while its not great

Last night I was stressed because I had to pick up my car from the shop which meant taking a bus that I don't usually take. I mean - it's not a huge deal, but there is an added bit of stress from not knowing the exact location of where the closest stop was. When I asked the bus driver what the closest stop was to a certain intersection, he looked at me kinda nuts before replying that intersection. great customer service. The service center that I left my car at though had great customer service though, and the total cost actually ended up being less than their estimate (by only a couple of dollars, but that still is lower).

Anyways - car is running much smoother now, but by the time I was out of there, I was really hungry and I couldn't figure out what I wanted to eat. I literally ended up driving all around Annandale trying to decide where to go. I try to justify saying that I just wanted to test out the new and improved Seniorita Cha Cha (that's my car). Finally I bit the bullet and just decided to go to Mickey D's. Really not the greatest choice in the world, but its my go to place when I don't know what the heck I want to eat. It also doesn't help that right now my fridge is like Chernobyl inside and I refuse to put anything new in there until I clean that gross thing out this weekend. It's that gross. (I probably shouldn't be confessing that here).

Anyways - I had 15.5 points left for the day so I took a gamble. Ordered the number 3 medium, went home, and ate it. Now on the bad side - it's McD's and its full of gross fat and sodium and not really nutrionally sound. On the good side - 1) I did not add anything to the meal like I would have a couple of weeks ago (no ice cream cone, no nuggets) 2) it only put me 1.5 points over my point limit for the day. It's not great being over, but at the same time, I made up the points since I did walk about 10 minutes between the bus stop and the garage and did a 20 minute pilates session on my Wii (I don't know if I am strong enough for pilates yet - but it did stretch out my sore muscles really well).

Now I just have to break myself of the habit of going to McDonalds when I don't know what else I want to eat

Good Water Retention

This post isn't going where you think its going.

So last week I ordered the game EA Active for the Wii. My friend Susan had been using it and has lost a good deal of weight (she probably has also been better about tracking her food, etc.) It also appeared to be a good mix of cardio to strength workout activities. So it arrived in the mail over the weekend - and on Tuesday I opened it up and started playing.

I don't know if playing is the right word. Maybe I should say training instead. I immediately set out on its 30 day challenge. Chose a trainer and did my first work out. And boy was it a work out. I love Wii Fit - I find it fun and it can be challenging. But it usually takes about an hour or so of playing to work up a sweat (unless you are boxing). I worked up a sweat in about 5 minutes doing EA Active. They do a good job of mixing up the activities so you don't tire out any particular part of your body at any one time - although I will tell you that by the end of your activities you are pretty tired. Each session is broken into about 18 sections and altogether they last for a total of 22-25 minutes. And because it keeps tracks of how you have done in the past, it automatically calculates new goals in terms of calories burned. It can also sense if your form isn't right and will keep that exercise in the future rotation so that you can get better. At the end of the work out it tells you what to expect next time you play.

Thankfully today is a rest day - although I may try out my new Daisy Fuente's pilates game. I have to say I REALLY love all the work out games that Wii has put out.

So what does this have to do with water retention. Well, I think my body is retaining water so it can repair my muscles - which feel SUPER sore today. My feet look a little swollen today and when I put on the new shoes I bought on Saturday, the shoes seemed almost two tight (at least they feel ALOT tighter than when I bought the shoes...I think). But on the other hand, the scale did say I had lost two pounds at Weight Watchers yesterday. This was awesome because it was the first significant weight loss in a long time. And in long time I mean in months!

Writing it Down

I have not been a good weight watcher this last year. For numerous reasons. Now I in no means saying that I am striving for perfection. While admirable, I think I am one of those people who set out for perfection and then realize that I've goofed up and can't acheived it - I give up. So I have to retrain my brain and say that I will do what I can and to celebrate that those things have gotten done.

Anyways - back to me not following Weight Watchers. One of the hardest things I find is trying to record everything. Each week at weigh in they give you these small little paper trackers that don't really have a lot of room in them to record anything if you have hand writing bigger than a chipmunk (which most of us have). I've tried doing it online too - and that can be frustrating because they may not have what I want to necessarily want to write down. So I was at the grocery store the other day - going past the school supplies when I spotted the composition books. Now I never really liked studying per se, but I looooooove composition books. I love their solid covers with the crazy black and white designs that you can then color and make your own. I love the black binding tape. And I love the fact that there are no holes in the margin so you can use the whole page, if you want. And best of all - I feel free to write as much or as little as I want in them.

So I bought one - In this case, the cover was already red and black. And I am now chronicling all my eating in there. And what makes it doubly fantastic is that because I have as much room as I want to write in it - I can write down why I think I am eating - what I am feeling when I'm eating. It's like blogging in many ways. And since I can put whatever I want, today I started activity in it too. I think the other great thing about it is that since it doesn't have specific food guidelines in it - I don't feel ashamed when I write down something I ate that isn't particularly good for me.

So yay for the new food journal.

um - another pound added

Yeah...So not good. I really need to step up my game. But this month is the food for pounds month at WW - where for every pound of weight loss, the CEO of WW will donate a pound of food to a food charity.

I think I've been falling into the trap of complacency. Not good. I keep on telling myself - well I'll start back next week. But I really need to stop doing that.

Maybe I need to be like Bridget Jones on my blog and start posting daily stats on this blog.