Weekly Weigh In Report

I had a good feeling today when I pulled on my capris. I had a feeling things were going to go well. For one thing, my calves have become rock solid courtesy of step aerobics. My legs are a bit more toned and my pants are fitting a lot less snugly. Plus my shirt felt great too.

Little did I suspect a loss of 2.6 however! This brings my total loss to 66.8. If I lose another 1.2 pounds, I'll have lost 20 percent of my original body weight. That's my goal for this week. 1.2 pounds.

I didn't get to 'claim my fame' today and get my 5 pound star because we had a new lifetime member today, so I'll have to do it next week. I am so excited that things are back on track. I've even found tracking not so onerous this week. I've been planning what I eat more and that's helped. But also, I've been doing pen and paper tracking since I'm tired of typing things in. I will use the computer to look up points if need be, but more or less, I have it in my head what my favorite foods are and I can keep good track.

I've also been making better decisions now. I love Panera's mediterranean veggie sandwich. A whole sandwich is 12 points. I also love their shortbread cookies, which clock in at 3, and their chips, another 3. So I order a half sandwich and then add the chips and cookie to make up for it. With a half a classic cafe salad, it's a more than filling meal and I get all my favorites.

I seem to start panicking when I have less than 20 points left. Even though I know I still have lots of points for dinner when I hit 19, it seems when the magic number pops up, my brain starts thinking HORDE THOSE POINTS! I'm not sure what to do about it--twice this week after dinner I had 5-7 points left and I was like, "Well, now what!? Mini bags of popcorn are only a half a point!" So I'm trying to relax a little bit. I guess I am programmed to eat a big dinner, I dunno, and so when those points start disappearing, I start panicking. Anyone else have this problem? Some people in my meeting start their daily points totals at dinner. After they eat dinner, whatever they have left has to get them through breakfast, lunch, and snacks the next day till dinner again. I've thought about it, since the most points I've ever had for breakfast is 4, and lunch usually hovers between 10-12. I guess the mindset might be different, I dunno.

That's all from here! Let's hope next week is a 1.2!

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.

Momentum Sunday

This weekend we were making out our shopping list and when asking my husband what he wanted for dinner this week, the list read largely like the list a triumphant seven year old with overindulgent parents might put together: hot dogs, pizza, chicken fingers. Not so, thought I! I'm cracking open the new Momentum cookbook and preparing some new and tasty dishes.

I decided to try two different recipes, one for lunch and one for dinner. I was dying to try the "Best Ever BLTs". I haven't had a BLT since long before I joined WW, but I do like them. I was a bit skeptical about trying turkey bacon, but in for a penny, in for a pound, so I bought some on my shopping excursion Sunday morning.

Well, I don't know if it's the best ever BLT, but it is pretty darned good. It should be called an ABLT, as it has avocado included on it. I like avocado, but if I make this again, which I probably will as I have an entire package of turkey bacon looking for a good excuse to be eaten, I might leave off the avocado.

The pesto mayonnaise was a fantastic touch, and very easy to prepare. I really enjoyed it instead of plain mayonnaise, which I am not that crazy about. The turkey bacon was fine, not as good as the real thing, perhaps, but knowing it was a healthier choice kind of pushed me towards it as a certainly viable option.

Overall, I'd give this recipe a B+/A-. I really enjoyed eating a good BLT and this was no exception. The minor quibbles I had with it weren't worth getting too excited about. I used Pepperidge Farm 15 grain bread, which I recommend. As you all remember, when I started eating a lot of fiber and grain bread products, I had a very difficult time. Eventually I switched to Nature's Own Whitewheat on Lauren's suggestion, which has proved very satisfactory. But the picture of that bread in the cookbook made me want to eat something more substantial, so I bought the 15 grain bread and had no problems with it whatsoever.

For dinner, we tried the turkey cutlets milanese. Since joining WW, we have pretty much been on a chicken and turkey diet. We never liked to eat too much beef anyway--it was rare I would make something like beef stroganoff, and we never ate steak or roasts or anything of that nature. The only beef we were big on was ground beef for things like tacos or burgers. However, even that we have mostly supplanted with ground turkey now. I swear, we are going to sprout feathers and either cluck or gobble. Apparently, there is a WW booklet coming called "Beyond chicken" and I am lokoing forward to that.

So, I am on the prowl for new poultry recipes to jazz up our menu of fowl. (Nyuk nyuk) I found this turkey cutlets Milanese and decided that it sounded like a good Sunday dinner kind of thing. I have never made turkey cutlets before, but I do make chicken cutlets, which Michael and I both LOVE to eat, and I figured turkey cutlets would be pretty similar.

The recipe was easy enough to follow, dipping the cutlets in a mixture of egg and lemon juice and then into a mixture of corn meal and parmesan cheese before sauteeing them in some olive oil. The result is a very nice, crisp cutlet that is quite flavorful. It does taste like turkey, and I don't know why that surprised me, but when I bit into it, I thought, "Wow, this actually tastes like turkey!" I guess I expected a milder kind of chickeny taste. I dunno.

Anyway, the recipe was quite good and garnered rave reviews from my other half. The cutlet is topped with a salad of greens and halved cherry tomatoes covered in a balsamic vinaigrette dressing, which I left off his portion. I served mine over a bed of Barilla Plus pasta and his with a side of mashed potatoes, and we were both most satisfied at the results. It was very filling and a nice twist on what could have been another ho hum poultry dinner. I will say that I didn't taste the lemon in it at all. If it was there, it was so subtle as to be overpowered by the parmesan and salad dressing, which is fine with me as I am not a big lemon fan anyway. I don't hate it, I just don't love it. I would give this one a grade of A. We both really enjoyed it.

So thus endeth Momentum Sunday. I plan to try the Thai shrimp salad this weekend when I have company around to help me eat it, as I don't think The General will stand for it. He can have hot dogs or something! Hope everyone is having a good week out there!

Weekly Report

Well, since I had a loss today, I am reporting in early :-) I credit this week's 2 pound loss to the new DVD. That thing makes me work it, while at the same time having fun. The added bonus is that it's exactly the same amount of time as the General is on the treadmill, so we start and finish at the same time and can sit on the couch and groan together. Fun!

I am now down 54.8, so it maybe sucks just a little bit that I didn't hit 55 this week, but oh well! Next week.

I can hardly believe it's December and I'm actually losing. It has helped tremendously that I'm not baking yet--this is often my baking weekend. No Christmas goodies or snacks around, though, so that's been helpful.

I'm trying to think of a goal that I want to hit after I hit my 60 pound goal, which was my post-10% goal. 75 is the next logical step. I just need a deadline. Maybe by our anniversary in April, but that seems a bit far in the future. Still, one never knows what will happen, so it might be good to plan it like that.

I want to put in a plug for those new Progresso soups which have WW points values on the label. Yesterday I got home, and I knew I was short on points, but I wanted a snack, so I grabbed a zero point soup and ate half the can (one serving). It did a great job of a) filling me up and b) warming me up. I'm stocking up on them--lots of coupons, so we can get lots of soup!

Till next week...

Updates from the Kitchen and Gym...

I decided today that I was not going to sit around. I had been given permission to walk, and so I decided to hop up on the treadmill. I put Life of Brian in the VCR (man is the picture quality sucky) and decided to do a half an hour, which is still about 15 minutes less than the aerobics I was doing. I started out VERY slowly, and built up to a speed of about 2.4--I didn't want to go too fast because I was concerned about the knee. After 20 minutes or so, I had to slow it back down because my knee was really starting to hurt. But I did last the full 30 minutes and walked over a mile in that time, so I was pleased. I'll be doing that this week instead of worrying about not doing anything at all.

In signs that something is happening, I went to put on a shirt today and instead of the usual pulling on of the shirt, it literally slid right down over me like something out of a commercial for fabric softener. I never wear tight clothing, but usually there is some sort of adjusting or pulling down of the shirt. Not today. It just slid right on. I was like, "AWESOME!"

We continue to cook and find new things to appreciate in the kitchen. This weekend, I made the pumpkin apple bread out of one of the WW cookbooks. I know it's a fall food, but I really wanted something seriously sweet, and I wasn't going to settle for anything less. Unfortunately for me, this is not seriously sweet. It was actually kind of bland. It was very good, but not what I was expecting after a life time of apple breads, banana breads, etc. I will definitely kick up the amount of pie spice I put in there next time, since I could barely taste any, and I will try a different kind of apple. Still, it was a quick and easy bread to make and only 3 points per very ample slice.

Tonight I'm going to prepare a black bean, corn, and rice salad, since Lauren got me all hot and bothered with hers at our last book club meeting. The rice is sitting in my fridge cooling as I type. I hope I like brown rice. I'm a little ambivalent based on the taste test I had while determining if it was cooked or not.

We also discovered another variety of V8 juice that the General loves. It's a mixed berry type and he can't get enough of it. He told me this evening that he would drink the whole entire bottle if he could, but he didn't think it would be wise.

I won a bento box off Ebay and it arrived this past week. It's so cute, red with a little white bunny, pink flowers, and butterflies. I almost don't want to use it. If you've visited any bento sites, you'll see how detailed and lovely they get when they are filled. I assure you, I'm not making anything photography-worthy. But it will be nice to have this little box filled with my lunch and I'm hoping it will end my what-to-do-for-lunch-on-the-road conundrum. I've got a second box and some accoutrements arriving this week hopefully from a store in San Francisco, and hopefully with that I can start bentoing away. But I don't see myself getting up at 4am to lovingly slice miniscule pieces of red pepper and arrange them just so in order to create a perfect replica of the Mona Lisa in a box. Call me crazy.

We found out that our good friends Tim and Cheryl up in Boston have started WW this week. They are both visually impaired so we're going to be looking at the WW site to see if it's accessible. I did get kinda pissed off when Cheryl told me that she got some of the books in Braille from WW, but they didn't give them the entire equivalent of what's in the print books. When she called to complain, they informed her that they'd given her what was mandated to be provided. I call that capital B, capital S bullshit. Granted, Braille is bulky and can be costly to produce, but that's not her problem, that's theirs. Nice, WW, real nice. Anyway, it was so fun to talk to them about being on the program and swap tips and so forth. Michael's going to be staying with them in a couple weeks when he goes to Boston, lucky bum, but I am staying here. The four of us used to go out together, and Michael would have my arm, Tim would have Michael's arm, and Cheryl would have Tim's arm. Once we went out like that and it was pouring rain and they had on yellow rainslickers and I dubbed us The Puddle Duck Brigade. Good times, I miss them so much and hope they will come to DC sometime soon.

I guess that's about all. Dinner is over and I have 12 points left, so I'm going to allow myself some PB cups tonight, which is what I've been seriously dying for. I'm going to have them with my one serving that is left of Ben & Jerry's light chocolate brownie frozen yogurt--so good you'll never believe it's only 3 points.

And that's about it! Hope everyone else is having a good week. I've got my fingers crossed for my fellow weighers-in as their days approach!!! Let's see if we can break 200 collective pounds sometime by the end of September. :)

Some of the Nuts and Bolts

I thought I would post a few of the practical matters that I am following as part of my Weight Watchers experience. The last 2 or 3 meetings I've been to where I've broken a 5 pound barrier, the leaders have asked me to share what's been working for me.

1. Accountability: this is a big one, perhaps THE biggest one. I feel like having this blog up makes me accountable to you all in a way. Oh, none of you is going to come over and flog me if I mess up a week or two, but it feels good to share a loss and to report back that I've had a good week and lost something. I also feel some accountability to family members who have been supportive. Every week my sister calls on Saturday and asks me to relay my weight loss in terms of bags of sugar and boxes of butter. My husband is up and waiting when I get home from meetings, giving me big hugs and words of encouragement before we sit down to breakfast together and enjoy a nice Saturday morning. Having people around "real time" and "on line" who are checking my progress and encouraging me is helpful.

Additionally, stepping on that scale is a big time taskmaster. Getting on it the first time was a curse. I knew I didn't want to see the numbers that were going to come up, and I was right. It was a shock to the system. But now I actually look forward to it. I don't weigh myself at home, but I do look forward to seeing the numbers at the meetings so I can gauge my progress.

2. Not Going It Alone: I know that this is not something I am trying to do myself. Russell, Amy, Lauren, Annette, Michael, Emily, and Nancy are all doing it too. Plus I have the group at my meetings going through similar experiences. The day I joined, I sat down and read Annette's Weighty Matters blog from beginning to end, following it up with Russell and Amy's blogs about their experiences. Knowing some of the stumbling blocks they encountered helped me to see that I don't need to give up if I have a bad day. And I can talk about it with you all, which is amazing. I emailed the Southern Crew the first time I had a question and I had answers in minutes. It was so nice to know everyone is only an email away!

I really like my Saturday morning group, and although people have encouraged me to find a different group than Saturdays at 7am, it's a nice time for me to go, meet with people, and start off my weekend in a postive light. The losses I've seen lately have been a boon to my spirits, I really like Vicki, our group leader, and I like the way they give a total for the room of how much our group has lost on any given week. I feel like I'm contributing to something greater. And when you're away for a while, people welcome you back like a long lost relative. It's real nice. Plus the little "way to go" and "come back soon" postcards are so nice to receive. You really feel like you haven't been forgotten.

3. Making Smarter Food Choices: This hasn't been too difficult, but there have been a few issues. My number one issue is that I work on the road. It is so hard to eat a sensible lunch in the car, driving between clients. McD's is so convenient, fast, and cheap. I can pack a lunch, sure, but for some reason, I just never feel like it. I'm not hot on deli meat for sandwiches, I work in a LOT of remote territory where it's not easy to find a "to go" salad bar (which would be a royal pain in the butt anyway), and on and on. But ultimately, those are excuses. I've found sandwiches I enjoy and have found a blog on creating bento box lunches, which I am seriously considering... I've tried to arrange my schedule such that I can eat at home for lunch as much as possible--scheduling morning appointments around Stafford or Spotsylvania Counties and spending my afternoons in Prince William, Culpeper, Orange, or Fauquier Counties.

Otherwise, where food is concerned, I'm doing pretty well. It's helpful that Michael is on board with this whole thing, and we are making similar changes. For instance, it didn't used to be a challenge for the two of us to put away a couple of 12 packs of soda in 10-12 days. Now, we buy 2 six packs of 8 oz sodas and they last us the better part of two weeks. My soda intake is way down (I keep hearing Melissa in my head saying "Don't drink calories!") and I only drink a soda if I need a boost on a particularly tiring day. And then it's an 8 oz can and that's that. On occasions I'm just dying for a soda, I'll drink a diet soda, which typically curbs my taste for it for a long time. Otherwise I'm drinking water. If I get tired of water, I throw a Crystal Light lemonade to go in a bottle of water and I'm ready to rock and roll. It's a challenge, for sure, since I didn't like Crystal Light all that much at first, but it's not so bad when you get used to it. And I like lemonade, so that's helpful.

Food substitutions we've made: I've gone with Lauren's whitewheat bread, which is very good, we eat turkey burgers instead of beef, whole wheat pasta instead of white (I still prefer white, but I'm acclimating), fat free ranch or Newman's Own Salad Spray Balsamic Vinaigrette instead of high test salad dressings, Dove and Reese's minis instead of full size big candy bars, flat bread pizza instead of deep dish or rising crust, and 97% fat free hot dogs. I've also started eating sensible snacks like 100 calorie pack carrot cakes from Hostess (only 1 point) or WW Giant Fudge Bars.

Food eliminations: there's not too much we've given up, but we have basically given up most potatos except for potato chips. Michael's eating regular chips and I'm eating baked. We haven't had fries or mashed potatoes in I-don't-know-when. I have given up my (at times daily) Starbucks fix. I went there yesterday and got a chai frappucino and decided to splurge on a scone. And I'll be honest, that scone was fan-freakin'-tastic, but together, they came in at a whopping 19 points, and so for dinner, I had to have next to nothing to make up for it. Even with the activity points, I was so careful not to overeat at supper, I only had 6 points left!

Other food news: I went right to salads when I first started WW, and ate so much salad I thought I'd puke. I was also having trouble using up points that way. So ultimately, I decided I would go to the Giant salad bar, make a great big salad and eat a bit with dinner each night. That seems to be working really well for me and I'm getting in some veggies without going overboard. I like that I don't have to give up things that I love. Michael asked me tonight what I wanted for dinner--we wanted to celebrate having lived here in the 'burg for exactly 3 years--and what I really wanted was pizza and wings. So that's what we had, and it was delicious. And the points added up, so who am I to complain?

Weighing/Measuring: As for weighing and measuring my food, i was really pretty religious about it at first. but now I only do it when I'm packaging up leftovers to make little meals that I can grab and go. I don't want to have to worry about whether or not what I take out of the fridge is a certain number of points, so I bag them appropriately and then write the number of points on the bag. That way, I can do it without thinking.

4. Exercise/Activity: I've always been pretty active--I love walking around and can walk circles around lots of people. All spring I walked the Tidal Basin, and on my doctor's advice, to get extra steps, I don't park right near the entrance to the store any more. But now, when I have a break at work between appointments, rather than go to the Culpeper Library, I take some time to take a walk. If it's hot, I walk around Target or Super Walmart. If it's nice out, I park downtown wherever I am and walk the streets. Every night, Michael and I exercise together in the basement. He hits the treadmill and I roll with Richard Simmons. In addition to Sweating to the Oldies, which I've been doing nightly, I've got 60's Blast Off and Disco Sweat. Unfortunately (?), they are both a lot harder, so I'm sticking with Sweating, which I could do with my eyes closed and I'm putting a bit more oomph into it now to make up for what seems like a fairly easy routine. I've decided that as long as I love it, I'm going to do it. I will put more energy and motion into Sweatin' and that will hopefully keep me going until I'm ready to move to something more challenging.

5. Seeing Tangible Results: All my clothing fits better. I'm more comfortable in tight spaces (for instance, in my bathroom, the sink, tub, and toilet are all right in a tight little row with little wiggle room; theater seats; narrow aisles in stores). My bra size went down. I don't have as intense PMS cravings. (TMI?) My dress for my sister's wedding had to be taken in. My husband and I are having a much easier time sleeping because it's not as hard for us to roll over without disturbing each other--there's more room in the bed. Friends saying, "I can see the difference!" even if I can't. Not getting out of breath as easily when exercising or doing physical labor (hauling tables and chairs out of the church basement wasn't exactly easy, but it wasn't as hard as I'm sure it would have been had I been 20 pounds heavier!). My wedding rings are loose. And this is after only 2 months and 22 pounds.

6. Focusing on Myself: For far too long I've been taking care of many other people in my life. Now at age 32 11/12, I've realized I need and deserve to take care of myself so that I can be here for a long time to come. With the adoption getting underway, I can see a reason now to prolong my life--it will take long enough to have my child in my arms and I want to be with him/her for a long time afterwards. I feel like I can't do anything more for anyone else--I've given all I have to give. And now it's time to take some time for myself and do what I need to do to be happy and healthy.

7. Unintended benefits: Already, I've mentioned that Michael and I are now eating breakfast together on the weekends. This used to be unheard of. I am not a breakfast person. So usually, we would just sort of sleep till we felt like it, I'd get up and go downstairs and toodle around for a while before lunch and we'd meet up at lunch time for some food... Now we're spending our mornings touching base. We spend our evenings together exercising and discussing things after our routines. We are an even bigger source of support and encouragement to one another, and I never thought this would be an occasion to strengthen our marriage on a new level, but it has been!

8. Rewards: When all else fails, bribery is a good incentive. I no longer wish to see food as a reward, so as mentioned, I stole Annette's idea and decided to give myself a tangible reward for every 20 pounds gone. I had previously posted that I'd give myself a book from my wish list, but frankly, I am about drowning in books, and I feel like I need to have something a bit more "special". This weekend was my first time getting rewarded, and I decided to get a new game for the Wii. I picked a doozy--Emergency Mayhem--which when playing, I wound up laughing so hard I was weeping. Unfortunately, the city I was attempting to save didn't make out so well, and I hit a lot of people with my ambulance, but they had it coming. It felt nice to spend a little money on something that I wanted and that I had to work for to get. Michael and I have agreed that the only time I will stray from this formula is if I can get my hands on Wii Fit--I'm allowed to have that one any time I want it. Otherwise, new games will have to be earned.

So that's a lot of information, and it's probably not useful to anyone but me, but there it is. I'm heading to bed now. Hope you are all well and keep on losing! :-D

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.

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

Nothing Would Surprise Me Today Except for This

So, I went to bed last night leaving 1.5 points on my plate. I was trying to eat a snack at 10pm last night and I was like "This is just freakin' ridiculous. Uncle!"

I'm sure I'll look back on these days and think, "Yeah, remember the days I could eat anything?"

But anyway, something has come up that I did not expect.

I am having a hard time with whole grain or multigrain foods.

This morning I made frozen multigrain waffles and strawberries and about a halfway through breakfast, it got to be too much and I threw up. I didn't feel ill or anything, I guess it just felt too dense in my mouth or something, and I wound up losing it.

Tonight for dinner, I made the WW recipe of mushroom quesadillas, substituting a multigrain tortilla for my usual flour tortilla. While I didn't throw up, I had that same heavy feeling in my mouth of just not wanting to swallow. Fortunately I kept my meal down, but I wonder if anyone else had this problem when starting? Does this heaviness go away? Or maybe it's density? I don't know, but I don't like it.

Dinner is done and I still have 5 points left--Michael and I were laughing that I could eat 50 cups of 94% fat free popcorn after dinner--but I had some trail mix that was 5 points for 3 Tbsp, which is RIDICULOUS. Time was I would eat that entire bag. So that got me down to 5. I am going to have some dessert after Michael and I do our exercising, but I'm speculating I'll be leaving 2 points behind. We had a CRAZY afternoon here, which I'll blog about back on my main blog, but even so, I managed to sneak in a fudge bar. Those WW fudge bars are SO GOOD. Holy crap. I had no idea they would taste so good.

I am going strictly by the points on the website now, and so far, this is what 35 points have bought me for today:

Breakfast:
2 multigrain waffles with reduced calorie syrup
1/2 cup unsweetened fresh strawberries
1 c. cran raspberry juice

Lunch:
Turkey burger on multi grain roll
Salsa
Lettuce, 1 slice tomato, 1 slice onion
Just for One: Broccoli, Carrots, and Italian Seasoning

Snacks:
Fudge Bar
10 grape tomatoes with 1 T fat free ranch dressing

Dinner:
2 Cheese and Mushroom Quesadillas
1 c. lemonade
3T trail mix

That is a lot of damned food and I'm STILL behind. But as I pointed out to Michael, time was, I would sit and eat a bag of chips and not think about it. So now, I'm just having to think about it. I guess it seems like more because of it.

I also took some time today to plug my fave drink at Starbucks into the WW Points Calculator. A grande chai creme frappucino with whip weighs in at a cool 10 points. OUCH. Fortunately, I think they do have a light cream base and I could get a tall without the whip. Sadly for me, this is the only caffeinated beverage that really wakes me up and gets me going. So I'm going to have to work on that.

Food craving of the day: Brownies and a Coke. I plugged Ghirardelli Brownies into the counter just for the hell of it and it came up at 4 points--not too bad for a 2 inch brownie. Still, I'm not going to make them. All that crap is going up to my sister's. I cleaned out our meager pantry today and will drop it all off up north this week sometime.

I also found 2 more friends today who are active in WW. Nancy in Colorado is doing the core plan and Emily is, I think, doing the flex plan. And Emily is local, so I'm excited to hear back from her!

That's it from here.