Exercise challenges & a check-in

Tonight I went for my regular walk with my family and since it's snowing and freezing here, the streets were super icy and hard to walk on.  Normally I like to walk fairly briskly and take longer strides, but tonight I had to practically shuffle my feet and went the pace of a snail.

We're supposed to get more snow overnight, up to 6 inches, I secretly have my fingers crossed that my office closes tomorrow, but I'm not sure.  They've been threatening us with snow all week and so far we've only gotten about an inch.  If it does snow though and I'm home tomorrow I'm really looking forward to going hiking in the snow.

On Track
I do feel like I'm getting back on track.  I went over my points today, but that's what they give you the "weekly" points for, right?  The stuff I ate wasn't unhealthy, I just ate more than I normally would because I was hungrier than I normally am.  The only "naughty" things  I had today was a donut hole (Just one! Yay!) and 5 french fries from McDonalds (individual...not orders HAAA!) For dinner I had a Subway Spicy Italian, which used to be my favorite there but after tonight I'm thinking I've lost my taste for it.  It tasted too meaty or something.  I think I'll switch back to the chicken from now on.

Anywho - I'm feeling better and getting my diet in order.

Thanksgiving

I love Thanksgiving. And I love food. Especially holiday food. My mom makes the best stuffing, and I usually make home made macaroni and cheese for my husband who isn't a big fan of most of the traditional sides. We made cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, turkey, stuffing, rolls, and pie. Lots of pies. I love all pie, I'm not discriminatory.

However, since I'm on this weight loss kick this year, I have had to make some adjustments to my menu. I'll be making several of my dishes from the Cooking Light recipe index.

I'll be making one of their recipes for Macaroni and Cheese although I haven't picked one specific recipe yet.

The Kid and I want to make an apple pie together.

And.....if she can be persuaded to give up her delicious recipe, I might try and make my own stuffing this year.

We'll also have to make some of the usual desserts too, I always make The Hubs a chocolate pudding cream pie and this year The Kid wants to make chocolate chip cookies.

What's on your menu this year?

I got a pocket, got a pocket full of sunshine

Am I bi-polar? Geesh.

I'm feeling better today. I always feel better when I eat right...I think there might be something to that :-)

This morning I had a peach, chopped up and in a bowl and I poured a Yoplait Harvest Peach yogurt over the top of it and ate that for breakfast.

For lunch I had a turkey sandwich with lettuce and tomato and onion (I normally *hate* lettuce and tomato on food other than salads...but I'm doing it for my waist!) and a two cup serving of strawberries, grapes and cherries.

I didn't get as much water as I normally do...work was extremely busy and before I knew it, it was 5:00 and I'd only had 36 ounces. Not bad...but not what I normally intake either.

For dinner, The Hubs is going to grill hamburgers and he's going to make mac n cheese for him and The Kid, while I eat more fruit.

I'm a little nervous though...I posted on a WW message board asking for some help and when I posted what I eat on an average day I was told.....get this........are you sitting down??? That I don't eat enough...what. the. hell???

After thinking about it though, I suppose they're right. They also suggested changing what I eat (as in...don't eat salads everyday for three months...*sigh*) because eventually your body gets used to that and stops responding (DAMN YOU BODY! WORK WITH ME! I'M DOING THIS FOR YOU!). So I'm going to start working on that.

What makes me nervous though is getting my family on board with new foods...The Hubs and The Kid aren't big on new things, and if I accidentally slip up and use the word "Healthy" ... they may disown me and move out (Oh...but then I'd be alone! That might be a plus! ... I kid, I kid!).

I am going to start out with things that are healthy but aren't blatantly obvious, screaming 'healthy' from the mountaintops. I'll lull them into a false sense of security and then BAM! Fat free sour cream! They'll never know what hit em'.

I feel like if I can take baby steps, this will work. Get my food under control (again....*sigh*) and go from there. Build my exercise plan and eventually find a bootcamp or a gym because I know that walking is wonderful, but I need weights thrown in too.

Food phases and cravings

A friend of mine and I were talking about lunches and how we go through "phases" ... Like when I ate a salad with a grilled chicken breast on top everyday for three months and then got burned out on it. Then I went through my chili phase (I ate it everyday for two weeks before coworkers started asking if we were doing alright financially. *sigh*) ... Now I seem to be in a Lean Cuisine phase with a piece of fruit, some string cheese and baby carrots on the side. Right now I'm convinced that I could live off of Lean Cuisines. I want to eat them for breakfast lunch and dinner.
 
I've also recently had a serious craving for hotdogs. I bought at Costco for lunch a few weeks ago, I ordered one at Five Guys, and I think about making them for dinner every night (I don't. I couldn't do that to my family.) I feel like I just need to eat them, like eating one RIGHT NOW would make me feel better, I'm imagining them like they're some sort of mouth watering delicacy that will just melt me to the floor when I take that first glorious bite. Sick. I know. It's a freakin' hotdog. But this is what I deal with!
 
When I was a kid and I'd have cravings for something I wouldn't normally eat, my mom would say it's your body's way of telling you that you need a key nutrient that the food you're craving has in it. So if you're craving spinach when normally you're all like, "Ew disgusting. Don't TOUCH me with spinach"... then maybe your body is trying to tell you that you need an iron boost. I don't hate hot dogs, I'll eat them but I've never craved them the way I've been craving them. And since hotdogs are kind of made out of leftover animal parts, I'm wondering what kind of nutrients they have in them. I'm a bit afraid to google "hot dogs" though because of what may show up...so I'll do some more research on that some other time.

Anyway, I'm going to go find some hotdogs now.

It's the little things

When you break down your own personal diet and exercise plan, what do you see? Here's mine:

Exercise

• Walking. Walking walking walking. I used to do more, jogging, horseback riding, bicycling, hiking (Which I still love and can do a little here and there), but I broke my ankle 10 years ago and never fully recovered my range of motion and while I haven't had it confirmed yet, I'm fairly certain it's arthritic. Regardless of my limitations on other forms of exercise, walking helps. I gained a pound and a half over two weeks where I only went out for one or two walks. I've been walking every night for a week and I'm pretty confident that I'll see a loss on Friday morning. I have an advantage in the form of a very energetic dog that demands long, meandering walks through my incredibly hilly, challenging neighborhood.
  
• Stairs. Don't underestimate the power of these monsters! My office is on the third floor of a building and you enter on the 2nd floor. I counted. It's 16 stairs to my floor. I used to take the elevator (until people started getting stuck in it...yikes.) and now I take the 16 little stairs up every morning and afternoon. I also take the stairs in my apartment building. I don't climb 10 flights of stairs, but I can feel it in my legs after I've climbed even two or three flights. Those bastards kill but in such a good way it's hard to stay mad at them.
  
• Pushups. OK. This is where I get kind of weird. I do wall push-ups. In the shower. I KNOW! A few years ago I had this really great, totally amazing personal trainer and he kicked my a$$ with push-ups and back extensions. I still hate back extensions, but I like push-ups. I only do about 10-15 a day and it's while I'm in the shower. HEY, it's convenient and the bathtub and wall are perfectly aligned so it's easy. Plus, you know...I can't get sweaty if I'm standing under a shower.
  

Diet

• Food intake. I think it's important to eat healthy, but I don't go overboard. If I want pizza, I eat pizza. If I want a Kidd Valley Cheeseburger and some onion rings, I'll have it. This is where Weight Watchers and I have always disagreed. This is why I stopped going to WW meetings and only doing the plan online. They will tell you, "If you're craving a cheeseburger, eat a rice cake." WTF? Have you eaten a rice cake and a cheeseburger? There's a difference. If I'm craving a cheeseburger and I eat a rice cake, chances are I'm still going to be craving that cheeseburger. So why not eat it? The problem arises when you start "craving" a cheeseburger every day for every meal.
  
• Water. It took me and water a long time to be friendly. I thought water was the most pointless drink ever. It has no flavor. Sometimes it does and it's not a good flavor. I grew up on a farm, with well-fresh water everyday of my life. Moving to the city all of a sudden and I was like, "WOW, water sucks! It tastes funny. Why can I even taste water?!?!?" So I didn't drink it for a long time. Slowly though, I started adding it back into my life. I only drink out of a water cooler or bottled water and only in life or death situations will I drink water straight from the tap. I have to load it up with ice because Hello? Luke warm water is nasty. I have a 26 oz water bottle and I fill it up to 24 oz. Why not the full 26 oz? Because they want you to drink 8-8oz glasses and it's easier for me to track if I do it in 8 oz increments...it's not that I can't do the math or anything but if I'm being completely honest, I have to be exact. There's none of this "I drank 80.79 oz of water today." It has to be a nice fat round number. Yes, you may call the asylum now. Between this and the push-ups in the shower admission, I'm sure I've certified the crazy.
  
• Smoothies. I *heart* smoothies. I make some of the craziest combinations of smoothies and people see it and go, "I'm sorry...you mixed what with what to get that?" I buy frozen fruit, mix it with a half cup OJ and a half cup milk (2%) and throw it in my little smoothie maker that The Husband rocked me with for Christmas (I can't believe I talk like that...) and I eat it. It's an easy way of getting your fruits/veggies for the day if you struggle with that and it's kind of fun to see what different fruits taste like when you combine them (I don't recommend plain yogurt, peaches, blueberries and blackberries being put together...that was something I won't be doing again. Yikes.)
  

Anyway, that's another peek into my crazy how I'm working it off.

Salad bar

One of the teams in my office (Most places call them "Departments" but not us!) put together a Salad Bar potluck today. My contribution was bacon bits (which I don't eat...but the list already had about 50 things on there and I didn't want to copy anyone) and chopped cucumbers (How come nobody else thought of this except me? I love cucumbers...)

We seriously had over 50 toppings and if I had been a total jerk I would've taken two plates of salad just to try all of them.

It gave me some ideas though. I eat a salad everyday for lunch and after a few weeks I started getting bored. Which is bad. I started imagining going to Taco Time or Wendy's. Now that the salad bar is over I have all kinds of new ideas for my salads, which has reinvigorated my love for salad.

On my shopping list for next weeks salads are:

• Garbonzo Beans
  
• Peas
  
• Honey Mustard Dressing (My favorite is the Roasted Red Pepper dressing from Kraft, but I'm a little burned out on it!)
  
• Sunflower seeds
  

Until today my salad "recipe" has been:

• Romaine lettuce
  
• Chopped cucumber
  
• Carrots
  
• Grape Tomatoes
  
• Two things of string cheese, cut up and added (I suppose I could just use shredded mozzarella, but the string cheese also makes a good afternoon snack)
  
• About 4 oz of grilled chicken (I buy the frozen, pre-cooked Tyson Grilled Chicken Breasts and microwave them for 2 minutes...yum)
  
• Every week or two I'll buy Hass Avocados and use 1/2 of one in a salad, to me they have a very distinct, powerful taste though, so I only use them once in awhile so that I don't get tired of them and so that I can taste the other stuff in my salad
  
• Kraft Roasted Red Pepper salad dressing, I bought it a few months ago for a pot roast recipe I wanted to try and ended up using the leftovers on my salad and GOODBYE RANCH DRESSING Hello NEW LOVER!!!
  

I've been eating various versions of the above salad since I started this plan in February, I tried adding a Smart One frozen meal with it, but I really don't like most of the flavors they have. Once in awhile I'll heat up a frozen tamale (one of our clients makes them, brings them in and sells them by the dozen so I have some on hand in case I forget lunch or something). Last week I was feeling adventurous and threw in a turkey sandwich (I know. SEXY!)

The way I figure it, I eat a super healthy breakfast and lunch, and that way I don't feel bad for what I eat for dinner (My husband isn't on a diet or sticking to a plan and I am having a hard time with that...which is a post for a different day...)

Weekly Weigh-In 1.0

Weigh-In
Last Weigh-In: 338lbs
Current Weigh-In: 333.4lbs.
Weekly change: -4.6lbs

This morning when I got on the scale it said I weighed 100lbs. I got on and off of it several times and each time it gave me a different weight. As much as I'd love being 100lbs, that's not exactly accurate.

So after work tonight I stopped and bought a scale. One that measures up to 350lbs, just so there isn't any room for error (my broken one went up to 340 and I was worried that it wasn't working because I'd gone over 340 *shiver*). Anyway - I got home and went back and forth in my brain about whether to weigh-in today or first thing in the morning when they recommend you weigh-in. I was too nervous to wait, so I undressed and stepped on the scale.

I felt really good after I weighed in. I know that every week won't be like this, I know that it won't always be that big of a drop and it won't always feel this easy, but I'm going to use this to my advantage and keep the motivation going to stick to the plan and keep up with the exercise I've been getting.

Food Check-In
Even though I keep a food diary at Weight Watchers, I want to post here too what I eat. Not necessarily everyday, but once in awhile...sort of as a check-in for me mostly, so that I can read through and remind myself of what I'm eating and maybe catch myself if I feel myself teetering off my plan too severely.

Breakfast: Coffee, with 4 tablespoons Hazelnut coffee creamer
Lunch: Chicken teriyaki with white rice and 3/4 cup of shredded cabbage and carrots
Afternoon snack: Green apple
Dinner: Stagg 97% Fat Free Silverado chili with 1/3 cup of shredded cheese mixed in and tortilla chips, G2 Gatorade

Water: 32 oz throughout the day

Quote of the Day: "Today I know that I cannot control the ocean tides. I can only go with the flow...When I struggle and try to organize the Atlantic to my specifications, I sink. If I flail and thrash and growl and grumble, I go under. But if I let go and float, I am borne aloft." ~Marie Stilkind