used safely in other countries for ages and the studies questioning its safety have long been exposeds as bullshit--and meanwhile Coca-Cola and Cargill are planning to market the stuff with nary a peep from the FDA in their direction. Now tell me, in how many ways is this whole situation full of crap? As if we needed any more proof that the FDA is in the pocket of big business ... grrr.

I'm doing the AIDS Walk--September 30th

Or at least I'll be doing as much of it as I can. AIDS Walk San Diego is another one of those fundraiser walk-a-thons -- funds from this one go directly to organizations providing essential support services to persons living with HIV/AIDS. As I've had my share of friends over the years who have died from or who are living with this disease, it's a cause near and dear to my heart. It's a 5K walk, and I'm not sure I'll make it much beyond the one-kilometer checkpoint, but hey, it's the thought that counts! Needless to say, I'd love to collect donations on behalf of my efforts for this cause -- so if the spirit moves you, click on this link and you'll be taken to my personal page on the San Diego AIDS Walk site. (And no, you don't have to be a San Diego resident to donate!)

Weekly weigh-in: the new status quo

This week's numbers:

• Today's weight: 203.0 lb
• Change since last week: 0.0 lb
• Cumulative weight loss: 131.0 lb
• Average weekly weight change: -1.54 lb

And we are back to the status quo ante new-bathroom-scale-purchase: plateauing along as the body catches up with the ever-continuing healthy eating pattern.

One change in my circumstances that may have an interesting effect on my routine: the part-time restaurant-reviewing gig that I've been doing for the past nine months has gone on a temporary hiatus. I will miss it--but at the same time, I'm relieved to be going back to eating out solely for my own enjoyment as opposed to being "on assignment." Or taking a bit of a break from eating out altogether.

Mind you, I was doing well enough with fitting all those dining assignments into my healthy-eating routine, but it did take some juggling. In particular, dining out a lot had been playing hob with my practice of breaking my daily food allotment into many small meals as opposed to a few large ones. So now I can go back to the small-meals status quo too, and that does feel a whole lot better.

Meanwhile, I continue to cook for Mr. E, and continue to fit his eating preferences in with mine. Very occasionally that has meant I've cooked entirely different dinners for him and for me, but the vast majority of the time I cook the same thing for both of us, and I either take bigger portions of vegetables, or cook an additional vegetable side for myself. This latter practice also allows me to indulge in really spicy stuff (like kimchee or salsa) without blowing E out of the water--even plain black pepper can be too "sharp" for his old-school New England taste buds.

But there are still many dishes we can unite on--like the good old-fashioned beef stew I made the other night. For me, it was great foodie fun as I made it with beef cheeks, which gave great flavor. For him, it was simply a real nice yummy stew. And even as I type, I have the left-over broth simmering away with a little bit of rice, on its way to becoming congee for my late lunch.

Weekly weigh-in: it's deja vu all over again

So I got the new bathroom scale, and of course it's calibrated totally differently from the old Heisenberg Scale (which has shuffled off to that great junk-heap in the sky ... or more accurately, the local landfill). And of course the new scale differs in the upward direction. There's no way of determining whether it's accurate and my old scale was under-weighing, or otherwise, so I'll just go with the new number and let it go at that. Needless to say, though, it kind of blows a little hole in the statistical consistency of my "change since last weigh-in" and "cumulative weight loss" figures, so I'll hold off on those till next week when I can do a somewhat more apples-to-apples kind of comparison.

Oh yeah--you're waiting for a number! The new scale told me this morning that it thinks I weigh 203.0 lbs. I can live with that. It does mean that I'll no doubt be "celebrating" dropping below 200 pounds again in the next few weeks. Once more with feeling: the magic number on the scale is just an arbitrary measurement, the important thing is maintaining the healthy behaviors. And so it goes ...

Weekly weigh-in: postponed due to technical difficulties

First, my Heisenberg Uncertainty Scale got so uncertain that I couldn't get anything even vaguely resembling a reliable reading out of it. Then, when I went to post about that, I found that Typepad was down for regular weekly maintenance. So ... I now own a brand-new bathroom scale, but the way my weekend is going I won't have time to post a new weigh-in from it until the beginning of the new week. So sit tight, I'll be back on the beam shortly. Meanwhile ... yes, I'm super-busy, but at least I'm having fun! Talk to you all soon.