100th Post!

Over the last few days, I debated all kinds of topics for my next blog post--but when I realized that this was my 100th post, I thought perhaps I should post something profound.  Apparently my brain is too fried for profound, because I'm going to post an update on my Challenge #2 to get myself healthy!  Eh, what's 100 posts anyway?  Maybe I'll become profound by 200.  :)

the extent of my profundity for today

I last gave you the Challenge #2 update way back on June 17th...before the insanity of the rest of the month (and apparently all of July) took over.  I had just survived my first week without the safety net of my three scheduled exercise classes, and weighed in at 133.2 that week.  I came out of that week with a loss because I cobbled together some exercise on my own--my friend's Zumba class at her gym, a new Zumba class sort of near my house, and some laps at the pool.  Over the weeks that followed, I did manage to swim laps at the pool a few times, but I never made it to another structured class again until last week!  I'll give you the quick overview:

When things got ridiculously busy, I stopped tracking my calories and fitness in my WebMD log.  I had been tracking diligently, daily, obsessively since I started this Challenge in January, and figured I could probably do without the log--I kind of know what I'm doing now, right?  Hmmm...

At my lowest weight (right after I got so sick out at my sister's house), I weighed in at 131.4--not a true baseline since the weight loss was brought on by sickness, but I just wanted to throw that out there so you could know where I was at the end of June!

The beach vacation was a temptation, to say the least--my parents graciously stocked the pantry with all kinds of goodies that I try not to keep at my own house (because I lack the self-control to stop myself from binging...).  My willpower has improved over this Challenge, but the beach was too much--I figured I was on vacation, what could some cinnamon buns/Hershey Kisses/<insert super fatty deliciousness here> hurt?  I had worked so hard toward my goal weight, I deserved a week off!  (This is what my brain kept telling me.)  I finally understand the self-sabotage that happens on The Biggest Loser, when they stick those poor folks so desperately dedicated to getting their health back on track in a room full of their weaknesses and tell them that they can win immunity if they overindulge.  I used to be super annoyed at the people who ate during those temptations, but now I totally get it--dangle the forbidden fruit (or, as it were, nothing nearly as healthy as fruit) in front of someone and give them any justification for it (you've worked so hard!  you deserve it!  it's vacation!  you can win a prize!), and you're bound to have at least one person who cracks.  I am that person--I cracked.  Big time.

seriously, no one can pass up s'mores!

I weighed in right after vacation, and I was up to 136 pounds--I gained 4.6 pounds in 2.5 weeks.  Yikes.  Not even swimming a few laps in the pool at our beach house or long walks on the beach collecting shells could save me from all the junk I ate late at night...early in the morning...pretty much all day for seven days straight.

I told myself that I would get back on track after we got home from the beach.  I berated myself for my bad habits--eating at night, eating too much, eating junk.  But I was super exhausted after our week of fun in the sun, and it was easy to grab those treats and just munch on them to keep myself going throughout the day.  And then Dan went out of town for 3 days last week, and I thought if I could just eat all the M&Ms and Hershey Kisses in the house, I could get back on track (oh, my old faulty thinking at work).  I found M&Ms hidden deep in our cabinets--who knew we had so many bags?  No one ever will know how many bags we had, because I ate them all.  I ate so much, I felt sick.  Ugh.

So this week, I weighed in at 138 pounds...and I'm not at all surprised.  The only thing that surprises me is that I don't weigh more at this point.  What am I doing?  Um, I can't even ask that question--I know exactly what I'm doing (or not doing):

• I stopped tracking my calorie intake and fitness.  Clearly, I wasn't ready to take the training wheels off, even after 6 months.
• I am not getting good sleep every night--I've had bouts of insomnia (especially while Dan was gone--I never sleep well), and the lack of sleep leads to poor decision-making when it comes to my food throughout the day.  The lack of sleep also hinders my metabolism and weight loss...not to mention, makes me crazy cranky.
• I've been eating all kinds of junk.  It's time for a cabinet clean-out (and not the fun kind where I eat everything)--I need to eliminate all the temptations from the house until I can get my self-control under control again.
• I haven't been exercising!  Without those scheduled classes, I'm blowing in the wind, and it's too easy to put off exercise when you're not accountable to a schedule of classes for which you've already paid.  Dan's new schedule has definitely added a new wrinkle to my quest...
• I have not been blogging my weight updates.  What did I just say about accountability?  I need to be accountable to you, dear readers, to keep me from breaking my scale.  Obviously I lack the motivation to do this on my own in a vacuum--I need people cheering me on, and I need folks to know when I've fallen off the wagon so that I have the push to get back on again.

That's where I am--I'm trying to do much better this week, but maintaining my focus is hard and will be short-lived.  This week is our only "normal" week so far this summer, and the only normal week I have before we take off on yet another temptation-laden adventure next week!  It's hard to get on a good schedule when the schedule keeps changing, so I'm just trying to keep my head up and work with what I've got right now.

Week of Binging

The end-of-the-school-year/two-June-birthdays crush is upon me...and I'm not doing a great job keeping up!  I'm sorry I was MIA at the end of last week--it was a little crazy.  After my not-so-great day on Monday, I really tried to be more patient with the kids on Tuesday--and I even got to make my messed up crock pot meal from the night before, so the day was definitely a lot smoother than Monday.  To improve my mood and make Tuesday a success, I binged on M&M's (totally ignoring my sign) and pretzels...not exactly my best effort that day food-wise.  The temporary high of chocolate worked, but then I actually felt sick Tuesday night...I'm not sure if it was more emotional than physical--I was so angry at myself for eating so much.  It's a really fine line--I want to cut myself some slack for those not-so-stellar food days, but I feel gross in so many ways when I binge on junk.  I woke up with new resolve on Wednesday, and really stuck well to my food plan that day...not sure I could make up for the damage done on Tuesday, but I was at least trying and not just giving up!  I rushed around on Thursday, trying to prep the house for the weekend's festivities (Abby's dance recital and Alex's 3rd birthday party!)--my mom arrived Thursday afternoon to help me with Abby's dress rehearsal that evening and then stay overnight to help with the cake and party prep.  I did well food-wise on Thursday as well--trying to put my binge far behind me, but also knowing that I had a lot of cake and icing in my future!  Friday was pretty much all cake decorating for me--some cleaning, but mostly eating icing and spending hours with the piping bag in front of Alex's cake.  I ate WAY too much icing...always happens.  Saturday was a whirlwind of dance and party--I will hopefully get a few posts up later this week with the cake pictures and more details about the weekend!  Here's a look at how I did with my calories and sugar intake last week...not good:

M&Ms and birthday party food...high in calories!

yeah, it was ugly

At least I got in my exercise last week to counterbalance the horrible eating.  Wednesday evening was my last evening Zumba class--my regular instructor had already stopped teaching the week before, so we had a new instructor.  She happened to be the same instructor that I've had a few times when I've attended the Friday afternoon class, and she's really good--she has a lot of enthusiasm and energy, and I was happy to at least be somewhat familiar with her routines!  I missed my old Wednesday instructor, though--I guess one nice thing about the military life is that people are constantly moving...not just me.  I'm sad to be done with my aerobics classes here due to our "move" to Dan's new job and schedule, but at least my favorite instructor already moved--knowing that I was missing her class would have been harder on me!  I also snuck out on the cake decorating for a little bit to attend the afternoon Zumba class on Friday, too, because it was my very last day of this aerobics session, and I didn't want to miss it.  It was bittersweet--the last 20 weeks in those classes have really changed my health so much, and I'm so grateful for the experience, and so nervous about the weeks going forward without those classes.  It will be nice not to have the evening crush of trying to get to those classes right at dinnertime, but I will miss that time to myself, and of course, the massive calorie burn!  Now to the task of figuring out how to replace those classes...

So, you're probably wondering if I gained 3 or 5 pounds last week, right?  I was, too, when I stepped on the scale yesterday morning--I was pretty nervous considering my caloric intake all week, and my general bad feeling about myself because of that.  I was shocked when I read the number on the scale--134 pounds, for a loss of 1.2 pounds last week!  Only 6 more pounds to my goal weight--29 pounds down!  I don't understand it, since the previous few weeks I had been so good about my food and my exercise and lost so little each week, and then I totally jumped into a vat of fattening foods last week and lost so much.  Maybe my body just needs those crazy weeks to jump start my metabolism again--or maybe last week will come back to haunt me in my weigh-in this week...I just don't know.  This week is less busy, so I'm hopeful that I can stay on track with my food a little better and get some exercise in as well--and manage to post a few blogs about the fun we had this weekend!

Off the Wagon

Even after all this time, it's still so easy to fall back into old habits.  I totally fell off the wagon on Tuesday, and I have no excuse.  Everything was totally normal when I woke up, except that Abby had a slight fever and I opted to keep her home from school.  I ate my typical breakfast, and was checking Facebook when I read some things posted by other moms where I live about an incident that happened at Abby's school last Thursday.  I had received an automated email from the school on Friday morning stating that "a male stranger" had been witnessed watching the children on the playground during outdoor recess.  As soon as I got the email, I asked Abby if she had noticed anything out of the ordinary the day before, and she said no--so I just assumed that it happened during a different recess period.  The school email said that recess would be held indoors on Friday as a precaution, and honestly, I kind of forgot all about the incident over the holiday weekend.  So I'm just checking Facebook yesterday morning when I read that not only was there "a male stranger" watching kids on the playground, but he was also videotaping them.  This information was coming from the mother of the boy who reported seeing the man to his teacher, so I trusted it--and it totally creeped me out.  The man was not caught, and the school appeared to be back to business as usual yesterday...despite a possible ongoing situation with a creeper.  The discussion on Facebook was about how we could help ensure the safety of our kids at school, and what we as parents should and could be doing after this scary occurrence.  I jumped in the fray, and as I read the thoughts of other moms, I mindlessly reached into the open box of Frosted Flakes from the kids' breakfast (usually I don't let them have Frosted Flakes, but since no one is quite feeling well, I figured they could have a little treat to perk them up) and ate handful after handful.  At first, I didn't realize what I was doing--but then I started to feel full...and I kept eating anyway.  I was stressed about the school situation, and totally stress eating!  It was the sort of thing I used to do at the breakfast table all the time before this Challenge--munch, munch, munch all the way until lunch.  The problem is, once it's lunchtime, I'm not hungry...and that's exactly what happened yesterday.  I didn't end up eating any lunch, because I was stuffed from at least two servings of dry Frosted Flakes.  (No resolution on what to do about the school thing, either--I spent hours discussing it with Dan and my mom and sister, as well as following that Facebook conversation, but I still don't know what can/should be done??)

dangerously addictive

The kids ate lunch, and at the end, they wanted a chocolate-covered pretzel for dessert.  I usually snitch a pretzel or two as I dole them out for the kiddos, and Tuesday was no exception--the only problem was that I discovered that all the pretzels inside the bag had melted together.  I hit the big clump of pretzels against the counter to try to break some loose to give the kids, and of course, I ate some of the too-large chunks.  This is dangerous territory--normally I account for my calories based on the serving size (8 pretzels in a serving of this brand), but I started ingesting chunks that did not resemble pretzels at all, and therefore were extremely difficult to quantify in pretzel terms for calorie purposes.  I was just going to eat a few chunks.  I broke off pretzels for the kids, and kept at the challenge of breaking them apart--you know, for when the kids wanted more after dinner.  The bits that came off not like a whole pretzel, I ate.  I just kept eating those odd chunks--it couldn't have been that many pretzels, right?  Until I looked and the bag was almost gone...  I checked the calories per serving (and to see how many servings are in the bag), and it said 5 servings per bag at 130 calories per serving.  I actually thought to myself, "Huh--that's not so bad," which makes me think I totally need to redo a math class or something...650 calories on pretzel IS that bad.  Granted, the kids had eaten some, and I didn't actually eat the whole bag--but I probably ate close to 500 calories.  Keep in mind that this was after eating a ton of Frosted Flakes and deciding that I wasn't even hungry enough to eat lunch...  This is the ridiculous stuff I used to do before Challenge #2--I was off the rails, totally unplanned and unexpectedly.

mantra of the day on Tuesday

I made pancakes for dinner and called it a day of bad eating.  Since I missed my Monday step class due to the holiday, I really wanted to make it to the pool Tuesday evening...especially since I had gorged myself on obnoxiously unhealthy stuff all day.  Dan got home late from work, but we rushed and got the kids in bed by 7:20pm so that I could get over to the pool and get in 30 minutes of laps before they closed at 8pm.  I drove over to the pool and ran inside, determined to make up for my bad decisions...only to be told that the pool was closed because of lightning.  Um, it's an indoor pool--I had no idea they would close for bad weather?  They weren't planning to reopen before their regular 8pm closing time, so I was out of luck and totally bummed.  So Tuesday was a total wash on the Challenge front, and it just shows me that no matter how far I've gotten on this journey, I'm still going to have days where things don't work out and I slip up.  In my old life, I would have used one bad day as an excuse to wave goodbye to the wagon entirely and embark on a month-long (or more) binge of bad decisions.  Not this time--I climbed back on to the wagon on yesterday, was on my very best behavior food-wise, and had an awesome Zumba class last night.  My favorite Wednesday night instructor is moving, and this was her last class, so it was extra fun (and a bit sad!).  The instructor pulled me up to the front to help her teach for one song, and that was a blast--I'm really going to miss her!  She has whipped me into shape and gotten me excited about exercise--two things I wasn't sure would ever happen.  Yesterday was a good day, and I'm really proud of myself for not letting one rather large bump in the road detour me entirely from my goals.  Everyone needs a pig out day once in a while, right?

Body Image

I've had the makings of this post rattling around in my head for a few weeks...at first, it seemed harping and narcissistic, so I wasn't going to write it, but then I read some things in the last few days that made it impossible for me to ignore the urge to write it down.  For a few weeks, as I've been inching slowly closer to my goal weight of 128 (and I'd say 8 pounds is pretty darn close), I've had a nagging annoying voice in the back of my head telling me that although I've lost a good amount of weight, I haven't (and likely won't) accomplish my goal appearance.  When I started Challenge #2 back in January and set the ridiculous goal of losing 35 pounds, I had one target area on my body that I hoped the weight loss would address:  my baby-belly stomach (like a kangaroo pouch, but not nearly as cute).  I thought surely that 35 pounds would eliminate the paunchy overhang around my waist--where else would I lose that much weight?

Well, I'll tell you.  The first thing people started telling me after I started this process was that my face was getting thinner.  I didn't realize that my face had so much weight it could lose, but the difference must be striking--just last week, I was talking to Abby's dance teacher about recital costumes when she stopped, mid-sentence, and said, "My goodness--your face got skinny!"  Then she made a whistle noise and a shrinking motion with her hands, stammered a little trying to get back to our original conversation, and then said, "I'm sorry--I guess I just haven't seen you in a while!"  So, apparently I've lost some weight in my face...not a target area, but I'll take it.  Then, not to get too personal, but where I was once overflowing my shirts and undergarments, I'm now not overflowing...and may need a trip to Victoria's Secret to pick up the correct, smaller size when this is all over.  That wasn't a target area, either, although I've always wished to be smaller--so this weight loss was kind of a surprise bonus that I'm very happy about!  Then, when out to dinner with friends a few weeks ago, I was told that my hands look freakishly large now because my arms have gotten thinner--I hadn't noticed this at all, and in fact have spent a bit of time looking at my arms in the mirror since then, trying to figure out if they have gotten small enough to make my hands look like giant hands...a little disturbing since I've always thought I have small hands, but maybe I just had large arms all this time??  So, interesting--three areas of my body that have benefited from weight loss, but that I hadn't even considered when I thought about how my body would look at the end of this Challenge.

I won't lie--the stomach pouch has gotten smaller.  It's just still there, in all it's glory--very noticeably still there, and hard to hide under shirts, sticking out over the top of my pants the way it does.  I'm glad it's gotten smaller, but I'm coming to the realization that 8 more pounds aren't going to make it disappear as I had desperately hoped--in all likelihood, it will still be there, screaming at me when this Challenge is over.  I don't know if my post-baby belly is worse than other moms' bellies (because it's not really something we all go around sharing, but whatever--I have no pride left anymore!), but at every doctor appointment I've had since Alex was born, the doctor has asked about my c-section scar.  Yeah, I've never had a c-section--that "scar" is just the huge red horizontal line across my lower abdomen where my skin folds onto itself and the pouch hangs.  When I tell the doctor that I haven't ever had a c-section, I get a lot of surprise and backpedaling...which leads me to think that my pouch must be worse than yours.  Mine causes weird body markings, like when you've slept on a bunched-up pillow and end up with sleepy creases on your face that won't go away for a few hours--except this is worse because it never goes away, and when I lay down on the exam table and all my belly fat settles, I have a huge red line across my lower stomach.  Great.  I picked 128 pounds because the last time I weighed 128 pounds, I was in high school and in really good shape--so that's kind of what I had in mind for the end of this Challenge.  I totally neglected the fact that three children have been born of this body since then, and nothing will ever go back to the way it was when I was 15--no matter how much I weigh.

I happened to read about Zoe Saldana's weight being blasted all over the cover of a magazine last week--here's the cover in case you missed it:

I'm not even a big fan of Zoe Saldana (although she was really great in Crossroads with Brittney Spears...ha ha!!), but I found it interesting to learn that she weighs 115 pounds.  This is a girl who has never had a baby, though...and she's a famous actress, so her body is part of her craft and the scrutiny she must feel for her appearance would totally overwhelm me.  Plus, she probably has a chef and a trainer and tons of time to focus on herself!  When I saw that magazine cover, I wasn't annoyed by it--I was more just intrigued by it, considering that 115 pounds isn't all that far from my 128-pound goal...and yet, I'm so far from looking like her lithe little frame!

Then I saw this picture on Wednesday, and it is what has driven me to write this post:

Yep, that's Tori Spelling on the cover of US Weekly, randomly wearing a bikini and heels while two of her fully-clothed children hang out with her.  Tori Spelling, who has had four babies in rapid succession (one who is clearly still very young!) and a couple post-baby surgeries within the last few months that prevent her from doing any sort of stomach exercises for the next year, according to the accompanying article.  The article also mentions that Tori Spelling weighs 115 pounds--that must be the going celebrity female weight these days.  I don't know how tall Zoe and Tori are, but I can almost 100% guarantee that they are a few inches taller than me at 5'3".  115 seems awfully small for taller people--it seems like a low number even for me!  I know in my head that most celebrity pictures are air-brushed, but I also want to always believe the best in people--especially other moms.  I looked at this picture and my first thought was, "Wow!  You go, Tori Spelling--although it's totally odd that you're in a bikini in a field while your son is in long sleeves!"  And then, like a typical jealous girl, I studied the picture closer and thought, "Wait a minute...she can't do any ab work for a year, just had TWO babies back to back, and her ab muscles just look like that on their own?  I smell Photoshop..."  Granted, I think she still looks great without the painted-on 6-pack and all the other stuff they did to the photo before they printed it, but I also think that images like this set the bar way too high for most moms.  Some women are blessed with an ability to bounce back from their pregnancy body--others of us will be rocking the remnants of those babies until we stop rocking altogether.  I'm wrapping my head around the fact that I'm in that 2nd group, and even when I hit my goal weight, there will still be some things about my body that I don't love--but I'm healthy (and that is the ultimate goal!) and I love my babies who gave me this body (and would never trade those amazing pregnancies for washboard abs), and those are the things that matter...not some extra stomach pouch.

Yesterday morning on the way home from the bus stop, the boys and I stopped to chat with a sweet neighbor.  I hadn't seen her in a while (she just had a baby a few months ago), and while we were talking, she said, "You look great--like you've lost weight?"  I said yes, that I have been working on it, and she said, "You look like you shouldn't lose any more--your face is so skinny!"  I've been bothered by my baby belly and wishing it away, but since you won't ever see me out in a bikini, I'll take the thinner face any day.  :)

Gateway Drug

No, I haven't become a drug addict...unless you count food as a type of drug.  I never really considered myself a food addict, but I do have massive issues with binging--when I have something in front of me that I like, I lack the self-control to stop myself from devouring it.  It doesn't matter if it's a 1-pound bag of peanut butter M&Ms, a package of twelve Peeps, a whole bag of chocolate-covered pretzels, or a loaf of day-old bread from Jimmy John's--I shovel it all in equally.  I don't buy a lot of things anymore, because when I have them in the house, I eat them--like an addict.  I eat until my stomach hurts and the package is empty.  Sometimes my stomach hurts before the package is empty, but I keep eating anyway, because there are only X number left, so I may as well just finish the whole thing.  I know this is my issue, which is why I walk right by that tempting aisle of candy in the grocery store--somehow, I can control myself enough to keep from buying them, but once they are bought, it's like I've already lost the portion-control battle.

When I started Challenge #2 back in January, I knew I had to go cold-turkey on the stuff that trips me up...like the chocolate-covered pretzels, for instance.  I held firm the first few weeks, if not the first month, without eating any junk like that.  Then I was doing so well, I figured a chocolate-covered pretzel couldn't hurt me--so I started indulging in one delicious chocolate-covered pretzel at lunchtime.  It was sublime.  Even though it was only one pretzel, I really made an effort to enjoy every tiny bite I took, instead of inhaling a whole bag of them and not really realizing that I ate them at all.  The one-pretzel rule worked for probably another month, until I realized that I could afford at least 2 pretzels in my calorie count.  I stuck to two pretzels for a while, too.  But like an addict, the high eventually wore off, and I would eat 3 or 4 just to really feel like I was treating myself.  On a very rare day in the last few weeks (specifically, yesterday...), I've eaten a full serving of chocolate-covered pretzels in one day (that's 8 pretzels of the brand I buy)--4 at lunch, and 4 at dinnertime.  This usually coincides with when the kids have dessert--after their lunch and dinners, they each get one chocolate-covered pretzel as a treat.  While I was doling them out, I would help myself to whatever I figured I could afford that day calorie-wise.  It's such a slippery slope for me--sometimes it feels like all or nothing.  Once I broke my early cold-turkey will-power, I've slid down the slope of giving in to my less-than-healthy cravings.  Some days, that's okay--but I need to keep my eye on it so that it doesn't get out of control.

this cracks me up!

I'll come clean and put it out there that I've gotten out of control with the M&M's.  When I started potty training Alex, I picked M&M's as his reward for success, because they are quick and easy to hand out, and also because they aren't really a draw for me.  I love M&M's, but not usually the plain ones--the peanut ones and especially the peanut butter ones are my downfall!  I already had a bag of plain M&M snack-size packets in the cabinet leftover from Easter, so I was happy to use them up with the potty training.  Boy, did I underestimate the power of any chocolate for a deprived chocoholic like me.  At first, I had 2 M&M's with Alex when he was successful.  Then I would have a handful.  Then I would finish off the M&M snack packet.  Then I had to buy the 1-pound bag of M&M's because I ran out of snack packets.  Then I went through a 1-pound bag of M&M's in two days...and even though Alex has been doing really well with the potty training, it's not humanly possible to be that successful!  In other words, little Alex wasn't eating all those M&M's--I was.  It was bad.  I was at least being good about including the M&M's in my food log every day, so it's not like I was eating them and hiding that fact from my log (I haven't sunk that low yet).  They were really screwing up my calories and my saturated fat, though--I was blissfully unaware of how many calories each M&M has (almost 4 calories per tiny little M&M, in case you were wondering).  I remembered a story my mom told me a few years ago about how she used to count out 10 M&M's, put them in a bowl, and eat them slowly throughout the day.  At the time when she told me that story, I thought she was kind of nuts--who limits themselves to 10 M&M's?  I get it now, though--10 M&M's is almost 50 calories, and when you're counting calories and sticking to a pretty strict caloric budget, those 50 calories can hurt big time.  Needless to say, I was eating more than 1 serving (about 55 M&M's, FYI) in a day the last few weeks--for a whopping 210 calories per serving.  Ouch.  Again, I don't even really love plain M&M's, but I couldn't control myself with that open bag sitting on the counter.

yep, I needed a sign

I was feeling powerless over that bag, and I got frustrated about the whole thing last week--I would always start the day with best intentions to avoid throwing M&M's in my mouth, and then lose it completely and binge.  I decided I needed something more than a friendly reminder in my head--so I grabbed a scrap piece of paper, a Sharpie, and scribbled the above note to myself.  As I taped it to the counter above the bag, I felt really silly...but now, 10 days later, it's not silly--it works.  Will-power and discipline are such mind games, and it baffles me that this type of stuff works on me, but it does--I haven't eaten any M&M's since I put the sign up.  No difference in anything, except the sign.  There is something to this whole public accountability thing--I would never have gotten this far in my health journey were it not for this blog, and people encouraging me along the way.  I would be snarfing that bag of M&M's were it not for that note calling me out.  For now, I've won this little battle...but there will be another temptation to replace it, and I'm going to have to figure out creative ways to stay on track.

Changing Things Up

I almost started writing this entry on Saturday evening...even though the topic is my weigh-in that happened Sunday morning.  That's how sure I was that my week last week was not a good effort, and I was going to write about all my pitfalls and where I could have done much better...and then just add the scale information in on Sunday after my thoughts were confirmed.  Well, I didn't have time to write on Saturday, and the scale surprised me yesterday morning!  After what felt like a totally crazy week last week, I weighed in on Sunday at 136.8 pounds--a loss of 1.4 pounds, bringing my total weight loss since January 14th to 26.6 pounds!  I love surprises like that--it was a great way to start off my Mother's Day!

so lucky to be their mommy!  :)

I felt like I couldn't catch up last week--after my totally crazy weekend with the Thomas outing and Kings Dominion, I was exhausted on Monday, but I couldn't slow down.  I was supposed to get up early on Monday morning and try out that spin class I've been dreading--yeah, that didn't happen...  I just couldn't will myself to get up when I was so rundown already, and it doesn't help that I'm really nervous about trying the class out.  Monday did not feel like the day to step way out of my comfort zone, but I was kicking myself later in the day--the whole reason I was supposed to get up and go to spin was because I needed to skip my regular step class on Monday evening.  I needed to get my exercise in somewhere...and once the morning was gone, I was scrambling to figure out where.  This is the first week since I started these aerobics classes that I've intentionally missed a class--I've had perfect attendance for 15 weeks!  It felt a little like playing hookey--I felt guilty but also free.  I planned to miss the step class because a local restaurant was hosting a mother-son date night, and I signed up for Jake and me to have a night out together--I hardly ever get one-on-one time with the boys, so I wanted to take advantage of a great opportunity.  The only seating times were mid-step class...so I chose to spend time with my boy and skip my class.  Thankfully, Dan was able to come home a little earlier than he usually does, so I zipped over to the indoor pool here and frantically swam laps for 25 minutes prior to my date!  I did 32 laps--not quite half a mile, but I was pretty pleased with my effort in such a short amount of time.  Jake and I had a fantastic time on our night out--it was really special and sweet.  I love that crazy monkey!

Date Night with my Knight!  :)

Tuesday was a regular day--I was trying to catch up on laundry and really not feeling well (again/still--not sure if this is allergies?).  It was pouring down rain and Jake had gymnastics that morning, and then it was just the kids and me for dinner that night since Dan was out with his dad for the night.  I was in a funk on Wednesday--not feeling great and not in a good mood (I told Dan I was grouchy...but I couldn't really figure out why, other than being so congested).  Zumba was great that evening, and did it's best to wrench me out of my funk...but I couldn't get out completely.  The water to our house was turned off for half of Thursday because the water company was working on the fire hydrants in our neighborhood, and that really threw me off--I know I use water all day long, but I didn't realize how often I'm turning on the faucet!  Even the little things took way longer, like fixing Abby's lunch that morning and brushing her teeth, because I was using bottled water to wash fruit and rinse her toothbrush.  That got old really fast, but thankfully, the water was back on after lunchtime.

I woke up feeling terrible Friday morning--my throat just can't catch a break with all the drainage all night long...mornings are the worst.  I sadly cancelled my plans to attend a girls' night that night (no need to spread my germs and stay out way past my bedtime!).  I was still planning to go to my regular Zumba class Friday night, but then a friend texted to invite us to dinner--her daughter was dying to see Abby.  I quickly worked out with Dan that if he could come home a little early again, I could get some laps in at the pool, skip my Zumba class, and we could make dinner with friends.  I was really nervous to skip another class, and it's not like me to be so delinquent--skipping step didn't bug me since it's not my favorite thing, but skipping Zumba felt sacrilegious!  I am a little concerned that intentionally skipping one class, even if it was for a good cause, has opened the flood gates for more skipping...hopefully that won't be the case, and last week was just a special circumstance.  I got 40 minutes in the pool on Friday--I was off my game for some reason (probably because they were proctoring a massive lifeguard test to 30 high schoolers in the lane right next to mine), but I swam 44 laps.  Dinner out was a lot of fun--the kids get along really well, and the adults had good conversation as well.  (Funny aside--the couple is actually one of my high school ex-boyfriends and his wife...never in a million years did I imagine Dan and I would be on double-dates with any of my ex-boyfriends, but we love getting together with this couple!  My ex-boyfriend clearly has good taste in women--his wife is awesome!)  I surprised Dan with a date to go see The Great Gatsby on Saturday--it's one of our favorite books, so we've been excited for a new movie ever since we saw the first preview last year!  Dan thought we were just going to spend the day at my parents' house, but I had bought tickets to a matinee showing, and my parents were watching the kids for us.  It was really nice to have a date with my husband AND see a movie on opening weekend!  I can't remember the last time we saw a movie on opening weekend.  I splurged and ate a small popcorn during the movie (we didn't have time to grab lunch beforehand, so I was hungry...)--I should have known that movie theater popcorn (even a small without butter!) has a ridiculous number of calories (480, to be exact).

it was delicious...but so bad for me!

The week--skipping two classes, not feeling well, eating some not-so-healthy things--all stacked up to make me think my Sunday weigh-in would be unsuccessful.  I'm not sure why the scale was so kind to me, although maybe my body appreciated the change that swimming laps offered--I won't be doing that every week (until I'm forced to by Dan's new schedule), but at least I can feel somewhat confident that changing things up won't set me back in my goals.  I was able to have a great Mother's Day with Dan and the kids, without the bummer of a bad weigh-in hanging over me--so that was a good gift!  :)

Week 16 Weigh-In

I lost weight again at this week's weigh-in yesterday...but just barely.  I weighed in at 138.2, for a whopping loss of 0.2 pounds!  I am a little surprised by the lack of a bigger loss this week (although hey, a loss is a loss, so I'm not complaining!).  I was just looking back through all my charts on WebMD to try to pinpoint where I could have done better this past week, and I found a few interesting things:

my fitness calorie burn this past week

I think I was woefully inactive early last week, and that probably didn't help me on the scale.  Tuesdays and Thursdays are usually difficult, because I don't have my exercise classes on those days--but they were especially hard this past week because I felt really, really bad early in the week.  Allergies have gotten the best of me, and I think they morphed into a massive head cold--either that, or my allergies have become horrible, mutant allergies that resemble a head cold.  I just didn't feel like doing anything other than sleep--I was exhausted every day, not sleeping well at night because I couldn't breathe, and pretty much just miserable.  I swear, I should have lost at least 5 pounds of gunk judging by the number of tissues I went through last week!  Jake also decided to wake up at 6 or 6:15am every morning last week because he needed to go to the bathroom--so Dan or I would get up and take him, but then he wouldn't go back to sleep...and when he doesn't sleep, I don't sleep because he's pounding on things and generally making a racket and waking everyone in the house up.  Grrr...  The lack of good sleep was probably a large contributing factor to the number on scale this week.  Friday, I knocked it out of the park on the fitness front because I had Zumba and we also had friends coming over for dinner--so not only did I do my usual Friday vacuuming, but I also touched up the kitchen and the bathrooms and tidied up the clutter around the house.  Our weekend was insanely busy (that's a blog post for later this week--I'm still recovering from all the fun!), so at least my activity level was good over the weekend, too.

my saturated fat levels this past week

My saturated fat levels were really high early last week, too--even though I cut back on the M&M's, I obviously ate too many early in the week...and I didn't cut them out entirely later in the week (except for Wednesday, as you can see!).  My saturated fat levels go through the roof when I eat even a few M&M's...those delicious little things are so packed with bad stuff!  We also ordered pizza last Monday, and I ate it for dinner Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday--so the cheese didn't help me in the saturated fat department.  After looking through all my charts, I'm pretty pleased that I actually lost weight instead of gained this week!  I'm hopeful that I can start this week off a little better--although as you can see, Sunday was rough on the saturated fat front, and also on the calorie front in general...but I will blog about that later this week.  :)

I've already eaten too many M&M's today (those darn things suck me in!), and I'm having a mother-son date night out with Jake tonight, so I just need to be cognizant of what goes in my mouth and not overdo it on the food for the rest of the day.  The date-night also means that I'm skipping my usual step class--the first time since I started the exercise classes in January that I have intentionally missed a night at class...  That makes me nervous, but I'm going to try to hit the pool here in a little bit before my date night with my handsome little guy, so hopefully I'll at least get some calories burned for the day to negate those M&M's!  The bad thing is, I can't negate the saturated fat with exercise, so I just really need to start behaving around the M&M's...

Discipline

Another week, another weigh-in.  I tipped the scale at 144.8 pounds yesterday, a gain of 0.4 pounds (for an overall gain of 1.2 pounds the last two weeks)...which actually pleasantly surprised me, given how far I fell off the wagon this week.  After gaining last week, I felt really bad, but also really unmotivated.  Dan went out of town (he left on Easter Sunday...boo) for the first part of the week, and while I had grand plans to use my "me time" in the evenings productively, I instead totally self-destructed.  Without someone here to hold me accountable, I spent those three days eating the rest of the Easter candy--if I never see another Hershey Kiss again in my life, that would probably be good...  I don't even know why I was so tempted by Hershey Kisses--we usually keep them in the house for little treats for the kids, and I never touch them...until this past week.  I just wanted to eat them and eat them until they were gone and no longer tempting me.  Now I need to stock up again--I don't even want to think about how many I ate.  And I broke crucial Challenge #2 rules by eating them at night after the kids went to bed, sometimes even after midnight when I was supposed to be in bed.

my rationale for eating all the Easter candy

When Dan isn't home, I have random insomnia--I'm super tired, but I putz around the house doing nothing important until the wee hours of the morning, and feel exhausted when I wake up...which in turn makes me not want to do anything but lounge around during the day...and then stay up all night again the following night.  It's an ugly cycle.  I even skipped a few days of my cleaning schedule, I was being so lazy.  My mom came out here to help me on Monday night so that I could still go to my step class in Dan's absence, and she stayed until Tuesday after lunch--it was nice to have the company, and to still be able to exercise.  The classes last week were the only reason I didn't gain 15 pounds in a week.  My regular Zumba instructors were back on Wednesday and Friday, and Wednesday's class really energized me--it was fun and just what I needed to break me out of my binging funk.  Friday's class was also good, but my pesky elbow really bothered me during that class...  I sucked it up and went to the ER Friday night after the kids went to bed--the elbow wasn't getting any better, and I was concerned that I was doing more harm by using it and exercising with it this past week.  I had been avoiding going to the ER for it because I just kept hoping it was going to get better on it's own, and also because I didn't want anyone to tell me I broke it somehow and end up in a cast--but I wanted to get an answer for the pain.  The doctor I saw was really nice, but he honestly had no idea what I have done to it--I had it x-rayed, and the x-ray shows some abnormalities, but he couldn't figure out what those meant...so now I have to go see a sports medicine doctor in the hopes of figuring out what I did to it and what I can do to fix it.  Ugh--not what I need right now.  Maybe it will get better before I have to go see someone else about it--I just want to get on with my life and not have an injury bugging me!  The ER doctor did say that I could keep using it and just take Motrin, so at least I didn't walk away with a cast or a sling.

Ugh...discipline is no fun.

I have lost the discipline I had when I started this Challenge...I didn't call getting healthier and losing the weight a challenge for nothing.  It has definitely been (and continues to be) incredibly challenging!  Last week, I even stooped so low as to skimp on my food journal reporting (if I only eat two bites of the kids' mac & cheese, I don't have to write it down, right?).  I still haven't been drinking enough water, and I definitely have been missing my Challenge-imposed bedtime.  We spent the day yesterday at my in-laws' house, and my mother-in-law is on a similar health journey.  I was inspired by her notes to herself all over the house--"Stay strong!" on a cupboard door, "You can do it!" on her bathroom mirror, "Don't even think about it!" in the pantry.  Perhaps I need some notes around the house for myself--my internal willpower isn't working out so well.  I'm issuing myself a mini-Challenge for this week, in an effort to get back on track:  Get to bed no later than midnight all week.  I think my bad sleeping schedule has put my thoughts in a tailspin and made it easier for me to splurge and not be as disciplined as I need to be.  Once I get my sleep schedule righted again, hopefully everything else will be easier to stick to--and if that's not the case, I'll mini-Challenge myself again next week to fix another problem area!  Here's to some actual weight loss this week!

No Excuses

I guess it was bound to happen sometime...but I kind of ignored the possibility and hoped for the best.  I can come up with a million excuses, but really, there aren't any:

 

Yep, I gained weight this week--I weighed in at 144.4 pounds, which is a 0.8-pound gain.  After last week's morale-boosting triumph, I ate too much and didn't exercise enough this week--no excuses.  I will give some insight into my week last week, just to help me understand where I could have done better (although the answer to that question is everywhere!).

Last week was Spring Break for Abby, so our whole schedule was off.  I had my regular step class on Monday, and actually felt sore on Tuesday--I haven't felt sore after a step class in a while, so I figured that meant I was really working hard during that class, and maybe working some different muscles since the instructor is adding some new moves to her routines.  I also somehow injured my elbow--I woke up Tuesday morning with it really hurting, so I thought I must have slept on it funny...but it hasn't gone away, and it still hurts just as much.  I'm not sure if I hyper-extended it, sprained it, or chipped the bone somehow?  I didn't fall on it and don't remember banging it on anything--nor do I remember hurting it in step class (seems kind of silly--step involves my legs, not really any stress on my arms!).  I don't have any explanation for it, but it hurts--it hasn't hindered my activity level, even though it's a little distracting and definitely annoying.  Wednesday AND Friday's Zumba classes were with the substitute instructor who doesn't really provide a good workout...I was so bummed.  I needed my workouts this week!  I decided to just make what I could of her classes, pushing myself and interpreting what the instructor was intending to the best of my abilities--I told Dan that I felt like the Zumba whisperer in that I was at the front, doing my best to get in a workout that was beneficial, and I felt like the folks behind me in the class were probably following my lead because the instructor is so darn hard to follow!  It still wasn't as good as my usual Zumba classes for me, but I felt better about her class doing it my way than I had previously.  Sometimes life throws you curve balls, and you can either strike out or swing for the fences...I swung as hard as I could, and for that, I was proud of myself.

I spent a lot of time in the car last week--I drove out to my parents' house on THREE different days!  I drove out on Tuesday to drop Abby off for a Spring Break sleepover with her cousins, again on Thursday to pick her up, and again on Saturday to celebrate Easter with my whole family.  That's 6 sedentary hours in the car over the week, and because I wasn't at my own house on those days, I totally dropped the ball on my cleaning schedule (and extra calories burned by cleaning the house!).  Because I wasn't at home, I also wasn't cooking...we ate at a lot of restaurants last week.  Jimmy John's, ColdStone (twice!), Subway, Panera, Potbelly Sandwiches, and Einstein Bros. Bagels all made the menu of meals this week...that's a lot of restaurant eating.  I did really well at Subway and Potbelly (they offer "Skinny" sandwiches--so delicious!), but I way overdid it at Einstein's...we used to go to Einstein's all the time on the weekends, but I've been avoiding it since the Challenge because I know bagels aren't exactly health food.  I was right to avoid it--I totally defeated myself, failed to conquer my food addiction, and pigged out on 2 bagels with cream cheese...  We had family Easter at my parents' house on Saturday, and again, my willpower was low--I ate 8 deviled eggs under the erroneous assumption that because eggs are healthy, deviled eggs can't be that bad for you (if you don't consider 70 calories per half and egg bad for you, then my assumption was correct).  If I had only eaten the deviled eggs and nothing else, I might have been okay--but there were brownies and ice cream, hot dogs, and many other delicious delights there.  It's amazing that I didn't gain 5 pounds this week!

hopefully this week is better than the last

And then Sunday was Easter, which means chocolate in the house.  We all know how I do with chocolate in the house--suffice it to say, there's not much chocolate left in the house today.  I blew it terribly--I weighed in Sunday morning and was feeling depressed about gaining the weight, so I had a bad attitude toward food the rest of the day, and totally binged on Easter chocolate.  I can start over again tomorrow, right?  Here's hoping I get back on track, and that I haven't totally sabotaged my next weigh in already!

10 Weeks and 10%

Sometimes the scale totally shocks me.  I stepped on yesterday morning hoping to be around 145, and I weighed in at 143.6.  I just stood there and stared--for a moment, I thought because I wasn't wearing my glasses, I wasn't seeing the numbers properly.  Nope, it really was 143.6.  I came downstairs and entered that number into my WebMD tracker, and immediately, the message above appeared in my email--congratulating me on losing 10% of my body weight since I started this Challenge!  10%?!?  I hadn't even thought to include that mini-goal on my list that I wrote out last week of small milestones that are keeping me motivated, and yet, here it is.  Not only did I lose 10%, but I way surpassed 10% with this week's 3.6 pound loss--I've lost 19.4 pounds in the last 10 weeks.  (For those of you keeping score at home, 10% was 16.3 pounds lost.)  19.4 pounds means that I've lost 1.94 pounds per week--amazing!  I never thought I would be this close to my 2-pound-per-week goal, and even with those weeks when I felt like the weight wasn't coming off, the average is still so close to 2 pounds!  Crazy.  In addition to the 10% lost, I'm also past the halfway mark of this Challenge!  I've lost 19.4 pounds, and I have 15.6 more pounds to lose to hit my goal weight.  The next milestone is getting to 141--the tip-top of the healthy BMI range for my height and gender.

I thought this past week was going to be a tricky one for weight loss, for a few reasons.  Abby's school had their pizza fundraiser for the month this week, so we ordered enough pizza to last us a few dinners (for the record, I love pizza fundraiser night--because I love pizza, and because I love nights when I don't have to worry about dinner and no one fights about what we are eating!!).  I thought for sure that eating pizza three nights this week would not be helpful at all on the weight-loss front...  Also, I didn't get my Zumba workout again on Friday evening--my neighbor and I showed up for class only to discover the dreaded substitute was there again...for the second time last week!  Ugh.  We opted to go walk around the track again--so instead of a step class and two Zumba classes helping me toward my weight-loss goals, I had a step class and two evenings of walking around the track.  We walked 2 miles both nights, but still--walking is not burning nearly as many calories as a good Zumba class!  And I had my girls' day out with Brynne on Saturday, when I figured I would overload on calories.  Sadly, she and I didn't get to spend as much time together as we had hoped, so we didn't have time to eat too much!  Ha ha.  I would gladly have eaten more to have gotten more time with my friend, though, so we're going to reschedule.  :)  It was still a wonderful lunch with one of my dearest friends!

um, where's the sun these days??

This week is going to be full of its own challenges--it's Spring Break!  So Abby will be home with the boys and me, and our usual schedule of activities is cancelled for the week.  It feels a little like freedom to me (no morning bus rush--woohoo!!!), even though I know Abby and Jake will both miss their gymnastics classes this week (and Alex, too, since he loves playing in the waiting area at the gym!).  Dan took a few days off at the end of the week as well, so hopefully we'll get some good family fun time in together.  I still have my exercise classes this week--crossing my fingers for no subs, and a good week of working out for me!  It's the last week of the 10-week aerobic session here, so I'm going to sign up for the next 10 weeks that begins on April 1st--without these fitness classes, I totally wouldn't be anywhere near where I am in my weight-loss Challenge, so I definitely still need them.  And considering that it is snowing here right now, I'm not going to be getting outside for walks anytime soon!

Oh, as a final note--I wore a shirt this weekend that I haven't worn since 2005, before I had Abby.  It felt a little triumphant.  :)  It was one of my favorite shirts back in the day, and it's still pretty cute--I felt a little self-conscious in it because it's still meant for a lighter version of me, but I wore it anyway...and it made me feed good!

Payoff

My body sends me the weirdest messages.  The last two weeks, I stayed on plan, didn't splurge a ton, and exercised as I have been since I started Challenge #2.  I managed to lose 1.4 pounds over those two weeks combined.  This past week, I went to ColdStone twice, tried to eat more so that my calories burned through exercise didn't erase my calories in through food, and I even ate a calorie-laden (delicious!) burger from Red Robin.  I weighed in at 147.2 pounds this week, which is a loss of 2.8 pounds--double what I lost the previous two weeks combined!  What gives??  Back in Week 5 of the Challenge, I joked that my body wanted me to eat more Cheesecake Factory, because I lost a large amount of weight after way overeating there.  It's definitely a pattern--the weeks when I indulge some of my not-so-healthy cravings, I lose more weight.  I have no idea why that is, but I like it.  :)  I hate depriving myself, and I definitely didn't feel deprived this past week--and my efforts still paid off!  I've lost 15.8 pounds since I started the Challenge 9 weeks ago--that's an average of 1.75 pounds per week.

it IS perfection!

So I'm feeling a lot better than I was last week and the week before--I feel like I'm back on track again, although I guess that will remain to be seen in the coming weeks.  I do finally feel like my clothes are fitting me a bit differently--not a remarkable difference, but I have noticed that my jeans aren't as tight.  Still a little tight, but not skin-tight!  My upper body hasn't changed much, in that my shirts still fit the same--I wish I could lose some of the roundness in my arms and in my back.  My stomach also definitely still looks like I've had three kids--I'm not sure how to fix that problem.  A friend of mine (who has gotten crazy healthy and lost an insane amount of weight the last year, and totally inspires me every day!) said she also has the extra skin hanging off her stomach from her babies--and she doesn't know what else to do since she has some rockin' abs under that extra pouch.  I don't know how the contestants on The Biggest Loser can lose hundreds of pounds and not have all that excess stuff around their mid-section...it makes me wonder if they all have a skin removal surgery or something before the finale?  They've never said anything about a surgery on the show, though, so I think if they do that behind the scenes, their results are a bit disingenuous.  I'm not at the point where I only have excess skin--there is definitely a lot of fat still hiding in my stomach folds.  I don't know where I've lost those 15.8 pounds, but I sure hope it starts coming off my stomach one of these days!

I still need a shirt like this!

The next big milestone for me on this adventure is 17.5 pounds lost (weighing 145.5 pounds)...that will be halfway to my goal weight.  I might be able to hit that next week, but I know better than to count my chickens before they've hatched...especially after the last few weeks!  Dan told me that we should celebrate when I hit 20 pounds down--and I said, "What--with cake?"  Ha ha.  He suggested cake, pie, and ice cream.  I told my mom that idea, and she came up with a brilliant plan--I could have my big gluttonous celebration when I hit 20 pounds, and then gain 2 pounds at the next weigh in from all the goodies, and then celebrate 20 pounds lost again the following week!  Brilliant plan.  I think I'm mostly looking forward to when I hit 141 pounds--an odd number, perhaps, but it'll be when I hit the "normal" range on the BMI chart for my gender and height.  I don't know when I was last in the "normal" range, so I think that will be pretty exciting.  I'm glad I have some of these smaller goals to look forward to, because the fact that I'm not even halfway to my overall goal weight makes this whole process seem a bit daunting--it feels like it's been a really long time since I started all of this, and that means I still have a really long way to go.  It's a lot easier to stick with it when I'm feeling encouraged and finally noticing some payoff.

So, just to prove that I am listening to my body and really trying to comply with the message I'm hearing, we went to Cheesecake Factory last night.  I actually got the Skinnylicious Chicken Salad Sandwich that I ordered, and I shared a piece of cheesecake with the kids--and I didn't feel like I was skimping on my life at all, which is essential for my sanity and my ability to keep this up.  Bring on the weight loss!  ;)

150

I think my scale hates me.  It obviously dislikes my feet smashing it every few days, and is passive-aggressively taking it out on me by giving me bad readings.  My grudge-holding scale told me that I weighed 150 pounds yesterday.  First it said I weighed 150.2, but I refused to be satisfied with a 0.2-pound weight loss...so I zeroed the thing out and tried again, and the scale generously coughed up another 0.2 pounds.  That gave me a resounding 0.4 pound loss for the week--thanks, scale!

perhaps this method would get me below 150?

With my 1-pound loss last week, and my 0.4-pound loss this week, I think it's fairly safe to say that I've hit my first wall of this process.  Last week could have been a cupcake-induced fluke, but I stuck to the plan this week, and have no convenient sugary treats to blame.  I've watched The Biggest Loser enough to know that Week 2 is notoriously hard, so maybe this is my Week 2 (even though, technically, this is my Week 9...man, that seems like a long time).  I had great success with my new routine in the beginning, but perhaps my body has adjusted after 8 weeks, and it's time to change things up, shock the system.  I was so prescient in my original post outlining this Challenge #2:

I'll be tweaking [the plan] as this Challenge goes on, because I'm sure some things won't work for me, or the things that work for me in the beginning won't be as effective later in the process, so I'll need to modify and change things up...there will be some weeks when I lose 2 pounds, and others when I won't.

It was way easier to write that than it is to live it...  I've not been myself the last two weeks, because I've been feeling down and discouraged about not getting below 150--as much as I'm proud that at least I've lost weight each week, it's hard not to meet the goals I've set for myself.  Again, this emotional ride is more challenging than the physical one for me.

for real

So back to shocking my system--that sounds like a great idea, but I'm not really sure what to do to accomplish it!  I need to be more active on my "off" days, i.e. the days I don't have an exercise class to attend.  The weather is finally warming up again, and I've been able to take some outdoor walks over the last few weeks--I love walking outside!  If I could make walks with the boys a regular Tuesday and Thursday activity (or even every weekday!), and then do something more intense on the weekends, I think that would help me overcome this plateau.  I also think, shockingly, that perhaps I'm not eating enough?  I usually hit my calorie intake goal for the day on my WebMD food log, but when I add my exercise to the log, I'm typically a few hundred calories too low for the day (when you consider both calories in and calories out).  I have a hard time trusting that I should be eating more, but maybe this week, I'll try to up my overall calories each day to see if that makes a difference on the scale.

As a last note, one day last week, I had a large calorie deficit to make up for the day, so I decided to treat myself...  Two of my nieces are Daisies, so to support them, I bought one box of Girl Scout cookies from each of them.  I've had those boxes in my pantry for almost two weeks without touching them, which is a major feat for me!  I decided to go ahead and open the box of Tagalongs, and have one serving.  A serving, by the way, is two measly cookies--for a whopping 140 calories!!!  Ouch.  Tagalongs have long been my weakness, though--my crazy boss right out of college had a crush on a former employee whose daughter sold Girl Scout cookies (never mind that my boss was married...to the Vice President of the company...hence why the employee with the cookies was a former employee!), so every year, he would literally buy hundreds of boxes of cookies from the woman's daughter and stack them, floor-to-ceiling, in our office break room.  I would grab a box of Tagalongs in the morning, throw them in my desk drawer, and munch on them throughout the day...when the days were particularly heinous (more days than not at that place!), I could polish off a whole box in a day.  For my sanity, I'm not going to look up how many calories I was ingesting when I did that...  That just illustrates how much I love Tagalongs.  So I broke open the box last week and ate the first cookie greedily--but, um, it didn't taste quite like I remembered it.  I didn't love it.  I thought something must be wrong with my taste buds (come on, it's Tagalongs!), so I ate the second one more slowly to try to savor the deliciousness...but it wasn't delicious.  I was so confused--I'd consumed 140 calories as a "treat" to myself, and the darn cookies didn't live up to my expectations!  Maybe my expectations were too high, maybe the Girl Scouts have changed the recipe (sacrilege!), or maybe I'm at the point in my weight-loss journey where treats that are bad for me actually make me feel bad instead of great.  I don't know what the problem was, but I was pretty disappointed!

darn you, Tagalongs!

Sometimes Life Happens

I've been kind of dreading this post all week last week...the weigh-in post.  I was really hoping to get below 150 this week, and that wasn't an unreasonable goal, considering I've been losing an average of 1.6 pounds, and last week I weighed 151.4.  Well, this week, I weighed in at 150.4.  One more pound down, and I'm trying not to be disappointed.  I feel the need to dissect my week last week, to figure out where I got off my average--it's not excuses, it's just the reality of life, and my life was a little crazy last week!

I'm going to break it down into bullet points:

• I didn't drink enough water last week.  Truthfully, I've been on the downhill slide when it comes to water intake the last few weeks, and last week was my worst effort.  Sometimes I just forget to drink any water before like 3pm, and by then, it's impossible to make up the deficit the rest of the day!  So I need to be better about drinking water first thing in the morning to get the day off on the right foot.

need to drink more!!

 

• I didn't get enough sleep last week.  I was cramming to fit everything into my days because we had a lot going on last week, so I didn't get to bed by midnight--or even 1am--most nights.  Lack of sleep is really a weight-loss killer, and a motivation drainer!  I was so exhausted by the end of the week, and I felt terrible.  I need an alarm clock to go off at midnight or something that forces me into a bed--where's my fairy godmother to turn me into a sleeping pumpkin when I need her??

 

• Stress.  Along with lack of sleep, I was a ball of stress last week.  I was stressed out over Dan's promotion ceremony stuff--all the logistics, how the cake was going to turn out, how Abby would behave, what was I going to wear???  I was also stressed because I couldn't get to my cleaning schedule three days last week due to other stuff going on--it seems silly, but it really threw me off because I don't want to get behind now that I have a good system going.  I was also stressed because I was going over my calories due to cake and cupcakes...which no one forced me to eat, but like I've said before, if it's in my house, I will eat it.  I managed to eat not very many, but still...too many for losing weight!

• Not eating enough/eating too much.  I didn't do well with my calorie management last week--Monday and Tuesday were decent, but Wednesday, I ate too much icing and frosting while working on cake and cupcakes, and my dinner wasn't the healthiest.  Thursday, I didn't eat any lunch (no good!) because I was in a rush, and I ate way too much for dinner because I was so hungry.  Friday, I wasn't feeling well (due to being so overtired)--I forced myself to eat, but it wasn't enough and I just felt yucky.  Saturday, I tried to get back to my routine with an apple and peanut butter at lunch--only to discover that I might be allergic to apples?  I've been eating an apple a day almost every day since I started this Challenge in January, and I haven't had a problem until last week...when I noticed that my stomach hurt a lot after eating my apple.  I chalked it up to a weird stomach, and ate another one a few days later...followed by stomach upset.  Hmmm.  I ate one on Saturday, and my stomach hurt terribly--to the point of giving me chills!  I googled apples and stomach pain, and discovered there's such a thing as an apple allergy--I'm hopeful that I don't have it, but the symptoms were eerily familiar.  I'm going to try washing my apples even better, and possibly taking the peel off to see if that helps--apparently apple peels can have similar properties to birch pollen, and folks with seasonal allergies (like me!) can have issues with stomach pain due to the birch pollen-like effects.  So weird!  My stomach was kind of a mess a few days this week because of the apples...

maybe not an apple a day...

• Not enough calories burned through exercise.  I started the week well with a walk on Sunday in addition to my grocery store run, and then step class Monday night.  Tuesday, I deep cleaned all the bathrooms in the house (a full-body workout!), so I was doing well.  Wednesday, my neighbor with whom I've been doing the exercises invited the boys and me out for a walk in the nice weather--we probably walked about 2 miles, and it felt good to be active outside...can't wait for consistently nice weather!!  Zumba on Wednesday night was awesome--the instructor had a lot of energy and really worked us hard.  Then the week went downhill fast--not much exercise to speak of on Thursday, and Friday's Zumba class was not the workout it usually is...we had a substitute instructor who, even though she is very cute and well-meaning, isn't a very good Zumba instructor.  Her workout is more like light dancing, and I barely broke a sweat--not the calorie burner that I needed, especially after cake and cupcakes earlier in the week!  Without sticking to my cleaning schedule the later days of the week, I lost some of my usual cleaning-related calorie burn as well.  Saturday, Dan and I caught up on our TV shows that we missed during the week, and I pretty much sat in one place for hours!  It wasn't a full-out exercise bust for the week, but it just wasn't as intense as it has been in previous weeks.

With all that said, maybe a one pound loss is just where my body is this week, and one pound was all I was going to lose no matter what I did or didn't do.  I'm just going to keep plugging along, and work on the things I know I can control in the coming weeks--sometimes life gets in the way, but hey, at least I managed not to gain 5 pounds with all that cake and icing in front of me!  That says a lot, right?  Here's to under 150 next week!