Sunday, April 21, 2013

I'm sad

I know it has been a while. I've been up and down, lather rinse repeat. I finally signed up for e-tools and that has made tracking my points easier.

I'm worried about my son.

I'm tired of buying so many snacks. I buy junk food and say it is for the kids, but then, I look at my kids,and really folks... they don't need it either. I've gone to shopping once a week. If they eat all the snacks in the beginning of the week - too bad.

I had my oldest write down everything he ate. Only, I ended up writing most of it. The second week I said he can have 5 snacks, we picked them out and put them into a basket. Except that he ate those and then more. Yesterday, I bought a 12 pack of peanut butter crackers for him. That is what he said he wanted as a snack this week. I specifically asked if they wanted granola bars. I bought almonds for me.

I went to get a granola bar for me this evening. All but one package of almonds is gone * , all but one granola bar is gone and 6 of the 12 packages of crackers are gone. He did not ask for any of this food. This means he is sneaking the food. I took the remaining snacks that I got for me and put them up in the cupboard.

*turns out the youngest ate all of the almonds

This brings back bad memories. I was fat as a child. My parents hid food from me too. I found it. I don't want this for my son. I have at least been encouraging him to exercise.  Both boys get 30 minutes of computer time. If they want any more they have to do 20 minutes of exercise.

I wish I knew what to do. We've talked about it before. I've stressed to him that I just want him to be healthy. He is not at a healthy weight. His BMI is 34.2 where mine is 34.9. My folks ,I say both of them, but I'm pretty sure it was mostly my mom, tried to put me on weight watchers at age 10, tried to bribe me with rewards for losing weight etc. None of those worked for me. I wrote him a letter tonight and told him it made me sad that he ate that food.  That I want him to be healthier than I am, that I want him to not get the bad habits I have. I want so much more for him. He is such a bright young man. I want him to be happy. I want him to be able to have girlfriends in high school and not be the fat kid. Maybe I am just projecting my  history on him.

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

three tenths

That's all I gained this week. 0.3, so 16 oz to a lb makes that 4.8 ounces. Honestly, the way I went through Easter candy this week, I am surprised it isn't more!

Need to really get on the ball this week and track everything. This month's focus is planning at WW. Plan what your next meal/snack will be. Easier said than done. I don't always know what I want for dinner when I am eating breakfast.

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

breaking even

Last week I gained 2.8 lbs. I was kind of expecting that. This week, I lost 2.8 lbs.  I broke even.

Thursday, March 7, 2013

stress eating

I am feeling completely overwhelmed lately. My 7th of 10 classes started this week, and I am already one day late posting my discussion. I haven't even finished reading the materials  yet. I am trying to correct the multiplication pretests i had fourth grade students complete so I can pick subjects for my research project.  I love my new job as a tutor (although I'm more like a teachers assistant!), but sometimes I miss my mornings to myself. I also have a family member (brother in law) who is very ill. I'm sure I am not as stressed out as my sister and her family are though, but I'm still stressed.

Do you know how I know that?

In the past hour, between leaving Walmart & picking up kids & getting home, I have consumed 4 donuts and a small 3.5 oz bag of chocolate. In addition, I have consumed two containers of coolwhip frosting that I bought for my 10 yr olds bday party on Friday night. Did I mention it is a sleep over, and that it is tomorrow and that my house is not clean and I haven't baked his cake yet?   It has been a really long time since I binged on frosting. On the good side, it is lower in points than regular frosting.

Something has to give.

I dropped my class. I hope that the stress of being behind already during week one will make things easier.


Friday, March 1, 2013

couch to 5 k


I did a lot of walking on vacation, so I decided to get into a routine. Based on my husbands pedometer, I know that at least one day we walked over 3 miles. I looked up the couch to 5k program, but it involves running.  I do not run. Not only is it hard on my knees, I have to many rolls of extra "stuff" that jiggle when I run. A few weeks ago I jump roped at school with the  kids. Too many parts of my flopping around! I found a program through sparkpeople that is walking.

I'm starting tomorrow.


Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Vacation eating has ended

I weighed in this morning to find I had gained 2.9 lbs on my vacation. All in all, I can live with that.  The cruise eating was very easy. The formal dining room is served to you in perfect portions. I at dessert every night. When eating at the buffets, I made sure to have a fruit or a vegetable with my meal. The thing is the walking. you have to walk everywhere  I took stairs more often than I normally would because the elevators were a bit slow. There was also no pantry to browse through. I truly only ate when I was hungry.

Then came Disney World. The food is not only over priced, but over portioned! There were several times we ate at a buffet that I had more than I should eat, including extra dessert. We did a lot more walking there though.What most likely did me in were those times when I was alone that I got a sweet treat. I also bought a lot of chocolate in different countries in Epcot.

I had my last fattening dessert out tonight at Red Robin for my son's birthday. My older son and I shared a brownie sundae. Tomorrow points start again. I also need to keep up the exercise. I walked quite a bit during my vacation and I don't want to lose that momentum. I didn't walk today, however I did shovel what felt like 200 lbs of slushy, wet, heavy snow.

Tomorrow I am going to look into a couch to 5K type of program. I have no interest in running, too many parts of my body jiggle when I run, but I would like to increase my activity and stamina.

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

point two

That is what I am up this week. 0.2. Its only 3 ounces. It is so minuscule its like staying the same. I bet if I used the bathroom before I went it would have been less.

I did, however, walk 30 minutes for 3 days and 10 minutes for 1 day. Walking is good. I have a very eclectic music taste when I walk though. Yesterday i started out with some slower country music, then bon jovi, adam lambert and guns and roses. Paradise City really has a good beat to walk to. I finished up my cool down with Sounds of Silence by Simon and Garfunkel

I don't want to know what I would have gained without the exercise. I had a few days this week that I over ate when I knew I was not hungry. I blame PMS.

Vacation starts Saturday. I am not following my plan on vacation. I also am not going to overindulge just because I am "on vacation". It's still all about the choices. The first four days there will be food available on the cruise 24 hours a day. I do not need to eat all day long. I do not need to eat ice cream with every meal just because it is available. I'm not saying I wont eat dessert, but I do not need a lot of it. For the Disney part of the trip, I am bringing snacks. We can eat pop tarts in the room for breakfast.

The other thing that should keep the weight down on vacation is the extra walking. I usually end up doing fairly well on vacation because of the additional exercise. We'll see how I do!

Thursday, February 7, 2013

Diet AND Exercise

When I started weight watchers, I decided that I was not going to add in the exercise component as long as I was losing with just the diet part. Well, folks, that day is here. For the last month or so I have been bouncing up and down the same 2 1/2 lbs. I had already decided to start walking again when the WW leader said the focus for this month is activity! Perfect timing for me!

Well, today I started. 10 minutes on the treadmill. 10 minutes isn't much, but it is 10 more minutes than I got yesterday. My goal is to do 10 minutes per day. Once I go on vacation, that will be easy, in fact, I'll blow that total out of the water with all of the walking I'll be doing on the boat & at Disney.

I am also proud of my choices today. I wrote down all of my points for breakfast and lunch and then decided on dinner and added that in too. Then I planned my snacks. Planning is supposed to help remedy that  hungry-looking-through-the-kitchen behavior. I went to the BB&Beyond after work and didn't buy the chocolate drizzled popcorn, or the candy bar I was going to justify. I did have an extra snack in my bag and ate that when I got to the car.

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Up again

I'm up 2.1 lbs. I'm ok with that. I had birthday cake 3 days in a row and went out to dinner for my son's 12th birthday. I'm glad it wasn't more. I celebrated by finally going to Red Lobster. I skipped the rolls, told the waiter to not even bring them to the table. I didn't finish my lunch because I was full. I did however, stop and buy chocolate at Walgreens before i picked up the kids from school.  I have been craving chocolate all week. Im pretty sure I am out of points for the day & week now! Luckily my points reset on Thursday morning.

one more week before my vacation. I'm not going to diet on vacation, nor am i going to gorge myself. I typically don't gain much if any on vacation. 1. there is no pantry/kitchen to grab food all day when I'm bored, 2. i don't plan to be board and 3. i'll be doing so much more walking then I do now.

The goal for weight watchers for this month is to be more active. I don't need to go gung ho, i plan to add 10 minutes per day of exercise to my day.

Friday, February 1, 2013

at the computer

my goal this week was to not eat at my computer. Well, so far eh...

I ate my breakfast at the computer. I have limited time in the morning. This probably means I am addicted to Facebook and email and stupid zynga games. I have managed to not eat snacks at the computer, I guess I will have to be satisfied with that.   I can choose to be mad at myself for not meeting my goal and go eat or I can choose to recognize that my goal does not work for me in its current format. I am revising my goal to not  snack while I am on the computer. We'll see how that goes for the rest of the week.

Today is bowling for the boys. I am going to choose to not eat food at the bowling alley. I am going to pack a snack instead. I know that Sunday is my son's birthday; this means eating out and cake. I want to save my points for then.

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

1 cup

That's what I gained this week. there is 16 oz in a pound, and I lost 0.6 of that which equals 9.6 oz, which is a little more than one cup.

Not bad. I made decent choices this week. Made some really cruddy ones too, so I can accept that I didn't lose this week.

I made my veggie goal this week but not my fruit goal, I was close, but no strawberry.
This week's goal is to not eat while I am at the computer. I'd like to curve my mindless eating.

Choices I made today:

  • not going to Godiva at laurel park place after my meeting
  • choosing to eat before i went to the grocery store (i typically don't eat before meetings which are at 10 am) because I was starving
  • choosing to go through a drive through instead of the shrimp i still want at red lobster. Jimmy's 12th bday is Sunday & we'll be going out for that.
  • choosing to go to taco bell instead of mcdonalds. I would have gotten fries.
  • choosing to get the fresco soft tacos. 8 points for 2 steak soft taco's isn't bad.
Not horrible choices. I did choose to have two pieces of pizza with the boys at dinner though, but it was only two, not the four i prefer to have (or used to prefer to have, i really am satisfied with two now. I tried to just have one, but i went back for more).

Monday, January 28, 2013

Credit please

I want credit for not buying the frozen cool-whip frosting at the grocery store. You know, just to "try it". There is no point. If I don't like it, I wasted money. If I do like it, I would probably end up eating the entire package.

There are just some foods that I cannot have in the house.


  • Little Debbie Snack cakes : of any kind
  • Chips. Even in the single serve size, they are still four points each & I cant stop at one package.
  • Scoop-able ice cream. I'm fairly good at eating only one diet ice cream  I also decided today that I don't need to buy regular ice cream "for the kids". They don't need it either. We'll stick with skinny cow and weight watchers
  • Most forms of candy. Yes, I know that 3 Hershey kisses are only 2 points. But an entire package is costly!
  • Skinny cow fake candy. I can deal with a single serving package, but not a whole box.

Saturday, January 26, 2013

the choice of today

Today's mindless eating is brought to you by carrots. 0 point carrots with no ranch dip.

Friday, January 25, 2013

oink

Little Debbie snack cakes have been banned from my home. I think they make them with crack. Seriously. Even after I looked up the points (which is 8 for the two little cakes, by the way),  I still ate way too many. The first round I ate one of the cakes and threw the other one away. I know anyone reading this that grew up in the depression era is yelling at me for throwing away food. I could send it to the starving children in Africa, but they don't need junk food.  I had 4 points and I counted them. 

Then there was this afternoon.

Frustrated with my research paper, I started munching. and munching. and before I knew it, I had eaten 3 more packages!. Yikes, that's 24 points. 

But it doesn't stop there. I ate a whole plate of cheese bread at the bowling alley. The saddest part, is that it didn't really even taste that good.

Tonight the boys and their friends had a movie night at school. I hid in one of the classrooms and did some school work for a while. I thought the movie was over, so I came out. One of the moms told me that there was still 15 minutes left. I decided to walk. I walked up and down the third grade hallway for about 5-10 minutes. That will only earn me one point back, but hey, it was exercise! And, when I got home, I shoveled.

On the good side, I have had fruit with my breakfast for two days so far and veggies with my lunch once. I'm on track to complete that goal at least. I'm going to print out my inspiration picture from the previous post and tape it to the fridge and the cabinet and the computer. Tomorrow starts a new day.

inspiration

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Emotional Eating

I don't think I lost this week. This has been a stressful few days. I am struggling with my class. I am expected to turn in the first 9 pages of a research  plan, but I am having a difficult time getting started picking the topic to do. It has to be something I can actually research later on in the program.

And then there is family drama. I have been renting out my dad's old house. Its the house I grew up in. I don't know why I am trying to hold on to it. He's ready to let it go, I should be too. I decided to let my  nephew rent it with his friends and other assorted roommates. The problem is that they are all young. When there were 4 people it was fine. Now there are only three. That only leaves enough money to pay my dad the mortgage and I'm stuck with the utilities. I'm done with it. I told my dad to look into what he needs to do to give it back to the bank. I told the kids living there to start looking for somewhere to move. I am in the hole about $1600. Its only about a grand when my nephew pays his back due rent and the one tenant pays me for January - which she promises she'll have on the 25th. Sigh. I'm done.

Its also not helping my weight loss efforts. I have been making poor choices this week. The reese's peanut butter cups at the grocery store, the huge bowl of cereal when I got home. The ice cream I had before bed. I know when I show a gain this week, it will be because of the stress.  Most of the week I have made good choices.

I did  make my goal of eating fruit with my breakfast 5 of the 7 days this week. That's at least one good thing.

This week's goal. Eat fruit with my breakfast 5 out of 7 days AND eat a veggie with my lunch 4 out of 7 days.

UPDATE: Back from weigh in. My stress only cost me 1.2 lbs.

Sunday, January 20, 2013

Set smart goals






Set smart goals for your self. A goal of "lose weight" is so vague it is easy to fail.

S: Specific:: I will eat healthier food.
M: Measurable: I will eat eat more fruit
A: Action: I will eat a fruit with my breakfast
R: Realistic: I will eat a fruit with my breakfast at least 5 days per week.
T: Time bound: For one month, I will eat a fruit with my breakfast at least 5 days per week.

Now the conversation in my head will be more like : I will eat healthier food, (not- I ate chips, i failed) i am out of fruit (not-  i missed one day, i failed) , that's ok, my goal is to eat it at breakfast 5/7 days and I already have done it twice this week, so im on track.

Set smart goals.


Friday, January 18, 2013

The day starts off so well...

then the night time munchies hit. I blame my period. Its pms week, and the cravings get bad. I think i just need to go to bed earlier.

Tomorrow will be interesting. I'm hosting a pampered chef party. The consultant is bringing brownies & we're making home made chips & a dip. Better make sure i'm filled up on veggies before hand. We're also going to watch an old favorite of mine, The Princess Bride.

my name is inigo montoya. you killed my father. prepare to die.

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

are there medium choices?

My son and I went to Wendy's for lunch today. I made some medium choices. Not bad ones, but not the best choice I could make either.

  •  I could have ordered a salad (good choice), but I got the fries (not good choice). I only ate half of them (medium)
  • I could have ordered a grilled chicken sandwich (good), but I ordered the breaded/fried sandwich (not good).I really wanted the Asaigo Bacon Ranch (not good) I ordered the spicy chicken (meduim).
My whole lunch cost me 19 points. The sandwich i wanted originally would have been 18 points by itself. 
So, not bad. Not great, but not bad.

The chips I had with my dinner? not a wise choice. the only benefit is that I wont weigh in until next week and will have time to flush the sodium out of my system!

skinny cow?

Yeah, if you eat the entire box  you will be more cow than skinny. and have a tummy ache. I think i found my bad choice for yesterday.

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

And the total so far is...

I weighed in today, a day early. I have to work tomorrow. I managed to not only lose what I gained last week, but another .5 on top of that, for a 2.7 loss this week! This puts my total weight loss at 18.4 lbs since the beginning of august. I have bounced around 17 lbs lost for a bit, but this officially takes me to my greatest loss so far.

I planned on going to red lobster today for lunch. I was thinking, hey, i have an extra day to take off what I gain from lunch. I was going to get the 30 shrimp deal i keep seeing on tv. Instead, I am home. I had a ham & cheese roll up and some fruit instead. Carb balance tortilla = 2 pts, Black forest ham (boars head) 2 oz = 1 pt & some colby jack cheese 1 oz = 3 pts. I warmed it up in the microwave. If its hot, i don't feel the need for the mayo, saving me some points there!

Another good food I have been eating lately is Krave cereal. for 3/4 of a cup it is only 3 points. It satisfies the crunch monster w/o the salt of chips and the chocolate monster w/ the little bit of chocolate flavor inside.

Monday, January 14, 2013

Sunday & Monday Choices

Sunday we went to Texas road house for my hubby's birthday dinner. I made pretty good choices. The smallest, leanest steak. A garden salad w/ ranch; but i used the old dip-the-fork-in -the dressing trick to use less. I totally skipped the rolls and peanuts. I picked boring corn for a side. It may have been in butter, i couldn't quite tell, but it was a better choice than any of the other sides

Monday, I did pretty well today. Went home for lunch instead of out when I ended up working in the afternoon. Had enough points left for dinner. But, i have the munchies. I weigh in tomorrow morning instead of Wednesday morning because im working, so i hope my munchies don't undo all of my good choices this week.

Saturday, January 12, 2013

Saturday's Choices

Good choices: Eating a Healthy Choice frozen dinner for lunch instead of grabbing something from Mc Donalds. Skipping the candy in the check out aisle.

Not a great choice: Getting a sample of eggo with nutella at walmart. I already know what that tasts like, I could have skipped it.

Friday, January 11, 2013

Friday's choices

Good choice made today: Eat at home before going to the bowling alley
Not so good choice: Points used up for chocolate

Thursday, January 10, 2013

Noticing the loss

It is funny to me  how people don't notice I've lost weight until I make a comment about it. Then all of a sudden, they can really tell. I'd really like if someone noticed that I've lost weight before I told them it happened. I know I can look back on pictures and tell I have lost the weight, so I am not sure why I need other people to validate it for me.

Today I actually exercised. Ok, it was only 15 minutes of Wii fit, but hey, its 15 more than I did yesterday. I didn't even get derailed when I needed new batteries for the Wii fit board.  After the gain I had last week, I kind of took a day off of counting points yesterday. I pretty much ate what I wanted. I also woke up with terrible heartburn and a not so good tummy.

This WILL be a better week and I WILL show a loss this week.

In the beginning...

The heaviest I ever have been is 267 lbs. I may have weighed more, but that is the highest ever recorded on a scale. I wore a 3x and 26/28 size clothing. I have only one photo of myself at that size. It was taken sometime between 1995 and 1997, judging by the others in the original picture. My uncle, who is now deceased is in the picture, and the shirt I was wearing I made sometime during my first marriage. 
I have gone up and down through the years. I weighed 247 when I delivered my oldest son. The lowest I ever weighed was after Weight Watchers, at about 201 lbs. I gained that back and started Jenny Craig at 245 lbs. I got down to 217 with them & gained that back.

Last year blue care network had us participate in either a walking program or weight watchers. The first year, I did the walking.  I was 237 when I started that. A year later I was down a little less than 10 lbs. This year I am doing weight watchers. again. I've done weight watchers throughout several points in my life. My mom took me when I was 10. It is much easier now. I started weight watchers this time at 230 lbs. My last weigh in I was 214.7.

my heaviest ever photographed
This is my blog about my weight loss journey & other things in my life.
2 months after my oldest was born

2006- probably the thinnest I've been
December 2012