Please find me and let me know who you are.  I don’t want to leave my friends behind off of this one!  Thanks a bunch.  I look forward to hearing from you real soon!

So, anyways.  Not a lot to comment on tonight, other than I showed myself that I could go out and enjoy myself and not eat everything I came in contact with.  I could make conscious decisions and plan ahead so that I didn’t feel OVERLY guilty.  Of course the guilt is always there for me, aside from a perfect day.  (Wish we could have those all the time, right?!)

On a totally different note…are the comments left on my last post spam?  How do I avoid getting those?  Thanks so much for all of you who DO comment, I so appreciate the support we have on here amongst one another.

I weighed in yesterday and was up 0.6 lbs. I wasn’t entirely surprised, as it’s that special time of the month and I’m really feeling it this time. Plus, that whole box of cookies earlier in the week couldn’t have helped either. However, I don’t want to let one week of posting a gain turn into 3 and 4 weeks. So, I’m going to break my goal down into smaller pieces so I can really see where I’m at. Bare with me, and feel free to jump ahead as well!

The contest I’m participating in runs 12 weeks. My goal is to lose 24 pounds during that time which is an average of 2 pounds a week. Yesterday put us officially 1/2 way through the contest, so I should be at 12 pounds lost. I’m at 9 which means I need to kick it up a little to reach my goal. Therefore, I need to lose 2.5 pounds for the remaining 6 weeks in order to reach my goal. Now I must ask myself how I plan to do that. What’s been working, what’s not, and a bit of explanation of each one.

What’s Working:

1. Drinking my water- I’ve gone from drinking on average 52 oz+ Diet Pepsi a day to 1-2 cans a week or less and getting my 6-8 glasses of water a day in. Whereas, when I was drinking all the pop, drinking water was a foreign thing to me.

2. Getting in some exercise- This is one I still have to work at. I have been exercising 2-3 times a week, but the amount of time isn’t very long…about 1/2 hour. I have come to decide I like working out with my exercising ball (speaking of which, why haven’t you been using it???!!) and I’m rather liking the concept of Pilates as well. I’m having a hard time getting my cardio workouts in and because of it I sometimes feel like there’s no use in exercising if I’m not getting my heart rate up to fat burning zone. (The all or nothing concept is a huge part of me as you can see.)

3. Cutting down on the snacking- This one has really been a hard one for me. It seems like much of my days have been focused on eating “something good”. I’ve really started talking to myself, (sometimes even out loud) questioning if I’m really hungry or what the true reason is for wanting to snack. Sometimes the best answer I can come up with is because it sounds good. But coming from a total junk food junkie, I’ve really made strides in this area.

4. Being more aware of what I’m eating- This is an area I think has helped me thus far, but on the flip-side it’s also an area I can continue improving in. When I eat I’m really trying to focus on eating and nothing else and enjoying the taste of each different thing. I try stopping myself when I go to grab some food off the counter just because it’s there and making myself focus in. I heard somewhere, and this is what I keep telling myself, “If you’re going to eat, do it on purpose!”

5. Talking about my struggles and getting tips from my blog/family/co-workers. Also, doing this contest and us posting our weekly % lost at work has been a lot more motivating for me than when I was weighing in at Weight Watchers. Now, I’m certainly not saying anything bad about WW, as I personally think it’s the one of the best plans around and what my weight loss plan encompasses. But it didn’t seem to bother me as bad when I weighed in at WW if I had a gain or not. Perhaps I’m more motivated this time, but I really don’t think that’s the case, I feel it’s the accountability and knowing that it’s not just the lady weighing me who knows how I’m doing. Anyways, sorry, got off on a bit of a tangent.

6. Picking myself up quicker. That may sound funny, but I’m learning to pick myself up quicker after a “bump” on the weight loss path. After eating something I shouldn’t have, I am learning it doesn’t give me permission to continue the behavior repeatedly. If I stumble along the way but quickly return to my plan, the “bump” is a lot less damaging to my progress. I have really cut down/out my binging episodes.

I’m sure there are more, but that’s what I can see I’m doing that is definitely helping.

What’s NOT working?

1. Eating out so frequently/Portions- I REALLY struggle with this one. Largely due to the fact, I’m not much of a cooker and honestly, I don’t enjoy it. I feel like there are a lot of foods OUT that taste so good that I couldn’t possibly even know how to try attempting to cook at home. I’m a picky eater, and my kids even more so. I get frustrated and fed up with when I do cook, there always being 1 or 2 out of our family that doesn’t eat it. I feel like I’m always having to make something different at some point for the one who won’t eat what I cook. I’m sure some are reading this thinking, “if they don’t eat what you cook then they don’t eat” and while that may be what I should do…it’s not. I can’t let my kids go hungry. I’m going to start working harder at leaving food on my plate each time I eat and dishing up 1/2 of what I normally would with the idea in my head that if I’m hungry in an hour or so after I eat, I can go back for more.

2. Poor Planning/ Lack of Tracking- More and more I see that weight loss isn’t an accident. It’s something that is planned and thought through. I want to plan my days worth of eating in advance, I know of some who do it the night before. But for whatever reason I don’t do it. I don’t plan out lunches or dinners so when I go grocery shopping I just try buying the staple items and a few random things here and there, which always leads me to trying to decide what to make for dinner last minute, and therefore, back to eating out we go. I’ve GOT to plan exercise into my day. It’s got to be a priority just like doing laundry, or picking up the house. So, I’m going to work on some kind of plan to putting together a weeks worth of lunches/dinners…and tentatively planning in my exercise time. It’s got to happen, especially if I’m going to lose 2.5 pounds a week.  I’ve also been terrible with writing down what I eat and tracking my points.  So, my focus this week is to do an excellent job of tracking my points for at least 3 days.  That’s a good place to start.

3. Expecting a weight loss and trying to really kick things into gear just a few days before weigh-in. This has got to be something done on a daily basis. This is a lifestyle change and a few days/weeks here and there on plan doesn’t equate to a lifestyle. I’ve got to be more proactive and treating each day as if tomorrow is weigh-in.

4. Getting those darn fruits and veggies in. My last post I did receive a few good ideas for this, although honestly I haven’t incorporated many of them. I think this problem also comes down to lack of planning and being creative. What’s some real sneaky ways of putting veggies into my cooking without my kiddies realizing it?

5. Level of exercise. I’ve really got to pump this one up. As I said earlier, I really want to work on getting started with cardio, but although it embarrasses me to say it…being the size I am, doing real cardio workouts wind me so fast that I give up before I start.

I decided to list one fewer issue of what’s not working because I think it’s important to be nice to ourselves and focus on what we ARE doing well. But that doesn’t mean we can be oblivious to what we’re not doing and then be upset with the lack of results.

I really want to start posting pictures along the way, but what have you all found to be the best way to take these pictures? I’m a bit of a perfectionist so I’m waiting for the “right” way to do them. Do you think it’s best to dress in the same outfit each time to see the progress? One thing I’m really self-conscious of is sitting in pictures. Standing helps to hide things a bit better, but when I see pictures of me sitting I really get upset with myself. Would taking some pictures along the way of me sitting, be a good way as well? Silly questions I know!

So something I’ve gathered as I’ve been typing this up is I desperately need ideas for meals. I don’t plan for meals because I’m clueless as what to make. Any of your ideas here would be extremely helpful.

WOW! This was a long post. I can’t wait to hear from all of you. I am going to be out of town the next few days. My hubby and I are going for 2 nights to a Bed & Breakfast. I’m very excited, but extremely nervous about our eating out plans as well. So, my goal is to not take any leftovers with me and to try eating only half of what they bring me. I’m also going to take some 2 point snacks with us and some oranges to snack on. Wish me luck! And I wish you the best of luck this upcoming week!

Today has been pretty good.  I’m really running out of ideas for lunches when I’m at home though and keep finding myself having 3 slices of toast for 6 points and calling it good.  I’ve not been doing so good lately at getting my fruits, veggies and dairy in.  How do you guys plan for your week of food?  I’ve been grocery shopping for so long for all the WRONG foods, that now I’m not sure how to grocery shop for success!

At any rate, I got my water in and I believe I stayed in my points today.  That’s another thing:  “Self, you must get back to tracking again.”  Haha.

So I’m getting a little anxious about weigh-in this week.  I know I keep talking about the 222 thing, but this getting below 220 is a huge mental block that I want to push through.  And I’m vowing to myself now, that when I do get below 220, I will NEVER let it creep over again.

So, question for the day.  How do you get in your fruits and veggies?

So I’ve been worried about getting to the low 220’s and pushing past it into the 210’s. It’s coming up fast and furious and I’m really trying to dig my heels in and keep going. It has been such a mental block for me and I can’t wait to show myself I can do it and then push through to the next mental block. (Heaven only knows there’s a TON of those…)

Although I’ve only lost roughly 10 pounds, I’m amazed at the difference in my energy level.  I can’t wait to see how much better it’ll be as I take off more weight.  I’ve got some great projects planned to do around my house and yard, and I definitely need more of that energy to accomplish them!

I am a bit disappointed that my shirts still aren’t showing much improvement in how they fit yet.  So, the question of the day is…how much did you have to drop before you started seeing a difference in clothing sizes?  I feel like yes, I can lose some of this weight, but that it’s never going to show in my clothes as far as dropping sizes.  I know, I know…another mental block for me.  So…anything you can share in relation to clothing sizes would be great to hear.  And where did you first start noticing the weight coming off?  I can’t wait to hear your comments!

So, some small things I did this week. I’ve been working on getting on my treadmill. I did it one day for 10 minutes (why does it seem like hours on a treadmill, but just seconds walking outside?) and I ran for about 3 minutes of that. Then I increased it yesterday to 11 minutes and ran for about 4 minutes of that! And surprisingly enough, I didn’t have to have an ambulance called for me! Haha. I’ve been trying to get more fruits and veggies in, although I’m still not up to my 5 servings a day as pitiful as that sounds. I am learning something new each week and one great accomplishment for this week is that when I do get in a “binge” cycle, I’m recovering from it much quicker. Instead of it lasting weeks and months, it’s maybe lasting a day or two.

What do you all do for cravings when you just feel outright defiant with yourself and determined to have something “good”? How do you handle those moments?

This is going to be a very successful weekend for me and upcoming week! I feel it and I’m worth it!

So my question is…do you ever get to the point that you can trust yourself around food again?  I tried analyzing the eating to see if it was emotional eating and best as I can tell it wasn’t.  It just sounded good and tasted good; therefore, I kept eating more!

So when I weighed in today, I’m up 3 pounds from Friday.  I ended up posting a 0.6 loss last week, which I was grateful for.  But it’s almost like I purposely sabatoge myself or something.  I was at 224.4 on Friday.  I’m getting closer to the goal of getting below 220 and I don’t know what the deal is with that number.  But I get hungup on it.  Am I afraid of being smaller?  Perhaps afraid that I can’t maintain it, that I do believe.  Other than that, what would I be afraid of?  I don’t know,  but I’m feeling very down today.  Which results in me wanting to eat more.  I hate this endless cycle. 

I’m going to really kick up my exercise the next 3 days and hopefully that’ll give me the boost I need to get back down to where I was last week and post some kind of a loss.  As you can see I’m very hungup on the number on the scale.  It’s almost as if it determines my feeling of accomplishment or failure. 

However, I’m making a slow progress in creating better habits I suppose.  I am drinking my 6-8 glasses of water each day and have pretty much cut diet pop out completely.  I am eating more fruits.  Its so easy to focus on all the negative and forget the small accomplishments along the way. 

I would love to hear your thoughts and any tips you see that may help me. 

As an afterthought I wanted to add that I’m going to hold myself accountable and get myself tracking what I’m eating again.  For those of you who have struggled with that, to get started did you worry so much about point values or just getting yourself writing everything down?  I realize the importance of tracking points, but sometimes I just give up on my tracking for the day when I have trouble figuring it.  Thanks for all your wonderful comments and encouragement!  This is such a great blogging community!

So we go to one of my all-time favorite pizza places.  We ordered 2 large pizzas for our family and 1 would’ve ended up being plenty, as we brought the equivalent of a full pizza home.  Anyways.  I had done really good today up until dinner and then I just feel like I went crazy.  I ate at least 1 full slice after feeling full, and probably 1 before that that I shouldn’t have.  Then we go to Grandma’s and it was almost awkward.  Like I didn’t know how to talk to her or what to say.  She started doing her Grandma thing and passing around treats.  And I had a few.  Nothing terrible, but a lot more than I’ve had lately. 

So, I feel terrible tonight.  I have no way of calculating the points on the pizza…all I know is it has a LOT of cheese.  And then with having a few different candies here and there I don’t know on points for those either.  So I’m left feeling clueless, not knowing where I stand exactly and feeling guilty.  I hate when I start feeling guilty, because it seems thats when in the PAST that I have started on one of my binge feasts. 

So, what do you all do when this happens?  And again…how do I get good with tracking points? (Besides the obvious of the more you do it, the better you get.)  Have any of you had problems with getting consistent with it? 

 On a brighter note…I measured almost every square inch of my body a month ago when we started our Biggest Loser contest and I remeasured tonight.  I’ve lost a total of 7 inches off my body since then.  3 inches being off my hips.  It’s crazy though.  My hips are quite a bit smaller around than my waist.  That’s where I REALLY need to lose the inches is my waist.  Hopefully this exercise ball will start helping with some results that way.

Anyone that happens across my page, please leave comments.  I’d really like to start getting a better feel for the people on here. 

And, I must say, I survived the weekend without totally falling off the band wagon.  Another bonus! 

I’m hoping to continue figuring out this blogging thing so that my page looks half as good as a lot of the others out there.  So, if you have any suggestions, let me know.

Small wins for the day:

I made this skillet dinner and after taking my first few bites, decided I really didn’t like it.  So guess what?  I didn’t eat anymore.  Side note: How do you guys handle it when your kids don’t like something you’ve made?  Do you offer something else or what do you do?  I started feeling guilty when I didn’t eat what I’d made, but realize that I get upset with my kids when they do the same.

Was really fighting the urge to make brownies or muffins and got busy with my daughter playing a game instead.

Those of you doing Weight Watchers…how do you stay faithful in tracking your points?  I do pretty good with breakfast and lunch.  But when dinner comes around, it seems like I have a hard time figuring points on whatever I’m making or having somewhere else, so I stop at that point.  Any tips?

I guess it’s about time to call it a night before those late night cravings sneak in.