Big Lucky Winner!

Luxamart.com (Creative Commons-Flickr)

The winner of the $55 gift certificate to CSNstores.com is bcbeaveratheart!  Bcbeaver, click "contact me" in the right-hand column, send me an email and I will reply with your gift certificate code.

Thanks for playing, everyone!

Ted Williams' Story Makes Me Misty

It's all over the news about Ted Williams.  He's a recovering addict who lost everything on his way to rock bottom.  The former radio announcer has been clean for over two years.  He was panhandling at a traffic intersection with a cardboard sign that said he had a God-given Golden Voice when someone recorded video of Ted demonstrating that voice and telling a little of his story.  Then they posted the video on the internet.  Now he has job offers pouring in and is being interviewed on television almost daily, and is also reuniting with his 92 year-old mother after 20 years. 

I can't talk about it without getting teary-eyed.  He is so humble and so grateful for his new-found good fortune.  Homeless, when asked what he would like to do with income from the job he would choose, he said he wanted a home.  An apartment or a house where he could cook dinner... that chokes me up.  He is being offerered major announcing jobs and when asked what he wants, he comes up with something so simple and something that I take for granted every day.  I have a home, I have a place to cook dinner, and I have a safe and comfortable place to sleep at night.  And I have so many more things that I take for granted.  I live a low-key, fairly simple life, and sometimes I think about the bigger, better things I want.  But I neglect to give thanks for something that is so immensely significant: a home.  It's so easy to take that for granted but Ted Williams has reminded me that there are many, many people who don't have this.  They may bounce between the homes of friends and family, they may stay in shelters, or they may sleep in their cars or on the street.  I'm going to give thanks every day for my home.  And I wish Ted Williams continued sobriety and all the luck in the world.

December... Oops

I can't believe I let Christmas go by without wishing you a Merry Christmas... Merry Christmas!  I hope it was wonderful and full of love and joy.  That said, on to the progress notes: So you know how I  said one of the results of the hypnosis was that I felt like I had a little Good Health Fairy sitting on my shoulder giving me advice?  Well, apparently in the month of December I had her gagged.  Poor little thing.  I stopped listening to her.  The hypnosis doesn't do all the work for you, you have to follow-through on the advice: have a glass of water, take a walk, put some more veggies in that dish, etc.  And for God's sake put down the stinking frappucino! 

For a month full of homemade candy and cookies, I supposed it could have been worse.  I gained 4.8 lbs.  That puts me up 2.8 lbs from my starting weight.  Yikes.  So, I've taken the gag off the Good Health Fairy and she hit me over the head with her wand a couple times.  I'm not listening to her 100% but I'm letting her talk and taking more of her advice.  Most notably exercising.  I know that once a week is not sufficent exercise, but it's more than I had been doing.  And for the last three weeks I've worked out once a week.... the first week I hit the elliptical at the gym, and the other two weeks I went ice-skating. 

The long and short of it is that I've been struggling lately and I am so thankful for the Gastric Mind Band Therapy, because I think without it I would have gained alot more than 2.8 lbs in the last few months.

FTC disclaimer: Since I am blogging about the experience, the Gastric Mind Band service was provided at no charge.

There’s No Way In Hell I’m Giving Up

2010 was a year of trying and falling down for me, again and again and again. Sometimes I took longer than others to get back up. Sometimes I was tired for weeks on end with no motivation and took way too long to get back on track. But as I look back at the year I see the positive: I tried. I know didn’t try as hard as I could have, or for as long as I could have, but I did try. And I will continue to try. I truly believe I can beat this weight thing. This is a process, and if I am successful at it then I have a lifetime of maintaining a healthy weight to look forward to, and that will be work as well. So I am not going to let one measly year of false starts hold me back. There is no way in hell I am giving up.

Now, on to a summary of 2010 Shedding the Fat-Suit blog happenings. This year I…

• Learned that I blog the most when I have something to crow about. And continuing to blog helps me stay on track. So I need to blog more! 
• Was approached by companies to host giveaways, which made me feel like big stuff... And I was happy to share this good fortune with my readers.
• Was grateful to procure my first actual sponsor, therapist Julie Gibson. Not only is she advertising on my blog, she offered me Gastric Mind Band Therapy free of charge since I would be blogging about it. Awesome!
• Learned to do some repairs, replacing the keyboard on my laptop and rescreening some windows myself. Totally empowering.
• Went sugar-free and low-carb for at least six weeks. It was easier than I thought, and boy was I disappointed in myself when I quit. But I found out: 1) I can do it! and 2) that really I believe in moderation in all things. I don’t believe in restriction or in cutting huge parts of the food pyramid out of my diet.
• Started a recipes page;
• Reviewed the book Eat Fat Lose Fat;
• Lost steam in Weight Watchers and eventually quit. Too much counting, and honestly when you do the math, it's such a low-calorie program. I know there is value in it and many people are successful with WW. And I really enjoyed the meetings; the people were great. But I don’t think it’s for me.
• Posted 124 blog entries;
• Made it to 69 followers!  Thank you to each and every one of you who cruises by my little corner of the web;
• Posted seven original Liz recipes:
• MY FAVE RECIPE OF THE YEAR!  Liz’s Asian Balls o’ Meat (Low Carb Steamed Pork Dumplings)
• Crab Salad
• Low carb cream of mushroom soup
• Almond-meal Encrusted Baked Stuffed Chicken
• Thai-Inspired Peanut Butter Noodles
• Shiritaki Noodle and Winter Vegetable Extravaganza
• Baked Crab Rangoon
• Tried 11 recipes from other sources: 
• Pineapple Angelfood Cake with Strawberries
• Roasted Brussel Sprouts
• Easy Two-Ingredient Marinade
• Beet Salad with Oranges, Walnuts and Blue Cheese
• Kale Chips
• Kale and Cannelini Soup
• Black Bean Salad with Oranges, Red Onions and Cilantro
• Coconut Jasmine Rice with Green Onions and Cilantro
• Homemade Almond Milk
• Steamed Pork Dumplings
• Cabbage Stroganoff

And in 2010 I gained and gained and gained. Maybe I’ll try fewer dessert recipes in the New Year…

So now it’s 2011. I’ve found that New Year’s resolutions are bad luck for me, so I’m not making any. But I am making plans. This year I plan to blog more consistently, eat more vegetables, exercise more, and not beat myself up when I fall off-track. I’ll just do what I proved I’m good at in 2010: get up, dust myself off, and try again.

Happy New Year!