Amen!

I was so disgusted last week with a 0.2 GAIN that I just couldn't post. I was so aggravated at how long it was taking to get to 60 that I was prepared to call it "game over" and move on with my life. But you all know my husband, and he's Mr. Don't Quit, so I persevered.

I was flat out determined to make 60 this week. Wednesday I didn't have time to exercise until 11:30pm, but I did it. Thursday and Friday I did double exercise--Richard Simmons for 30 minutes and Wii Fit step aerobics and jogging for 30 minutes.

This morning I woke up before 6am and I did another 10 minutes Wii Fit. I was hopeful--Wii Fit said I'd lost 2.6, but I don't trust that wily little machine to be in synch with the scale at the WW meeting.

So I drove over there this morning freezing my butt off, and honestly, I didn't feel any different. I just kept praying "Please, I just need to lose 0.6 to hit sixty, that's all I'm asking."

I stepped on the scale and the loss was beyond what I could have hoped--2 pounds even, for a sum total of 61.4. HALLELUJAH! When they announced it at the meeting, the place went crazy. And one guy even came up to me afterwards just to shake my hand and tell me to keep up the good work! What a feeling :)

I spent 3 weeks hovering at 56 and 3 more weeks hovering at 59, and I don't care if I have to kill myself with the aerobics, I don't want to do that again. It's nice to get an idea of what maintenance would feel like, but I don't want to maintain my current weight!! I want to lose it. So time to keep plugging. Plus, I'm a mere 8.6 pounds away from weighing the same as my sister--for the first time in FOREVER. So I gotta teach her who's the boss! (I'm gunning for you, Judith.)

This week, I am going to attempt to join Russell on the "no carb" diet to an extent--I've decided to make soda something I have when I'm out. I drink way too much of it, even the diet stuff. And Cherry Coke Zero has become my new drug of choice. Since we're eating out a lot less, I'm hoping that I can cut my soda intake in half and start drinking a LOT more water. I've got last summer's Crystal Light Lemonade stash in the cupboard, but lemonade seems like such a summertime drink, and it's been so freakin' cold here, I can't even think of drinking it. So water and Fruit20 will be my new beverages of choice for now. We'll see how it goes!

Ummm... No

We were sitting through the meeting today and our leader pointed out the page in the new pocket guide where we can find zero point condiments to add to our foods.

Two of the listed "freebies" were baking soda and baking powder.

When was the last time you thought, "Geez, you know what would be really great on this? A sprinkle of baking powder."

Yeah, me either.

I'll Take It, But I Don't Have to Like It

So, this week I needed to lose one stupid pound to get to 60. And guess what? I didn't. I lost 0.6. Zero Point Six! DANGIT! This sucks!

Yeah, I'm kinda cheesed. I mean, at least I didn't go up, and on the heels of last week's good loss, I kinda thought I'd have less of a loss this week to make up for it, but 0.6!? That's the best my metabolism could do? It couldn't stretch out another lousy four tenths?

Oh well, I'll be celebrating next week instead. This was a hard week--I just read Annette's blog and she said she was hungry this week. Well, so was I. I dipped into the M&Ms on the counter and the Hershey kisses. And I got seriously into oatmeal raisin cookies this week. Why? I dunno, but they tasted really good to me.

Another habit I've noticed that I have is that when I get home and I'm starting to make dinner, I have to eat. I just sit there and snack while I'm cooking. I know full well that dinner will be in x number of minutes, but I'm snacking. So I'm going to try and find something healthy to snack on, since I don't seem able to break that habit--some veggies or something.

Yesterday being in the car so long (I logged 256 miles yesterday--is that ridiculous or what?!), as I was driving home, I was completely exhausted. I stopped over at Sheetz to pick up a caffienated beverage and I got some Sunchips as well, since I hadn't eaten since 11:00 and it was 5:30. I guesstimated correctly the points in the Sunchips, but definitely needed to do more planning, as I wound up with a 0 point soup and salad for dinner. Those soups are actually pretty filling, but watching my husband sink his teeth into a chicken cutlet sandwich made the soup seem like a poor second choice.

Well, we'll see what happens this week. No book club, which should help, as should being able to exercise daily! However, with the 4 day weekend, I'm cooking at least 3 and possibly 4 countries this weekend, so that may well stunt things a bit. We'll see!

WOO HOO!

So, I weighed in yesterday, and didn't get a chance to post until today. I had a very good week last week, dropping 2.8 for a total loss of exactly 59 pounds on the nose. This leaves me with a total of 7.2 pounds to lose before Valentine's Day to reach my mini goal of 10 pounds and only 5 more pounds to hit my secondary goal of 64 pounds lost. After a very slow (but I'm not complaining!) month of December, a bigger drop like this felt great.

Even better, I went shopping at Walmart for our party and decided to grab a cheap pair of jeans while I was in there. On a whim, I bought a pair that was a size smaller than most of my pants and two sizes smaller than what I was wearing at my heaviest weight. I brought them home, put them on, and they fit like a glove!!! I ran downstairs yelling, "I HAVE SKINNY JEANS! I HAVE SKINNY JEANS!" I made the General check 'em out. Wow did that feel good.

I also punched my start numbers and current numbers into the BMI calculator on the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute website. It appears that my BMI has dropped exactly 9 points now. This is also quite exciting.

So, I'm back on the ole horse now full swing into 2009. Things are looking good and feeling great. Today I was running up and down the stairs, hauling boxes of china and Christmas decorations. I didn't notice anything about my ability to do so until my sister stopped me and said, "Last year, you had were out of breath constantly." Wow. Now that's impressive!

Hopefully next week I'll get a nice 5 pound star. My brother-in-law is considering joining up this week, so we talked about it all day today. The General is feeling great too and his pants and shirts are all getting looser every day. I think we're all going to be much, much healthier come the end of 2009!

Mmmmmm-kay

Well, I went to the meeting today with a heavy heart. Confession time: I did not track in December. Oh sure, a day here and there, but mostly I just kind of ate and made best guesses in my head. Not good, but I figured, "Well, it's the holidays."

By and large, my weigh-ins were pretty good. For the month of December, I lost a total of 3.6 pounds. But this week, I even gave up on the guessing. I just wanted to eat me some food. It probably had a lot to do with everyone leaving, the holidays being essentially over, a release of stress, and maybe just a little bit of not giving a damn.

We had tons of Chinese food on New Year's Eve. I made a huge ham and scalloped potatoes for New Year's Day, topped off with a Pepperidge Farm coconut cake--the height of celebrating as far as I'm concerned. I made veggie dip, which Jacalyn helped eat, and though I used FF sour cream and light mayo, I still felt like "eh, whatever" and just ate it. I mean, white and creamy is white and creamy, so it's probably not that great for you regardless. I ate candy. I baked scones and ate them with clotted cream. We had pizza for dinner the last two nights--and at Jacalyn's, I ate a piece of deep dish supreme from Papa John's and I used the garlic butter on the crust. The week was a veritable orgy of good eats.

And I only formally exercised twice.

So this morning I trudged into WW with a heavy heart. Oh, I didn't regret what I'd done, but I had a bad feeling. My main goal on WW has always been not to have to repeat an award. For every five pounds you lose, you get a 5 pound star. And I've never had to re-win the stars before. I just got my 55 pound star a few weeks ago.

Well, guess what? The trend holds. By some miracle, I only re-gained 0.2 pounds, giving me a 2008 total of 56.2 pounds gone. (I am resetting the group total for 2009--so we're all back to square one! Let's see what we can lose in 2009!) I came through the holidays with a total loss of 3.4 pounds. This is nothing short of miraculous. The world did not end because I didn't bake cookies. My world did not end when I didn't bake for work.

But to be honest, my daily points allowance is 34 and I couldn't tell you what 34 points worth of food looks like. So this week, I get back to tracking. Back to daily activity. The people at the meeting rave about what a good walk does for you on a bad day, so if I get into a dark mood--which is almost sure to happen on Monday when I return to work from 2 weeks away--I'm going to take a walk. It's so freakin' freezing that I might have to do it at the mall or something, but I'll do it.

At our meeting, we were encouraged to set a goal for Valentine's Day week, which is 6 weeks away. I think I will set a goal of TRACKING and trying to lose 10 pounds. That's less than two pounds per week, so hopefully I'll be able to get it done. I will go back to guesstimating what we have at book club, and being pretty on target for everything else. The big hurdle will be our Three Kings dinner on the 10th, but I am usually so busy I don't get to eat until dinner, so I'm thinking that might not be an issue either. Plus it's on a Saturday after I weigh in, so I'll have the whole week to work it off. And if that doesn't work, I'll head down to the Mediterranean market on the corner where Eyup takes great delight in telling me how much weight I could lose if I ate there regularly and let him take my self esteem down a few pegs.

All in all, a very satisfactory result after a week of prolonged naughtiness. Back on track, onwards!