Another check in

OK, so I love checking my weight on a regular basis, and I'm down a total of 6 lbs. as of this morning! And my two-week mark isn't until Monday.

So, challenges for Fri.-Sun. -- well, for starters, one of my coworkers is leaving, and a bunch of people are ordering Five Guys and eating ice cream to celebrate. I'm going to join in without eating Five Guys ... although I may steal a fry or two :) Then tomorrow, we're going out to lunch AND dinner. It'll be a challenge to make sure to choose good foods. And we're not in charge of picking the restaurants, so that means even the best choice might not be a GOOD choice. Hopefully I'll know a bit in advance and be able to check out menus online to make sure I make the best choices I can.

Sunday should be an OK day, and hopefully we can recover from the weekend. Don't anticipate many challenges, but you never know! I'm 12 percent of the way to my goal, so ... YAY!

Still Working It

So, as of this morning, I've lost 4 pounds, which means 46 more to go, and almost 10% of the weight I want to lose. I navigated the wedding this weekend pretty well ... I didn't eat any cake, I snacked minimally on the appetizers, even though the food wasn't ready until about 9 p.m., and I didn't even eat everything on my plate once we did get to eat.

I'm definitely more in-tune with the whole "I'm not hungry so I shouldn't eat" thing, and I feel like overall, I get full on less food these days. Today is a coworker's birthday, so I've got to navigate a bunch of sweet treats that people have brought in (myself included), but luckily all that stuff is on the other side of the office, so it won't be quite as tempting.

Josh and I are going to go to Jimmy John's for lunch, which will be nice. I think I'm going to see how many points the Turkey Tom Unwich is if I get the mayo on it. Cause it seemed to be lacking when I substituted dijon for my mayo.

I'm really enjoying losing weight! I've just got to stick with it! If I lose 2 pounds a week, I'll be back to my skinniest ever before my birthday in July, and I'll be to my goal by October. That seems SO CLOSE.

Good Choices

I went to Jimmy John's for dinner last night, and I found a great choice. I ordered a Turkey Tom with no mayo and no sprouts (I don't like them) and added mustard and onions ... but the best part, I ordered it as an "unwich," which meant it came as a lettuce wrap instead of on bread. It was pretty good, but next time I might take the points and get a little mayo on it. The mayo really makes that sandwich. Anyway, as I ate it, it was only 1.5 points! Adding a bag of their skinny chips took the whole meal up to about 4 points. Not too shabby!

Oh, and I weighed this morning, and I've lost a total of 2.5 pounds so far! Only 47.5 pounds to go!

Woo-hoo!

OK, so I know there's a lot of controversy about whether you're supposed to weigh every day or weigh yourself once a week or completely ignore the scale and focus on measurements. Well, I'm a daily weigher. I recognize that there are daily fluctuations, and I try to only weigh in the mornings so that I'm comparing apples to apples.

All that aside, I weighed myself this morning, and I've lost 1.5 pounds! The first few weeks of a weight loss program are so encouraging because I always seem to lose a lot at the outset. So, 1.5 pounds down, 48.5 to go!

Snack box

OK, so we have a snack box here at work. It's always got a variety of chips, plus fruit snacks and peanut butter crackers. Absolutely nothing that's a great choice. I think that every other time our receptionist buys more snacks, she buys baked versions of the chips, which is a little bit better, but not much help at the moment. Anyway, I try to avoid it by bringing my own snacks, especially now that I'm trying to eat right.

However ... the apple I brought for my afternoon snack was past its prime -- all mealy and gross-tasting. Very little crunch. I took a bite and spit it out and then realized that I was definitely going to need to eat something before the end of the day. Enter the snack box.

Taking into account what I'm planning on eating for dinner, I had 9.5 points for snacks for the rest of the day. So, I decided I really wanted SOMETHING to eat now so that I don't shove everything in sight in my mouth when I get home. So, I picked the best chips I could (4 points) and went with it. I'll still have 5.5 points for an after-dinner snack, which is my favorite snack of the day, and that many points makes for a pretty nice snack. Maybe I'll pop some popcorn!

I LOVE the fact that I could eat a snack (even an admittedly unhealthy one) and yet still be on the plan and not feel like a failure. THIS is why Weight Watchers worked for me before. Now if I could just figure out why I kept running away from trying Weight Watchers again and instead wanted to try every other diet plan under the sun.

I know that there are healthier ways of eating than the one I'm adopting with Weight Watchers, and that's why I was trying other plans. I wanted something to force me into eating only fruits and vegetables and brown rice by restricting what I could eat. But I've recognized that I've got to take baby steps. Too much wholesale change at one time, while it makes sense in my brain, isn't something I can stick with. So, small changes first to get the ball rolling on this weight loss thing, then I'll move on to make sure all of my choices are truly healthy ones. I am committed to not eating as much processed food and sugar substitutes as I did the last time I did Weight Watchers, and I'm already eating more fruits and vegetables than I ever have, plus I've switched to whole-wheat flour and brown rice, so maybe all those diet attempts and failures were actually helpful!

The Before Picture

OK, so I did it ... I took the dreaded "before" picture. It's DEFINITELY a motivator to lose weight. Why is it that when I look in the mirror I don't really "see" me, but when I look at a picture, it's so obvious?

In addition to looking overweight in the picture, I also look pretty sloppy and frumpy. It does seem like when I lose weight, I feel better about myself, which makes me feel more like actually TRYING to look nice. But then when I'm overweight, I don't even try. Ugh. Something else to work on!

It's good, though, because I want to have something to compare with when I have lost weight. I'm going to try to take a picture every 10 pounds to remind myself of how much progress I've made. If I lose two pounds per week, I'll be ready for my second picture by the end of May!

I've got a couple of big hurdles coming up, though. First, this weekend we're going to a wedding. I'm going to say right now that my goal is to get out of there without eating a slice of cake. I'm not sure what else they're serving, so I can't make other concrete goals, but I'm going to eat something before I go, and I'll bring a snack in the car so that I can eat something healthy in between the ceremony and the reception. That way I won't be going in starving. AND NO CAKE!

The second hurdle is that I'm going to Chicago in three weeks. I *hope* that by then I'll have established some good eating habits, and I'll be able to take some food with me so that I don't cave in to mini bar/airport food quite as often. If I take my breakfast with me, that'll be a good start to the day, and maybe healthy snacks will help keep me on track.

Through it all, I'll just have to keep in mind that "before" picture and how much I really want this!

My Last Ever First Day

OK, so I have tried off and on ... forever, really ... to lose weight. But I'm really committed to doing it this time, thus the name of the blog. I've tried a variety of different diets — low-carb, just general "healthy" eating, Weight Watchers — but the only one I've been able to stick with is Weight Watchers, mainly because they KNOW you're going to slip up. They KNOW you're going to want a slice of cake once in a while, and they allow you to do that while still staying on track. I lost about 50 pounds on Weight Watchers right before I got married (about six years ago) and kept it off until three years ago when I had Oliver.

Fortunately, when I gained weight, I didn't gain back everything I'd lost. Unfortunately, I never did reach my goal. So I've got about 25 pounds to lose to get back to where I was and another 25 pounds to lose to reach my goal. That sounds like a lot, but if I lose 2 pounds a week, I could be to my goal, and the skinniest I can ever remember being, by mid-October! At 1 pound per week, it's still less than a year (like those math skills?).

But for now, I'm going to focus on my reasons for losing weight.

1. I want to have another baby. I'm a planner, and I'd like to give birth to another baby in Oct. 2012 (I know, PLANNING), which means I'd need to get pregnant in Jan. 2012. I want to be healthy before I get pregnant, AND I want to be committed to a healthy eating lifestyle when I get pregnant to minimize my weight gain (and subsequent weight to lose). I don't want to dread my weekly weigh-ins at the doctor's office, and it'll also help keep things like blood pressure and blood sugar under control.
2. I want to feel good about myself. OK, so I know there's some controversy here, but I've been "skinny" (for me) before, and it's SUCH a rush. I'm more active, and I feel like I can do anything. When you're overweight, there's a constant feeling that everyone is judging you (or at least there is for me). I can't go out with skinnier friends without feeling like "the fat friend," and I can't go out with overweight friends without feeling like people are judging us collectively as "the fat people." It's so great to feel like I'm not being judged for my weight all the time.
3. I want to have more energy. I have an almost 3-year-old, and I want lots more kids. I've got to have the energy to keep up with them! Plus, eating habits are at least somewhat inherited. I want my kids to know about healthy eating, and I want it to be their "norm." Maybe if I can get my act together, they can learn a healthier way of eating from the get-go.

So, we're off and running! I'm going to take a "before" picture tonight. I don't want to see it, but hopefully it'll be a good motivator ... and a reminder in a few months of how far I've come!