Weight Loss Diary 14: New Gym

The new gym at work opened after July 4th, and it is just 20 seconds walk from my office! I like to hang around to lift some weights in between meetings, hehe..

Equiptments is a bit old, but so far so good, they are functional.

There is a aerobic room, nice and new

Can't help taking a picture of myself in the shining new mirrors! That's me 141 lbs. 20 more to lose.

Some good weight loss videos

Project Time, again!

Haven't done "project" for a while, kids requested for "project time". And they all know all my projects are about making necklace, earings, beading, and gift wraps.

Son: Let's make a gift, project time, mama!
Me: Who do we make a gift for?
Son: How about Krystina? (our neighbour)
Me: Mama has made her gift before, and I haven't bought new beads to make new design yet.
Son: How about Megan? (his friend, actually, his "girl friend")
Me: Megan is too young to have those gift.
Son: How about Emily's mom? (his classmate's mom, and my friend too)
Me: Why do you want to give her a gift?
Son: Because Emily is my friend.
Me: Umm.... (I had wanted to make some earings for her anyway) good idea. Let's do it.
Son: Yay! project time! And I will bring to school tomorrow and give it to Emily to tell her give it to her mom.

See those little hands? They like the gift better than I do :)

Kids picked the paper wrap.

Done.

Weight Loss Diary 13: 7th Week, on target!

141 lbs -- that's 1.5 lbs less than last week.

I can see the losing rate is slowing down, but still meetng my goal of at least 1 lb a week.

Homemade Healthy Yogurt

I love my Yogurt Maker. Homemade yogurt is healthy and simple -- you can control what kind of milk and how much sugar to make your delicious yogurt!

Simple to make:
1. Heat 42 oz 1% milk to boiling (I used to use whole milk before I started weight loss plan)
2. Add 2 teaspoon sugar (used to add more sugar :p)
3. Cool milk to room temp
4. Mix one cup of yogurt (bought from super market) and one cup of milk from step 3 to smooth
5. Pour mixed yogurt in step 4 to rest of milk and mix
6. Pour into 7 jars of the yogurt maker
7. Turn on yogurt maker, after 5-7 hours, DONE!

Weight Loss Diary 12: Weight Loss Research

I recently spent a lot of (I mean it, a lot) time to research the weight loss topic -- books, DVD, google, youtube, forums, etc. And the following are my findings.

1. Weight loss is all about calories intake < calories consumption. And 3500 calories = 1 lb fat
2. Good metabolism helps increasing burning calories, some foods can improve/promote metabolism
a. Water
b. Nuts
c. Vegetables
d. Fruit (vitamins)
3. Weight training (building muscle, not necessary to be the manly kind of muscle) is also important in weight loss
4. Treadmill incline is the BEST feature, it helps burning calories faster
5. Do not skip meal, if you feel starving, metabolism get worse and body will adjust to store fat

This is just the very brief summary and key take away on top of my head, I certainly read and saw a lot more information than this :p I am still working hard to experiment and can't wait to share my successful story (if that ever happens on me).

Sad - broken glass pendant

It is sad that one of my favorite glass pendant dropped on the hardwood floor and was broken. Too bad I didn't get a chance to take a picture of it on the slimmer me! This was my first pendant, a present from a female friend of my husband, visiting us from China. I started my crafting hobby after this very first pendant necklace.....

Farewell...

Weight Loss Diary 11: 6th Week -- La La La

What's "La La La"? That's the joyful way to cheer in Chinees. And of course I am cheer about my happy weight loss progress on every Monday. 142.5 lbs this morning, comparing to last Monday's record, 2 pounds melted away again.

I found several size 6 jeans out of the suitcase over the weekend, and I could fit in them all easily!!!

I also found several size 4 dresses and pants, they look so lovely to me and serveral used to be my favorite, but I am not quite ready to fit in them yet. Here comes my motivation and keep the hope up!

Dream House?

Grilled Cheese Sandwich (with egg and ham)

Today's breakfast. Isn't it healthy? Doesn't look like to be low calories. But once a while, had to reward myself for keeping satisfactory weigh loss progress :p

Simple desert

All you need is pie crust as wrapper, red bean paste as filling.

Cut pie crust to any shape of your own choice, fill the red bean paste, press fork along the edge.

Bake for 10 minutes or till golden brown at 350F degree.

Today's two dishes

Weight Loss Diary 10: 5th week -- becoming a routine

This morning's measure was 144.5, lowest in the past week was 143.5. Comparing to last week's 146.5, that's another 2 pounds -- it is still it the appropriate range of loss rate. I am VERY satisfied.

I feel more and more confident that I am on the right track and doing the right thing now. Exercise now becomes my routine, part of my life now; So far, I haven't starved myself for the sake of weight loss; exercising and diet are following healthy principle.

There was another episode in the library. Several weeks ago I found a few weight loss/fat burn DVDs and brought to teh circulation desk to check out, the lady there is an asian woman, in her 50's. She told me: These DVDs are useless, do you kow what's most effective to lose weight? I widened my eyes and shaked my head. She continued: best way is to walk, walk for an hour everyday after dinner, after a few weeks, I guarantee all your pants are loosened! I thanked her and checked out those DVDs. Somehow what she said kept echoing in my mind, as a result, I didn't really watch any of those DVDs. Instead, I am more firmly believe I should just keep walking as the lady said. Last friday, when I went to the library to pick up another book that I reserved, it happened to be her again to do my check-out. I smiled to her and thanked her again to her advice and told her I returned all those DVDs and started following her advice. She was very happy to have a follower, then started telling me she used to be at 172 lbs, and now 120 lbs, after walking (well, for many years), she even moved to the open space behind the circulation desk and did a brief cat walk to show me how slim she is now.. hahaha.. she also told me her name and suggested we exchange progress in the future. :) What a nice lady. Most importantly, another person confirms walking is a good strategy and exercise to lose weight.

Let me walk away the extra pounds and recover my confidence :)

Sail Boston '09 -- Tall Ships

Very nice weather and nice event in Boston. It is also a children friendly event -- my little ones certainly had a wonderful day trip to Sail Boston, they were excited not only to see those tall ships but also boarded on them!

The event definetly brought a lot of tourists to Boston, and a lot of business -- there was a line to almost everywhere :)

See how long the line was to board this ship?

Still the long line to approach the ship.

Finally we boarded the ship.

Say Bye to seaport...

Wonderful event, see you next year Sail Boston!