I figured I may as well start the new week's thread.
Gina - I hope you are doing OK.
Carla - did you decide to try Core this week?
Rachel, Lisa, Karen, Tanya in NZ - come check in and tell us how you are doing.
I had a good weigh in, especially since we were away for a few days - I lost 0.8, which means I lost the 0.6 I gained two weeks ago plus a little more. I had a good day yesterday. We went to my parent's pool - last of the season - and the weather was perfect, mid-80's and sunny. We went out to dinner with them to a little Italien place and I did really well. I did have one very small piece of garlic bread (counted it) but my appetizer was Core and I had a chicken breast with artichoke entree that was great - very fresh ingredients and really light. With a cappuccino afterwards, the dinner "cost" me 6 flecx points but it was well worth it. I didn't get to really do my PT stretches yesterday though and I'm feeling it today. I did all my PT stretches and strength moves today though so I hope my back feels better tomorrow. I have an appt with the doctor tomorrow am (cholesterol monitoring) and the dentist (yuck) in the afternoon.
I would like to join you for support. I have been thinking about starting my healthy lifestyle for a while. When I woke up this morning and watched TV, I decided today is the right day to start.
This is my 4 th week, I did not lose anything this week, which is okay because I had gone out to eat 2 times, I tried to be as good as I could but they were not good resturant choices. I hope I can do better this week.
247!! YES!!! I reached my first mini-goal, which is also my 10% goal!
I didn't think I'd hit it this week, because it would have to be a 3-pound loss, but I've been working my tail off and I did it!! I'm 1/4 of the way to goal!
l&dnurse - I look at maintaining my weight as much better than gaining! Next week I'm sure you'll post a loss.
winter - Are you currently attending WW or are you going to do WW at home?
Judy - Hope your doc appt went alright yesterday and congrats on the loss.
As for me, I am doing okay. The last week has probably been the most emotional rollercoaster I've had in a long time. I was right to be concerned. I did miscarry. Even though a pregnancy wasn't something we'd planned at the moment, we realized neither of us was opposed to it at all. In fact, we both got a little giddy and happy about it even though it was stressful thinking about the financial ramifications. So it was definitely difficult once I lost the baby. Ever notice when you go through some kind of trauma in your life, you suddenly see reminders everywhere? It seemed like everyone I saw was pregnant, commercials were all for baby products, and there were a ton of TV programs about birthing and babies.
It was a very sad week for me. And physically it was a nightmare. I had a LOT of pain and cramping and it completely killed my energy levels and ability to walk around, much less do anything else. There were a couple of days where I laid on the couch for literally 6 hours because everytime I sat up, it was too painful for me to bear. Sean, bless his heart, did a wonderful job of taking care of me. I'm sure I've gained a few pounds in the process because I went to comfort foods far too often this week and wasn't really able to cook healthy for myself. It's definitely been rough. I'm still in on and off cramping pain and I'm told it could take up to another week before the bleeding completely stops, so fun times for me.
I'm taking it slow this week, but I do need to get back onto schedule as far as WW goes. So today I'm going to focus on getting my water in and trying not to eat out of the snack machine. I think those are two attainable goals for the day.
Gina, I'm so sorry for what you've been through. I know what you mean about reminders everywhere making it difficult. My husband and I have fertility issues and we've been married 13 years so everyone constantly asks when we're going to have a baby. I would hope that people would figure out that it's hurtful, but people never think that deeply before saying things. Even people who KNOW we have problems still bug us about it, so that's just absurd, really. It's a difficult thing to deal with, and I'm really sorry you've been struggling with it this week.
Gina - I'm so sorry to hear of your miscarriage. Please take good care of yourself; rest as much as you need to, and don't worry too much about the comfort food right now. And continue letting your husband take care of you - he sounds like a good guy. I can't believe your doctor couldn't fit you in sooner.
Jan - Welcome.
ChristinaMarie - Keep plugging away and you'll see a loss next week.
ldnurse - Restaurant eating can be tough. Put your mind to it and you will have a better week.
LisaMarie - Sorry to hear about your fertility struggles. I know about them first-hand.
I'm bone-tired right now, so I'll keep this short. Not much happening. Hasn't been a stellar week, food-wise. Tomorrow's a new day.
Talk to you tomorrow.
Carla
Judy - Congrats on your loss! That's terrific, especially since you were in AC. Thanks for the CORE pancake recipe. I haven't started CORE yet as I haven't had a chance to plan menus or shop. Did you have the interview yet? If so, how did it go? I hope yesterday wasn't too stressful for you. I refrained from turning on the TV at all.
Jan - Welcome! That's great that you've decided to start a healthy lifestyle.
Christina-Marie - Welcome! Stick with the plan and I'm sure you'll see a lower number next week.
l&dnurse - Welcome! Hey, sometimes I've had weeks where I didn't eat out and followed the plan but the scale didn't show a loss. It happens - the important thing is not to let the scale de-rail you.
Lisa - Congratulations on making your first mini-goal and 10% -woohooo! You are doing fabulously!
Gina - I'm so very sorry about the miscarriage. I was afraid that was what was going on when you first posted. {{{{{HUGS}}}} to you during this difficult time. I totally agree with Carla. Don't stress about turning to comfort foods right now - just take it easy and take care of yourself. I think it's a great idea to focus on getting your water in and not eating out of the snack machine but if you slip a bit, please forgive yourself immediately and just take care. Sean sounds like a great guy - kudos to him for taking good care of you.
Carla - I'm sorry you were so tired yesterday and hope you feel better today! Sorry about the difficult week but today is a new day and the beginning of your new week and I know you can do it! I'm cruising along on Core again this week and it really, really helps my snacking problems. I hope you have the time to do some menu planning. Do you like couscous and cannellini beans? I found an easy recipe for a tasty warm white bean salad (with some tomatoes and garlic, etc.) that I made and threw over some couscous and will be having it for some lunches and snacks. Both are core. Let me know - it's from a WW book so I don't want to post it here but I can email it to you.
I've had a good few days. I pretty much stayed away from the TV on Monday which helped. My doctor's appt went well. The cholesterol numbers were a bit better although I'll still be taking 2 different meds for it everyday. He told me that I was looking great and asked me to get on the scale. When the scale said I was 10 pounds lighter than when I saw him in May, he gave me a high-five and a hug! He said my good cholesterol number should continue to rise a bit with more weight lost. I also don't have to see him for 6 months (instead of the usual 3)!
Yesterday morning's interview went very, very well and while I have to wait until the Bd. of Ed meets on Thursday night to make it official, I got a call in the afternoon from the Asst. Superintendent with whom I interviewed that I got the job!!! I accepted - having spoken with a number of people (including a retired principal and my friend at my current district) the advice is to take it - a P/T Reading Teacher position is a step up from a substitute and really the "next step" in my career. There are a lot of learning opporunities in the new district (including some training in one of the well-known early intervention programs), it sounds like a very supportive and collaborative environment, and they do hire from their P/T staff. Plus, as my friend said, I've impressed the Asst. Superintendent of the new district (who does the hiring). The Asst. Superintendent of my current (soon to be old) district doesn't even know who I am.
I was totally wired all day and all evening yesterday - but surprisingly I didn't snack. Today I am taking it easy, feeling as if I am fighting off a cold (and the last thing I need is to be sick on my "first day" in the new district which will be Friday.) I am subbing in my old district tomorrow so this is my last day of a very long vacation (although I set my clock for 6:15 to get myself back onto the "work" clock.) I have a lot of feelings floating around - a bit of sadness leaving my old school and lots of wonderful people there, excitement at the new opportunity, and also plenty of nervousness.
I'm off to make myself a tomato sandwich (we got great Jersey tomatoes on the way back from AC) and take a nap before PT.
Have a great one!
Judy
Judy - Grats Grats Grats! I work in the school system too and I think you are making a very wise choice considering all of the benefits of the new position. Good luck! another grats about the doc appointment!
Thanks to everyone who posted well wishes. I really appreciate it. I've kept what happened to myself for the most part so it was nice to be able to vent a little on these boards. I just didnt want a bunch of acquaintences asking a lot of questions I just dont feel like answering right now. Lisa, I feel your pain on that side of things. I hate when people just dont think about what they are saying before they say things.. especially when it comes to private matters.
ldnurse - one thing I meant to mention in my earlier post. What helped me in eating out was downloading the nutritional info and/or menus from restaurants around me. I spent a few hours putting the points values on the menus so I could get an idea of what restaurants were best choices and what choices I had when I got there. That has REALLY helped me eat out more successfully since being on WW. It's one thing to eat dinner and go "wow I bet that was a lot of points" and another to look at the 29 points beforehand! I've found that planning ahead is the big thing to help me be successful.
When I go to Chili's as a treat, I get the Grilled Caribbean Salad. It's my absolute favorite salad ever! Without dressing, its 9 points, with the fat free honey mustard its 11points. I can usually squeeze that in without too much trouble, but the better I plan, the easier it is. Same thing with planning what dinners to cook for the family.
The thing I like about WW is that it sorta points you in the right direction as far as eating goes. Even though it might be things we all sorta know in the back of our minds. Veggies are low/no points, high fiber items are lower in points, High sugar items tend to be higher points, etc. I find it is a good (and easy) way to look at things and decide which items are better for me, in general, than others. In time, you sorta just.. know.. how much points things are. It's funny how that happens.
Judy - Congrats on the new job! Even though I'm not experienced with working in the education field, it makes sense that a permanent position, albeit part-time, is going to be better than a sub position. Is the new job closer to your house? I'll be curious to hear how you like being a reading teacher. Sometimes I think that's something I'd really like to do. Speaking of school, we had an IEP review for Ana today. Her review in the spring was in April and since she had two more months of school to go, the team decided to reconvene this fall. I'm beyond thrilled at the progress she's made. The diagnostician was able to reduce her LD resource minutes to 200/week from 300/week. The speech/language pathologist had to increase her minutes from 30 to 60 a week because she has some problems with expressive language, but I'm sure the extra time will be a boon. Her teacher this year is as caring and kind and enthusastic about Ana's progress as last year's teacher was. We are so happy. Good for you for cruising along on CORE. And great job on not snacking through your emotions - both happy and sad. Maybe this weekend I'll be able to menu plan. I like both couscous and canellini beans. I think I have several recipes for salads similar to the one you describe. I'll check them out before I have you go to the trouble of typing up your's. I'm glad to hear you had a good check-up and especially a good reaction from your doc on your weight loss!
Gina - That is some great planning work on your part getting all the nutritional info for the restaurants near you and calculating the points so you have it all on end. I agree about WW leading you in a good direction and about just kind of instinctively knowing points on thing. The thing for me about counting points is that even when I'm not following the program, I'm always looking at labels and calculating points for things and I just cannot bring myself to pick up high point foods. So it helps keeps gains down, even when I'm not formally paying attention.
I got my results from my last check-up the end of last week. My cholesteral levels were good (in fact still freakishly low, considering). More important, my A1C test (which averages glucose levels for the last three months) was 6.2. The goal is to keep it under 7. So both my doc and I were very happy about that. I had my first diabetes education class on Monday. While I didn't learn too much more than I already knew from my doc, my research on the internet, etc. it was helpful. The best part was a dietician was at the session and she worked up meal plans for everyone based on info we provided. The meal plan she gave me is a better fit, I think, than the one I got last year from a different dietician. This one calls for 2-3 carbs at each meal which is down from 4 from last year's plan, but it adds an afternoon snack of 1-2 carbs and increases my bedtime snack to 1-2 carbs. Plus she added an ounce of protein to my breakfast plan, whereas my old plan had the carbs plus 1-2 fat servings. I really need that protein in the morning and I found it impossible to get in 4 carbs in the morning, so this works much better. I think what I'm going to do this week is follow the food plan the dietician gave me and journal my foods in the on-line tracker, but with 0 points (except where it's not a usual food and I need to calculate it, etc.) and then see where it puts me point-wise. I'd rather concentrate on getting in the servings of specific foods and then add in the points. Don't know why, it's just how I want to go with it this week.
I think thats a great idea with the dietician's meal plan. I'd worry more about what they want you to eat than the points involved. I bet you'll still be in a decent points range.
One of the reasons I took time to figure points on the restaurants and fast food near me, is that sometimes I order things differently than the WW restaurant list allows. And the fast food websites have their new items too. It might seem a bit obsessive, but its really helped me especially when giving my family choices in where to eat. If I give them a few restaurants to choose from, its a lot better than just asking the open ended "Where do you want to eat?" . Inevitably they will want a buffet or a pizza place and once they get that in their heads.. its impossible to get them to "want" something else.
I've also started inputting some of my recipes into the WW Online recipe builder to get points values for them. It's interesting to find out some things I made before are really not as bad as I thought. My meatloaf recipe is only 6 points. I was shocked. And that's one eighth of the recipe, we always get more servings out of it than that!
So far today I had a Mcdonalds hash brown for breakfast. I bought myself a fruit and walnut salad as well, but havent wanted to eat it just yet. I had a frozen lean cuisine - frozen potatoes w/ broccoli and cheese sauce for 4 pts and a cup of mandarin oranges. I still have my salad for later when I get hungry. For dinner I'm going to attempt to make that layered chicken casserole again with a salad and veggie. This time I better not blow the dinner up again! I've also drank 4 glasses of water so far and its only 1pm!
I'm hoping it wont be raining out like it has been and I can go for a walk tonight.
Gina - I don't think it's obsessive at all that you calculated the points for the restaurants. It's all about fitting WW into your life and lifestyle and making it work for you. And I completely understand about giving your family a few choices to eat out rather than leaving it open-ended. I have much more success eating out when I know what I'm having beforehand and know how many points it's going to be. And it's it a nice surprise when our recipes don't turn out to be too bad point-wise? One thing I've learned is to keep an open mind and don't just assume some particular food item or recipe is going to be too costly in points. May you have an explosion-free dinner and a rain-free walk.
Tera - Congrats on a great loss.
Judy - If you check in, good luck with your first day on the job tomorrow.
I'm wiped out. It's been busy at work as we gear up for the start of our year (I work in my church's religious ed department) and I've been running around after picking Ana up from school. Fortunately, one of the places I went to was the farmer's market, so I have the fixings for a nice, easy meal. I bought some peppers and tomatoes and some great artisinal cheeses and then I went to the bakery and got a baguette of sour-dough bread. So it will be a nice pepper, tomato, onion and bleu cheese salad in balsamic vinegar and some cheese and bread. Easy peasy.
I am a 40 year old female...5'2" 155 pounds....flabby, dimply, saggy ta ta's.
I thought my husband's weight loss would motivate me....... I have let myself go for years......I have no energy to exercise and won't make myself even though I know it gives me energy.......I eat sensibly for breakfast and lunch........the gluttony begins sometimes before I get home-milkshakes and fast food-I inhale more junk upon arriving home, then cook a regular, sensible meal and eat that too.........
Weigh in at home 9/11 - 9/17
Even though a pregnancy wasn't something we'd planned at the moment, we realized neither of us was opposed to it at all. In fact, we both got a little giddy and happy about it even though it was stressful thinking about the financial ramifications. So it was definitely difficult once I lost the baby. Ever notice when you go through some kind of trauma in your life, you suddenly see reminders everywhere? It seemed like everyone I saw was pregnant, commercials were all for baby products, and there were a ton of TV programs about birthing and babies. 
