Category Archives: weight loss

Weight loss is a lot like renovation

As I proceed to demolish our bathroom, I was thinking about how weight loss and renovation are very similar.

 

First, you can think of remodeling versus renovating. Remodeling is losing a little bit of weight or starting a lifting program to get that little bit ready for summer.  Kind of like painting the walls in one of your rooms or getting a new couch to freshen up.

Then there is renovation. A full room remodel, which involves tearing down and building back up. A serious task that takes a long time.  Perhaps even daunting. At first you look at the big picture and think “Wow – there is a lot of work to be done here.”  Like me at 250 pounds

Then you think about what you need to do and what approach to take.  Keep the floors? New floors?  Tear out the tub? Refinish the tub? It’s all about personal style.  Weight loss would be What plan do I follow?  Should I do low carb, low fat, running, walking?

Then there is the actual start of the project. You get your tools and go. Once you start demo, there is no going back. Weight loss: Tomorrow is the day. I am starting this Monday. I am joining WW. Now that I have paid for X program, I had better do it.

At first it is exciting and change is big.  Whee! I am on a new diet plan, it’s exciting! Fast results the first week, it’s so awesome!

Then you reach that stage where things get ugly before it starts to get better. And you realize that it’s going to be a long while before things get back to normal.   I hate this. I just want to eat X. This is taking forever and I want the weight to be gone now!

Real progress starts to happen and you feel excited again. Wow, compliments from my friends and coworkers keeps me motivated.

Then you hit a bump you weren’t expecting (hello uneven floors) and have to change the plan.  Hmmm… I have plateaued. What I was doing isn’t working. Maybe time to change up the exercise or how I am eating?

 

As you near the end, you can see the finish line, but little things seem to keep popping up and taking longer than you expected. Will I ever get to goal? Why is this last 10 pounds taking so long?!?! Come on!

Then when you finish your project and are so pleased with the results and proud of all the work you did. And you love just being in the room and using it.   Woo Hoo! I hit goal! I love what I see in the mirror.  Being active is great! I love these new smaller clothes. Shopping is fun again!

 

It is a complete change in life to lose weight. You must do the full renovation to have permanent lifestyle changes to not only get the weight off, but keep it off.

An article on what research says about losing weight and keeping it off

How is that for World’s Longest Title?  I am sure this will get me a lot of traffic, too.  This kind of title does that.

I was reading one of my favorite blogs by Chris Kresser.  He writes quite smartly about weight loss and, in particular, he deals with a lot of clients who struggle with weight loss and system imbalances.  Many of these people have tried all different diets as well, from Paleo to low-carb to low fat, etc., and just are stuck.  One thing I like about him is that while he tends towards Paleo style eating, he is not averse to carbs in the form of potatoes and some things like rice if you can tolerate it (same with dairy).  He keeps an open mind.  You know there is a lot of diet dogma out there and people will defend their eating style to the death, so it’s refreshing to come across someone like that.

 

Anyway – way off track there.  Chris also does a podcast which is quite interesting and covers a lot of different health aspects.  He happened to have another researcher who specializes in the brain and obesity (and blogs about it here) on his show who I also enjoy reading by the name of Stefan Guyenet.  He is an obesity researcher and his posts are quite thoughtful on the subject.

Here is a link to the podcast transcription. You can either read the transcript or listen to the podcast.  (I like reading because I can skim to parts that interest me the most).

He talks a bit about setpoint and the difficulty in maintaining weight loss.  Here is this quote “

So, when you lose a bunch of weight, one of the things that happens when you’re below where your body wants you to be is you’re hungry.  You don’t get full with the same amount of food.  Your body just wants you to keep eating and eating to replenish that body fat.  You know, it’s like if you skip a few meals, you’re hungrier when you do start eating again.

I find this interesting because I used to be able to eat less calories and not be hungry. Now I get very hungry. These are the times I wonder if my body wants to be a lot heavier than it is. And I am still in the overweight category, too.

Stephan also has a theory about food palatability going along with obesity. And I think we get that with how addicting certain types of food can be, like sweets or whatever.

The basic idea is that food, depending on its specific properties, has a certain motivational value associated with it and also a certain enjoyment value associated with it.  The motivational value is called reward, and the enjoyment value is called palatability.  Just to illustrate that, I’ll give you a little example.  You’re in a restaurant.  You just had a big meal, a really nice meal.  You’re full.  And then the waiter brings out a plate with a warm chocolate brownie with vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce drizzled on it, and they put it right in front of you, and the smell is wafting up your nose.  What are you going to do?  Are you going to eat it, or are you not?  And if you don’t eat it, how hard was it?  You wanted to eat it.  Or if you don’t like brownies, put something else in there that you do enjoy.  But what happens if that waiter had brought out a plate of steamed, plain potatoes and put it on your plate?  You’re stuffed after this meal, and they bring out steamed potatoes with nothing on them.  No salt, nothing.  Are you going to dive into those potatoes?  Of course not.

It’s nice to see researchers actually working on this and not just saying you have no willpower.  There is also a link to a diet motivator plan called Dan’s Plan, just to let you know.  I won’t include the link here because it is in the podcast, but it has some free tools that you might find interesting the keep your behaviors motivating. There is also a paid option, but I didn’t click on that, so I can’t say much about it.

Anyway, I just thought some of you might enjoy this article.  It also talks at length about how sleep  (or lack thereof) affects weight loss as well.

 

Also, the site is really a gold mine of health info in the podcasts, so dig around there.

“How We Did It”

You just never know what can happen to you when you have a blog.  I get tons of pitches to sell this and that or review this and that.  I am usually pretty picky about that stuff and I don’t do most of them.

Anyway, I received a nice item in the mail this week. How We Did It. Why so special?  I am it it!  😀

I was contacted by Nancy earlier this year.  She was writing a book on weight loss success stories and wanted to talk about me counting calories and logging my food.  I was very honored that she would ask me to take part in this.  The book was just published and she sent me a copy.

A nice inscription.  Thank *you* Nancy; I feel very privileged to be part of this!

 

I like that this book doesn’t prescribe any set diet or plan to follow. What it does is feature people who have lost weight and all the different ways they did it.

My section:

I think this is one of the better representations of my whole story, which is quite nice.

The book is very inspirational and has several big time internet “stars”, such as Roni and Jimmy Moore.

It’s definitely an ispirational book and truly showcases that there is no one single way to lose and keep off weight.  Everyone in this book did it their own way, and they are all different!

I think I will do a giveaway of this book (a new copy) in January to kick off the New Year.

Deep thoughts on will power.

It’s bagel day!  I wasn’t sure we were going to be able to bike, as it looked like it was threatening rain.  However, we went anyway.  Here is my bike all locked up at the bagel place.

In the past, we didn’t really lock up our bikes at this place very often, but now I am so paranoid after mine got stolen that I want to lock it up in our garage!  Of course, we all know the lock didn’t stop the thieves before….

Anyhoo, I had a sunflower bagel.  So good!  I love bagels with nuts and seeds and things in (and on) them.

We were actually having an interesting discussion today at breakfast about losing weight and will power.  Did any of you catch that show on the other night on ABC about the brain stimulator for weight loss?

In a nutshell, it is a procedure for people who are obese and have failed at all other attempts at weight loss, including gastric bypass surgery.  The woman on the show had the stimulator implanted and it followed her progress over the course of a year while they tried to control her appetite and fullness sensations.  She said that all her cravings were gone and she did not obsess about food anymore.  However, she did not lose any weight in a  year.  What I found most interesting is that she went into a metabolism study chamber for a week and during that time, lost 10 pounds.  Was this because she was taken out of her food environment and was unable to snack and such as before?

So many people say “Just stop eating so much” when talking to obese people.  It’s not really just a matter of stopping eating.  The more and more I ponder upon this, I feel like it is the body/brain actually pushing us to eat, even when we aren’t hungry.   (I think this is a totally different thing than the emotional eater who is trying to bury some past trauma.)  The results of this are just manifesting now in society because of the easy availability of food, and poor nutritious quality food at that.  It’s not a normal thing, more like an illness or disease process – and certainly not always mental or just being lazy.

And yet, it can be conquered without heroics or medical intervention.  If I take myself for example – I struggled for so long with weight and just couldn’t keep it off, and now  I have lost and kept off over 100 pounds for 2 years.

There are still those days where I feel driven to eat – absolutely driven, even if I am not hungry.  It’s not really emotional, either.  The thoughts pop up while I am working, or watching TV, or while biking.  That’s just not what genetically ‘normal weight’ people are like.  It takes an enormous amount of control to not chow my way through a box of cereal or use a spoon in the nut butter jar.  Sometimes I give in.    I wonder why is it that I have control over this impulse (at least for now) that not a lot of people have.   And how long will I have it?  Will it just get to be too tiring after a while, like it does for the majority of people who lose weight?  The vigilance can really be tiring at times as it is 24/7/365.

(BTW – I am not asking these questions as an egotistical way for you to say “Yes, you can do it.”  Just bringing myself up for example.)

When I hurt my back and was on the Vicodin and Flexeril, I had no appetite and absolutely no desire for food.  Something about those medications squashed whatever portion of my brain it is that drives me to eat.  As soon as I went off of those and back to plain old ibuprofen, my appetite came back.  If there was a pill or something to take to make that feeling go away, I wonder if I would take it.

If you have a chance to sit and watch the whole show, all the video clips are on this site.  There is another interesting story of a sleep eater as well.  That has to be even worse, I think.

You know, I think I am going to just let you all chew on this instead of posting more eats  for the day LOL!

Question:  What are your thoughts on will power, and is it different for morbidly obese people?

Bagels and mastering long-term weight loss

Full 8 hours of sleep last night!  Guess I need to bike 40 miles in order for that to happen.  Legs felt decent, so we went ahead and bike to Panera Bread.  I forgot my jacket, and it was indeed very cold in there.  Oh well, that meant hot coffee with my french toast bagel.

Paper reading and chatting commenced.  Do you ever feel like your brain is all over the place sometimes?  Mine is.

Biked home and settled in for a day’s work.  Busy right from the start, too.

Lunch break and I wanted protein!  Chicken curry salad.

This is a tasty salad.  We went grocery shopping last night and are overrun with produce.  Not a bad thing.

Not sure if it is a hold over from yesterday’s ride, but I have been kind of hungry today.  I broke a little earlier than normal for a snack of iced coffee and some Lindt chocolate (touch of sea salt).

Good!  I was hoping to make it to dinnertime, but my tummy was growling a couple hours later, so I had some blueberries.

Frustrating work afternoon.  I was doing a 15 minute report (which takes about 3x as long to actually transcribe).  It was an admit for a newborn and the doctor began switching back and forth between he/she for the baby during the report.  There is no way to tell which sex a newborn is, as there is no name given (and that doesn’t always help).  So, I had to send it through with a bunch of discrepancy marks.  Funny how the doctors get irritated at the transcriptionsists like we are supposed to be mind readers. 🙄

I read an interesting article today on Tips for Mastering Long-term Weight loss. Evaluating how many of these I do:

  1. Learn to love exercise – done.
  2. Count calories the right way (quality, not quantity) – Mostly do.
  3. Fill up with fiber (whole grains, fruits, and veggies) – Done
  4. Control carbs – I do fairly well with this.
  5. Downsize your portions – Done
  6. Eat protein and take a multivitamin – Done and done.
  7. Eat dairy – Oh yes, do that for sure.
  8. Weigh yourself carefully.  This actually was confusing, because it said to weigh carefully, but then to use the clothing test.  – I am not weighing myself this month, although I would like to right now.
  9. Use a food diary – I use daily plate.
  10. Have a healthy attitude – I do fairly well at this, but could always improve.

Am I the only one that has trouble with using clothing as a weight barometer?  I find I can wear the same pair of pants with a wide weight range.

I was so hungry for dinner, so I needed something stat.  I had a ginger Altoid to keep from nibbling (this is working really well, btw).

Cheese omelet anyone?  Yum!  With some elderly brussels.

I need to work some more tonight.  This is starting to get hard, I have to say.  Why can’t I get paid (enough) to just blog my little heart out?  😉

Snack of some granola later, I believe, once I finish work.

The Scale versus The Injury

Happy Earth Day!  The malt was quite good that John brought me last night.  It was made with maple soft serve and malt powder!  I am really sorry that I know how good that combo is….

I went to bed around 10 pm last night, hoping to get extra sleep, but I was up before 6!  I just wonder if my body doesn’t need 8 hours?

Anyway, I got up early and started working so I could finish up early today if possible.  Made a pot of coffee with some fresh roasted beans:

I am sorry that you cannot smell these.  Then cooked up some protein waffles topped with a mix of pumpkin, honey, ricotta cheese and a few dried cranberries.

This was good, although I do like my topping to be a little moister.  Yogurt works better for this instead of the ricotta, I think.

I imagine you all are curious as to how my herniated disk and lack of normal activity has affected the scale.  I was curious as well.  As you have seen on my blog, I am not restricting what I eat all that much.  Not always for lack of trying, though.  I am eating a little less, but still have my snacktacular days *yesterday, cough, cough*, just like normal.  I thought my appetite was going down because of lower activity, but I think it was my prescription pain meds.  Once I stopped those and switched to plain old ibuprofen, my regular appetite returned.

So here is the interesting thing.  All of March, I did my normal hard workouts and lost 1 pound for the whole month.  I have lost 2 pounds since I injured myself and barely moving.  The irony of this is not lost on me.  (Irony has been in my vocabulary a lot lately….). John said the weight loss gods have a sense of humor.  I thought it was a fluke, but I weighed in 3 days in a row and the lower weight stayed.  It can’t possibly be muscle atrophy in only 2 weeks, can it?  I’ll take it, though!  My cruise weight is all gone now – yay!  I’ll be curious as to what happens over the next few weeks.  I have not gone running in 14 days and no biking in 13 days (other than the stationary at the gym this week).

Lunch time!  I forgot I had bought a cucumber this week, so that went onto the plate.  With some tuna salad.

I decided on the pear after waffling between that and a kiwi.  I almost had both LOL!

Got back to work and busted out all my lines to finish up early today.  So, I had to make the afternoon lattes…..

Then I took a walk.  Went a few slow blocks and enjoyed the sunshine!

Did a quick and easy stock dinner tonight.

I cooked the broccoli on the griddle pan to our new grill!  That was pretty cool.

Stopped at the rental house to get the lawnmower and have John help me with a couple things, then back home to relax.  I am snacking on some dates with nut butter tonight and a cup of tea while I write this post.

I don’t have anything earth-shattering (har har) to say about Earth Day.  So instead, I will leave you with some photos I took today on my walk:

Waffle Wednesday!

** Oatmeal on The Go giveaway ends tomorrow! *

It’s Wednesday!  Almost done with the work week, yay 😀  Too cold to bike, so I drove out to the gym for the requisite lifting session!  I warmed up on the treadmill and then hit the weights:

  • Dumbbell walking lunges:  3 sets of 8 (each leg) with 20# DBs
  • Barbell chest press:  3 sets of 8 at 55#
  • Chin ups:  3 sets of 2 (Woo Hoo!!)
  • Barbell squats:  3 sets of 8 at 85#
  • Military Press:  1 set of 10 with 15# DBs, 2 sets of 8 with 20# DBs
  • Seated Row:  3 sets of 8 at 70#
  • Bench Dips:  3 sets of 10
  • Reverse crunches:  3 sets of 15
  • 1-arm Dumbbell snatch:  1 set of 10 with 15# DB, 2 sets of 8 with 20# DB
  • Good Mornings:  3 sets of 10 with 35# bar

Note that I did the chin ups out of normal order because someone was at the squat cage.  Well, wouldn’t you know it- I was able to do 3 sets of 2!  I don’t know if it was the delay or what.  Normally I like to do those first because they are very hard and I need all my strength to do them.  Of course on the last one, I said “Come on!” which probably helped me (and made people look 😀 )

As you know, Wednesday is traditionally bagel day, but since we went out yesterday, we stayed home today.  So, I decided to have Waffle Wednesday a la Susan:

There was a comment question yesterday that I thought warranted a longer answer:

Just curious — is this what you ate when you were trying to lose weight, or were you at a lower calorie amount then? In other words, did you have to go lower to lose? I actually am trying to lose weight right now.   😳  A couple years ago, I was at a  low calorie count of around 1200 per day.  I lost weight, but I was not exercising like I do now.  There is no way I could eat that 1200 calories these days and still have an arm attached to my body by the next day because I would eat it in my sleep.  I increased my calories as I increased my exercise, and still lost.  Now, the scale sits there, but part of that is just due to over snacking on nuts!  (The nuts have been put up high, so you haven’t seen them in pictures as of late.)  I have been somewhat hesitant about putting concrete calories up anymore, because the amount of calories a person needs to lose is really personal, and the amount I eat may be too much for one person and not enough for another.  Plus, not every single things gets documented, particularly if I snack after posting. I am still trying to figure that part out as I have become more athletic over the past year.  Becoming fit doesn’t always go hand in hand with weight loss on the scale.  If I had the funds, I would consult a sports nutritionist.

Lunch time!

Have another look:

What is that, you ask?  It’s plain greek yogurt mixed with protein powder, apple sauce, cinnamon, 1/4 cup of cooked rice topped with almonds.  This was quite good and had some nice texture differences in it.

Afternoon latte was paired with this:

Country Choice Organics soft baked cookie.  100 calories!  This plus my latte is a good example of a 210 calorie snack.  Perfect for mid afternoons.

Using up the rest of the pork we cooked the other day.  Pretty much done now (good thing, because I want something else LOL).  With BBQ sauce.  Cantaloupes were on sale, so I got one and it was good.

It turned out to be quite nice today, although a little windy, so I took a post prandial walk.  Here is my spring flag that I put outside.

Purty.  1/4 mile from our house is an ice cream shop.  I spied the opening date today:

Surprisingly, we don’t go here too much because they don’t have the yogurt that I love.

Here is tonight’s protein powder/ricotta snack that I made up ahead of time.  Almost like a cheesecake with the graham cracker.

Fruit and veggie challenge today:

F:  1 serving of blueberries, 1/2 cup applesauce, 1 cup cantaloupe

V: 1 serving of carrots, 1 cup of broccoli

I am normal

Happy Monday!  Waving ‘hi’ to all the new readers – there have been a ton over the past week!

It felt really good to hit the gym today.  I did a power lifting workout!

  • Chin ups:  2 sets of 2, 1 set of 1
  • Squats:  3 sets of 8 with 85# barbell

Superset:

  • Stationary lunge:  3 sets of 8 with 20# DBs
  • Lat pull down:  3 sets of 8 at 60#

Superset:

Superset:

  • Decline sit ups: 3 sets of 10 (hard!!)
  • Dumbbell pliet squat:  3 sets of 10
  • Lower back extension:  3 sets of 10 at 100#

Then I rode the stationary bike for 30 minutes.  My legs were pretty tired, so no running today.

I was pretty hungry for a filling breakfast, so I made pumpkin custard oats!

With the egg whites added, it was just like pumpkin pie with oats!  Nom, nom.

So, when I referenced the other day about how meeting all of the 100+ pound losers last week, I ended up learning something I was not expecting.  I am normal!

We all walk around with the baggage of our entire lives, and that is what colors our view of ourselves.  I cannot erase the fact that I grew up overweight or spent the majority of my adult life as an overweight person.  That is who I was and when I think of myself, that is part of the package.

It really struck me in the lobby of the hotel when we were waiting to go to the taping that you couldn’t even tell that anyone had been morbidly obese just by looking at them.  We all looked like regular anypeople.  I’m not sure what I was expecting.  Maybe because I feel like I have a neon sign above me that says I lost 100 pounds that I assume others will know that about me when they see me.  Even a perfect stranger.  How weird is that?  Even during the taping, it was so hard to look at everyone and really believe they looked like their before pictures at any time, and yet the proof was right there.  After we had gotten moved to the 2nd hotel after taping, I was in the lobby changing into boots to brave the snow.  There was a woman there who asked what we were all there for.  I explained about it, and she said I looked great and you wouldn’t know it.  That really, really made me look differently about myself.  I look normal!

Maybe now I will be able to see that for myself.

I’ll skip over lunch and the snack and present to you my hughjass salad for dinner!

Typical BBQ sauce chicken (told you I was on a kick) with feta and almonds.  I really love that combo.  You can almost see the 3 clementines I had with dinner, too, on the side.  Also note it is getting lighter near dinner time, so the lighting will be improving for pictures – yay!

I finished up work early because we were so busy today.  I ended going shopping tonight and came home empty handed.  Don’t you hate it when you have a mission for something very specific and can’t find it anywhere?  That was me.  I did, however, come home with this:

And I came home to the smell of gumbo.  John started cooking that in preparation for our Mardi Gras dinner tomorrow.  Everyone got their beads??

Question:  Do you think you see yourself as others do?

Challenges in weight loss and maintenance

I was going to title this something like struggles in weight loss and maintenance, but I really want to focus on reframing that word.  

Debby wrote an eloquent post on this subject the other day, and she commented to me about how it was good to hear someone else with the same issues.

I get emails or comments from time to time about how I stay so focused and determined.  Here’s the secret – I struggle, too!  I really think being a successful loser and maintainer is understanding that you are going to face tough times and you won’t always win.  Put me around certain foods or in certain situations and I will face plant into enough food to make me uncomfortably full – even when that was not my plan.

Sometimes it is just the urge to let up and eat.  When that happens, I refer to it as the old me having a temper tantrum.

Old me:  I want to just eat without thinking about it.  It’s not fair that other people can eat food and not gain weight.  Why can’t I just eat what I want when I want?

Following cues from the Beck book, I try to reason with said self with things like:  You know you don’t need to eat 6 servings of cereal, 1 is enough.  Of course it isn’t fair, but you just have to accept that and move on.  You can eat whatever you want when you want, but you have to be prepared to weigh 250 pounds again.

The old me sounds pretty petulant, right?  That voice pops out from time to time and sometimes reasoning with it just doesn’t work.  It’s much easier to give in.  We’ve all been there.

I have learned that when I do give in, it isn’t the end of the world.  I won’t gain back 100 pounds with 1 day of bingeing.  I do seem to be able to stop it pretty quick these days, though, and I think that is the result of years of practice.  I am not like a lot of the bloggers or people on forums I read that charge on down to goal losing a large amount of weight and keep it off.  It’s been such a long process (years) for me both physically and mentally.  This blog has actually been a useful tool for me to ponder things and get feedback (so thank you, gentle readers!).

I do win sometimes, though.  And all that good food you see on my blog is the result of learning to love different foods and making them taste good.  If you haven’t read my food philosophy, you can here.

I guess I would leave you with the thoughts that even when you get down to a happy weight, don’t expect to magically stay there, or that you are completely changed.  Heck, the journey down is the same way.  As imperfect beings, there will always be challenges, but what will make you successful is how you cope with those when they arise and learning how to speak to yourself with kindness.

5-miler and more crepes!

Gorgeous fall day today.  I wanted to do a run outside and it was in the mid 40s.  Perfect for running.  I wanted to do 5 miles, so I set out for that and fueled up with some POM nectarine that the Pom Wonderful people sent me.  This is really good!  I am not a big juice drinker, even though I really like juice.  As I have said before, I don’t like to drink my calories.  This was for prerun fuel and is tasty.  Much sweeter than regular POM juice – it almost tastes peachy!

pom1022

I was going on the 2nd loop of running and almost thought about doing 6 miles instead of  5, but my thighs were complaining a little.  It really can take a while to fully recover from big events, I guess.

Had a fabulous bowl of cream of wheat this morning after I got back inside:

cow1022

With pumpkin butter, cranberry sauce, cinnamon and white chocolate chips!

Busy with work again.  They weren’t kidding when they told us October is a busy month.  It’s nice to have work.  It was a little sad today, though.  One file was a very long one where the doctors were having discussions with the parents about removing life support on their 11 year old son, and they did not want to do it.  Sometimes the job is tough at times.

I am in waffle sandwich mode again.  This time it was chicken with cheddar cheese, apples and cranberry sauce.

lunch1022

Warm and toasty!  I am liking the waffles for bread.

John made some scrumptious bars yesterday from Megan’s Munchies:

bar1022

Only he used white chocolate chips instead of regular (hence why they made their presence in my breakfast!)  This made a good snack with my afternoon latte.

So, now I am done with the duathlon, and the season of outdoor fitness events is winding down.  It sort of leaves me at loose ends, as I do like to have some sort of goal in mind.  I do have NROLW to finish by the end of the year and then it will have to be more indoor gym stuff.  I do run outside in winter when the sidewalks are clear of snow, but I do have limits 😀

I’m thinking I might try to be serious about knocking off at least 5 more pounds (10 would be super).  I am just not really sure if I want to do the work it will take to do that.  Know what I mean?  I have become pretty complacent here, and with my activity goals I have been pursuing since March – weight loss has not been a primary focus (and was not as feasible with hard training, even though that seems like it would help).  We have just booked a cruise for the beginning of February, and maybe that would be a good goal.

Pink item of the day!

ultramarinepink

(This is soap colorant, btw).

I won the football picks last weekend (Yeah!!) – so it was my choice for dinner.  A new crepe place opened up in Glens Falls just last week, so I wanted to go there.  It’s a very tiny place, and tucked out of the way.  Everything is made from scratch.

I chose a fall-inspired crepe:

crepe1022

Pork tenderloin with mashed sweet potatoes and a blackberry sauce.  It was a little on the sweet side, but quite good.

John had the mexican crepe with black beans, cheese, and chicken.

jcrepe1022

We split a dessert crepe, since the meals were light.  This had whipped cream, praline nuts and cranberry sauce:

praline1022

Thumbs up for this place, and quite affordable.  Okay, I have had cranberries at 3 meals today :O   Somebody smack me LOL!

We are totally inspired to try to make crepes at home.  Maybe this weekend!

Jeez – this post was all over the place, sorry about that!  I swear my mind feels like this right now.  I really have to focus!