Weekend Wrap-Up 19

If I could use any word to describe this weekend as far as staying on plan was concerned, I would use the word mindful. I was more mindful of what I ate, whether or not I liked what I was eating, and not finishing food that I didn't enjoy by throwing it away. I was more mindful of whether or not I was truly hungry as oppose to just being bored or feeding another emotion. I was mindful enough of my emotions to find something else to preoccupy my time instead of eating.

Overall this wasn't the best weekend I've ever had but it certainly was not the worst. I did use all of my weekly 49 points+ but I've been very active since my Weight Watchers week started on Wednesday. I've been trying to balance my fruits and veggies, trying to consume more of the latter. Although I wish I kept better track of how many vegetables I eat versus how many fruits I eat, I'm pleased to say that I've discovered that I really like eating zucchini raw. I have eaten and loved zucchini many times before in various forms but I'm glad that I tried eating it raw because it's delicious! I'm thrilled to have another veggie that I can easily cut up to take with me as a snack that satisfies my crunchy cravings.

Additionally, I have more exciting news: I now have my very own Weight Loss Bracelet that I hope works as an anchor for me. Anchors are something -- a person, a trinket, a photo, anything! -- that help you to remember why you're on program. Weight Watchers explains anchoring best in this article:

"Anchoring is an effective strategy you can use to connect with positive memories and feelings that can restore your confidence, determination and belief in yourself."

I've always struggled with finding an anchor. For the last couple of months, I've been using a picture of me when I felt I was at my heaviest weight which I referenced in my Motivation Monday post from April. I use the picture as my phone's screen lock background but often it has proven to not be enough of a solid anchor. Prior to the picture, I've used other methods like the Weight Loss jars (one for how much weight you've lost and the other for how much you have left to lose where each stone in both jars is the equivalent of 1 pound) as well as paper clip chains (same idea with the jars but each paperclip equates to 5 or 10 pounds). Not only did these anchors not work well enough for me but they also weren't portable enough for me to always have on hand to remind myself why I'm doing Weight Watchers and how far I've come. Even though I do still keep a pair of Weight Loss jars at work & at home, it still has not been enough to keep me anchored.

Therefore, a couple of weeks when I stumbled upon the idea of Weight Loss Bracelets, I was very excited at the possibility of acquiring one in order for it to become my new anchor. I asked a coworker (and friend) of mine who makes gorgeous, unique earrings in her free time if she could easily make one for me. Being the kind person she is, my coworker made this lovely, colorful bracelet for me in just a couple days time. There are 23 beads all together but I'm not counting the 5 small clear beads that act as spacers/dividers. Each colored bead represents 6.5lbs lost so I have lost a total of 13 beads (and counting) so far. The charm that says Inspire on one side and Believe on the other side works as my marker to remind me how far I've come (13 beads on one side) and how much I still need to loose (5 beads on the other side). The bead goals are as follows...

1st bead = 6.5lbs lost	10th bead = 65.0lbs lost
2nd bead = 13.0lbs lost	11th bead = 71.5lbs lost
3rd bead = 19.5lbs lost	12th bead = 78.0lbs lost
4th bead = 26.0lbs lost	13th bead = 84.5lbs lost*
5th bead = 32.5lbs lost	14th bead = 91.0lbs lost*
6th bead = 39.0lbs lost	15th bead = 97.5lbs lost
7th bead = 45.5lbs lost	16th bead = 104.0lbs lost
8th bead = 52.0lbs lost	17th bead = 110.5lbs lost
9th bead = 58.5lbs lost	18th bead = 117.0lbs lost

I typed up that list more for my benefit so I can keep a record of how many pounds I have left to lose before I can move my Inspire/Believe charm to a different place on the bracelet. Currently I'm down 86.6lbs, so I only have 4.4lbs left to go before I can move the charm! And, speaking of which, the charm is one that I picked up on my own. I knew it said Believe on one side but I bought it without knowing it said Inspire on the other. Turns out the charm is even more perfect with both words on it because not only do I have to continue to believe in myself that I can reach my ultimate goal weight but I have been told several times in the past that I inspire others! It's been motivational to hear from people that I've inspired them to lose weight and get healthy, so it's something that has helped me to stick with this journey.

Overall I could not be more pleased with my bracelet. A huge THANK YOU to my amazing coworker for making it! It's just one more way for me to stay connected with this journey.

Weekly Weigh-In #24 (week of July 2-8)

At my weekly weigh-in this morning I lost 0.4lbs! I'm a bit surprised because I was not 100% perfect with my eating but losing any weight is a great accomplishment. I was a bit worried that I would have a gain because I did go over my daily points+ target but I think my consistent activity over the holiday weekend really helped. Plus, I'm sure getting back to work and earning 9 Activity Points on Monday alone was really beneficial!

Personally, I thought I did really well this past week. It was much different from the last two weeks where I ate enough food to go WELL over my weekly 49 points+ on top of my daily 26 points+ target. Those past two weeks were tough. Then this week came as a fresh start with just my primary focus to eat healthy, eat well, and track everything that I ate 100% honestly. I've missed tracking a few things but nothing extraordinarily high in points+ (as far as I know). I also stayed fairly active throughout the whole week, even mixing up when I usually do to get in a good cardio work-out. All in all, I would say it was a fantastic holiday weekend as far as me staying on WW plan was concerned.

Moving forward, I really want to go back to the basics. It seems like I need to do this every 6-8 weeks. I guess I get so consumed with wanting to challenge myself more and more each week that I forget to focus on what makes Weight Watchers so successful. Therefore my goals for this week are as follows...

• T R A C K E V E R Y T H I N G
• Check off my daily Good Health Guidelines (GHGs)
• Only eat when hungry*

The last goal is an important one because I want to make sure I'm not eating out of boredom (or any other emotion for that matter). I also want to work on cutting down on the snacks I eat at night when I get home from work. I tend to have a ritual of eating snacks upstairs in my bedroom while I watch videos on YouTube. It's a way for me to relax & unwind. However, I'd like to either cut back on how many snacks I have at night or completely eliminate eating snacks upstairs in my bedroom by maybe eating downstairs before I retire to my bedroom. This is not something that I'm going stress myself out trying to achieve but it's something I want to keep in the back of my mind.

It's more important for me to focus on my true goal of only eating when I'm hungry. I've been finding lately that I will eat when I'm not hungry which creates a problem. After I've eaten too much, I'll either feel so full that it makes me feel slightly ill or I will want to keep eating more because a small/normal amount of food doesn't satisfy me like it should. My nighttime plan is to go to sleep at night when I want to snack for my evening relaxation time after work. Otherwise hopefully I can keep myself busy enough to not mindlessly munch on food during other times of the day.

My NSV for this week would be incorporating different physical activities into my fitness routines over the holiday weekend! As I mentioned in my Weekend Wrap-Up post, taking the time off of work allowed me to enjoy some of my favorite activities that I don't normally find time to do like swimming & biking. My hope is to continue doing these activities on my days off (hopefully on Thursdays) when I'm not so busy.

Lastly, I want to mention that I have been brainstorming some new blog posts that I hope to write in the next week or two. I've been trying some new foods and experimenting in the kitchen with new-to-me recipes. I'm hoping that I'll get a chance to share these new finds & recipes sooner than later.

Weekend Wrap-Up 18

So this past weekend was the Fourth of July -- a holiday like all other holidays where a great deal of Americans celebrate it by eating lots of food while spending time with friends & family. Since start Weight Watchers three years ago, my anxiety over holidays has grown because it means I have to worry about what kind of food I'll have available at whatever family or friend function I attend and the pressure of how much (or how little) should I eat at said holiday party. Thankfully holidays have become somewhat easier since my mom joined Weight Watchers because we team up to make a healthier version of our old, family tradition menus and work to provide both the healthier & original versions of said family traditional meal options. The Fourth of July was no different as my mom & I planned to have a veggie platter, fruit tray, healthy homemade dips, roasted potatoes, corn on the cob, chicken, hamburgers, and turkey burgers. There was plenty of power foods (fruits & veggies) as well as other food, all of which was very tasty. I can safely say that I had a successful day of eating on the Fourth of July!

Overall I would say that I have a pretty successful weekend as far as my eating was concerned. I wasn't perfect with staying within my daily 26 points+ target, but I didn't overeat too much on any single day. I did splurge a bit on Sunday when I ate pizza but I didn't use up all of my weekly 49 points+ like I've done the past few weekends. I do feel that I slipped a little bit as far as tracking 100% honestly goes but I certainly tried my best and pointed just about everything as accurately as possible. And thankfully I was not obligated to attend any other holiday parties where I might have felt the pressure that I mentioned above (what food I should/shouldn't eat as well as much or how little food I should eat).

The best part of this weekend was how much activity I got in while I was on my "stay-cation" from work. Earlier this year I was planning on going away for the holiday weekend to upstate New York. However my plans changed a few months ago but I decided to hold on to my long holiday weekend that I had given myself. Being able to stay home and relax allowed me to do whatever I pleased. Therefore I swam in the pool for the first time all summer, went on a few bike rides (one of my favorite pastimes/activities), and still got in my 10,000 steps for my WW Leader's walking challenge that I'm participating in this summer. If I had chosen to cancel my days off/vacation days this past holiday weekend then I wouldn't have gotten to do my favorite activities or had a chance to relax. Therefore I'm super glad that I stayed with my intuition and gave myself some much-needed time away from work!

Weekly Weigh-In #24 (week of June 25-July 1)

This morning, at my weekly weigh-in, I took one step back after 9 weeks of either weight losses or maintains (7 losses, 2 maintains). The weight gain this week was completely justified and I saw it coming. I'm certainly not pleased that I gained this week but I'm glad that I owned up to how terribly I ate this week to face the consequence of weight gain. The good news is -- as someone in my WW meeting pointed out -- it's easy to lose those pesky 1-2lb gains compared to completely giving up and gaining 10+ pounds and having to start almost all over again.

So, this was obviously a rough week for me. My week consisted of using all of my weekly 49 points+ and going over them by twice as much. I have no idea what has motivated me to do so terribly this week AND last week, but my bad choices have got to stop. I will not allow myself to slip back into old habits which is what I've been doing. I'm sure subconsciously I'm having a difficult time for some reason unbeknownst to me and I'm hoping my overall well-being will start to improve once I go back to seeing my counselor next week (she's been on vacation this week and last week). On the surface, I feel absolutely fine -- I feel as happy and content as I can feel. Compared to these past couple of months, I certainly don't feel as depressed as I've felt overall. So, as I mentioned before, I really don't know what emotionally could be going wrong with me to push me towards eating more than I should and making bad food choices these past two weeks.

With all of that being said, I plan to ask my Weight Watchers Leader if I can participate in her tracking challenge. Every evening a handful of people will send her their trackers for the day (either by screenshot or a picture) and she reviews the tracker to give any tips or suggestions as she sees fit. Not only is it helpful to get feedback from her but it also helps when I do this challenge because I hold myself more accountable for tracking honestly and eating better throughout the week. I participated in this challenge a month or so ago and I found it's what helped snapped me back to reality with how dishonest I was being to myself for not tracking everything that I ate. My hope is that by participating in this challenge, I will realize that I have to show my tracker to someone every night and therefore the challenge will help to reinforce my tracking 100% policy (which I'll do good with for about 3-5 days until I'll have a bad day and have to empty my Tracking Challenge jar completely).

I'd like to create a plan for this week for how I'm going to tackle it with the Fourth of July holiday coming up on Friday but I can't predict what I'm going to be doing throughout the week. All I know is that I will thankfully only be with my mom and four other people, so it will be a low-key kind of day with little-to-no pressure to eat lots of food or be presented with very few healthy options. As long as I'm celebrating a holiday with my mom, we can work together to great a holiday menu that includes lots of power foods (fruits, veggies, and lean meats). Of course, we always include 2-3 other sides or options that aren't as lean or not considered as healthy for others who don't need to watch their weight to enjoy.

Unfortunately, as for the other days of the week, I don't know if I'll be invited to any other parties. My hope is that I can stick to the power foods or simpler foods that are available. I'll also make sure that I leave extra daily points+ available if I do get invited anywhere. Otherwise, since I gave myself a 4-day weekend, I plan on spending as many of those four days just relaxing, swimming, working out, and making two new healthy recipes to eat over the next few weeks for my lunch or dinner meals at work. Essentially I'm allowing myself a "staycation" to take care of me and get some much need R&R.

As far as my goals for this week are concerned, my main one will obviously be asking my WW Leader if I can participate in the tracking challenge. My other goals are staying the same as last week's goal so I can continue to make these into habits that I don't even have to think about on a daily basis. The goals for this week include...

• T R A C K E V E R Y T H I N G
• Check off my daily Good Health Guidelines (GHGs)
• Add the fruits & veggies that I eat in a day to my WW tracker

My Non-Scale Victory for the week was going to get fitted for running sneakers. For many years I was convinced that my body was not built for running. A year or two ago when I first started my weight loss journey, I had begun to make my younger self proud because in elementary/middle/high school, I was always the last to finish the mile we would have to run or walk in gym class. Since losing weight I've become really good at power-walking. Yet now I want to take on a new challenge: I want to condition my body to run. I'm not sure if I'll become a runner, constantly running 5ks or races; but I do know that I want to check some things off my bucket list such as completing a 5k, a mud run, and maybe even a half-marathon. Therefore, on Tuesday, I decided to go get fitted for running sneakers. I currently wear a pair of New Balances that I highly recommend but they're meant for walking or all terrain physical activities such as hiking. I've been trying to do Couch to 5k for the past couple of weeks and last week I noticed that I had some sort of an in-step when I tried to run. My hope is that if I can get a good pair of running shoes that work for my mostly flat feet, they will help in my new goal of conditioning my body to run. I know I have a lot of other things to work on such as my pace and focusing on my breathing (I become very short of breath when I try to run), but at least I'll have a pair of shoes that are meant to help me along the way.

Weekend Wrap-Up 17

Even though this weekend was better than last weekend, it was still a really, really bad weekend as far as staying on plan and eating better like I had promised myself. This is mainly because my significant other decided to bake not one but two packages of cookies. They were each different kinds of cookies so obviously I had to have some cookies from each package. Despite trying to follow a gluten-free diet (because of previous bad stomach problems), I find it terribly hard to resist freshly baked cookies.

The good news is that I owned up to my poor eating choices by tracking everything I ate on both Thursday and Friday. The bad news is that, yes, I also ate poorly on Friday. However, a few good things came about from this past weekend...

1. On Thursday night when we baked the cookies, I actually stopped eating them at one point because my tummy was clearly saying, "No, stop, too many cookies."
2. I learned a lesson on Friday night: I ate way too many snacks that evening because I did not eat enough power foods (fruits & veggies) throughout the day.
3. It is unfortunately impossible for me to have packages of break-and-bake cookies around any place where I'm staying -- a fact which I was honest in telling my significant other about so he is now aware of how hard it is to have certain foods around.

The upside of all of this is that I went back and tracked everything that I was intentionally not tracking Friday night. Even though I have a deficit for my weekly WW points+ allowance, I know how many Activity Points+ I need to earn through working out the rest of the week. Between Saturday and Tuesday, I need to earn at least 7 points+ to break even so I don't have a negative weekly points+ allowance.

I did try very hard to stick to my Plan of Attack/Game Plan for the weekend. On Thursday I went for an hour-long walk without any knowledge that my night was going to go downhill as far as my eating was concerned. Even though I didn't get in any activity on Friday, I'm pleased to say that I earned 8 Activity Points+ on Saturday which is 2 more points+ than my daily average.

The other good news is that the cookies are gone! I know I'll have to face them again and learn how to avoid overeating freshly baked cookies in the future. Until then, the best I can do is make sure break-and-bake packaged cookies are not in the spaces where I'm staying for me to freely make at any point. I can typically avoid eating cookies & other baked goodies when I'm in a public setting (e.g., work, parties, etc) but they're hard to resist when I'm around them alone (or with someone I'm comfortable with around).

So, I've had another atrocious weekend as far as my eating goes and wish I had done better. However while some people would dwell on such poor decisions, I currently feel okay overall. I'm certainly not happy about how poorly I ate this weekend, but I'm going push any negative thoughts out of my mind and continue forward with my journey.

Weekly Weigh-In #23 (week of June 18-124)

I'm not quite sure how but I somehow managed to lose 0.6lbs, bringing me closer to my goal! After having such an atrocious week, I'm still baffled that I was able to lose any weight at all when I weighed in at my Weight Watchers meeting this morning. In the past I would have been frustrated that I had lost weight after eating so poorly during the week, but I'm not going to look at this weight loss in a negative way. Instead I'm going to be proud of the fact that my weight went down and focus on making healthier decisions & eating better in order to continue my journey.

Current Stats
Current Weight: 155.2lbs
Total Weight Loss: 87.4lbs
Weight Left to Lose: 30.2lbs

Since I already made a Plan of Attack/Game Plan for my personal weekend, I'm only going to make three simple goals for myself this week...

• T R A C K E V E R Y T H I N G
• Check off my daily Good Health Guidelines (GHGs)
• Add the fruits & veggies that I eat in a day to my WW tracker

For whatever reason, I still have trouble checking off my GHGs and adding my fruits & veggies to my WW tracker every day. Some days I'll remember and then go back to correct my forgetfulness for any day I didn't remember to do those tasks. However, most days I tend to forget to complete those simple goals. I just need to make it a priority to check off my GHGs and add my fruits & veggies as I consume them. My hope is that if I continue keep these as goals, they will eventually become habitual to the point where I'll do them without even thinking.

My Non-Scale Victory for the week is a result of an online/Facebook Step Challenge I'm partaking in, created by my Weight Watchers Leader. She asked any member who wanted to partake in challenge to walk at least 10,000 steps every day for two weeks. She's so great about cheering us on and giving us feedback when we need it. Since I've been doing this challenge, I've gone well over my personal goal of walking 16,500 steps a day. There have even been two days where I've walked over 20,000 steps!! This challenge also motivated me to get in activity on Thursday, which is a day that I would normally take off from doing any activity in order to let my body rest. I made sure to not push myself too hard but I did get in a 90-minute walk that day and it felt great!

Weekend Wrap-Up 16

As far as my eating was concerned, I had an utterly terrible weekend. Despite making a goal to use no more than 20 points+ of my extra weekly 49 points+, I ended up blowing through ALL of my extra weekly 49 points+, and then some, on Thursday night alone. It's hard for me to figure out why or how I did this considering the fact that I did so well with not eating out or getting pizza on Thursday. My best guess is that my overeating was largely due to boredom. I had taken probably one too many snacks with me for my two-night escape from home and would eat my snacks when I was bored but not hungry. My other downfall was baking a batch of chocolate chip cookies for my boyfriend when he got home from work since it was his first of four hard, 10-hour work days. I wanted to make his day a little better by making the house smell delicious of cookies but once they were done, I couldn't resist and ate almost all of them while he let the cookies sit there, only eating a few of them.

On Friday I woke up with the mindset that I wouldn't let one really bad day ruin my entire week and I would stay perfectly on plan for the rest of the week. I kept that mindset until I met up with a friend for lunch who gave me themed belated birthday present which consisted of a DVD and snacks. One of those snacks was a large package of Twizzlers Pull'n'Peel which happens to be one of my favorite candies/snacks (I told my friend this a few weeks ago when she inquired about my favorite candy). There I was with a huge package of my favorite candy that I would have felt guilty if I had gotten rid of it, so I ended up eating most of the package in one night. I was hoping I could save the Twizzlers for a different week when I had not done so poorly the day before but once I opened the package and just started mindlessly eating the Twizzlers, I found it hard to stop. Plus, I figured if I was going to blow my WW plan out of the water by eating all of those Twizzlers, then I might as well go get some worthwhile crunchy, salty, or sweet (chocolate) snacks that I wouldn't normally eat. Thankfully I didn't find anything that was worth the points+ (that I wasn't going to track), so I ended up just getting a couple of small snacks but ones that I know were more points+ that I would ever like to admit to or imagine.

Did I mention that I had no intention of tracking the Twizzlers Pull'n'Peel that I was eating because I was just mindlessly eating the candy? This makes me sound like a complete and total failure, I know.

Therefore, by the end of Friday night, not only had a I used way more of my extra weekly points+ (on top of my daily 26 points+ that I get every day), but I had not pointed everything that I ate honestly. It was at this point that I came to realize I had two choices: I could grovel about the fact that I did REALLY poorly with my eating for two days and possibly continue to eat badly (which would mean falling back into old habits) or I could learn some lessons from my two days of bad eating and figure out a way to do better in the future. This is a crossroad I've come across a million times in the past and it's a decision I'll inevitably to have to make a million more times in the future. Thankfully my path will always be clear: I will dust myself off from the mistakes that I've made and learn to make better decisions in the future. If you don't make mistakes, then how can you expect to improve? My journey has, and always will be, filled with mistakes but I wouldn't be on this journey if I had a good relationship with food. Yet I wouldn't change this road I'm on because I've learned so much about myself and I know I will keep growing/improving as a person as my journey continues.

Thankfully, since my two days of atrocious eating, I've been eating much better (on Saturday & Sunday). I could have done better with my eating on Sunday night because I did go over my daily 26 points+ allowance but Saturday I had a great day of making smart, healthy food choices and staying within my 26 points+ allowance. I'm also making sure that I track everything I eat 100% honestly, even if I go over my daily 26 points+ without meaning to, like I did on Sunday.

After making such poor food choices and losing all sense of control over my food during my two days off, I wrote up a plan for this coming week on Saturday. I'd like to say that I'll apply it to every upcoming week, but I really just have to take this journey one week at time, or even one day at time. Since I usually include my goals for the week in my Weekly Weigh-In posts, I will share my Plan of Attack/Game Plan for next week to do better with controlling my food and making healthier choices...

• ONLY pack 5 snacks to take with me while I'm away from home for two full days (and 3 nights): Weight Watchers Kettle Crisps, Weight Watchers Roasted Almond snack bar, Goldfish Puffs (already divided into two baggies with 4 points+ worth of the Goldfish), and 1 or 2 fun-size Butterfinger bars
• Add turkey & rice to my salad-in-a-jar to get in more power foods
• Take green beans and gluten-free burrito to have for dinner on Thursday night
• Pack my oatmeal (made with old fashion oatmeal) along with ½ cup of frozen raspberries and Yoplait Greek yogurt for Friday (breakfast or lunch)
• Remember to take TWO smoothie blend'n'go bottles filled with soy milk and 2 oils for each day to make my daily smoothie for breakfast or lunch on Thursday & Friday
• Take spaghetti squash with 2-3 ounces of ground turkey, 2 tablespoons of cheese, and ¼ cup of brown rice for Friday night's dinner
• ACTIVITY OPTIONS: [one] go for a hike or walk at a nearby park; [two] get up between 8-10am to on a walk/run by myself*

*It is more likely that I'll follow through with option two to get in my activity. This way I can get simultaneously get laundry done with I earn WW activity points+ (I put in a load, go for a walk, come back after 30-45 minutes, and then switch out the laundry). Plus, my walks give me a chance to listen to music or podcasts, so I get in some good "me time" each day. However, going on a walk or hike at a nearby park is also ideal because gives me the chance to socialize with people I don't often get to see. It really depends on how the other person feels about getting in some activity with me, so I'll make the decision later this week. No matter which option I pick, I'll definitely be getting in some good, healthy activity for both Thursday & Friday when I would have just used those days to rest like I've done in the past.

Nonetheless, here's to hoping I've learned my lesson from last weekend and greatly improve upon my eating choices for the upcoming week!