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.

WTF Weigh-In

I normally weigh-in first thing Monday morning after I go to the bathroom and before I eat anything, butt naked of course. Every 4th week I have to weigh-in in the afternoon though when I wake up because I have to work on Sunday night, and I don't like weighing in after I've been up all night eating and drinking at work. I really hate these weeks because I feel like it skews my results and I usually don't end up losing much when I weigh in the afternoon, then the next week I'll drop 3 or 4 pounds.

Anyway ... I got up this afternooon and stepped on the scale and I lost 6.6 pounds this week! WTF! Other than the afternoon weigh-in I didn't do anything differently this week. I even gorged on that cake and icecream this past weekend. I'm not complaining though, I'll definitely take it.

In other news, I met my August goal of earning 130 APs. I just added them all up and I'm at 135.5 for the month and that doesn't include what I'm going to do today. So, yay!

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!