When life gets in the way

I'm going to be honest, I have had one heck of a couple weeks.  Joe and I both got in car wrecks.  His was a bit complicated as far as insurance was concerned.  Mine was pretty cut and dry.  I hit the lady in front of me and my car insurance paid for it all.  It sucks but it happened.  This added to an already stressful time in our house as Joe has been stretched to his limits with work.  That being said, meals and food have been an afterthought.  I haven't tracked my food in at least 2 weeks.  I've forgotten to wear my activity monitor so I've lost all of that data.  

The upside of all of this is, that I am still thinking about what I eat and how it would work with Weight Watchers. Now, I'm not saying I've been perfect, but I have been maintaining the weight that I have lost, and that is all I could ask of myself these last couple weeks.  I did not go to a meeting last week and I'm sorry about that, but at the same time, I am ok with it.  I recognized that I needed to be home with my family and we needed to have that normalcy for that night.  I thought about going another night, but I didn't. 

 Luckily, last week's theme was not how to stay on plan during the weekends and holidays.  That is this week's message and I will be right there front and center, because weekends are by far my hardest time.  Not only am I home or even out and about, but I have 2 other people's needs I need to take into account and I feel bad if I make them eat on plan.  Sounds silly for many reasons.  Why wouldn't I want my family to eat healthy?  Why don't I feel that I am important enough to make my needs a priority?  I can't wait until Tuesday to hear how others make it through the weekends!

Let's see, I'm proud that I am 10lbs down, but realistic that I am looking to still lose another 60.  I saw a scrapbooking friend on the wall at Weight Watchers and she lost 70lbs.  She is a motivator to me.  I can't wait to hear her story next week at our crop! I can use all the tips I can get.  One thing I know I need to work on is my exercising.  I would like to keep working on walking after I get off work.  I just have to keep myself from sitting down.  I keep sitting down and then not getting back up.  Not acceptable!  I have made an effort to make sure that Lucas gets to do something more than just hang out at home after school, but I need to make myself a priority.  I am important.  I AM important! 

On another note at home, I am working to clear out the clutter and to make a daily cleaning list that I can keep up with.  Joe and I both agree that our stress levels would decrease if we could just keep things clean.  Well this is more of a Joe thing, but I do agree.  I am ok living messy, but when everything is clean I do feel proud and as if I'm allowed to relax.  Not to say that when the house is messy I don't sit on my butt, but I think about all of the things that I should be doing instead of actually just relaxing.  I get real proud of myself and even motivated to work harder once I just DO.  If I sit all I want to do is sit.  

Ok, It's clear I don't know how to make post that is very focused.  My goal this week is to walk after work, AND (that's right, 2 goals) to post every day this week.  I am going to immerse myself in my weight loss journey so I can get my focus back and kick some weight loss ASS!  

Losing it,

Lisa 

It's been a while!

So, I just realized I haven't posted since the new school year started. I have been busy!  We have had our share of bumps and bruises this month!  Two car accidents for a start. Insurance fighting over who should pay for Joe's car.  A slight panic over getting in an accident with Lucas in the car. Not my finest moment. He was ok. I was ok. It's gonna be ok. 

One highlight is that I did hit my 10 lb weight loss mark!  Yay!  I'm doing my best, but this weekend I have been eating my stress. It's kinda what I do. It happens. I'm turning things around this week though. No worries! 

I'm gonna do better at posting!  I promise!  It really does help! 

So, yeah. I'm looking forward to September!  A fresh month and it must be a better month than August was!

Losing it,

Lisa

Sleep can boost weight loss?!

These are the amazing words I heard this week at my meeting.  This is even the focus for our entire month's worth of conversations.  Wow, is all I can say.  If you know me even a little bit, you will know that I LOVE to sleep.  I can sleep in a car, on a plane.  I learned when Lucas was a baby to sleep holding him, using my shoulder as a pillow.  I look for any point in a day when I can nap.  I feel that my naps yield the best sleep. Why?  It's a choice.  Plain and simple.  I get to choose to lay down, so my mind isn't running thinking about how I can hit the snooze until 520 if I just do my "crunchy hairstyle." I can just lay my head down and nap.  no worries about what the next day will bring.  I still have plenty of time left for that in my day once I wake from my nap.

I hit the snooze button an average of 60 minutes each morning.  I can't help it.  I don't just pop up out of bed.  I never have.  I used to use my Mom as a human alarm clock in high school.  To hear sleep can help me lose weight, I'm on board!

The studies said you need 7-8 hours of quality sleep each night.  Typically this is not an issue for me, though I do start hitting snooze at 4 am these days so going to bed at 9 gets me just 7 hours of quality sleep.  This is all assuming I'm able to turn my  brain off in order to fall asleep shortly after hitting the pillow.  This is a goal I'm going to work on, but I also only get about 2 hours of non-kid time a day assuming Lucas is in bed by 8 and I'm in bed by 10. Sometimes less or more for each of us!  I do think that I will be able to sleep better if I feel I have gotten some me time in for my day.  We'll see.  Maybe I snooze less in order to make up for a later bed time.  YIKES!

In the next couple days, I'm going to write a new post about my "silent partner" in this whole weight loss journey.  I feel that I haven't given it as much attention as I should and so for now I will leave you at that.

Thanks so much for your continued support!  I owe my success to you all as well.  The thought of letting y'all down keeps me going as much as letting myself down.  I'm making a change and for the most part, I'm having fun with it.  Sure, there are days when I want to just eat what and how much of what I want, but there is plenty of time in life for that.  For now, the goal is weight loss and I'm here to prove I can do it!

Losing it,

Lisa

Please pardon any typos.  I did not proofread, just typed this one and called it a day! 

Was it worth it?

Hey!  It's been too long!  What a busy week in the Russell Household!  I had a few challenges put in front of me this week and here's how I dealt with them!

My first big challenge since I started Weight Watchers was going to my my in-laws for the day.  I was very nervous for a couple reasons.  I knew we were going to a beach house to meet some of his family, but I had no idea what that meant for me keeping on plan.  I thought about packing snacks, and I did.  I packed a bag of grapes and brought a plum.  no points, semi-filling.  Good right?  They would have been better if I actually ate them.

 I ended up at a restaurant, Wicked Tuna (yum!) and after looking over the menu, decided to as healthy as I could.  I got a most delicious crab cake sandwich.  They didn't have any sides that weren't smothered in butter, so I just kept it with the side of fries it came with.  A stronger person may have dissected their crab cake to eat, just the crab cake, no bread, and also just leave the fries alone.  That would have saved me points, but my fear was, I had no idea when I would eat next.  Had I remembered my snacks, then really that would have been a non-issue, but I didn't.  They were at the bottom of my beach bag and out of sight out of mind.  I also, assumed we would be leaving and stopping at Chick fil a on the way home, so I knew I could eat a low point dinner and still be OK.

We ended up staying longer and staying for dinner.  They had quite a spread out, and I tried to eat as best as I could.  I ended up eating a hamburger with ketchup and mustard (again on a bun...) and then some oven roasted potatoes.  There was some Quinoa and rice that I tried too.  It was pretty good.  I had been wanting to try Quinoa so that was nice.  I tried my best, and I guess that's all I can really do.

Yesterday was challenge 2 on Weight Watchers.  I helped out at my school to paint the classrooms.  I started the day off right with my cereal, but when lunch time came, I chose the best smelling pizza, Chicken barbecue.  I ate two pieces, not horrible, but in the end cost me 21 of my 29 points for the day.....

In just writing this, it is coming off very negative and I'm judging myself very harshly for making decent decisions.  Were they the best, no.  But come on, I'm human.

Here's some positives, I DID earn 11 activity points for all of my hard work yesterday.  Had I eaten like that and sat on the couch then I could understand being so mean above, but I didn't.  I worked hard yesterday. I DID think about everything I ate.  I easily could have eaten another slice of pizza or a piece of cake for Joe's birthday, but I didn't.  I DID wake up in the mindset that I need to make sure I'm on plan and get in some extra activity today so that I can still be hopeful for good results on Tuesday.  Should I not have good results, I know where things went wrong and I know better now how to avoid this type of situation again.  It's one week and really it's only 2 days in that week.  I got this!

Losing it,
Lisa

This is the face of 5.2 lbs lost

This is how awesome I feel!  

Losing it,

Lisa

I made it!

What a week this has been.  I'm proud to say that I finally made it to a meeting last night at 630.  It was definitely needed.  I was on the verge of binge eating and just pretending like it didn't happen.  That's kinda what got me into this situation in the first place  I would be upstairs watching TV and Joe downstairs playing video games and I would have a cookie or two or three.  A bowl of kettle corn or two or three.  A Popsicle or two or three! You see.  No one can see me so they have no idea how much or little I'm eating, or so I thought.

I was supposed to go to yoga on Thursday night, but when my Mom asked which I was going to, all I could think was, I want to eat an entire bag of delicious, flavorful and crunchy Chex Mix.  I told my Mom, I think I should go to a meeting.  It was a weird statement to make for me.  It felt like I was an addict and needed to go to a meeting to remain clean.  Then my Mom broke it down plain and simple for me. I am an addict, but my addiction is to something I need to survive, not something that is a choice.  It really helped me see the bigger picture.  In the moment I wanted to eat that bag of Chex Mix, I was stressed out and I hadn't eaten any fruits or veggies that day.  It's amazing to see how much eating correctly can affect your mood.  I'd never have believed it.  I was sure that eating a bag of Chex Mix made me happy.  I mean that satisfying crunch.  It's hard to get that from a fruit.  That delicious salt and seasonings.  Oh my goodness.  That is heaven, isn't it?  I hate to say it, but I don't think so.

Check out those fruits and veggies!
Beer is Joe's I promise!

One lesson I learned the hard way this week was that grocery shopping is a must!  You can't sustain yourself on Smart Ones and Weight Watchers friendly carbs.  While I maintained my points, I didn't fill myself.  I was hungry most of the week.  I was lacking my fruit with my breakfast.  I was missing my luscious greek yogurt! Today, I finally made it a priority to get to the grocery store.  I would have done this earlier this week, but a chicken carcass eaten by my sweet Sophie derailed life for a good 24 hours. I was on a mission at the grocery store today.  I didn't take a list.  Will do next time.  I did however load up my cart with the most lovely fruits and veggies.  I realized as I was unloading my bags, that I didn't get a single piece of junk food.  everything I got was either whole wheat, brown rice, fruit, vegetable or lean protein.  The best part is, I was happy about that.  I was proud.  I was completely content with my fridge full of fresh goodness.  Less than two weeks in and this is feeling right to me.



I realize that one area I need to step it up is in my exercise.  I have had allowed life to get in the way.  I am not making movement a priority and that needs to stop.  I will do better!! I have even been given the offer to walk a trail with a friend and her daughter.  Think that sounds like a Win-Win!

Can't wait to share my week 2 results!  Wish me luck this weekend.  They certainly prove to be a challenge!

I've got a 138 days left to go!  Check out my campaign at 10Centsapound.com!

Losing it,

Lisa

That's not what I expected.

 I'm not really sure how to start this post.  I started my day thinking this was going to be a post about how my second Weight Watchers meeting went.  I had everything lined up and I was ready to go.  I left Lucas with my Mom and headed to my meeting.  Upon arriving at 615 I was shocked when I entered the room and my biggest fear came true, I was L-A-T-E!  Somehow my eyes had deceived me.  I read that the meeting started at 630 and now, I learn it started at 6.  UGH!  I am constantly overly early to everything in my life! All I could think was, this cannot be happening.  Everyone turned to look at me.  UGH!

My normal response would be to run, but I stayed and talked to the receptionist.  She took my weight and gave me my week's pamphlet and off I went.  Back to put my child up right where I left him 15 mins prior.  Oh, you noticed I skimmed over the weight part?

I was a little shocked to see that I had only lost 2.6 lbs.  Yes, yes.  That is a good thing, but my scale at home, that I stand on every morning, had told me I was down 7 lbs.  How could this be? I mean, I know I didn't do that much exercise, so that could figure in, but how can my home scale and my meeting scale differ by so much!  On my drive to the meeting I was already congratulating myself for getting 2 stickers!  A weight loss sticker and a 5 lbs loss sticker.  How awesome would that be?  Everyone would be looking at me for the right reasons, instead of being the one who can't read a website and showed up 15 mins into a 30 min meeting.

I'm not discouraged, but bummed that I had been living this "lie" in my head.  I guess checking everyday is a bit obsessive and a bit misleading, so this week I will only check once mid week and once the morning of my meeting.  That should be fair and not so much of a mind game.

3 big lessons learned here today:

1.  The Monday meeting is at 6.
2.  Don't weigh yourself everyday or you will go crazy
3.  You don't get stickers when you don't attend a meeting.  :(

I'm going to try and find a way to get to another meeting this week.  I think the information is still important.  I will also double and triple check the times!

Losing it,

Lisa 199.4 (should be celebrating being under 200, but I'm too focused on the fact that my home scale said 195.4 this AM!)