Weight Loss Jars - Have I lost my marbles?

Whenever I've lost weight in the last 2 decades it's with someone else acting as a cheerleader. I've worked out with a personal trainer, joined a weight loss group at work, done weight loss challenges with my friends and joined Weight Watchers. All these methods have worked because I've been accountable to someone. 

Our move to Singapore changed a lot of things for me. I no longer have access to Weight Watchers meetings, I don't work and while I do have friends here none of them need to lose weight. I did take a few personal training sessions but at $80 SGD or $61.50 USD a pop that starts to get pretty expensive. It's not easy to justify $123 USD a week for twice a week sessions when there's a perfectly good gym in our condo building and plenty of walking trails a short train ride away. So what's the alternative? Working out on my own is a necessity that I'm trying to figure out but in the meantime I figured some visual inspiration would help give me a kick in my pants.

Enter a hundred plus images from Pinterest all showing these very cool Weight Loss Jars. They're easy to make and can be as colorful or classic as you like. This is what I created last night from stuff I had in the house.

The recipe is simple:

Take 2 containers- mason jars, acrylic cylinders, glass vases - whatever tickles your fancy. I have used square polycarbonate canisters.

Label the 1st - Pounds to Lose

Label the 2nd - Pounds Gone

Fill the 1st container with as many marbles as pounds you need to lose. I got these beautiful marbles at Daiso (a $2 SGD Japanese store in Singapore). You can use buttons, pebbles, lego pieces, erasers, pompoms - again whatever tickles your fancy. 

And that's it! Lose a pound, move your marble from Container 1 to Container 2. 

You can't tell from my pic but I would like to lose about 15 pounds. Will I get there? Here's hoping!! In any case I will have some colorful imagery to cheer me on. 

Oh, and one more thing - I plan to keep my containers on the dining table since that's where I sit and eat most of my snacks. You could put yours in a more obvious place - the kitchen perhaps? Or how about next to your snack cupboard? I have a teeny-tiny kitchen with zero free counter space so unfortunately those aren't an option for me. 

Let me know if you decide to use any fun containers and if this tip works for you!! 

 Cheers,

A

Didn't I write about this before?

Have you ever had that moment where you step on your weighing scale and think - wait a minute, that just can't be right!! I used to blame it on "that time" of the month but now almost in my mid 40s "that time" doesn't come around quite as often. It is what it is ~ eating my 6 year old sons leftovers, too many treats, mindless snacks, and definitely not enough exercise. It is a little sad when you're asked the question ~ did you just have a baby and your answer is ~ Yes, 6 years ago!! 


I have been fighting the good fight for the past 30 odd year. As a fairly inactive teen I thought I was pleasantly plump but little did I realize how quickly what's cute as a teen can be jarring as a grown up. In all my years of dieting and exercise I have tried the Atkins Diet, joined Nutrisystem and Weight Watchers, gone sugar free chocolate free, gluten free. I have never starved myself - I love food way too much for that, but I have definitely been tempted to try diet pills.

Luckily commonsense won out and I used a food diary and joined a whole bunch of exercise classes to lose the pounds. All of this occurred when I was 28, and 30, and 32, and 35, and 40, and most recently 42. Since then we left the comfortable lifestyle of Dallas to move to sunshine filled Singapore for the Hubs work. An adventure ~ yes, a more active day to day lifestyle ~ yes, a thinner me ~ No.

Blame it on the multitude of cuisines out here, the heat, the lack of cheap gym options and personal trainers but in reality it comes down to one word ~ Malaise. I need to shake off the inertia of my day to day life and revisiting this blog is part of it. 

So welcome to my journey - Part Deux. Let's get to know each other as I chat about weight loss, parenting, trailing spouses and potential career changes. It's time to begin again!! 

Food Challenge - Final Week

Dumdadadumdumdumdumdumdumdum dumdadadumdum-dumdumdum (Hummed to the theme of the Lone Ranger)

And the numbers for the 4th and Final week of the Food Challenge are:

Groceries: 28.35
Lunch Out: 30.50
Total: 58.85
Amount Left: 6.14

Our month-long Food Challenge and I am thrilled to announce that we made it with a few dollars to spare! Nowhere near my grand plans of saving at least $50 to send to the food banks but at least we didn’t have any overage. This was definitely a lot harder than we expected and this past week I had to make a conscious effort to deter our eating out. If you’ll notice in our final week’s numbers though Lunching-Out number was definitely on the higher side due to an unexpected get together with the in-laws.

We usually meet them for lunch on most weekends we’re both in town and usually meet somewhere halfway between our two homes. We usually meet at a couple of restaurants our niece loves but this time since we were running errands all morning we met somewhere completely different. Talk about a disaster – food that I wouldn’t even call mediocre, and prices that were more than average did not make for a happy couple. This is one restaurant that we shall not be visiting again. We love eating out but are realizing more and more that unless we have heard really good things about a restaurant we’re unlikely to try something too far off the beaten path. In these days of flavor and value consciousness ~ mediocrity in restaurant food is no longer an acceptable compromise.

To get back on topic ~ with just $6 and change left at the end of the month our food bank donation needs to get rounded up. For this month’s donation we have chosen Feeding America as the recipient of our monies. They are a truly fantastic group and we know our donation will be put to full use.

Lessons Learnt:

1. We are going to work on coming up with a more realistic grocery budget. $300 just won’t cut it in the long term. Look for my next post for more on that topic.
2. We love the idea of donating our grocery savings to a food bank. While the Hubs and I need to discuss this further so far the plan is to alternate our donations between Feeding America and Midday Meal. I’ll set up a running total ticker on the side-bar to keep y’all posted on the number.

P.S. I do admit ~ when Sunday rolled around all I could think about was going to Starbucks for my favorite Chai Latte. It’s my own little luxury that I hadn’t indulged in in-a-while. Did I? You betcha ~ but with a $2 off coupon that cut the price in half. Hmmm maybe I have learnt something this past month after all!

Taking Care of the Ladies

Late last year we lost a friend in our circle to Cancer. Since then we've all become more aware of our own mortality and have been a fair bit more proactive in getting our regular physicals and check-ups done. I received a clean bill of health a few weeks ago but a friend of mine had to go through a trying time to get hers.

She ~ like most women out there ~ is more than a bit lax when it comes to doing monthly breast exams. These are key to finding and getting any potential lumps checked out before its too late. Jen (not her real name) went a few months without examining herself and in her physical exam her doc found a lump that he thought needed investigating.

A mammogram and a few more tests later Jen's been given the all clear. With that bit of good news she's been emailing and calling all her friends to remind them to keep doing the self-examinations. She suggested - and I'm adopting this - that we put an Appointment on our monthly web based or pin-up calendars to get us into a regular routine. Now I don't know about you, but I've never been quite sure how to go about the actual exam. Some really good websites for information on this are listed below:

Mayo Clinic
WebMD
American Cancer Society

Who should do self-exams? All women over the age of 20. And once you hit the big 4-0 it's time to talk to your doc about yearly mammograms and more. Being proactive is the only way to take care of the Ladies. We all are, or will be - daughters, wives, girlfriends, friends, mothers, aunt, and grandmothers. If we don't take care of ourselves we will never be able to take care of all the people we love and care about. So please spread the word - Take Care of the Ladies.

Food Tracking - End of Week 3

So to come back from the earlier week we had a pretty darned good Week 3. Both the Hubs and I packed & took lunch almost every day this week. Getting creative with a mix of leftovers, sandwiches, salads, fruits and nuts we managed to eat both frugally and healthfully without the same ol' menu everyday. Of course all of this involved a fair amount of prep work which we usually did the evening before so that we weren't rushing around like headless chickens in the morning. We even managed to keep dining out to just one fun-filled evening - yummy chicken biryani followed by a movie and our usual Poker night. We may just be becoming a little hooked on the game! Thankfully the stakes are quite low so win or lose all our friends have an awesome time! We do have to try & bring some additional friends into the game soon though... or should I say - some new bakras?

A fairly good numbers week:

Groceries: 6.08
Lunch Out: 20.85
Dinner: 11.00
Total: 37.93
Amount Left: 64.99

So 1 week to go and .. .drumroll.... we have almost $65 left to spend!! We should definitely make it with change to spare to donate to the food banks.

Six Word Mini-Memoirs

Summing up life in 6 words or less….

Snug jeans. Need exercise. Food diary.
Weekend’s here. Nap needed. Miss chocolate.
Need a change. Writing, new career?

Care to share your 6-words?

The First Temptation of Ash

Talk about a One-Two punch! Today was my 4th Sugar-Free Day which (unfortunately for me) coincided with my weekly Fasting Day. By now you know what Sugar-Free Me entails but Fasting Me is an entirely different ball game. Fasting Me eats fruits, nuts, yoghurt & drinks milk for Breakfast, Lunch & Snack-Time. Real Food is allowed at Dinner but it’s got to be vegetarian.

So imagine my poor deprived senses being subjected to the wafting smells of Bar-B-Que Turkey, Sausage and Beef. My eyes driven crazy with the mounds of Mashed Potatoes, Creamy Coleslaw and Crusty Bread. My nose crinkling up as it caught a whiff of the chocolate chunks in the ginormous Chocolate Chip Cookies. It was sensory overload times a hundred in the luncheon seminar at work today!! Here was lil ‘ol me with my cupful of yoghurt with its sprinkling of raisins and there was TEMPTATION rearing its evil head!! Who do you think won?

Actually, me! I’m extremely kicked with myself for not succumbing so am heading home to reward myself with a flaky slice of Sourdough bread. Hmmm, could carbs be my new friend? Watch this space for Temptation Ash-Land Part 2.