Thursday 7/5/2012-Week 2 Check In

As I mentioned in my Tuesday post, I weighed in early this week so I wouldn’t have to go to Weight Watcher’s during my vacation later in the week.  Here are my updated stats:

Week 2 Results	-1.8
Loss since rejoining WW	-4.2
Loss since 2011	-13.7
Loss needed to reach goal	-113.8

My workout log for week 2:

I am stoked about my progress here this week. If you would have told me 2 or 3 weeks ago that I would have walked every day, covering 18 miles and averaging 55 minutes a day, I would have thought you were talking about someone else.

I cannot believe that I look forward to exercising every day. I am thinking about what I can do to push a little harder or farther each day. That hasn’t happened since I was 23 years old.

Mike and I have been talking about the things that have challenged me in the past in keeping with an exercise program and how I will overcome them when they come up.

One part of my current plan is that I don’t plan to have rest days. I will have at least one light day 30 minute walk each week. Since I am only walking right now, I don’t really see the need to have a day off with absolutely no activity. I do think the momentum of getting out every morning should not be broken until I am confident this is really a sustainable habit.

Goals:

Week 2 Goal Results:

Track my food and activity each day	Done
Beat the activity point goal set for me by walking 7 days with at least 3 days at 45 minutes and 30 minutes on other days	Blew this one away with averaging 55 minutes a day and earning 44 activity points
Manage my weekly points allowance for the weekend and our 4th of July get together	Done

Week 3 Goals:

Track my food and activity each day
Beat the 18 activity point goal set for me by walking 7 days with at least 2 days at 60 minutes and 45 minutes on other days
Manage my points for my long vacation weekend and more days of restaurant eating

Wednesday-7/4/2012-Another Barbeque Challenge and Skinny Girl Cosmo Cooler

My plan week for Weight Watchers is Thursday to Wednesday. I knew at the beginning of the week that we were going to a barbeque at our friend’s house. But, I wasn’t sure what we were having besides the (point friendly) potato salad we had offered to bring. My plan for the week was to save most of my weekly allowance points for the barbeque and know that I could dip into the activity points if I needed to.

I started the day with an extra long walk.

I knew that I would want to partake in some adult beverages. To make this point friendly I picked up a bottle of Skinny Girl White Cranberry Cosmo and a bottle of sparkling water.

Skinny Girl White Cranberry Cosmo Cooler

• Pour 1.5 oz. Skinny Girl White Cranberry Cosmo over glass filled with ice.
• Pour sparkling water over to fill glass.
• Garnish with a lime wedge.

For a friendly 1 Weight Watchers PointsPlus

I love this drink because I am satisfying the desire to have a drink, keeping it lower in alcohol and even better low points. I have pretty much replaced most of my wine drinking with this and really cut back on points I used to spend on alcohol.  I think this is meant to drink straight, but it smells like pure vodka to me.  The sparkling water cuts it down a lot that you get the taste without the hangover.

Now back to the barbeque. I ate lighter earlier in the day to save points for the evening. I ate enough to not be ravenous when we got there (at least I thought so).  When we left the house I had the following available for the rest of the day:

• 29 daily points
• 27 weekly allowance points
• 44 activity points that I could swap

I did not go intending to eat all of those points. I did manage to stay completely within my available points without even swapping any activity points.

But I had 67 points in one day, and my body was telling me I ate too much at the end of the day. It was definitely the munchies that were out ahead of time that did me in. I ate too many potato chips, which accounted for 15 of the points eaten add that to salami, cheese and crackers and I used up those weekly allowance points in no time.  I did opt for watermelon for dessert over cookies.

So all in all, I planned ahead and stayed within plan. I do think I could have done better. Lesson learned – “Back away from the potato chips!”.  Thankfully my points re-set tomorrow.

Tuesday 7/3/2012-Packing Lunch and Early Week 2 Weigh In Day

It struck me this morning as I was packing my lunch that my choices are looking a lot more colorful.

I have definitely increased the fruit and vegetable choices and reduced the processed foods in the past couple of weeks. I am finding sometimes that because of the point penalty for processed foods, I am turning to healthier alternatives more often. The downside has been not eating all my points some week days and then having an extra glass of wine or something to use them up.

I am on vacation the rest of the week after the 4th so I planned to weigh in a couple of days early so I wouldn’t have to go or be anywhere on Thursday.  I was leaving early for a doctor’s appointment today, so I couldn’t go at lunch.  I found a meeting near my house and went at the end of the day.

My body always seems to know it is weigh in day. In the morning at home I was down almost 4 pounds. For some explained reason I felt bloated at the end of the day and so the scale only gave up 1.8 pounds.

All in due time. If I keep doing what I am doing it will show up on the scale (and yes I have bad spelling texting thumbs).

I’ll update my weekly progress and goals when I post for Thursday.

Monday - 7/2/2012 - Baja Fresh Do-Over - My First Meal Out on Weight Watchers

In one of my first posts I wrote about my lunch out with my co-workers at Baja Fresh – (One Day Before - 6/20/2012). Today was another birthday lunch and Baja Fresh was the birthday girl’s choice. My first inclination was to pass on going, but that’s silly. I should be able to find something to eat anywhere that fits in with my plan. I had already planned on getting lunch out that day so when the birthday lunch came up, I went. This time though I made sure I had a plan and stuck to it. I looked up the Baja Fresh nutritional information on their website.

The other thing I did this time was order first. Last time I got tripped up because I heard what someone else ordered and it sounded good so I followed suit. What did I order:

The Baja Ensalada Chicken Salad is 7 Weight Watchers PointsPlus with 0 points for the Fat Free Salsa Verde.

The salad was huge and I didn’t finish the entire thing. I forgot to take a picture until after I had started eating it and by then it wasn’t as pretty.  It was delicious and I certainly didn’t feel like I was deprived of anything. I also didn’t feel sick to my stomach later in the afternoon from eating a high fat and calorie meal.

Baja Fresh offers a 1.5 oz. tortilla chip serving complementary with each entrée.  At the store we were at they don’t put the chips on your plate automatically; they hand them to you when you are paying making it a little easier to turn down. But they are portion controlled for you and better than sharing a basket with your friends. Today I could fit in some chips and salsa today; at 5 Points Plus, I probably wouldn’t do this every time, but today I could swing it in my point budget.

All in all, a successful first time eating out since starting plan.

Here are my tips to staying on your plan when you go out to eat:

1. Have A Plan - Look at the menu (and nutritional information) before you go out and decide what you are going to order.
2. Stick To It - Order first to avoid the temptation of something else sounding better
3. Control Portions - If you are going to splurge on something with a higher PointsPlus value, figure out how to control the portion size (count the chips if not portion controlled in the serving provided).
4. Enjoy Your Dining Companions – That’s really why you are there, right?

Sunday- 7/1/12 - Grilled Chipotle Lime Salmon Fajitas Recipe and Exploring

After I ventured out on my walk yesterday and walked the canal along the park I decided to do some more exploring this morning. I was curious yesterday when I saw several people heading up the hill to the park. The park has been open a couple of years but I have never been there. I decided it was time to check it out. I walked the main trail of the park which loops almost the entire park. This is the canal I walked yesterday from above on the park trail.

What I am not really used to seeing by us is anything that really looks like the desert. Most places have lots of green and plenty of lush plants.  The areas not developed by us are mostly still farms and this time of year are still pretty green. Walking through the park trail I was on the lookout for snakes, not something I even think about normally so close to my house.

This is more what I am used to seeing around us. Green grass and lots of trees and green plants.

After I looped the park and headed back, I decided to stay on the canal for the full length of our sub-division and then loop our neighborhood walk the long way.

Results from my extra long walk:

Yesterday I had to trick MapMyWalk to recognize my route so I could figure out how far I had walked. I started looking for an app for my iPhone and found RunKeeper. It has a lot of options I haven’t even looked at. All I really wanted was to track the time and the mileage. It will post to Facebook and Twitter, let you set up a playlist, integrate with a heart monitor and more.

My plan is to take a self photo on the 1st of each month through this journey.  I had shown before photos here and here, but this one is just of me.

We made salmon this weekend. We like to grill our salmon on cedar planks. But we have had some trouble recently with one catching fire. I have another recipe I wanted to share. Again we were trying to use what we got in our produce basket and other things we already had and came up with salmon fajitas. This recipe was adapted from a recipe found here.

Grilled Chipotle Lime Grilled Salmon Fajitas

[gmc_recipe 296]

Day 10 - Saturday 6/30/12 - Grilled Vegetable Chipotle Slaw Recipe

This week I learned from my friend Jen that we have a local co-op that distributes produce baskets each week. I knew this was available other places but had never looked into what we had locally.  Sure enough, BountifulBaskets.org is available in 20 states, and when I went to look what was near me, I found one pick up location 1 mile from my house! My pick up time was at 6:00 a.m. Saturday morning and you have to pick up your basket within 20 minutes of that time. My plan was to get up at 5:00 take a short walk and go pick up my basket.  Then I woke up at 5:50 a.m.  I still made it by 6:03 and was happily surprised to find my basket was really two baskets, one filled with fruit and one filled with vegetables. I checked in and transferred the produce to my own bags and was on my way within a couple of minutes.

This is what I came home with…

• Veggies: Celery, romaine lettuce, 2 green bell peppers, 2 bags of carrots, grape tomatoes, and an onion.
• Fruits:  Grapes, cherries, bananas, cantaloupe and 3 mangos

All of that was $16.50 ($15 for the basket and $1.50 to cover processing fees).  The first week you also pay $3 to contribute for your basket to hold the produce at pick up. You bring your own basket/bag to bring it home. They ask that you volunteer 1 out of each 6 times you pick up your basket.

We planned our meals out for the next week trying to incorporate everything that we received. Later in the day I went to the grocery store and priced out the same items I received and it would have easily cost about $35 for the same amount of produce.

I dropped off my fruits and veggies and headed out for a walk. I had finally set up a playlist on my iPod. Since I had already done my morning errand I now had more time for a walk. I had been looking at this path that looked like it led to the canal and thought “what the heck”. I had time for a longer walk now.

I have lived in this area for 7 years, but have never walked the canal path, even though the canal borders one side of our neighborhood. North of us there is a farm to one side and a park on the other. The park was built on top of what used to be a landfill.  It was warm out but there were lots of other walkers, runners and bikers out on the trail.

I ended up covering 3.24 miles and earning 7 activity points for my efforts. Next time I better put on sunscreen if I am going to be out later in the morning.

I started Weight Watchers on June 21st and started exercising again 2 days later. In that short time I walked 290 minutes and covered almost 14 miles, earning 29 activity points.

I’m very proud of my first month-end activity check-in, because in the days and weeks before June 21st all of those numbers would have been a big fat 0.

Saturday night we started putting our veggies to use. I had picked up red cabbage and a red pepper at the store and wanted to make a slaw with grilled veggies.  I was inspired by a recipe in the July/August issue of Weight Watchers Magazine where they had grilled the vegetables for the slaw. I didn’t think I would like the dressing that was used in the magazine recipe, so I  came up with my own spin on a grilled slaw and used up some of those veggies we got this week (recipe below).

Grilled Vegetable Chipotle Slaw

Prepare the veggies for grilling by chopping the cabbage in quarters and removing the core, cutting the pepper in quarters and slicing the onion thick slices. Spray all sides with olive oil cooking spray.

Grill vegetables until tender.

Mix the ingredients for dressing in the bottom of a large bowl and shred carrots.

After grilled vegetables have cooled, chop and toss in bowl with dressing and shredded carrots. Serve and enjoy!

[gmc_recipe 246]

Day 9 - Friday 6/27/12

Admin Note: Over the weekend I transitioned to a self-hosted server and after a couple of hiccups I am back up and running. I will be catching up the days I missed posting over the next couple of days. I woke up a little earlier this morning and headed out for my walk. For years I have always dodged getting outside early in the morning because it is too warm. Maybe it is because the humidity hasn’t spiked yet. But at 5:30 in the morning there is a touch of coolness in the air, even when it is in the low to mid 80 degree mark.

Since I was up early I decided to push my walking a bit further and I walked the longer neighborhood walk. It’s 2 miles vs. the 1.4 I have been walking the past few days. I find it hard to believe I wanted to kick up my distance vs. waiting until I knew I needed to. I am hoping this is a sustainable new attitude towards exercise.

On work days I always seem to hit the snacking hours between 3 – 5 and end up having a couple of snacks during that time. I am trying to find some lower point options that will keep me filled up. This week I tried hummus on cucumber slices with cut up Weight Watchers Smoked Mozzarella String Cheese.

The higher protein snack kept me satisfied longer and it’s a good sized snack for 3 points. I try to keep my snacks in the 1-3 point range and have 2 – 3 snacks a day, most days in the afternoon.  I am always looking for snack ideas that are simple to bring to work and are not filled with processed carbs.

What is your favorite healthy snack?

Day 8–Thursday–Week 1 Weigh In

  I noticed my shadow as I walked this morning. Sometimes your shadow can distort reality and make you look thinner than you really are. I am not sure if that is true or not in this photo from the front, I look really tall but I definitely look wide. :)

Not really looking any thinner from the side either:

I actually am excited to see how this will change as I go down this road to better health.

Today was weigh in day. The morning was going great. I was on day 5 of walking, without missing once. I felt really good about my week, I had tracked my food every day, stayed within my points allowance, didn’t use up all of my weekly points or any of my activity points. I was sure I would have a good first weigh in.

I weigh myself everyday. I know every weight loss expert tells you not to do this. I have to. It is when I don’t that I fall astray. It is a lot easier for me to eat more than I should if I don’t have to stare accountability in the face each morning.

Over the years I have gotten a lot of perspective on weighing myself each day.  I don’t really get worried about fluctuations day to day. I know they happen. I accept when I ate more than I should in the previous day or days that the scale is going to probably show an up. I know that it will go down mysteriously one day and then be back to reality the next day.

I know all of this. I still weigh myself….every single day.  Mike thinks I am crazy.

After I got dressed, I figured I would step on the scale to see what I could expect when I weighed in at lunch today.  I always like to know what to expect and to have a gauge on how the Weight Watchers scale differs from mine.

And that is when my balloon popped.

Nothing. Exactly the same. No loss.

What?

How could that even be possible????

A few minutes later I was getting ready to leave for work and Mike asked me what was wrong. I couldn’t help it. The tears sprung to my eyes immediately. I was frustrated. I had done everything right.

I had never not lost the first week. Especially when I had done so well getting myself back on the program.

Mike reminded me that this is the part that happens sometimes. And I can’t let it throw me off. I need to keep working at it and the weight loss will come. He reminded me that the scale fluctuates from day to day and hour to hour. It was one reason he wasn’t sure if re-joining Weight Watchers was the best idea, because I get too wrapped up in weigh-in day.

I know these things but I was mad. I couldn’t even listen to my normal podcasts driving to work. I listened to music hoping I could find some songs with lyrics that would boost my determination and mostly heard talking and commercials. LOL! What a cruel joke!

By the time I got to work, I had settled down. I reminded myself it was one weigh-in day in what is going to be a very long journey. So I’ll just suck it up and move on. It’s a new week.

I sent Mike an e-mail after I got to work:

Me: Pity party is over.  Thanks for being supportive this morning.

Mike: You're welcome.  And I know it is frustrating.  But I'm sure, regardless of what the scale says this morning, that what you have been doing in the first week is somehow benefiting your health and body.  The scale will catch up.

Me: My horoscope that I read before I weighed myself this morning said this:

“You have some resistance to sinking into the shadows of your thoughts, because you usually prefer to take a sunny philosophical approach to life. Now, however, it may be more advantageous to slip quietly into the darkness, knowing that words won't adequately describe all that occurs. Even if daydreaming leads you to unpleasant memories, they will pass. Remember, this exploration is about psychological and spiritual growth, so imagine that you're setting off on an exciting journey of discovery.”

I had thought whatever, I am in a great mood today.  20 minutes later I weighed myself and was in a funk until around when I got to work.  I thought about what you said and you are right.  I am doing what I should be to become healthy.  So screw it, it’s just one weigh in.  It isn’t going to stop me from doing the things I know I should be doing to get where I want to be.

Mike: It will take time.  Unfortunately, it takes time. But, we all need to have a healthy lifestyle.  No matter what your weight is, people should exercise and eat healthy.

I will not make it through this without him.

Lunch time rolled around and it was time to head to Weight Watchers.  When I went to weigh in, my leader Gretchen asked me how my first week went. I told her great, but I knew it wasn’t going to show up on the scale.

She laughed at me.

I lost 2.4 pounds!

I told her I had weighed myself at home this morning and had no loss. She told me that the scales there were more accurate than home scales. I told her my scale at home was a Weight Watchers scale.

She laughed at me (I’m laughing at myself now too). She told me their scale is not a Weight Watchers scale. Ha!

I sat down and sent Mike this:

So here are my new stats:

Since re-joining Weight Watchers	-2.4
Total loss since 2011	-11.9
Loss remaining to reach goal	-115.6

Let’s see how I did on my goals for the week.

Week 1 Goals:

Read all the Weight Watcher materials I received in the meeting	Done
Track my food and activity each day	Done
Achieve the activity point goal set for me by walking 30 minutes a day for 5 days	Done – earned 15 points, 1 more than my target for the first week
Manage my weekly points allowance for the party we are attending on Saturday	Done

Next weeks goals

Week 2 Goals:

Track my food and activity each day

Beat the activity point goal set for me by walking 7 days with at least 3 days at 45 minutes and 30 minutes on other days

Manage my weekly points allowance for the weekend and our 4th of July get together

I’m excited about the new week even though it includes the food challenges associated with a holiday and another get together with friends.

Day 7–Wednesday 6/27/2012 –Tomato Avocado Quinoa Salad

I finished my first week and weigh in day is tomorrow. I feel really good about my 1st week. I’ll break it down when I write about my first weigh-in tomorrow. Over the weekend we tried a couple of new recipes from the my new Cooking Light magazine.

I have always wanted to try quinoa and this month they had an article with several ways to turn 2/3 of a cup of quinoa into something enticing. One included 2 of my favorite ingredients, tomatoes and avocado.

Quinoa, Tomato, Avocado Salad from Cooking Light 2 servings – 7 Weight Watchers Points Plus 1 1/3 cups cooked quinoa, cooked according to package directions and chilled 1 cup cherry tomatoes, sliced in half 1/2 medium avocado, chopped 3 Tbsp. fresh cilantro leaves 1 1/2 teaspoons olive oil Toss cooked quinoa in olive oil. Serving size 2/3 cups of quinoa, topped with 1/2 cup tomatoes, 1/4 avocado and 1 1/2 Tbsp. cilantro.

We served this as a side dish and I ate only half of a serving and it was very filling. I am looking forward to finding new ways to try quinoa to incorporate this healthy grain into our meals.

What ways do you like to dress up whole grains?

 Technorati Tags: Quinoa Tomato Avocado Salad,Cooking Light

Day 6–Tuesday 6/26/2012–Weekend Breakfast Re-Do

Mike usually makes breakfast for us on Sunday mornings.  It’s something we look forward to. This past Sunday I did the cooking so I could calculate how many WW Points Plus the breakfast would be. I also wanted to figure out how I could modify it so that I could still enjoy the same basic meal.

This is the modified breakfast that I ate Sunday for 15 points. We usually eat a bit later on Sunday and almost always skip lunch. So the amount of points for breakfast and lunch combined would come pretty close to my normal day.

These are the modifications I made to our normal Sunday breakfast:

• We usually have a breakfast burrito, but we didn’t have whole wheat tortillas so I had toast instead with light whole wheat bread, spread with 2 teaspoons of light butter
• I measured the oil for our hash browns using only 1 teaspoon per person
• I only made enough bacon so I would only eat 2 slices instead of 3-4 we might have had before
• I added mushrooms to our eggs and used 1 teaspoon per person of light butter to sauté the mushrooms and scramble our eggs
• I weighted the cheese I added to my eggs

The only real changes I made was to weigh, measure and portion my food. By measuring the oil, butter and cheese I probably cut our original meal back a couple of points, since we never measured the amount we were adding.  I made less bacon than we normally do, controlling the portion size. That’s it. Easy!

I did not at all feel like I had sacrificed anything. I was full until the late afternoon and completely satisfied after breakfast and only had a small snack that got me through until dinner.