PMS Week

It's PMS week and amazingly I was able to shed 2.4 pounds on Monday.  Yay!  Guess what?  Hubby gained a couple pounds.  I'm pretty surprised, but then again he spent all weekend eating chips and pizza.  I had a little bit of chips and queso dip, but no pizza.

This week I'm sick.  It's something that reminds me of bronchitis, but co-workers are guessing it's a bad cold.  The congestion is mostly in my chest and hurts like hell when I cough.  Every time I have a good hard cough I feel like I just ran a marathon.  It takes all the energy out of me.  I've been working and non-drowsy Sudafed is a life-saver right now.

Hope all is good!

Hubby vs. Wifey

My body is on some crazy roller coaster when compared with DH.  We have a chart on the fridge that marks our percentage of weight loss over time and his has been slow and steady.  I have been up down up down.  What drives me crazy is that we compare what we eat and I eat much more consistently and healthily than he does.  I use a good deal less points per week, too.  I'm 5'2" and he's 5'9" so we know he's allowed more points per day, but sometimes he goes crazy at work and eats something really bad, then on the weekend we both use a lot of flex points, then on Monday he ends up losing and I gain.  Then the next week he will either lose a little or stay the same and I will have a huge loss.  Right now our weight loss percentage is almost exactly the same.  Who will win?  It's anyone's game.  I'm rooting for me!

If you haven't guessed, he lost a little bit this week and I gained a couple pounds.  We both ate the same amount of food on the weekend and I ate better than he did throughout the week.  Oh, and I exercised 180 minutes this week and he only did about 40 minutes.  Grrr, men!

Bummer

I have to say I'm a little bummed out.  I am pretty sure that I am the only person previously on the EP home page who has been removed.  Am I unsuccessful?  That's how it makes me feel.  Especially because I am the only one who was deleted.  I've still lost a good 55 pounds and I'm still a healthy weight and BMI.  Look at me hugging the whale on my honeymoon.  I look pretty healthy.  Yeah I struggle and gain a bit here, lose a bit there.  It's all part of the process.

Anyway, I know I am still a success story.  Just had to get that off my chest.

Still Here

Hi!  I'm still here and doing pretty well.  I have been losing weight but school started so I haven't been focused on much else.  The nice thing about being so busy is that I forget about food!  I still eat my daily points but I have to remember to eat.

School started on September 3rd and it's been a lot less stressful than last year.  The kids are pretty good and I am comfortable with the school and staff (last year was my first year teaching high school).

I took Mike out for a birthday weekend to Friday Harbor where we went whale watching and stayed in a romantic bed and breakfast.  We saw transient orcas hunting harbor seals, a mother training her young, and the big male with that huge fin.  It was a really amazing experience.  Our room at the bed and breakfast had its own private hot tub on the deck, so we had champaigne under the stars after going to fine dining.

Thursday Mike's parents treated us to a very expensive restaurant.  Best steak we've ever eaten.  Then we walked to the Paramount Theatre to see Phantom of the Opera.

On the diet-front I have had a lot of self control.  We are going out tonight to a friend's place so this will be the most difficult night of the week.  Wish me luck for Monday's weigh-in!

Week 2

Monday's WI was not good at all.  I gained 1.6 pounds!  I behaved myself and followed WW perfectly, and I know I got my portions correct.  I think what happened was that I had lost 6 pounds the previous week so my body is balancing itself out.  I snuck on the scale Wednesday and I was down 2 pounds from Monday, so I'm crossing my fingers for this next WI.

School is starting soon and I am putting together my plans/syllabus.  Next week begins 3 days of workshops.

This weekend we are having a BBQ so I spent a gajillion dollars on food that neither of us will be eating since we're dieting.  I did get those 45 calorie hot dogs and will be making the greatest Hungry Girl recipe for pigs in a blanket.  They take a long time to make but they are so worth it.  You really can't tell the difference in taste, either.

Not much else to say right now.  The next month is going to be very busy and full of opportunities to eat junk food.  Luckily I have DH doing this with me, so we keep each other on track.

Hope you all are doing well!

Week 1 Results

It's the end of week 1 and so far I am winning by a landslide against my husband.  Thank you PMS!!!!!  I lost 6.4 pounds.  My old WW meeting leader would have said, "Now, how many of those pounds were fat?" and I would have said, "No more than 2!" and she would have said, "Good girl." 

PMS hit me hard last Monday so my first time stepping on the scale I was very bloated.  Even so, I lost 2% more of my body weight than DH (I get to use that now!) so WOOHOO!!!  Kindle, here I come!

I have been very good with food this past week.  We only exercised 3 days because there were some real scorching hot days for us Washingtonians and not many people here have AC because it's usually cool and rainy.  If we worked out we'd run a serious risk of heat stroke, so it seemed like a fair excuse.

We took a friend to the Space Needle's Sky City restaurant, which is very expensive and fancy.  We all got fish and the nice thing about fancy restaurants is they keep your portions reasonable, even if it does cost several hundred $$$.  Then we went home and had Jello shots.  Best alcoholic drink on a diet for sure!  They taste great, too!

Speaking of Jello shots, there is a really funny diet book I want to recommend to anyone who might be interested.  It's called How to Eat Like a Hot Chick by Jodi Lipper and Cerina Vincent.  I would say that I agree with most of what they say.  It's a diet book, but it's not a diet plan.  It's just basic eating ideas and suggestions and I think it is a fun read for women who are on non-extreme, reasonable diets.  It's short and sweet.  Unlike this post. :p

More Photos

Yay, the professional photos are done!!!  We will be getting all of them in color and black and white.  The next step is deciding which ones we want to enlarge for all our new wedding photo frames, and then get prints of everything for all our new albums. 

Here are my professional photos:

Slideshow (highlights in order)

All Photos

I hope you like them, we are so excited!!!

On the diet-front, Mike and I are going to be hitting it hard starting tomorrow.  We have not been good with food but we do really well when we work together.  When he falls off the wagon I have a really hard time taking good care of myself, so I'm turning it into a competition.  As we all know, men tend to lose weight more quickly.  This is true for Mike, so this will really challenge me in a good way.

Challenge:

Weigh in on Monday, August 4th, 2008

Follow Weight Watchers Flex program

Whoever loses the most percentage of their body weight by Christmas gets $300 to spend.

I have wanted a Kindle since they came out so now I am motivated!

Married Woman

So I'm Mrs. Marx now!  Yay!  The wedding was PERFECT.  It far exceeded my expectations and everyone had a great time.  It went so smoothly!  We went to the DoubleTree and had a very nice penthouse suite that night.  The next day we went to Maui and stayed it an exquisite top floor center condo in Kihei, right on the ocean.  We stayed there for 5 days and did all kinds of fun things.  The aquarium, snorkeling, helicopter ride over Haleakala and the rainforest, the drive to Hana and the famous "pools", the drive to Haleakala's peak, one of the best luaus the island has to offer...  Then we went to the Big Island for a couple days and saw the volcano and went to another luau.

Here's some photos you might be interested in seeing:

Wedding Photos (Mike's dad's camera)

Wedding Photos (Family Friend's camera)

Wedding Photos (Professional Previews)

Honeymoon Photos and Videos

Enjoy!

2 Days Left!!!!

I am so freaking excited I can barely contain myself!!!!  I'm getting married on Sunday!  I have been really nervous to be in the spotlight but we had the rehearsal and dinner last night and ever since then I've been feeling pretty good.  I get to walk down a spiral staircase and meet my dad at the bottom. 

The one thing that I have been really nervous about is that I won't have any control and that everything is going to be done while I'm tucked away in the bride's dressing room.  I'm the type of person who likes to plan and be in control of things, but I'm starting to accept that there are trustworthy people taking care of it all.

Tomorrow my girls and I are going to get mani/pedi's and from there just relax.  In 2 days we'll be at the venue doing the wedding thing and then Mike & I will be off in a limo to a beautiful mountain-view suite at the Doubletree Hotel, and then off to Maui & the Big Island for 8 days!  Soooooo excited!!!

I still haven't lost any weight so I think I've discovered something new about myself:  If I am told I have to lose a certain amount of weight within any time frame, I won't do it.  Must be some psychological defiance inside my subconscious.  Oh well, the dress fits so whatever.

Less Than 3 Weeks!

It's less than 3 weeks and I will be a married woman.  Crazy stuff!  Things have been pretty good this summer.  I have been maintaining my weight forever but the dress still fits so it doesn't matter too much.  School got out in a very smooth manner and ever since then I have been working very hard on the finishing touches of wedding planning.  We have almost everything finished and paid for including the honeymoon, all of which adds up to more than we had originally wanted which was around $10,000.

Bachelorette Party:  I had a non-traditional bachelorette party and that is what made it so great.  My sister and friends kidnapped me and took me on the Kingston ferry, the whole time joking about how they were taking me to the "Scandinavian Fair" or out camping with the bears.  Seriously, when I'm sitting on a ferry bound for Kingston, where else could they be taking me?  So we were driving out in the boonies when I saw this big building.  Turns out it was the Clearwater Casino, which I'd never heard of before (probably because it's out in the boonies).  I love casinos and this was a very nice one.  They even reserved a gorgeous suite on the water with a jacuzzi and a HUGE private deck out back that led down to the pool and hot tub.  We had lots of booze and lots of slot machines, so it was a blast.

Mike's bachelor party is this weekend.  It will be just him and his best man out at Vegas, so I hope they have fun... But not too much fun!

Penny, our ferret and best pet ever, died on Sunday.  She was probably about 7 years old and her health had been deteriorating for a while now.  I am having a hard time getting over it.  We are planning on donating her cage and other things to the shelter where we adopted her.  I'm not sure if it's because I miss her so much or what, but I thought it might be nice to adopt another one.  Mike says we can either get a new ferret now, or get a dog later when we get a house, but not both.  That is a tough choice.  Ferrets behave like cute little puppies all their lives but they don't live nearly as long.

I hope things are good for all of you and thank you for checking in on me!