Okay, okay, I'll post something!

Okay out there in cyber-land, I had my week two weigh-in, and it went fine.  Well, first, I should say that I partied my ass off on Saturday, and had 5 drinks, all of which were poured as AT LEAST doubles, even though I had asked for singles - so I figured it was at least 10 shots of alcohol, for a total of 40 points.  Even if it was more, I had the room to spare in my points allowance, so I should have been fine.  Still, Alcohol calories are NOT the same as say . . . whole grain and veggie calories!

I didn't expect much loss at the weigh-in, I'd actually weighed myself that morning and it looked as though there was going to be NO change, so when I got there, and saw a 1 pound reduction, I was quite happy.  I don't think the drinking stalled my fast losses, what I think happened is science, or elementary if you prefer a little Sherlock in your world.

Drinking causes you to dehydrate.  Dehydration causes your body to horde water when you DO drink.  Given I drink A LOT of water every day, I was likely retaining quite a bit when I weighed in.  As the days get further from the drinking, I will shed that extra water - which is why people lose so much in the first couple of weeks anyhow - a lot of it is water weight.

I guess the bottom line is, I'm remarkably still totally fired up about losing weight and getting healthy.  I'm starting to feel a little difference, though I still don't see any - I know that for me the first 10 pounds are totally and utterly unnoticeable.  Still, I'm now officially below 240 - so I can wave goodbye and say . . . "I'll never see you again, 240!" because I won't!!  It's just a little mini-celebration for passing another mile-stone.  Woo-Hoo!

Trouble in Weightloss Paradise

I found a pitfall in my weightloss plan today.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m THRILLED with how things are going – I’m not hungry, I eat something small at least every 2 hours or so, and I eat decent sized meals.  Obviously I have no complaints. 

Still, I found something that is not helping me.  I usually try to go home with 20 points left (well, 25 if you count the 5 I steal from myself in the morning by putting in “points removed – 5 in the tracker).  That means I eat 15 points (14 now, after my loss last night) between breakfast, lunch, and snacks.  I started this because I knew I would want to snack in the evening – here’s the downfall  . . . having that many points left over encourages me to eat poorly at night.

Here’s an example – last night I actually went into the evening with some ridiculous number of points – I believe I had 28 points left (Including my 5 stolen points).  I had a 10 point slice of pizza (well, I ate half of a slice, which came to 10 points), I still had 18 left!  I didn’t get home until about 8 p.m., at which point I ate a breadstick (2), a skinny cow ice cream bar (3) and a piece of candy (1) Top Raman (5), and Mashed potatoes (2) – I STILL ended with 5 points left over.  I should add, after the skinnycow, I REALLY wasn’t even hungry anymore.

The night before I had a bunch of points left over so I ate a SECOND skinny Cow bar for the day (3),  reeses peanutbutter cup (3) a piece of chocolate candy (1), a breadstick (2), and STILL had 7 points leftover at the end of all of that and that’s just my evening eating.

I NEED to eat more during the day unless I have something planned for the evening that is going to use my points.  I neither need nor, honestly, WANT to eat that much junk in the evenings.  I would rather stay on track and eat healthy.  I actually felt “obligated” to eat more last night, because my points were SO low.  I’d rather not feel that way.  Another option would be having lots of fruit in the house, and eating that instead – I realize that’s a better choice.  I also know I stayed in my points and still had some to spare, but do I really want to be in the habit of snacking on crap and junk that’s full of fat and sugar, or would I rather eat more reasonably during the day, and retrain myself not to eat so much junk at night?  I know you’ll say “what the hell are you doing with Reeses Peanutbutter cups and chocolate candy in your freezer!!!” but I want those things there.  I crave them less if I have them in the house, AND occasionally it’s fine – I can have EITHER a skinny cow, OR a peanutbutter cup, but not both.

It just seems to me that in the future, this little habit I’m developing will come back to bite me in the ass, so I’m gonna try to stop it now!  Wish me luck!

First Weigh-In!

Well, I weighed in last night, and the news was fantastic!  I've lost 6.8 pounds so far.  Now, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't completely shocked by how high that number is.  I know I've been really good - I've counted every point, I've shaved points off, etc., still - that's A LOT of weight, even taking into consideration water weight.  But hey, that's NOT a complaint!

My "goal" for next week would be to lose another 3.2 - that would put me at having lost my first 10 - which is huge for me.  If I don't make it, it's okay.  I know the weightloss will slow down, and I also know that I made a few not great choice in the past few days (though still within my ponits!).  But hey, it's good to have a goal, and so mine is 3.2!  After that, I'll drop my goal to 1.5 per week.  Obviously I'll be THRILLED with more than that, but I'll be satisfied if I'm losing at around 1.5 a week.

Woo-Hoo!  I'm so glad this is working for me!

Costco Pizza - holy mother of . . .

Okay, I'm headed to Costco tonight so my boyfriend can buy himself the patch because well, I DO NOT date smokers.  To be honest, he was trying to quit before he met me.  So, I've been craving Costco food-court pizza ALLLLLL day.  Then I found their nutritional information online and found out that ONE slice is 19 points!  NINETEEN POINTS!!  While I HAVE the points to spare, I'm not sure I NEED 22 or 24, or however-ridiculous-many grams of fat are in that thing!  So, I'm going to make a deal with myself.

I get to buy a slice of pizza (come on, who are we kidding? you didn't think I was going to NOT have the pizza did you?) BUT I'm going to have them cut it in half for me.  If I stop at half, and bring the other half home for TOMORROW (not for a late night snack tonight, and midnight doesn't count as "tomorrow"), then I get to have a skinny cow chocolate truffle ice cream bar (3 points and worth every single one of 'em).  If, however, I choose to eat the entire slice of pizza, then I get NO skinny cow tonight.

I should say that I have 31 points left right now.  I've only eaten 9 today, and I'll probably have ONE more at my meeting, because I'm pretty hungry right now, but I'm resisting.  Generally, I don't deny myself at all - I totally let myself have my 1 point snacks all day long.  Today I've been particularly good, because I KNEW the pizza was going to be really, really bad on the points scale. 

Still, I know WW is about making choices, and not denying yourself - but being conscious of the decisions you make regarding food.  I'm not going to deny myself the pizza, but I AM going to acknowledge that eating the entire slice would put me in a rather "no more food" position.

I'll let you know what I choose - pizza or chocolate.  HMMMmmmmm.. . .

Day 8 - Time to weigh in!!

Tonight's the moment of truth - right after work I'll drive straight over to my meeting and get the good - or bad - news.  Okay, I'll be honest, I already KNOW it's going to be GOOD news, it's just a question of HOW good.  I weighed this morning, so I do have SOME idea of what I'm lookin' at for the evening, but I'll keep that to myself!

I'm actually excited to weigh in.  I've behaved - I've BEYOND behaved, other than a few sweets I allowed myself (a skinny cow truffle bar AND reeses peanut butter cup last night) but I counted the points, and plugged them in.  I haven't used any of my weekly points, and I've been below my daily points by at least 4 every single day. 

While I think this is a GREAT strategy, I have to say that when my points drop, it's going to be even harder to manage.  At some point I suspect I'll come up to actually eating the points I'm allocated, and I worry what that will do to my weightloss progress, but for now, I'm excited.

I can't wait to blog tomorrow about my NEW and IMPROVED number.  I also really want to take measurements tonight, maybe I'll walk over to big lots and get a measuring tape after the meeting - I wonder if they have one that is big enough! :)

Day 5 - Leftovers

So, one things I've noticed about this whole adventure is that when you make a big batch of something, you have WAY more leftovers than is reasonable.  I'm all about leftovers, don't get me wrong, but normally I have fewer - first, I've eaten MORE of the item in my initial offering, and then, the second night, I finish it off, or come close!  NOW, however, with watching portions, I find that leftovers are lingering longer (oooooo . . . allitteration!). 

Take last night - I had two more peices of my fabulous lasagna (recipe to be posted soon at http://www.sheddingpoundsrecipes.blogspot.com/)  Still, there were three more peices taunting me!!  Thank god my ex came by with the kids, who had been at the science fair and math night all evening, and who were clearly going to need something to eat once they got back to his place.  The three pieces went off with him.  But today, I had chili for lunch (again).  I love the chili, and I don't mind, but . . . it seems to me I need to be more cautious about HOW MUCH I make of things.  Maybe I need to cut recipes in half? I don't know. Just a thought!

Day 4 - re-energized

I'm not sure how it happened, but I feel better about things today.  Maybe it was that I let myself indulge for dinner last night.  Don't get me wrong, I stayed on my points - in fact, 5 below - but I had lasagna and breadsticks for dinner.  The lasagna was FANTASTIC!  I'll post the recipe later on the recipes and tips blog.  It's truly phenomenal.  I can't wait to go home and have some for dinner TONIGHT!  Though it IS a hefty 7 points per serving, and of course, you want two servings (who am I kidding, I wanted 5 - I just chose to STOP at two).  That part is tough.  Breadsticks cost me even more - at 2 points each, but I felt like I NEEDED bread - I hadn't had any since I started.  I'll likely skip those this evening.

So, here's the thing, I think when I eat enough so that I'm satisfied, and still let myself indulge a little, or have something that seems like it's indulgent, even if it isn't, then, I get kick-started again.  Like "okay, I can do this!"  That's how I felt when I got up this morning.

well, that's how I felt about WeightWatchers - my dog was sick all night, so I was up every couple of hours.  I didn't feel like I could do much of anything in terms of actual exsistence!

I was starting to hit the doledroms (ever read "phantom tollbooth"??) and then got to eat my Strawberry greek yogurt.  Man that stuff ROCKS!  How did I not find that before now?  I mean, come on, 3 points, and 14g of Protein - that's a GREAT snack to keep you going for hours!