Diet Reset

I posted yesterday about considering taking a week off to eat all my activity points and all my flex points.  I had considered doing it next week, but decided, there’s no time like the present.

Between last night and today, I’ve managed to eat 23 activity points and 8 flex points.  You might wonder how in 2 days I ate more than entire day’s worth of points (I get 28).  Well last night, while at the window at Wendy’s, I was planning to order my usual of a small chilli since I only had a few points left for the day, and instead I came home with a 1/4 pound cheese burger and small fry.  I ate every last bite.  I hadn’t had a fast food burger since October, and while it tasted so good, I felt rather sick afterwards.  I knew I had to go to bed asap before I ate even more, knowing all the grease would only make me hungry. 

I even got up early this morning to try to make up for it with a living room zumba session.  Then came a day of family get togethers.  I managed to do pretty well today until this evening, after all my daily points were gone, when I ate a cheeseburger (without the bun).  Oh well, I guess.  Maybe I’ll be lucky enough that my body will be tricked by all the extra crap I put into it this weekend. 

In the meantime, tomorrow is a restart day.  I know that if I’m ever going to get to goal weight (and I will) I need to make some changes.  I need to start planning out my weekly meals.  That way I know at the beginning of each day what to save for dinner.  I also don’t run into the, “we have nothing to eat, so I’ll just grab something.”  I know that while sticking to my diet and my points to the letter has worked for me for a while, it isn’t right now.  I’m going to try eating half of my activity points every week and see where it gets me.  I’m also exploring the idea of a guilt free meal every Wednesday after my weigh in.  I know that I want this diet to not just be a fad for me.  I want to get to goal weight and stay there and I can’t do it if I’m always feeling like I’m depriving myself.  After all, that is why Weight Watchers has flex points. 

I’m not expecting a great weigh in this week, but I am expecting a bit more from myself in the next couple of days leading up to it.

Anyone else who has been dieting for a while have any tricks for keeping yourself accountable?

 

Diet Sabotage

So I have to admit it, these past few weeks have been a major struggle for me as far as diet goes.  My exercise is spot on, but my diet is a whole nother story.

A few weeks ago I lost another point on my Weight Watchers diet.  It seems like ever since then, I can’t seem to stay within my daily points.  You might not think that 1 point wouldn’t make that much difference, but for me, it obviously does.

I have often wondered how people can get so close to their goal weight, and then start gaining, and while the number on the scale has not gone up, I feel like it is only a matter of time.  Not that I’m doing it on purpose, by any means.  I have stuck so closely to the diet since October.  I have followed the plan to the letter, eating as few of my activity points and flex points as possible.

I’m considering a week long break.  Maybe taking a week to take the worry out of my life as suggested by my doctor.  Not a week to go crazy, but a week to take some of the pressure off myself.  Maybe a week to eat all my activity and all my flex points so I don’t fall completely off the wagon then have to fight my way back on.

I’m a little lost.  I’m afraid if I don’t allow myself a week of relaxation on my diet, I’ll end up straying from it entirely and going crazy.  But then I’m afraid if I allow myself a controlled fall, it will be just the beginning.  AHHHH!

 

Self Medicating

I have a lot on my plate these days (no pun intended…) We are a single car family, I have 2 children, I’m working 2 part-time jobs while my husband works a full time job, I’m working two jobs because saying finances are tight is an understatement.  I made a doctor’s appointment because I have found myself to be more than a little bit forgetful.  Long story short, I’m now taking something for anxiety. 

When asked by my doctor what my level of anxiety was on a daily basis, I thought about it, and said it was a 3.  She then proceeded to count on her fingers the things that I’m stressing about on a daily basis.  By the time she was finished, she had used all her fingers, and she isn’t even aware of all the things I worry about daily. 

It was a real eye opener, and this mommy sat in the doctor’s office with one child on my lap and one in the chair coloring, while tears flowed about all the things I see as failure.  I know I’m not super woman, but I wanted all of these things in my life, so then why can’t I handle it?  I know no one person can do it all, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t want to.  I want to be the world to my kids, I want to be able to cook my husband dinner every night, come home to a spotless house after working all day.  I want to be able to support my family and keep a roof over our heads and food on the table.  I don’t really feel like it’s much to ask, but apparently, for me, it is. 

I’ve found myself wishing recently for a day.  Just one day with no husband, no children, no work, no cleaning, no worries.  But that would never work for me.  First, I would feel guilty for leaving my husband with my kids, then I would sit and think about all the things I could be or should be doing with my time instead.  Even having these thoughts makes me feel guilty.  I love my kids, I love my husband and I can’t imagine being without them.  I know there are so many people who are not as blessed as I am.  I know there are people out there who would give anything for one more day with their kids or their husband; that same day that I’m wishing to be away from them.

Later on while talking to my sister, she asked me if my stress level had increased since I started losing weight.  Of course it has!  Since that was also the same time my second child was born I didn’t really make the connection.  In our chat, we talked about how we often eat our feelings.  In a stressful time in the past, I would find myself up to my elbow in a chip bag, or savoring a peanut butter cup.  Now all I have to comfort me in those times, is an apple and my own thoughts.  I’m just not used to having those as my options yet.

Perfect example, that night, after talking anxiety with my doctor, I found myself devouring a piece of pizza, and the topping from another piece, which may not have been that bad, if I hadn’t already had my dinner of baked haddock right before that.  That was of course followed immediately by the guilt of knowing I didn’t need it, and knowing I only ate it for that 2 minutes of feel good.

I know I need to find other ways to deal with my feelings.  I have too much guilt bottled up in me and if I’m not careful, it’s going to end up in a Chinese food feeding frenzy that may never end.

While at my doctor’s appointment, I had hoped to talk to my doctor about what my goal weight should be.  Her response was simply, “I don’t want you worrying about your weight right now.  That’s just one more thing on your plate.”  Thanks for that… you know, because now I won’t stress about it at all, right?  WRONG!

P.S. After I post this, I plan to walk to the store for a snack, planning to choose wisely, I hope….

 

Great Weekend With Family, Not With Food

This weekend was a busy weekend with lots of fun, smiles, laughs, family, friends and FOOD!  It was a tough couple of days to be on the Weight Watchers wagon.

Saturday, we went to my husband’s parents for a family members birthday dinner.  As tradition, my mother in law cooked the guest of honors choice of dinner and desert.  I had planned ahead for the meal since I knew the menu consisted of lasagna and cheesecake.  I brought a Smart Ones meal, and a Smart Ones desert in hopes I could keep the shoveling of lasagna into my mouth to a minimum. 

When it was almost time to sit down to dinner, I decided I couldn’t deprive myself.  If I was going to skip on the cheesecake, I needed to allow myself to have some lasagna or I would have simply eaten my meal and my desert and picked at the rest anyway.

My mother in law had made a zucchini lasagna for my brother in law’s girlfriend, who doesn’t eat gluten, so I decided to try that one since it was 2 points less than the regular.  It was so good, and I’m such a melted, saucy cheese addict that my one piece turned out to be a bit larger than I had planned, however I didn’t do too bad yet since I had enough points left for my dinner.  I had already decided to use 4 flex points for the desert I brought.  In my dinner of weakness, I also had a piece of homemade garlic bread (I have no idea how many points it was), and while cleaning up, I consumed more lasagna.  In all, if I were to guess, I probably used at least 10 flex points on dinner.

Sunday, we headed off for a family day.  We met a friend of mine from college who we rarely get to see.  I started my day doing really well.  We went to breakfast at a house of pancakes and I did an egg beater omelet with veggies and turkey bacon.  I didn’t even eat my entire omelet!  We had packed fruit and sandwiches for a picnic lunch and that lunch was the beginning of a worse afternoon.  I didn’t bother to check to see how many points my wrap was before eating it.  I figured it couldn’t be that bad, right?  Wrong!  It was 5 points just for the wrap, add a point for the turkey, 3 for the cheese and one more for the ranch I put on it and bam!  9 points in a not so filling, not so hearty lunch.  And oh yeah!  I almost forgot, I had a beef jerky.  When you only have 28 points in a day, 11 one 1 meal is a lot.

The kids feeding the deer at the wild life park we went to

That evening we all headed to a fair type festival.  On the way there I had planned to get some chicken fingers or something along those lines, (I was assuming since they have that kind of stuff at fairs and I could have had 3 of them for 9 points), but of course there were none to be found.  So when my husband bought an Italian sausage and a humungous bowl of french fries, I found myself dipping into the fries bowl a lot more than I intended to since I couldn’t seem to find anything else that I could have eaten.  Of course on the way out I found a place selling veggie wraps and I got one of those, but by then the french fries damage had already been done.  To top that off I had a few bites of my hubby’s fried dough.

2 of the hot air balloons at the balloon festival we went to. Had a blast with my friends, hubby and all the kids, but fair food…not such a great idea!

 

I was really beating my self up over it last night, but I have a fresh outlook this morning.  I may not have followed my diet to the letter this weekend, but I did a lot better than I would have before.  As far as dinner at the in-law’s goes, I would have had a piece of lasagna twice the size of the one I had, at least 2 pieces of garlic bread, which I would have added a bunch of butter to (the piece I had, I ate with no butter on it) and I would have had at least 1 piece of cheesecake, then while helping clean up, I would have still picked and nibbled more.

At the fair, I would have gotten my own big bowl of fries and probably paired it with a cheeseburger and a soda.  I would have made myself 2 wraps at the park for lunch, and I would have shoveled the sleeve of Pringles (which I had none of) without thinking about it.  I would have struggled to walk around the park with my kids and probably never would have even made it to the fair because my feet and legs would have been too tired from spending the morning at the park. 

I know there are some situations I can’t control and there are times I will fall off the wagon or stray a little bit from the plan.  I wish those days would be fewer and further between, at least until I get to goal weight, but I know where I go from here, is how I bounce back from a fall.  Today it’s back to the diet.  Wednesday’s weigh in might not be as kind to me as it would have been, but I can’t change it now.

I have asked my husband to do the cleaning up after dinner at his parent’s house.  My mother-in-law is a great cook, and most of what is on the menu most family dinners, do not even begin to fit in my diet and I practically have to starve myself all day to have a taste of dinner and the nibbling I do after the fact, always puts me over the top.  I’ve also decided I need to start bringing gum with me that I can pop in my mouth as soon as I have eaten my proportioned meal, in hopes I’ll keep some of the tasting to a minimum. 

 

Trying to Determine my Goal

I’ve done a lot of thinking over the past few days about what my weight loss and health goals are and what they should be. 

When I started my weight loss journey it was all about that number on the scale and since I started working out, that number has become less important to me.  I’m still seeing the numbers on the scale dropping consistently which is awesome, and there is still a part of my that desperately wants that number to keep dropping.  I’m down to 177 from 262, I’m also down from a size 22 to a 10/12.  The changes I have seen in my body are amazing to me. 

That being said, according to my BMI, until this past Wednesday, I was still obese and am now sitting at the highest end of overweight.  Looking at myself, I don’t see it.  Maybe it’s because I’m high on endorphins from exercise, or blinded like I used to be, but I don’t see myself as being that overweight.  I know according to that 177 number I am…

According to my BMI, this is me a couple weeks ago, OBESE

That being said, according to web MD (I know it’s an internet resource, trust as much as you want) a better assessment of health for someone who is muscular or pear shaped (that’s me!) is the waist-to-height ratio.  It says that anything below a .5 ratio is considered healthy.  The number on Web MD is based on your height and pants size.  Depending on where the pants are from, my ratio is between .51 and .49 which is HEALTHY! 

Another indication of my health is my percentage of body fat.  I repeated the assessment done about a month ago at the Y.  At that point I was 34.9% body fat, and yesterday morning, I was 30.2% (lost more than 4% body fat in a month!)  According to multiple online sources a healthy range for a woman my age is 21-32%  Again, HEALTHY!

According to my BMI, to be healthy I still need to lose about 31 pounds.  So here I am wondering which number to go with.  To get lifetime membership at Weight Watchers, I need to lose that 31 pounds, or get a note from a doctor saying what my ideal weight should be instead.  I’m thinking I’m going to make an appointment to talk about it with my doc.  I’m still losing pounds on a consistent basis, but I don’t want to get to that point where I hit a wall and get frustrated, and I don’t want to push my body to lose pounds when I’m already healthy, or close to it. 

Anyone else had a similar situation?  What number did you go with.

 

It’s a Snacking Kind of Day

Here I sit, at 4 in the afternoon with only 8 points left for the entire day and I’ve had only 8 points left since about 1 this afternoon. 

I started my day with the usual 28 points, and by 10 I had only 17 left.  Oops… I had cereal with fat free milk for breakfast, then a Special K bar, a Fiber One bar and a Weight Watchers yummy peanut, toffee thing. 

So I’ve spent my afternoon munching on grapes and strawberries because even after all my morning snacks and my 8-9 point lunch, I’m still starving!  I do have activity points and flex points that I can use, but I really wanted to keep those out of my mouth this week so I could stay on track to meet my long-term goal (which I have set and not yet shared…soon).  I don’t usually eat many of my activity or flex points, but this past 3 weeks has been really tough for me to stay away from them.

I can do it!  And I won’t starve.  I have a nectarine, a Smart Ones meal for dinner (5 points and all fruit is no points!) and that will leave me with 3 for an evening snack.  Well, kind of… I did eat probably half of my sons french fries at lunch time… so if I was being totally honest, there would be those 3 points. 

At least I have zumba soon to occupy my mind.  I don’t know why, but Mondays I just want to eat!

 

To the Moon and Back

As a mama of 2 beautiful boys who I adore more than words could ever say, I know sometimes I get so caught up in the wonder of the miracle of those little men I forget to appreciate the man who gave them to me. 

I get to share my life with an amazing man, who stole my heart from the very first minute I met him.  He was wearing his Army uniform, and while he was not my usual type, he was handsome and he made me smile.  From that night on, we spent any and all our free time together, and only about a month an a half after we met, he knelt down on one knee in the snow and asked me to spend the rest of my life with him. 

This was taken Thanksgiving the year we met. We had been together about a month and were only about 2 weeks away from getting engaged.

Less than a year later, through tears of joy, we held tight to each others hands in front of God, our families and our friends and vowed to love each other for as long as we both shall live. 

Our first son was born about a year and a half later and while our love has changed, it has never failed.  It may not be the passion filled romance it once was.  Instead of stealing kisses in line at the grocery store, we chase kids.  Our date nights may be fewer and further between but I have grown to love him for more reasons than I ever thought possible.

When I looked into his eyes on our wedding day, I was certain I could never love him more than I did in that moment, but I couldn’t have been more wrong.

My husband has loved me in all shapes and sizes.  I don’t recall many days of my life since meeting my hubby that I have not heard the words, “You are beautiful.”  Even when I gained 60 pounds in the first year of our marriage (thanks to health issues, those 60 were gained before I even got pregnant), when I was round a feeling like a whale with our first son and a beached whale with our second… he rubbed my feet (he hates feet) when they swelled to monstrous sizes, rubbed my back when heart burn kept me up at all hours of the night then held my hand through hours of labor.

The first time I saw him hold our baby boy in his strong arms, I fell in love all over again.  He helped me through sleepless nights, poopy diapers, days without time to shower, and still told me I was beautiful, and never stopped looking at me like I was the most amazing person on the planet.

He was there with my on the day we were went to see our second baby on ultrasound, only to find we would never hold this baby in our arms.  He stayed strong, while I fell apart, even though I know how much pain he was in.  When I felt like I had failed as a woman, and as a mother, he still treated me as though I was Superwoman.

He put up with months of hormones while we tried and failed for several months to conceive again.  While I went from loving wife, to emotional wreck, to downright mean, he never lost his patience with me, and on the day our second son was born, I fell even deeper. 

In those months since we welcomed our second son into the world, things are only more complicated.  We struggle from week to week to make ends meet, we often sit on other sides of the living room, and sleep with at least 1, sometimes 2 children between us.  We may not make it out on “dates” on a regular basis, but everyday I love him more.  I don’t know what I did to deserve such an amazing love, but every minute I spend with him is more special than the last.

Whenever his brown eyes look into mine, when he takes my hand in the car, when he wraps me in his arms just before we fall asleep, I fall all over again.

We may have fallen into the comforts of an ordinary life, but that does not mean we have fallen out of an extraordinary love. 

I love you baby, to the moon and back.

 

Good Day For a Swim

Yesterday was my husband’s family reunion.  The night before is spent campfire hopping, making s’mores, chatting, laughing and catching up.  The following day is a swim to an island in the middle of the pond (the family has lots of camps on the pond and my hubby’s parents live there year round), that is followed up by a cook out with tons of pies, so many pies, it is referred to as “Pie Day.”

This may not sound like the kind of event that would be good for someone on any type of diet, and to be honest, I was really nervous about the weekend and how I would survive all the temptation.  All in all I didn’t do too bad.  I did treat myself to a s’more Friday night (it was so worth it, yum!), and made a Weight Watchers recipe for a key lime pie (not a lime fan, so I substituted lemon and it came out so good!)  One of my hubby’s relatives has been on a weight loss journey as well, and she made a points friendly burrito bake that was really yum.  I’ve lost 80 pounds, she’s lost 60, between the two of us, we’ve lost an average sized person!  I most certainly had a few nibbles and tastes here and there that I could have done without.  I usually do pretty well with my initial meal, it’s in cleaning up that I get myself in trouble, which I did a little but not too bad.  I know I have to learn to live with the temptation eventually, and I’m not going to be able to stay 100% good 100% of the time.

My saving grace for the weekend was the swim.  After a map check, we discovered it it .66 miles to the island.  Swimming to the island is something I have never had the desire to try in the past.  This was my 6th pie day and the thought had never crossed my mind in the past.  But I decided this year, it would be a great way to be active and earn back some of the points I knew I would end up eating. 

I have never been a strong swimmer.  The extent of my swimming skills doesn’t go much beyond a doggie paddle.  My uncle drown when I was really young and that instilled an even deeper fear of the water in my parents who were never extremely comfortable with it to begin with, so going that kind of distance never crossed my mind. 

This year for me has been a lot about conquering fears and accomplishing things I never thought I would, so I decided to go for it. 

Heading out for the swim. The cluster of trees way off in the distance, towards the right, is the island we swam to.

 

It was certainly a slow go for me.  I stayed at the back of the pack the entire swim.  My hubby floated very close by the the kayak so if I needed a break or anything along those lines.  I made it about 3/4 of the way to the island before requesting a noodle to help keep me afloat, but I was determined to keep doing the work myself, so I placed the noodle at my waist and kept kicking and paddling. 

I’m fairly certain there was a period of time where I was in fact not making any forward progress, but after what felt like forever, I made it.  My hubby kept asking if I wanted a tow on the back of the kayak and I refused.  I wanted to make it there, on my own, (well, just me and my noodle that is).  There were moments like there are whenever I do any form of exercise where I wanted to quit, or turn around and go back, or stop moving and just float, but I didn’t.  My hubby did end up pulling me the last hundred feet or so because as we got close to the island it got really rocky and I bashed my toe once and was feeling a little panicky, but otherwise, it was all me and noodle. 

That’s my head poking out of the water way in the back. “Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming”

 

My mother in law was a great help and inspiration.  She stayed close by and would yell back to me every once and a while to make sure I was doing alright and to yell out some words of encouragement.  This was her first swim in several years.  She has pretty severe Chron’s and hasn’t been able to swim that distance the past few summers.  It was also her first swim since her knee replacement surgery and she was amazing!

After a quick picture at the island it was time to turn back.  I can honestly say, I didn’t work nearly as hard on the way back.  I allowed the hubs to tow me a little and spent some time as a figure head for the kayak, but I still put in plenty of effort. 

Spending a few restful minutes as the kayak figure head. Look at those calf muscles!

In all, it took about 2 hours there and back.  By the time we got back I was so cold, my hands wouldn’t even work to put a band-aid on my banged up toe (thank you rocks)!  But it was worth it.  It was worth it to prove to myself I could do something I never thought I could, it was worth it to see my mother in law accomplish something she loves and was able to do for the first time in years, it was worth the activity points I earned for the treats I had later in the afternoon, and really it was one of the more fun 2 hours I’ve ever spent exercising, and oddly enough I’m really looking forward to doing it again next year!

 

Here’s to No More Rolls!

Putting things into perspective, the first picture is me the Christmas after my first son was born.  It wasn’t even my heaviest.  When I started losing weight in October, I was probably about 25 pounds heavier.  This picture is one of those where I didn’t think I was as big as some other people I knew, but now I see every bit of the weight I was carrying.

The second picture was taken about a week ago, and to be honest, I’m feeling even better now than I did then!