Goals for The Week

First of all, there is something that has been on my mind that I want to discuss. For all you Biggest Loser fans, last night on the episode when they had to order all of their food out, did you notice that they said to make sure their fruit didn't contain any: bananas, melons, or grapes? I keep thinking that maybe I misunderstood what they were saying. Surely they don't have them on such a strict diet that they can't eat certain fruits! Or do they?

My personal philosophy on fruits and vegetables is that, I didn't get fat eating them and they aren't going to make me fat now. Unless of course, you fry them or saute them in butter. I don't normally count points for fruits and vegetables that I eat raw or cooked without additives.

Every week I like to set a couple goals for myself. My weeks start on Monday (as far as weigh-in goes), so I'm a little late blogging these but thats ok. My goals for this week are:

• To only weigh on weigh-in day.
• To track everything I eat on Weight Watchers and Spark People.

I signed up for Spark People several months ago, but I stopped using it because I felt like it was too time consuming and redundant to track my food on both Weight Watchers and Spark People. One thing I did like about Spark People though that Weight Watchers doesn't have is that you can track all of your nutrients. You can actually see a breakdown of your calorie, carb, fat, and protein intake and measure it against the recommended daily amounts. You can track any other nutrients you are interested in as well.

Lately I've been really interested in not only losing weight, but also healthy living. By this I mean that I'm more interested in the nutritional value of what I'm eating than the Points value. So that is why I wanted to start using my Spark People account again. So far I'm doing really good at staying in the correct ranges for calories, carbs, fat and protein.

My other goal for this week is to only weigh on Monday. When I was younger I was completely scale obsessed; I would weigh when I first woke up, after I went to the bathroom, after I ate, after I exercised, anytime I went into the bathroom. You get the idea. I think this stems from growing up in a househould with someone that had eating disorders. My mother struggled with anorexia and bulemia when I was a child. For that reason its really important to me not to be scale obsessed anymore. I usually want to weigh myself every morning when I wake up, but I realize that there will be normal fluctuations from day to day and that weighing on a weekly basis is much more reliable.

My eats for today included:

Kashi GoLean Crunch with Vanilla Oikos Greek Yogurt


A Gala apple, my fave!


Leftover spaghetti squash with meat sauce, and a side salad.


1/2 of a Green Monster (Yep, thats yesterday's pic again)


Steak with mushrooms, green beans, roasted cauliflower, and
a twice baked potato.

I also had a handful of Quaker Quakes Mini Rice cakes, a Crab Delight snack, and a piece of garlic toast. It really seemed like I ate alot today, but I came in at 1450 calories.

I ran 6 miles this afternoon, and it was extremely hard for me today. I don't know if it was because I ran in the afternoon and I normally run in the morning, or if I was just having an off day. I literally felt like I couldn't have taken one more step though, and I felt all weird and dizzy afterwards. I think my body needed the extra calories tonight because I felt much better after dinner.

Family Pictures

Every year we donate money to our local Volunteer Fire Department and in exchange they give us a free sitting for family portraits. They called today to tell us that the photos will be taken tomorrow afternoon.

I got to thinking about how different we will look in our photos this year than last year. Most years we didn't even take photos because I never wanted to see a picture of myself.

This is our family photo from last October.

I honestly don't hardly recognize those people. Its hard to believe that was only one year ago. Hopefully this year we will have some pictures that we can actually be proud of. Who knows ... maybe we'll make Christmas cards with photos this year.

Just Overweight!

Daily Activity: Ran 5 miles (6.5 APs)

I have always hated exercising. My entire life I can remember doing this diet, or that diet, counting fat grams, counting calories, counting carbs, etc. Of all the times in my life I've tried to lose weight the large majority of those times I focused strictly on controlling what I ate (or didn't eat is more like it). I rarely exercised. There was one point when I was in high school that I ran a little bit, but I hated every second of it. I have always had the outlook that I would "rather starve myself than workout".

When I started Weight Watchers (this time around) I originally started only paying attention to what I ate, as usual. I wasn't working out, or even being active in any way other than the walking I do up and down the hallways at work. For some reason I got really interested in Wii Fit though. I thought maybe it would be a way that I could get in some exercise that might actually be fun. So my husband bought it for me and I "played" so much the first day that I was actually sore. I kept that up for about 2 months, and between that and Weight Watchers I started really losing some weight.

Once I realized that exercising can actually be fun, I decided I needed to step it up a notch. So we joined the YMCA and started doing the elliptical and eventually spinning and running on the treadmill. But the point is that I would have never made that step without the thing that originally sparked my interest in exercise. Which was the Wii Fit.

It seems silly now because I doubt anything I could do on Wii Fit would bring my heart rate above 100 these days. But I loved getting up and weighing in everyday and doing my 30 minutes of boxing, hula hoop, or the step aerobics (my personal fave). When you step on the scale it tells you your weight and BMI and then tells you if you are underweight, normal, overweight or obese. Mine of course always said "That's OBESE!"

I stopped using the Wii Fit a long time ago, but occasionally I still like to get on and weigh and see how my weight and my BMI have changed over time. Today I got on just for the heck of it and I got a nice suprise, instead of obese it said "Thats Overweight!" As a matter of fact my BMI has dropped from 40 to 29.

I never thought I'd be happy to be overweight, but atleast its just overweight and not obese.

Vacation!

Daily Activity: Spinning (x2) 7.5 APs

Its official! Tim and I booked our fall vacation today. We are going to Gatlinburg, TN in October for 5 days and 4 nights. I'm very excited to be going on vacation for the second time this year. When I was a kid my family always went on two vacations a year: the beach in the summer for a week and the mountains in the fall or winter. I really want to start similar traditions for our son, Lincoln.

Tim and I have been married for 7 1/2 years and we haven't been on any real vacations at all since our Puerto Rico honeymoon. One of the main reasons for this is because I never wanted to go anywhere because I was so embarassed about my weight and the way I looked. I definitely never wanted to go to the beach and be seen in a swimsuit. We went to Six Flags once and Tim at that time weighed about 350 pounds and couldn't fit on most of the rides, so I rode everything by myself. He was embarassed and I was lonely. It wasn't a good time for either of us.

Now that we have lost a significant amount of weight, I'm feeling alot more energy and desire to go out and live life to the fullest.

I normally don't like to say "I want to lose x amount of weight in y amount of time" because I don't like setting time limits on my weightloss, but I think I might make an exception for our mountain trip to help keep me motivated. I'd like to lose 1.5 pounds per week between now and when we leave for our vacation on October 29th. That would put me at 158 lbs by that date. That seems so small! That would also put me just over 100 pounds of weight lost. I'm going for it!

Just a little background.

I started this blog to share my weightloss story with anyone who wants to read it. I've been overweight my entire life. There isn't a time when I remember being happy with my weight or the way I looked. Now that I look back I wish I would have been happier with where I was because I never realized how bad things could and would get.

When I graduated high school I weighed around 175 lbs. I wasn't happy with the way I looked, but I was fairly healthy. I was exercising on a semi-regular basis at the time.

Once I started college and met Tim, my future husband, I got fat and happy so to speak. I gained a little bit at a time until I was 200 ... 225 ... 250 and eventually 260. I tried Weight Watchers just after Tim and I got married in January 2002. I lost about 15 pounds, but getting up early on Saturday mornings to go to meetings didn't last long. I should have known I was setting myself up to fail when the thing I looked forward to the most was going to IHOP right after weigh-in. I gave up, and gained back the weight I had lost plus alot more.

I don't think I ever really realized how big I had gotten. I knew my clothes were getting bigger and bigger, but when I looked in the mirror I still saw a fairly ok looking girl most of the time. I would see people out in public that I knew were way bigger than I was, so I felt ok about myself. But not great. I can remember asking my husband, "am I bigger than her?". Of course he'd always say no, she was way bigger than I was. So I was ok.

In 2007 I started seriously thinking about having a baby. At this time I was hovering right around 260 lbs. I wanted to lose some weight before I got pregnant. I started Weight Watchers again and lost 15 lbs before I found out I was pregnant. Throughout my pregnancy I did gain weight, but not a shameful amount. I think the total ended up somewhere around 20 lbs. After my son was born I lost around 30 lbs in just a couple of weeks. I got down to about 235 or so without even trying. I was super excited. I weighed less than I did when I got pregnant! That is what sparked my desire to continue. I thought, "if I can lose 30 lbs without even trying, what could I do if I put some effort into it?"

So I logged back on to weightwatchers.com and renewed my account that I had cancelled, and so the story began.

Tim and I at my baby shower. (March 2008)