My plan for the kick off to the holiday season

So, it's almost that time! Time where you're loosening your pants mid dinner, time where you're regretting that second, or maybe third piece of pie the next day. Well, NOT THIS YEAR! I am continuing with my change. Why should I let one day ruin everything! It won't.

In fact, I'm lucky and unlucky in the fact that I have TWO Thanksgiving celebrations to attend. One on Thursday and one on Saturday. On a good note, my weigh in day is Saturday, so I get 2 separate weeks. Yay for 49 points!!

I think the most frustrating thing is that a majority of people say, "Well it's just one day?" Or "Thanksgiving shouldn't count" Well guess what? It does. One day matters. This didn't happen overnight. I didn't gain 100 lbs in 1 short year or overnight. It took about 10-12. 10-12 years in which I was able to partake in EVERY sinful, delicious item placed in front of me for Thanksgiving. NOT THIS YEAR!

There are a couple changes I'm planning to make and they are as follows:

1. Don't eat the items I can eat any other day. I.E. why eat corn when I can have that any day of the week?

2. For one of the celebrations, I am making the sweet potato casserole and the pumpkin pie. These can be some the MOST dangerous items on the table. I've found recipes which lessen the PPV to 5 points and 3 points EACH. I can indulge, but know exactly what I'm eating. Skinny Pumpkin Pie & Better for you Sweet Potatoes

3. Skip the skin and go for all white meat. Usually I have an issue with the part of the turkey that cover the stuffing when you roast it. You know the piece that you have to cut off to scoop out the stuffing and then some stuffing gets stuck to it? OMG, that's a piece of heaven. This year, I'll skip hovering at the carving area- thus skip the skin. I'll load up my plate with the breast and avoid the fatty dark meat. Fill up on my protein!

4. Have a smoothie for breakfast, a smoothie for lunch and take a walk before dinner. As my leader, Angela says, the socializing is part of the fun of the holiday. A walk is a perfect time to get some pre dinner exercise in and also my active link- LOVE my active link will tell me exactly how many points I have burned!

So, here's to my first Thanksgiving where I'm REALLY trying. It's not that I am not going to enjoy, because trust me I am, it's just that I'll feel SO much better when I step on that scale Saturday. Even if I don't lose, I know I didn't gain what I normally would have. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

Time for a check in....DETERMINED

Time has been going so fast over the last couple months. Going back to work after having a baby can be a daunting task, but throw an almost 3 year old into the mix, a change of positions at work, and things get a whole lot harder.

Of course, I am still on track with my new lifestyle. Every day is a challenge, though. I couldn't believe it, our leader a couple weeks back shared that every day we make more than 200 food related decisions. It's CRAZY! All I can do is continue to make the little choices, which all add up to the big  goal, which is losing the weight and feeling good about myself again.

I've had a few pretty big challenges lately, though. There have been some people challenges, some event challenges, and some personal challenges. Want me to share? Sure you do, so here we go.

1. People challenges: There are some people who no matter how many times you tell them that you don't want a donut, they STILL give you a donut! UGH! Why?? A co-worker thought it was funny to put a donut directly in front of me even after I repeatedly and politely, might I add, refused. It was a birthday celebration and my favorite donuts were in the mix. The glazed croissants, oh so yummy. AND, oh so many points. 11 to be exact! Not worth it, so I just sat there for our 1.5 hour meeting staring at delectable, delicious treats. Even after he put the donut in front of me, I took the paper towel it was on and just said, "Ha ha, very funny, but NO THANK YOU." and I placed it back in the box. Whew, where did I get the will power?

My favorite donuts!!

2. Event challenges: My son was baptized on October 21st. I tried my very best to make the food healthful but still delicious. That didn't stop my family from requesting my almost famous deviled eggs and of course I had to have a cake, which my friend's mom made and it is just heavenly! So, we had hot ham and rolls. I only had 1. I made homemade macaroni salad (I used light mayo)- I only had a small scoop. I made the deviled eggs, I ate 3....oops. Then came the cake. I ate a piece on Sunday, then again a small sliver on Sunday night, then again on Monday night (I have an issue with the delicious cake) By Tuesday night, my husband finally saw the desperation in my eyes and threw the remaining cake down the disposal. Love him! I only lost 1 lb. that week, I guess a loss is a loss, but I can only imagine if I had just put down the cake after the first slice....

After our baptism was complete, just this last weekend, our Cousin's little one was baptized. So there I was again, asked to make deviled eggs. HOWEVER, this time. I had 1 little pulled pork sandwich, 1 small scoop of potato salad, JUST 1 deviled egg and NO CAKE! That's right, people NO CAKE. I took 2 tiny bites of my son's slice, but I did not have any of my own. I went home feeling a little more empowered. Let's hope the scale shows it.  Here's a pic of me and my family at her home.

3. Personal Issues: My husband travels for work. Every third week, he has to fly out on Monday morning at 5 am only to return on Friday night around 11 pm. These weeks are long. They are tough. My older son is almost 3 and the youngest is now 5 months. Being a single parent for 1 week is exhausting. I can only imagine people who do it all the time. They are amazing!

So even with these challenges and obstacles, I am trying to remind myself of the word that is keeping me going. DETERMINED. I am determined to become a healthier me. I am determined to feel good about myself. I am determined to be 150 lbs again. I am determined to wear a size 10 dress to my cousin's wedding in August 2013. All of these items cannot and WILL not slow me down. I am 17 weeks into Weight Watchers and I am 34.8 lbs down. So, whew. I feel better. I have missed writing.

I have a plan to write before the holiday as I just found out I have to have 2 THANKSGIVING dinners.....Till next time!

Too long delayed

So sorry for the delay in writing. Unfortunately, this won't be long. I'm proud to say that I celebrated my "Stay and Succeed" award this week on Saturday.

Though it was a rough week with my son's Baptism celebration (too much yummy food and cake) and my birthday, I still managed to lose 1/2 a lb. This brings my total in 16 weeks to, drum roll please....... 31.5 lbs!

Pretty exciting. I feel like I am at a point where it would be easy to back off, so that being said, I need to pick it up and re-energize myself. I went on an 8 mile bike ride on Saturday. I am also challenging myself to do at least 2 more exercises this week. My leader, Angela challenged us to do 10 minutes, 3 times this week. I will definitely do that.

So, till next time!

STRESS!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm not a bad person, I'm just at a maximum limit of my stress level. Right now, I have exactly 11 minutes to write a blog and eat my popcorn. Yes, popcorn. It's not the best lunch. I already had celery and carrots and a small pita with turkey and cheese. It's not ideal, but it's my life today.

My life is Hectic, busy, crazy, insane and all of these things right now make me.... STRESSED out! Which could probably account for my .2 weight gain on the scale last week. How mad was I? So mad in fact, that I cheated for the first time since I started my new lifestyle. I know it's not right, I know it wasn't the wisest decision, but yesterday I ate a grilled chicken sandwich with cheese and I had FRENCH FRIES! My tummy wasn't so happy with me. Well, it was at first, but not so much later in the day.

Anyhoo, I don't have time to write except that I'm back on track. I plan to lose my .2 and then some and am even hoping to hit my 10% goal this Saturday. I promise to do my best to write more often and I apologize for the large gap!

Little change for today, reminding myself to breath. My new job requires discipline, my lifestyle and healthy eating choices require discipline!

In need of willpower.... DESPERATELY!

I've mentioned before that I work in an office environment. Every day is a new adventure here and a lot of time people bring in food for birthdays, celebrations, or just because. This can make eating healthfully more difficult. Today, I am the culprit for some of my difficulty. For those of you reading who don't know, I am a Sales trainer. Sometimes in training we need to "motivate" people, aka, bribe. In order to get people to do their homework  assignment from their training class yesterday, I offered to give out a special treat for people who completed their assignment. That being said, I stopped at Target this morning and purchased some candy. Now, I am keeping people's health in check as I am only giving each of them, 1 bag of M & M's (2.5 points), 1 Reese's (1 point), and 1 kit kat (1 point). All in all, not a bad treat for someone. The problem is.... I have to sit next to a HUGE basket of amazing, yummy smelling candy all day.

That wouldn't be so bad, but in addition to the candy I had to leave the comfort area of my desk this morning to do "rounds" and hand out the candy. I've noticed in the mornings there are usually "traps" around my office. These traps are where people bring in all of their wonderful treats for the day- bagels, donuts, pastries, anything! The key is to avoid getting up and walking around until about 11 am once the bagels are stale and the donuts are picked through. If I get up and walk around at 9 am, it can be dangerous. This morning, it was Dangerous, with a capital "D". First problem spotted, there is a co-worker who is getting married this weekend, so his team decided to put together a breakfast celebration "spread" for him.

This spread included Panera bagels, cream cheese, coffee cake, mini muffins, English muffins, poached eggs, cheese, ham, breakfast sandwich fixins. They were also kind enough to put out a large plate of fresh fruit. As I quickly walked by, I was greeted by problem #2, a large box of bakery muffins. Here some of the nicest people who I work with said, "Michelle- come have a muffin!" I walked over, praying there would not be a chocolate chip, as that is my favorite, and of course, there was. I politely declined. By this time, my 2 point breakfast smoothie is REALLY wearing off. Third proble, here I am walking around with a basket full of yummy smelling candy. ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. Deep breath. I can do this, I WILL do this. I do not need to give into this temptation.

 I walked back to my desk where I promptly "hid" the candy in my desk cabinet (see picture). I realized I could go take another look at the food at the breakfast spread. Surely there was something there I could eat. Did I make the right call? What do you think? Here's what I ate....

I don't know why today was such a difficult day. In actuality this week has been a REALLY tough week in general. I am in my 12th week of Weight Watchers. I am down 22 lbs. I feel like I am starting to hit a wall. I know my activity level needs to come up and I need to just have a complete re-focus of my eating. I find myself almost slipping. It's again the little changes. Choosing to continue to take the stairs and not the elevator (Thanks to the sign that reminds me a person burns 10 calories climbing the stairs while riding an elevator only burns 1.5 calories), Walking to Subway or Jimmy Johns and skipping the bacon and the mayo, going with the broth based soups. Every little choice I make continues to compound my healthy lifestyle change. Next week I get to try on my size 16 pants. I'm nervous but excited. I haven't bought any new clothes. I have an entire wardrobe in size 16 and size 14 that I can't wait to fit into and then can't wait to get out of! Hoping someone out there is reading this and it's helping them. I know it's helping me! Til next time!

Weights, a Tire, and a Brewer's Game!

My husband helped me understand something yesterday. Let me take a step back. I KNOW I am doing well. I am putting in the work. I am watching every little bite I put into my mouth. I am making the right choices. But it's still really HARD! (sounding like my 2.5 year old, whining!) Ok, now that I got that out. For the good news.... at my weigh in on Saturday, I lost another 2 lbs. bringing my total to a whopping 20.6 lbs!

Don't get me wrong, I know I should be excited. I am aware of this. But when you're staring down an additional 75 lbs to lose it can seem overwhelming. I'm just being honest. I consider myself to be an extremely positive person for the most part, but I have bad days too. This weekend was a bit of a challenge for me mentally. I have 2 kids under the age of 3, I work 40+ hours a week, I fight with my husband, I don't have enough hours in the day to work out (alright so I do, but I need SOME time in front of the boob tube to relax). It just gets to be a lot. Remembering I am eating an elephant can take it's toll.

So my amazing husband (yes, today he is amazing- ask me again tomorrow and he might be an ass, LOL) saw my frustration yesterday. He ran downstairs and he brought up three hand weights. 2 - 8 lb weights and 1 - 4 lb. and he said "Hold these." As I held them, I realized how massive & heavy they felt in my hands. It was A LOT of extra weight. I was carrying these extra 20 lbs just 11 short weeks ago. WOW! I'd made a significant change in my body! I should be proud of that and remember it's a journey.                                                    

So, I was looking online and I noticed a variety of people have blogged on this topic, but in losing 20 lbs. items that weigh 20 lbs are: a tire, a karaoke machine and a large Tuna. I know every pound I lose is helping my body to function better. My knees feel better, my overall aches and pains seem to be getting better and my energy level is slowly raising. So, I've lost a tire! 4 more tires to go!


In addition to losing these 20 lbs and my body feeling better, I am finding myself "getting out there more". I took my son, Myles to a Brewer's game by myself yesterday. Normally, I wouldn't have taken this on by myself. I would have thought I needed my husband there in case he needed to carry Myles if he got tired. I didn't stress out and panic about the walk, carrying him around. I knew I could do it. Check out this picture. He had a blast! How could you say no to this adorable little person? I'm doing this for him and for my other blessing, Joel. They are my everything. So, 20 lbs. A tire. It's just the start of a long journey. I'm ready. Bring it on! Are you making any changes? If you want to share with me, I'd love to hear about them.

Of course I want the Cheesy Potato.....Who wouldn't?

I brought my lunch to work today. I made a oven roasted turkey sandwich on a Italian herb pita pocket, with a slice of cheese and 1 T. of olive oil mayo. 1 serving of baked Cheetos, 1 cup of carrots and celery and some grapes. (10 pts.) My cafeteria at work always offers daily soup specials too, so I was excited to go upstairs (I always avoid the elevator- to be discussed in another blog) and see the selections. Well of course I get up there and the smell of "Mexican" day is overwhelming. They have soft tacos, hard tacos, taco salad, rice bowls, etc. I bypass those yummy smelling items and make my way over to the soups. Daily choices: 1. Chili (too much fat from the full fat ground beef) 2. Cheesy Potato (Um 1. Cheese 2. Carbs- so no) 3. Chicken Rice and 4. Minestrone. So I made the call - Minestrone (3 pts.). It's a broth based soup loaded with veggies. There's cabbage, tomatoes, celery, carrots, kidney beans, a small amount of red potatoes, and some round pasta noodles (easy to eat around to avoid carbs).

This lifestyle change has again brought about a variety of challenges. Every day it's about making the right choices. I work for the newspaper, in a fast paced media environment. We have deadlines to meet, advertising numbers to hit, and overall stress all the time. In fact, my co-worker put a not on my desk yesterday that read, "If stress burned calories, I'd be a supermodel." Lol! Anyhoo, the reason I mention this is because people are on the go all the time. Which means, they bring in donuts. They bring in bagels. They have sandwiches catered in, sometimes pizza too. So it's not always easy to follow a plan, per se.  Just this week, I have had to walk by a box of Dunkin Donuts 12 times and 2 boxes of Einstein bagels 10 times. It's not easy.

It's just making the right choices. Of course, I would have loved to eat a donut or a bagel. It would have tasted delicious. For a second....then I would have wanted another. Or even worse, I would have felt guilty and it could have ruined my entire "eating" day (you know what I mean, "well I already ate bad, so why don't I just continue"). It's not to say I won't ever eat another donut or I won't eat another bagel, but right now this journey is too important to me. So I chose to be happy with fruit from home. I chose the minestrone soup from the cafeteria and not the cheesy potato soup. I choose to eat fresh fruit as my side with my chicken sandwich when I go out to lunch (instead of french fries- which I did yesterday). If I do order french fries at a restaurant, I share them. It's just not worth it to me anymore. My life needs to be my own and that means getting my weight under control. I don't want to be "big" anymore. 

So, how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. One choice at a time. One meal at a time. One minute at a time. This didn't happen overnight and it's not going to fix itself overnight. Til tomorrow.

Set Goals and look at them every day!

When I began my journey, I made a list. It was a list of Goals. Goals  meant to be followed weekly. I started each week following one particular goal and once I felt confident I had securely "mastered" that goal, I moved onto the next. There were 4 goals on the list. It was as follows:

1. No more FAST FOOD.

2. Do not eat PAST 8 pm. 

3. Work out 3 x per week.

4. Eat Fish/Seafood 2 x per week

These goals compounded on top of one another and I put a check mark next to the goal at the end of each week as I completed them. I found I enjoyed putting the check marks next to them. It gave me a sense of accomplishment in a journey where in the beginning so few things gave me satisfaction. 

The flimsy sheet of paper resides on my fridge and will remain there until my journey ends. There are 12 check marks next to goal #1. There are 11 check marks next to goal #2. There are only 3 check marks next to goal #3 and there are 7 check marks next to goal #4. No too shabby if I say so myself.

My goal for this week is to come up with a couple more goals. I am still amazed that I haven't had a bit of fast food since July 13th. That means no McDonalds, Burger King, Taco Bell, Wendy's, nothing. The only thing I do eat considered "fast food" is Subway, Cousin's and Jimmy John's. However, those are all able to be pointed and accounted for. Turkey subs and sometimes bacon! But never full fat mayo! Are you aware that mayo can account for as much as 21 grams of FAT on a sub sandwich? 21 GRAMS of FAT?? WTF? Ouch! I traded the Avocado spread and added just a mere 1 gram of fat and it was just as tasty! Little changes....

In summation for today, set goals. Keep yourself accountable. I've held myself accountable by looking at my goals on my fridge each and every day. Oh and I also put a mantra on my goal sheet, it says;

"Nothing tastes as good as being thin feels."   until tomorrow.

How it all happened....

My dad has always told me when I start to feel overwhelmed or stressed out, he would say ask, "Michelle, How do you eat an elephant?" and I would answer, "one bite at a time. " Now I'm not sure where this came from, but I can tell you it's been a small piece, rather large piece of advice that I've followed throughout my life. So no matter how HUGE something seems to be or what a gigantic undertaking it would seem, as long as you just start with one bite at a time, you can and will eat the entire thing.

My elephant!

Recently, with having a second child I've found myself more overwhelmed, overworked and more tired than I've ever been in my entire life. I guess in my infinite wisdom, I was intelligent enough to decide, "Hey I'm going to drop 100 lbs!" This weight loss journey is needed. I've ignored my weight for quite some time now.  The best place for me to start this journey is to start from the beginning because to be honest, I don't even remember when this all started and when it actually even got so bad. If this is ever anything that will stick, I need to be honest with myself.

I was never heavy in high school. I was never small, mind you but I would not have considered myself overweight either, but I wasn't called "skinny". When I was finishing my senior year, I remember being at my smallest after returning from a trip to Europe and getting on the scale. I was 125 lbs. Interestingly enough, I remember looking at those pictures from my Europe trip when I was in a bikini thinking I was "fat". Wow, how was that even possible? I was freaking tiny!

After a freshman 25 packed on from lots of delicious pizza and beer, I had a fall internship to Disney where I dropped a little of the weight, but not enough to maintain the 125. I would say I was probably around 145-155 lbs at that point. This was 1998 and I moved back to Oregon with my family. After my sophomore year ended I moved to Atlanta, GA where I wasn't in school anymore. I worked a full 40 hour a week job. I moved out on my own and was making more than $40,000 a year. At 21 years old, with those kinds of funds, my friends and I drank and we ATE. We ate some incredible meals and some amazing places. I was 175-180 lbs before I knew it. I tried Jenny Craig. I remember signing up for a lifetime membership. The women there looked at me in disgust. Like I needed to lose weight. I was small in comparison to them. I got back down to around 155 or so and was happy with myself. There was a lot of yo yo dieting over the next couple years and it continued when I moved to Wisconsin in 2003. All of a sudden I lived in a state where you could wear jeans and sweaters 2/3 of the year. You covered up. I could gain weight! Woohoo! Not so good for me. I remember dating a guy. We were sitting on his bed and he grabbed my calf and he goes, "haha, calf and a half!". I was like, WTF? We broke up shortly there after. Like the next day....

My wedding!

Nope-not pregnant here.....

In 2006, 2007 I finally got down to around 170 lbs again. It didn't last long. But I did manage to maintain that 170 ish until I met my husband, Jason. When we were married in 2008, I was 179 lbs. Then all hell broke loose. As of our honeymoon, I took full advantage of the fact that I didn't have to worry about fitting into a wedding dress anymore. I didn't have to get all pretty to go out anymore. He loved me and we were happy. So, I just let the lbs. pile on. I ordered a size 14 dress for my best friend's wedding which was March 2009, just 6 short months after my own wedding. It was so tight, I could barely squeeze into it. I was easily tipping the scales around 215. In 6 months!?! How had I let that happen? Well at this point, we were trying to get pregnant, so there was no point to lose weight, right??? Well when I returned home from the wedding, sure enough, I was pregnant. So, that's why the dress didn't fit, right? Yeah, sure. That must have been it....

My baby boy! (#1)

In December 2009, I was 270 lbs. I was pre-eclamptic and my son was born 3 weeks early. He was in the NICU for 6 days. Was it because of my weight? They won't ever know for sure, I can't blame myself. But I did not eat very healthfully during my 9 months. We had a lot of fast food and a lot of dinners out. Needless to say, he was beautiful and perfect! The next 2 years were pretty much the same. I tried to lose weight. Every time unsuccessfully. I would lose 10-15 lbs and put it right back on. There was really nothing holding me accountable and I had a new little guy, so I always had excuses. My weight was fluctuating between 235-250. Gross. I can't tell you how many times I lied. How many times I tried to deny the fact that I was even over 200 lbs. It was awful.

Size 20 dress. But trying for #2....

In August 2011, close friends got married. I had insisted I would lose weight to look good in my bridesmaid dress. I wore a size 20 dress. I felt awful. I wore a girdle. I was uncomfortable. I shied away from all the pictures. It was just horrible. My excuse was we were trying to get pregnant again so why lose the weight? Again, just making more excuses.... Well in September 2011, I found out I was pregnant again. I was thrilled. I was 250 lbs at my first visit. My doctor told me I should not gain ANY weight at all. How do you have a 10 month pregnancy and not gain ANY weight? Well, I needed to figure it out. I did my best and though I did not deliver at 250 lbs, I was 245 lbs at my 8 week check up. My maximum weight was around 267 lbs. It was a much better pregnancy for me and though I experienced hypertension, I did not have any signs of pre-eclampsia.

I tried pretty much everything, personal trainers, diet pills, Adipax (phentermine), working out, everything. I just yo yo. I could have size 12, 14, 16, and now even 18 in my closet at any given time. Let me just tell you, I am tired of it. So, I've decided to make the change. It's been 11 weeks. I began Weight Watchers on Friday, July 13th 2012. I've lost 18.6 lbs. In the comings posts, I am going to talk about the small things I am doing to "eat this elephant".

Because it's not just one big change, it's a whole bunch of little ones. Stay tuned.....