I don't know if I mentioned it before, but my coworkers and I have a "dinner club." We spend so much time eating on campus, and we're so spread out, that a few years ago this club got started to act as a way to spend some quality non-work time together and to eat a good meal. So, at the beginning of the semester, one person sends out the typical e-mail looking for those interested and comes up with a schedule based on everyone's availability throughout the semester. We take turns hosting the others for dinner and send out our menu a few days in advance so that people will know what they're about to walk into. It's obviously not mandatory to go to every one, but most people try to go to as many as possible...I mean, hey, it's more free home cooked meals! We don't claim to be chefs, nor do we expect a gourmet meal from people. This week, it was my turn to cook...and I am generally known for going all out. I like to theme my dinners - 1. I think it makes it more fun and 2. it makes it easier to pick a menu. Last semester I hosted the day before Halloween so I made a whole Halloween themed dinner. Bloody Barbecued ribs, deviled eyeballs, scarily good cheesy potatoes, Halloween tortilla chips (homemade) and guaca-moldy...you get the idea. Last spring I went French...cheese fondue, Boeuf Bourguignon, and chocolate fondue. The problem this causes is...how the heck am I going to top myself?!?! It's been a bit of a crazy, somewhat stressful few weeks back after spring break. I wasn't really looking forward to cooking for mass amounts of people...there are about a dozen people in dinner club. But, it was my turn and I'd already rescheduled my date so I didn't want to do it again. I was trying to come up with something that would be tasty, but as easy as possible. So, I decided on a good old down-home meal: slow cooked roast beef (cooked in my crock pot with onion soup mix for about 10 hours), mashed potatoes, corn, asparagus, and a homemade apple pie. Unfortunately, between the business and then difficulty making a decision on the menu, I didn't get to send it out until the evening before. And then on Friday I didn't feel well - massive, massive headache. I ended up going home from work early because my headache got so bad I thought I was going to throw up. Thankfully, the meat had already been cooking, the corn and asparagus were both super simple, so the only things I had to spend much time on were the pie and the mashed potatoes. I took a long nap and felt slightly better - at least well enough that I could finish cooking. I barely got them done in time, but it was well worth the wait. However, somehow either the date or my late menu caused some issues and only two of my coworkers showed up for dinner club. I had cooked enough food for 12. That was a looooooot of leftovers. Thankfully, it was super tasty, and reasonably healthy.
A few weeks ago I wrote about having the dreaded problem of "The Day of the Empty Stomach" where no matter what/how much I ate I was still hungry. This week I've encountered the (just as deadly) "Day of the Full Stomach" where I didn't feel like eating at all. Saturday, the day after dinner club, I woke up still not feeling well. I spent most of the day in bed reading, and after that I went to the couch to watch tv. It was after 5:00pm before I ate anything. And even then, I had a small amount of leftover roast beef and potatoes...and felt stuffed. Now, you'd think that it would be a good thing, but really it's not. You need sustenance to keep your body going...and frankly the few days after a "full stomach" day, you are usually famished. Thankfully, that wasn't exactly the case this time.
Sunday, wasn't quite as bad as Saturday, but I still didn't really feel much like eating. My headache FINALLY went away...I guess a whole lot of hours sleeping were the cure. I was able to eat a banana and granola bar before heading out to see a movie. After the movie, I was really hungry so I ate some more leftovers, but again, I felt stuffed after not eating much.
And, I haven't made much of a dent in the leftovers...anyone in my area is free to come take some!!
Initial weight: 257.2
Week 11: -0.8
Total weight loss: -20.8 lbs
Current weight: 236.4
Oh, and I think I officially have some Weight Watcher meeting friends!! Last week a girl sat next to me and told me that I looked like Spring and it made her happy. This week she sat next to me again and complimented me on my hair cut and said she'd meant to tell me last week. While the ladies (and one or two gentlemen on occasion) at my meeting are friendly and welcoming, they don't often do much to befriend me and I usually sit by myself. Funnily enough, I think I've realized the division of the room...one side of the room almost all work in secondary ed, the other side works at the college level, and the middle works elsewhere. It just kind of happens naturally, too. Anyway, so my new friend, Sabrina, is super friendly and she and another lady (whose name I have yet to learn cause she wasn't wearing a name tag) actually spent time talking to me today! Yay friends!
Monday, March 26, 2012
Monday, March 19, 2012
War! (Huh!) What is it good for?
Our body is constantly warring with itself, which makes life interesting sometimes. Your head and your heart are often at odds with each other. Sometimes your head says, "let's go exercise", but your body says, "Screw You!" But, for me, one of the worst body wars is that between the mouth and the stomach. That point while you're eating that your stomach says, "I'm full - no more food!" but your mouth says, "But it tastes sooooooo gooooooooood....". Or even your brain and your mouth...your brain says, "you don't need seconds" or "you don't need to eat that piece of cake" or "you're really not hungry, you're just bored", but your mouth says, "But it tastes soooooo gooooooooooood..." Let's face it...our mouths are kind of evil! They are always getting us into trouble! I mean, the bad food choices that we make are usually because of our mouths...not our stomachs! The stomach doesn't care what we put in it as long as it isn't empty! The mouth is the real traitor here!
I went to an Indian restaurant this week - I saved up all my extra points and made myself make good choices through the week so that I could have lunch there on Friday. I haven't done the math to see how many points it was officially worth, but I don't think it was too bad. And I only ate one piece of naan! The problem was, though, that it was a buffet...and it tasted soooooo goooooooood. I hadn't been there for months, if not longer, and I'd had a small breakfast, and it was a little later than my usual lunch time....and it tasted soooooooo gooooooooooood. My mouth kept saying, "more! more! more! more!" but my stomach was saying, "ummm...I'm getting a little full down here, not sure how much more I can hold...". Despite the war, I think I did reasonably well. I'm sure that I ate more than I should have, but it wasn't as much as I used to eat, which is a big step in the right direction.
My body also had a war with the clock this week. Between catching up after the break, several evening commitments, and just overall not adjusting to the time change, I simply haven't had the time or the energy to do much working out. I got a little bit in on the yoga ball (despite my friends making fun of me for how perverted it looks refilling it - and despite falling off of it last night and hitting my head off the floor...ouch!), but not as much as I would have liked. I guess we'll see how that reflects on the scale!
Initial weight: 257.2
Week 10: -1.8
Total weight loss: -20 lbs
Current weight: 237.2
So it was a good weight loss week, but I know that I didn't track or exercise like I should have - so goal this week is to get back on track with my tracking...and to not fall on my head anymore...seriously, it REALLY HURTS!
I went to an Indian restaurant this week - I saved up all my extra points and made myself make good choices through the week so that I could have lunch there on Friday. I haven't done the math to see how many points it was officially worth, but I don't think it was too bad. And I only ate one piece of naan! The problem was, though, that it was a buffet...and it tasted soooooo goooooooood. I hadn't been there for months, if not longer, and I'd had a small breakfast, and it was a little later than my usual lunch time....and it tasted soooooooo gooooooooooood. My mouth kept saying, "more! more! more! more!" but my stomach was saying, "ummm...I'm getting a little full down here, not sure how much more I can hold...". Despite the war, I think I did reasonably well. I'm sure that I ate more than I should have, but it wasn't as much as I used to eat, which is a big step in the right direction.
My body also had a war with the clock this week. Between catching up after the break, several evening commitments, and just overall not adjusting to the time change, I simply haven't had the time or the energy to do much working out. I got a little bit in on the yoga ball (despite my friends making fun of me for how perverted it looks refilling it - and despite falling off of it last night and hitting my head off the floor...ouch!), but not as much as I would have liked. I guess we'll see how that reflects on the scale!
Initial weight: 257.2
Week 10: -1.8
Total weight loss: -20 lbs
Current weight: 237.2
So it was a good weight loss week, but I know that I didn't track or exercise like I should have - so goal this week is to get back on track with my tracking...and to not fall on my head anymore...seriously, it REALLY HURTS!
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Choose Your Attitude
I got a Bravo! star this week!! At the meetings, they like to celebrate not only weight losses, but good behavior changes/exciting things you share. At some meetings, only the leader will give them out, but at mine she likes all the people in the class to give them to each other, too. So this week we were talking about Negative Talk. Everyone does it - we are always harder on ourselves. We beat up on ourselves for little things, we feel guilty for a single bad choice, and then we let the whole day/week go to waste. We started talking about things that we do/ways to avoid or fix our negative talk. Some people said that they try to be more conscious of it and talk to themselves the way their best friends would talk to them. One girl said that she started writing down every time she said something negative about herself.
Ironically, I had just started trying to consciously change my attitude around my weight loss. I told them that I had started to choose my attitude. I had a good day on Monday (not that the other days were bad) and I walked into the center feeling really good. I started to get that nervous feeling about the weigh-in because while I watched what I ate and made sure that I still got a work-out in while I was at home, I didn't really track. Just before I stepped onto the scale I said to myself, "you know what? you came in here feeling really good and no matter what that scale says, you should still feel really good." And I did! I was up a little bit, but I stepped off the scale still smiling. It was less than a pound and frankly could've been attributed to several things. It could have been a difference in the scales from the meeting at home and this center, it could have been because I ate lunch at 2:30 instead of my normal noon, it could've been water weight, or any number of other uncontrollable factors. Regardless, I've still lost almost 20 pounds since January! I have a lot to feel good about, and I wasn't going to let that tiny setback affect my mood. I had another small moment where I considered not allowing myself to go to the store to buy a new pair of pants (I had a coupon!) since I had gained, but then I told myself I was being stupid. Why would I deny myself buying a pair of pants, when the ones that I had on were getting quite baggy in the legs, because of less than a pound?
The others in the meeting were so proud of me and loved my idea of CHOOSING my attitude. There are so many things in life that we tend to get bummed about because WE ALLOW IT. I've started trying this in my life outside of my weight loss, too. When someone says something annoying or bothersome, I try to just ignore it, change the subject, or be extra sweet in return. It's made my week a lot more enjoyable!
Initial weight: 257.2
Week 9: +0.8
Total weight loss: -18.2 lbs
Current weight: 239
Ironically, I had just started trying to consciously change my attitude around my weight loss. I told them that I had started to choose my attitude. I had a good day on Monday (not that the other days were bad) and I walked into the center feeling really good. I started to get that nervous feeling about the weigh-in because while I watched what I ate and made sure that I still got a work-out in while I was at home, I didn't really track. Just before I stepped onto the scale I said to myself, "you know what? you came in here feeling really good and no matter what that scale says, you should still feel really good." And I did! I was up a little bit, but I stepped off the scale still smiling. It was less than a pound and frankly could've been attributed to several things. It could have been a difference in the scales from the meeting at home and this center, it could have been because I ate lunch at 2:30 instead of my normal noon, it could've been water weight, or any number of other uncontrollable factors. Regardless, I've still lost almost 20 pounds since January! I have a lot to feel good about, and I wasn't going to let that tiny setback affect my mood. I had another small moment where I considered not allowing myself to go to the store to buy a new pair of pants (I had a coupon!) since I had gained, but then I told myself I was being stupid. Why would I deny myself buying a pair of pants, when the ones that I had on were getting quite baggy in the legs, because of less than a pound?
The others in the meeting were so proud of me and loved my idea of CHOOSING my attitude. There are so many things in life that we tend to get bummed about because WE ALLOW IT. I've started trying this in my life outside of my weight loss, too. When someone says something annoying or bothersome, I try to just ignore it, change the subject, or be extra sweet in return. It's made my week a lot more enjoyable!
Initial weight: 257.2
Week 9: +0.8
Total weight loss: -18.2 lbs
Current weight: 239
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Spring Break Edition!
"Will there be a post this week?" has been the most popular question of late. Why? Because I'm on spring break!! Woohoo! While most of my students were going to exciting places like Fort Lauderdale, New York City, and the Bahamas, I went to...Ohio. But that's where I wanted to be! I came home to see the family and just spend some time away from campus. After my crazy last weekend, I really needed the time away, but the trip has presented its own set of challenges.
My family is extremely supportive of my journey (if we're friends on Facebook, you should check out all of their awesome comments on my posts) and they have made the trip as easy for me as possible. Prior to my leaving school, Mom told me that she was going to the store and wanted to know what I needed her to pick up for me to eat. It caught me off guard, but I told her to just get some fruits and veggies and I'd get anything else I could think of when I got home. Well, it wasn't until I got home that I realized everything I was going to need. When you go stay somewhere else for a fairly significant amount of time, you realize how much you take everything in your own house for granted. Luckily, I thought to bring some of my WW shake packets to help me get in my dairy, as well as my new fav Fiber One bars. (Super tasty, GREAT source of fiber, but they will definitely keep you regular...that may be TMI, but it's the truth.) But you don't think of all the little things, the giant bag of individually separated servings of baked chips I have - the packets of tuna fish - the dining hall where I at least have all my lunches - etc. I was hungry for lunch today and thought "hmm...I can't have my usual chicken salad because it would take way too long to make it - and we don't have any light bread or turkey for a sandwich...". What to do?? So, I had to make a run to the store to pick up some stuff. I certainly didn't mind, especially since the store is only a few blocks away from the house, but it's just those things that you take for granted in your own home.
The trip home itself wasn't bad - I took some grapes and I stopped at the gas station and got some baked chips and half a turkey sub for the ride home (it's a 3 1/2 hour drive and I hadn't had lunch yet). And each night Mom has made sure to either ask me what I want for dinner ahead of time, or make sure that she's making something I can eat. But, another challenge has still been that my daily schedule is interrupted. At work I have a pretty structured life...I live by my calendar. I eat breakfast first thing in the morning, I eat lunch at noon, and I try to eat dinner between 5:30-7 depending on after work meetings and my work outs. That is definitely not the schedule I keep at home. To start with, I'm on vacay...I let myself sleep in! Now, "sleeping in" means sleeping until 10:00am, not the sleeping until 1:00pm that it used to be. But, it still means I'm getting a later start on my day. I'm still eating a small breakfast when I get up, but it's pushing my lunch back a bit then. So now I'm eating lunch around 2:00...and then eating dinner around 7. It's just taking some getting used to. I got spoiled with my structure and having almost all of my meals prepared for me and now I see what it's like for others.
The other big challenge I have had so far is that my exercise routine pretty much centers around the tv...whether it's the Dancing with the Stars video or the Wii dancing, it needs the tv. There is a tv in my bedroom, but generally not enough room to exercise. And the tv in the living room is shared by the whole family, which makes it difficult to get my exercise in on my normal schedule too. The fam has been great about letting me get it in, (and actually doing it with me!) but I still feel bad taking up their tv time, and even more so about taking up the whole living room. So, I've been doing what I can and then supplementing it with more work on the yoga ball. I almost forgot that I had bought one years ago until my sister reminded me that it was still deflated in the box. So, I used all my hot air and blew it up! I've been showing them all the crazy exercises I do on it, but who else but your family won't make fun of you for the strange positions you put yourself in while exercising? And thankfully, younger brother gave me a great idea to enhance one of the exercises I already did!
Overall, my trip hasn't been too difficult, I just need to learn how to not be so spoiled! There is a Weight Watcher meeting here, but it's on Tuesday unlike my normal Monday. At least I can still go weigh in and it won't be too far off from my normal time! Let's hope their scales aren't too different from my regular...
Initial weight: 257.2
Week 8: -3.6
Total weight loss: -19 lbs
Current weight: 238.2
My family is extremely supportive of my journey (if we're friends on Facebook, you should check out all of their awesome comments on my posts) and they have made the trip as easy for me as possible. Prior to my leaving school, Mom told me that she was going to the store and wanted to know what I needed her to pick up for me to eat. It caught me off guard, but I told her to just get some fruits and veggies and I'd get anything else I could think of when I got home. Well, it wasn't until I got home that I realized everything I was going to need. When you go stay somewhere else for a fairly significant amount of time, you realize how much you take everything in your own house for granted. Luckily, I thought to bring some of my WW shake packets to help me get in my dairy, as well as my new fav Fiber One bars. (Super tasty, GREAT source of fiber, but they will definitely keep you regular...that may be TMI, but it's the truth.) But you don't think of all the little things, the giant bag of individually separated servings of baked chips I have - the packets of tuna fish - the dining hall where I at least have all my lunches - etc. I was hungry for lunch today and thought "hmm...I can't have my usual chicken salad because it would take way too long to make it - and we don't have any light bread or turkey for a sandwich...". What to do?? So, I had to make a run to the store to pick up some stuff. I certainly didn't mind, especially since the store is only a few blocks away from the house, but it's just those things that you take for granted in your own home.
The trip home itself wasn't bad - I took some grapes and I stopped at the gas station and got some baked chips and half a turkey sub for the ride home (it's a 3 1/2 hour drive and I hadn't had lunch yet). And each night Mom has made sure to either ask me what I want for dinner ahead of time, or make sure that she's making something I can eat. But, another challenge has still been that my daily schedule is interrupted. At work I have a pretty structured life...I live by my calendar. I eat breakfast first thing in the morning, I eat lunch at noon, and I try to eat dinner between 5:30-7 depending on after work meetings and my work outs. That is definitely not the schedule I keep at home. To start with, I'm on vacay...I let myself sleep in! Now, "sleeping in" means sleeping until 10:00am, not the sleeping until 1:00pm that it used to be. But, it still means I'm getting a later start on my day. I'm still eating a small breakfast when I get up, but it's pushing my lunch back a bit then. So now I'm eating lunch around 2:00...and then eating dinner around 7. It's just taking some getting used to. I got spoiled with my structure and having almost all of my meals prepared for me and now I see what it's like for others.
The other big challenge I have had so far is that my exercise routine pretty much centers around the tv...whether it's the Dancing with the Stars video or the Wii dancing, it needs the tv. There is a tv in my bedroom, but generally not enough room to exercise. And the tv in the living room is shared by the whole family, which makes it difficult to get my exercise in on my normal schedule too. The fam has been great about letting me get it in, (and actually doing it with me!) but I still feel bad taking up their tv time, and even more so about taking up the whole living room. So, I've been doing what I can and then supplementing it with more work on the yoga ball. I almost forgot that I had bought one years ago until my sister reminded me that it was still deflated in the box. So, I used all my hot air and blew it up! I've been showing them all the crazy exercises I do on it, but who else but your family won't make fun of you for the strange positions you put yourself in while exercising? And thankfully, younger brother gave me a great idea to enhance one of the exercises I already did!
Overall, my trip hasn't been too difficult, I just need to learn how to not be so spoiled! There is a Weight Watcher meeting here, but it's on Tuesday unlike my normal Monday. At least I can still go weigh in and it won't be too far off from my normal time! Let's hope their scales aren't too different from my regular...
Initial weight: 257.2
Week 8: -3.6
Total weight loss: -19 lbs
Current weight: 238.2
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