Friend Makin' Monday- My dream guy

Ok, before I go to bed I'm going to do this one. Even though it's not technically Monday anymore. If you haven't done FMM before, check out All The Weigh for the rules:



The topic is to describe your ideal mate:

I don't really care what he looks like. I ideally he has all of his teeth. I prefer that he not have any overwhelming bad odors, at least most of the time. I don't care how tall he is, what his body is shaped like, how much money he makes, what kind of car he drives, or even if he drives at all. He should like kids enough to want to be around mine, because she will be part of my life forever. But he can't want any of his own, because the factory is closed.

He should be atheist or agnostic like me, because it's important for me to have a partner who shares my beliefs (or non-beliefs, as it were). But he also needs to have a balanced and accepting attitude toward religion as most of my friends and family are religious, and my father is retired from the ministry, so I have utmost respect for the beliefs of others. Religious intolerance is bigotry to me, and no different than being racist or sexist. He should also be more liberal than conservative, ideally a LOT more liberal. We don't need to agree on everything, but I want my mate to have the same values as I do.

He has to be ok with dating someone who is bipolar, and is willing to handle it with sensitivity but also not be afraid to tell me if he thinks it's not being fully contained. Anyone who feels mental illness isn't real, can be "cured" by diet and exercise, or can just be "gotten over" need not apply. Personal experience with successful abnormal psychology management is preferred, but not required. I will train the right candidate who is willing to learn and keep an open mind.

We should have some overlap in style of humor, tastes in music, movies, and television. We should be closely matched in Scrabble skills, if at all possible. He should be a kind person who gets along easily with others, and treats everyone with respect, not just me. He should be responsible, motivated, and he should care about the quality of his work regardless of what he does or whether it's his dream job. If he is unhappy with circumstances in his life he should be willing to make steps to change them. He should be easy going and an effective communicator. He should be comfortable with who he is instead of attempting to fit the mold of what he thinks I want him to be like. He should follow through on his commitments, whether small or large.

The following attributes with be looked upon VERY favorably:

• he makes me laugh harder than I can remember laughing in a long time
• I feel a little mushy every time I get a text from him, even if it's just to say hi
• he just tells me that he likes me rather than making me decipher his every word for clues
• his actions match up to what he says
• he is just as happy grocery shopping with me as he is going to a movie or a bar
• he doesn't take himself or anything else too seriously
• he would absolutely not be content to go even a day without some contact with me

I think this is the guy, right here. Though, this one kicks my ass at Scrabble. You can't have everything.

Tomorrow

I had my manager add two more hours to my shifts this week, so I'll be working 1pm to 7pm tomorrow and Wednesday and 10am to 4pm on Friday. Sunday I am going to keep at 4 hours I think. I planned out my meals in the e-tools tracker. I have 29 points down so far, and I'll probably have some kind of snack in there somewhere, but I don't know what yet. Here's what I have down:

Breakfast:
Smoothie with light soy milk, banana, frozen peaches: 1 pt
2 eggs, basted in 1 tsp canola oil: 5 pt
2 Jennie O turkey sausages: 2 pt (the fresh ones are lower points than the frozen ones btw, and I like them a bit better)
4 gummy vitamins: 1 pt

Lunch:
Chicken salad (2 oz canned chicken, 1 T light mayo, 1 T pickle relish, 1 t dijon mustard, 1 t olive oil) sandwich on light whole wheat bread with lettuce: 6 pt
Clementine: 0 pt
Sugar free lime Jell-O with canned mandarin oranges: 0 pt

Dinner:
Stir fry with 3 oz chicken breast, 1 cup broccoli, 1/4 red bell pepper, 1 T soy sauce, 1/2 t sesame oil, 1 tsp ground ginger, 1 tsp cornstarch: 4 pt
1/2 cup brown rice: 3 pt
1 cup light soy milk: 1 pt

Dessert:
1 pumpkin brownie with 1/2 cup low fat frozen yogurt: 6 pt

I need to take the chicken breast out of the freezer now because it takes a long time to thaw in the fridge.

I will leave you with an amusing photo of my boyfriend and the cat.

Weigh in today

I have lost 0.4 pounds, bringing me to 145.4 lbs and a total loss of 3.2 lbs. It's been over a week since my last weigh in, since I had to switch from Friday meetings to Mondays. It's not a big loss, but I don't even feel like it's deserved because I went over my points the last two weeks (only by about 5 last week, but still). I'm going to do better this week.

I learned about this website from one of my friend's Facebook posts, Listia.com. I wanted to share it because I thought it was a great idea for those of us who are changing sizes frequently. (Just for the sake of full disclosure, I do get a small kick-back if you join through that link) Basically it's a free auction site. You "buy" and "sell" items for credits. You can either offer free shipping or have the buyer pay for shipping. I am planning to list some clothing items that barely got worn before I was too small for them, and use the credits toward "new" clothes when I need a new size. You get some free credits just for signing up, and for going through the tutorial, so I already got a free cute hot pink and white dress in my current size for 207 credits plus $3.00 shipping, and I received it very quickly too. I just think it's a well done site, and would be a useful site for my fellow bloggers.

Wth, ipod?!

Why in the hell would my shuffle just randomly delete all but about seven songs all by itself? It hasn't even been out of my purse since I went to Alaska. Could the airport x ray have wiped it, and if so, why did it spare Soft Cell and Richard Marx? I hate this stupid thing. I want to get another Creative player. That's what I get for buying electronics from a vending machine.

Going better

Yesterday was a little tough. I had a smoothie before I left for work, and an ounce of gouda and two huge strawberries on the way there. But then when I got there I was totally booked and didn't get to eat anything again until I left a little after 2. I sat at the bus stop and inhaled my chicken sandwich, two more huge strawberries, and a yogurt. Not even so much because I was hungry (though I was) but because I wanted that lemon pie I had packed.

It reminded me of when I was little and I'd stuff myself on dinner because I had to finish it if I wanted dessert. And I ALWAYS wanted dessert. I remember throwing up one Christmas eve when I was 9 because I'd been eating chocolate all day long. My aunt had molded some chocolates in the shape of teddy bears, trains, drums, and she'd put orange flavoring in them and set them all over my grandparents' house in candy dishes. Every time I walked by I took one or six. I don't even think it was emotional eating. I think I'm just wired that way. My parents didn't go to either extreme as far as sweets were concerned. We had normal amounts at regular intervals. But every time I had a chance to eat more, I would, and as much as possible. As if I would never see another piece of chocolate again. It didn't matter how many times I made myself sick. I sometimes took a cup of sugar, stirred in a packet of kool-aid, and then added water a few drops at a time until it reached a sludgey sort of consistency, and then I'd eat it with a spoon.

I don't think my parents had any idea how much sugar I really ate. I was never overweight until after college though, and I was generally pretty skinny until I was 11 or 12 at which I hit puberty and filled out to an average size. This prompted my parents and grandparents to think I was getting fat and make comments about my size, which backfired in the most spectacular way.

Today has been easier in that I haven't felt the same frantic need to eat my meals so I can get to my damn sweets already. I made a shake for breakfast with soy milk, chocolate whey protein, a frozen banana and a tablespoon of peanut butter. It was good and kept me full for a while. I was going to make grilled cheese for lunch, only to find that I had half a loaf of moldy @#$%& bread. I made a quesadilla instead and had it with an orange and a cinnamon roll pudding cup. I just ate my second to last lemon pie also. I have fish tacos and brussels sprouts planned for dinner, and some sugar free lime jell-o with mandarin oranges setting for after dinner.

Photos

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Results

The rest of my day went relatively well. I wound up buying roughly 40 lbs of groceries, which I then had to carry half a mile home. I did buy some cookies and cream frozen yogurt, and I did taste the yogurt before putting it away, but at least it wasn't a whole bowlful or anything. Baby steps.

Dinner was really good and quite satisfying for something lowish in carbs. Let me get something out there. I am not a fan of low carb diets. Not because I think they are bad for you or don't work. I think the human body can adapt to a wide variety of eating styles and low carb can be quite healthy, plus it also works much better for many people. I am not a fan because I am not really a meat eater in general, and I rarely eat red meat or pork products. Chicken, fish, low carb vegetarian sources and veggies do not make for a very satisfying meal for me.

The reason I make low carb dinners is for my boyfriend. He insists that he bloats up from eating carbs. He does. Because when he eats carbs it is in the form of an entire large bag of potato chips and a giant thick-breaded deli sandwich, or a value pack of pizza rolls and a box of Reese's Puff cereal. I wish I was kidding. I got tired of him bringing that stuff into the house nearly every night because having to see it and smell it for the 3-4 hours it took him to eat it (slowest eater ever too) drove me insane. I told him I'd be happy to make him dinner as it takes no more effort to make two portions than it does to make one. He said he would be ok with that except the dinners I make are "too carby" (my head almost imploded when he said that). We finally came upon the agreement that I would make dinner, and that I would not have to adhere to any strict carb limits or provide him a carb count for it so long as I did not include any fruits, starches or overly carby sauces in it. He still buys some junk food, but the frequency has been greatly reduced and I am much happier.

About half the time I will make myself a half cup of rice, pasta, or corn to mix in to whatever we are having, but I didn't do that for tonight's dinner because it was fairly pointy already. I sliced up a small zucchini, two Tofurkey Italian sausages, and about a cup of white mushrooms and sauteed them for a few minutes in 2 teaspoons of olive oil. Then I mixed in a cup of a marinara sauce from Trader Joe's with only 1 pt per serving, and a half cup of part skim shredded mozzarella. I transferred it into a loaf pan, sprinkled the top with another 1/4 cup of mozzarella and about a half tablespoon of parm. I threw it in the oven for about 20 minutes at 350 degrees. Half of the pan came out to 13 pts. It also provided one healthy oil, 1 serving of dairy, and 3 servings of vegetables. It was really hearty and yummy. I didn't even miss the fact that it didn't have pasta in it.

After dinner I decided to finally use that box of brownie mix I had had for six months and try out some pumpkin brownies. I could only find the large cans of pumpkin at the store. I didn't know how much I was supposed to use, but I think I may have used too much. They are sort of cakey and fudgey at the same time, and taste quite strongly of pumpkin. It's more of a vegetable-y taste than a pumpkin pie taste, but I've decided that's ok. The mix made 20 servings at 3 pts each, so I measured the batter into 20 cupcake liners and baked them for half an hour.

I ate the first one right out of the oven with a half cup of cookies and cream low fat frozen yogurt, and I have no complaints on how it tasted at all. But it was really crumbly and sort of stuck to the liner a bit. So after they cooled off all the way I had another one to make sure the liner came off cleanly. It did. Crisis averted. I saw one more that was quite a bit smaller than the others, so I ate that one too and I counted 2 points for it. Now I am satisfied that the wrappers come off easily and they are all about the same size, so I can freeze the rest and enjoy them in much smaller quantities in the future. Preferably re-heated with frozen yogurt, because that really hit the spot.

Tomorrow I work from 10am to 2pm. I have about an hour commute each way so I'm going to bring my lunch to eat after work on the bus. I'm going to try very hard to stick to 29-31 points for the next three days because I have found it to work better if I don't eat a bunch of weeklies at least a day or two before weigh in. I only have like 17 left anyway. Here's my meal plan for tomorrow:

Breakfast-
Smoothie made with light soy milk, 1 banana and 1 cup frozen mango chunks = 1 pt
Low carb yogurt (I like them better than the fat free light ones and they have the same points) = 2 pts
4 childrens' gummy vitamins shaped like dinosaurs = 1 pt

Lunch-
Chicken salad sandwich made with light whole wheat bread, 2 oz canned chicken, 1 T light mayo, 1 t dijon mustard, 1 t olive oil, romaine lettuce = 6 pts
1 C strawberries = 0 pts
1 oz. reduced fat smoked gouda = 2 pts
1 baby lemon pie = 4 pts

Dinner-
1 C steamed cauliflower = 0 pts
3 oz. cooked shrimp = 2 pts
1/2 C corn = 2 pts
1/4 C Philly Cooking Cream Santa Fe flavor = 3 pts
1 t canola oil = 1 pt


After Dinner-
1 pumpkin brownie = 3 pts
1/2 C cookies and cream frozen yogurt = 3 pts
1 T sugar free chocolate syrup = 0 pts

This come out to 29 points and includes just over 2 servings of dairy, 2 tsp healthy oils, 1 multivitamin, 9 servings of fruits and vegetables, 5 oz. of lean protein, 2 servings of whole grains (3 if you count the corn), and 10 points worth of desserts. I think I did ok. Now I just have to stick to it.