I overspent my WP’s again. I’m not sure why I do this.

Yesterday I was at my long boring class all day and pizza was provided for lunch. Not just cheap pizza, but thick, cheesy, mile-high toppings PIE pizza. There were also cookies, chips and other not-good-for-me snacks. So, when I had 1 point left for dinner, of course I made a really sensible decision like EATING OUT AGAIN! I knew I didn’t have the points for it (not even flex, those were gone..) but I decided that is what I really wanted. I really want to lose weight and I know that eating that way and losing weight cannot co-exist. The sensible side of me says I’m sabotaging myself, but the emotional side says that it’s ok to splurge occasionally. AFter all, a few bad meals isn’t the reason I gained weight. It was the daily habit of eating that way that caused it.

So, for now, I am feeling netural about my choices this week. I know they were not consistently on plan, but each choice I made was conscious and cannot be blamed on anything other than wanting to eat and be lazy rather than healthy and active. Next week will be different.

Thanks to Roni for helping me with the table. I debated whether or not to post my menu, but seeing it in writing and knowing others can see what choices I made will hopefully motivate me to better choices.

First of all, if you have posted a message on my blog - THANK-YOU so much! I haven’t had a chance to visit everyone’s blog who has commented on mine, but I will, and I so appreciate the suggestions, kind words and encouragement.

I am exhausted today. I have an online class for which I have to do a 2-day Face-To-Face meeting this weekend. I had to travel to a university 1 hr 1/2 away, spend 9 hours, then drive back. Lucky me, I get to have a repeat tomorrow. I did pretty well, food-wise, until I got home and decided I had “earned” a treat - 2 mini Chocolate chip cookies for which I dipped into flex. I can feel myself getting lax with my menus and not planning enough.

I need to get more serious about my workouts, too. I did some arm stuff with 5lb weights and my crunches, but nothing aerobic. My work schedule has been flexible this summer, not having to be anywhere until after 9am most days, which has made getting my activity in much easier. However, this week I had to be somewhere at 8am every day which meant that I missed my workout time and then didn’t make it up later in the day. When school starts up in the fall, I know I have at least 2 mornings when I have to work by 7:30am so I need to figure out a routine that will work with my schedule.

I still haven’t figured out how to get a table for my menus with the new blog. I copy and pasted code with the old one, but I’ve since lost it and my copy/paste efforts haven’t been successful. Here’s what i ate today:

Points / Food

3.5 / Cereal with strawberries
8 / Subway sandwich + cheese & mayo
1.5 / 1/2 banana, few grapes & strawberries
0.5 / few leftover sweet potato fries
0.5 / few Ritz crisps
5 / Chicken with dijonaise
3 / steamed carrots, red potato & onion
4 / 2 mini choc chip cookies & milk

26 / Total

Well the good news is that even after some of the bad choices I made last week, the weight loss Gods decided to smile on me and I still lost .7 lbs. I was sure I was going to see a gain so that was more than I could have asked for.

The bad news is that yesterday turned into an out-of-control eating fest. We had a retreat for work that was FILLED with food, buffet style. I started out the morning with one of those huge bagels with regular cream cheese (no FF available), then croissant club sandwiches and potato salad for lunch. Our boss owns a restaurant so he brought in a collection of *awesome* desserts which I sampled. I thought I was being moderate by only having a 1/2 piece of cake and the smallest brownie. I was “guess”timating points the whole day. SO when I got home and calculated points I was shocked how many I’d eaten. Then we went to the Harry Potter movie (yay) where I had a little bit of popcorn, french fries and a turkey sandwich.. . Close to 50 points for the whole day. Thank goodness for flex points. Now I need to do better the rest of the week.

And the other good news is that I did get in my exercise yesterday - a 90 minutes of walking.

(Not my dog, just a picture of how I feel right now)
I did OK today, at least stayed within points range … but still no exercise. When I have to be to work at 8 and don’t get home from my day until 9:30, I can honestly say I didn’t have time to fit in a workout. It’s been 3 days with ZERO exercise. I need to not make excuses, but I am sitting here about ready to fall asleep at the computer. If I tried to exercise now I would have a hard time getting to sleep and then I have to be up again at 6am and have a full day again tomorrow. Am I making excuses? … maybe so. I’ll get in a walk tomorrow. I promise.

Today’s Menu:

Points/Food

2 / Fat Free Yogurt
0 / baby carrots
5 / leftover fajita chicken/veggies
2 / corn tortillas
1 / apple
.5 / few peanuts
6.5 / Wendy’s Chicken Grill Sand (less 1/2 the bun)
3 / baked potato w/ ICBNB spray
2 / 1/2 of Kid Size Frosty
2 / a few french fries

Total: 24

My “official” WI isn’t until Wednesday, but I don’t think there’s any possible way I could lose weight this week. Between the 4th of July holiday, the Scottish festival Friday night and using all my AP’s and going over on my WP’s last week I don’t see how I could have lost. I also didn’t get in as many workouts as I should have and I got lax on my meal planning. :p I stepped on the scale today and I was up 1 lb from my last weigh in. I can also tell that I just don’t “feel” thinner like I have in previous weeks.

This morning we had pancakes with the in-laws. We were over there early this AM because my sister-in-law, who is leaving to do missionary service in Hungary, has been gone for 3 months and today was her last chance to call home before Christmas. We had to get over there early because she called at 8am.

I ate good mid-day, but then tonight’s dinner was 11 points because I was just hungry. I hate using my flex points for regular weekday meals. I’ve had so many good weeks in a row, but I’m not sure what happened this last week. Sorry for the “poor-me” post; that wasn’t my intent. I think I’m just preparing myself for the inevitable. I am, however, determined to make this week a GREAT week OP!

Today’s food

pts/food

6 / pancakes w/ syrup
1 / milk
5 / turkey panini sandwich
1 / 1/2 banana
2 / almonds
11/ three chicken fajitas on corn tortillas w/ FF cheddar, lite sour cream and black beans

Hooray! I was finally able to get my old posts from Blogspot imported. Many of the posts are from my original blog at Weight Watchen. Thanks to Roni and whoever else fixed the kinks.

I think I am coming down with something. I’ve had a sore throat and headache most of today. I stayed within points, but didn’t make much attempt at getting in fruits and veggies and it was much easier to eat last night’s Italian leftovers than fix something nutritious for lunch. I did get in a light workout, plus some yard work and a few rounds of Dance Dance Revolution, though. I also tried a recipe a friend sent me for blueberry biscuits. They were 3 points and tasty, but I am thinking of how to tweak the recipe to make them 2pts instead.

Most of my day has been spent sitting here at the computer working on a project for my Masters program. I received good news yesterday. I have 2 classes and an internship left and then I will graduate Spring 2008 with my M.Ed! I was lucky that classes I took in 2002 were barely within the window of my 6 year limit, and I have one extra credit that my advisor said she will WAIVE - so I saved myself 6 credits.

I know school isn’t really related to the topic of this blog, but having been a student and working for the majority of my weight gain, it is significant to me that I am learning how to manage my weight while still being crazy busy all the time. I think I got into bad habits when I was running from work to class and now I am realizing that it is possible to have a million things on your *figurative* plate without having an equal number of calories on your real plate. Heck, I am actually stopping to use a plate! Before it was bag to mouth or drive-up window to mouth. It feels good to be in control. I’ve realized that it just takes a little planning and when I make it a habit, it’s actually easy. (Did I just say easy!?) LOL

Here’s today’s consumption. I’m having problems with the table, so I’ll have to work on that.. later.

Pts/Food
4 / scrambled egg with onions, peppers, ham & FF cheddar
3 / Blueberry Biscuit
1 / Milk
5 / Leftover Cheese Pizza
5 / Leftover lasagna
5 / MGFK Turkey Pesto Sandwich

23 Total

I took my measurements today and plan to take them monthly while I am losing weight. Unfortunately I didn’t take “before” measurements, but I did measure during week 11 when I was only at a 6lb loss.

I have lost an inch on my bust, waist and hips and a half inch each on both my upper arms and thighs. Today I wore a shirt that has a button on the sleeve. I have had to leave it unbuttoned because it was too tight to do up, but today I have it buttoned and it fits comfortably. Amazing what a difference 1/2 inch makes! I know it is small, but it is so encouraging to be proud of the progress I’ve made. It makes me more determined than ever to keep it up!

My progress has been slow, but I feel like it is steady. It feels great to have others notice, and to be fitting (and shrinking out of ) clothes that previously didn’t fit. I posted some photos finally. I was really hesitant to do so, because I wanted to wait until I had some dramatic differences to show, but I decided that posting them could only give me some added motivation and some extra encouragement from the blog community.

I started this blog when the weight watchen site went down. Since it is back up, I am going to move my blog back there.

Please visit me at http://blogs.weightwatchen.com/zazu/

Today is my weigh in day. I had a loss of 0.8 . . . nothing to complain about, but I hope to have a few 1-2lb losses in the next few weeks so I can make my goal of 10% loss before our Hawaii trip.  I also took my monthly measurements and progress pictures that I will post about tomorrow.

Since we had the day off for the 4th of July we went to a movie (Transformers) and then to the in-laws to swim and BBQ. Between the movie and the BBQ I used 13 flex points on popcorn, ice cream and baked beans. I’m not going to bother posting today’s menu since the point counting was based on estimates.

I hope everyone had a lovely Independence Day. I am grateful for my freedoms and for the men and women who have chosen careers that preserve those freedoms. Happy 4th!

Yay! I am so happy to see the Weight Watchen blogs and boards back up! Thanks so much to Roni! I am going to try to import my information from Blogspot and I am working on getting up my progress page and ….. photos (it scares me to death to post photos!)

Thanks to everyone who reads and comments on my blog. It has been so helpful to me in my weight loss. Glad to be back!!