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).

my point exactly

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.

the choice of today

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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'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's choices

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

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