Losing It Times 2

Update...HCG overload!!

2010-03-29T23:10:00.000-07:00

Well I spent some time researching th e HCG diet and learning everything that I can from the yahoo group (awesome group!) and decided to bite the bullet! So I ordered my HCG and supplies and anxiously began waiting for my period to start so I could start my diet. And I waited, and waited.....and no period...and it turns out we're having a baby! I'm about 8 weeks along now and we are extremely excited! I would have loved to have lost the weight first, not looking forward to getting even bigger right now, but this was what God had planned for us and we welcome the experience :)

I might update throughout the pregnancy to keep motivating myself to work out and eat healthy (last pregnancy was full of McFlurries and large fry orders) but no diet for me right now.

Best of success to all of you and your healthy eating!!

I'm still here!

2010-01-25T09:55:00.001-08:00

Just nothing to report. At all. The scale is not moving an inch. Stubborn bastard. But I am noticing my clothes fitting better, and of course I feel pretty good. Its kind of amazing how eating right and exercise can do that to a girl, huh? Almost like magic!

So thats all from this corner. I am considering HCG injections so if anyone has any experience with that please feel free to share it! Like everything weight loss related it sounds too good to be true, but if I can finally see some progress on the scale I just might get on it.

UGH!!!

2010-01-15T12:20:00.001-08:00

OK, I am a little annoyed with the scale today.

I've been using sparkpeople and tracking everything I eat, and am really grateful for that site! It has made tracking what I eat so much easier and I just love it. Sparkpeople estimates my ideal calorie intake to be between 1250-1550 per day, so I've been averaging between 1350 and 1450 all week, in addition to doing 50 minutes of circuit training a few times a week and fitting in walks here and there. And what do I have to show for all of this? Well, happy you asked! I am officially down 6 tenths of a pound! How pathetic.

I am just feeling down right now and like nothing I do is going to help. Back in the day, I really abused my body with a raging eating disorder. It lasted from age 12 to 22 and I know that my metabolism was messed up temporarily at the time, but I have been free of that beast for about 7 years now and just want to gain and lose like a normal person!!

I think the issue might be that I need more calories in a day so I am going to shoot for between 1500-1600 this week and just see if that might get things moving. If not, ARGHHH is all I have to say!

An ounce of planning....

2010-01-11T11:54:00.000-08:00

Nothing too exciting to report over here but I just wanted to say that I have been on track and feeling really pretty good about it! I haven't weighed myself in awhile but will weigh-in tomorrow (I like to do it on Biggest Loser day, I'm a dork). And today I am making some of these http://greenlitebites.com/2010/01/03/stuffed-cabbage-pigs-in-a-blanket/ for lunches for the week (thanks, Roni!) and staying on track with snacking on fruits and veggies.

The thing thats been the most helpful for me is planning out my meals about a week in advance and then tracking what I'm eating, seeing how close I am to my planned meals. We've been having gloomy, wet weather for the last 2 months so I haven't been doing much outdoor activity but just sticking to my favorite workout DVD, Karen Voight's Burn and Firm. I've also really been enjoying reading everyone else's blogs, definitely helps me stay motivated!

So thats all the news from this corner, happy health everyone!

Well that was a long break!

2010-01-08T15:21:00.000-08:00

Wow, what happened?? I haven't made a new post in about a month?! If you're wondering if that means that I fell off the wagon, the answer is heck yeah!

The problem I always run into is that I am first and foremost an emotional eater. And holy hell, I have been having some emotions!! In the last month we found out that we were getting my step-daughter for Christmas (which was awesome news) but resulted in some unexpected travel expenses that ended up being over $1,000 (so maybe I ate some fudge over that) then my brother announced he is getting a divorce (I possibly ate some extra suger cookies over that one) because his wife of 18 years is having an affair (a wedge of cheeseball) with another woman (more fudge!!)! So 2010 is off to a pretty wild start for my family!

So, wow, overall I don't think the damage to my diet was tooooo crazy, but definitely not good. For about the last week I've had my head on straight and have been business as usual, although I am currently too chicken to get on the scale.

So here is at least my daily menu:

Breakfast: omelette with 2 egg whites and 1 egg, with a piece of low fat string cheese cut into it, a cup of low sodium V8, a cup of fruit (either strawberries or an orange).

Snack: 15 almonds and a piece of fruit

Lunch: Salad w/ grilled chicken (today I had oatmeal, needed something a little comforting)

Dinner: something healthy and loaded with vegetables (tonight is stuffed bell peppers, last night was stir-fry)

Snack: piece of toast with peanut butter and sugar free jelly, cup of tea with milk and sugar.

So hopefully by mid-January I will undo the damage from December and I certainly wish all the best results to all of you!!

Before Pic

2009-11-30T20:25:00.001-08:00

****Shudder***

Well thats me up there in the black sweater, in all my lumpy bumpy glory! And my mom is the one in the sweet navy track suit.

We have not been on track the last couple of weeks so although these pictures were just taken on Hallloween and Thanksgiving respectively, I think they safely qualify as "before's". Anywhoo, I've gotten a couple workouts in and the weather is shaping up for some nice walks this week so hopefully the next updated picture will be minus a lump. And a chin. And some jiggle.

Not such a good thing...

2009-11-11T14:06:00.000-08:00

OK if you make egg muffins, do NOT freeze them! They are very crumbly and rubbery after being reheated in the microwave. Gross!! Time will tell if its OK to refrigerate them and reheat the next day but I highly DO NOT recommend freezing.

We are halfway through the second week of phase 1 and the light is on at the end of the tunnel! This upcoming weekend will be a challenge as I will be in Portland visiting my Russian in-laws who are always serving potato dishes and lots of baked goods, so I might need to stay on Phase 1 for the next week to undo whatever damage all that does.

In non-diet related news, Little Peanut has gone pee pee on the potty 4 times today!!! This is really going to open up a whole new world for us, yay!

Oh, weekend!

2009-11-08T20:19:00.001-08:00

Well this weekend was a hodgepodge of stuff. As always, very busy and it disappears before you know it!

I think we both were doing pretty great with staying on plan, however on Saturday we had a birthday party to attend where we had spaghetti for dinner and pie for dessert. Overall, I didn't feel like that was too horrible of a setback for us and of course it would have just been really rude of us to say we aren't eating the dinner that hosts are serving so what can you do. Oh well. It was a nice party and we didn't go too crazy with the meals so I'm actually chalking it up to a success :)

I weighed myself today just out of curiousity (I really want to just do it once a week) and am down 3 lbs since Thursday so I'm pretty happy with things. There is more rain predicted for tomorrow but after that we should be able to get some good walks in at the lake this week so hooray!

I made some egg muffins over the weekend that were a total hit with our husbands and have some in the freezer for breakfasts this upcoming week. I'm going to try to plan things out as much as possible for the week ahead because it turns out that I hate making complicated dinners every night, who would have guessed? The slow cooker is my friend!

Ouch!

2009-11-03T21:42:00.000-08:00

Well yesterday I fell of the wagon, HARD, and landed face first in my daughter's Halloween candy. Oh dear. I was able to pick myself up and get back on plan, however, and today has been a great day.

Little Peanut and I started our day at Green Lake (the lake in the picture on my header) and later while she napped I tried the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader Boot Camp workout (it is free on-demand right now). The workout was not what I was expecting, the moves can be intense but there is a 20 second break after each exercise circuit is completed. For me, I felt a little bit like I was wasting my time. I really prefer to just power through if I'm already working out. Long pauses give me too much time to think about stopping, lol! Overall I think its a nice workout for beginners or on days when you just feel like a slower paced workout.

In other news, I weighed myself for the first time in months today. My goodness. It was a number I've seen a couple times before, and both of those times were horrible. I'm hopeful that number will disappear in the next couple of days and I am committed to never allowing that number to show up on my scale again. Lots of water for me today!!

So That....

2009-11-02T12:06:00.000-08:00

I don't remember where I heard this from (if it was you, please let me know so that I can give you credit!) but someone had some great advice on spelling out our goals.

The idea is to state your goal and then continue to put "so that..." at the end and to continue to do that until you get down to the real nitty gritty.

Here is my example:

I want to be a fit size 8 by my 30th birthday (so that...)

I will feel great about myself (so that...)

I will have the confidence to go out and do more things (so that...)

my daughter can have a better role model (so that...)

my daughter will have a more positive childhood with lots of adventures and grow up to be a confident adult.

Ta da! And I really believe that the more we spell out our goals, the more likely we are to force ourselves to achieve them.

In other news, I receive a LOT of inspiration from the contestants on Biggest Loser (not all of them of course, we all know Tracey is completely nuts!!) and have been inspired by Abby (the poor woman who lost her entire family to a car accident). Something that she said really clicked for me, and that was that her extra weight was keeping her from being a participant in life and losing the weight has helped her to live in the moment and participate in life again. I feel like if someone has gone through what Abby has, and is now able to participate in life again, that just gives so much hope to all of us! I don't have terrible tragedies in my life (thank goodness) but really feel like my self-image and weight is keeping me from participating in life and living in the moment and my goal is to overcome that.

What a Weekend!

2009-11-01T07:50:00.000-08:00

Daylight savings and Halloween all in one weekend?! I'm happy to say that I only moderately indulged in sweets last night (at least it was moderate compared to last year's Halloween indulgences)! And now thanks to Daylight Savings I find myslef up and ready to go at 7:30AM, works for me!

Today is the official start day for Mama Spanx and I to take on phase 1 of the South Beach Diet. We are excited and at least somewhat prepared after a lengthy grocery trip yesterday. We will be starting our day with a SBD approved breakfast and then a 3 mile walk around Greenlake (a popular lake here in north Seattle).

Thanks to the help of this awesome blog and in particular this post we have some great snacks planned and are excited to be kicking things off today. We had great progress with this plan the last time we were on it, but we were combining SBD with The Naturopathic Diet and really confusing ourselves. We could hear the wagon wheels whooshing past us as we fell of it last Easter, never to hitch a ride again. Until today. Wish us luck!

p.s. with this being the first day of the plan I feel like this would be the appropriate day to start posting pictures. Maybe I should have done this on Halloween? They will be frightening!

So, to be more specific....

2009-10-30T09:51:00.001-07:00

I realize that I should probably have some clearly defined goals, beyond just burning my Spanx, in order to better know whether or not I reach them...hmmm...so lets get started on that.

My 30th birthday is approaching, June of 2010 to be specific. I would love to be in the 145-150 lb range at that time (I'm 5'10"). That was my happy weight, the last time where I really felt like I had a grip on my body and could leave the house wearing whatever I liked and feeling good about it. I would really love to start my 30's at my happy weight and just feeling great about life!

My BMI is currently about 29, My goal is to see it in the 20-21 range.

And how to bring all of this about???

Well we will be mostly relying on the South Beach Diet and possibly counting points as well, while walking 45 minutes daily (and I will additionally be doing 50 minute workouts 5 x a week). Hopefully this will result in some badly needed dramatic changes!!

Time for hello's!

2009-10-29T22:05:00.000-07:00

Hello and thanks for checking out this blog! This is the story of a lovely lady and her usually lovely daughter as we embark on our journey to lose weight and gain a new lease on life. We're not new to starting weight loss journeys, but we have yet to get very far along on this path. We will be updating this blog with our weight statistics as well as (gasp!) scary pictures of our progress along the way. I think that the sheer terror of having to post weekly pictures will be enough to keep us away from the candy aisle. Or it will just prevent us from posting pictures on this blog. We'll have to see what will happen, please join us on this adventure!