Sign up with your email address to be the first to know about new products, VIP offers, blog features & more.

Week 22 of 52 – Hilo – March 18, 2012 – 158 lbs

Beautiful Hilo Bay with snow-capped Mauna Kea in the background

Aloha all from sweet little Hilo town on the Big Island!  This is where we lived for 10 years before embarking on our ‘year of travel’ this past 13 months.  So now after being in large world-class cities like Seattle, Vancouver, Boston, Zurich, and Amsterdam, we have come full circle and are back in this historic little town of 30,000 people on the East side of the Big Island (also know as the island of Hawaii).

 

We are only here for 3-5 months; long enough to sort through our belongings and make the move back to Amsterdam.  We’ve rented a two bedroom condo overlooking Hilo Bay (the little building you see in the middle on the far side of the bay is where we are currently living).  We can walk into town AND it has a gym! And I give the gym all the credit for me losing not 1 BUT 2 lbs this week!  It’s taken me 4 months post-surgery but I am finally exercising regularly.  I used the treadmill for 30 minutes (today I did a mile in just under 17 minutes!) and every other day I do weight lifting and my stretch bands.  It’s making a difference in my energy level as well.  And I have to say, wearing sleeveless things again is a great motivator to get my flabby arms toned up; I look like I have ‘flaps’ on my upper arms!

Hilo Farmer’s Market……walking distance from our condo!

So this will be the longest we will be in one place for a long time; with a little trip here and there.  But for now, this is home and it’s great being settled and having things around us that belong to us; I get so excited when I unpack a box….it’s like Christmas!

 

The Hilo Farmer’s Market is charming and is walking distance from where we live. I’ve decided to start trying one new thing each week.  I never had time before but there are so many interesting (and exotic!) fruits and vegetables here that I’m going to try and experiment a little even though some things are really unidentifiable.  Although I am in heaven with things we know and love: the papayas (4 for $1.00!) and buttery avocados (2 for $1.00!) – believe me, no one has better papayas and avos than East Hawaii!

I can only find these at health food stores…..but so good!

A quarter of a papaya is 30 calories and tastes like ice cream; and and 1/8th of an avocado is only 47 calories.  In fact, my favorite lunch these days is a Corn Thin (like a popcorn rice cracker but with corn, and thinner – only 22 calories), some avo, a piece of cheese, a piece of turkey and sprouts.  Very filling and it’s less than 150 calories with 8 grams of protein; I know it’s not a ton of protein but it’s not bad.

 

I have found that I am paying much more attention to what I eat than I ever did when I was heavy.  I think I felt it was hopeless in the past so why bother?  Every time I tried, I failed or the progress was so slow and restrictive that I gave up.  But now that I feel healthy, I want to take better care of myself.

 

My friend swimming with her favorite fish, Puffy in one of the lagoons

I ‘came out of the closet’ with another friend this week.  A dear friend from here who is also a nutritionist and all around health guru.  She spends much of her waking hours on doing good organic things for her health; and trying to teach me and others along the way.  I knew she would ask me for every single detail about my weight loss because she’s such an inquisitive, interesting and smart person and we have always talked about weight, health, aging (another one of her specialties is anti-aging).  She’s the type of person who wants to know WHY things work and don’t work, not just accept that they do or don’t.

I knew she would find the vertical sleeve option fascinating since it has to do with body chemistry and she seems to understand all that.  She asked lots of really good questions (which I should have known the answers to, but didn’t…).  I felt fine telling her but once again, it validated my personal choice to be very selective about who I share this with; it stills feels a little like I took the easy way out even though we all know that this has it’s own challenges.   And I have to say, talking about my weight loss with people I knew before only highlights how far I had let myself go and that’s a little embarrassing.  In fact, my standard answer to most people when they ask how much weight I have lost is:  “I’d rather not say, because it only tells you how much weight I GAINED over the last 20 years.”  And then we move on.

 

Should I be proud that I’ve lost so much or embarrassed that I had gained so much?

One of the first things I did this week was dig out my boxes of clothes that had been stored and tried them all on!  WOW, did I have fun!!!!  Half the clothes were too big and not worth taking them to a tailor.  I was having my own private shopping spree!

 

It’s still amazing to me how many of my things do fit me (how horrible must they have looked on me 65 lbs ago….).  No pants fit, but some of the tops work.

 

That’s it for week 23.  I’m still tracking my food at www.everydayhealth.com and am still around 1100 calories a day, but I’m also burning 200-300 hundred calories exercising so I feel I can afford to have my afternoon coffee and sweet without any guilt feelings.

 

Hope Spring is springing up where ever this reaches all of you; again, welcome to all my new readers.  Next week I think we need to have a conversation about hair……I’m in the dreaded 4-6 month hair loss period…..

 

Until then, a hui hou!

Queen of Crop

 

2 Responses
  • stacey
    March 18, 2012

    Love it!!! You look great, boy would I like to pick your friend’s brain about body chemistry! lol.
    Your really blessed, so am I actually. You seem to have a great life and are really enjoying it.
    Have a great week.

    • queenofcrop
      March 18, 2012

      Thanks Stacey…..you’re one of my best cheerleaders!!!! Hope you have a great week too…..

Leave a Reply to stacey Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *