Went to WW today...finally!

This will have to be a quick one...gotta run and do some things by a certain time.  So I went and weighed in, officially, and I'm down 3 pounds from last week. It was nice to be back and to listen to my leader speak and I left there with my motivation still intact plus with a little extra boost. So I'm thrilled...well not ecstatic but thrilled...that I've only gained 6 pounds since reaching my 10%. I'm sure I can knock that out in a few weeks and hopefully get to my 220s by sometime in February. That's a little over a month to lose about 10 pounds. We'll see!

Hope everyone else has great weigh ins!

My first vegetarian day...

...actually went pretty easy! I've decided that my two days a week for total vegetarian eating would be Tuesdays and Fridays. I picked Tuesdays just because but Fridays for more religious reasons. I was raised to not eat meat on Fridays.  So yesterday even though I was surrounds by scrumptious chicken nuggets (at work for the kids) and Whoppers (at home for the hubby) I stuck to my guns and ate vegetarian. I will admit to eating something not-so-healthy for dinner...a BK Big Fish sandwich, which is probably more fattening than a Whopper. I had a handful of fries with it, too. Shame but I just need to plan for my vegetarian days a little better. By the way, I'm eating lacto-ovo -- I think that's what it's called -- which means I'll still be eating dairy products and eggs and seafood.

Thanks to those of you who forwarded me sites to check out for vegetarian recipes! I plan on using them a lot, especially since Lent is next month and I plan to go totally vegetarian for the 40 days. A girl at work said she was vegetarian for a year but she lived on cheese and bread. I want more variety than that! I actually saw a great tip for making a tofu lasagna that even a meat eater like me should love. You take some extra soft silken tofu and mush it up (or grind it up in the food processor) and add the ricotta or cottage cheese, a little parmesan and mozzarella and your seasonings and you use that as the filling to your lasagna along with a savory sauce. It's just like making a cheese lasagna but with the added protein. I plan on making that for dinner Tuesday so I'll let you know how it comes out and how my carnivore hubby likes it.

So anyway that was just my first day. We'll see how I do next week! Oh, in spite of my BK eating I weighed in this morning at 238.8 on the scale. I go  back to WW tomorrow for my official weigh in so we'll see. I'm going to be chugging water today and being very well behaved. I am really tempted to change my weigh in days to Saturday so that I can eat a little more freely but I don't know if I'd be shooting myself in the foot. We'll see.

Anyway, I hope you all are doing well! Great weigh ins to all!

New Year's Reso-LOSE-tions!

Alright, I admit it...I didn't follow anyone's great advice about not giving up until after the holidays. I know that I should have but I was just into the holiday, overwhelmed with the shopping and stress of it all so I decided to put calorie & points counting on the backburner until after Christmas. But I am paying the price because in the last couple weeks after I made that decision I am up...way up! I'm sad to say that since my lowest weight (when I made my 10%) I have gained NINE pounds. Ick. I mean I take some comfort in knowing that I didn't gain my usual 15-20 pounds this season but still, 9 pounds is a lot. So I need to get back on track NOW, ASAP, STAT. I still am paying all this great money to WW but not using it, and for a family on a budget that's not acceptable. So I need to change my goals, my outlook, and reaffirm my desire to lose weight. So I am going to join the millions of people who make the same resolution every year: to stick to a diet plan and lose some weight!

I have other reso-LOSE-tions as well, concerning my eating/dieting/health. My healthy resolutions for 2008 are as follows:

• Get my butt up on Sundays and start making it to WW meetings again! I admit that the reason I haven't been going doesn't really have to do with laziness but the fact I am embarassed by my weight gain.
• Start tracking my points! Eyeballing things before I eat them isn't really working for me.
• Eat totally vegetarian at least twice a week. I have a co-worker who dropped a good amount of weight and she said the only change she made was eating healthy vegetarian meals a few times a week. Plus I read that going meatless (I'll eat fish) a few times a week can help to save money. I'm actually thinking of giving up eating meat completely for the 40 days of Lent. I am a serious carnivore, though, so we'll see!
• Start doing some sort of physical activity at least 3x a week. At my preschool we take the children outside for fresh air twice a day. I have started walking around the blacktop of the playground (mainly to keep warm!) but I am thinking of getting a reliable pedometer and tracking that walk. I also need to get back into my FitTV.
• Start cooking and freezing meals on the weekends for the week. On the days I work  I don't get home until after 7 so we rely on fast food or unhealthy foods (hotdogs, sloppy joes...quick and easy meals) and that is not good. I'm going to try and make healthy meals that my husband can throw in the over or in a pot so we can have a good meal.
• Utilize all the cookbooks I have in the house (as well as the vast amount of recipes on the internet). We tend to eat the same meals as I tend to cook the same meals. It's time for some variety. I know eating healthier would be more fun if there were a change in menu every now and then.
• Drink 1 glass of water for every diet soda I drink. I tend to drink an absurd amount of soda, and although it's diet, it's not water. I figure I'll try to drink 1 glass of water for every diet soda I drink, but the catch is I'll drink the glass of water first, then the soda. If things work out correctly, I won't want the soda after drinking the water.
• Take my vitamins every day. I have a vitamin deficiency due to my WLS, so I am supposed to take a battery of vitamins and supplements daily, but I slack. The results are things such as twitchiness and hair loss. Again, something I know I should and need to be doing but I'm not. But I'm going to start taking them everyday and maybe my hair will get back to its previous thick and curly glory!
• Blog! At least twice a week. I can find time to stuff my face, so I can find time to blog on here and check out other blogs. Support is key. Losing touch on here and not going to WW meetings obviously didn't help to keep the weight off.

So those are my diet resolutions for the new year. What are yours? I'd love to read them. Maybe we can be each other's support system!

Up Down Up Down

The roller coaster ride is still going on this holiday season. I'm up this week. I'm about ready to give up until after Christmas. I did well in the beginning of the week but Friday and yesterday were days filled with popcorn and extra butter, nachos, and two Christmas parties complete with lasagna, cheesy zita and sinful cheese- and chocolate cakes! And I didn't even do any baking this week like I planned! I'm trying to look at the good side of things...I haven't really gained like I usually do during the season. I'm notorious for gaining 10 - 15 pounds from Halloween to Valentine's day, but so far so good. Well, not really so good. Well, I will try not to give up but temptation to do so is so great. My stomach is telling my mind that waiting until after New Years would be better but I know if I give in that I probably will gain that 10 - 15 pounds. *Sigh* Guess I better just try harder, right?

At one of the Christmas parties a bunch of us "pleasingly plump" girls sat over our full plates listing things we are looking forward to as thin girls. (Yes, I see the irony in that statement, LOL!) The list was hilarious! A little sad, but hilarious to us at the time. Might have been the spiked eggnog. Some of the fun ones:

-We won't have to "unroll" our cute panties after we take them off.

-Our pantyhose will not wear out where our thighs touch.

-Not having to scream "Shotgun!" before anyone else when carpooling because we don't want to cram our big selves in the backseat.

-Not having a panic attack every time we see a turnstile.

If you have any to add to the list, I'd love to hear it! I'm sure my friends would get a kick out of it, too.

Okay, gotta go get the kid dressed. We are attempting to take a Christmas card photo today. Yeah, late, but we print our own so I think we'll make it in time.

Best of luck and great weigh ins to you all!

It's cookie baking time! Lord give me strength!

I weighed in today at about a pound heavier than I did last week but I'm not fretting...I have actually been well behaved this week (although I didn't log points) but Saturday night I did allow myself salty buttered popcorn and Chinese food and nary a drop of water, just diet soda, so I believe the pound is from water weight. I have to make a confession...I think part of the reason I did so well this week with my eating is due to the fact that I was a bit under the weather this week so I didn't want to eat very much.

Funny story about me getting sick: last Saturday I was telling my husband that I felt that I was spending more time yelling at my son (who is in the throws of his terrible twos) more than I wanted to and that I prayed to God for a way to get me to curb that. Well, I was hoping for more patience but instead I woke up the very next morning with laryngitis and couldn't talk much less yell. Be careful what you ask for! Anyhoo that turned into a "condition", not sure what it was, that involved a sore throat and chest congestion and some overall ickiness so I was not very interested in food. Until Saturday, obviously. :-)

This week I start baking cookies and stuff for the holidays. I have to make a couple desserts for an office party and then cookies to pass out to friends and family like I do every year. Since God answered my prayer about my situation with my son, I'm going to ask him for help in not over indulging. My WW leader said it's not just the eating of the cookies and food, but the "BLT's"...Bites, Licks and Tastes we have to watch out for. Boy was I not happy to hear about that. I take tastes of everything and never count them. Who thinks that licking the spoon could be 1 point wasted! And I'm a big cookie dough eater so I will really need to dig into my willpower reserves when baking.

I still haven't gotten motivated enough to exercise however teaching preschoolers 3 times a week is exercise. I never get to sit down because, well, those 3 year olds won't sit still, and when we do our outdoor time (twice a day for an hour) I am always recruited to be "it" for tag or hide-and-seek, so I think I am getting in some physical activity.

So, how did the rest of you do this past week?

Fluctuations

Okay, I'm here, I'm here! OneDitto, thanks so much for the kicks in the pants you've been giving me! I've had the best intentions but life wasn't cooperating! Between work and home junk and then a last minute visit from my FIL, time's been short. But I need to find the balance somewhere because I need to blog to be successful in my weight loss journey. It all boils down to laziness on my part.

So I'm down this week. Again. It's been up and down every week with a difference of 2-5 pounds every week. I'm thinking it has to do with water retention or the salt content of the food I've been eating because although I'm sure it's possible, I doubt that I gained 2.5 pounds of fat last week but lost almost 4 this week because truthfully, I haven't really been behaving myself like I should.

I forgot how hard it is to eat well during the holidays. I've been trying but I'm a sucker for Christmas cookies and pumpkin anything...bread, muffins....and now it's around the time that I start baking for the holidays. Sure, I could make lower fat versions of some things but I don't want to. I know it's counterproductive but there is a time and place for diet food and I don't think the holidays are that time. Rich and decadent is synonymous with Christmas for me. Probably my downfall. No, the thing I need to do is eat in moderation, 1-2 cookies instead of 8-9.  I think it's good training because if I only learn to avoid food instead of moderating myself, then when I get around the "bad" foods I won't know how to act. I think that's the main goal of WW, right? Speaking of, I need to get my butt to a meeting and tracking better. The first week I came back to EP I was good with WW, but then I let it go again. I just need to stop being lazy.

So here's my motivation for the week. I dug up an old picture of myself at about 390...thirty-two pounds lighter than my heaviest weight....and I'm going to have my husband print it out so I can carry it with me. It's in my photo gallery. I never want to revisit that size (or anywhere NEAR that size) ever again, so during times when I'm feeling that calorie counting be damned I want to have the pic to jostle me back into common sense. Excuse my eyes being shaded out. Not that I don't trust y'all but I'm still concerned about being "discovered" by friends who I don't want to know all my weight loss business just yet.

I hope everyone is having a great week and doing well in their fight against the Holiday weight gain!

No, I didn't disappear again...

...I just picked an not-so-great time to come back with the holiday and all. Lots of cleaning and cooking and junk. I am just taking a break from cleaning because my FIL is coming in tomorrow for a short stay.

I did wonderfully on Thanksgiving! Seriously, I didn't over eat or anything! And I only ate one piece of pie. Now...the days before Thanksgiving...not so much! I guess I should have saved myself the trouble and waited until next week to start. I really did give it an effort but at work there were treats, then there were people stopping by with treats...not a real excuse because I should have had the willpower to control myself but then again if I had willpower I would have been skinny AGES ago, LOL!

So I gotta get back to the cleaning but I hope everyone had a great holiday! I'll be back to read and write more after this weekend. Take care, y'all!

I'm back to face the music :-)

Okay, after a long break I'm finally back. I've just been struggling with eating right and staying on track and I will admit to being ashamed of making my 10% goal and then blowing it soon after. But I have to be accountable for my gains/losses in the past few weeks or else I'll never be able to go forward. So here I am! I did keep track of my weight gains/losses and at first I wasn't going to track them here on EP but in the end I decided it was the best thing to do if I'm trying to be accountable and all that jazz. So if you look at my chart you can see how all over the place I've been for the past month.

My husband and I have made a deal. About a month and a half ago he started on Chantix to quit smoking but, like my dieting efforts, he didn't follow through. We both have made a pact to get back on our prospective programs and try as hard as we can to do them correctly. I will be going back to WW meetings and tracking my food intake again and he will follow the Chantix program to it's specifications, not his own specifications. Maybe we can motivate each other.

One change in my life that might help me to follow the program better is that I've gone back to work part time. I work M, W, and F as a preschool teacher. It's total career change for me...I was in mortgage banking but have decided to go back to my first love of working with children and I'm going back to school in the Spring, but I digress. At work I do not have the opportunity to sit and eat and make bad choices like I do when I'm at home so for at least three days a week I'll will hopefully be able to keep on track. I just have to get my act together for the other four days.

I think it's really crucial for me to try and stay on track because it's officially the Eating Season and I know from past experience that I can easily put on 20 pounds from October 31 to January 1st as I've done it many times before. Also my husband and I really want to have another baby and although we planned on starting back in September we put it on hold until the New Year because I really want to drop some more weight.

So that's my update! I hope everyone is doing well. I'm going to check out everyone elses blogs and see how you all are doing. Hopefully everyone is doing well! Take care!

Oops, I did it again!

By "it" I mean ate badly right before a weigh in. I was pretty good all week but I went out to lunch with a girlfriend yesterday and then out to dinner last night . I admit to eating badly...lots of fried goodies. I stepped on the scale this morning and I'm up two pounds. I'm pounding the water and trying my best to be well behaved today. It's gonna be a toughie because today is my Grandmother's 75th birthday and there is going to be cake! I'll just have to keep repeating to myself the mantra "Nothing tastes as good as thin feels"!

I'm want to get back into exercising like I used to many many many moons ago but finding the motivation is hard! It's so much more easier to sit on my butt. I used to use my son for exercise because I had to not only chase him around the playground but pick him up and swing him and such but now he's so independent that he won't let me help him with anything! He has to do it all so now I just stand there and watch. I used to work my triceps out lifting him up to the top of the slide and holding his hands while he went down. Oh well, I can't keep him little just so I can get in a mini-workout. Guess I'll have to use all this darn exercise stuff I have cluttering my home.

My water glass is empty! Got to go fill it and flush out some of this salt! Ciao!

Had pizza last night...

...and it was yummy! Thin crust with cheese, chicken, red onion and mushrooms. Yeah, probably not the best thing to eat but I don't think I did too much damage overall. I didn't gorge and I did say no to the buttery bread sticks and cinnasticks.

I'm still trying to get motivated to exercise. I wish I could be like my brother or my friend's fiance...those two LIVE to exercise and actually say they feel like crap when they don't! I feel like crap if I do! LOL! A friend suggested I start doing 20 crunches and 10 full pushups a night. She said she did that and in six weeks she noticed a difference in her arms and abs. Eventually, according to her, you'll start wanting to add in more and more movement once you see how good your body is starting to look. I think I can manage that.

I posted new pics. I said I would when I got to my first goal. At first I didn't really notice that much of a difference but when I looked at the pics side to side I could see the 28 pound loss more clearly. I mean I'm still a thick chick but not as thick as before. Those jeans I have on in the picture are special because I haven't been able to wear them since 2004. They are still skin tight but I could pull them over my thighs and button them up without struggle. They are size 18. When I started my journey in March I was in a 22.

Well, I'm off to check out your blogs. I was supposed to be doing that over the weekend but you know how it is...life takes over. Hope all is well!