My silliest but best NSV so far

Last December my sister and her family went to Disneyland. Before they left my 8 year old niece asked me who my favourite Disney character was. I jokingly told her it was Grumpy (a la the Seven Dwarfs). When they got back from their vacation she was so excited to give me a gift she bought with her own money. It was the flannel PJ's that I am wearing in the picture below with Grumpy all over them. They were an XL and they did not even come close to fitting. Of course I told her that I loved them and would wear them every night. I found them in my closet last night and they not only fit but are almost too big! I can't wait for the next time she sleeps over and I put them on - she will be so excited! I just had to share this NSV and the PJ picture (even though pink flannel would not be flattering no matter what size I am).

This next picture is a motivational one. I have never been the type to buy clothes too small in hopes I would fit into them some day, but I broke my own rule when I was in Calgary last week. I have coveted this LouLou Lemon Hoodie for a long time, the largest size they make is a 12... It has always been my onederland reward. I went to the store 3 times while I was on vacation so finally I bought it. It is now hanging front and center on my closet door where I will see it everyday and I will try it on every Wednesday after my WI. I feel good at the size I am now - I know I will feel GREAT when that hoodie fits comfortably.

While I was out of town my mom and dad came to house sit/ dog sit for us (they are retired). My mom saw my WW cookbooks and probably my point tracker etc. I have never told her that I am going to WW meetings, of course she has noticed the weight loss and complimented me but at the beginning I just wanted this to be my choice, for me with no pressure or expectations from anyone else so I never mentioned it. My mom has been overweight since she had my sister 42 years ago and I can remember her doing WW at various points of my childhood. I know I got some bad eating habits from my parents but I was brought up with loads of self-confidence and self esteem no matter how much I weighed. I don't blame either of my parents for my weight issues but it is not something generally spoken about at family get-togethers. My sister lost a lot of weight about 3 years ago (size 18 to a size 8) and we were all thrilled for her but it didn't go to far in motivating the rest of us.

Ok, now I'm rambling.. back to the point of the story. When I returned home my mom told me she had borrowed my recipe books because she was starting WW again after a health scare and some tough words from her doctor. I am excited that she will be jumping on the healthy living bandwagon and it will be good to have someone else to share recipes and great finds with. My parents are the least judgemental people I know, so I am glad that we will be able to share with out feeling pressure.

I invited her over for lunch tomorrow and am planning a great healthy delicious meal for us. Turkey meatballs, homemade tomato sauce, whole wheat pasta and a spinach salad. Mmmm. Hopefully I will be in a great mood after my WI tomorrow morning (as of this morning I am still showing up 2 lbs after vacation).

So, onto my recap of this weeks plan.. eating within points (YES) 1 hour each day at the gym (YES) 2 Litres of water each day (YES)

I had a mini victory on the treadmill today. I decided to (once again!!) do a day of week 3 of the C25K. As I was completing my final 3min run I decided that I was feeling pretty good and kept going for another 2 minutes. I know running for 5 minutes does not sound like much of a victory but for me it is a big deal. I have been putting off moving onto week 4 because 5 minutes seemed like attempting to climb a mountain. I didn't fall, I didn't have a heart attack, me runners did not spontaneously combust... woo hoo maybe I will become a runner yet! Onto week four day one tomorrow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Still getting back on track..

I really wish it was easier to get motivated again after vacation. I fought with myself for a couple of hours about going to the gym tonight.. I finally went and am glad I did but it was a tough workout. I went back to week 3 of the C25K - I completed it but am exhausted now! If anyone reading this has done the C25k, did you ever hit a point that you felt you could not move on? Moving onto week 4 scares the crap out of me - the 3min runs are difficult, I can't imagine attempting the 5 min... sigh..

Food today has been so so.. here is the menu

1 cup flax plus cereal (2)
1/2 cup skim (1)
curves bar (2)
pepperoni cheese stick (!!!!!! how did that happen??) (8)
turkey burger (4)
ww bun (3)
ff cheese slice (1)
condiments (1)
sunrype fruit bars (2)

I have 5 points left - I think some hot chocolate and fruit to end the day on a positive note.

I accomplished my goals for the day, I just wish it didn't feel like such a fight!

Getting back on track...

I am back from vacation and just stepped on the scale for the first time in 10 days. It is showing me a 4lb gain... yuck!! I am hoping I can do my usual flush out the water trick and get back to 217 for my WI on Wednesday. I was not physically counting points during my vacation but I tried to make good decisions as we ate out almost every meal. I had an encounter with apple pie and ice cream and one night we went out for an Indian feast (SOOooooo Goood!) On the drive back from Calgary yesterday I had some creamy dill baked lays, some diet coke and a veggie burger and fries. So much salty foods = massive water retention for me.

I always find it difficult to get back on track after vacation so I am writing down my plan for the week and will update my food and exercise each day to help keep me accountable.

I will go to the gym for an hour for the next 5 days.
I will eat only my 29 daily points each day
I will drink at least 2L of water each day
I will eat at least 5 fruit and veggies each day

Myra Trestles - Kettle Valley Railroad

The bike trip went great today. It was a little drizzly and overcast when we started but cleared up after a short time. The scenery was unbelievable! In 15km we went over 17 trestles and through 2 tunnels. When we reached the next station we turned around and headed back. For those of you familiar with the Kelowna area we started at Myra Station and then cycled to Ruth Station and back. It was so much fun and we are already planning our next bike adventure.

Tonight we went for dinner to a friends house who we have not seen in a few years, they served grilled salmon, beet roots and yam fries. I had a bagel for breakfast, a couple of fibre one bars during the biking and Tim Horton's chili for lunch so today was good food-wise as well as exercise wise.

Now we are off to Calgary for the rest of the week. The friend we are staying with does not have Internet access at home so I'm not sure if I will be able to update.

Here are a few more pictures from the stunning Myra Valley in Kelowna BC.

On Vacation... kind of on program???

DH and I have finally started the 10 day vacation we have been looking forward to for so long. We went to Vancouver on Friday and stayed the night at his sisters. Can't find NI for almost everything I have been eating so I will list it here and hope seeing itin wrinting will keep me motivated.

Friday

- 6inch turkey sub from Subway
- chicken fingers and caeser salad (on the ferry)
- penne bombay (with prawns and curry sauce) from my favourite Vancouver restaurant
- one large fluffy fresh white bun
-1/3 piece of Strawberry Cheesecake

Saturday

- leftover penne bombay
- McDonalds fruit and yogurt parfait
- one sour cream glazed Timbit (note not an actual donut!!)
- Chicken pita wrap and greek salad (from Opa!)
- Chicken Oscar (from Moxies so it was probably a ridiculous amount of points!!!)
- Some grapes and snap peas in the hotel room

We are in Kelowna now and tomorrow is the 30km trail ride that we have been looking forward to for so long. The most we have done so far is some 10km rides but we have heard this is an easy ride with few hills. We are going to take our time and enjoy the scenery so I hope I do ok! I will update tomorrow evening when we return.

WI#29 -3.4

That's more like it! I will take this as the scales way of apologizing for last week! A few milestones reached with this 3.4 pounds gone forever; 50lbs lost, my weight is in the 'teens' and another point gone from my daily WW allowance.

I feel so in control of my body right now. It is amazing how much your body will tell you if you are willing to listen. Now that 50lbs of fat are gone I can feel water retention, real hunger pains, lack of sleep, lack of protein and low blood sugar. All of these things were just blended together before and I was not listening to the signs my body was giving me. I don't know if this makes sense to anyone else but I think this is a major key to making this a permanent change in my life.

Today at my WW meeting we talked about the power that absolute thinking can have over our weight loss efforts. Thinking 'I can never have that again' or 'I always overeat in a certain situation' will only sabotage my efforts. I have lost the first 50 pounds by being very strict with myself - I have only occasionally dipped into my weekly flex points and have avoided my trigger foods almost completely (mostly potato chips, pizza, white pasta to name a few). I have begun to indulge a little in these items, making them fit within my points and learning to listen to my body and resist the urge to binge. This is how I will success long term. I need to think like a thin person - enjoy a reasonable amount of the foods I love and stay in control - not let them control me. I am hoping at the end of the next 50 pounds the transformation will not only be physical but mental as well.

Thanks for being here for my rant!

Weight Watchers Karma?

Last week I had a completely undeserved lousy .2 loss after working my butt off at the gym and eating on plan all week. I was called out of town last minute for work and have been living at a hotel for the past few days. No gym time and random, sporadic eating has been my life. I just got home and jumped on the scale and this is what I was greeted with:

2 pounds... and it is evening.. and I just ate dinner. It is the first time I have seen a number below 220 - WOO HOO! So now it is confession time.. I did not eat very often while I was gone because I was working most of the time.

Yesterday I had coffee with milk and splenda, a non-fat chai latte, a Starbucks breakfast sandwich, green curry prawn rice bowl, and a GIANT PIECE OF CHOCOLATE FUDGE CAKE. There was some bok choy in the rice bowl but other than that not another veggie nor fruit passed by my lips all day and I only drank about 1 litre of water all day.

Today was a bit better. I had a fruit smoothie, a pizza bun (!!), a non-fat chai latte, a fruit and yogurt parfait, diet coke, grilled salmon, rice and salad.

I know that this is not a healthy way to lose weight but I think the drastic change in my eating and exercise pattern shook up my metabolism a bit.. unfortunately I feel tired and sluggish because of too much work, not enough sleep, not enough water and not enough nutrients! I have to go back out of town Wed-Thursday this week and then DH and I are leaving for vacation (and our much anticipated bike trip). I will make it to WI on Wednesday and have my fingers crossed that I might hit the 50lb lost mark.

WI#28 -0.2 lbs

ARGG! This weeks WI was very frustrating! I have had small losses, gains and stay the sames a few times over the past months, but I always knew why. Either I ate too much or move too little. This week though I did not cheat a single time, I ate all my points plus half of my activity points. I earned 28 AP this week at the gym an bike riding... I deserve better! My leader told me to try eating more this week - to eat my flex points as well as my AP and see what happens. If I don't see results from that I will try the Wendi Plan that I have heard so much about next week.

So, yesterday I decided that I would use some flex and have a hamburger I have been craving from White Spot (for the non-Canadian readers out there I am so sorry that you may never have the pleasure of trying a delicious, gooey White Spot burger). I had the cheddar bacon burger (no fries though) an I must admit that it was absolutely divine! Last night when I tallied up my points for the day I went to the web to calculate the NI and that lovely burger was 22 points!!!!! That's right I said 22 points!!!!!!!!! Apparently 200 of the 867 calories come from the 'special sauce'. So yesterday I used the 4 AP that I earned as well as 10 of my weekly flex points - I'm pretty sure a 22 pt burger is not what my WW leader had in mind when she told me to eat more :-)

In keeping with the burger theme, for dinner last night I made Slow Cooker Cheeseburger Soup from the WW.ca website. I made homemade pita chips and served it with raw veggies and dip. We eat very little red meat (aside from 22 points burgers!!!!) so this was a nice change to the constant chicken and turkey. The entire meal was only 9 points and really tasty.

I also ate my Dragon fruit yesterday. DH was not really a fan but I quite liked it. RO me it tasted like a cross between a kiwi and a honeydew melon. I will definitely put it out on the fruit platter the next time I have people over for brunch. I had it for breakfast with one of the new Bagelful cinnamon breakfast thingies. The Bagelful was good but for 4 points I could have had 1.5 cups of Flax Plus Cereal and milk!


To finish off yesterdays crazy eating we had some frozen yogurt while watching a movie. If you haven't tried the new Chapman's Yogurt Plus you must. They are pricey but for only 2pts for 1/2 a cup they are worth the $$ in my opinion. Last night we had Dark Chocolate Rapture but the usual favourite is the Poached Pear an Caramel.

The plan for today is to stain our new fence and prepare DH food for the next week. Hope you are all doing well!

HYC - check in

It was a good OP week. I am having a little scale trouble though. After my WI last Wednesday my home scale was showing me up about 4lbs. This has been going on since Thursday morning. I used the scale at the gym and it was showing 4lbs lower. I am not really upset by the number but this is a relatively cheap scale and I have never really trusted it. So I invested in a new scale that also measures body fat % as well as body water %. It is really cool! I like being able to see how hydrated my body is and am looking forward to watching my fat % drop as my weight does.

I am curious to see if the number on the new scale is in line with the WW scales at my meeting.

My DH bought me a little (almost) 50lbs lost gift. This pretty pink stainless water bottle and a holder for my bike. I love pink! His is the manly green one :)

Finally a couple of food pictures. Tonight I was craving pizza so I created my own with what I had on hand and used a pita for the crust. The pizza had sauce, shrimp, pineapple, asparagus and 4% Allegro Cheese (this is sooo good and sooo low points). Delicious! Next picture is of the Dragon Fruit I picked up at the store last night. It was calling my name, my problem is that I have no idea how to eat it.. any suggestions?

Looking forward to reading all the other HYC check-ins... off to Google Dragon Fruit now.

Festival Food....

I used to really like food that comes on a stick. Ice cream, candy apples, skewered meat, cotton candy, corn dogs... I think you get the picture. My DH and I recently when to the annual festival in our home town. This year I was not really tempted by the 'food on a stick booths', but the salmon bbq is a tradition that I could not pass up. They catch salmon in the morning and then grill it over a wood fired with the most delicious herb marinade. It has been the same since I was a little girl and it is the best meal I have all year. A few small changes to the meal and I enjoyed it as much as ever. I had the whole wheat roll (no butter), the baked potato with a tsp of butter (no sour cream) and I skipped the salad (very creamy mystery dressing all over it). The salmon was the highlight and although high in points it is one of the healthiest foods you can eat - and I enjoyed every bite (as you can see by the picture).

On to other news. I completed Week3 Day1 of the C25K on Friday with flying colours. I actually found it quite easy. The format is

5 min warmup

90 sec run

90sec walk

3 min run

3min walk

(repeat )

5 min cool down

I will do week3 day2 tomorrow after work.

Hope you all had a great weekend!

I had forgotten that when I first joined ww in february someone on the ww.ca messgage boards told me I should take my measurements. It was a painful thing to do but I did and tucked them away in a safe place... until today. I came across them while going through some papers and decided after 27 weeks it was time to do a little comparison. Here are my results:

Waist -7inches

Hips -5inches

Bust -6inches

Upper Arm -2inches

Thigh -3inches

Calves -1inch

WOO HOO!! I am excited about those numbers. I know I am getting smaller because I had to buy all new clothes, but when the changes happen so gradually sometimes I feel like I look exactly the same. The biggest changes have been in my bust and upper arms. Today I bought an XL top in a regular ladies wear store.. great NSV for me!

I am about to head to the gym to try day 1 of week3 C25K. I am nervous about the three minute runs but I am going to give it my best. Will update tomorrow.

WI#27 -1.2lbs

I went to WI this morning and the scale read 221.2. A pretty good loss but I was hoping for more after working my butt off at the gym for the past two weeks. I have been sticking faithfully to the plan so I think it is time to try something to shake things up a bit. This week I am going to eat all of the activity points I earn. I rarely eat my flex points and find that I don't really lose if I eat them, I also never touch my activity points. But, I think with my increase in activity my body is freaking out a bit and holding on to the fat for dear life. I will use my 4 AP everyday with a glass of milk and/or and extra serving of lean protein to try and boost my metabolism a bit.

There are 16 weigh-ins before Christmas so I have to lose at least 1.4lbs each week to make my Onederland goal. Each time I step on the scale I imagine what it will be like the day my weight starts with a 1! Right now it is all the motivation I need to stay OP and keep moving at the gym.

Today my DH and I did the same 5km trail ride that we did a few weeks ago. I can tell my time at the gym is making a difference because I had a good rush of adrenalin after the ride today but was not winded at all. It was actually a really pleasant afternoon.

The scale also moved a bit for DH this week. He has been stalled in his weight loss and finally admitted that he needs to cut out some of the little 'treats' he has during the week. As I have said before he works out of town for four days each week in a little town that has nothing but a convenience store that sells a little of everything, and a Chinese restaurant. So, I prepare all his meals and snacks ahead of time, all portioned out so he doesn't really have to think about it. His shifts are 12-16 hours long so I think sending him with healthy convenient food is the least I can do for how hard he works.

This is a picture of the cooler ready to go for this week. The menu is:

Breakfast:

oatmeal with applesauce

Snack:

fibre one bar and fresh pineapple

Lunch:

turkey chili (with lentils, black beans, kidney beans, chick peas, and tons of veggies)

Snack:

broccoli, carrots, and snap peas

Dinner:

Indian Butter Chicken, peas, rice

Snack:

Sun Rype fruit source bar

My DH has a really big sweet tooth and has been adding some cookies, donuts etc.. from the little store to his healthy menu a few times a week. He also has McDonalds on his way back up to work each week (Big Xtra, fries and root beer). Tonight before he left we had dinner here and he said he is going to forgo the McD's and the extra snacks this week to see what kind of loss he can post! I am so glad that he is on board with this and struggling through right along with me. We have been together for 13 years and until 7 months ago he had no idea how much I weighed (oh, I'm sure he had a guess but I would never tell him.) Since I have started this program, and have told him where I am and where I want to be, he has been so supportive.