Finally!

A big removal week!

I've been dreaming of this--and doesn't it figure? It comes on the early weigh in week. I weighed in today since I don't want to bother with all of it while I am on vacation for 11 days, plus there is no meeting near my dad's house. Don't believe me? Go to the WW site and type in Zip code 13690 for "find a meeting". Doesn't exist!

So I went today and weighed in and I've lost 4.6 pounds! I really didn't think that would be the case. Yesterday was the first time I knowingly went over my points, and my activity has been down this week from last week--PLUS I weighed in 3 days early!

It feels so good. So good.

And I'm even more grateful now for my Saturday meetings, which are nice and quiet and the people are respectful. Today's meeting was out of control and people were a little bit snide towards one woman who kept making (admittedly) long drawn out points that seemed to go nowhere...

Anyway, who cares!? 4.6 gone! A total of 17.8. WOO HOO!

Now comes the real challenge--vacation, with family, all having cook outs and barbeques, and cake and cookies and desserts and my great-grandma's potato salad. But if I can survive that, i can survive anything. :-)

Interesting

We were sitting around the other night and I asked the General, "Where does weight go when you lose it?" He didn't know either, so I asked Joe, who said, "It's turned into energy." But he couldn't explain how you convert matter to energy.

So I just looked it up. And it's a very interesting process.

The answer from the Mayo Clinic is:

When you consume fewer calories than your body needs, your body turns to fat for energy. Your fat cells (triglycerides) provide the fuel for this energy.

Through a series of complex metabolic processes, triglycerides are broken down into two different components — glycerol and fatty acids — which are absorbed into your liver, kidney and muscle. Here, these components are further broken down by chemical processes that ultimately produce energy for your body.

The heat generated through these activities is used to help maintain your body temperature. The waste products that result are water and carbon dioxide. You excrete water primarily in urine and sweat and carbon dioxide in air exhaled from your lungs.

And I just read on the Highlights site that the biggest percentage of weight loss comes from breathing out carbon dioxide and water.

Very interesting.

Drive By

Just got home from the meeting and wanted to drop a quick note to let everyone know I lost 2.6 pounds this week, for a total of 13.2.

We're heading to Richmond. Bye for now!

What's Cookin'?

Well, as much fun as it is to pull a frozen meal out and have the points already calculated for me, the time came to get back to some cooking. Those frozen meals from WW and other similar companies have TONS of sodium in them, so it's better if I get cooking from scratch.

I went on the WW website and downloaded a whole pile of recipes. We've tried a few this week and it went pretty well. I only got recipes I thought the General would eat and he has enjoyed them.

So far, we've tried Southern-style oven fried chicken and cheeseburger casserole. I also made macaroni and cheese for myself. The chicken and casserole were fantastic. The chicken is only 5 points per serving and the casserole is 4. The mac and cheese was not that great--it was OK but nothing to write home about. But at 5 points, I could hardly complain. And since I don't cook with salt, I could limit the sodium nicely.

We did wind up dipping our chicken in bbq sauce, and I put salsa on my cheeseburger casserole, while the General smothered his in ketchup (of course). They weren't exactly bland, but they needed some pizazz. Salsa and bbq sauce do nicely, and salsa is a free food, while BBQ sauce and ketchup are only a point.

Tomorrow we're going to try a sausage hero and this weekend we'll try a meatloaf. Then I'll have to find some more recipes to keep us going. But the General gave everything so far a thumbs up and that's all I need to know. And the recipes have been fairly simple to prepare, as an added bonus.

The Boobs Are the First To Go

Hmpf.

Last night I had to go pick up a bra to wear to The Wedding. I honestly don't have a clue what size bra I wear, and I've taken some measurements and tried some bras on and none of them seem to fit right. However, I decided to go with what I thought was the correct measurement after putting my measurements in on line--a couple of sizes larger than I thought and than I was wearing.

Well, The Ladies were lovin' the bra I tried on since they had room to breathe, but no real support, I'll be quite honest. So I had the salesgirl go get me a bra in the size I was currently wearing.

Too big again.

I've gone down a cup size. My sister had a lot of fun strapping me into that torture chamber (only a man would have invented a long line strapless bra), but The Ladies are slowly deflating...

I cursed her out for making me go on a diet--she suggested that if I was that stressed out about a dress, I could diet for 6 weeks up to her wedding and then go back to doing what I wanted afterwards... She said it was all my fault I joined Weight Watchers and it was actually working.

Then we started snickering, but I could scarcely breathe so we had to stop.

I'm going to look hot in that dress, which came on Friday and which I L-O-V-E love. And I'll love not wearing it when it gets too big :-)

Removal Again

So, I was a bit worried this week because I let the counting fall by the wayside just a bit and a few times I had no idea what I was eating would "cost" in terms of points. For instance, the General and I planned to go to Uno's for dinner on Thursday, but when we got to the mall, the Uno's had closed! So we went to Sbarro's. I find in these cases, I have a tendency to undereat, as opposed to overeat, because I'm so nervous about the points values.

So today, I got up at 6:30, not having gone to bed till 1:30 with preparations for the shower underway until the wee hours, and dragged myself over there. I felt good about weighing in, but I didn't think it would be much--I thought maybe a pound or two.

In fact, it was 3.8! I've lost over 10 pounds, now at 10.6 pounds gone. I'm in shock. I got another sticker this week and a big round of applause from the group. I'm so, so happy.

So today at the shower, I've modified the recipes a bit to keep them low, but I'm just going to enjoy myself. I lose a point again this week, so I'm down 2 points from where I started, but I don't mind. I haven't been using them all anyway.

So that's the news from the 'burg. Back to decorating and cooking! :-)

Weekly Weigh In

So, I rolled out of bed this morning at 6:37 and still managed to hit my meeting at 6:48 somehow. I am not big on getting ready in the morning.

Anyway, I was driving there and thinking, "I feel kinda blobby, I know I've gained weight." Really psyching myself out. "Why am I bothering?" negative talk.

But I got there and stepped on the scales, and lo and behold, I've lost another 4.8 pounds, bringing my total to 6.8 in 2 weeks. I got my first 5 pound sticker for my bookmark :-)

I almost cried there and then. I was so proud of myself. This week, I was really, really proud of myself. I cut back on the exercise a bit from week one, where I was REALLY burning it up, and I tried to space out my points better--consequently 2 days I left zero points behind and one day I went over by .5 points. I am not using the Flex points, preferring to leave them instead in case I miscalculate somehow with the regular points. I'm sure that will change as my points go down and I feel the need for more!

So it's been fun and interesting. The General and I are good motivators for each other--on the days I don't feel like exercising, he gets me up and vice versa. We are both paying strict attention to portions, but still enjoying ourselves.

This week was a real challenge--Saturday, Sunday, AND Monday I was faced with buffets for dinner... An event at Jacalyn's church on Saturday evening was chock full of goodies, but I tried to eat a lot of crudites, which I think helped. Sunday evening we lost power for 7 hours, and I felt like challenging myself with how I could do in the face of all that food, so we went to the Golden Corral. And Monday night was book club, which is always a pot luck.

What is hard is not knowing how something is prepared or what's in it. I try to go armed with a bit of knowledge about what the general idea of the points for something might be. Like book club night--I knew what everyone was bringing, but I wasn't entirely sure how it was prepared. I went on the ETools and plugged in everything and got a basic idea of what the points values were and how much I could eat. Then I promptly left the list sitting on my desk at work. So I ate approximately half of what the actual numbers were, not intentionally, but more out of fear of going over.

This week I got the New Member Deluxe Kit thingy, and so now I can have the booklets with me if I get desperate. I think that will help.

Some things that I really like are the WW giant fudge bars--delicious and only 1 point each. I ran out of them, so I'm going to have to get some more. I also really like the Etools--I hate using that tracker thingy and writing everything down all the time. I much prefer going to the computer and plugging it in. I also like the points system--it feels good to be able to know very quickly and easily if I can/should eat more in a given day. It is very hard to use up the points--the days I've used them up are generally days I am "drinking calories" as Melissa says and have a soft drink.

Things I don't like: multigrain waffles from Target. I finished the box this morning. No more. So heavy and hard to eat! I'm also not at a point I can tell what a serving size is very easily for something like a piece of chicken or some mashed potatoes or something. We went to Ruby Tuesday's the other night and before we went, I looked up their menu and picked something out. But as we were driving over there, I got to thinking that maybe the information was only for the chicken and not also for the potatoes and the broccoli and the garlic bread. So I only ate half my dinner, and good thing too! I don't know what they do to broccoli over there that turns it into a 3 point food, but sheesh!

So I'm learning. But for now, I'm going to celebrate that there is 6.8 pounds less of me than there used to be. And keep on trucking!!! I've got a dress to fit into in 4 weeks. :-D