losing it:week 5

This is week 5 of the Losing It challenge.  Head over to Giving Up On Perfect to see how everyone is doing!

Goals:

• Track: so far, so good
• Run: yeah, baby!  I have run 4 times since last Friday… a total of 8 miles!  I’m gearing up to do a 3mi run some time this weekend.
• Drink: yup!

So, this week sticking to my goals has been something that I have been able to do.  I’m not sure that I’m seeing the results on the scale… but we’ll see.  Earlier this week, I weighed in at WW and lost 1lb.  That brings my total weight loss percentage for this challenge to 3.8% (if I did my math correctly).

My college roommate posted one of my favorite weight loss sayings in her FB status today.  This is what she wrote:

“They say ‘nothing tastes as good as skinny feels’.  I don’t know, I’ve been skinny and I’ve eaten great food…they’re both pretty awesome.”

What do you think?  Does “nothing taste as good as being skinny feels”?

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losing it:week 4

This is week 4 of the Losing It challenge.  Head over to Giving Up On Perfect to see how everyone is doing!

Goals:

• Track: not so much
• Run: nada
• Drink: um… kind of.

This has been an off week for me.  Earlier this week I weighed in at WW and only lost .4 lb.  Yeah, I didn’t even bother doing the math to see what percentage that was.  I flaked out last weekend on my ‘no carb’ deal… i just couldn’t stick with it. Blah.  And then we went to the Great Buffet 2 – yup… Chinese food plus some… what was I thinking?  I have no idea how close I will get to my goal before vacation… but I’ve got to keep trying.

Oh well… today is a new day.  And it is a GORGEOUS one here in New England!

Although this week has been super hectic (GSS Board Mtg, MOPS set up, MOPS meeting, work, prepping for Family Night at church tonight), I have managed to be semi-reasonable and I am still hoping for another loss.  And once things wrap up tonight, I am looking forward to relaxing this weekend and I am even going to try to go for a run.  Woot! Woot!

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losing it:week 3

This is week 3 of the Losing It challenge.  Head over to Giving Up On Perfect to see how everyone is doing!

Goals:

• Track: ummm… about 60%
• Run: ran once-then got sick
• Drink: doing ok with this one

This week I lost 1.1% of my total body weight (1.6lbs).  Not bad but I need to kick it up a notch if I want to reach my goal weight before vacation.  I have 10 pounds to go!

I weigh in at WW earlier in the week so I have already begun looking ahead toward my next weigh in.  This week I decided that I was going to mix things up and try my South Beach/WW combo diet that has been successful for me in the past when I have wanted to kick it up a notch.  So this week I have been eating eggs (local duck eggs from What Did She Do Today -thank you, again!) for breakfast, cheese sticks, and lots of salads with chicken or tuna on them.  I am hopeful that this will prove to be a banner weigh in next week!

In other news, the whole family has been sick so that has made it hard to exercise.  I’m hoping that once we get over these colds that the husband and I can spend some quality time at the gym together.

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losing it:week 2

This is week 2 of the Losing It challenge.  Head over to Giving Up On Perfect to see how everyone is doing!

Goals for last week:

• maintain my goals from last week (track, run, drink): Track – did ok; Run – not at all; Drink – yup
• lose 3lbs (yikes!): not so much… but I did lose 1.2lbs (.82%)

This past week I had to pay for Weight Watchers.  I am a lifetime member which means that I don’t have to pay to attend meetings/weigh in unless I’m 2+pounds above my goal weight.  When I returned to Weight Watchers after Mollie, they said I could have 9 months to get back to my goal weight before I would have to start paying. Woot, woot!  Yeah, that was about 5 months ago… and I am still 12 pounds away from my goal.  But it’s ok.  I actually think this might help me be a little more motivated knowing that WW is getting my money!

My weight loss journey began in my early 2os and it was a time of spiritual, emotional, and physical growth for me.  I first joined WW(for real)  in 2001, when I was 23.  I was out of college and I was at my highest weight, ever.  I had always been heavy in high school, and then heavier in college.  Food was a comfort, and I was ignorant about how to manage my intake of food.  A close friend from college joined Weight Watchers and this motivated me to try it out.  It was right around this time of year, late Feb/early March, and I remember attending a worship service at a local church where they invited us to write down a ‘burden’ and leave it at the altar.  I wrote down, I tangibly acknowledged, my struggle with food and my weight.   I truly believe that this, along with WW, was a turning point for me and was a HUGE part of the reason I was able to be successful with my weight loss.

I had joined WW in high school but didn’t ever really do the program seriously (that was before POINTS and the whole thing confused me and seemed like too much work), and I never stayed for meetings.  But this time, when I was 23, I attended meetings (with my Mom at first because she had to lose like 2 pounds) and really committed to the program.  And I saw results.  Over the course of the next 18 months, I lost about 45 pounds.  I never quite made it to my goal for my age/height range but I was pleased with where I was at and eventually stopped attending (I’ll let you know how I got to lifetime another time).  Not only had I changed physically, but as I went through the process of losing weight, I had become a healthier person in all aspects of my life.  I was less focused on finding comfort from food, and more focused on finding comfort in God; I was able to step out and become a part of a new church and new group of friends (which included my not-so-soon-to-be husband); I moved out and began my life as a single, independent woman.

I know this sounds corny, but I am so grateful for WW.  Yeah, I know.  BUT, I feel like the program truly gave me the tools to reach the goals I needed to attain to become a healthier person.  And I don’t mind giving them my money because so far it has been worth every penny!

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Goals for this week: 

• Track
• Run – I NEED to do this!
• Drink

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wednesday weigh in:eggs

Thank you What Did She Do Today? and husband for the eggs that you surprised me with this afternoon!  It was so thoughtful and they are much appreciated!  In honor of the fresh, local eggs (both duck and chicken) that are sitting in our fridge now I’m going to talk about eggs today.

In one of my weight loss episodes along my journey, I tried South Beach.  Of course, I did South Beach within the confines of Weight Watchers POINTS because I have ‘drank the splenda sweetened cool-aid’ and can’t look at a piece of food without seeing a points value floating above it.  It’s just my frame of reference.  In the first two weeks of the South Beach plan you cut out all carbs, which meant that I was basically eating tuna on salad, chili, veggies, cheese, and eggs.  Do you realize how many breakfast foods have carbs?  Pretty much I just ate eggs every morning.

And it worked for me.  I did the South Beach plan for about 4-6 weeks and I lost over 7 pounds to get me down below my goal.  However, my theory as to why it worked was this:  I was paying attention to what I ate.  Sure, I bet the cutting out all the bread in my diet helped some, but I think the fact that I was thinking about what I was eating, tracking my points, and making healthy choices is what really made the difference.

Since I was single at the time, and had to be to work early, I used to make up a batch of eggs and portion it out into little containers for me to grab and zap in the microwave on the way out the door.  Here is how I prepared my eggs when I was on South Beach:

• 4 eggs
• 4 egg whites
• veggies – as much as you want.  I used frozen chopped onions and peppers, broccoli, and tomatoes.  The more veggies you use, the bigger the servings will be. 
• 1/4c ched cheese (optional)

Whisk the eggs and egg whites and then just throw everything together in the frying pan and mix occasionally as it cooks.  Easy-peasy.  Makes 4 servings.  2pts per serving without cheese, 3 pts per serving with cheese.

I think I’ll be adding this recipe to my morning routine this week!  (Especially since I’m falling behind with my Losing It goals for this week.)

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losing it: week 1

I’m linking up to Losing It at Giving Up on Perfect… join the contest!

Based on my WW weigh in this week I lost .95% of my body weight… 1.4 lbs (and I don’t care if  you take the time to figure out that crazy math to know what I weigh).  I was quite pleased with that result because for the last month I hadn’t lost more than .8lbs (and I gained a few times). 

How did I do on my goals?  My first goal for the week was tracking consistently and I think I did pretty well with that.  My second goal was to run, well… I ran 1.5 miles and took a Zumba class (ugh).  I need to run more, but that 1.5 miles was an improvement for me.  My last goal was to drink more water.  And I did.  I drank at least 48oz a day and several days I drank more than that.  I think that was a huge help for me.

So far this week, I’m on track for losing… my goal for the WW weigh in is to lose 3lbs!  I know.  It’s more than the recommended 1-2lbs and I have yet to lose that much in one week during this stint with Weight Watchers.  But we’ll see… I’m aiming high.

My goals for this week are:

• maintain my goals from last week (track, run, drink)
• lose 3lbs (yikes!)

What are your health goals for this week? 

Link up to Losing It!

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losing it

I discovered this weight loss competition  at Giving up on Perfect (via it’s come 2 this) and I thought that this might be a good thing to help me stay accountable through the week (and it looks like fun, too!).  I am already on a weight loss journey to get back to my Weight Watchers Lifetime Member goal weight after having Mollie.  After gaining exactly 50 lbs (did I just admit that to the blogosphere?) with Mollie, I was 14.6 pounds away from my goal this past Monday.

So I’m going to link up to Losing It and see if I can make it to goal by the end… which would coincide nicely with Mollie’s 1st birthday.  And along the way I hope to share some of my 9 year journey with weight loss and some things that I have learned from the experience.

My goals for this upcoming week:

• Track I am going to try to track my points (write down everything I eat & drink and how many weight watchers points each item is).
• Run I’m training to run some more 5k races starting in May so I need to be more intentional about running.  I am going to try to run 2 miles at least once this week.
• Drink  I am going to try to drink at least 60oz of water each day.  WW recommends 48oz but I have found that I have more success if I increase my water intake.

So, stop by Losing It (and not just our sanity) and link up!

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