lunch short

Okay just wanted to pop in real quick to post my lunch pic.  This is a frozen WW meal called Lasagna Bake w/meat sauce and a 1/2 cup scoop of LF cottage cheese for a total of 7 pts.  I wanted to add a zero or low pt veggie to this but I was short on time today and decided to skip it but next time, I would add like some green beans or maybe asparagus, mmm mm.    Just wanted to share this one.

size does matter

LOL  okay still not sure how to post and fix my pictures but here are 3 more meals that are all yummy and quick n easy.  The top picture is whole grain pasta w/homemade spaghetti sauce w/turkey added, total of 7.5 pts.  The second pic is a lean cheeseburger made with a lean ground beef patty, 2% american cheese and an Oroweat Sandwich Thin. Plus RF Pringles for a total of 10 pts.  The last is a real surprise.  I found boneless skinless GRILLED chicken breasts at Jack in the Box and I added the rice and broccoli for a total count of 9 pts.  These are all meals that I will frequent again and I hope they will help me be successful on my journey.

Now onto my thought for the day.  Size and portion control are very, very important.  I am finally realizing and ACCEPTING that.  When I did WW before, I really thought I was being diligent in everything I did because I always wanted to be successful, but now I know different.  Its crazy to think about how off my 1/4 cup of grated cheese was compared to what it really should have looked like!  I'm not kidding, you should see how much spaghetti I can cram into a 1 cup measuring cup! lol  I just recently noticed how food packaging almost always lists not only the size in cups or oz, but it also gives the serving size in grams and that is a much more accurate way to weigh your food.  I have also started paying attention to the sizes of my portions when I eat elsewhere and I think that has helped me too.  For example, my meat serving size should be about the size of a deck of cards and a tennis ball is about the size of a cup.  I have found that the better I learn this, the easier it will be to stay on program.  Its like who was I kidding when I was measuring my old way?  The scale knew and it wasnt a friend of mine, it told the truth! all the time!  Its crazy because I can think back when I would weigh in and be shocked and I mean shocked that I didnt lose!  Now looking back at all the ways I used to try and cheat the system, its no wonder I didnt gain weight!  Just silly. Now with all the weighing and measuring and being truthful, I am hoping for a much more successful journey.

Step count yesterday  8102  (yayyy)

Step count today 7867

hard work pays off

Wow, today was a very good day for me.  I have worked very hard all week to stay on program and today was my weigh in day and it went very well.  All my struggling and dealing and hard work paid off.  Today I showed a weight loss of 4.2 lbs!!!  That was great when I realized how much I lost but the funny thing is that I didnt even realize that I lost that much cuz I have been struggling so much these past few weeks that little by little I was gaining so my weight had crept up a bit so when I saw what the final weight showed, I wasnt all that excited.  Then when I sat down and opened my book and saw the total weight loss, I was pleasantly surprised!  I know I have worked hard and I know my son has also worked hard with me and for me.  He is brave, I'll tell you that much cuz there were days when I really did struggle and he really stuck his neck out there to help me get through the moment.  This little triumph is as much his as it is mine.  Thank you son.  Now onto another great week and now I am just gonna be anxious all over again waiting for Monday to come around again!  Have a great week!

day 4

Okay so today went pretty well but it wasnt without difficulties.  Oh first let me talk about my picture.  Today for lunch I ate a WW frozen meal and what I like to do is add other foods to it to make it more filling.  So todays lunch was meatloaf w/mashed potatoes and I added the rice and the broccoli.  This is one of my favs and this meal was 10 pts. I want to stress this, that I have found that it makes a huge difference when you put your meal on a dinner plate.  Before when I would eat a frozen dinner, I would just eat it out of the cardboard thing it came in and you know what?  It tasted like I was eating out of a cardboard box! lol  Now I know it might only be mental, but this really does make a difference to my taste buds.  I do this with frozen meals, leftovers, etc... I am trying to eat each and every meal on a dinner plate and it is helping. Its all apart of me learning to enjoy and appreciate my meals and not just scarf them down.

Okay so today I took my son to the mall to do some shopping for Christmas and with all the excitement I really felt like eating.  I know that I am an emotional eater because my moods really affect the way I eat and the more emotional I am, good or bad, makes me just have that bottomless stomach feeling.  Anyhow, when we got there, the first place I ran into was California Pizza Kitchen and that started it!  I really wanted to eat that!  Then I managed to maneuver away from there but then came Olive Garden and my little negotiator was working overtime! and she kept trying to justify why it was okay to go ahead and eat Olive Garden.  I wont go into all the silly reasons, theres too many.  With the courageous help of my son, I managed to get out of there without giving in.  We made it of the parking lot and came closer to home and finally decided on Chili's.  That was a much more safer bet and I didnt even know it!  I am very pleased with and also a little excited!  I just logged in my food and I managed to get out of there with a 16 pt meal!!! and it was pretty good!  I didnt know Chili's has a section on their menu called the "Guiltless" selections!!!  Who knew???  LOL  I had the Chicken Tortilla soup to start with and then the Grilled Buffalo Chicken Sandwich and it came with a side of steamed veggies. I ate some of my veggies but then I traded my veggies for a whole corn on the cob with my son and I ate 5 french fries he shared with me. Now mind you I was still struggling and I almost ordered my own side order of fries but then something clicked and I didnt want to be embarrassed ordering off the lite menu and then ordering fries to go with it, LOL.  Now I know 16 is still high, BUT it could've been much worse, maybe like a 40 pt meal!  I know this is only day 4 but it was a good day 4 and now I cant wait to see what tomorrow brings.  I am actually looking forward to it!

Step count 8029

Day 3 again

Okay so from me going back to my WW meeting on Monday, this is kind of a new day 3.  Well I have been doing pretty darn good but today I realized that I have forgotten all about my pedometer and I barely dug out my all trusty water bottle.  I like to have a 32oz water bottle to help me get my daily water in.  This tells me that I am not done reviewing what I should be doing to be completely on program. Anyhow, so I am going along and doing well but then here comes an obstacle, my mom wanted to take my family out to dinner, ugh.  Its not ugh to going out with my mom, of course not! but because I'm not sure I was ready for that because it is still very easy for me to lose control and then fall back into that ugly cycle of messing up, wanting to give up and then eating to make myself feel better.  Anyhow, let me point out, today would have been a great day to have my lists in hand!  LOL  I wish I could have pulled out my lists and said, oh lets go here and blah blah blah.... but I couldnt, there is no such list, yet.  Anyhow the family wanted to have a big dinner and they decided Claim Jumper, ohhh boyyyy.  Okay so yes I ate but I did try very very hard to keep things under control.  I managed to stay away from the soda, I love Cola's and even though I didnt pick the best thing on the menu, I did manage to control myself and only eat half my plate (thats a big deal for me) now mind you I am aware that the portion sizes at Claim Jumpers is probably 3 or 4 times what I should be eating, I still managed to eat lightly.  I was in damage control mode!  LOL  I ate only half of my servings and after I ate I tried very hard to assess how I actually felt.  Was I stuffed or satisfied?  Well after sitting for a while I comfortably realized that I probably could've stopped eating at about 2/3 of what I ate and would have been very satisfied and full, not stuffed, but a comfortable full.  So even with all of this, I feel good about my day 3.  I really do feel like I learned something new.

Step count 4426

Update and Lists

Okay so today is kind of my day 2 since I've been to my meeting on Monday night and so far so good.  I feel great and I am feeling strong and full of focus.  Okay there are a few things that I need to work on BUT for the most part I am very much on program.  These past couple of days I have logged all my food and I have stayed within my points and did not go over.  In fact, tonight I ended my day with 1 point leftover!  Oh!  check this out!  I am going to try and insert a picture here.  Ok I got the pic to upload but not here in the body of my post.  What this is, is a meal that is one of my favorites, very filling and not too bad on points. This is an omelette that I like that I call my 2 to 1 omelette and 1 cup of spanish rice for a total of 11 pts.  When I eat this meal and add a few glasses of water, I stay pretty satisfied for hours, so well worth the time to cook and worth the pts.  I like taking pictures of my meals and then I can go back and look at what I've done in the past, its pretty neat to get a visual.  I'll keep posting.
Now onto lists.  I think lists are important and can be very helpful, like when you have a list in front of you, it really helps to put things in perspective and can help you stay focused.  I mean we make lists for everything else, like to go grocery shopping or a "to do" list when we're going on a big trip, etc..  The idea came to me because in a few of my meetings, my leader will make a comment about places she wont go eat because she already knows that there is nothing there for her to eat.  Then she mentions foods that she will only eat during certain times of the year and this whole thing got me thinking.  I need to make lists!  LOL  I have been giving this alot of thought and I think it would really help me if I had a few lists of my own.  It makes it more real when you have something right in front of you, especially in your own writing, doesnt it?  So now I am working on a list of foods that I call my trigger foods and these are foods that once I eat them they trigger something that makes me want to keep eating and eating and makes me feel out of control.  Then I need a list of my own restaurants that I know can do nothing for me, so I will try my best to stay away from them.  Then on the flipside, to be more positive, I need a list of restaurants that I can frequent and enjoy!  I need a list of my favorite low pt foods or snacks.  I need a list of favorite activities that help me work towards my daily 30 min of exercise.  I can even make a list of long term goals and then whenever I am feeling unmotivated or uncertain about how my day is gonna go, I can pull out my list and maybe that will help me stay focused.  Yeah I think this is gonna be a good plan.

eating too quickly

I had a thought today about eating, or rather eating too quickly.  I have noticed that over the past few meals, well starting with my Thanksgiving meal that sometimes I eat wayyyy toooo fast.  Eating too fast is just plain bad.  The first problem is that there have been times when I have waited too long to eat and that leads to yet another problem, hmmm this might get confusing but hang tight and follow me.  Okay waiting too long to eat makes me use very bad judgement and then I eat really bad things that are usually high in points/fat and then I feel ravenous and out of control, thus I eat too fast.  The second thing is that when I decide to treat myself and eat something off my "stay away" list, I get so happy that when I finally have it in front of me, I devour it!  I did that on Thanksgiving.  I knew exactly what was gonna be on my plate and I was okay with the decision that I made but by the time I realized this I was on my second plate!  I found myself sitting there realizing that I was eating sooo fast that I wasnt actually tasting my food!  And then eating too fast means I am not listening to my body and the signals that lets my stomach tell my brain that I am satisfied.  When that part is out of control that leads to overindulgence which leads to being miserable and sick feeling.  So with that on my mind, I have decided that this will be something very important for me to work on, kind of a mini goal.  From now on, I am going to concentrate on my meal and eat very slowly and actually enjoy my meal. I accomplished that today.  Today I was running around like a mad woman and found myself at 3PM and still no lunch, I know, I know so I made a conscious decision to stop and grab a quick bite.  Okay my choice wasnt the best but it was the only thing that was quick and would allow me to eat in my car and that was Mc Donalds.  I know, I know again but I did make a better choice in my selection and instead of ordering a big super size meal, I ordered a kids meal with a diet coke and you  know what?  I took my time, really enjoyed that little cheeseburger and small fries that when I was done eating, I was really and truly satisfied.  I felt good about that and I feel like I am making a move in the right direction.  So now with me working on actually ENJOYING my meal, I decided to start planning better and making sure that I am eating things that I really like to eat, like veggies.  Not everything that tastes good has to be bad for you, right?

Shopping for clothes

Ugh I went to walk around the mall today to work off a big lunch I had and while there I decided to go try on jeans.  Yuck what a mess.  I have always hated clothes shopping, but buying jeans when you are overweight is brutal.  Honestly, I cannot wait for the day when I am down a few sizes where I wont feel so bad about buying myself new clothes, no matter what I'm buying.  Right now I have to shop in those specialty size stores and sometimes the stuff they are selling is pretty normal and not too bad, but mostly the clothes are overpriced and just ugly!  I remember hating when I moved up a size here and there and I dreaded buying clothes when I finally reached size XL, but ohhhhh what I wouldnt give right now to fit into a regular size XL, lol.  I mean I have literally dreamed about walking around in a mall, seeing something in the window and being glad that it came in a size XL.  Isnt that something?  I can remember very well, like it was yesterday thinking that I was sooo miserable to be wearing a size XL.  This brings me to something that I have been giving alot of thought.  GOALS   Are goals helpful or hurtful?  I am still thinking about it.

I'm back

Wow, cant believe how long its been since I've been here but not as bad as it could've been, I guess.  My whole point this week was to get back here no matter what.  Even if it was just to log in and I guess tonight was the night I built up enough nerve.  I vowed a few months ago NOT TO GIVE UP and I am trying very very hard not to throw in the towel and give up. I just cant.  I feel like my life depends on it.  Let me recap the past few months that I have been missing.  The bottom line is I have been wayyy off program and like so many times before, I cant understand why.  Yes, there have been many things, many stresses in my life but I still cant understand why or what that has to do with me staying or falling off program.  It is sooo confusing and mind boggling.  I think the biggest thing that I have learned from all of these successes and many failures, is that in order to be successful and stay successful is not to stray too far and never ever give up.  I have heard this many many times from my WW meetings.  This past week I heard some really great inspiring stories and for me the same message came over loud and clear, no matter what a difficult time you are going through, dont stop going to your meetings and dont give up. I think it was kind of ironic that this was the message I got from that last meeting because I was seriously dreading walking in there knowing that it had been weeks since I had been there.  Its weird because I cant help but feel that I am going to be judged somehow or that someone is gonna talk about me, but I came to realize, there is no judgement from anyone there but me!  Those people are going through the same struggles as I am and maybe not at this moment, but they have all been there.  So with that comfort finally realized and accepted, I have vowed once again, to get my behind in gear and NOT GIVE UP! 

a minor setback

Well I've had a minor setback but it happens.  The neat thing is that this time it WAS different and I handled myself differently as well.  I've been off program by choice over the past few weeks due to various reasons, like out of town visitors, touring with Brad Paisley and just plain old being lazy.  Here's the difference.... everytime I made a poor choice of what to eat, I knew it would eventually catch up with me on the scale and I was really okay with that.  I mean okay in that I knew I was gonna have to get back to hard work to get it back off.  I didnt have that same old resigned feeling, like oh well I failed again and I may as well give up and eat this and that.  No, this time I made the conscious choice in my behavior.  For example, I really am fond of, no I love mozzarella sticks from Denny's and I've had them like 3 times since!  Every time I ate one of those, I was thinking, oh my I cant even imagine how many points these are, lol.  The difference is that I "allowed" myself the day off to enjoy something decadent, albeit, wayyy too many points.  I knew what was gonna happen when I did get back to weigh in.  Well last night I went to weigh in and yep! as I suspected, I gained 3.2 lbs.  So now I have some hard work ahead of me but I already knew that so I am ready to go.  Today was a good day.  I started back logging my food, took my vitamins and worked on getting all my water in and I feel good about all of it.  Truthfully, I missed drinking my daily water.  I think being honest with yourself is one key here.  I knew, I admitted and I accepted and thats the key for me.  I felt like I was on vacation and I deliberately gave myself a break and for me, that's okay.  Now there are gonna be some people who might say or think, no if you are really committed, you wouldnt stray but what I'm trying to do is keep it real for me.  I hope that makes sense. Now I'm all back to being anxious again about working hard and weighing back in.  Oh, I did forget one thing today and that was my pedometer, I'll start that again tomorrow and start working on my daily step count.  So here we go, one more step in the right direction, no pun intended, lol.

my step count

Well I dont have much to say today but I wanted to get something in for today.  My progress has been good.  I'm logging my food, drinking my water and I think I even increased my step count today.  Yayy me. 


Step count:  6,119  (good!)

10,000 steps

Wow, 10,000 steps they say?  Well I've looked at this both ways.  One way of thinking, are they crazy?  Thats alot of steps!  Second, aww thats nothing, no problem.  Boy am I shocked!!! and a little disappointed but at least now I know.  Okay there have been numerous publications and such that says the average person should or does walk about 10, 000 steps per day.  When they put it that way, I thought surely I am in there with the norm, lol.  Wrong!  What a rude awakening, lol.  I was not anywhere near that 10,000 step mark!  Actually I barely hit the 3,000 step mark! Unbelievable!  Now get this, the literature says that with the average stride length, about 2,000 steps will be approximately 1 mile.  So I thought, oh no problem, I KNOW I walk at least a mile a day.  MORE WRONG!  With my stride length, it takes me approximately 3,000 steps to distance a mile!  OMG!  So I was/am barely walking a mile in one whole day? Well, instead of feeling bad about this, I've decided to turn this around and make something positive about this.  Here's what happened.  When I started Weight Watchers I knew I was going to have to incorporate some type of physical activity into my daily lifestyle and I just figured walking would be the easiest and most economical.  Sooo I found this pedometer that Weight Watchers sells and after you program your info into it, it will actually give you a points value based on your daily or session activity, its all up to you.  Anyhow, it really is a neat little gadget but it really shocked me to see how little physical activity I have in my life.  The first day I wore my pedometer, I barely logged in 3,000 steps!  Thats terrible.  Somewhere, somehow I have become a "sedentary" (curse that word) human being!  Aargh!  How did this happen?  You know when you have to fill out a questionnaire and theres the part where they ask you about your lifestyle, Physically Fit, Active, Sedentary???  I never ever thought that about myself, I always got by putting down moderately active.  I never see myself as sitting there all day.  Sedentary is/was a bad word until now.  Now I know where I am and I dont want to be here.  This pedometer is my new best friend.  It wont do me any favors by fudging the numbers to make me feel better, nope, lol.  So with that I am making it my goal to increase my step count each week and just keep moving up from there. 10,000 here I come!

weighed in

Okay today was a good day.  I weighed in after missing a couple of weeks for various reasons and it wasnt that bad.  I gained .8, thats point 8, so not quite a pound and I am quite pleased with that.Tomorrow I will go back to fulfilling all my daily requirments and make sure that this is part of my goal for this week.  Today I heard a quote and it made alot of sense.  A while back, somewhere in their literature, Weight Watchers posted a quote: "If you dont want to slip, stay away from slippery places". That makes perfect sense doesnt it?  So now I am going to make a plan to stay away from places that make me slip.  How I plan to do this is I am going to make a list of places that I just need to stay away from.  For example, Shakeys Pizza!  I truly love their pizza and mojos and no matter how strong I feel going there, it has never been just 1 slice and how ever many mojos I should have.  I can literally devour a whole medium pizza all by myself!  Grooooosssss, but oh so true.  Hey, I didnt get to be this heavy eating salads and lean/healthy stuff!  Its time to get real.  I need to stop fooling myself and stop letting that little girl inside my head negotiate with me.  She's bad and she has had her way for far too long now.  I am starting to understand that there just has to be some changes and unfortunately, some of them have to be for life and there is nothing I can do about that except accept it and move on.  I mean dont get me wrong, I will eat Shakeys Pizza again, but it will have to be for a very special occasion so that eating there rarely happens rather than me saying "oh come on, its only 1 meal" and then feel the dread that follows. I just think, there are sooo many joys in life and surely it cant all be about food.  When I put it all into perspective, how can I be miserable about not being able to eat Shakeys when there are worse things out there that can harm me? It seems the more I read and learn about food addiction, the more I am convinced that I carry alot of the characteristics.  So with my head in the right place, I am off to an amazing week!  Wish me well!

catching up

Wow, I cant believe it has been 2 weeks since my last post.  I've been out of town.  I've been a little off program and I've been sick, all of which has kept me away, but I'm back now.  I go to weigh in tomorrow evening, so I am feeling a bit anxious about that.  I havent even weighed in here at home and not sure why.  I guess out of sight, out of mind would apply here.  I know I havent fallen too far though because all throughout these past weeks, I have had subjects on my mind that I would like to write about.  Its all very new and strange to me because times before I would just give up and keep falling farther and farther but this time its like an invisible force trying to reel me back in.  I like that!  Its kind of exciting because this has never really happened before.  I am really, truly ready to let these unknown forces take over and help me succeed, ONCE AND FOR ALL!  Tomorrow will be all about RE-committing and gettng back on track 100%.  I am ready. 

Be back tomorrow for an update on my status and maybe some interesting tidbit. 

Day 1

Wow, this is my first entry and this is kind of scary but exciting too!  I have been thinking a long time about doing this and I have finally built up the nerve to do it.  This is going to be a place where I can come and put down my thoughts, idea and aha moments.  I've been dealing with this weight issue most of my, no all of my adult life and it has been a big stuggle.  This weight has literally weighed me down and has kept me from doing so many fabulous things and I am ready to be set free.  Its true, being overweight can seem like being in prison, not that I have ever been, but its what I imagine for me anyways. Right now I have quite a bit of weight to lose and I am currently a member of Weight Watchers and I am really starting to do well.  This wasnt always the case.  I have a very common story and I am sure you have heard this all before but it is true.  I have tried just about everything out there from infommercial stuff, to videos, to anything out there that promises you will lose weight, hmmmm.  I did have some great success when low carb was a big deal but then once I went back to eating like I normally would, yep!  the weight came running back with a vengeance!  At some point here recently, I decided I would try and lose this weight the smart, sensible way by learning to eat better, by exercising and by taking the time to really learn how to do all this the right way instead of the quickest and easiest way.  It has been really hard but I think I have made some progress.  I re-joined WW back in January and I had my ups and downs, good weeks, bad weeks, but sometime after June, after a life altering experience, I changed.  My thought and reasoning process changed.  I have been doing much better and before I went on vacation recently I hit my 10lbs mark and that just motivated me to do good and work extra hard while on vacation and I did!  I'll know for sure how well I did come Monday, thats my next weigh in day.  Well I think I am to a fair start, check back and I'll share my revelations about eating, cooking, water and other things I've learned about like my pedometer.  Have a good week and wish me well!  Thanks!