andiesramblings

I’ve been watching a lot of The Office reruns lately. Which is why I think of Jim every time I think of Tuna. Both yummy, right?

Anyway…here’s the real point of this: I’ve been (still) trying to lose weight before I went back to WW. I don’t know why since I only make things worse on my own. I will be one of those people who, once I achieve my goal weight, will become a staff person with WW. Because I need the accountability. Also, I truly believe in their system.

So yesterday I bit the bullet and went and signed back up for WW. I’m planning on going for my weigh in on Thursdays since that day both my kids are in school and I can stay for the meetings. I’m hoping that they will add a little bit more accountability and maybe even some support. Though I haven’t found that in the past so we’ll see.

I knew that yesterday would be challenging so since it was my first day back on program I tracked points all day and left myself 20 points for dinner and my book club meeting. There was home made chocolate mousse at dinner (a friend cooked) and then chocolate cake at the book club meeting. So I had some of each and I think it was worth every bite. But now it’s down to business.

Which brings me back to the beginning of this post: Tuna. My brilliant, satisfying, and tasty 3 point lunch.

Two handfuls of salad. I love baby spring salad and baby romaine. Anything but boring and nice and dark green.

Sprinkle with freeze dried or fresh dill.

Add chopped veggies (I used cucumber and yellow pepper!)

One can tuna, drained (use the kind that comes packed in water so you’re not getting the extra fat from the oil).

1 tbsp each, Tzatziki and Hummous. Toss and enjoy!

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and here’s a bonus recipe. Since I had a nice, cheap, 3 point lunch, I could afford a bit of a splurge this afternoon. And it’s so cold and miserable out today, I really wanted a splurge!

So, if like me you start to crave something hot and chocolatey around 3 in the afternoon, you might want to give this a try:

Boil water
empty contents of a rich and creamy hot chocolate mix into a normal sized mug
add contents of 1 via coffee package
add boiled water and stir
top off with 1 tbsp hazlenut coffee creamer (optional, but it makes the faux-cha really creamy) and stir.

Enjoy!

This is what happens to me every day.

I start off with good intentions. But, the morning rat race gets to me. I don’t get breakfast before I head out the door. And so, I determine that I won’t eat anything until I have time for something healthy. But again, my will fails me and in a fit of hunger I grab the closest thing and eat it.

Then, I determine that I will count my points no matter what. But sometimes I can’t be bothered to work out the points, sometimes I forget.

So today began as any other day. I almost had time for breakfast. I think I need to get up 15 minutes earlier and I will manage it. But then my lovely sister asked me if I wanted to run errands and I said yes. She bought me starbucks. And of course, I was starving. So I got my usual non-fat latte (which I’m fine with) and a lemon cranberry scone. Which was delcious.

And I determined I would count the points. Yeah, that breakfast? TWELVE points. Nine of them in the scone.

At least I counted them and I can compensate with a veggie heavy, points light, lunch.

And tomorrow, I will eat my healthy breakfast.

Or, Be careful what you wish for!

In my last post, I whined about needing someone to hold me accountable in order for me to succeed at this. And it’s true, I do so much better when I have someone checking up on me. So when I got an email from my good friend, in which she and her husband offered to pay for my next three months of WW, I knew I’d gotten more than I asked for.

Because if someone (or two someones in this case) believe in me enough to foot the bill for me to keep going, then you know I can’t slack off.

Or at least, I can’t slack off without feeling horrible.

So I’ve got a double whammy of accountability. Now I just need a game plan. Here we go:

1. Commit to keeping track of everything that goes into my mouth. For better or for worse.

2. Plan, plan, plan. It doesn’t seem to matter that after a week of following WW I’ve already memorized every food’s point value and can come up with meal ideas in my head. After a few weeks off, I forget everything I thought I knew and have no ideas anymore. So this evening I am sitting down with my old tracking book and writing out ideas for every meal. And I’m going to print them up and put them on the inside of my pantry door. So I have no excuse for having unhealthy meals.

3. Commit to getting at least 30 minutes of movement in each day. And to prove how easy it is to get that 30 minutes in? Walking the kids to school and back (one way) takes 20 minutes. If I walk the long way home (and back when I go to collect them again) I’ve already got two blocks of 30 minutes per day. Uh…easy. So no excuses (though I do need to stop and buy an umbrella tonight!)

4. DRINK MORE WATER! When I’m trying to drink water, I find myself drinking two or more litres a day. When I’m not keeping track, I will go days without drinking more than my morning coffee and evening tea. Not good.

Okay, that’s it for a start. I’m printing off my plan and I’ve also printed out a calendar. Twelve weeks worth. And now I’m going to write out my meal ideas. Here’s to fresh starts!

I need accountability. It’s too easy to make excuses to myself. I know I have to figure that out eventually (I sure don’t want to be paying someone to keep me accountable forever!) but for now I really need the accountability a weekly weigh in gives me.

My WW membership has run out. I don’t know where I’m going to find the money for it since money is insanely tight around here (I know everyone says that, but really, it is) but somehow I’m going to have to find the money for that. It’s one thing I can do for myself and I know that in the long run it pays off.

Hello poor, neglected blog.

I think if I pretend you don’t exist, I won’t notice the fact that I’m having troubles here. And I really don’t want to blog about my troubles. I want to tell you all that I’ve lost another thirty pounds and that I’m almost at my goal. Just in time for Christmas partying.

But that would be lying.

However, I saw a Facebook status the other day (it’s pretty lame when facebook statuses- stati? are what inspire you, but whatever!) which ended with “It’s all a matter of perspective”. And really it is. So let’s put things into perspective…

I haven’t been counting my points. And that’s bad.
I’ve been having a couple of things I shouldn’t, because I’ll start back on my plan again tomorrow…but I haven’t gone overboard.
I haven’t counted points in 3 months (bad!) but I haven’t gained any weight. That’s good.
I could do better about maintaining (where have all the veggies gone?!) but I haven’t gone completely off the rails.

And part of it has just been due to the utter exhaustion of the crazy 10 weeks we spent travelling or being visited. Now, that’s not really an excuse, cause who knows? Maybe we’ll win the lottery and spend 20 weeks of next year travelling, and I’ll need to know how to stick to plan then, won’t I? But it’s all about baby steps and small changes.

So. I’m not back on yet. But I’m trying. I even have a new goal. Ten pounds a month. It doesn’t feel unrealistic and it doesn’t get me quite to my goal. But if I can do that between now and my birthday, then I will reward myself with personal training sessions for my birthday.

That’s my plan…and I’m sticking to it.

Oh my goodness, has it really been almost a month? Wow.

The last month of summer was sooooo busy. We had that conference in Whistler. Then home for a week, then family came to visit. We were insanely busy for a week. Then the day after our houseguests left, we flew to Ontario for two weeks and entered a black hole! I had all kinds of plans for how I was going to stay on program despite being on holiday. But then there was no Internet. And no WW weigh ins. And it was tough. Still, I lost 1.6 pounds.

But now I’m having such a hard time getting back on track. Two weeks of not tracking and of eating sweets has me completely unhinged.

Maybe not completely.

I’m having trouble tracking. And the cravings are insane. So I’ve been beating myself up feeling as if I’d completely lost my momentum. Then tonight I got thinking about things. We ate a lot of sugar in Ontario. We had dessert with almost every meal. So it could be that the reason I’m struggling so much is that I need to come down off my sugar high. I always have problems with cravings until I cut sugar out.

So here I go with new resolve to finish out the rest of this week…

…in better news, I went to my weigh in on Wednesday and I had reached my 30 lb milestone. The lady working asked if I’d ever received any of my rewards for milestones and when I said no she gave me a whole bunch all at once. Score!

of starting a diet (or whatever. I hate that word. But I have to admit that every time I’ve started trying to lose weight it’s been with the mentality of “I’ll do this until I hit my goal weight, and then I’ll do the lifestyle change. It’s got something to do with wanting the quick fix first, and then the behaviour change. Though, not so much this time. Anyway…) and doing really well for about 2 months. Insanely well. And then the third month is hard. Every single day I war with myself. And by month four I start saying to myself, “well I already screwed today up, so I guess I’ll start again tomorrow.” or, “This is a hard week. You can take it easy this week, but starting next week you’re going to behave.” And pretty soon I’ve regained everything I lost and then I’m giving myself till after Christmas to start again…you get the idea, right?

So when I look back at my blogging here, I see that true to form, the first two months were pretty easy. I wouldn’t call it a honeymoon period exactly, but I didn’t have to fight too hard with myself to keep going. The last month has been a constant battle (though I still lost some significant poundage!) I’ve lost momentum. The past month of blogging has been so boring – just one pathetic excuse after another. Ugh!

I’d better give you some good stuff to read. I’m gonna have to dig deep so bear with me!!

1. I haven’t gotten to the stage where I’m excusing myself yet. Oh, I’ll admit I’m not tracking my points as strictly as I should be, but I haven’t yet said to myself, “today’s a screw up you might as well go all out.” That’s pretty radical for me. In fact, other than my home made burgers (which are made with XLean ground beef and weighed and carefully measured and tracked for points – and I’ve only had these twice) I haven’t had a burger since I started Weight Watchers 14 weeks ago. That’s radical in and of itself. I also haven’t had more than five fries in a sitting (and that only a couple times). Progress baby.

2. I’m doing much better about moving my body. I’m trying to make lifestyle changes, like walking with the family. Since it’s summer we’re doing a lot more family stuff which leaves a lot less time for the gym. But I figure that as long as I still get some movement in, the gym is still there waiting for me in September.

3. I’m not stress eating as much. I’m finding it easier to say, “Not now,” to myself. In the past I would have inhaled anything that came to hand (ever had bread with icing on it? It’s disgusting. And the kind of thing I would do when stressed once the cookies or cake or ice cream was gone.) Right now we have banana muffins on the counter. And I would like to be mindlessly shoving them back. But I’ve made myself promise to go do something (scrub a toilet, tidy the kids’ rooms, make a bed) first. Usually by the time I’ve gotten a task part way done I’ve forgotten about the muffins. And then I’m totally distracted and on to the next project.

One thing I wanted to change for this 21 Days challenge was the amount I drink. And I’m not doing very well. Yesterday I had one glass of water all day, and I didn’t have that till after 9. I still haven’t had any water today. Probably a lot of the desire for mindless eating is actually caused by thirst (because I sure am not tempted to eat when I’m drinking my water!) Another area I need to work on is eating my filling foods. Lately I’ve been doing a lot of convenience food. And it’s a lot less satisfying and a lot less filling.

I’ll be back tomorrow with my weigh in, but I just felt like I needed to think about what I’m doing good and bad…who knows, maybe I can even talk myself on to the elliptical tonight!

I AM HAVING A REALLY HARD TIME!

To motivate myself (or talk myself out of this bingeing!) I put my nicest clothes on. I’m starting to get to the point where I feel good in clothes even if photographs still look awful.

But it’s still so hard to stop this desire to eat EVERYTHING in our house. I’m not sure what’s wrong with me, unless it’s true that a little bit of eating unhealthy makes you suddenly crave more unhealthy stuff. I thought I was over the cravings. The funny thing is, I don’t really want to eat bad stuff, I just want to EAT. UGH!