Points Counting Break

I know it's not good, but I haven't tracked my points in five days. I don't think I've been too bad, but I know I'm most likely going over my points. I have weighed myself every day and am on track of where I should be. Not like I've gone completely crazy and gained five pounds. I'm going to figure out my points today and will hopefully do that same tomorrow. Christmas will be hard and so will the following days while we travel out of state to my in-laws.

But I'm still here... still trying to watch what I eat. And I promise myself that I will get back on the wagon.

Merry Christmas to all!

Note to Self

When you eat the way you used to, you will get a tummy ache. You will not feel well and it will not be pretty.

A Hard Weekend with Eating

I went out both Friday and Saturday nights this weekend. And some of the activities while going out centered around food. And I did not make the best choices. Although when I look back to it I see that I could have done much worse.

On Friday, I got together with some girlfriends. We went to dinner - I had fish and chips. Chips meaning fries. And I ate the whole thing. The movies were our next stop. We saw "Four Christmases", which I really enjoyed. It was short (like 80 minutes) and I wasn't really happy about spending $10 for the movie. Really... $10? When did movies go up to $10? I obviously haven't gone to a movie at night in a long time. The good news is that I didn't have any snacks at the movies. After spending $10 for the ticket, I wasn't spending any more money. And I was stuffed from dinner. After the movies, it was on to Bonefish for drinks. I had a delicious mojito - mmmmmm.... And no dessert for me!

On Saturday, the family went into the city to see it's Christmas tree with some friends. Then out to dinner. Unfortunately, the "restaurant" was really more of a bar and there wasn't much on the menu that was good for you. I ended up having french onion soup (which was sooo good) and ate some of my daughter's turkey club (just ate some of the turkey). What did me in, though, was the two ciders I had. And I happened to glance at the label when I was almost finished with the second one... 200 calories. Yikes!

So when I weighed myself on Sunday (yes, I still need to work on not weighing myself every day), it said 202. The positive is that today, it was back down to 199. So that's good. I need to work some to lose a little more this week. I'd like a bigger cushion between my current weight and 200. And I have two (yes, two!) cookie exchanges this week. I plan, though, to bring the cookies home and stick them right into the freezer until I take them out when we have people here for Christmas.

New Decade... New Century

Okay... I'm going to admit my weight. I feel comfortable, because really, no one who reads this knows who I am. Are you ready for it... I now weigh 199.2 pounds. That's right... I'm out of the 200's. So there. And let me tell you, I never thought I would be so happy to weigh 199 pounds.

My Christmas goal was to weigh less than 200 pounds. And I've done it, thank you very much. Now my Christmas goal is to still weigh less than 200 pounds on Christmas. Then I'll come up with a new goal to work towards after the holidays.

A little recent weight history... I've weighed more than 200 since at least 2006. I weighed 192 when I got pregnant in April 2004 (which, by the way, was what I weighed when I gave birth the first time). When I gave birth nine months later, I weighed 212. Which was the heaviest I'd ever been. I lost quite a bit of that weight soon after giving birth - I imagine I was down in the 190's by March or April. I don't remember the weight creeping back on, but I know it did. I went for a check up in November 2006 and weighed 207. And my doctor told me that I really needed to lose weight. But I didn't. Instead, I gained about 15 pounds in the next 22 months. And then my highest weight ever was 222... which is what I weighed in August of this year when I decided I needed to do something about it. I lost 5 pounds over about 7 weeks or so before I joined Weight Watchers. And now I've lost almost 18 pounds on WW.

I did manage to exercise more this week than last. I went to the gym during both preschool days and walked on the treadmill. Actually, yesterday I even ran a little. It was only three minutes out of thirty, but it's a start. I've also walked a lot doing more Christmas shopping (will it ever end???).

Uh okay...

I just plugged in my weight info in the online Weight Watcher and got this message...

"Please note: You're probably excited to be losing weight, but you're losing faster than is recommended. Although it's normal to lose over 2 lbs in 1 week, if you lose more than an average of 2 lbs per week over a 4-week period, this could pose health risks, such as heart irregularities, anemia or loss of muscle mass. Please slow your weight loss; your doctor can help you do this if you're not sure how."

Hmmm. I'm not losing more than 2 lbs per week. My weight loss over the past 4 weeks has been high 1's pretty much. Three weeks ago, I didn't weigh (Thanksgiving) and five weeks ago, I did lose 2.4. I thought I was doing well. Do I need to be worried that I'm losing too much? It's not like I'm bringing in Biggest Loser numbers.

I Feel Sick

Tonight I took the girls to the Christmas party at my grandmother's senior apartment complex. There was lots of food and I ate way too much of it. And now my stomach is killing me - I've already been into the Tums. I went in thinking that I would be pretty good, but I wasn't. The only way I could have really been good was not to eat anything - there wasn't really much that was good for you. Luckily, I did get a trip to the gym in earlier today and I hadn't used many points before the party.

On a positive note... I have been fitting into clothes that haven't fit in quite a while. My husband gave me pjs that I couldn't even get past my hips last year - I'm wearing them right now. My wardrobe has expanded without me having to buy anything... all things that have been in my closet which I haven't been able to wear for the past couple of years.

A Little Closer

I'm down 1.6 pounds this week. That puts me a little closer to my Christmas goal. In fact, it makes it so I have one more pound before I reach my goal. And I'm confident that I will lose that one pound in the next three weeks. I know it's going to be a little harder this month than it would be other times of the year.

I mentioned to my husband yesterday that I wish I had more time to exercise. My husband works a second job during this time of year (don't feel sorry for him... it's his choice and he loves it. It's not for the money) so he doesn't get home at night until a lot later than usual. And with a 3 year old, I don't get a lot of alone time to do what I want by myself. I do get preschool time, but that's only six hours a week. And lately, I've been using that time to Christmas shop by myself. I guess I do get a little exercise by walking around all those stores... although not enough to get my heart rate up.

Okay... so I'm full of excuses. I'm going to make it my goal to exercise more this week than I did last week. Shouldn't be too hard since I only exercised once.

I've been reading on a couple of blogs that Weight Watchers is launching a new plan this week. Can't wait to hear more about it. I am having some problems with the WW web site - it's not saving my Plan Manager. Anyone else having the same problem?

Back on Track After a Short Break

I was a little worried about Thanksgiving and it turns out I needed to be. I had decided in advance not to track points that day, but to be careful with my eating. I did not want to deprive myself or drive myself crazy. I did not go too overboard. I took small servings of the Thanksgiving foods that I love and did not go back for seconds. I did eat way too much of the brie appetizer that was made. I also had a small piece of cake and a small piece of pie.

My sister-in-law told us that she had heard that the average person eats 4,800 calories on Thanksgiving. I do not think I did that. We did walk in the turkey trot on Thanksgiving, so I did get some exercise before eating all that food!

Unfortunately for me, my not keeping track of points on Thursday turned into not keeping track of points on Friday... or Saturday. I did not go crazy on either of those days, but I know I ate more than I should have. I had Thanksgiving leftovers for lunch and dinner on Friday (including dessert) and we had dinner out on Saturday.

I am back on track now. I will be counting my points daily again. I also decided not to weigh in this week. My weigh in day is Friday and I thought for my mental health, I shouldn't weigh myself the day after Thanksgiving. I'll be working hard the rest of the week to have a decent number on the scale this week.

Weigh-in and Thoughts on Thanksgiving

I'm down 1.8 pounds this week. That was a bit of a surprise since I didn't think I did very well, especially since there wasn't much exercising or fruit/veggie eating this week. I did stay within my points every day but one and didn't eat hardly any of my weekly points. So it's all good! I'm 2.6 pounds away from my Christmas goal. I'm not sure if that's going to happen this week - I'm being realistic.

Thanksgiving is going to be hard. It's one of my favorite days of the year. A lot of my very favorite foods... and lots of it. I did tell my mom that I'd like to make some of the dishes a little on the lighter side this year. I mentioned making carrots. She said "We could make Grandma's buttered carrots." Not quite what I had in mind. I'm going to do my very best and not beat myself up about what I eat.

A good thing that we are doing on Thanksgiving... a Turkey Trot. My husband and brother-in-law are going to run the 5K. My sister, brother, sister-in-law and I, along with the kids (most of them in strollers) are walking the 2 mile "fun walk." Although I've seen the weather forecast for that day - not sure how fun it's going to be walking 2 miles in the freezing cold. But we'll just make sure we're dressed for the weather and I'll earn some activity points before the big meal!

How do you hold yourself accountable?

I was talking to a friend this morning and that is what she asked me. We were talking about WW online, which is the program I'm using to lose weight right now. My answer was "I just do." She said that she would probably cheat. I told her if I had tried this six months ago, I may have failed. I was not ready then... I was ready on September 25th when I started. If I cheated, I would only be cheating myself. I have been being honest with myself and tracking all of my points... even when I ate 61 points in one day.

I have so far to go. But I am proud of the fact that I weigh less now than I have in at least two years. And 15 pounds from now, I'll be less than I've been in at least four and a half years.

I have noticed things in my head changing. I have been doing far less eating without thinking. There were donut holes when I was today. I did not eat any. There was coffee cake where I was yesterday. Again, none for me. Two months ago, I would have chowed down without even thinking twice about it.

I didn't get an official work out done yesterday during preschool. Instead, I went Christmas shopping. But that was a lot of walking. I walked over 7,000 steps yesterday - which is about what is on my pedometer on the days where I walk for 30 minutes.