Even More

Since Monday is my official WW weigh-in day.... here's the update. This little bout of the stomach flu took a total of 5.5 pounds. In 4 days. Let's hope I can keep it off now that I'm feeling better....

The Viral Effect

Well, according to the scale this morning, this little bout of the flu has lost me 4.1 pounds. Not a bad side effect, but I'd really rather have skipped the whole thing....

Blech

Stomach flu = not fun. Two days of being in the, ahem, acute stage... where all I could do was drink a little bit of fluid. I managed to eat a total of 7 crackers in about a 36 hour period. I've finally had my insides settle down enough to eat small meals... chicken soup, some mac & cheese, even a little salad... but I have no appetite. Seriously, no hunger or even any real interest in food for 3 days. According to what I've read on the Internets, it may take several more days to get my appetite back. Well, if nothing else, maybe this little bout of the nasty and painful will have a good impact on the scale?

Hmmmmm

Well, I'm down 1.6 pounds from last week. That's good news... but I'm still way up over where I should be. I've gained 10 pounds this spring, since I went "off the wagon" at my birthday. Ugh. I'm stocking up the new kitchen with healthier stuff.... stay tuned.

Blech

I'm up by 2 pounds. I had a very indulgent weekend, with pizza and wine and gelato and salty stuff, and apparently all the walking I did all over town wasn't enough to make up for it.

Now that I'm fully moved in and settled in the new place, it's time to get to work again and focus on better food and more exercise. Easier said than done, on these summer days when all I want to do is lay on the couch in the AC with a dish of ice cream....

I'm Back

And happy to report that after the last several weeks, with my move and a big wedding weekend, I did not gain any weight. Whoohoo! I've had a very inconsistent diet these last few weeks, eating whatever I could find when I could find it in the midst of all the packing and unpacking. But now that I'm nearly settled and repopulating my refrigerator, I'm looking forward to stocking it full of really healthy stuff and starting anew. Hooray!

Gotta Eat Your Fruits and Veggies

Here's more, mostly good stuff.

Wednesday
carrots, cucumbers, tomatoes - in a wrap
cucumber and tomato salad

Thursday
lettuce and tomato on a sandwich (not great, but at least it was there!)
avocado in sushi
organic salsa
grapes

Friday
hummus (I'm counting it!)
steamed asparagus
roasted zucchini, tomatoes, peppers, onions
grapes

Saturday
grapes
tomatoes and onions in chili
mixed greens salad

Produce Tracking

More for your reading pleasure...

Monday
Orange juice - I forgot to add this, but I tend to have a glass every morning
Steamed broccoli - a small side
cucumbers and cauliflower - raw, crudite-style
banana - a tiny bit, deliciously grilled as part of a dessert

Tuesday
OJ
avocado, sprouts, mushrooms, tomato - in a veggie wrap
cucumber and tomato salad
sauteed spinach and mushrooms

Doing okay so far on variety... now I just need bigger portions of produce in comparison to some of the other stuff I've been eating! (Mmmmm.....brats....)

Produce Tracking

Since I'm trying to incorporate more produce into my routine, I thought it might be helpful at least for a little while to track what fruits and veggies I am actually working into my diet on a daily basis. Maybe that will help me figure out where I could work in more, and how much of a variety I'm getting. For these purposes, I'll also include potatoes, mushrooms... things that grow in the ground.

So, here goes:

Friday
strawberries, pineapple, kiwi - a fresh fruit salad from the store
small amount of tomatoes, onions in chili
sugar snap peas, red and yellow peppers - as a small side in a frozen entree

Saturday
tomato sauce - barely counts, right?
tomatoes, mushrooms, bean sprouts - in soup
avocado - in sushi

Sunday
asparagus - fresh
blueberries - fresh

More to come....

Delicious Dish

I made such a good dinner tonight!

Lately, it's been my goal to try and find new ways to incorporate veggies into my usual routine, and specifically to change it up a bit and have more variety, rather than my usual spinach and broccoli.

So, last time at the store, I bought a steam-in-the-bag bag of fresh asparagus spears. I also got a bag of those Perdue Perfect Portions good-sized chicken breasts. And, finally, in preparation for moving, I know I have a lot of stuff in the fridge, marinades and such, to use up so I don't have to pack it. Combine all of those things, and you have my dinner for tonight.

A baked chicken breast, marinated in a Lawry's baja chipotle sauce. Spicy! Steamed fresh asparagus spears, with a homemade vinaigrette sauce of olive oil, garlic seasoned rice wine vinegar, dijon mustard, and a dash of black pepper.

Tangy, light, filling - perfection!

Another Week

Well, I seem to keep playing around with the same 3 pounds. I'm so focused these days on getting ready for my move - I'm truly surrounded by carboard boxes and plastic storage bins - that I haven't been keeping my eyes on the prize, so to speak. So to break my funk, at least for today, I just went down and spent a good 40 minutes in the gym. A pretty good cardio workout, for me, followed by some shoulder/arms stuff on the Nautilus machine. I am wearing another sleeveless bridesmaid dress soon! I do feel better and have a little more spring in my step. I really SHOULD go to the gym more often. Luckily my new building has a small gym in the basement, too!

Better

Last week's weigh-in was pretty bad, as a weekend of Indian food and sugary drinks took its toll. This week, I've been much better.... while I'm still not good at portion control, I've been eating much better stuff. This weekend was just about all veggies and protein, very little starch overall. (Not that I'm a South Beach / Atkins type, I just know I'm a carb addict and it's good to watch that every once in a while.) So, this morning, while I still hate the number that's on the scale, and I still don't have much of a net loss to speak of, I'm glad that it's 3.8 pounds less than last week....

Had to be Done

This is depressing, but true. As part of the prep for my upcoming move (see my other blog), I've been going through all my clothes to sort and purge and donate things to charity. And I saved the hardest for last... tonight I went through all of my skirts/dresses/suits, the things I don't wear as often but tend to hold onto a lot longer.

And though it was painful, I finally did put aside all of the super-cute, trendy, smaller clothes that I had back in my 20's. There was one summer in particular, the summer of 2000, when I lost over 40 pounds (it's true, it can be done) and went to town buying the cutest clothes I've ever been able to wear. Well, those days are gone and the pounds are back, and I've held onto those clothes all this time thinking that someday I'd wear them again. And that I'd feel that cute and young and carefree.

But, since I'm downsizing to a smaller apt with a lot less closet space, I had to make some tough decisions. And I'm NOT giving up hope that I'll ever be down to that size again... but I finally recognize that now, at 33 and with a much more established, professional career, I'll really never wear that trendy, low-cut, short-skirt kind of style in my regular life. And that realization, in and of itself, is a little sad. Let alone motivating to eat a salad for dinner.

Rainy Days and Mondays

and horrible weigh-ins always get me down. It was not a great week, followed by a really bad weekend when I had lots of salt and sugary drinks. I'm not even going to record what the scale said this morning, I've just got a find a way to make the guilt and shame be more motivating... it's too bad that they're never as strong a motivator as success. But I've got to achieve some success first!

Not So Bad

Proof that you can get quick weight loss if you just cut out all the crap you've been eating... I lost 3.4 pounds this week. I fully expect that will slow down dramatically and I'll have to start working harder for it. But, I'll take it, that's for sure!

Another Week

Well, I had really good intentions this week. I started out very disciplined, tracking points online for the first 3 days. But, like always, then life (and mostly work) got incredibly busy. And that's always part of my problem, when I barely have 2 seconds to breathe, let alone respond to emails and phone calls, I always drop off doing the point-tracking. But all is not lost... I still proceeded with my normal week but just focused on trying to make better choices. I brought my lunch a few times, and got a few side salads instead of fries (though I did get fries on Friday!). We'll see how it turns out on the scale. Again, I think the point of it all always has to be that it's about making better choices and thinking about things ahead of time, rather than having to be rigidly sticking to a diet. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it...

It's a Start

I know I'm not a very disciplined exerciser, so sometimes I have to force it into my routine. And today, I did just that. I had planned to rent a Zipcar for an hour to do a massive clothing donation haul, driving bags of clothes the 5 blocks or so to the big charity bins. But, this morning, fueled by my scale-induced self-loathing, I cancelled the car (for a fee) and loaded up my old-lady-cart instead. I trucked 7 bags' worth of clothes on foot, and worked up quite a sweat in the cart vs. old sidewalks uphill battle. I didn't fit it all in to one cartload, so that means not only did I force a little activity into my morning this time, I've got plans to do it again sometime soon.

I know, it's not a revolution or rocket science, but I've got to push myself to make any progress. So, as I said, it's a start.

Ugh

So, I've fallen off the wagon these last few months. In a big way. Life's gotten busy and stressful, and with the apartment renovations I buried my scale under other things and just haven't thought about it. And I've been stress-eating to beat the band. So, this morning, I finally weighed myself again, and I'm just disgusted. And angry at myself. I've gained back 11.5 pounds. How does that happen? I mean, I know exactly how it happened, but it just drives me crazy that what can take months and months to work off only takes a few weeks to put back on. Egad.

Every year I fall off the wagon around my birthday time, and every year it takes me until about April to get back on track. Well, now it's the end of April, and I've got a very busy and probably very emotional few months ahead of me... so now's the time to recommit. Heck, I'm paying those Weight Watchers monthly fees anyway, I should be actually making use of it.

I'm not happy about where I've let myself fall to, but at least I'm still capable of catching myself before it goes any further. It's gonna be tough, and if I still have any readers out there I'd love some encouragement, cuz I can't let this go on any longer. Bah. That number I saw on the scale this morning was just ridiculous. No more.

What a Nice Thing to Say!

I know, I've been terribly absent from the blog lately. That's cuz it's been a bad month for being on the wwwagon. With the festivities around my birthday, a generally elevated level of stress, and the cold weather, I've pretty much sucked at dieting lately. I stepped on the scale once and it was so disheartening that I jumped off.

But -- I'm back here posting now cuz I just had a great moment that reminded me how good it feels to do well on this whole dieting plan.

I was in the communal ladies room at work, and a coworker came in. I don't know this woman very well at all, but I've probably seen her almost every day for 4 1/2 years. We say hello and sometimes chat about the weather, but that's usually the extent of it.

I'm standing there washing my hands as she came in, and after saying hi she said "I've noticed something about you."

Hmmmm. Instantly my mind started running down all the possibilities of what could follow that up....

And then she said.... "You're getting smaller."

Wow! Instantly, my face lit up in a huge smile, and after thanking her we had a fun conversation about how hard it is to work on losing weight but about how we're both committing to trying. We bonded, and she made me feel great. So, even though I've really been a bad loser lately, it was motivating enough for me to take the long way to my lunch place and get something healthy instead of the cookie I was envisioning. Hooray!

Yeehaw!

Remember how I said I haven't been tracking my points lately? Even though I'm still eating mostly well (other than leftover catered stuff at work), I haven't been counting it all up. So I wasn't sure what to expect on the scale today.

Guess what? I still lost 2.2 pounds!

I think it's mostly because I've been walking a lot lately, trying to force some exercise in my day by changing up a bit of my routine. My best trick? Walk the 15 minutes to the Metro rather than take the bus that picks me up at my door. Guess it's working..... :-)