Monday Weigh In---Small Victories

Well....I wasn't thrilled with these weigh in results, but they could have been a lot worse, so I am content. Today's weight was 207.6...which is down .6 of a pound since last week. Which means....I LOST WEIGHT OVER THANKSGIVING!!! Okay, yeah, I am kinda thrilled.

These results were despite the fact that I majorly overate on Friday. I had like 3 turkey dinners on Friday!!! I was a woman possessed---I couldn't stop!!! On Saturday night, I went out with my BFF for drinks and dessert to celebrate her new job. I had a piece of strawberry cake and two glasses of Reisling wine...BUT I'm totally proud of myself because I planned for these calories, knew in advance what I was going to order, and ran 4 miles Saturday afternoon in order to get ready for my splurge. Now, I still probably shouldn't have eaten the cake due to my little turkey episode on Friday, but screw it. Its the holidays and I'm NOT going to be one of those women who are terrified of every calorie they consume. I still maintain that's no way to live!!! So just because I'm counting them now, does not mean that they are going to rule my life and take over my existence!!

Anyway, this week I'm planning to pump up the running and MAKE myself start strength training. WAHHHHH!!!!! I feel like a whiny baby about that one!! I despise any exercise that isn't cardio. But we'll see how it goes!!

I hope everyone survived Thanksgiving okay!!

Happy Belated Thanksgiving!

Just wanted to check in real quick. I hope everyone had a fantastic Thanksgiving! I will call mine...semi successful. I DID get up and run two miles Thanksgiving morning. I DID start my day with a green smoothie. I DID only have one plate of food and one piece of cake for dessert. I DID go on a long walk with the hubs Thanksgiving night. All of these things I consider successes, especially for me.

Here is where I didn't do so hot: I grazed on the turkey ( and turkey skin) after it came out of the oven before we sat down to dinner. I had a few bites of cake as soon as my sister brought it in. All in all, I would say Thursday was a definite success for me. However, FRIDAY came and with it came leftovers and I am sorry to say, I had a plate of turkey and mashed potatoes for lunch yesterday and TWO PLATES of turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy for dinner. I am so ashamed to tell you that, even as I write this, the thought of that food is making me feel like I'm starving all over again.  And to top it all off, I was as lazy as lazy gets yesterday. I barely moved off of the couch. I didn't even input my calories to MyFitnessPal yesterday.

Thankfully....all the leftovers are gone now and I'm starting over. I'm going on a run this afternoon and I'm going to be watching my calories extra closely for the next two days. It may be crazy, but I'm still hoping to weigh in Monday with a loss. ANY LOSS! I'll take it!

I guess holidays and setbacks are going to happen. The most important thing is to pick yourself back up and start again. Which I'm doing right now. Gotta go...need another green smoothie!!!

Monday Weigh In, The Sequel

I'm not a very good blogger lately. I wonder if anyone is still reading this? Anyway, if you are....GUESS WHAT!!! I'm down to 208!!!

It has been a YEAR since I weighed 208...I will never forget the day, it was a weekday morning last October and I was over at my best friend's house for coffee. I hadn't weighed myself in a while and decided to step on the scale and it said 208. I burst into tears--until that day, I didn't know that I was over 200 pounds. I'd never been over 200 in my entire life!! I knew that I'd put on some weight, but the last time I'd checked the scale had been 5 months prior and it said 185.  So, basically, I'd put on over 30 pounds in 5 months...I was shocked.

I wish I could say that that was the day I decided to get it together and start losing weight, but unfortunately I chose to drown my sorrows in food and cigarettes for another few months. My highest weight was 217.

ANYWAY, fast forward a year, and I'm back to 208, but MUCH happier about it this time around! I'm also smoke free and have completed a half marathon! What a difference a year makes, right??

For those of you keeping track, I've lost 7 pounds in the past two weeks. Go me!! I can't wait to see that scale dip below 200 again! Once it does, I am NEVER going back!!!!

Monday Weigh In!!

OMG!!! Omg. Omg. OMG!!!

Oh. My. God.

The scale did something strange this morning. It dropped below 212.8 for the first time since....um...well since way before I decided to start losing weight!! I'm not even going to lie to you, I'd sorta convinced myself that the scale was broken...because obviously somebody training for a half marathon would be losing gads and gads of weight, correct? Whatever!

So! One consistent week of eating right (with the exception of Tuesday) and getting just moderate exercise resulted in...

211.0!!!

What???? Do you have any idea how long its been since I've seen that number on the scale? A long flippin time, I'll tell you that. (This is a 4.4 pound weight loss, by the way, since I was back up to 215).

I am so happy right now but I feel like a MORON too!! Like I said, this happened with just one week of eating right, and nowhere near the exercise that I'd been getting while training. Just goes to show you the importance of food---I sure had my head buried in the sand when it came to that. Oh well. I shall be ignorant no more!!

I'm off to make a green smoothie. I can't wait to see what the scale says next week!!

Three Out of Four Days Ain't Bad

I think I did pretty good this week! I have to say, watching every single calorie that I put into my mouth is very annoying eye opening!! Anyway, here's a quick breakdown of every day.

Monday-Green smoothie for breakfast, small salad for lunch, a few almonds, LOTS of water and a cup of hot green tea. I don't think I ate enough during the day, though, because I had seconds on meatloaf at dinner. I did stay within my calorie range, but by dinner time I was STARVING and could think of nothing but shoveling as much food in my head as possible! Even so, my calories for the day were only 1082...with about 700 of them coming from dinner.

Tuesday- Bad day!! I had to go eat breakfast with my daughter at her school that day. They served us sausage biscuits, blueberry muffins, and apple juice. I was hungry and ate it all, justifying to myself that it was okay because I had no choice but to come and eat with her. After that, the "oh, well, I already screwed up so may as well go for it" feeling kicked in and I'm sorry to report that I ate like a pig the rest of the day. Not only that, but I ate out EVERY SINGLE MEAL on Tuesday. My calorie count was through the roof-like 3000. I'm ashamed.

Wednesday- Great day! I had my smoothie in the morning and motivated myself to get off my ass and I ran/walked a mile and a half in the morning before school. First time EVER I decided to go running before school. The rest of the day was great, too. I went on a 4 mile walk with my hubby later that day, and made him run quite a bit of it with me. I had lots of fruits and lots of veggies, and I made sure to eat more than I did on Monday, but healthy things. I totaled 1500 calories for the day.

Thursday- A lot like Wednesday. Started out with my green smoothie and a banana. Chicken soup & a (carefully measured) PBJ for lunch. Snacked on apples, carrots, and pretzels throughout the day and I made a nice homemade soup for dinner with lots of veggies. I did have a cup of ice cream for dessert. My calories totaled 1639, and I went on another 4 mile walk/run with Jeremy (who is also counting calories now).

I learned a few lessons this week. #1- I have to start my day out healthy! As of right now, I don't have the mental strength to do a turnaround if I start out eating crap. Maybe that will come sometime in the future. #2 I have to eat throughout the day or I will totally pig out at dinner time.  #3 Chicken noodle soup has all my recommended daily sodium! Wow. I never paid attention to how much sodium was in things before.

So anyway, I'm making progress. I'm out of spinach, so instead of a smoothie this morning I had a yogurt and some apple with peanut butter for breakfast. After that I went to WalMart and decided to treat myself to a new book- Eat This, Not That.

So anyway, I'm making progress. I'm out of spinach, so instead of a smoothie this morning I had a yogurt and some apple with peanut butter for breakfast. After that I went to WalMart and decided to treat myself to a new book- Eat This, Not That. I'm the type of person who, every time I undertake something different has to read a book on it! And since I'm paying attention to calories now like never before...anyway, so the book has an Egg McMuffin on the cover and said it was only 300 calories! All of a sudden I was craving an Egg McMuffin! I came sooo close to buying one, but I reminded myself that I need to start out my day with healthful food, so I didn't. That was a major victory for me, let me just tell you!!

Here comes the weekend. Wish me luck!!

Cleanse

Enough of all the crap eating. I've made myself sick over the past few days by eating all the junk, and today I'm starting fresh. I'm sick of excuses...I KNOW how to do this. Its just a matter of doing it!
So today I'm doing a (makeshift) cleanse to get the ball rolling. Nothing but green smoothies, raw fruits and veg, water, and green tea. I will probably break this at dinner time, but I'm going to attempt to stick the rest of the week out doing green smoothies and salads during the day. I went grocery shopping today and STOCKED UP on healthy groceries, so no excuses there.
I have also set a goal of NO eating out this week. This is a real issue for me...I normally eat out at least 10 meals a week. And from what I've learned by tracking my calories over the past few weeks, a lot of the restaurant food that I thought was (relatively) healthy is NOT. Food has way more calories than I gave it credit for!
A piece of good news...I haven't gained any weight from last week! I'm still back up to 215, but no major damage was done.

Beginning To See What the Problem Is

OK, so my race was two weeks ago and the glow that I've been basking in is finally starting to let up a little bit. In its place (unfortunately) some hard realities are setting in. I haven't been doing much as far as diet or exercise goes the past two weeks, but the one thing that I have been doing (give myself a quick pat on the back) has been tracking my calories. This isn't like the other times I've tracked them...you know, do it for a few days while I'm motivated and being super good, and then when its time for the huge piece of chocolate cake, I'm done tracking...has anyone else ever been like that? Or am I the only completely pathetic one here?
ANYHOO, so I've tracked them-the good, the bad, and the ugly. I haven't restricted my calorie intake, but have just eaten completely normally. This has been soo eye opening. Here are some things I've learned about my eating habits:

• On my worst days, I take in about 2900 calories.  That's a lot, but less than I would have thought my binge days would be. I was thinking at least five or six thousand?
• On my good days, I eat around 1400 calories.
• Even on my good days, I still have sugar...in the form of candy, cookies, or cakes.
• On EVERY SINGLE DAY, I have gone over my recommended sodium intake. On some days, I've more than doubled it, but even on the best day that was recorded, I went over by 300mg.
• I give myself more credit for eating vegetables than I deserve. I eat meat, carbs (like rice and potatoes), fat, and sugar sugar sugar.

So...yeah. Maybe I'm running across some clues as to why I'm not losing weight? Is excess sodium a factor in obesity? I LOVE ME SOME SALT.

Oh, another thing I've noticed, now that I've been paying more attention. This last week was super stressful, especially yesterday. I've realized that when I decide that I'm dealing with undue stress that I do not deserve, I give myself total license to eat whatever I want to that day.

I'm sure that the scale is going to be very harsh with me on Monday morning. I expect it, and I know that I deserve it. BUT I'm not going to say that these last two weeks have been for nothing, either. I've spent a good deal of these last few years feeling helpless when it comes to food and weight gain, and paying no attention to my diet. At least now I'm getting to know my habits better, and I truly believe that information is the first step. I know this probably sounds silly, but seeing my food intake right there in black and white is a lot different than grazing through my day and forgetting about the food as soon as I've eaten it. ( I bakes sugar cookies yesterday and ate NINE of them. NINE!!!! I'm so ashamed of myself)

Another thing I've learned: trying to will myself to NOT do something is a lot harder than getting off the couch and doing something. In other words, it takes ten times more mental stamina for me to resist a sugar cookie than it does to go on a 5 mile run. But this is what it comes down to..this is the real battle!

Does anyone have any advice as to how to proceed forward from this point? Should I post what I eat every day for accountability? That would get boring to read, right? Should I make a ridiculously hard to accomplish goal, like losing 50 pounds in the next three months?  Or should I just shut up and eat poached chicken and celery for every meal? I see so many of you resisting temptations and I do NOT envy the kind of things that you're eating, but those numbers on the scale keep going down!! Maybe I should just grow up, right? Its just that I KNOW I could lose weight on some kind of Jenny Craig diet, but I also KNOW that I would gain it back once it was over. I really just want to "fix" my disordered eating so that this won't be a problem again.

HELP me.