Weekly Weigh-In

Starting weight: 197.2
Last Recorded Weigh In: 164.2
This Week: 163.2    Difference: -1.0    Total Loss: 34.0

Victory!!! It’s one thing to lose big, it’s another to lose big two weeks in a row! It looks like my changes are working. I’ve lowered the sodium, added in exercise (both cardio and muscle building activities), and I’ve been listening to my body’s hunger signs. I’m getting to know myself so much better on an eating front. Though medium/small (I’m back in my size six jeans, thank you very much!) I can eat, and eat, and eat and not feel “full”. Satisfied, yes! Full? Not so much. Portioning my food helps immensely with this problem. Another problem – I enjoy always having some sort of taste in my mouth… it’s an addiction in all honestly… getting active/out of the house or keeping my hands busy by working on my crocheting helps me overcome this addiction… and… if worse comes to worse… I can just go brush my teeth and I’m good. (Before you snicker try it!! Talk about a good way to keep yourself from snacking when you’re not actually hungry!!) I’ve also found that I can no longer get by without activity. I need to be more proactive about my weight loss and let me tell you, it’s payed off big time.

That said, with all these changes and new strategies at my disposal, life still happens. I’m not on some distant farm where all I have to do is workout and eat healthy and watch myself shrink. I live around restaurants and fast food places. I face temptation every day and I have to overcome it or find a way to incorporate it without losing sight of my goals and blowing my whole weight loss journey. This week will have to be an example of the latter… you see, yesterday was date day. Date day is a wonderful day for me and the Hubs. We have childcare all day and we go out to lunch and dinner – sometimes a movie – and it’s all about us. But, well, it’s not. It’s also all about the food. We try the best reviewed restaurants up here in Portland and usually have a 3 course meal for dinner. Yesterday I had my 3 course meal. Vegetable Potato Soup, Lemon Butter Salmon, and six or seven ounces of my favorite frozen yogurt treat with strawberries on top. As far as desserts go, I did well. We drove out to our favorite little (healthy-ish) fro-yo place after dinner instead of ordering the cheesecake… but as far as dinner goes… Yeah. I have no clue what kind of damage I did. Even with the ingredients obviously placed in front of my face, I have no way of estimating how much oil, butter, and who knows what was used to make my meal amazingly good.

To counteract yesterday’s indulgence I need to get extra active today and the rest of my week. I might pull out the 30 Day Shred again; I might up my walking; I might pull out one of the other bazillion workout DVDs that I own. I have options! I’m also going to keep the reigns tight on my food this week. Indulgence should be allowed on occasion. But with every reward there is a cost… basic physics – “for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.”

Wish me luck on that “Equal and opposite reaction.” Truth be told, I think I’m up for the challenge!!

Little Victories

I’m two days away from my weigh-in and I’m pretty sure that I’m doing awesome. My tracking has been spot on; I’ve mixed up my dinner menu; I’ve added exercise; I’ve been purposely moving more just around my house; I’ve drastically reduced my sodium intake. I’ve taken control and I am making things happen.

That said I am also breaking the rules a little bit… yesterday was a day of rest for my workout routine… not because I scheduled it that way, but because I was sore. And let me tell you, I rested. I was soooo lazy yesterday and I needed to be lazy!! But still. I went ahead and ended the day with a ton of daily points left over. Every now and again I think that doing this and “tricking your body” so to speak can be good. Do it too often and you’ll go into an anorexic state where your body doesn’t actually burn the calories that it should. But every now and again can’t be bad, right?  Either way I needed that. I was fighting the kiddo ALL DAY and needed some sort of victory. I’ve dipped into my weekly points all week and needed some sort of retribution. I wanted so badly to stress eat and I needed to be better than that. And the real kicker was this – I wasn’t actually hungry.

Today I’m hoping to get some exercise back in. I’ve printed out a blank calendar and pinned it on my home office wall. Each day that I get activity I mark it and celebrate another victory over all those excuses we give ourselves. I need little things like that to keep me on track. It makes this journey so much more real and I know it will make my weight loss that much more obtainable.

Weekly Weigh In

Starting weight: 197.2
Last Recorded Weigh In: 166.8
This Week: 164.2    Difference: -2.6    Total Loss: 33.0

This week was empowering. I changed things up, I busted my butt, and I saw huge results. I know that a good deal of that is water weight, but I’m not only moving in the right direction, I’m getting there!! The things I started this week are good habits – habits that will serve me for the rest of my life. Habits that CAN NOT be a means to an end, but habits that must become a part of the new me!! The new, TONED, ACTIVE, AWARE, and… yeah… FEISTY me. That, my readers (few to non-existant as you are) is what I want to be – feisty. I want to take challenges head on, never say never, and fight for what is good and right. Though it pains me to say, the 30 Day Shred and workouts like it (that incorporate cardio and strength training together)… these things are very very good and right when it comes to taking care of our physical bodies.

I’m keeping my eyes focused on the prize!! And that prize is a healthy, fit, leaner me who has enough energy to get up and make a difference in the world. It constantly amazes me how much our health plays an impact in who we are. I want to be alive on all plains of my life and this past week I most certainly was!!

2.6 pounds down. Wow. I’m proud of myself.

Tried and True

So, there’s a reason why it’s called “Tried and True”. And that’s because, well, lots of people tried it and… well, it works. I don’t usually use language like this, but I gotta say, I’ve been going through this weight loss journey half-assing it and still expecting to lose half my ass.

NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.

The past week I’ve sat down and really looked at what I’m doing. I was eating salty snacks – not often, but often enough. I was drinking tons of soda – diet, but still not something that is typically considered “good for you”. I was sitting on my rear most of the day catching up on last night’s TV… My eating was good, but not amazing. My attitude was somewhat defeated. I was not losing weight.

Then a magical thing happened… in my Saturday meeting a challenge was made… the Walk it Challenge. Now I know I can walk it. I can walk it like there’s no tomorrow… and I used to get out and walk all the time when the weather was better. I know I can Walk it. So I started thinking… what other activities do I enjoy that burn calories? Well, I used to be on the rowing team in college (I didn’t do any rowing… I was the girl that yells at the guys… it was a pretty sweet deal.) So I know about rowing machines and the awesome results you can get from them. I also have seen the contestants on The Biggest Loser use these machines…

So I had an idea!! … buy a rowing machine!! Only thing is… well… a good rowing machine is about $900.00. Yeah. $300 for the more inferior model…

Then I got real with myself.

I have a million workout DVDs. I know I need to build more lean muscle to help me burn this fat (the rowing machine WOULD help me do that… but yeah… $300). So why not to go back to what I know works? That’s right… my trusty friend “Jillian Michaels: 30 Day Shred”. I did it years ago – not in it’s entirety mind you, but I did it – and I knew it was a darned good workout. I also know the hazards of committing to a new workout machine when your current exercise regime is a big fat zero. So I made a deal with myself – when I’m down to the next decade of weight loss (159.9) I am allowed to buy that machine (the cheaper one of course!!) and USE that machine, but until then I have to prove it – prove it to the world, but more importantly prove it to myself. I CAN DO THIS!! I CAN LOSE THIS WEIGHT. Exercise/Building lean muscle to help burn fat is a method that is tried and true.

I’ve been Shredding it for the past five days and the scale already says I’m down. I’m excited about this week’s weigh in… Saturday morning, here I come!! Hubby, you better start saving that cash!!

Gotta Switch it Up

So I’ve weighed in twice since my last post… and have had lots to say!! Life has been insane. My little girl turned 4 (her party was amazingly awesome – super hero themed… they had to accept a mission, beat the “bad guys” and got prizes as they progressed through the quest.) Based on the enthralled looks on those kiddos’ faces, the party was a HUGE success.

I gained .6 that week… vowed to stay on track and also “track, track, track!!” and was all ready to do so but…then…well… My husband had to work on that Saturday so I took the kid to a movie. Neither of us ate anything I didn’t smuggle in my purse, so I did good there… but… well… as we were leaving I tripped on the stairs and fell butt first on the step. For at least 3 days after the fall I had to sit down like an old lady due to the ginormous bruise on my rear!! OHHHHH it hurt!!! Naturally some sympathy eating took place – tortilla chips and guacamole to be exact.

Even with THAT I should have been down this week. I tracked perfectly until the last two days and even then I (think) I stayed on plan… but, I DID have some Indian food the night before weigh-in. I was .8 up… up… yeah. Starting to *really* dislike that word.

90% of the time I eat really well… and I really feel like those little “off program” episodes that I have had are minor enough to induce a 0 on the scale… not a +. That said, I have a few things that could use tweaking. I don’t exercise. I need to. I don’t drink a lot of water… and… well… I need to.

This weekend we sold our antiquated treadmill and will be purchasing a rowing machine (LOVE those things, and they are a full body, cardio, muscle building experience… no joke, you can earn 11 activity points in 1 hour if you push it hard enough on one of those machines.) AND I’m going to cut my diet soda’s in half (if not more) and substitute with my lemonade or something else water-based.

Until my rowing machine gets purchased/delivered/set up I’m going to pull out my “30 day shred” and just do the best I can… guessing my 4 year old will be THRILLED to “work out” with me and pretend like she’s doing the exercises.

**sigh** why can’t it just be easy? I ask you Universe, why can’t it just magically disappear and stay off?

BUT!!!! I **WILL** CONQUER.  I have to.

ok… now to find that 30 day shred video… Jillian, I’m scared of you… be kind my TV personality friend…