283.0

Sometimes I forget to eat. In those moments, I feel like there is hope for me. Not because I want to stop eating altogether. That certainly wouldn't be healthy. There is hope because I didn't think about food for an hour. If I can stop thinking about food for an hour, then there is hope that food won't consume so much of my thoughts. When I get to that point, I don't think my weight will be much of an issue any more.

I know I haven't posted in a while. I'm not attended Weight Watchers any more. Financially, it just wasn't a good fit for our family. Joseph and I are still trying to make better decisions about food.

I had a doctor's appointment the other day, and I weighed in at 283.0. That means I'm down 17 pounds. No complaints here!

287.0

OK, folks, I'm all about honesty here. I am SHOCKED that the scale read 287.0 today. I went in fully expecting to have gained at least 5 pounds. I'm a little bloated, and I've been eating pretty much whatever I've wanted for the last week or two. So, to hear that I've lost 2.4 pounds nearly floored me.

I've asked Joseph to be in prayer with me. I don't want to develop a complex that I can eat whatever I want and still lose weight. I know that isn't true. My bad choices most certainly will catch up with me.

Joseph was sweet today and reminded me that although we've made some bad choices lately, we're still doing better than we were. That was a good reminder for me. We're making progress. That was our biggest goal.

I'm down a total of 13.4 pounds. Weighing in at 287, I'm almost where I was when we started dieting last fall. Maybe in a couple of months I'll be where I was when we stopped dieting. I'm 1.6 pounds away from my 5% goal of 15 pounds (that's 5% of my starting weight). It's exciting to be so close!

Thanks again for your prayers and encouragement. They're much appreciated!

289.2

YAY!! I lost 4.2 pounds this week (likely from debloating ... haha!). That brings my total weight loss to 11.2 pounds. I'm excited! Thank you for the encouragement!

I'm Proud of My Decision!

Joseph and I celebrated an anniversary today. One year ago today, Joseph asked me to be his girlfriend (hehe). (I said yes.) He asked me after we had eaten lunch at Moe's, one of our favorite little restaurants. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Moe's, think Mexican food, Subway style. You go down the line and tell them what you want on your meal. It's GREAT! In honor of our anniversary, Joseph and I decided to eat lunch at Moe's today.

The Billy Barou is my favorite Moe's entree. It's basically chicken nachos ... a pile of tortilla chips, chicken, shredded cheese, black beans, lettuce, and a whole lot of queso. MMMM!

I knew from previous research that the Billy Barou is pretty fattening ... as in 94 or 96 grams of fat fattening. I didn't know how many Weight Watchers points were in it, though. So, before we went to lunch, I did the research. Moe's website has one of the BEST nutritional guides I've ever seen. You can add and remove ingredients and watch how it affects the overall nutritional value of the menu item. I love it. Once I built a Billy Barou the way I enjoy eating it, I plugged in all of the info to calculate the WW points ... a whopping 38! With my extra points I'm allowed to use during the week, I could have eaten it. I just didn't feel right about it.

That led me to do more research. I plugged in several different menu items and calculated the points values for them. I discovered that a chicken rice bowl (minus the chipotle ranch dressing) was 10 points. That's still a lot of points in Weight Watchers world, but it was definitely more doable.

I felt good going to Moe's knowing that I was armed with the knowledge to make a sound, educated decision. I could eat the Billy Barou if I wanted. I would just have to take the 38 points. Or I could eat one of several other options for fewer points. I ended up choosing the rice bowl, and I'm really proud of my decision. I was actually full about halfway through it, which means I didn't even consume all 10 points!

I wrote all of the information down in the back of my Dining Out Companion (unfortunately, Moe's isn't featured in the book, but there are several pages for notes in the back of the book). Now we'll be prepared if we choose to go to Moe's again. I feel good about that!

Side note ... I was up .4 pounds this week. Based on where I am in my cycle (sorry if that was TMI!!), I'm not worried at all about .4 pounds! I'm glad it wasn't 10!!

I hope you all have a great weekend!

293.0

I'm pretty shocked! I can't lie. My Weight Watchers group didn't meet last week, so today was the first time I've weighed in two weeks. During those two weeks, I haven't been the best at staying on track. I've stumbled a lot. Alas, I lost 3.8 pounds (bringing my total weightloss to 7.4). No complaints here!

Joseph and I are meeting with a personal trainer tonight. No, we didn't win the lottery, and we won't be meeting with a trainer on a regular basis. The gym we joined gives new members an hour with a trainer to go over how to use the equipment properly and whatnot. I'm hoping he'll be able to give us some good advice on how to work out most effectively so we can lose weight and tone our muscles.

Thank you for your continued prayers and encouragement! I really appreciate you!

A Good Hour

Joseph and I just returned from the gym. We've kind of sort of joined Pivotal Fitness. It offers everything we want/need, and we don't even really have to leave our neighborhood to reach our destination. Their facilities are really convenient for us.

We met with one of their managers yesterday after work, and we talked a little about our goals. It's a little difficult for me looking at someone and saying "I need to lose 150 pounds", but I know I'll never reach my goals if I'm not honest about them. If I had said something ridiculous like "I need to lose 20 pounds", he probably would have called me on the carpet anyway!

The manager told us it's a good idea to do about 7-10 minutes worth of cardio, then weights, then another 30-45 minutes of cardio. He said we'll achieve a better workout that way. So that's what we did today! Well, we did 7 minutes of cardio, weights, and then 20 minutes of cardio. I wussed out and didn't feel up to pushing myself through those last 10 minutes. Maybe next time we'll do 25 and then 30 the next time. We'll reach that point!

I feel really good right now. I know I just did a good thing for my body. I know I just honored the Lord with how I spent my time, because He has charged me with the task of caring for my earthly body. I also was able to spend some good, quality time with my husband. All in all, a good hour!

296.8

I'm trying not to be discouraged about gaining .8 pounds. I'm sure I'm just bloated or something. It could even be a difference in the clothes I was wearing. It still stings a little. I know I messed up a few times over the week (sigh ... Billy Barou, I still love you), but I still felt like we were successful overall.

We've kept up our streak of cooking dinner every night. We're up to almost 2 weeks straight! Again, as I've mentioned before, this is REALLY good for us! I acknowledge that has been a positive change. The only times we ate fast food were when we ate healthy options from Chick-fil-a (the chargrilled chicken and fruit salad ... so good and only 7 points for the salad, crunchy, yummy granola, and fat free honey mustard dressing).

We also went to the gym and worked out 4 times. That was 4 times more than we've been in the last, hmmm, oh, I'd say at least 6 or 7 months.

So we're doing OK! I can shed that extra weight in no time if I stick to the plan this week.

One of my goals this go 'round is to be more forgiving of myself. Not forgiving to the point of making excuses to do anything I want, but forgiving enough that I can make a mistake and move on. If I gave in to temptation and ate snacks at community group, I'm going to acknowledge where I could have planned ahead and try to learn from it.

In the past, I've let my mistakes pile up on me and turn into excuses to make more mistakes, which just ultimately resulted in me giving up on the diet completely. I don't want to do that this time.

As I was walking to my car after work today, I had an idea that I might pursue. I think I'm going to make a weight loss box. It will contain things such as pictures and lists of reasons I want to lose weight. When I'm feeling discouraged and want to quit the diet, I'm going to pull out my box and remind myself why I'm dieting in the first place.

If I go through with my plan for the box, I'll post some photos and whatnot that will give you a glimpse inside the box (Doesn't that sound thrilling? I don't mean that sarcastically ... I love it when people offer me glimpses inside boxes!).

296.0

I attended a Weight Watchers meeting today and had my first week weigh-in. I've lost 4.4 pounds. Not too bad, huh? (Joseph has lost 6.8! I'm SO proud of him!)

I confess that I didn't stick to the WW plan 100% this past week. Joseph and I talked about it some, and we felt like stressing over sticking to the plan just wouldn't work for us. We knew that if we grew unhappy about our diet (lifestyle change?), we would just quit after a few weeks. We don't want that to happen.

So we decided to focus on one big change last week: planning ahead and preparing our meals at home. I'm convinced one of the main reasons we've both gained so much weight over the last year is because we relied pretty heavily on fast food. As of tonight, we will have prepared dinner at home 5 nights in a row, which is really good for us! We've also been packing lunch boxes every day with snacks and lunches. That works well for us.

I think our week 2 focus is going to be exercising. We went to the gym this evening, and we have passes for 4 more days for free. If it seems like something we could continue easily, I think we'll join.

Keep us in your prayers, please. We want to stick with it this time! Thanks!

300.4

I just thought I'd hit you in the face with that number, because it certainly hit me in the face when I saw it. That's my current weight (well, at least as of about 11:45 AM yesterday). Shocker - serious shocker.

I remember watching The Rosie O'Donnel Show several years ago. She was commenting on her current weight and the fact that it was the highest it had ever been. Rosie shared how every time she reached her new highest weight, she would look at the scale and say something to the effect of, "Woah, that's a new high. I'm never weighing more than this." Then she would diet, lose weight, stop dieting, gain weight, step on the scale and say, "Woah, that's a new high. I'm never weighing more than this."

I don't relate with Rosie O'Donnel on very many things, but I certainly can relate to her in this area. That's my life! That's my cycle! I've done this more times than I care to remember. Just read this blog if you need proof. In this post, I shared my starting weight of 286 on that particular diet journey. In my last post, on September 19th, I shared that I was down to 272.5. I was really excited because I was down 13 1/2 pounds in 4 weeks. Well, approximately 8 months later, I've gained 27.5 pounds. Scary, huh? At that rate, I'm going to have my own 1 hour special on TLC.

So, I'm starting another leg of the weight loss journey. Joseph (MY HUSBAND) and I are trying Weight Watchers. It's a diet plan that works, and I think it will be flexible enough for our lifestyle. It's convenient, too. A group of us are attending meetings in the building where I work once a week during lunch (the meetings are once a week during lunch - I don't only work once a week during lunch). I attended my first meeting yesterday, and I was encouraged by how doable WW seems to be this go 'round.

My first goal is to lose 5% of my current weight, which rounds out to about 15 pounds. That's totally doable! I'm trying not to think too much about my ultimate goal. I haven't even set it yet. I'm just working on the first 15 pounds. Truthfully, I'm just working on doing better than I have been - on not gaining any more weight! With the Lord's help, a little encouragement, and some good old fashioned discipline, 300.4 WILL be the highest number I ever see on the scale!