Back on Track

This past week I have felt like I am in a groove. There were days when I didn't exactly count, but I could read my hunger queues a little better and for the most part I made good choices. Weight loss this week, 3.6 (again) for a total of 9.8 in 5 weeks. I am feeling good. Last night, I was out and saw a friend that I haven't seen in a couple of months. He said that I looked less stressed, more relaxed and pretty. Nice! I also have a date this Saturday! We shall see how that goes.

Goal for this week? Make it through LOL! Pace myself day by day and not beat myself up for small slip ups.

I GAINED weight???

Ok. So the 4th week not so good. I got lazy and STOPPED counting last Saturday. then I didn't count Sunday, even though my WW buddy and I went to hours of trouble to make WW friendly Super Bowl snacks. However, you can only eat SOME of them, not ALL of them. I have to say that I had my monthly visitor on my weigh in day and that could account for part of my 1.4 gain, but probably not all.

The question is, did I get back on track this week? Kind of. I made myself accountable even when I ate over what I should have. I paid attention to my choices. Was I perfect? NO. Is the weekend still coming? YES. Are there parties? OF COURSE. And the biggest question- can I do it? YES!

My current goal is to lose a total of 15 pounds before I visit my sister on March 17th. I have lost 6.2 pounds. About 4 weeks to lose 9 more pounds. VERY doable.

Big Loss and Feeling Good!

Weigh in today...I lost 3.6 this week! I am down 7.6 total and feeling pretty good about it. I am back to not feeling deprived, although I did purposely take it easy drinking this weekend for fear of water retention. My WW leader suggested flushing with lots of water after over-indulgence :)

Right now I am feeling good and motivated. If I could only find a boyfriend....

Should I be disapointed?

So this week I only lost 0.4 pounds. Disheartening. But should I be upset? Isn't any loss a victory? I have lost 4 pounds total, which is 3.6% of my total goal. Not bad when I think of it that way.

Thinking back, I wasn't as strict as I could have been. I did poor estimations of points, rounding down instead of up. I drank a lot on Saturday night, which could have left me bloated for my weigh in on Monday. I stopped counting when I was still hungry and wanted to eat late at night. Two weeks in, I already need to find new resolve. I looked back at my first blog post and it helped me refocus. So far so good this week. I have been planning meals with my WW buddy and that helps. I eat when I am hungry but choose the right things. I am prepared by having good snacks in the kitchen.

I can do this!

Do I have worms or something?

Is it possible for a human being to be hungry all day every day?? I have not felt satisfied since the first week! At first I thought it was because of overeating last weekend (even though I stayed within my flex points). Then I thought it was because I saw a documentary on McDonald's founder Ray Kroc. Now I am convinced I have a big fat tape worm sucking all the nutrients from my food and laughing maniacally in my stomach. (Really, I have envisioned this! He kind of looks like the worms from that episode of Futurama, except bigger and more mean.)I think I have mentioned the whole "Filling Foods" thing. Um, not working. Besides, I can only eat so many carrots before I turn orange like the girl from Growing Pains in her anorexia phase.

The weekend is coming up and I am a little nervous about the challenge. There is only one party this weekend (suprise, suprise) but it is at my apartment and I am sure I will have at least one bottle of wine (12 points). I have already used 6 flex points, so that leaves me with 29 of them. Someone say a prayer that I can stay off the baked cheetos!

The good news always comes with bad news....

So I had my second weigh in yesterday and I lost 3.6 pounds! Pretty great considering I had 7 beers on Saturday night and went hog wild at a brunch on Sunday. Problem? I have been starving since then. The first 5 days I wasn't hungry at all. Now all of a sudden I want to eat everything in sight, including the Skittles I just got from the vending machine. I haven't gone over my points yet, but I only have 9 left for the day now, and it is only 3:20pm. Weight Watchers talks about eating filling foods like lean protein, veggies and whole grains to stay full. I have had all of those today. I think I just need to back off the empty calories and go only for things that are more satisfying. NOT sugar filled treats.

I'm a Weight Watcher!

Day Two. I feel REALLY good. It sounds weird, but I already feel like there is a change in me, like my body is working to melt the fat away. I haven't felt deprived at all. Tonight I am actually having trouble eating all of my 30 allotted points. But last night was different. It was about 9:00 pm and I was already in bed. I was NOT hungry. I wasn't sad or mad either, but I wanted to eat! I sat and tried to think "Why do I want to eat? What am I looking for food to do for me right now?".

My cousin says that I am blessed with intelligence that always has my mind working. I don't know how intelligent I am, but I do know that my brain does triple time. I almost never watch movies, I don't have the attention span. I rarely watch TV without doing something else at the same time (like now I am watching American Greed and typing this). So it occurred to me that I eat to occupy my busy brain. And when I do this, I get no enjoyment from food. I eat it mindlessly, stuffing my face without thought to how the food looks, tastes, smells. Aren't those things why we eat in the first place? Or rather, shouldn't they be the real reason that we eat instead of all the other lame reasons that we tell ourselves make it okay to eat?

So how did I overcome this last night? I did a crossword. While watching TV and talking on the phone of course :)

First Day Jitters

So tonight was the first meeting. While waiting for my WW buddy to pick me up at work, I went across the street to Starbucks so I could have "one last cupcake". Wow, I really do have an unhealthy relationship with food.

I have to admit I was nervous. I think my WW buddy was, too. On the way in she said "It feels like the first day of school". I was a little upset about how much I weighed, even though I pretty much already knew what the scale would say. Of course, the first words out of my mouth were "OMG I have to lose 110 pounds". I need to change that attitude. At WW, your first goal is to lose 5%. For me, that is 12 pounds. I think I can do that pretty easily. Hopefully in the first month.

I am already thinking of all the things that I won't be able to eat all the time. No more sugary Starbucks, no more Haagen Dazs. I am also trying to plan out what I am going to buy to eat for the week. There are a lot of recipes and ideas and I am not quite sure where to start. I thought that some of the things in the pantry would be ok to hang on to, but even the things that seem to be low cal are really pretty bad!

I just have to remind myself that I want to be healthy, that I NEED to be healthy.

The Journey Begins....

I am 30 and I have Psoriatic Arthritis (PA). But this blog is not about that. I went to my Rheumatologist yesterday because I have been experiencing awful pain in my knees. X-Rays show bone spurs and joint damage. But that isn't the worst of it. The difference in the X-Rays when I am lying down and when I am standing is staggering. My weight squishes all the knee cartilage down to nothing and the bone rubs on bone. I asked what can I do about this? How do I fix it? My Rheum. was very straight with me. "Lose weight. You are a young person, you can do it".

PA is rough, but it is also a scapegoat for me. Any joint pain can be blamed on PA and I don't have to take responsibility for being so fat. Until it was laid out for me. Thank goodness for a doc who will tell you straight.

Ever since age 12, I have had a little pooch below my belly button. In Jr. High and High School I ran track and did a zillion sit ups every day, but still never had a flat stomach. After high school I stopped running and started eating. I didn't have a Twinkie until I was 18, but when I did for the first time I ate the whole box and then got sick. I'm not a binger, but sometimes I don't quite know when to stop.

At age 20, after balooning from a size 6 my senior year to a size 16, I went on Weight Watchers. I lost 30 pounds so easily. I didn't feel deprived and I started to feel like myself again. I even went through the holidays on my plan and losing weight. Then I hit a plateau. I got so frustrated that I just quit after 4 weeks of little to no movement on the scale.

In the last 10 years, there have been a ton of excuses for getting fatter and fatter. My mom got cancer and passed away, I got married to a drunk and had 5 years of upheaval with him, I got diagnosed with PA, I take medications that make losing weight hard. I have tried Weight Watchers 2 more times and Jenny Craig two times, only to lose a few pounds and then give up and of course gain it back again.

So why now? I am SCARED. I had a week where I couldn't walk and I don't want that to be my life. The plan? Weight Watchers again (it really does work if you stick to it), but this time with a buddy. And the gym, but light walking. Why blog? To have another person (group) to keep me accountable.

First WW meeting is Monday at 5:30, I will for sure let you know how it goes!