Say it Ain't So

My name is Emily and I have a problem. I love Cheese. See, I even capitalize the word "Cheese" because I love it so much.

I've had this love affair with Cheese for a long time. But I've realized that if I am ever going to lose this weight - I am going to have to break it off with Cheese, or at least say, "let's just be friends" and then not see it for a long time. And this is a hard thing to do. Somehow in my head, I've basically started using Cheese as a freakin' condiment. You know how like some people put ketchup on everything - I try to put Cheese on everything. Well, maybe not everything, but on a whole lot of stuff. There are days that I realize I have had Cheese at every meal. But no more. I can't live like that anymore.

So I'm starting an experiment - I am going to limit myself to one meal with Cheese per day. And I planned out my menu for the week, and I made sure that it wasn't a cheese love fest. And when I go grocery shopping tonight - I am not buying cheese of any form. So who's with me?!

It's a new year

I just viewed my last entry and I have to say that it's been a while since I posted.

November and December were really tough. The closer I got to Christmas, the edgier I got - mostly because Christmas is no longer just Christmas. Christmas is now also the time when Chris died. All I knew is that I wanted to power through those months and just get my work done, get through the one-year mark, and get to my vacation. My energy was being stretched and so I told myself that I would concentrate on really keeping care of my mental health during that time and not worry so much about the physical. I didn't track what I was eating, I didn't pay attention to my water usage, I ate whatever I want and whenever I wanted, and I didn't really sleep well. My goal for the holidays - to start the year still under the 300 mark.

And I'm happy to say that I made it. JUST BARELY. The last time I weighed in December I was at 298.6. Yesterday I was at 298.4. So I maintained and below the 300 mark. I achieved my goal.

Of course this is about 12 pounds more than I was at my lowest. And I notice the differences. I don't breathe as easily, my newest clothes feel tighter, and I just feel kinda dumpy. But I am still 12 pounds less than I was at the beginning of last year. Of course then I can look at my friends like Susan who has kicked ass and managed to lose a lot more than 12 and I realize that I can totally do better than what I did.

So I am starting off again this year. I am dedicating myself to tracking what I eat and how I feel before eating. And to move more. (Yeah yeah - I know I'm basically reciting the WW program - what can I say - I'm totally drunk on their low-fat kool-ade)

Oh and I will blog more.

Main Ingredient: water

So yesterday I weighed in at WW for the first time in three weeks. The previous two weeks I had been suffering from virus/fevers. Anyways - I was hoping that I would be at that 288 mark again. Oh how wrong I was.

I had gained 2.8 pounds so now I am back above 290. I was really hoping not to go there, especially since on Tuesday when I weighed in for our Biggest Loser club at work I had weighed in at 287.2. Gaaaack!

Then I remembered. Through my newest favorite social networking site (www.fatsecret.com) I had joined a challenge where I have to drink 64 oz. of water a day. Now this shouldn't be a problem if I had been a perfect Weight Watcher - which my daily water allowance has been one of the WW things that I have not been following. So I am thinking that I am currently suffering from some serious water retention considering that I am not trying to drink at least a liter and a half of water while at work. Hopefully once I get back to my water equilibrium I will see that I am not actually above that 290 mark.

Anyways - this weekend I will be venturing to the Blue Ridge Mountains near Roanoke to go help do repairs at Camp Virginia Jaycee (and to help my friend Laura take care of her daughter while she has to do official Jaycee stuff). So hopefully I can work in some major exercising. I'm actually considering waking up early and doing stuff like walking around the camp before everybody else is up. Today I have done about 2 miles of walking (not all at once). Of course this is negated by the fact that I went to Good Stuff Eatery (the restaurant from Spike of Top Chef fame) for lunch and had a patty melt, some yummy fries with rosemary and thyme, and half of a toasted Marshmallow milkshake. A year ago I would have ordered my own order of fries and my own milkshake but today when we went into order (I went with three work colleagues) it felt natural to just have ONE order of fries for the table and split a milkshake (OMG it was sooooo good). Oh - and I am totally keeping the water bottle I got there. They have custom labels for the water - and the bottle I grabbed had the label "Main Ingredient: Water (What else were you expecting?)" Love it!!!!

Just...

So last time I posted I was 288 pounds and yo-yoing around there and on anti-depressants. Well things have changed.

Well - the weight hasn't really. I'm still hovering around 288. I don't think I've gone back into the 290's, but I haven't been weighed in two weeks because I've had the flu the past two weeks on my weigh in day. Like having a fever over 100 degrees kind of flu. I'm sure my fellow WW members will appreciate knowing that I chose to stay home instead of polluting the air at the meeting.

I ended winning our biggest loser club at work. But I don't actually win anything because since the administration of the club kinda disappeared before the end - we didn't really finish and so we all kinda agreed that we take the money and buy a good scale for the office so that we can all weigh in at the same time and on the same scale. No more wonky nurses office scale. Anyways - our new biggest loser club is starting tomorrow, so it's time to get back into the I can do this mind frame because if I can win once - I can certainly win again. Time to start taking this weight back off again.

I'm off the anti-depressants. This has been a mixed bag. I do think the drugs were doing something to me because I have had more moments of crying and noticeable depression to me. But I'm beginning to feel in touch with my body once again. Like yesterday - for the first time in months I cleaned my apartment for more that 3 hours. Scary that my apartment needs that much cleaning (well it actually needs a lot more than that before anyone could call it liveable again). But it was the first time I felt like I could make a dent. Now I have to admit that when I do feel low - I feel really low, but at the same time I like the fact that I know that all my feelings are coming from me and not some chemical that I've put in my body.

And last night - for the first time since Chris' funeral - I slept in my bed. I've been sleeping on the futon in my living room for awhile - so it was pretty big thing to be sleeping in my bed. It does feel weird to be sleeping in a bed without Chris by my side, but it also made my back feel a lot better.

So today I am taking a step to getting back to a healthier me and everyday I just need to take a step because eventually all these steps will add up to a mile.

The Flirting Continues

Ok - I gained a pound this week.

I need to tell myself - it's not a big deal. Weight can fluctuate between 1-2 pounds a day - so I'm good.

Inside I am really going. "OMG - I'm gaining my weight back. Oh the humanity."

But this week we talked about Managing our thoughts. So I will go back to thinking that it's ok because weight fluctuates and I still haven't gone above the 280's.

After weigh in my friends and I went to our favorite sushi place, which can be dangerous because it is soo yum. but oh so dangerous. or as one girl at ww put it last night - "seems like a good idea". anyways- then we had the sushi and I went way over the daily points. And even though I did an hour of wii fit afterwards - it still didn't get rid of all those extra points i used. But I guess that is why we have the weekly allowance.

But I am managing my thoughts and today is a new day with no mistakes in it.

I'm still trucking on

I knew it had been too long since my last post when my friend Susan said she never hears about how I am doing on Weight Watchers any more. That made me look back at this blog - and I realized that OMG - I haven't posted anything since June.

Here is an update. I have been flirting with the same 5 pounds for over two months now. In June I started taking anti-depressants and since then my body has been kinda messed up. The first round gave me constant headaches. The second round made me totally sleepless and lethargic. I am on my third different medication now and although it is not as bad as the second one - I don't really feel like the benefits of taking it outweigh the negative. Having a messed up bio rhythm has thrown me off of the Weight Watcher's wagon. I've gone back to some of my bad eating habits and not exercising like I should. I even started missing some of my WW meetings (for the first time in 6 months) Plus some anti-depressants do have side effects of gaining weight. I guess I should be very glad that I didn't gain it all back.

On top of the anti-depressants, I've been having (and men - turn away if you don't want to read this) regulary monthlys. 9months in a row. I can't even tell you the last time I had 3 of these in a row - not to mention 9. My doctor friends tell me this is a very good thing medically (and I know they totally right), but there are days when I miss the not feeling bloated and icky once a month. On my weight chart, I've been noticing that there is always one monthly weight gain spike - and it's discouraging. I just have to tell my mind that it's a good spike.

Anyways - so I've been feeling bad over the fact that I have been hovering around the 20-25 pound weight loss mark. I was really discouraged - so I stopped doing the things that I should - like keeping track of what I eat and making sure I get in 40 oz. of water. So at the beginning of September I told myself that I needed this to be fun again. So I splurged. I bought myself a Wii and a Wii Fit. There were so many reasons why I shouldn't have done it, but I needed to do something to make me want to get back on track. I've had the Wii for a week now - and I've played every night at least 30 minutes. It's really excellent excerise for the arms. Yesterday the Wii Fit finally arrived, so I played on that for another 30 minutes. It was a lot of fun. Anyways - I'm really psyched that I will be able to track my progress on it. Like the folks on the Biggest Loser - my physical age is way older than my chronological age - so I have a lot of work to do. (Speaking of the Biggest Loser - how gross was it to see how fat builds around your organs. Seriously. If I wasn't already try to lose weight - that would definitely inspire me)

So that is where things are. As of my last week weigh in I was 288.2 pounds. We'll see how I do tonight. Send me skinny vibes.

And I promise that I will post again soon.

That wasn't so bad

Yeah, I'm totally lying. That was great.

Yesterday I went to weigh in. Now I had been expected to have held steady, lost no weight. Maybe if I was lucky I would have lost maybe a pound, which would negate the pound that I lost the previous week.

You can imagine my disbelief when my weight came up as 288 - meaning that I had lost 4 pounds this last week.

Can I get a woot woot!

That means that altogether I have now lost 22 net pounds. 9 more pounds and I reach the 10% mark - which means that I can reward myself by replacing my ipod.

To celebrate - I got home and I made myself some fruit soup. Fruit soup was one of my favorite summer time treats my mom made when I was little. Of course I ended up getting tired so I haven't yet done some of the final steps - but those can wait for tonight. Anyways - if you would like to make fruit soup, here is how you can do it. (It looks like there are a lot of steps - but it really is seriously easy)

Emily's Favorite Summer Time Fruit Soup

1 lb. fresh cherries - pitted
1 lb. peaches
1 lb. plums
1 lb. nectarines or apricots (which ever floats your boat the most)
11 cups water
1 to 1.5 cups Splenda
1 Tbsp. lemon juice
10-12 whole cloves

Step 1: Clean and halve all the fruit, remembering to remove all pits and stems. Put in large pot

Step 2: Cover fruit with the water and drop in cloves

Step 3: Bring the pot to a boil (Cover optional - The smell when it is boiling is HEAVENLY) Let boil for about 5 minutes.

Step 4: Take pot off heat. Pour in sugar and lemon juice and stir. Let sit off heat for about half hour - 45 minutes (I suggest you watch some tv or do some house cleaning while waiting)

Step 5: Using a slotted spoon, scoop up the big fruit, cut into smaller, bitesize pieces, and then drop back into pot. If you have mesh strainer, you might want to use this to strain out the whole cloves.

Step 6: Take half the mixture and puree in blender (this may need to be done in two or more batches - depending on the size and strength of your blender). Pour pureed fruit mixture back into pot. If you find the whole cloves - try to take them out before they get pureed.

Step 7: Stir it all together!!

Step 8: Chill in fridge.

Step 9: When cold, you can serve. A serving will be about a cup to a cup and a half. You can eat it as is, or my mom always poured in a dash of half and half or a dollop of cool whip. As a person on WW - I would recommend if you want to do this - you use fat free half and half, cool whip free, or even unsweetend vanilla almond milk. ENJOY

Things were difficult this week

This last week proved to be very tough. I was starting a new medication that my body just wasn't adjusting to. For the first time in my life I felt like I was suffering from a migraine. I was suffered from insomnia and nausea. I barely left my bed this whole weekend. Needless to say that all I was hungry for was comfort food (when I was hungry at all) - so I let myself indulge in that. So I will be very surprise if I don't step on the scale tonight having gained a pound of two.

Thankfully my body is finally agreeing with the meds. That means that I need to get back on the WW Wagon. Hopefully my next report will be much better.

Emily

Always Check the Math

So I've learned an important lesson - always check the math when it comes to pound lossage.

I told you yesterday that I had gained 3 pounds last week. I was accepting of that because I knew that I hadn't been the best WW'er plus you know - girly water weight. I was ok with 3 pounds. So yesterday I weigh in and the good news was that I was at 291 (plus some small change) - down 4.8 pounds from the week before. I then went to put my new weight into my weight tracker. Now usually I just remember how much I loss. So the week before I had entered in that I had gained 3 pounds from the weight the week before that. So when I took the 4.8 pounds I had lost this week, my weight was at 292 something. Not that big of a difference, but it looked funny. So I went to check to make sure everything was right.

Well, it turns out when I put on the three pounds, the person filling in the pounds loss number accidently added backwards. By adding backwards I mean, I weighed in at 296, the previous week was 293.4, so he just subtracted 3 (296-293). In reality it was really only a gain of 2.6 pounds (almost half a pound less than 3 - woo hoo!). So when I fixed everything - it turns out (drumroll please) that this week not only did I lose the 2.6 pounds I put on the week before - I kicked out another 2.2 of their friends - making it a total weight loss of 19.6. I'm only .4 pounds away from 20 pounds lost. Yay!

Anyways - the moral of the story is always check your math!

p.s. I don't mean to disparage my weigher. I love our weigh guy at my WW - he's always very nice and sunny. And seriously, I've added backwards before too - it's super easy to do.

Speed Bump Last Week

So for six straight weeks I had weight loss, with two weeks in a row having 2+ pounds of weight loss. I thought I was on a roll, so I probably eased up on tracking, and water intake, and preparing my food at home. I also (if you didn't notice) didn't blog at all during that time. Yeah - I know that not a lot of people are reading this thing, but the truth is having this out here is a form of accountability for me. So when I don't write - you know that I'm not doing other things as well. Needless to say last week I had gained back weight. Anyways Three pounds to be exact. Of course - in my mind I'm thinking its probably not as bad as I think it was because it also overlapped my "favorite" time of the month. So this last week it was back to the starting block. Back to logging everything, back to checking on my water intake, etc. I made myself go to the grocery store and buy food and I have not allowed myself to buy breakfast, lunch, or dinner this week (because I have enough food in my fridge right now - nice yummy green food). Yesterday we did the weigh in for the weight club at work. I was down 1 pound from the previous weight club weigh in two weeks ago (before I put 3 pounds back on). Hopefully tonight when I do my official WW weigh in - I will see that I have lost those 3 pounds plus some. Wish my skinny vibes!