Cara's Weightloss Journal

i thought i’d share a delightful recipe i found over the holidays. i made these cookies and they were only 2 points a piece and very little sugar in them (just in the powdered sugar coating). and they’re absolutely delicious. they’ll melt in your mouth.

I got the recipe from my favorite baking website of all times: smittenkitchen.com

Russian Tea Cakes, Mexican Wedding Cakes

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, room temperature
2 cups powdered sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup pecans, hazelnuts or other nuts, toasted and finely ground (if using hazelnuts, wrap in a dishtowel while still warm and roll about until most of the brown skins come off)
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon (optional)

Using electric mixer, beat butter in large bowl until light and fluffy. Add 1/2 cup powdered sugar and vanilla; beat until well blended. Beat in flour, then nuts. Divide dough in half; form each half into ball. Wrap separately in plastic; chill until cold, about 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350°F. Whisk remaining 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar and cinnamon, if using, in pie dish to blend. Set cinnamon sugar aside.

Working with half of chilled dough, roll dough by 2 teaspoonfuls between palms into balls. Arrange balls on heavy large baking sheet, spacing 1/2 inch apart. Bake cookies until golden brown on bottom and just pale golden on top, about 18 minutes. Cool cookies 5 minutes on baking sheet. Gently toss warm cookies in cinnamon sugar to coat completely. Transfer coated cookies to rack and cool completely. Repeat procedure with remaining half of dough. (Cookies can be prepared 2 days ahead. Store airtight at room temperature; reserve remaining cinnamon sugar.)

Sift remaining cinnamon sugar over cookies and serve.

Makes about 4 dozen.

so i’ll start by saying… i hate walking!

that being said, it’s my chosen form of exercise.

i even quit walking for about 3 months… no exercise whatsoever for 3 whole months. but that was when i was about to quit dieting altogether and that’s an entirely different blog.

now, i walk between 3 and 4 miles a day. i usually walk by myself, but it not for lack of trying to find walking buddies. i ask everything i meet if they walk and if they live near i do. i’ve found 3 friends, so far, that walk with me on a regular basis. well, actually, one of them just quit walking with me. but that’s okay because she is working out in the mornings with her husband. she said i inspired her to get healthy again… but that’s an entirely different blog, too.

so there are two ladies i walk with two days a week. we usually walk for about an hour. the 2nd lady just started with us last week. i’m very excited to have someone else to walk with. the more people the more dedicated i have to be. no sleeping in. no hitting the snooze. no over sleeping. the more people who depend on me to walk with the more i have to do it.

but when i walk by myself it gets very boring. i have to keep mixing things up. i listen to different CDs, sermons, pod casts, audio books. anything to keep my mind occupied while i mundanely walk through the neighborhood.

i have to walk in different routes because if i walk the same routes, i get so psychotically board.

so i’m all the time planning new routes to walk and looking for new things to listen to.

it’s great exercise, though. it builds great endurance. it helps me to be able to walk up three flights of stairs 4 times a day (at work). before i walked, i could barely make it up two flights. it gives me great energy, too.

so it’s boring as all get up. it’s mundane and monotonous. but its good for me. and it makes me feel good (well, not in my joints and muscles after a long walk). but all in all, i think i’ll keep doing it. it’s working for me, so far.

in watching a new tv show tonight i was hit in the face with a very simple line that most people in america won’t even remember… “i need a cupcake” she said after her high-powered fashion show had just flopped and she was being ridiculed by the press. the first thing she clings to is a cupcake. food.

see how subliminal it is?

something as innocent as this keeps seeping back into our brains telling us food will fix anything.

the thing of it is, it struck a cord with me because i’m sensitive to it, i’m obsessing over it lately and most importantly I LOVE CUPCAKES!!!!

well, that’s all i wanted to say for tonight. i just wanted to point out how yet again i was bombarded by food in the must inconspicuous place… no way of escaping it. only to think of how i can get a cupcake that would be on my diet.

hmmmmm.

i don’t know, but they should be shot!

this is the hardest thing i’ve ever had to do in my life.
in looking back, i can see that i’ve lost an average of 1.75 pounds each week. over the course of 39 weeks.

over various weeks, i had to lose a total of 4 pounds, TWICE. that is, i gained at various weeks and then had to lose that weight again. as if it’s not hard enough to do the firs time. it sucks having to lose the same weight all over again.

and there were 3 weeks when i broke even.

all of that doesn’t really sound like that much, but when you’re sacrificing the one thing in life that you can always count on to be there for you, the one thing you can turn to to pick you up, the one thing you love more than most things in life… food… it sucks to sacrifice, although, now sacrifice doesn’t even sound like the right word… it sounds to trivial… to deny… to deprive… it just sucks that you can deprive yourself of something so precious for so long, every day, every hour of the day thinking about the deprival and the denial state you’re in, only to lose nothing or very little or worse, to lose nothing. it hurts.

so why do i keep doing it?

why do i do it at all?

how do i keep doing it?

the only thing i can think of is to look back at my success. instead of looking at the 4 pounds i had to lose twice, look at the 60 pounds that i only had to lose once. instead of looking at the 6 weeks i broke even or gained, look at the 33 weeks that i lost.

but why do i keep doing it?

what’s my motivation?

my life

i want to live a long and healthy life. i want to be able to climb a mountain IF i want to. i want to be able to go hiking in the woods without fear of passing out after a short period of walking. i want to run a marathon. i want to be buff. i want to live long. i want to outlive everyone in my family. i want to be able to take a hot air balloon ride without having to pay an absorbent amount of money (they charge by the pound, you know).

these things sound so simple and basic in life.

that’s all i want.

i just have to keep reminding myself that these simple things in life are all worth the sacrifice… the denial… the deprivation… the pain… it’s all worth it.