Good morning all...I'm still around. We're not leaving till tomorrow. We had been planning on leaving this morning, but my mom told me yesterday afternoon that she needed one day of "quiet" before the storm...totally understandable. It's not like it's just going to be me, dh and dds coming up, it's going to be EVERYONE, and a lot of people staying at her house.
Yesterday was a really hard day. Dh had come home right away when I called him Tuesday morning, but yesterday he went in. I just wasn't in the right frame of mind to be with dds, and felt like they played off of my emotions all day (they couldn't be in the same room without hitting or kicking each other, yet when I separated them they cried because they weren't together!) I kept myself busy all day getting the cookie trays finished, and trying to get laundry done (day chore there in itself.) My emotions are just so all over the place, ya know? I had a difficult time with eating yesterday. On one hand, I felt like throwing up all day and didn't want to eat...yet on the other hand, I wanted to do the whole emotional eating thing, which I did with a plate of cookies. But I am giving myself that, and today is going to be better. I am allowing myself to be emotional, but not allowing myself to give in to needless, mindless, pointless eating. And, I'm also going to get in a meeting tonight. I'm expecting to be up a few lbs, but TOM still hasn't shown up, so I know it is partly to that.
Thanks to all of you for thinking of me. My grandmother was an incredibly special person. She was the person that watched me when I was younger... I learned a lot from her. She had a "sly" personality; very witty. I attribute my love of baking to her, and my love of the game Yahtzee! I remember playing it every afternoon after lunch...she cheated at it, too! She loved to quilt (I have several of the quilts that she made) and when she got too old to do that, she learned how to crochet. She only did one pattern (ripple pattern, the same one and only one that I know how to do!) and I have several of her afghans. My dds do, too. I think my favorite thing that I have of hers, though, is a 1951 Betty Crocker cookbook that she handed down to me a few years ago. It is very hard to know that she won't be here anymore, but her quality of life was so poor; it must be so exciting for her to not feel like that anymore, and to be with my grandfather (he passed about 15 yrs ago) and her mother and father and siblings.
Linda-I did actually put the sweet and sour chicken recipe in to the recipe builder on etools, but there was something wrong with the site and wouldn't give me the points. I used to have Mastercook software on my computer, but dh has to reinstall it...after he fixes my computer, that is. Why is it that he is a computer specialist and knows everything about computers, yet at home out of our three, only one works?! And it doesn't have stinkin speakers! So annoying!
Erica...what you said about this being a "journey"...I have really come to realize this this year. During church one Sunday, my pastor's sermon was on how people always are searching, searching for happiness...like "if I get this new job, then I'll be happy...if I lose 20 lbs then I'll be happy" And when that happens, there is always something else they are looking to be happy in. She said that happiness should be in the journey, not just in the end result. I have wasted so much happiness because I did not realize this. It's like the saying, "Stop and smell the flowers." That is what I'm trying to do this time around with losing weight. I'm trying to really pay attention to myself this time. It's taking me a really long time to get anywhere, but I'm trying to enjoy each step of the journey because I am learning so much about myself. I think if I wasn't in this frame of mind this time, I wouldn't of lasted this long. Yeah, I haven't lost a ton so far, but I also haven't given up, and I know when I do get to my goal, I will be "satisfied." I think people are in too much of a hurry during this process. Yeah, I would like it of NOW, but where are we going? What is going to happen if we don't get it off NOW? One thing I've realized these last few months is that there is no stop watch in my hand. I have goals that I work towards, but they are goals that can be adjusted. Realizing this is one big piece of happiness in my journey.
Anyway guys...sorry not to address everyone. I probably will hop back on later.
erica: not sure what is going on, I have hypothyroidism and sometimes when I have days like that I think it's my thyroid talking (or at least I let myself believe that). As far as other snacks well I find a good snack yesterday at Costco it's granola bites they are 90 calories and have 2 grams of fiber. Peanut butter usually does the trick for me also except I didn't have peanut butter at work. I usually keep fruit with me to help but I didn't have any of that either. I am wondering if maybe it's b/c I didn't have a mid-morning snack available like I usually do. Either that or it was just a hungry day for me. No that you mentioned it I think I need to figure that out what other snacks keep me satisfied.
treigh: Hello and Welcome, you and I are the same age, and having the same problem. I have been experincing gains instead of losses and have been excercising like a crazy woman. I don't know what it happens but it's has caused me to have a very off week this week. I am glad to hear that it's not just me in this situation but it too has me confused. Maybe I will look into it if I find anything out I will let you know.
alright derrydaughter, in the name of friendly competition you have kept me OP today. I may even exercise! I have such a competitive streak in me, isn't that silly? But i didn't prepare for lunch today, and i went to whole foods, with the most amazing deli ever. i left with an unsweetened green tea and two sushi rolls made with brown rice. i thought "we're neck and neck- gotta stay on plan!" and it made me smile. sushi makes me smile a lot!
i still have 29 flex pts left over till monday. i don't have any really big plans either, so i think that i can make it. my challenge this weekend is and will always be beer. i love it, and indulging in a few pints usually makes me hungry and willing to eat whatever cruddy bar food is around. not good. soooo, i am going to try to stay OP with food 100% and then just let myself have afew drinks this weekend. i am gonna make it to the 20 pound mark!
paige, its nice to hear from you. you sound like you have the eating thing well in hand. your grandma sounds like such a neat lady. i am glad that you have things she made and skills she taught you. those two things always go a long way in keeping someone close to your heart. Hang in there!
hi treigh! nice to have you in our happy place!
haylo and treigh- are you over training? not eating enough? maybe getting water retention in sore muscles? maybe take your measurements consistently over the next month. when i step up my exercise and the scale punishes me, i measure and notice that i have a loss on the tape. that number is better than the one on the scale!
hello to all others! hope you all are having a good day. i am going to nap for a while. that sushi is sitting rather heavy all of a sudden.
I'm relatively new here. I hope you don't mind me invading your thread. Anyway, a little bit about myself:
I'm 33 years old. I live in Ontario, Canada with my husband and two wonderful kitties (no kids). I'm a musician with a really messed up schedule which makes for problematic eating, hence the weight gain. I've been on and off WW more than a few times. What's different this time around? I'm following an exercise program called P90X that is challenging, fun and extreme. Hopefully this will aid in my weight loss! My problem still continues to be food, however. I'm hoping this is the place to be so I can get over this hill!
By the way, I only got a chance to glance through some of the previous entries in the thread. Paige, I get the impression that you recently lost your grandmother. My heart goes out to you. I can relate as I lost both my grandmother in November and my grandfather in December. Grandparents are very special people. Especially grandmothers. They have this way of making everything feel (and taste!) better. I don't know how they do it! Anyway, again my condolences. I'm sure you're left with many great memories of her.
Well, I'm going to sign off now. Thanks for listening.
Welcome Xelena to our thread! Stop by often. Sometimes we acknowledge each other, sometimes we just ramble on about ourselves ad nauseum but we all know we are in this boat together. Welcome to our life raft! Someone always has something that clicks just when it is needed here.
Well I had WI today and I was down 1 lb - whoo hoo!!!! I'm thrilled. Our meeting discussion today was about where do you want to be by the end of the summer. Labor Day - 13 weeks away. How will the summer affect you? A bonfire with a beer, ice cream cone with a friend, barbecues unexpectedly. That tasty hotdog which is a regular dog and a bun. A smore. What tools do you need to work life into your plan and your goals. It was a terrific meeting. One of our ladies challenged herself to a 10 lb weight loss. I thought about it and thought, hhhmmmmm, 10 lbs would be easy at this point but 15 lbs would be probably unrealistic. So we settled with a 12 lb goal for the summer and the leader actually used my goal to help me storyboard it. It was enlightening and took away the overwhelming thought of giving myself a time line. It showed me that I have the tools to make that work. Oh my goodness, it would actually put me in the 160s. Scary, exciting and yet doable. There was this little part of me that was convinced that I would never see the 170s again and here I am. So what is it that is stopping me? Nothing but me and my own fears and mindset.
See Xelena - I ramble. Kind of a blog of sorts. We acknowledge each other and this gives us a space to put into words where we are at.
Best of days to you Paige during your Grandmother's funeral. Remember the good times and have a few laughs and smiles. I find that is the most rewarding part of funerals. The good memories. Remember that if you have friends and family at your funeral, you've left your mark on this world. And that's a good thing.
Futurepixie - aaahhh a competitor. I'll be here on the sidelines for you and Linda during your challenges. Hopefully grabbing some incentive and useful information.
Haylo - hang in there. It's just some periods of time we need to work through. Stop by a couple times a day if necessary.
LJ, Nibs and Ginny - miss you. Hope you are doing fine and life is just busy for you.
I am a 29 year old stay at home mom so it is really hard to make friends and find support when it comes to weight loss. I need to lose 60 pounds to be back to my "healthy" weight and it seems like an impossible journey at the moment. I really need someone to encourage me, teach me the proper ways to regain my health, and to pick me up when I have those inevitable "bad days". I really want to do this for myself. I've had a lot of health problems in the past 3 years and am struggling it seems to get back on the right track. Interstitial Cystitis, Chronic Constipation with IBS, and severe Depression have been battles I'm over coming, but now thanks to medicines, poor diet, and in-ability to excercise I'm in bad shape and really need to get fit again. If you'd like to help me in my journey I'd love to hear from you.
futurepixie: yeah I think I may not have been eating enough, the only problem is that I got so frustrated that I guess I decided to take a week off plan. I am going out of town this with my parents so my plan is to get myself back on track. I think for me it's the who end of school year thing everyone here at work is just ready for a break so I think most of us are taking a break from everything and eating very poorly hear at work which is unusal, good thing is at least it came at a good time. I think I have made myself feel guilty enough to where I feel like it is time for me to get back on track.
rosegarden: thanks for the encourgement, I know i can do this I just need to get a grip.
Ann, hope your day was a good one. Great idea to put the wallet at the bottom so you do have to dig through all the healthy food in order to get to it - I like that!
Tracy, I have a theory on why your weight goes up when you have worked out, when you expect it to go down. My personal thought is that it's the type of work out you do that affects weight. Body conditioning is excellent, but I think it's better to alternate that with what they refer to as "cardio" or walking or moving in general. It's the movement type of exercise that burns weight off, I think. The other kind is great for those of us who have lost weight and are flabby with wrinkles in our skin as well. It also tons and strengthens, so we should be doing a bit of both.
Also, I understand that working out (body conditioning type) makes the muscles expand and retain fluid for about 24 hours as the muscles "heat up". Think about that phrase "pumping up" and that can give you a mental picture of what you are doing to your muscles. Have you ever heard of the term "burn" when it comes to exercise, when you "burn" you heat up. I'll bet you will see a loss at the scale, but it will take longer if you are doing the tone and strength exercise. Next week, before weigh in, try walking for two days before weigh in vs. this kind of work out. Then, maybe go to two days with this and two days with cardio/walking and alternate to make sure walking is scheduled before weigh in days. I hope I haven't confused the heck out of you! It's just my personal theory, but I think I'm right. But, as they say, "everything in moderation", I think the same ought to go with exercise. It's "all good" but maybe the people who are most successful at weight loss have arrived upon a certain way to exercise that works with their body type. So, I'd experiment and definately not "pump up" right before weigh in.
Erica, I'll bet I would love your meetings. You sound so "right on" with your thoughts. I'm proud of you that you have achieved enough weight loss to go back to work for WW! Awesome job!
Paige, darling, so glad you posted. I was greatly concerned for you. I do hope that you keep positive, which is how you sound. Your grandmother sounds like a wonderful woman, especially when I hear she was a quilter, as I am one too! I'm so glad you have her old Betty Crocker cookbook, when this is all over and you want to feel close to her put your hand out and grab that cookbook and make something that is a "memory" food and share that memory of her with your daughters. It will be a special thing. You can cay, "Your great-grandmother always made this when I was a little girl" and things like that. They will be so taken with those kinds of stories.
Take care of yourself and I am glad that you are getting to a meeting, it's a good place. You'll be able to share with people (they are mini therapy sessions, aren't they?) what is happening and you will get some great ideas and thoughts from the members there.
My advice, said with a wry smile, is to NOT head for the nearest drive up place and get chocolate doughnuts, my personal "drug of choice" when my dad was so sick. What was I thinking? When I think of the highs and lows that blood sugar has and what I was doing to my emotions by eating like that, yikes! Have fruit, have whole grains, feel comfort surging through your body vs. junk!!!!
Pixie, in the name of friendly competition.... I'll bet you will "win" for this week as you said you don't have big plans for the weekend and I am going away. I seem to always blow it when I go away, but maybe I'll think of you and remind myself to behave? I'll try really hard when I am ordering at a restaurant to envision me losing more than you this week!
Xelena, welcome! Problematic schedules are the specialty of a few of our group. Maybe they can share things that they do? One thing that helps me when things get busy is to make large quantities of certain foods when I do have time to cook, freeze and heat up in small portion controlled containers.
If you are eating our frequently, on the go, try places like Subway - I love their 6" turkey sub on honey oat bread with lettuce and tomato. I get lite mayo on the side (they slather it on otherwise) and the entire thing, including a very small amount of the lite mayo is only 7 points. If you ask for pickles on the side, they give you a great little container of them and they add to the feeling that you are getting a bit more than just a sandwich and pickles are 0 points (though a bit high in sodium, of course).
If you are on the road, bring a small cooler and stock yogurts, salads, fruit, sugar free iced tea or water, if you are in trouble and really running like mad, go into a grocery store and buy WW bread or lite bread and get those Laughing Cow Lite cheese wedges. You can squish a cheese wedge (one point) in between a slice of bread, two slices and two cheese wedges = 3 points, you can buy and apple and off you go in a hurry!
We can think of other things for you as well!
Do you play violin? Are you in an orchestra? My two kids are musicians!
Laura, great loss! Many of us were down exactly one pound this week, must be a great number! Sounds like you have a real achievable plan after that meeting, Laura! I know you can do it! Stick with the goals, work that plan!!!
Wyattslillady, (what a mouthful, we'll have to think of a nick-name for you!). I feel for you. I have been a stay at home mom for over 19 years. Firstly, I must say that I have felt like a dinosaur as there are so many working moms and people treat me weirdly. It's very isolating and meeting other moms and making friends was always really hard when my kids were young. Maybe we can help and give you some ideas?
At any rate, as for your health issues and weight, sounds like you might do best on the CORE plan. Have you researched it? Whole grains and lots of fruit and veggies seem to be what your body needs, considering what your issues have been. Also, make sure you get in that water.
As for me, I was feeling kind of lousy today. But, a few Advil and some tea have rallied me a bit. I am overtired and need to get a good night's sleep tonight, I guess. But, I hope to get on the treadmill after dinner anyway, but it will probably be a slow walk tonight, but any walk is better than none. I'm on program for the most part, but it seems like I'll be using a few flex points tonight. I'm ok with that.
Do any of you notice that if you are really tired and maybe even coming down with something (have sore throat and chills today) that you are hungrier than usual? I just had a bowl of popcorn and that has "held me off" until dinner is made, at least.
Well, speaking of dinner, it's off I got to get going on it.
Thanks for the welcome. I appreciate it. Linda - no actually, I don't play the violin (well, I did a little when I was a kid but...). I just use it on my ticker because it was the only musical thing they had. I actually play guitar and sing (and some saxophone). What do your children play? And how old are they? Music is one of the best things that they can be involved in because it will definitely benefit them in all other areas in their developement and life.
Anyway, I have to go for now.
Until later...
Last edited by xelena; 05-24-2007 at 05:13 PM.
Reason: Missing ticker
Xelena, my daughter is a singer/actress and son is a guitar player (more metal that you probably are, though). He's in college for musical film scoring and she just auditioned for the New England Youth Opera Company. She "landed" the solo in a performance next week of Carmina Burana, Dulcissime, which is a pretty big deal for her. I'm a proud mom!
By the way, all, I forgot to mention the WW recipe for "Crunchy Chicken Bake" that I tried last night was a hit! We ALL (even my son who is picky and not on WW) loved it. If anyone wants the recipe, I'd be glad to type it in.
I used Chinese "Duck Sauce" for a point to dip my crunchy chicken "fingers" that it made in and it was a great 6 point alternative for the Sweet and Sour Chicken that would have been 16 points a serving. We had brown rice and broccoli with it and it was really yummy. Sometimes, I am actually amazed that a recipe from a WW cookbook can taste that good. There have been some (but that can happen with any cookbook as tastes differ) recipes that we have definitely not liked from this particular cookbook, so I was glad.
I would love the recipe Linda! Thanks! Hey, I bet I've never mentioned that we come from a musical family. DH was a professional musician for years and played with duets and bands and solo until some insurance issues in our state did away with live performances and the business dried right up. All my kids were in band. Middle child, DD, is a music major in college and just got accepted into Central Michigan University's School of Music and earned a scholarship. She wants to teach choir. Hopefully our economic climate will improve as a lot of schools in Michigan are doing away with their arts programs which include music. She wants to move out of state but it would be a plus if she did not HAVE to do that. My youngest son is a drummer and did the drumline in the marching band during his high school days. DD was in color guard and played the clarinet. She did 2 years in the marching band and 2 years as color guard. She said she missed marching but loved the dance portion of color guard. We have spent the past 6 years doing marching band competitions all over the state. The band marches at Disney World for the electrical parade at night every 4 years and marches in the Indy 500 parade every 4 years. My son leaves on Saturday a.m. EARLY to do this year's I-500 parade. I wish I could have went. I usually chaperone but this year's budget didn't allow it as it was a $225 price tag for an overnight trip and with graduation and other stuff with colleges, I opted out of this trip. Think of us if you see the Olivet High School Marching Band on tv
Again I ramble but I had to chime in with our music stuff for Linda and everyone else
Hi all...just want to check in quickly. I made it to a meeting tonight. I actually went to a different place, like I had mentioned before that I was thinking about doing. They are only open one day a week, and there is only one time slot that fits my schedule, so that is really going to keep me accountable. The last few weeks I had the "I'll go tomorrow" attitude. So anyway, I was up 2.2lbs, just like I had thought. Oh well...I am just so glad now that I faced the music (I really, really was tempted to not go but since I am doing the monthly pass, I just did not want to waste more money on another missed meeting) and now I am really feeling back on track. I was also worried that if I did not go tonight that that would set me off on a bad path for the weekend. At least going today helped to "re-energize." I actually really liked this meeting, too. I had been to this leader once before, and she reminds me SO much of my mom. I have been dragging my older dd with me places the last few days (as a distraction so I don't have to be alone...how sad is that?!) so I kept saying to her, "Emily, doesn't she look just like grandma?!" I think just because of that I will feel more connected to her.
I also tracked my food intake today. I have 7pts left, so I'll probably have a bowl of low fat ice cream after the dds go to bed. So that's $1 towards my pedicure!
We're not leaving until sometime tomorrow, so I'll be able to check back in again before we leave. The funeral isn't until Saturday at 11am; I am very much funeral-phobic so I am just not looking forward to it. I guess no one looks forward to funerals, though, huh?!
Paige: I am so proud of you going to a meeting, you actually encourage me to stop feeling sorry for myself and get myself in gear. I just thought if she is going through all this emotional stress and my only complaint is that I can't wait for the school year to be over then I have nothing to complain about. I think I actually may try to go to a meeting tomorrow and face the music about my off week before I head out of town on saturday. You are right in your thinking that the meetings will help get back on track. I hope all goes well with you.
Music,well since we are on tht subject I too am a muscisian I play the flute, piano, guitar, and piccolo. I played the flute all the way too college then when I got there I did the marching band thing and had two quit my second year b/c it took so much time to practice and still get in all my college courwork. Who ever knew we were all so talented.
I'm still here, too....just busy throughout the day..and mentally exhausted in the evening, after being on the phones, staffing and putting out fires...
I'll write this weekend...I'll take some time for me.
"See" you all then...
