Lifestyle Change

That's the buzz concept, right?

"It's not a diet, it's a lifestyle"

Buckle in for this blog post because there is so much I want to say and I just hope that I'm not all over the place.

When I was looking for images to put in this post I came across this one which came from this site. This article is definitely one of the better ones regarding making a lifestyle change as opposed to dieting, but I still have my own opinions about this whole idea of making a lifestyle change. 

Is there anyone else out there who feels like the pressure of making a "permanent lifestyle change" is overwhelming? Do you feel like when people suggest you make a lifestyle change that means you should be "perfect" all the time and just all of the sudden want to make the healthiest of all choices? No?  That's just me? Because it has taken me years to realize that calling it a lifestyle change did more damage to me than not labeling it as anything. You can look back through my blog posts and I'll say diet, lifestyle change or whatever you want to call this. I stopped trying to label it because the fact of the matter is it's just my journey. 

The article that I linked above broke down the difference between a lifestyle change and a diet. Some of the things that defined a diet in the article were: weight is generally lost quickly over a set period of time, foods are characterized as good or bad, calories are greatly restricted, etc. The things that defined a lifestyle change were: eating healthy, nutritious foods to nourish your body; practicing moderation, not restriction; losing weight at a safe and healthy pace (1-2 pounds per week). 

Here's my problem with this. If it were easy for me to eat healthy, nutritious foods to nourish my body and practice moderation than I wouldn't be here in the first place. And, telling someone like me that my lifestyle should now focus on eating foods that nourish my body; I interpret that as having to only choose nutritious foods and I'm not doing well if I choose foods that aren't as nutritious. Don't get me wrong; I understand that the idea behind a lifestyle change is that you don't have to be perfect. But when someone tells me I have to change my entire lifestyle I see that as an overwhelming change to make. 

This same article had this graphic to depict why dieting is so unsuccessful. 

I don't disagree with this cycle, but let's talk about what happens when you go through the diet cycle, but never give up. What happens is that over time you will find that you have slowly but surely made that "lifestyle change". You'll find that the deprivation feeling isn't as serious or takes longer to surface. You'll find that those cravings become less severe (but, you probably will always have cravings and it's OK). You will also get to a point where it's not so much about "giving in, feeling guilty and starting over"; as it is about taking a break, not feeling any guilt (or trying really hard not to feel any guilt because there's nothing to feel guilty about), but then refocusing on your goals. You may also find that in the process of starting that diet you have made a habit of working out and that continues regardless of what is happening with your food choices. Why does no one talk about the fact that you may have to "diet" in order to figure out what that lifestyle looks like for you? 

Listen; you have to have a calorie deficit in order to lose weight. I don't care if you're eating the most nutritious foods there are; if you eat more calories than you burn you will not lose weight. When I see things that say it's not so much about the calories as it is about the type of food I want to scream. Again, I understand the point that is trying to be made. But, I really feel like the people who try to make those points are not people who have struggled with food in their own lives. Yes; your body will respond to 1000 calories of broccoli differently than it will to 1000 calories of gummy bears, but you can still lose weight if you eat less calories than you burn regardless of where those calories come from. 

Stay with me because I think people are going to disagree with that statement. 

Obviously losing weight is easier when you choose foods that have a lot of nutritional value. The physical aspect of losing weight is easier when you eat 1500 calories worth of fruits, veggies, lean meats, etc. But I think it's important for people to hear that the weight will still come off if you have a day (or a week or a month) where you fill those 1500 calories with less than stellar food choices. Sometimes the only way to teach someone moderation (and, let me tell you, if someone is trying to lose weight chances are they need to be taught moderation and can't just be told to "eat in moderation"), is to track and count your calories regardless of where those calories come from. 

It has taken me years to come to this conclusion and yet I still struggle with all of it. I struggle with wanting to eat for absolutely no reason. I struggle with feeling like what I've done is not good enough because I will periodically have days where all my calories come from crap foods. I struggle with feeling like I "should" have lost more body fat in those 16 weeks. But that's bullshit. Could I have lost more body fat in those 16 weeks? Absolutely. I could have completely restricted my calories the way I did during that last week. I could have made sure to only eat those super healthy, nutritious foods and cut things like carbs and sweets out; but for me that would not be a realistic lifestyle change. 

Even with allowing myself to eat basically whatever I want as long as I keep it within my calorie range; I struggle with wanting to just eat without thinking (which almost always means eating crap food and more calories than I burn). So you know what I do? Sometimes I just let myself have that time. Years ago that meant months of eating that way and gaining back weight. But now it usually means a few days and then I realize there's really no reason for that so I go back to tracking and staying in my calorie range. My hope is that these changes continue to happen. 

Even last year I stopped losing weight between May and the end of the year. But the difference was that I kept doing just enough so that I had only gained about 5 pounds during that time. Not to mention the fact that I broke my wrist in July and didn't let that stop my activity level. My hope is this year I do a little better. That's it. I don't have to be perfect. I don't have to hit my goal weight in 2019. I don't have to lose weight every single month this year in order to feel good. What I have done has resulted in me losing 75 pounds and I am still going. This is my lifestyle change. This is something that I can see myself doing indefinitely. And that is what makes it the right thing for me. So remember, in order to be successful in weight loss you have to find what works for you! 

This is a reminder to myself; but also, if even one person reads this post and something clicks in their brain to help them on their journey I will be happy. And this was a long one so if you're still reading, thanks 😊

April Goals

I think it's time for me to set some short term goals for the month of April. I am seriously struggling here and am trying to figure out something that will help me to regain my focus. I simply can not stop eating for no reason!

I got on the scale this morning for my end of March weigh in (since I do my monthly weigh in's the 1st to the 1st). If I'm being completely honest (which I always am here), I was not happy with my scale this morning. A little backstory.....Saturday I ate a LOT; but I was totally fine with it. I was actually even pretty proud of myself because of how I dealt with dinner out. I had already decided that calories didn't necessarily matter to me on Saturday since I knew I was going to be way over. We found ourselves without kids so we went on a date to Cheesecake Factory. We did split an appetizer and split a piece of cheesecake, but a) we split a piece of cheesecake. In the past we would have probably gotten our own pieces. And b) when determining what to get for dinner I ended up getting something off their "skinnylicious" menu that was less than 500 calories for the entire meal. My dinner was still over 1800 calories (!!!); but, it could have actually been worse. We could have gotten a higher calorie appetizer; I could have gotten a much higher calorie meal; and I could have eaten an entire slice of cheesecake. So, I may have eaten a ton of calories on Saturday but I was still totally OK with it.

Last year I lost 14.5 lbs between Jan and March.
This year I lost 14.8 lbs and started at a lower weight
so I should be perfectly happy with these numbers...

I expected the scale to go way up on Sunday from the bloat, etc from eating so much Saturday. When I got on the scale Sunday morning I was surprised that it wasn't nearly as high as I thought it would be. I had every intention of keeping things totally in check yesterday to get right back on track but I just couldn't stop eating! Argh!!!!

Even with eating a ton again yesterday I still had a calorie deficit at the end of the day (about 560 calories). The only reason I even had a calorie deficit yesterday was because I ran 5 miles on the treadmill to start my day so I had a nice high calorie burn. I thought when I got on the scale this morning it might stay the same as yesterday. I didn't really think it would go down necessarily, but I absolutely didn't think it would go up another 1.2 pounds from yesterday 😠But it did. Ok, so my monthly weigh in wasn't as good as I hoped it would be, but I am still 4 pounds less today than I was on March 1st. And honestly I didn't gain 2.4 pounds of fat over the weekend so my body will bounce back.......but only if I can get back to it!

When I set the goal to track for 50 days in a row I said I wanted to average a 700 calorie deficit per day for the entire 50 days. I didn't get any more specific than that because I really thought that I could allow myself one (or even 2) high calorie days and 5 or 6 lower calorie days to average that deficit. In the 14 days that I have tracked thus far my average calorie deficit has only been 505 calories per day. However, if I simply take the last 2 Saturdays out of the equation I have averaged a calorie deficit of 707 calories per day. That tells me that I am not doing what I need to do to get that 700 calorie deficit when I allow myself to eat so much on Saturdays (especially since that's the one day a week I don't workout).

Enter April Goals or rather April Goal.........

My main goal for these next 30 days is to stay in my calorie range every day. This is honestly not that hard. My calorie range on my fitness pal is 1370 net calories. If I want to have that 700 calorie deficit on average I will need to eat less than 1370 net calories on at least a few days. If I stayed at 1370 net calories for the entire week my average deficit would be closer to 500. If you're wondering why I don't set it lower it's because on the 1 day a week I don't workout (usually Saturdays) I would have a very hard time keeping my calories that low so I don't want to set myself up for failure (again with those mental games I must play with myself). There is frankly no reason I should even eat all 1370 net calories on days that I burn a ton of calories. There was no reason I needed to eat the 2100+ calories I ate yesterday just because I burned almost 2700 calories that day. And even today; I didn't need to eat over 1700 calories just because I could. That continues to be a work in progress. But, if I shift my focus to just staying in the green on my fitness pal every day for the next 30 perhaps these guilty feelings will go away and I will stop eating for no reason. I swear the harder I am on myself about this stuff the worse it gets!

This post suddenly got much longer than I had anticipated (go figure). Today is day 1 of 30 and day 15 of 50. I am done eating for the day and have ended my day in the green on my fitness pal so day one is a success. Here's to 29 more days of success!

#noexcuses Week 2 Weigh In

Week 2 is in the books and I am happy to report that it was another successful week. I actually think I am loving weighing in on Saturdays because I think it is helping to keep me on track (for now at least). Of course I might just be staying on track more easily right now because I'm feeling very focused and motivated. I know this level of focus won't continue for the entire 16 weeks so I'm going to do as much as I can now to ride this train as long as possible.

Week 2 was another week of not even using all my weeklies and earning over 100 FitPoints (99 of them could have been swapped for food). I ended the week with 9 weeklies remaining. I had 4 blue dot days, but as I talked about before, blue dots are one part of the WW program that I don't completely agree with. I've previously had 5/7 blue dot days as part of my goals for the week, but I'm not focused on that this time around. This time I am really just trying to stay on track with my allotted points. I'm also double tracking again in MFP so I can see where I am in terms of calories each day.

My average calorie intake this past week was 1,431 calories (1,022 net calories). I had days like the pic above where I even had a small DQ cone after my infusion and ate too many goldfish crackers, but still ended my day 1,461 calories (but 33 points). Then, on Friday I ended up eating the least amount of calories I  had eaten all week! Who am I!?!? 

I am happy to report all of that hard work turned into another good loss on the scale. Unfortunately I'm still not back down to my lowest weight, but I'm getting close. I will take 7.6 pounds in 2 weeks and use that to drive my motivation to keep going strong. I know that the weight loss is going to get slower now but that's OK. I really only have 6.8 pounds left to get to my first goal (a new low) and I am OK if it takes until the 8 week mark to get there. 

My mindset is back to where it was last April when I lost 12.6 pounds in 4 weigh in's. I am currently finding this relatively easy again. This week I not only had that ice cream cone, but I had popcorn for lunch one day as well. I had a moment on Thursday when I wanted to eat for no reason. It took a ton of self talk and a moment of weakness with some goldfish crackers; but I reigned it in and ended that day still eating under 1500 calories. 

Friday's food amounted to just under 1200 calories!

The best part is I really haven't been all that hungry. Thursdays moment of weakness had nothing to do with being hungry which is why I was able to talk myself into stopping. I basically told myself that if there was something in particular I really wanted to eat then I should just eat that, track it and move on. But I didn't want anything in particular. I just wanted to eat to eat, which is really just stupid and not necessary. I ate those goldfish (even weighed them out), counted them and told myself that I ate for no reason so it was time to be done. Then, I had my after dinner snack already tracked in my tracker so I was going to still eat it. It wouldn't have been a big deal if I did. I still would have been under 1800 calories on the day, but there was NO reason to eat it. I wasn't hungry so I told myself to just be done eating for the day. 

As I sit here and write this I'm once again contemplating whether I'm going to eat an after dinner snack or not. I've eaten 20/23 points and about 1200 calories so I certainly can eat if I want/need to, but I'm not currently hungry so I may just decide to be done for the day. I've been trying to stop eating by around 7:30 each night and since it's already 7 I'm thinking I may just be done for the day. I know one thing is for sure; it would make a very strong start to week 3! 

Day 3/113

I am counting Monday as day 1 even though my official weigh in was Saturday. I did not start until Monday and fully enjoyed my weekend. But, throughout this challenge Saturday will be my official weigh in day, so this week's weigh in won't actually be a full week of being on track. And when I say official I just mean how I will be marking my weekly loss throughout the challenge.

Also, I will be using the weight that I was on my home scale Saturday morning to calculate my weekly loss rather than the LL scale. The only time LL will weigh me in again is at the 8, 12 and 16 week marks.

Ok. So we're at day 3. Sometimes days 1-3 are really easy and sometimes not so much. I am happy to say that this time these 3 days have felt incredibly easy. I actually wasn't going to do a blog post today because I almost feel silly be SO excited about 3 good days. I mean, I still have 110 days to go just in this challenge. I was also slightly nervous that if I wrote a blog post about how awesome I'm doing then tomorrow I would have a challenging day. But, I decided that I needed to write this blog post today for my future self.

I've talked before about how I often go back and read through my old blog posts. I've been blogging for almost 7 years now and it has never taken off to be anything more than an outlet for me and I'm 100% OK with that. I love this outlet and I love the ability to go back and read through my struggles and successes.

So here's what I want to tell my future self.....THIS IS NOT THAT HARD!!!!! You really need to
stop making it so hard. What I did this week was plan a breakfast for all week, lunch for all week and 6 different dinners. I made these meals hearty enough that I haven't been eating at all between them and I've barely even gotten hungry. I plan a snack or dessert for after dinner, but I've been done eating by 7:30 or 8 each night and am not hungry between then and bed.

Breakfast has been the absolute weirdest concoction, but I have been on a kick with it for a while actually. It's 3 hard boiled eggs, 1 tbsp chipotle mayo, 2 chicken & maple breakfast sausage and a banana. It amounts to 5 points/507 calories. This keeps me full for a few hours and since I don't often eat breakfast until 9:30 or later I can have a late lunch so I don't get too hungry before dinner.

Lunch has been Dietz & Watson buffalo chicken breast, 1 oz of Trader Joe's Lite shredded mozzarella, 1 tbsp Hellman's Lite Mayo wrapped in a Mission Carb Balance tortilla. I pair that with quinoa & black beans, baby carrots, sugar snap peas and an apple. This amounts to 7 points and 490 calories.

Dinner Monday was chicken parmesan with Banza pasta (which is pasta made from chickpeas). This dinner was 5 points/435 calories. I didn't care for the chickpea pasta so I only ended up eating half of my serving.

My after dinner snack/dessert was an Enlightened bar, which I have talked about before on this blog. These are seriously so good and I have come to the conclusion that they actually really help my weight loss efforts. I eat one of these between 7 and 8 and I am not hungry at all for the rest of the night. There are many times when I am starving right after dinner and it drives me crazy. That hasn't happened at all this week.

I ended Monday at 19/23 points and 1467 calories.

Tuesday was just as successful. Breakfast and lunch were the same. I was a little more hungry in the afternoon so I also had a banana between lunch and dinner. Dinner was pot roast and broccoli. I had read a bunch about nutritional yeast so I decided to try it. I sprinkled some on my broccoli. I don't have much of an opinion on it. It wasn't a strong flavor at all. I'm going to try the nutritional yeast in other ways before I decide whether I think it's worth it or not. Dinner was 7 points/300 calories. Tuesday ended with 22/23 points and 1497 calories.

On to today. Sometimes I fall apart on day 3. I was a little worried that would happen today for no reason, but it didn't. I actually felt the least hungry today, but I did have to fight with myself not to eat for no reason. Breakfast and lunch were the same. Wednesdays I don't eat breakfast until almost 11 so I wasn't eating lunch until around 2 today. I had no problem getting through the day without snacking in between those meals. Dinner was grilled chicken marinated in Olive Garden Italian dressing with a boatload of green beans. This dinner was 3 points/315 calories.

Tonight I decided to have slightly more of a snack after dinner. I had apple slices with 2 tbsp of PB2 powder. This snack was only 1 point/125 calories. I then, of course, ended my day with an Enlightened bar.  Final count today was 19/23 points and 1517 calories.

With WW Freestyle you can "rollover" points you don't use in a day. You can only rollover up to 4 points a day. Monday I rolled over 4, Tuesday I rolled over 1 and today I will rollover 4 again. In just 3 days I have added 9 points to my 42 weeklies that I get. I have also earned 43 FitPoints since Monday.

I am meeting my mom for lunch tomorrow, but I have already planned out my day so I'm not concerned about it at all. I actually tracked all my food for the week (well, except for Sunday) on Sunday! I am already thinking/planning out my food for next week. There is no reason why I can't keep on this streak for 16 weeks (and beyond). I don't need to be this "perfect" all the time either, but there's NO reason why I can't eat like this most of the time so that I can still fit in those indulgences that I like every once in a while. I did that last April with no problem and dropped 15 pounds that month. I don't need to lose weight at that rate all the time, but that just proves that this doesn't have to be as hard as I make it. I like that I have this outlet to remind myself of this because I am SURE that I will hit hard times again when I think this is the hardest thing ever. It's not. Remember that!

Day 4

For some reason day 4 has always been the most difficult day for me. Since most of the time I will be "starting" on a Monday, day 4 falls on a Thursday and perhaps I tend to fall off because I'm anticipating it being too hard on the weekend or something.

Day 1 (2, 3 and 4) breakfast

So here we are at another day 4. The good news is I've made it to day 4! If you've been reading my boring posts lately, you know that day 4 hasn't been a given these last few months. Last week I got through day 4, but fell apart for days 5-7. I am trying a lot of self-talk today to prevent that from happening again this week.

Day 1 (2 and 3 - haven't decided on day 4 yet) lunch

A couple of weeks ago I only lasted through day 2. On day 3 I overate and then just couldn't get myself back on track for days 4-7. I do think re-joining WW will be what helps me finally jump back on that wagon for more than just a handful of days in a row. Reason being is WW gives me the freedom to have a day (or even 2) where I overeat, but if I track what I'm eating I can see that I'm not actually "off program". There are plenty of times when I'm following WW and I have a day where I end up not tracking because I don't want to see the "damage" I'm doing. When the next day comes and I have a clear head I almost always go back and track everything I ate the day before. The majority of the time when I do that I see that I haven't actually used all my points so really I'm still fine as long as I get right back on track. It helps me to see what "getting back on track" has to mean.

So last night when I indulged while watching my baby girl perform during pre-game at the Cavs game; I didn't even think about it because I still have 26 of my weekly points as well as all the FitPoints that I'm earning this week. My only goal this week is to track and stay within my points - even if I use every last one of those weeklies and FitPoints.

Mary is 4th from the left

But then we're on to today. Day 4 and a day after using 40 points yesterday. The self-talk comes in to play because I start to second guess if I will have enough extra points to get through the weekend staying on plan. Basically do I have enough points to indulge as much as I want on the weekend?? The answer is NO and I never will. Even if I had all 42 weekly points and all my FitPoints coming into Friday, they still wouldn't cover the amount that I've been eating on the weekends. That's why I'm not actively losing.....DUH! 

On the JumboTron

It's getting back into the right mindset. It's not trying to figure out how I can play the system to eat everything I want, but getting back to thinking about what is really worth the indulgence and what I can wait to have until a little later when I've made a little more progress. I will never give up eating certain things, but I need to remember that I am perfectly able to avoid things for a finite period of time while I work on my goals. I can also remind myself that I can make room for those things here and there even when working on my goals - I just can't have it all. 

I chose to eat chicken fingers and fries at the game last night. That will more than likely mean that I will have to choose to skip something over the weekend (wine, an extra snack at the football game Friday night, another heavily fried meal, etc). Does it mean that I won't be able to indulge at all this weekend? No. I need to constantly remind myself that when I get into the groove, it is not that hard! It's not. But, man, why is it so hard so often then??? Because our minds lead us to believe that it is hard. It would be hard to say I am never going to have chicken fingers and fries ever again for as long as I live. But that's not what I'm saying and that's not what I have to do. I simply need to make the choice, count it, shift the rest of my week, and move on. And that is not that hard. So I will prove to myself once again that it's not that hard and that I can and will do it! 

What an awesome experience for these high school kids!

Change of Plans

Perhaps someone is trying to teach me a lesson regarding my tendency to be all or nothing. I actually think I've gotten so much better at NOT being all or nothing when it comes to weight loss. Well, I am not physically able to go ALL out for at least a month (and realistically more like 2).

I find it relatively amusing that my last blog post was talking about how those first 2 days of being back "on" went well and day 3 was going well. It was only hours later that I was in the Emergency Department waiting room crying because of how badly my wrist hurt. Sigh.

It's funny though; the first thing I thought about when I realized I most likely just broke my wrist was how mad I was because I wouldn't be able to do the workouts at Living Lean! I soon decided that I would just have to continue to do whatever I could handle because this is NOT going to stop me!

The ER of course put this huge splint on my arm and had me immobilized past my elbow. I thought this was a little excessive seeing as the break was in my wrist, so I was hopeful the ortho doc would give me a smaller cast. My wish was granted, but of course she said that it was very likely I also broke some bones in my thumb since it was painful when she pressed on it and those breaks tend to be hard to see on X-Ray's. So I don't have the use of my thumb which makes things even more difficult, but I'm managing.

I am managing, BUT, I have decided to change my plans. If you recall, my plans were to try to get down to 185 by August 10th. After breaking my wrist I decided this was not likely a realistic goal.  The night I broke my wrist I didn't eat dinner until leaving the hospital. It was around 9 PM, I was starving, I was emotional, I was in a lot of pain and I was on painkillers. We ended up at the Arby's drive thru and I decided I just didn't care. The next day I had planned to get right back on track; but then I couldn't do anything. I couldn't make my normal breakfast and I was still so frustrated and in lots of pain. My husband ended up just getting us breakfast sandwiches after picking Robbie up from football. This snowballed into me deciding I could take the weekend to feel sorry for myself (cue all or nothing thinking).

7/2016 vs. 7/2018

On Monday I went back to Living Lean. I had only missed one day at LL after breaking my wrist since I'm usually there Mon, Wed, Fri. When I got there wearing my #NOEXCUSES tanktop the trainer said she needed a picture! She took one and posted it to Facebook. I was a little nervous about how I would look in it since I hadn't seen the picture prior to her posting it. When I saw it on Facebook I was reminded of how far I've come and all that has changed for me in the last couple years. I loved so many things about the pic (not the least of which is that I all of the sudden have dimples. I noticed them in some of the Disney pics I took with Mary too. I have never had dimples before). I decided to look for older pictures from July to do a comparison pic. I found the ones from 2016 when I took the kids to the Holden Arboretum. I remember posting a pic from that trip because I was proud of the progress I had made since 2015 (regardless how slow). So I found one of those pics and compared it to the one taken at LL.

It was in this moment that I decided to stop being so hard on myself. I realized that since starting the Whole30 on 4/22/14, I have consistently been losing weight. I have gone up and down over the past 4 years, but I have never weighed what I did on day 1 of the Whole30. My highest weight in 2015 was less than day 1 of the Whole30. My highest weight in 2016 was lower than my 2015 highest weight. My highest weight in 2017 was lower than my highest weight in 2016. You're seeing the trend. So far, my highest weight in 2018 was less than my highest in 2017 (and I plan to keep it that way).

I'm so hard on myself and feel like I'm not succeeding at losing weight because I inevitably gain some back every year. I feel like if I don't lose 60 lbs in one year and then keep every ounce of it off then I'm "off track". Maybe not. Maybe this is my balance. Maybe what I'm learning is how to maintain my weight for a while without gaining as much back before I go back to actively losing. Perhaps I'm learning that not losing weight doesn't mean I'm a failure. I haven't lost anything since I hit my lowest weight before vacation. But I've basically been gaining and losing the same 5 pounds since May. Why is this a bad thing? It's not. It means that I'm figuring out how to keep things in check. I saw 199 on the scale once since back in April when I first hit 199.8. That 200 continues to be my benchmark. If I see the scale creeping closer to 200 I do something about it.

I'm finally starting to realize that just because I'm not actively losing doesn't have to mean I'm actively gaining (all or nothing). The clothes that I had to buy still fit just fine. I still feel leaner than I've felt in years and I continue to workout as much as possible. I haven't stopped doing anything; I'm just choosing to eat and drink more than when I was actively losing. And that's OK. 

2015--2016--2018

So I no longer have a goal of hitting 185 by a certain date. My mindset just isn't there right now. My goal is to stay under 200 for now. I can't tell you when this goal will change. There is still a part of me that wants to lose another 10 pounds before Nov so I have a buffer for my usual end of year weight gain. But that's kind of dumb. I'm basically saying I'm planning to gain 10-15 lbs back at the end of 2018/beginning of 2019 because that's what I've always done. I need to figure out how to get my mojo back before I gain back 10+ pounds. So perhaps that's my goal....stay under 200 until I get my mojo back....whenever that may be. I do think it'll be sooner rather than later.

And this post just took forever since I pretty much have to type with one hand. Don't expect another post for a while 😉

So Far So Good

Day 3/32

It's only been 2 days, but they were not necessarily the easiest of days. I'm happy to report that I am officially re-focused. Monday was day 1 and the day was going by  just fine. I had a bacon, egg and cheese english muffin for breakfast that I made at home so it was 8 points. For lunch I ended up having 2 97% fat free hot dogs on one bun with a big bowl of fruit. I had one jolly rancher in the afternoon and even tracked that tiny piece of candy for 1 point. Dinner was chicken marinated in Olive Garden dressing with green beans for only 3 points. That's only 17 points on the day and I get 23. We had Robbie's last baseball game that evening and I brought a baggie of grapes to snack on during the game.

After the game I was pretty hungry and trying to figure out a snack. I ended up eating another 97% FF hot dog with a piece of cheese wrapped around it (with no bun). That took 4 of the 6 points I had left. Robbie then told me that he and Drew were going to go get milkshakes from Steak N Shake to drown his sorrows (they lost the game which ended his season. He was sad to be done with baseball for the season). When Drew asked me what I wanted from Steak N Shake I said nothing. He came home with milkshakes for everyone but me and Robbie also had a burger and fries! I ate my Enlightened ice cream bar and finished out my day at 25 points (1405 calories).

2 days back on track and 2 blue dots...and a blue dot so far today! 

Yesterday came with its' own challenges. The day started with a failed run. My legs were super sore from Mondays living lean workout and I was just not feeling the run. I kept going, but only ran for the first mile+, the remaining 2 miles I walked. I made myself the same breakfast as Monday. I ended up going to my parents house to do some laundry while I worked (long story, but our dryer is out of commission right now). My mom had said she didn't really have much to offer for lunch. I ended up bringing the leftover chicken from Monday night as well as grapes and cherries. When my dad asked if we wanted to order a pizza or something I said no! When my mom said she wished that Robbie would have come because it would have given us an excuse to go get ice cream for lunch I told her I wouldn't have gotten any anyway. Besides the things I brought, I only ate a sugar free jello while there. I was starving when I got home but stayed focused and made myself a healthy dinner. My after dinner snack was carrots with some light dip and an enlightened ice cream bar. Yesterday ended at 22 points (1272 calories).

As of right now I have 2 points remaining for today, but I've only tracked 882 calories. Still so weird to me how the points/calories comparison works. I have breakfast, AM snack, and dinner tracked so far. I still have to figure out and track my lunch and most likely I'll have 90 calorie (3 points) after dinner to have my ice cream bar. The problem is that I need to go to the grocery store so right now I don't have a lot of 0 point foods on hand for lunch. I will still get my blue dot if I eat 28 points so today my goal is to stay in that range. After I go to the grocery store I can better utilize the 0 point foods to increase my calories without increasing my points!

Vacation Part 1

Did you miss me??

4 AM - time to hit the road! 

I actually wanted to blog before we left for vacation but I just wasn't able to find the time. I wanted to report my final official PRE-vacation weigh in! So, on Friday May 26th I weighed in at 192 pounds. 3 pounds below my goal of 195 and only 2 pounds above my hopeful goal of 190. Needless to say this was a great way to start vacation.

We left around 4 AM Saturday and drove to Savannah so we could break up the drive a bit. We went to Houlihan's for dinner and I was super proud of the fact that I chose the salad. It was what I wanted. I didn't choose it because I had to, I chose it because it sounded good and nothing else sounded "worth it". I'm also sure there were plenty of calories in this particular salad.

Sunday we got up and got right on the road. We decided we had enough snacks, etc. that we didn't even need to get breakfast. When we made a stop and got some more snacks at the vending machine I decided to get cheese/peanut butter crackers. This is a big deal to me because I didn't get a candy bar simply because I "could" because I had given myself permission to basically eat whatever I wanted for vacation. I chose crackers because I was pretty hungry and wanted something more like real food than a candy bar. I also knew what was on the menu for later that day so I wanted to save myself!

Day 2 of vacation & salad 2 of vacation! 

The awesomeness in the pic above was what was on the menu. It's called the "Kitchen Sink" and it's amazing. It's something like 8 scoops of ice cream, every topping they have (which is a ton) and a whole can of whipped cream! This is what learning balance is about. When we got lunch around 1 PM I knew we were getting this at 4ish so I didn't really need a huge lunch, but I also hadn't eaten anything but crackers all day so I needed something. I chose the 310 calorie salad at Earl of Sandwich in Disney Springs. It was yummy and perfect. I wasn't stuffed at all and left plenty of room for the hundreds of calories I later had in ice cream! And that ice cream ended up being dinner.

Mary started taking pictures right away when we got there and for the first time in a long time I was totally on board with it. And I couldn't believe how thin I think my face looked in these pictures. It's been so long since I have looked at a picture of myself and thought any part of me looked "thin". I think taking and looking at these pictures helped keep me a little focused to stay somewhat mindful of my eating.

1 AM and in our 4th park that day! 

Monday started the long week of 6 consecutive days in the parks. We have never purchased the "park hopper" before, but decided that we would splurge on it this time. This means that we could go to any of the 4 parks every day we were there. We definitely got our money's worth on this! We went to at least 2 parks every day but one; and on Wednesday we went to all 4 parks in one day!

Throughout the week I tended to try to keep my food in check by only eating twice a day most days. Mary and I would also frequently split meals. I swear I felt like I was maintaining my weight, or even losing weight throughout the week! I kind of wished I had my scale! 😄But, I think I started to get more and more relaxed as the week went on partly because I felt like I was doing so well. So perhaps if I DID have access to a scale I would have eaten more because I had already given myself permission to gain weight. 

Seriously though, WHERE have my babies gone?!?!

We seriously took so many pictures between the Disney Photopass people and the pics that we took! I want to share all of them because I love them all and that's such new territory for me! It's been kind of hard deciding which ones to put in this post and I've put in a lot! I also already posted a few transformation pics from previous trips to Disney. I didn't post any comparison pics from our first trip in 2011. I wasn't sure if there would be that big of a difference because I only weigh about 8 pounds less than I did when we went then. But, it was still fun to do the side by side pic because of how much the kids have changed! 😲I may not look too different in the 2011 vs 2018 pics, but I will tell you that the shorts I wore in 2011 were one of the pairs that I just recently got rid of because they were literally falling off of me. The shorts I'm wearing in this year's pic are a 14...2 sizes smaller than what I'm wearing in the 2011 pic. I'm also wearing a large top this time vs XL in 2011.

On the last night we were there we did some shopping for souvenirs. I bought a zip up hooded sweatshirt when we went in 2012 and I wear it all the time. It had gotten to a point where it barely fit and now it is so big I am swimming in it (but still wear it all the time). That sweatshirt was an XL. I decided I wanted to get a new zip up hoodie that fits a little better. I tried on the large and when I zipped it up I decided it was still bigger than I wanted! I mean, I figured that we likely won't be back to Disney for a few years and I still plan to lose more weight. I ended up buying the MEDIUM sweatshirt! It fits me well enough now that I've been wearing it, but it's a little more "fitted" than I usually wear a hoodie. Talk to me in 20 more pounds and see how it fits!

All in all it was a great vacation. I was super proud of the decisions I made throughout the entire time I was there. I ate what I wanted to eat, but didn't eat anything "just because". Stay tuned for Vacation Part 2........

Less Than 3 Weeks!!!

Day 36 of 55

So are you wondering how I did with my week "off"? I have to say I am actually quite proud of myself. I started the week by tracking all my food for the first few days. I wasn't trying to stay within a certain number of points or anything, but I was just wanting to see how much I was eating. I continued to weigh myself every day and I was happy to see the scale actually go down throughout the week. By Friday I weighed about .6 less than I had on Monday. I went into the weekend and really let myself go. And you know what? I'm 100% fine with that. The scale this morning was up 1.4 from last Monday and I am more than OK with that. I've had weeks before when I've "let myself go" and will gain 4 pounds in a week. And since that "gain" came just from the weekend, I am confident that a lot of it is water weight and bloat from eating and drinking too much the last couple days. I have no doubt those 1.4 pounds will come off plus more this week.

There were things I did this week that make me believe I'm actually making changes. For example, on Friday the hubs and I went to lunch because I had been really wanting a burger from Burntwood. When we ended up there I asked him if he wanted to split a burger. We did also split their homemade tator tots appetizer; but every other time we've gone there we've split that appetizer and I would eat the entire burger and fries myself. In a week where I was letting myself basically have all the freedom I wanted, I still chose to split that burger because I knew that the whole burger would be too much and then I wouldn't be happy with myself. When the waiter brought our plates with the burger split and a full serving of fries for each of us I kind of laughed. A big part of the reason I wanted to split the burger was to also split the fries. Fries are one of my biggest weaknesses. I probably ate more than half; but I did not finish my fries! I was able to leave the restaurant feeling full, but not stuffed. It was a great feeling.

Another thing was on Tuesday when I took the kids to get ice cream after my son's concert. I would say probably 90% of the time when we go get ice cream at this place near us I get a specialty sundae. On Tuesday I got a small twist cone. Again, I could have gotten the big sundae. I gave myself "permission" to do that. But I didn't want to. I still have goals in mind even with giving myself a little leeway last week. I had those goals in my mind all week still.

And today? Today I am 100% back on track. I started my morning with a very hard workout at Living Lean.  I decided it was a big breakfast day since it was almost 11 by the time I was able to eat and I had a hard workout prior to that! Believe it or not though, this meal is only 7 points. It amounts to about 565 calories so it's a hearty meal; but it stays with me so that's good too.

Lunch was a turkey sandwich with grapes and carrots with guacamole. I had a couple hard boiled eggs as a snack this afternoon and then some grilled chicken with Brussels sprouts for dinner. I ended my day with some Skinny Pop sea salt popcorn mini cakes and then an Enlightened ice cream bar. My day ends having eaten 21 points and about 1570 calories.

The scale will do whatever tomorrow. Maybe it will go up because my body will have a delayed reaction to over-eating this weekend. Maybe it'll go down because today I was right back on track. Regardless of what the scale does though I feel good. I may step on the scale every day, but it no longer dictates my mood or my day (for now). What makes me feel good is knowing that I'm doing what is in my power to reach my goals. Of course it's easier to feel this way when I had such a successful month in April. The success that I had in April leads me to believe that if I do what I am "supposed" to do, the scale will eventually go down.

Here's to another week. I have 19 days remaining until our vacation. I am feeling pretty confident that I can reach my goal of weighing 190 lbs by the time we leave. I may be super excited for my vacation; but I am going to try to stay as focused as I was in April to meet my goals.

My goals this week are to go back to what I was doing in April:
1) Track everything I eat
2) stick to my workout schedule
3) only use my dailies and weeklies
4) get 5/7 blue dots on my WW tracker.

What Did I Eat?

Some of you may be wondering that the heck I ate during the month of April to drop almost 14 pounds in one month. And, you may not really care what I ate. That's cool too. I wanted to do this blog post because I find that when I'm reading through my old posts I kind of wish I would talk about what I was eating in more detail. Recently I was reading through my posts from 2012 when I was doing really well on WW and I talked about points and having a "good" week, etc;  but I didn't really talk about the actual food I was eating.

Obviously everyone is different. I'm not writing this post so that people can tell me that I eat too many carbs or that I should avoid sugar, etc. Clearly, what I did in April worked for me. We're all adults. We can have different opinions. I'm not writing this post so you go and eat what I was eating. I'm just writing it so that when I re-read this when I'm struggling I can see what I did to lose 14 pounds in a month!

Breakfast

Starting every day with a smile :)

Homemade bagel, egg and bacon

I ate probably the same 3 or 4 breakfasts all month. I started the month with hard boiled eggs and a
banana. After following some people on Instagram I decided to branch out and try other things. Several days in April I ate 2 whole grain waffles, 2-3 scrambled eggs with a tiny bit of cheese (I measured out 12-13 grams of cheese), 2 turkey sausage links, and a banana. Then, after deciding to try the 2 ingredient dough, I made bagels and ate those with either laughing cow cheese on them (SO yummy) or as a
breakfast sandwich with eggs and bacon. Most days I also did not eat breakfast until around 10 or even later. I would not eat until after my workout so most days I probably fasted close to 14 hours without even having planned that out or thought about it.

Lunches

Lunch has always been my nemesis. I don't know why I have such issues with lunch, but I do. Lunch would often be the time that I would just run to McDonald's because it's close and easy. The first few days of the month I ate grilled chicken breast with brussels sprouts agratin. The sprouts were a recipe from the beginning of the year when I was doing low carb that I really liked. The problem with them was that they were actually really high in points because of all the dairy in them. After eating those for a few days I decided I wouldn't do that again because it was just too many points for lunch. That first weekend I made myself an egg salad wrap with some grapes and carrots. I probably ate this for lunch more than 50% of my month. It was tasty and I only had to count the tortilla. I sometimes had leftovers from the night before. But, even with a 14 pound weight loss there was one day I had my favorite meal at Chick-fil-a and 2 days that I chose to have popcorn for lunch when I met my mom to see a movie.

Dinners

Turkey meatballs with zoodles.

Sloppy Joes with zoodles and corn

Dinners were where I would get my variety. Each week I would take time to make a menu prior to going grocery shopping. We ate lots of chicken breast, pork tenderloin, steak, etc. But, we also had sloppy joes (I made them with ground turkey instead of beef and put mine over zoodles). We had spaghetti and meatballs a couple times and again, I used zoodles instead of noodles. But then there were at least 3 pizza nights. 2 of those nights were homemade with the 2 ingredient dough; but that 3rd one was pizza from Papa John's. There was also chicken sausages, chicken fajitas, turkey breast, and a couple of dinners out.

Snacks

One of the things I enjoy about eating my breakfast late (or fasting if that's what you want to call it) is that it leaves less hours in the day to eat. I often wouldn't eat breakfast until 10 or sometimes 11.  There would be no need or reason to have any snacks then before lunch. I'd eat lunch around 1:00. Dinner was usually between 5 and 6 most nights. What I did do was eat an Enlightened Ice Cream bar pretty much every night starting in the middle of the month. Most of my other snacks consisted of grapes, bananas, strawberries, oranges, light string cheese, deli turkey, hard boiled eggs, etc. I basically tried to focus on using mainly 0 point foods if I felt like I really needed a snack. I was trying to also focus on only eating when hungry (what a concept, right?). There were plenty of times I was legitimately hungry so I would choose things like turkey or a hard boiled egg to hope that it would fill me up more than some fruit (or some junk food). I frankly fit plenty of "junk food" into my month; but really focused on eating "clean" or "healthy" the majority of the time.

What's so interesting to me is that I found that I really needed to add some 0 point snacks into my days because if I was only eating the 23 points I was allotted, I wasn't even eating 1200 calories most days. I really think this new freestyle program is great; but I also think it could be easy to under eat. If I was "scared" to use 0 point foods because they still have calories, and I was only eating my 23 points, I for sure wouldn't be eating enough. There have been days where I have eaten 30 WW points, but I track my food into MFP and see that I'm still only at 1300 calories. As crazy as it is to be tracking in 2 places I find that it is helping me. I don't feel guilty for having those extra points because I see that in the end I'm still not eating too many calories. Or, I will enter my calories into MFP and see that perhaps I'm hungry because my entire calories for the day are only around 800. It shows me that even though I'm at 23 points I need more calories. That's when I grab some turkey or some eggs to satiate my hunger without adding points, but while adding calories.

So that's how I did it during April. Oh, I also worked out hard 6 days per week. 3 days I did an hour workout at Living Lean, which kicks my butt every time. The other 3 days were running and often were my "easy" days! I would spend Tuesday and Thursday on the treadmill working on running with no walk breaks. Then, on either Saturday or Sunday I would meet my mom for a long run that was between 5 and 6 miles.

There you go. That's what it took. It honestly wasn't that hard and there's NO reason why I can't keep doing this. Here's to a marvelous May!