Friday, February 18, 2011

New blog

I decided to move my blogging activities over to tmblr

Please follow me there, or on twitter where I'll be sharing my posts. Thanks for all the support so far! :)

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

In a battle between me and my cravings, who wins?

I DO! That's who.

Well, at least I'm working on it..


It's been a challenging 2 weeks for me on this weight loss journey. I've been tempted by chocolate, and I gave in a few times. Last Thursday at the scale, I registered a 0.6 gain. I didn't beat myself too much about it because I knew what I had done the previous week: one stressful night where I drank too much wine and went for the chocolate, and another few nights where I snacked on chocolate right before going to bed.

The good news is: I tracked everything.


The bad news is that I've been giving in to these cravings way too often. Am I self-sabotaging? Why is it harder for me to resist these things now than it was before? How am I going to continue to lose weight if I keep on doing this? What's the deal with my night-time snacking anyway?
These are all questions that I'm trying to answer right now.

Friday night I thought of throwing away all the chocolate that's in my house. There are some leftover Halloween candy, as well as some Brazilian chocolate I brought with me on my last trip.  I decided against it. Instead, I put it all out in a bowl on the living room and had some. I also allowed my kids to have some, in hopes that the numbers would decrease.

Then Saturday morning I did some thinking during Zumba (for some reason I do great thinking while I'm exercising...). I came home and wrote messages to myself on bright orange index cards. There is one on my refrigerator door, at eye level that says: "Are you really hungry right now? or just bored/anxious? Brush your teeth, drink water, chew gum..."

There is another on the bathroom mirror that says "You are beautiful and strong"

There is another on my scale that says, "You can do this! Don't self-sabotage! You deserve it!"

And finally, the one by the chocolate bowl that says: "Who's stronger, You or Chocolate?"

I haven't touched the chocolate since. The cards are really helping me. I've been more mindful about my nighttime snacking. I will do my best to continue these positive behaviors.

Friday, January 21, 2011

Following up on current goals

If there's anything I've learned about being successful in my corporate retail job, it's the power of following up.
Here I am, applying my accountability skills to my health goals:
I set these goals 10 days ago, here:
1) Get back to 176 by Thursday by drinking lots of water and trying to stay within my points. Accomplished!
2) Get down to 170 in 6 weeks, on the 2/24 weigh in. I will do that by practicing the two things above, and also by exercising regularly. In Progress
3) Improve flexibility on my right hip. This is because my right hip is very inflexble in yoga, and I feel it's holding me back and preventing me from doing some of the poses. I will do this by continuing to practice yoga and by challenging myself when stretching. I found this amazing Yoga lady on youtube, and started practicing some of her videos. One of which immediately started helping me open up my hips.... AMAZING.
4) Spend an entire week without eating chocolate, starting now. Almost... this was written on a tuesday. Sunday I had some chocolate. Will continue to try every day.
5) Get more sleep: I was sleep deprived last week and I felt overly tired and craving chocolate. In Progress (and it's working!)
6) Tighten my abs by continuing to practice Yoga, PiYo, and crunches. In Progress
7) Continue to track everything I eat YES
8) Continue to measure and have portion control. YOU BET!



Original weight: 222lbs
Current weight: 174.8lbs
Pounds lost: 47.2lbs 

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

A letter to my future self

So I was passing time with Stumbleupon  and found this cool little website: FutureMe.org
 Unable to resist the temptation, I wrote a letter to my future self. Here it is pasted below. It will be delivered to me 38 weeks from now, when I expect to have lost the remaining 38 lbs of my goal.

"Dear FutureMe,
I wish this would work in reverse. I wish I could get messages from you instead, but whatever. We need to take what we can get, right?

I hope when you get this, you will have reached your weight loss goal. If not, I hope you're close to it. We've come this far not to make it. We worked hard for this, and we're continuing to institute life-long changes in our behaviors toward food and exercise.

How does it feel to not be "chubby", FutureMe? I bet it must feel awesome.

Now that you've reached your goal, do me a favor: don't forget how you got there, and don't take your health for granted. Continue to nurture your body and take care of yourself.

Enjoy your slim, fit and healthy body!

Your best friend,
Present Me." 

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Getting back on track

As I mentioned on my last post, the holidays were full of temptations, breaks in routine and a general minefield that derailed slightly off my weight loss path. I say slightly because I still worked out regularly, and was able to not gain. Nevertheless, I also freaked out about my weight a lot! Especially on Mondays, after some particularly indulgent weekends. A few weeks in a row now, I've freaked out on Mondays, worked really hard through Thursday and was able to show either a small loss or a maintain at the WW weigh in.

What's been going on?


I've been having some fun. A couple of parties with wine, chocolate and appetizers. I love appetizers... there's nothing more genius than being able to try lots of different things in small portions. As much as I love this kind of thing, I realize how much it can derail me. I end up eating without quantifying, and later when I track... bang! 35 PointsPlus in 1 evening...

I know what you're thinking (if you're in WW): "That's why we have the 49 weekly PointsPlus!" yes, indeed. But if I haven't saved them for the occasion or planned my strategy, I'm in danger of falling back into old bad habits of mindless eating and general gluttony.

So here I am, during another "Damage Control" week, committing myself to getting back on plan, and to continue to do as well as I had been doing before the holiday. I thought I'd start by setting some small goals that I can hold myself accountable for:

1) Get back to 176 by Thursday by drinking lots of water and trying to stay within my points.
2) Get down to 170 in 6 weeks, on the 2/24 weigh in. I will do that by practicing the two things above, and also by exercising regularly.
3) Improve flexibility on my right hip. This is because my right hip is very inflexble in yoga, and I feel it's holding me back and preventing me from doing some of the poses. I will do this by continuing to practice yoga and by challenging myself when stretching.
4) Spend an entire week without eating chocolate, starting now.
5) Get more sleep: I was sleep deprived last week and I felt overly tired and craving chocolate.
6) Tighten my abs by continuing to practice Yoga, PiYo, and crunches.
7) Continue to track everything I eat
8) Continue to measure and have portion control.

I can do this!!!

Original weight: 222lbs
Current weight: 176.2lbs
Pounds lost: 45.8lbs