Just Another...

Manic Monday.

This weekend was a bugger and I totally fell off the bandwagon.  Friday we got busy after school and I rushed to grab takeout Thai for dinner.  This in itself isn't bad and if I would have divided the serving in half and put it in the fridge right away I would have been fine but instead, I ate the entire Pad Se Eww.  A yummy noodle dish with probably a zillion calories and 50 WW points.  Saturday was a baby shower for a friend and we were invited to dinner at another friends house.  Both included lots of sweets and nothing super WW friendly.  Sunday my kids wanted to go to Moes after church and not being in the mood to fight over food we did.  Ugh!  What a waste of a weekend food wise.  Here's my takeaway lesson... don't fall victim to take out woes.  Plan ahead and be smart about your food choices when at a restaurant.  While the Pad Se Eww was delicious, I am regretting it today and to be honest, I didn't feel all that great after eating it.  I think three weeks of cutting back on my calories consumption and making smarter choices about what foods I was eating has given me less of a tolerance for rich foods.

So, now what?  Well, the beauty of WW is it's ok to fall off the wagon.  Today I'm back tracking diligently and making sure I eat foods that keep me full.  This will not be the only setback on my journey and I'm going to use this as a learning experience for what not to do.

Happy Monday everyone.  Get out and move.

Blog Schedule

This blog is more for me to be accountable to myself in and to track and see my progress.  But it's also a place where I can share what's worked, what hasn't, and what I want to try.  It's a place to generate new ideas and get feedback on ones tried.  As with weight loss, it's important to be consistent with blogging.  To make blogging a routine for me I'm setting up a schedule and hopefully that will make things easier for you to.

Manic Monday- weekend recap
Tasty Tuesday- favorite new recipe
Workout Wednesday- what I am doing to not only get skinny but toned as well
Takeout Thursday- alternatives to fast food and solutions for when you do eat out.
Fabulous Friday- my weigh in day and a day to reflect on how far I've come

Helpful Websites

I rely heavily on the internet to help me with this journey and I am so thankful there are people who have taken the time to write really amazing recipes for me to make and have gone through food menus and figured out the point values for common foods.  This has saved me so much time and has made it easier to stay on track.

Here are my go to sites:

http://www.justdietnow.com/
http://www.dwlz.com/restaurants.html
http://www.restaurantpoints.com/
http://www.laaloosh.com/
http://www.skinnytaste.com/
http://www.slenderkitchen.com/
http://yumm.com/recipes/points-plus
http://www.snack-girl.com/recipes/?r=weightwatchers
http://www.eat-yourself-skinny.com/p/recipe-box_20.html

I hope these help you as much as they have helped me.

Week 3

This was my first week with my husband gone and it also involved two parties.  Yikes!  How was I going to maintain my wight loss and not backtrack into my old habits of late night snacking with no one to be accountable to and not fall off the wagon around all of the yummy deserts that were going to be at both parties.  This week it was a mind over matter battle and I am happy to say my mind won.  I chose to clean rather than eat and I'm pretty sure when my husband came home he appreciated this new found change in my habits.

As for the desserts, I enjoyed them.  What I really love about Weight Watchers is the freedom to do that.  I have 49 extra points to burn each week on whatever I want.  I personally really love my nightly glass of wine and that's fine.  One small glass of red wine is 4 points.  I feel a little foolish doing this but I do measure out 4oz of wine with a cup and then pour it into my wine glass to make sure I am only drinking those 4 points.  So at the parties I enjoyed a brownie and a slice of birthday cake.  I just counted them as extras and moved on.  If the joy of eating is taken away a person is much more likely to eat the "forbidden" food.  Enjoy your wine, eat your cake, just make sure you're doing so in moderation.

Weight loss for this week... 2 pounds.  I am now down FIVE pounds and I am very proud of myself.  I am really doing this!

Week 2

I am still trying to get a hang of Weight Watchers and what is worth what.  Here's what I've learned this week... if you bite it write it.  Sounds simple right?  I was biting a lot and eating a good 300-500 extra calories a day that I didn't even realize I was consuming.  I'd grab a handful of veggie straw chips (they are made from veggies they must be better than eating salt and vinegar potato chips), a few crackers, a cookie, a Starbucks venti latte, a few left over french fries, etc.  And before I knew it I had eaten my days allotment of point and calories in junk.  I was still hungry and unsatisfied.

The invention of the iPhone has saved me with my food journal.  I have the Weight Watchers app downloaded and I document all day.  If you are looking to document with out joining WW there's a My Fitness Pal app that also keeps track of your daily food intake, there's SparkPeople, and there's the old fashioned pen and paper way.  You have to find what works for you and do it.  Take a week to write down what you eat you will be shocked at the end to see how much you do consume.

This week I lost 1 pound.  And while I was hoping for more a pound is a pound and a loss is a loss.

Week 1

Foolishly I thought that I would have this major weight loss in the first week and that I would be be down at least 5 pounds.  That wasn't the case.  I did loose... just not the 5 pounds I was hoping for.  Instead I dropped 1.8 pounds.

According to the Mayo Clinic healthy sustainable weight loss happens by loosing 1-2 pounds on average per week.  And I did just that.  So why was I so disappointed in my just shy of 2 pounds loss?  I think the many fad diets and weight loss shows on television set average people up to fail.

Take the Biggest Loser for example.  Granted the people on the show are starting at a much heavier weight than I am but in all reality they eventually get to my weight and then continue to loose.  And loose at rapid speed.  In the first few weeks of the show the contestants loose 10, 15, 20 pounds in a week.  And as the weeks continue they still loose at an unhealthy rate with 4, 6, 8 pounds.  And while we as average people know those results aren't typical, we still expect them because obviously someone has.  Realistically, they have put their lives on hold, eat very restrictive diets, have personal trainers, and are in it to win it.  They are hyper-motivated.  So the average person trying to loose weight cannot compare themselves to the contestants as hard as that it.

So I go into week two 1.8 pounds lighter and definitely more motivated because I did it.  I lost weight.

Make a Choice

One of the things I have learned since starting Weight Watchers is that it's all about choices.  You can choose to eat the entire bag of chips but you will be stuck eating carrots and lettuce with no dressing the rest of the day and feel unsatisfied and crummy.  Or you can choose to eat a power food, one of the ones they list as low in fat, calories, and high in fiber, calcium, vitamins.  The foods that are not processed and man made but rather clean and free of preservatives.  Cheese, lean meats, veggies, fruit.

As I've said before, I used to take my kids to Sonic, Chick-Fil-A, Panera, etc and not even think twice about what I was putting in my mouth.  I would happily eat a Bacon Turkey Bravo from Panera and the chips, and even have the last few bites of macaroni and cheese off of my daughters plate.  The first time I went to Panera with my family after starting Weight Watchers I was in for a rude awakening.  That sandwich alone was 21 points.  The chips, 7, the few bits of her leftovers, another 3.  31 points for lunch alone.  WOW!  At lunch I was eating my entire day's allotment of points.  By searching online for points values I have been able to finally start making smarter choices when it comes to eating out and those choices are showing themselves on the scale each week.

And so it begins...

188.8.  

That’s where I started at on April 1, 2012 and this is my journey.  It's my story of how I am taking back control of my life, my appearance, and in all reality my happiness.  I'm grabbing life by the scale and finally doing something about it.

I was always average size and around 15 I settled into being a size 6 sometime 8.  Very average for my 5’9” height and medium build.  I was a dancer as a child and I was a cheerleader in college, which helped keep me in shape.  After college I moved in to an apartment on my own, met a boy, and took an interest in working out because he liked it and what girl doesn’t want to impress their boyfriend.  I hated it.  I hated running, lifting weights, kick boxing.  All of the things I was doing to try to impress my now finance and make him like me even more.  When we got married I was a solid 6, in great shape, and felt really good about myself in a bikini.  A few months into our marriage I had to buy bigger jeans.  A 10.  And at my annual doctors appointment I learned that I now weighed 147lbs.  Hum… wasn’t I 137 just a few months earlier?  How did that happen?  But it didn’t motivate me to take the weight off and I became complacent in my new weight and size 10 jeans.  I continued to enjoy the honeymoon phase of marriage eating the same portions as my husband, making elaborate dinners to impress with hundreds of calories per serving, and still going to the gym.  I credit the gym with me not being bigger than I was becoming.

By July 0f 2006, 4 years into marriage, I was weighing in at 155, still feeling pretty good about myself even though I’d gained 20 pounds in 4 years, and we decided it was time to maybe think about having a baby.  By January I was pregnant with A-girl and while I walked some, I certainly didn’t exercise while pregnant and the weight piled on.  10, 20, 40, and finally 50 pounds.  25 to 30 pounds is normal for a pregnant woman to gain.  I doubled that number and with no pregnancy related complications.  I just ate.  A lot.  My little 7lb 12oz girl was born in September and the weight seemed pretty easy to get off.  A year later without trying at all I was down to 165.  10 pounds over my pre-pregnancy weight and 30 pounds more than I was when I got married.  But again, it didn’t really bother me.  I felt good and thought I looked good in clothes and even though a 10 was a bit snug sometimes I didn’t try to change that. 

In November of 2008 I got pregnant again with C-man.   I started 10 pounds bigger and ended close to the same weight, 205 pounds.  Like with my first pregnancy, the weight came off pretty easy at first and I got to 170 rather fast. I was 5 pounds away from where I’d started and that was ok with me.  170 pounds didn’t seem like that much at the time.

When C-man was one we had to see several doctors including a pediatric neurologist, a geneticist, a physical therapist, and a speech therapist because they felt like he might have muscular dystrophy.  Three weeks after this started my best friend died and I went into a funk.  I lived on cheese sticks, bananas, coffee, and wine for a good two months and I lost weight quickly because in essence I was starving myself.  And I found I liked this new found weight loss and the size of clothes I was fitting into.  No longer was I in a 12 but rather back into a 10.  I started to feel better about myself and I liked the way I looked even though I was still too heavy at 160 pounds. 

In the summer of 2009 we moved and the Hubby started traveling.  A lot.  He was home a total of 30 days in the first 6 months we lived in our new state and not only was I lonely but I was also lazy.  It was easy to go to Chick-Fil-A with the kids.  I would have a Sonic drink with A-girl for a treat and then eat two tacos, a big lunch and breakfast, and snack.  Doughnuts were fine.  And who needs just one when you can have two or three.  The weight piled on and at first I didn’t notice but then my pants began to feel tight, and when I went to the store to get new ones not only were the 10’s cutting off my circulation but the 12’s were too.  Size 14 here I come.

My entire life I feared getting big I had didn't have the best examples for healthy eating and proper weight management in my parents.  My mom was always bigger and she tried every fad diet on the market.  Medfast, a liquid diet that was popular in the 1980's, was the one she lost the most weight on but she gained it all back because she never made a lifestyle change but rather continued to yo-yo diet.  She would starve, she would binge, she would live on Diet Coke (sometimes 3-4 2 liters a day), and she didn’t like veggies so we didn’t really have them.  Coincidental, I don’t love veggies now and I fear that I’m going to pass that onto my kids.  I remember looking at her and thinking, “Dear God please don’t ever let me look like that or let myself go in the way she has.”  She was a size 14 at the time so when I put those 14’s on my body I sat and cried in the dressing room.  I’d sold out.  I was that person I had always feared I would become and I'd done it to myself. 

One would think a sob session in the dressing room in the winter of 2010 would be enough to kick a girl into high gear and make some changes.  But it wasn’t.  I hated my body.  I hated to look at myself and shop for clothes. Nothing looked good on a borderline plus size girl.  But I continued to eat.  And not only did I eat but I ate a lot, sometimes out eating my husband.  And the weight continued to pile on.  It wasn’t until I was packing for a three day trip to Washington DC that I realized something had to change.  I tried on everything in my closet and each outfit looked bad.  Too tight, too short, and the worst of all too muffin top inducing.  I looked in my bathroom mirror and decided this is it.  No more.  I have become someone I do not want to be and the time to change is now.  It was no one’s fault but my own and no one could fix it but me. 

I went on the trip and the day after we got back I went to my local Weight Watchers meeting desperate for help.  I didn’t know what to do but I did know that a change had to be made and it needed to be made fast.  The 14’s were getting snug and a 16 is a true plus size and I knew I wasn’t going there.  I stepped on the scale and the kind older lady handed me back my information.  She didn’t judge, she didn’t say anything about the number, but I knew she had to be thinking wow. 

188.8

I went to the bathroom and cried.  How?  Why?  What now?

And so here I am on this journey.  A journey to find me again and to be healthy.   I’ve started this journey with a BMI of 27.8.  Clearly in the overweight category of the scale.  In fact I’m 2 points away from obese.  A healthy weight for my height is 135-169.  My end goal is to be 140.  I’ve got a long way to go and a hard road ahead but it’s time.  If not for me, for my kids.  To show them the healthy lifestyle that I didn’t have growing up.