Yes, I still owe my ending to the jury story but I just wanted to do a quick catch up on my Weight Watchers journey. I mentioned recently that I've fallen off the tracking horse and that I was going to get back on track. Well I haven't. And I'm pretty sure tomorrow's weigh in will reflect my recent indiscretions.
The last weigh in I tracked was on November 4th and I was down 1.4lbs. Here's how things have been for the past month:
November 11th - down 1.8lbs (now over 30lbs lost! Happy Dance!)
November 18th - up 1.2lbs
November 23rd (I weighed in prior to Turkey Day) - down 1.2lbs
December 2nd (back to weighing in on Friday) - down 0.6
So all in all nothing HORRIBLE but definitely not great. I have lost my motivation and am being careless. I'm eating almost anything I want and in large quantities. I know better but I keep indulging.
It worries me. I am extremely happy with how things have been going since May. I actually am taking a double take of myself in some pictures. To be brutally honest, I have my Facebook profile pic set because I thought I looked skinny in it. Granted, I am holding my adorable niece so I don't look too vain!
But I don't want to stop now. If I'm happy now, imagine how thrilled I will be when I reach my goal.
For the most part, getting to this point hasn't actually been too hard on me. Because of the WW system, you really can eat anything so you don't feel depraved. I was religious about tracking food and points. It just wasn't hard for me.
I guess I hit my rough patch. Like in many aspects of my life, motivation eventually wanes. I need a kick and maybe a weight gain will serve as that purpose. Maybe getting back to blogging will help as well. Something has to happen because I don't want to fail at this.
A Weekly Weigh In!
The past couple of weeks I have been completely disorganized in every aspect of my life. My house, my school work, my work work, my weight loss. Although I swear by tracking per WW standards, I have fallen off the tracking horse.
To track, you must log every food/drink that you consume and assign it a points value. For the past several months, I have tracked religiously (with the exception of actually writing down 0 point value foods) with the help of eTools provided by WW on their website. It makes things easy but it still is a bit time consuming.
For the last two weeks, the stresses of life took over and I bailed on, quite frankly, myself. I tried to stay conscious of what I was eating and make mostly good choices but when I don't actually see my points ticking away, I am much more likely to over indulge. Not good and I hope to get back in the groove of things starting today.
Normally, I gain weight when I don't track but for some reason, I have actually lost. Now I am not taking this as a sign that I can stop tracking, I actually feel like I dodged a bullet and I really don't want to do that each and every week. Here's hoping that my naughtiness doesn't catch up with me.
October 27th - down 0.4lb
November 4th - down 1.4lbs
I am now down a total of 29.2 lbs. COME ON 30!!!
I started tracking again today - including the 5 Laffy Taffys I devoured. Hopefully I will also get my house cleaned, homework caught up on and work organized. Ha, well I can dream.
And I finally FINALLY reached a mini milestone that I had set for myself. According to the BMI chart, I am finally out of the "obese" category. I've never been so happy to be overweight.
Wow! This past week has been such a whirlwind. By the end of the work day, I am completely exhausted. I already do two full time jobs wrapped up in one and I am also coordinating my entire hospital for the American Heart Association's Heart Walk. Since that is only a week and a half away, I have been bombarded with that work. I am incredibly behind with every single aspect of my job right now. It's bad. I am taking a quick mental health break just to write this because once I get home from work it's straight to Lillian time and then housework and school work. And trust me, the housework isn't being done well!
Okay, on to weight loss gain. Yup I am up 1.4 lbs over last week. But get this, I'm actually okay with it. I did not stick to the WW plan and expected a higher than normal scale. So no beating myself up, only new motivation to get back into the 170s by next week.
I am thinking about switching my WW group here at work. I have heard that a good leader can make all the difference and I just am not happy with my current leader. Turns out, I'm not the only one so at least it isn't just me. The downfall is the other session is on Thursdays at 7:30am. Do you know how much I loathe getting up early? It's the main reason why exercise hasn't been on my radar in the last little while. I just can't do the early wake up thing since I have been staying up later and later at night. But once a week I should be able to do it.
So this is the post where I put it all out there. My pictures, my weight, all the gory dark little secrets that I so normally keep ever so guarded.
I started way back in May and some parts of me feels like I should have lost more weight but I do know that slow and steady does win the weight loss weight.
So here I be...on my first day or WW and then today. Down 23 lbs (Oh that's right, I lost only 0.4lbs this weigh in week so I'm at an even 23 lbs lost).
Different clothes, different zoom but you get the idea. I don't see a huge difference but maybe a small one.
I weighed in on Day 1 at 202.4 lbs. Not good, especially for a 5'4 frame. It was definitely my highest weight outside of pregnancy. Today, or at least Sunday when I weighed in, I was 179.4. Being in the 170s felt pretty good.
I haven't had a great week so hopefully I won't gain come this next Monday.
So there you have it. Me in the raw!
I want to thank you all for your wonderful support. It really keeps me motivated which is exactly what I need in this journey!
I want to marry Weight Watchers. I think we'd be very happy together. Hopefully James won't mind sharing me with my new love. Weight Watchers gives me something that he just can't even fulfill. I ate pizza two days in a row this weekend and still managed to lose 2.2 lbs. Oh yes, that is true love.
So tonight I celebrated with 4 oz of wine, 40 cloves of garlic chicken, and bread smothered with said garlic clove. It was good. Very good.
I know many people have their own variation of the Garlic Chicken but this is how I made it. The best part? I did it in the crock pot!
This recipe was adapted from Alton Brown by a couple of women on a forum that I frequent.
Into your slow cooker:
6-8 large frozen chicken breasts
40 whole cloves of garlic
10 large sprigs of fresh thyme
1 can of chicken broth
1/4 cup of evoo
1 cup of white wine
salt and pepper
Cook on low for about 7 hours.
It was suggested to use the juice of one lemon and then quarter it and add to the crock pot. I personally would not do this again. I think the lemon taste took away from the garlicky goodness of this recipe. But that's just me and James.
Warning - peeling 40 cloves of garlic takes awhile. I suggest forcing your significant other to help you the night before or even better, buy frozen peeled garlic cloves.
Hmm perhaps I should marry garlic chicken, or wine, or my crock pot too.
What do you want to marry?
I missed my weigh in last week since I was catching fireflies in Kentucky.
Today was what I considered a big weigh in not only because I missed a week but also because I spent several days with James' family in the hills of KY. I was nervous that the temptation of homemade breakfasts of biscuits and gravy, 4th of July fixins' and the inevitable sweet treat would cause me to once again fall of the plan and once again gain.
To add to the temptations of southern cuisine, once we got back in town, I also had dinner out on both Saturday and Sunday. I hate having to weigh in on a Monday.
My goal since gaining those 2.whatever pounds was to not gain an ounce.
Maybe I sweated it off in the heat and humidity but somehow I managed to lose...3.2lbs. I am now down a total 11.2lbs. Which is great and happy and yay-ness dampened slightly by the fact that my WW leader wrote down that I was down 14 total lbs. Isn't that false advertising by her? I think I should be automatically given those 14lbs off since it was her mistake afterall.
I really do love the program. I really don't feel very deprived. I eat regular everyday food. I do continue to obsess a bit and drive myself, and I'm sure James crazy. (I still weigh myself every morning). Hopefully I can get a bit more zen about this process soon.
My Little Guide to Losing Weight On Vacation
- Continue to track
- Enjoy homemade peanut butter cookies with chocolate chip - even if it means skipping lunch
-Allow people to make accommodations for you (within reason of course). I did not want to tell James' family about being on WW but word eventually got out. His aunt was kind enough to grill some chicken breast for me on fried chicken day. (I did have a few bites of James' plate to satisfy the fried chicken craving).
-Exercise. Well you should...I really didn't though. I brought my sneakers so I had good intentions. I did spend some time on "hikes" with Lillian and my nieces and everyday I thought greatly about going outside and climbing up and down a rather significant hill.
- Shoot a gun! OK, this won't help you lose weight but I forgot to mention in my last post that I shot a gun for the first time. At a tree.
I'll leave you with a funny:
“I’ve been on a constant diet for the last two decades. I’ve lost a total of 789 pounds. By all accounts, I should be hanging from a charm bracelet.” ~Erma Bombeck
