Week 28: Update

I am lacking in sleep and I gained this week.  Needless today I am cranky! I want to eat a half gallon chocolate-peanut butter ice cream and watch Gilmore Girls. 

I won't. 

I believe I should reward myself for dealing with an exhausting, horrible, depressing day.  So I am breaking out my shoes goal shoes, putting on workout pants and not eating ice cream. 

Update: Week 27

I am pleased with myself today, I made it through the fair and actually lost weight! 8ish pounds which brings me up to 62.8 pounds of weight lost, no one can say that's not awesome, right? I've had a few revelations the last couple of days one of them is, I can't believe I've been doing Weight Watchers for 27 weeks!

27 WEEKS!?!?! That's 189 days, over 6 months, more than half of a year.  That's dropping pop and picking up my water bottle one more time again, again and again. That's not eating french fries, minimizing my chocolate/sugar intake, eating fruit and vegetables like I've got scurvy, that's down 6 dress sizes.  That's more miles run than I can count, fewer emotional outburst, gaining an ability to reward myself with something besides food.  That's saying goodbye to almost an entire wardrobe of clothes, having a collar bone, seeing muscle definition, and not having fat sausage fingers.  That's A LOT of changes. And I like them.

My other revelation is exercise, because I have been so busy the last few weeks I have not been jogging.  Yesterday I went jogging walking.  It was so difficult to jog after not doing so for weeks, my hope is to never go that long without jogging.

I've been eating a lot of fresh green beans lately (I also canned 26 jars of them today), fresh from the garden.  Also Cucumbers, watermelon and cherry tomatoes.

Pie, there is a lot of pie in this house and I love pie.  Damn pie.

As a huge Mandy Moore fan the song Candy has always been the perfect tempo (beat, rhythm, or something like that) for jogging.

I have also been craving Zucchini Lasagna.  Here is a recipe for Zucchini Lasagna from Skinny Taste. I made my recipe up but this is similar except that I used ground turkey, store bought sauce and cottage cheese instead of ricotta.  It was AMAZING!     

Weeks 25 & 26

Confession time: I gained last week and I have no idea if I lost this week.  For last weeks gain I blame no one but myself and my love of "good"  food.  Chocolate, beer cheese soup and fresh cut french fries, who can resist all that "goodness"?  NOT ME!  When I weighed in at meeting last week our leader was funny, "I take it you know how this happened?" I sure did know! She was also very supportive and we talked about pushing our limits, sometimes so we need to find out how far we can go before it is too far (apparently all those french fries were too far). 

This week I have been volunteering at church and baking scone every morning for the county fair.  So I did not make it to meeting last week due to delicious scone baking and I do not trust my scales at home so I am working for a loss on week 27!

Even though I did gain last week and I am pretending that this week does not exist I am considering this a success, because I learned something (or was I reminded of something?).

Diverging off of topic: It's funny how we keep our lives together.  For years my health was atrocious, absolutely horrible!  And I had my job/career together, I was successful, I was good at my job and for the most part I liked what I did.  Oh how things can change in just one short year, I have my health on track but am severely lacking in the job/career department.  - I don't absolutely hate my job, I am VERY thankful to have my job and consider my self lucky to have one, I love most of my coworkers and the corporation isn't horrible either. -  I know that there is something else out there for me, I need to be patient keep looking and wait for a more fulfilling opportunity, but MY PATIENCE IS WEARING THIN!  Life is funny that way I guess, maybe one day I'll have it all together. 

Because I have been getting up early to bake I have not been exercising so no favorite exercise song.  However I have been listening to a lot of Adele. 

Still trying to kick pop and drink water.

Lovin' nectarines and watermelon!

Shoe Inspiration

My shoes! 

There is something about a pair of cute shoes that makes me want to run just a little further.  

Update: Week 24

Another week down in the books, am I am down another 3.6lbs! I am feeling fortunate because this last week held challenges but they were easily defeated by just a few smarter choices.  I didn't do too well with all of my goals, I drank a pop and did not drink two liters of water a day.  The pop was clear and diet so I did resist the temptation of "the hard stuff," and I am happy with that.  As far as the water goes, two liters is a lot, especially when I drink coffee too. 

I got new jogging shoes this week, because they are ADORABLE, not because I needed them.  I am going to wait to use my new shoes so I can treat them as a celebration or reward.  I am not sure what I will be celebrating but I know it will be worth the wait.
 
This week I earned 42 activity points! Totally AWESOME!

I have been snacking on nectarines lately, the deliciousness of a peach minus the fuzz. 

I am still fighting the pop habit, hopefully I'll do a little better this week. 

My favorite work out song this week is Michael Jackson's The Way You Make Me Feel.

My goal is to continue working on my water consumption.  

 

Knowledge is Power

I found a pretty good article about health/fitness myths , it reiterated a few things for me and made me feel better about others.

For instance, it made me feel better about my inability to be into or even do yoga.  Maybe it is because I am doing a video instead of going to a class, but I just cannot keep interest in yoga. 

The article did shed light on my favorite form of activity/exercise, running/jogging.  Since heart disease is a part of my family history (and part of the reason I want to live a healthier life) it is always good to hear advice about my heart.  And in a time where I feel like many people my age are running marathons, I was happy to hear that JUST running 10-15 miles a week will add plenty of years to my life and that running, so no need to run a marathon to increase my heart health.

They also discussed eating while you exercise and hydrating before you exercise.  Neither of which I do, I usually exercise as soon as a get up in the morning, rarely drinking a glass of water before I do much less eating anything.  So I was happy to hear that doing so wouldn't hurt my routine.

Stretching, I NEVER stretch before I exercise.  I do however take a few minutes to warm-up, usually by walking, so I was happy to hear that stretching is more important post exercise.  As far as I am concerned it also feels better.  

My favorite myth was "you can loose weight just by exercising." I totally used to believe this, spend some time exercising then eat whatever I wanted and as much as I wanted with no results.  Now I use my exercise as a starting point, holding on to the idea of "6 pack abs are created in the kitchen not the gym."  I have also started to make better choices after I start my day with exercise.   

Thanks Weight Watchers!

I did it! I hit my first personal goal, as of Wednesday I have lost 52.4 pounds! I am very happy with myself and can't wait to hit my other goals and finally be a healthy weight.  Now that I am losing weight, I can't believe I ever let myself get that far out of control, it's kind of embarrassing, but the good thing is I know I can fix this!  

I am a believer in the Weight Watchers way of life it has helped my build my support system, I love my support system!

This week I have earned 17 activity points (probably more but I am bad at counting them).

My favorite food this week if any kind of berry (rasp, marion, blue, straw) I'll take any of them.

I am still trying to kick pop, I almost screwed that up last night out of frustration with work but I switched to water!

My favorite work out song is Love In An Elevator by Aerosmith. 

My goal for this week is to drink two liters of water everyday. (Needless to say I have been using the bathroom A LOT!) 

 My reward for hitting my goal was a trip to a Lavender Farm, this is not my lavender but I bundled a bunch of it and have it hanging around.  I also bought to plants (I can't say not to a pretty plant); lavender and rosemary. 

Here's to another successful week.