Yay for NSV'S! (Non-Scale Victories)

It always amazes me at how fast my body remembers how to be good and what it feels like to be eating better. On October 2nd, I had to go to work and I had only had 2 days of tracking and eating better so I was a little nervous on if I would have the willpower to not eat a very yummy pan pizza or better yet, hot wings. MMMMM.... I had about 7-800 calories left for the day so I knew I couldn't go crazy no matter what I decided to purchase. Then I remembered, Tuesday is pasta day, so it would only cost me $3.00 for a pan of chicken Alfredo. I decided this would be my best bet, especially since I found out that 1/2 pan is 580 calories. I could do that. So I ate my pasta and it was yummy. Not quite as filling as say the salad that I ate for lunch or the Chicken Cordon Bleu that I wanted to make but couldn't cause I had to work. At the end of my shift I remember that I was suppose to get garlic bread with my pasta... mmmm. garlic bread!!! So I popped my two slices of bread in the oven finished work and by the time I was done, so was my bread. YAY! I decided to eat my bread on the way home, and that first bite... ohhh, so delicious! Then another, then another, then, I started noticing, my stomach not feeling quite so well. Turns out that my body just needed 1 day to realize a 1" slice of french bread slathered in garlic butter just wasn't a good thing. I did finish that 1 slice, but gave the 2nd slice to my daughter who promptly dropped it on the ground after I got home. Oh well for garlic bread.

My next NSV came last night. While at work, there was a mistake made and too many hot wings were made. I was given the option of bringing them home with me, and decided I would. I was looking forward to them too. I knew I wasn't going to eat them last night because I had already eaten everything for the day and had closed out my food diary so I was okay with saving them for today, but then I decided, it just wasn't worth it. Since October 1, I have lost 5.5 lbs with a total of 18lbs, and I really didn't want to ruin my loosing streak, so I gave the wings to a co-worker.

My NSV today was kind of similar to last night. I once again was given free wings, honey bbq tonight though. This time I did bring them home, but not for me, for my son to munch on tomorrow after school. I thought they would be a nice treat for him. I decided to have pasta again for dinner but no garlic bread this time, and I only ate half the pan. :-) And when I got home and put in everything that I have eaten for the day, I even had more than enough wiggle room so I could indulge a smidge and eat 1/2 cup (yes it was measured darn it!) of Dreyers slow churned Coconut/pineapple ice cream, and let me tell ya, it was heavenly!

So, since I've missed a couple of days, I kind of let the cat outta the bag up above. I have lost a total of 18lbs since I started my weight loss journey in March. I'm kind of proud of those 18lbs... I've worked really hard to get here, and the best part, my pants were trying to fall down all day. LOL.

Weight: 234.6, so it was actually a gain of .2lbs. I'm ok with that. I was kind of off my schedule yesterday, but today seems to be back to normal. :-) Plus I forgot to check under my wii board to see if there was anything under it before I weighed. My daughter put it on the floor and she's been known to just stick it on top of anything.

Water: I've been doing really good getting all 8 cups in each day, and sometimes more.

Exercise: Today I did 20 minutes of yoga for a total of 66 calories.

Breakfast: normal yummy pancakes w/ strawberries and whipped cream and 2 eggs

Lunch: Today I had a turkey sandwich. 2 slices of sara lee 100% whole wheat bread, 3 slices of fat free turkey, 1 tomato, 1/2 cup lettuce, and 1 TBSP of Best foods mayo. (yes the full fat. I bought it last month and I'm not going to waste it. Will switch to canola mayo once this is gone.) total calories for lunch 414

Dinner: As I mentioned Dinner was Pizza Hut Chicken Alfredo 1/2 pan. Total Calories 580

Snack: Dreyers Pineapple/Coconut Ice cream. Total calories - 140

Total calories for the day: 1604
Calorie Deficit : 126

According to My fitness pal if every day were like today I'd weigh 228.2 in 5 weeks. WOOT WOOT! I'm down in the 220's! yay!

If I can do it, you can do it... just never give up on yourself!

Falling into place

Today was a good day. My hunger levels weren't as high, and when they did peak I was able to satisfy them with a healthy snack. I purchased some more groceries so now I can have my wonderful/marvelous breakfast of pancakes w/ strawberries and whipped cream and eggs. I'm a little nervous about how I'm going to deal with this weekend since I have to work during dinner time, but I think if I either eat before I go or just eat a salad I should be ok. It's nice when things fall back into place. I'm starting to feel more like me again. The deep depression that I have been in for so long seems to be lifting, hopefully for forever. Enough with the depressing talk, I have great news. My weight this morning was -2.6lbs. Yes, that's right, I lost almost 3lbs in 1 day. WOOT WOOT! I know the weight I'm loosing right now is just because my body is in shock and cleaning itself out, but it's wonderful to see the number drop.

Weight: 236.6 (go me!)
Water: 8 glasses.
Exercise: (Does walking around Walmart shopping count?)
Calorie count: 1564
Calorie Deficit: 166

According to Myfitnesspal If every day was like today I would weigh 230.3 in 5 weeks. I think this is going to be an attainable goal.

Dinner today was Taco Pizza The way I made it, each serving was only 445 calories for 2 slices of pizza. This is one of the best pizzas that I have ever eaten. I hope you give it a try.

Starting over... Again

Yes, that's right. While I had really good intentions, life happened, and tracking my food was at the bottom of my list. My goal was to just get through each day, and I did...I survived. Now I'm ready to tackle the task to continue loosing weight. Yes, that's right, I said, continue. Thankfully, my really bad eating habits this summer did not cause me to gain weight. When I stepped on the scale this morning I was actually .7lbs lighter than my last weigh in on myfitnesspal.com. So instead of starting from the absolute beginning, I'm just continuing from where I left off. Today was actually day 2, not day 1. I did learn a couple of lessons, I do have willpower when I want it (had a healthy dinner instead of nachos) and Pizza hut garlic bread just doesn't sit right with my tummy.

Now you probably noticed, I'm not on the Weight Watcher's plan anymore. There's a very good explanation  for that, I just don't have the funds to pay the monthly fee right now. Myfitnesspal.com is a free site and should work just as well. I can use the lessons I learned while on weight watchers and apply them to the myfitnesspal site. Before my WW subscription expired I did compare the two sites  to see if there was a difference. The answer? Nope, not at all. I was suppose to eat 36 points daily (I think that's right). I put in all the food that I would eat and it came to around 1650-1700 calories which is what MFP says I should be eating. So I feel confident that I can do it.

So, since I know what breakfast and lunch meals work for me, to keep me from getting hungry I'm only going to post my dinner meals. The actual recipes will be posted on the cooking page.

Weight: 239.2
Calories consumed= 1490
Total daily allowance= 1730
Calorie deficit = 240

According to MFP if every day were similar to today I would weigh 232.0 in 5 weeks. We'll see. :-)

Tonight I made Panda Express style Orange chicken and rice. Total calories for my version, about 760 and that's including the rice. I was planning on adding a salad with tonight's dinner but I forgot that we had a school function and wasn't able to get the salad made before we had to eat. But still, not a bad meal at all.

I decided to curb my sweet tooth with a lifesavers gummy snack. not the healthiest, but it hit the spot.

Exercise: I need to start doing yoga and as of this post haven't done it yet, but I'm planning on it for later tonight. I did get some exercise in. It wasn't great, but it was something. I took a walk with my children and the dog and we went about a half mile, maybe 3/4 mile. It wasn't a long walk I just had to deliver a product to a friend, but it was long enough. Poor puppy was pooped. LOL. Tomorrow I plan on going on a longer walk, x2.

The Illusion that isn't Weight Watchers

Ya know, it's kind of funny. Growing up my mom talked about weight watchers this, weight watchers that. I didn't get what she meant. Around the time that I was pregnant with my son, my mom and dad were living with my brother and sil. My mom and sil decided to do ww together. I would often eat dinner with them, and see them eating stuff that made me want to gag. They had a recipe for a veggie soup that was 0 points if I remember right, and were eating fat free, everything. Going shopping with them was like torture because my sil would stop and check the points for EVERYTHING! drove me nuts. Watching them, and how they did ww made me want to NEVER ever ever ever EVER! (did I mention never ever?) want to do ww because if that was the way you had to live on ww it so wasn't for me. They were ww nazi's! But a couple years ago, a friend of mine mentioned she was on ww and talked about some of the food that she ate, and I realized, you don't have to be a nazi to enjoy ww and actually succeed with the program. You can eat regular stuff and still loose weight. It works for people like that think most veggies need to be dropped into the deepest part of the ocean so they can never surface. LOL. I don't have to eat that nasty ff miracle whip/mayo or go completely ff. I can enjoy my normal lifestyle, I just have to tweak it a bit and not eat so much of the foods I love. It was a moment I wished I could share with my mom, she passed away 4 years ago. My mom would be so proud of me, and I wish we could enjoy this journey together. Anyway, I just wanted to share what my previous illusion of what ww was and how it really isn't. :-)


**Note** This is a picture of my mom at the age of 74. This was close to when she hit lifetime status.

Challenge day 11 out of 30 - In a funk

I know I've been quiet for several days, but for whatever reason I've just been in this funk. I'm not sure what's going on, but I think I may be done with it.. I'm hoping. Yesterday was my "bad" day. I went over my daily points and dipped into my weekly points. Now going over points isn't necessarily a bad thing, but the way I did it was not a good thing. I did track everything I ate, and I ate like crazy too. I had 14 points for breakfast, 5 for lunch and 18 for dinner plus 4 for snack, so that's a grand total of 41 points. Not bad since there are many people that use up their weekly points and that's the point of weekly points, to use. But my choices weren't the best on the food I ate, and because my choices weren't great, I gained .7lbs. I'm not upset by it, everyone at somepoint has days where they just don't feel like doing anything, and that was my day yesterday. I did good by tracking everything that I did eat and realizing what I was doing. I just have to make sure that I make better choices next time, and part of why I was making bad choices is because I ran out of some of my go-to foods and just thought I could wing it, I couldn't. I have to remember I can't do this. Another reason that I gained (and I actually may not have because I found a kit kat under my scale) is because I haven't worked out since Friday. Because I started feeling muscle weakness and having "tired" legs when exercising I decided to give myself a break and not work out, but last night I did do a little something. I did 20 basic crunches, 20 cross-over crunches, and 20 reverse crunches, or at least that's what I'm calling them. I laid on the floor and raised my legs up to a 90 degree angle from the floor then lowered them back down. It was quite hard. Oh and I did 10 push ups. Not a great start to getting started again, but it was a start. I plan on doing just as much today if not more (shooting for more especially the push ups). I'm glad I'm out of my funk, (at least I hope I am) and I'm back to being 150% commited. I have worked so hard to loose the weight I have, that I really don't want to gain it all back in just a few short days because I have gained that amount back plus some. I've gained 30lbs in 30 days, and I've gained 20lbs in 30 days, I know how easy it is to gain... I will succeed and reach my goal.

Challenge day 5 out of 30 - Running out of steam

Today was an odd day for me. I woke up very refreshed and got in a good 30 minute workout first thing this morning. But by the end of that 30 minutes I just wasn't in the mood to do anything anymore. I think I am getting bored with doing my wii fit. This is the 2nd time this has happened, first time was when I was doing richard simmon's sweatin' to the oldies. I just got tired of it. I had the energy to do it, but not the umph. So, I think I am going to have to change up my routine after this week ends. I think I am done with doing a full week of just one thing because I just don't feel it. So, my new idea starting Saturday will be to alternate between all of the different workouts, Saturday I will do the steps, Sunday a video, Monday Wii, Tuesday a different video, Wednesday steps, Thursday another video, and Friday the Wii again. Hopefully this will help me not get so bored. Plus if I feel the urge to do the other workouts on their off days, I can add that to my list. It's an idea... we'll see how it works.

Weight: 242.5 - no change from yesterday, but that's ok. Hopefully there will be a huge drop tomorrow and Saturday. If not, I'm still down 1.6lbs for the week. Not gonna stress it, but It would really be nice if it happened.

Breakfast: 6 pts
Today I decided to change things up a bit. While I really like my waffles, I decided I needed to use up my bread so I made French Toast. Now this isn't your normal french toast; it's from the website Sparkpeople.com. You do have to register with them to access their recipes. The recipe is called French (Women Don't Get Fat) Toast. Kinda neat huh? It's just a basic french toast but very yummy. I think tomorrow I am going to make a big batch of them so I can just throw them in the freezer and defrost when I feel the urge instead of cooking each morning.

I topped my french toast with my normal topping of fresh cut strawberries w/ 1 TBSP strawberry glaze and reddi wip. And since I had some points available I decided to drink 1 cup of fat free milk.

Lunch: 14 pts
I had a grilled cheese sandwich with 1 slice of fat free turkey meat and 1 cup 2% cottage cheese and a dole peach cup. To get in a few extra veggies I drank 1 cup of v8 juice.

Dinner: 11pts
I made chicken enchiladas. I don't think i'm going to make them very often because 11 points for 2 enchiladas with no side dishes is a lot of points for just a little bit of food. I'm not fond of just a little food. I like to eat and I want as much food as I possibly can get. So Chicken Enchiladas are now off my list of to go to foods.

Snack: 5 pts
My morning snack was 2 celery stalks w/ 2 tbsp of jif creamy peanut butter. My afternoon snack was a weight watchers ice cream cone.

Exercise: 65 minutes - Calories burned 310. Activity points 6
I tried to make my tracking a lot easier today. Instead of doing just a couple minutes here and there and a lot of cardio I decided to give myself even numbers. I did 10 minutes yoga, 10 minutes strength training, 20 minutes cardio, 10 minutes balance and a few other things that I cannot remember anymore. :-). It did make tracking a lot easier. I did a few exercises on one leg and my balance totally sucks. I really need to figure out how to fix this. I use to have good balance. I'm hoping that as I get thinner it will be easier for my leg to support my weight, but I don't know if that will happen. Also, my left leg has always been my weaker leg. I was born with 2 clubbed feet and what that means is that my feet were twisted completely around. My heels were where my toes should be. At the age of 2 weeks the doctor manually straightened them, and at the age of 6 I had surgery on them to fix it permanetly. While I have suffered from arthritis in my knees from the casts and such, I haven't really suffered any ill effects from the clubbed feet other than my left foot is very stiff. I have very little range of motion in it. So doing balance exercises on my left leg is very hard. I am going to keep at it and hopefully the more I do it the stonger and more flexible it will get, here's to hoping.

Non-Scale Victories (NSV)

I started weight watchers for the 2^nd (well actually I think it was the 4^th) time on March 1, 2012 with the intention of just losing weight. I was tired of being fat and knew it was time to “put my big girl panties on” and just do it. There were some issues that I knew I couldn’t fix without losing weight. Never did I realize that I would also succeed at making other changes. I knew I had a flexibility problem. My muscles had become so tight that normal every day activities were hard. I would wake up in the morning and pretty much roll out of bed because I didn’t have the stomach muscles to actually sit up in bed. ***TMI*** I would go to the bathroom and could barely clean myself properly because my back hurt too much to twist right. I am very embarrassed by this fact. I’m only 34 years old! I should have these problems, but I did, and it was my own fault! I was in constant pain from my back being out of align and had to take muscle relaxers to help me even just sleep because of the pain. It was horrible. I never realized that in just 1 short month (well 1 month and 5 days) that I would overcome these issues. I can stand from my couch without pushing myself off with my arms. I can twist like a child. My back no longer hurts 24/7. I’m still working on fixing my neck problems and once I find the right activities to fix that I should be golden. J I no longer wake up multiple times each night just to roll over in bed, in fact, I am actually feeling rested so much so that I will wake up at odd hours at night and cannot go back to sleep. I have only lost 7.7lbs in this last month, and while that is a victory in and of itself, it’s not the ultimate victory. The victory is knowing that my pants are no longer tight. That I can move and that I am no longer in pain. For that, I will be truly thankful to weight watchers for helping me change my life!