Yummy beef and potato chowder

Fall is stew and soup time for me! I made a great soup yesterday and need to finish the leftovers

Beef (cheap cuts), chopped into fine chunks, about a pound. You can use ground beef too if you prefer
A medium onion, chopped
5 large potatoes, grated
1/2 cup corn
1/2 cup peas
1/2 cup carrots
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 cup sour cream
1 cup half and half
2 cups water
Garlic
Worcestershire sauce
dried parsley

Cook the beef until brown the onions until translucent, add garlic, dried parsley and a dash of Worcestershire sauce. Add the water, carrots, potatoes, and mushroom soup, and cook until done. Then I add the other veggies and the half and half and sour cream. Salt and pepper to taste.

Progress

I fell off the wagon big time as far as recording my food. I don't know quite what happened, I got busy and sidetracked.

It seemed as if I had a couple pounds weight loss, could be water fluctuation...but now I'm back right where I was, 215 pounds.

I think my free weight loss is over, and it was worth it. My sleep apnea, diabetes and hypertension are gone. I want to take off at least 50 more pounds though...I'm going to have to do this on my own.

White flour and sugar have to be completely out of my life. The sugar has been gone, but the white flour sneaks in.

White flour is the Devil

I admit it, I've done badly at recording and charting my food. But I have been trying to watch what I eat the past few days.

I discovered white flour does not work for me at all. I get gas and abdominal trouble big time.

I'll ban flour from my diet also and see how it works.

Healthy at any size?

Being fat in this culture is frickin' miserable.

But I don't doubt some can be healthy and fat...200, 250 pounds for the average female may not be a big problem as far as health. I see ladies weighing 230 or so who get around great, have none of the diseases of obesity and look and feel fabulous. Weight loss surgery isn't for them and an ethical surgeon wouldn't consider it, nor would insurance pay for it.

Those are the people who should preach and teach healthy at any size. The problem is when fat moves into morbid obesity...when you're hurting from the effects of obesity...then defining yourself as healthy moves into the realm of denial.

You move through life huffing and puffing, sweat pouring out of your pores as you negotiate a flight of stairs. You often have sleep apnea or diabetes or painful joints. If you don't have them yet, as the years go by into middle-age, you're primed to get these problems. Running is an impossibility, swimming mostly an embarrassment and biking simply doesn't work.

No fool, you know your job and romantic opportunities are more limited by your morbid obesity. Your quality of life undeniably suffers no matter how much confidence you manage to muster up.

You desperately try diet after diet. Your body wars with you. You try and try but it is as necessary and natural as drinking enough water to eat enough to maintain your weight. The prattle about healthy at any size is reduced to bullshit for the morbidly obese. Your life is undeniably cut short by your bulk.

Most small-sized people couldn't get up to 300 pounds plus if they tried. Their bodies simply won't allow them to carry that much weight. If we have the genotype where we can get that fat--it's damn near impossible to lose unless there is an actual famine, hunter gatherer style. Nowhere in the first world supports that sort of lifestyle. We are throwbacks, anachronisms that will die sooner because of the complications of our inherent metabolic disorders. Check out the Pima Indians.

Studies after studies along with boatloads of statistics tell us the only solid way to take weight off and keep it off if you're morbidly obese is weight loss surgery. Other methods work about as well as playing the lottery if you want to get rich.

So merely fat (such as Joy Nash and the like) can indeed be fine and healthy, but the line drawn between health and suffering complications of obesity is a gray one of varying widths. It's not for anyone else to tell anybody when and where it should be drawn.

Not losing weight

I've been stalled at around 213 pounds for at least a month.

It's time to get real. The first thing to do is to record every morsel I put in my mouth. I'll use fitday.com. Not that anybody visits, but I'll also write my food diary here to keep it honest.

With the DS, I can eat fat since I only digest 20% of it. I have to keep my protein intake high, as it's crucial and I only digest 50% of it. carbohydrates are the nutrients to watch. I hear whole grains and whole vegetable starches such as potatoes aren't bad, but refined and simple carbs such as white flour and sugar are the killers. I digest 60-80% of carbs, 90-100% of sugars.

I haven't been eating candy or cookies, but sandwiches and crackers have snuck into my diet, in what I thought were moderate amounts. They'll have to go. I'll keep modest amounts of potato in and maybe a little whole grain and monitor how it affects me.

I haven't had a lot of gas, but I notice it's increasing. Not enough to bother me terribly...but I see if cutting back on the carb makes any difference.

Here goes.

Fat people on television

I'm down a few pounds...I think my weight ups and downs are simply natural fluctuations. I think I should weigh only once a month. This will take some discipline, but is worth it I think. The first is good.

I looked at that show...can't recall the name. It's like the bachelorette with fat girls. More to Love, that's it. A lot of the women really weren't that fat. They were tall, 5'8" or 5'9" weighing in at around 190.

I'm 5'5". If I go with the five pounds per inch rule, their 190 would be my 170-175. I didn't really consider myself fat at that weight and wouldn't again.

I'm between 212 and 215 now and feel I've lost most of my fat mojo down to pleasingly plump. Those chicks who are miserable and said they felt as if they could never be loved or wanted because of their fat? Sheesh, how unrealistic is that?

Speaking of unrealistic. The kid got the Paul Blart: Mall Cop DVD and I watched alongside her. The movie was predictably terrible, but what struck me is it was basically a running joke on the dim witted fat guy.

Worst, the woman he fell for was more than skinny. She was a twig, a size 0 at most. This is what Americans consider normal. The fat guy got the prize when he got the skinny e.g. beautiful girl. They showed him married previously to a fat woman and she was all things bad and ugly. so even the fat guy won't consider a normal sized girl.

We hardly ever see images of normal sized people in the media unless they are characterized as zaftig or plump. The average normal size in America is size 12 or 14 and the fashion industry considers that plus sized. Something is wrong with this picture.

The skinny women on television irritate me. But the show where they have the fat people dancing is degrading. I can't watch it. The Diva show on Lifetime is good. That is one show with a fat heroine that I recommend.

Weight Gain Blues

I'm five and a half months out. I've lost 70 pounds. Recently, I've put back a few more, around five.

I don't quite know what to make of this. I'm leaning toward water weight gain. My joints are mildly swollen.

I am eating more, not a whole lot of carbs though. I'm eating more because my stomach is finally able to take in real food such as meat with sauces and other textured foods.

I don't think I'll panic at this point. I really want to lose at least at least another 25 pounds and more like 75. I'll up the protein and chalk it up to water weight due to RA inflammation. I'll keep weighing to keep track of it.

If the weight doesn't swing downwards again, I'll need to modify my diet. First thing would be to keep track of what I eat. Fitday.com is good for this, I hear. I'll keep you posted.