Second chances

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For most situations, I tend to believe in second chances.  That is why I have decided to forgive and forget and give BEETS a second chance.  I HATED them growing up, but lately I hear how good they are and the health benefits to eating beets, so I picked up a bag of mini beets (are there such a thing?  or are they all small?) at the grocery store and will try them this week.  That will be my new thing for the week...ewwww, I am not looking forward to it, but I have discovered so many other things in the past two years that I thought I didn't like but as it turned out I did, so bring on the beets!  Any suggestions on how to cook them or what to do with them?  All I know is they're dirty looking round purple things...that's it.  Maybe they'd be good dipped in chocolate...hmmm

Oh boy

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I am beginning a second week (starting today) of no sugary-treats.  After not having them last week for 5 days, I went a little nuts yesterday.  Food-wise it was not a great day.  In every other aspect, it was a great day!  Started out rainy and ended with a beautiful sunset over the water at my friends' place in Seabright.  I don't regret yesterday, but I do wish I'd made a couple better choices.  This week my plan is, again, no sugary treats (with one exception today - I want to make another Tim Hortons Ice Cap and put a bit of 95% fat free cool whip on it...just a bit) and I am also aiming to NOT use my 49 points - only doing this because of yesterday and I really don't know how far over I went...  If I am still hungry, I will have to get out and earn more activity points - this frightens me a tad as I've never used activity points before!!

Onward and upward!  Counting today, I have two more days of vacation left.  I made one pot of soup this weekend and plan to make another "soup-ish" meal today or tomorrow.  I am thinking maybe chili as lean ground beef was on sale at the grocery store.  I think I'm going to go buy the cans of low sodium beans and such so that it's not too high in sodium and then I'll pump up the flavours with spices.  I wish I had some Epicure garlic in the house!  Hopefully soon :)

The end is near

Pin It I don't mean this in an ominous way, I mean it in the Weight Watchers sense.  I had am AMAZING loss this week (2.4 pounds!!!) and am thrilled to say that I am now 21.6 pounds away from goal weight.  I start a new weigh-in book next week.  Each book has 16 weeks in it...my plan is to end this book at my goal weight... that would mean an average of 1.35 pounds per week... tough, but do-able!  Taking into consideration my 3 weeks away in Sept, this should put me at goal by December 10 :)  I might give myself a couple of extra weeks due to vacation, but my firm deadline for hitting goal is December 24 - Merry Christmas to me!  I am sure I could go all crazy and be really strict with exercise and food (more so than I am now) and lose it faster than this, but I've learned over the past couple of years that faster is not always better - especially when it comes to weight loss.  I don't want to go crazy these last 20+ pounds, get to goal, and then go back to my normal (WW) eating and have my body say "What the heck??!!"  I want to continue doing this in a way that is healthy and maintainable for a lifetime.

I am not sure if this week's great loss had anything to do with my no sugary snacks during the week or if it was just time for my body to give up some weight... but I am debating doing another week of no sugary snacks.  I wonder if my body "reacts" in some way to sugar...?  I haven't had a loss like this in....hmmm, I don't - May I think...and before that it was too far back to remember.  We'll see...I might do every other week as sugar-free(ish) and see how that goes...I love my sugar!!

On another note, I have booked my trip into London for two days during my England trip.  Staying in the Westminster area at the University of Westminster residences (so cheap and central!!).  I have so many suggestions from folks on things to do while I'm there that I just hope I have enough time to do it all!  Thankfully I've been to London before, so there are some things I don't need to do again (wax museum, Harrods, etc.).  I have a few things on my list that I really want to do - a couple walking tours among them.  The place I am staying is only 0.6 miles from Buckingham Palace, so perhaps the Queen will have me over for tea with Wills and Kate ;-)

Celebrating beyond the scale

Pin It I recently read another Sparkpeople.com article that I found inspiring.  It was talking about rewarding yourself and encouraging yourself when things are not going so great.  One thing the author brought up was about how we berate ourselves when we "fail".  He said that if we did that to employees every time they slipped up, we wouldn't have very happy employees now would we?  This rang so true!  Some of the things I say to myself when I mess up I would NEVER ever say to someone else!  Why should I treat others or speak to others and better than how I treat/speak to myself?  I shouldn't. Period.

The article goes on to talk about rewarding yourself and this got me thinking.  I tend to reward myself only for weight losses, not for other milestone achievements - like walking over 7km in just over an hour.  If you told me YOU had walked over 7km in just over an hour, I'd be over the moon for you and doing my dance of joy for you.  For me, it was just another walk.  Don't get me wrong, I was happy about the accomplishment, but I didn't celebrate it like I would a good weight loss or someone else's accomplishment.  I have decided that this is wrong.  I think we need to start rewarding ourselves (NOT with food!!) for non-scale victories (NSVs).  We often hear about NSVs at our WW meeting or in the blogosphere, but until today I never really celebrated my own.  That's going to stop.  Today I am going to go to the dollar store and buy myself a wall calendar and some fancy, shiny stickers.  As most of you know, I am such a charts and graphs girl, so I am going to reward myself with a bunch of stickers on my calendar for any day that I have ANY NSV happen - increased time on my walk, increased distance, walking vs taking the car or the bus, fitting into a new size (did I tell you I poured myself into a pair of size 10s this week?  It wasn't pretty, but the zipper went up!), tracking 100% for the day, or whatever that victory may be.  I think we all need to celebrate beyond the scale.

Do you celebrate NSVs?  How do you celebrate?  I think we should start a list...here's a good start:

Take yourself to the movies
Get a mani or pedi
Buy stickers and a calendar and stick away!
Plan a ME day
Buy a new article of clothing
Plan a girls night out
Paint your own nails
Plan a weekend getaway
Plan a BIG trip (for a big NSV)

Laughter burns calories...and sausage fingers

Pin It Did you know that laughing burns calories?  I'm sure it's not enough to actually LOSE any weight, but hey, it's kinda fun to think about :)  Do you find yourself laughing on a daily basis?  I don't think I do...which is sad - there's lots around me to laugh about!  I think I will look for more opportunities to laugh from now on...every little bit helps on this journey to lose weight ;-)

I had my best walk time yet yesterday - 7.11 km (approx 4.42 miles) in one hour, six minutes.  That's great for me!  The only problem is.... if I work out 75 minutes (my old time) I earn 7 activity points...if I work out for less than that, it's only 6 :(  Oh well, if that's the biggest problem I have this week I guess I can live with it.  I love walking this time of year - especially in the evenings.  It's the one time I am thankful that our summer weather kinda sucks (not as hot as it used to be!)...the only thing that needs to change is the humidity - it gives me sausage fingers when I walk!  You know what I'm talking about, right?  Those rings that used to spin around your fingers are now cutting off your circulation and you fear you might have to have the ER cut them off?  Yep, that's mine...not quite that bad, but oh my - it's like an alien has invaded my hands!  Oh well, I don't think it hurts any, so I guess I'll just burn more calories and laugh about my sausage fingers :)

Oh crap!

Pin It I flubbed up.  I ate sweets today - totally by accident though.  I was looking for something "carby" and was aiming for crackers...I grabbed a box of what, in my mind, were crackers...and as I'm eating these cinnamony good "crackers" I realized DOH!  They're COOKIES!  Ok, back on the wagon...

Are you really fooling anybody?

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People often talk to me about their weight loss efforts and oftentimes I hear people say that they just can't lose weight or that the weight doesn't come off fast enough.  I think when we (including me) start to feel this way we need to do some reflecting.  Do we honestly track our food?  Every BLT (bite, lick, taste)???  Do we track our liquids (and point the ones that need to be pointed)?  Are we working out as much as we should be?  Are we getting out healthy requirements (dairy, water, oils, etc.)?  For the most part, I suspect we can dissect things and come up with a reason why our losses have slowed or stopped.  I know a friend of mine who is on program states that she isn't losing like she'd like to be - but I also know that she's not tracking snacks, nibbles, etc.  It's shocking how quickly those things can add up!  If I'm snacking consistently or taking bites of things regularly, I will track it.  Today I had lunch with a friend and stole two of her french fries...these I dont' track - I also don't do that on a regular basis.  BUT if I'd had say 6 or more, I would have counted them as that is looking more like a serving...really, how would you count two tiny fries?? lol  I guess I could figure it out, but as I've said before, I track religiously, so the odd french fry doesn't bother me.  If I'm home and I've made say a pot of soup and I've sampled it and sampled it to get the flavour right, then I would put down an appropriate point value, depending on the number of BLTs I'd taken :)  Right now my own weight loss has slowed considerably.  I am blaming part of that on being somewhat close to my goal (24 pounds) - some experts call the last 20-25 pounds "vanity weight" - not that you're vein for trying to lose it, but our bodies often will resist losing it, wanting to hold onto it.  Part of the problem is me too.  I do not do strength training like I should - I will admit, I hate it.  My cardio is right where it should be, but grrrrr, I hate lifting a weight (whether it's a dumbbell or my own body weight!) and sometimes I take the attitude "nobody can make me!!!"  I guess all that to say, I'm not fooling anyone but me.  If I don't properly track or exercise, nobody else will care - it doesn't bother anyone else if I'm not on program 100%...I'm only fooling myself!  I think it's time to stop...  I think I need to hit the gym today instead of the trail...maybe I'll walk to the gym...  Maybe I'll sit on my butt and watch TV and continue to lose slowly... whatever I do, I reap the rewards or suffer the consequences of my decisions...

Do you track all the time?  Are you 100% truthful with your tracker?

Progress—not perfection

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I recently read an article on Sparkpeople.com called Moderation in All Things (By Dean Anderson, Behavioral Psychology Expert).  Below is an excerpt from that article that I particularly liked:

To be successful, you don't have to always make perfect decisions and have perfect days where things go exactly as you planned. If you eat more or exercise less than you wanted to one day, you can make up for it over the next several days if you want, or you can just chalk it up to experience and move on. Remind yourself that what happens on any one day is not going to make or break your whole effort. This is not a contest or a race, where every little misstep could mean the difference between winning and losing. It’s your life—and you’ll enjoy it a lot more when you can keep the daily ups and downs of your eating and exercise routine in perspective. 

I think all too often we do think we have to be perfect in all we do when, in fact, we really should be striving for progress  (aka improvement) not perfection.  Just because we're not perfect on any given day doesn't mean we can't make up for it the next day.  We are way too hard on ourselves and I think sometimes that does more harm than good.  I've written before about being an all or nothing girl and I think it stems from this feeling that I need to be perfect... I remember hearing over the years "if you're going to do it, do it right" - but that doesn't necessarily mean perfect now does it?

My progress as of late has been increasing my walking from just over 5k to just over 7 k (and increasing my time by only about 15 mins!).  I am proud of this - if someone told me 6 months ago that I'd be walking 7 k on a regular basis I would have laughed at them!  Yet, here I am!

Happy Tuesday everyone!  This is my Friday - I'm OFF for the next 6 days - yay!  I need to come up with some new blogging topics/ideas...any suggestions?  I'll have lots of time to write over the next few days :)

What is SHE doing here?

Pin It For those of you who attend Weight Watchers or something similar, have you ever looked at someone at your meeting and wondered to yourself "why in the world is she here?? she doesn't need to lose weight!!!"?  I have to admit, I've been guilty of that in the past.  A few weeks ago, the leader at WW pointed this prejudice out to us - what we don't always think of is the fact that these "skinny" folks used to be bigger.  These are more than likely people who are at goal - maybe even lifetime members!  As I've mentioned in the past, this particular meeting that I go to has a TON of lifetime members who attend on a regular basis.  Never, in all my WW attempts, have I been aware of lifetime members until I started attending this meeting on Saturday mornings.  I would guess that we have at least 6-8 lifetime members (at goal) who attend on a weekly basis.  This is so encouraging! 

So the next time you see someone at a meeting - remember this:  you don't know their story - you might think they only have 5 pounds (or NO pounds) to lose and don't NEED Weight Watchers, but you don't know where they've come from (maybe they've already lost 50 pounds before you met them)!  I guess this brings us back to what we learned in grade school - you can't judge a book by its cover.

It's back!!!

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Welcome to my work-week of no sugary-snacks.... I did a week of this back in February I did a 5 day stint of this and saw a bigger drop on the scale (1.5 lbs maybe?) - I need to do something to get the ball rolling again.  These losses that start with a zero just plain suck.  I know it's not a bad thing to lose it slowly, but I would love to see, just once in a while, a bigger loss!!!  So, here's the plan for this week:

Monday-Friday is the timeline.  Here are the details:

No sugary-snacks for the entire 5 days.  Sugary-snacks include, but are not limited to:

• Ice cream (and any variation)
• Cake
• Cookies
• Chocolate
• Brownies
• Angel food cake
• Pudding cups
• Granola bars

I will allow myself to have my smoothie (milk, mangoes and a bit of sweetener) and possibly a bit of 95% fat free cool whip mixed with fat free yogurt to dip my fruit in if I am craving something sweet.  I am thinking I might actually make "popsicles" out of my mango smoothie to have as a nice sweet treat...now I just have to buy some popsicle moulds :)

I don't want you to get the wrong impression - I don't sit around eating these sugary treats all the time.  I do, however, like to treat myself nearly every day - but I also count the points for what I eat.  I just think I need to switch things up with my body and may try to shock it into dropping a couple of pounds.  I am also committing to do three workouts this week that are NOT cardio focused.  I only have to work two days out of the next 8, so this should be totally do-able.  I'd like to be able to find some kind of playground workout that I could do too...without looking silly (36 year old woman on the monkey bars without any kids...perhaps I might need to borrow the nieces for this venture!).  Another goal for the next couple of weeks is that I would like to get my 7 km walk down to 70 mins.  Tonight I did it in 75 mins, 53 seconds, which is my best time yet....but now that I've reached that time, it's time to beat it!

So there you have it folks.  Tomorrow begins the start of no sugary-treats week 2.0.  Stay tuned for some possible grumpiness!!

The girl in the corner

Pin It Today at Weight Watchers my leader (Fiona) talked to me again about working for Weight Watchers once I get to Lifetime status.  Part of me LOVES the idea.  Part of me is terrified!  Deep down I can see myself being a leader - but then there's the part of me that is afraid of public speaking :)  I used to be the girl who went to WW and sat in the corner and didn't say a word...or worse yet, did not stay for the meeting at all.  This time around I sit in the second row and participate willingly (so not me!).  I think over the years I've come out of my shell a bit.  Perhaps I can work up to actual public speaking... hmmmm.  Fiona told me that WW provides training for you and you can work as much or as little as you like - that's good as I can't see myself giving up my full time job for this, but Fiona offers a great point - working (even PT) for WW is an amazing way to keep your weigh in check once you get to maintenance.

The more I think about this, the more excited I get.  I've known for a while now that I am meant to do something with what I've learned over these past almost two years.  To get to goal and then do nothing to pay it forward seems like a waste.  I really feel that it's important for kids to learn the values of healthy eating and I can see me doing something along those lines...although I don't believe that WW is the place for kids...I'm just spit-balling here - no real plans, but I do have thoughts and ideas in my head.  Some have suggested I write a book - or at least an article for WW magazine.  Not sure about either of these as I'm not really a writer - I just write here and it's all very informal.  I do enjoy writing though...so long as I have an idea of what to write about :)

I think one thing I will do to get ready for the possibility of becoming a WW leader is to take a course in presentation skills.  There is one offered through Harvard Manage Mentor (Harvard Business Publishing) as part of the HR course I am taking which will count towards my certificate - two birds, one stone, yay!

Anyone out there worked for WW or any other weight loss companies before?

21 things I've learned in the past 21 months

Pin It Here are some things I've learned in the 21 months I've been on this weight loss journey...some of them I am still working on ;-)

1. Eat less, move more is not necessarily the formula for losing weight - I eat more now than ever, I just eat differently!
2. A strong support system is essential for losing weight
3. Keeping a food journal keeps you honest with yourself
4. Portion distortion is a serious offense!
5. Water is key
6. A workout friend is a great idea
7. Exercise is important - start when you begin your program - don't wait like I did...believe me, it will help you tone along the way...and boost your weight loss.
8. The occasional gain is normal
9. A loss of 0.5-2 pounds per week is healthy - stay the course and don't give up
10. The less you have to lose, the harder it gets!
11. Roasted veggies are amazing!
12. Don't weigh yourself too often - it's discouraging (I'm still learning this lesson...)
13. Find a support group (group of friends, Weight Watchers meeting, etc.) of like-minded individuals - if the first group you find isn't a good fit, try another one...don't give up...group meetings are important
14. This is a lifestyle change, NOT a diet.  Learn how to make this work all the time.
15. Don't take "days off" on a regular basis.  So many people take a day or a weekend off on a regular basis, PLUS they use all their weekly points...and then they wonder why they are not losing... have a splurge day, but use your weekly points and/or activity points - write everything down!
16. Make social events about the socializing, NOT the eating
17. It is possible to eat out while staying on program - look restaurants up online, look for key words on the menu to avoid (creamy, fried, butter, etc.) and go for healthy options (poached, grilled, steamed) and ask for sauces and dressings on the side.  Ask for nutritional info and make sure you have your calculator with you to figure out the points (if you follow WW).
18. Find some "go to" meals that you can make quickly for those times when you have no time.  Make sure you have key foods in your fridge/pantry all the time - oatmeal, peanut butter, eggs, veggies...scrambled eggs make a great supper!
19. You don't have to work out for an hour for it to be worthwhile (another lesson I'm still learning...I'm an all or nothing girl, but am working on it!)
20. Keep a journal (or blog if you're more public) about your journey - go back and re-read it from time to time to inspire yourself or just to see how far you've come.
21. If I can do this, ANYONE can do this!