Walking in a winter ONE-derland!!!

Growing up, whenever my father would sing "Winter Wonderland", he'd sing:

"A beautiful sight,

we're happy tonight,

walking in our winter underwear."

Well, today I re-claim the "underwear" for "ONE-derland.

That's right. When I weighed in this morning I hit 199.0!!! I'm officially in the 100s!

I've still got a ways to go, though. And I'm up for the challenge.

To make my ego even bigger today, one of my choir members asked me before Mass (church) today if I've lost weight. I smiled and said yes. Made me feel like a million bucks. =)

I can do this!!!

Meg

Reaching Goals

I've been working with my Personal Trainer for nearly 5 months now. We've been doing monthly evaluations to see how I've been doing. I had one on Tuesday.

From November (we skipped December at my request because it was just bad, and I knew it was going to be), I've lost 5lbs, 3 inches in the obliques area. And 0.3% of my body fat. Since my first session 5 months ago, I've lost 1% of my body fat.

My trainer was all excited that I lost a whole percent of body fat. BUT, I've got to say, I wasn't. Yes, it's fantastic that I've replaced fat with muscle. But I look back to my first session and the goals we set. The goal was to lose 2% of my body fat in a month. It took me 5 months to lose 1%.

I know that it's mostly my doing that the weight hasn't come off quicker. I drank at LEAST 20 oz of non-diet mountain dew every day. I also ate McDonald's nearly every day. But I've been pretty darn good this whole month, and so to see only a 0.3% reduction was disappointing.

So what am I doing about it? Did I decide to give up? Nope. I'm actually working harder now, I think.

I forced myself to go to a Muscle Works class yesterday (of which I will give a review of at a later time). And I've been doing Windsor pilates nearly every day this week. My muscles are sore, but it's totally worth it.

I'm gauging my success based on the reduction/elimination of my love handles. Which is a weird way to gauge, I know. BUT, I've eliminated 1 set of love handles, and am nearly finished eliminating my second set--which means I'll have a flat back for the first time in....years.

How do you gauge your successes? Is it in the numbers or in changes you notice/how you feel?

Meg

I really want mac n cheese right now...

...with the bread crumb topping, cheese-y goodness, and scrum-diddle-y-umptous carbohydrate pasta. So I thought instead of indulging in the presumably thousand calorie treat, I'd blog instead.

Does anyone have a PointsPlus friendly Mac n Cheese recipe?

What are your guilty pleasures? How have you made them PointsPlus friendly?

Meg

Sweet Temptations and Little Victories

Yesterday I fell off the bandwagon. Yup, I did. No, I didn't have a soda. I was really good for breakfast and lunch. But by the time I got to dinner (which was at a friend's house), I had 2 helpings of the meat/green beans/rice. Not so bad, right? I did, after all, have 16 points left for the day.

Then came dessert. My friend and her family pulled out all the leftover Christmas cookies. I proceeded to have one. I'll be good, I thought. After eating one, what's the harm in having a second one? From there I kinda dove in. I don't know how many cookies I ate. I believe it was in the range of 6-8. Maybe as many as a dozen.

I also didn't get my 100 oz of water in for the day. I had 80 oz at work, but failed to obtain the last 20 oz. Ridiculous, right?

But today is a new day. And I've done pretty well. I'm kinda proud of myself. Usually when I fall off the bandwagon, I give up. I usually think, "Screw it. Let's go get McDonalds." But not today.

Another little victory: I bought a shirt 3 years ago...it fit (barely) at the time I bought it. But I needed a shirt to wear to my grandmother's viewing (morbid, I know) and it was at Target, so I picked it up. Anyway, the last time I tried it on, I was miserable. My arms barely fit in it, my stomach was tight in it, and the buttons nearly burst.

This afternoon I went on a 'clean the closet' spree. I got all the clothes out of the closet I wanted to give away. For some reason, I left the shirt in there.

As I'm getting ready for my date tonight, I'm trying on clothes, "No...this doesn't look good....no, not this either...hmmm....let's try this one on from 3 years ago even though it didn't look good on me last time...." and...

TA DA!!!!

Not only does it fit, but there's room to spare!

I know you can still see some lumps and bumps, but the shirt hangs pretty well otherwise!

Hooray for little victories!

Meg

Nearing One-derland

I started up Weight Watchers again last week from a 4 month hiatus.

I gotta tell you, it's been so much easier than what I remembered. The Weight Watcher scanner app helps a LOT. Not all barcodes are in the app (my half pint of reduced fat milk wasn't in there, for example), but some things I figured wouldn't be in there actually were.

All this being said, this week I've lost 5lbs!! Which I know is not necessarily the most healthy--recommendations are 1-2lbs per week. I figure the majority of the loss is due to not drinking soda (see previous post for reasons), upping my water intake, and not eating out every day of the week. So I am prepared for not losing as much next week.

But this brings me to the title. I am nearly at one-derland. Again. Yup, I've hovered around one-derland for years. I'll get down to 190, or 196 and then I'll pop over 200 and stay there. It's almost like being over 200 is my comfort zone. I say out loud that I want to be thin. I like the way my body looks in the mirror when I'm toned; I sleep better.

So why the mental block?

I guess we'll see how it goes when I'm back in one-derland.

Cheers to positive thoughts and feelings!

Meg

Not "Doing the Dew"

Wow, it's been 4 months, eh? I've been on a bit of a hiatus, and I apologize for that.

Back in September I got a personal trainer. It's been GREAT so far. She pushes me to do things I never thought I'd be able to do. I'm currently able to bench press 15 lbs on each side of the bar (and the bar is 35lbs...so, that's 65lbs total that I'm benching!). I'm doing hammer curls and assisted pull ups and planks, and reverse sit-ups....and sooooo many other things. My weight has not gone down...but I've lost about 2% of my body fat--which is nothing to really brag about, but it's better than a kick in the pants!

Anyway, with the new year I've made some New Years Resolutions. They range from making my bed daily to saying a rosary daily, to losing 10% of my body fat. Yup, 10%. Pretty lofty goal, eh? If I attain a 10% loss, I'd still be considered obese having 28% body fat. So I still have a looooooong ways to go.

But I'm taking steps.

One thing that's really helped me: I read an article on abcnews.com that truly grossed me out. I was a fan of mountain dew. I would drink it literally every day. 20 oz at minimum. What can I say, I wanted/needed the caffeine. And the taste wasn't half bad either.

That was, until I read the article. Evidently it's a story that was way back from 2010, but the gist of it is: Pepsi's defense for stating a mouse was in a Mountain Dew (Pepsi owns Mountain Dew, btw) was that the acid in Mountain Dew would have turned the mouse gelatinous before it made it the mouth of a person. Yup. That's right. Mountain Dew can disintegrate a mouse.

GROSS, right?

That alone was enough to make me give up Mountain Dew....and all pop/soda (or coke, as ya'll in Oklahoma like to say). It made me think: if it can do that to a mouse....what the heck is it doing to my body?

Which also got me to thinking about all the other gross things I put into my body. Suddenly, McDonald's does not sound as appetizing as it once did. Or any fast food, for that matter. Or pre-packaged food. It makes me want to only eat what I grow. Only problem with that is that I live on the 3rd floor of an apartment complex. Annnnd, while it's currently unusually warm for this time of year in the DC area, I know that it won't stay like this for long and it will turn cold.

So from now on, I'm sticking to drinking 0 calorie coffee for my caffeine fix instead of doing the dew, and seriously considering what I'm putting in my body before I consume anything.

Thoughts? Comments?

Happy and healthy 2012!

Meg

Goodness, Gracious, Great Balls of Fire!

It's been a MONTH since my last post. Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle (ok, not really, but you know what I mean!).

Life has been crazy, so I'm sorry for not having updated.

First off--I started with a Personal Trainer. Let me tell you, I fully believe this is one of the best decisions I have made. I have had only had 3 sessions so far (it would have been 4, but my first session was on the day of the CRAZY east coast earthquake and was therefore cancelled), BUT I can tell you my trainer has pushed me so much further than I would have ever pushed myself. I used to give up after 20 minutes on the treadmill, doing 3.0 mph and a 3.0 grade for 15-20 minutes. I am now semi-easily doing 3.2 mph at a 4.0 grade for 20 minutes....and that's just the warm-up!

I've lost only a couple pounds so far, but I've gained confidence and muscle. It's relatively expensive, but I figure if I make the investment in myself now...in 20-30 years I won't be having to shell out oodles more money to doctors for health bills.

The only downside (aside from the expense) is the overwhelming nausea I get from it. The first training day, I had a protein shake for breakfast and then went to work out. I didn't want to go work out on an empty stomach and I have heard that you should eat protein before working out. Anyway, by the end of the workout, I went to the bathroom and hurled it all up. Won't be doing that again.

2nd training session was in the afternoon, so I decided to have a handful of almonds ~1 hour before working out. Still left feeling nauseous. But I only had 2 water breaks, so I chalked it up to not having enough water.

Yesterday, I took more water breaks, but no snack beforehand. We had to quit 5 minutes early.

I've been told that because of my thyroid issues it's going to take my body a little longer to adapt to such an intense exercise routine. I'm hoping next week everything settles down.

But on a positive note, my trainer said she can definitely see an improvement already. We're increasing weights on weight training already, and starting next week instead of walking on the treadmill, we're going to start to jog! w00t, w00t!!

This afternoon I made tabouleh. It is currently chilling in the fridge. I can't wait to take it out in an hour and go to town on it. It's sooooooo yummy (and healthy)!

Happy labor day weekend!

Meg