Friday, December 31, 2010

Last weigh in if 2010

I'm up 1.4 for a total loss of 21.4 lbs for 2010. I'm posting from the meeting as I'm waiting for it to start. The topic is goals - of course.

The weigh in this week is not exactly bad as when I weighed myself when I got back from Dad's it was closer to a 4lb gain.

I'll admit I'm a wee disappointed with myself with the grand total but on the other hand realizing I some weight-loss mojo around august and it took a long time to get it back.

After posting this morning I went back and read my blogs from last year at this time the one posted on NYE and New Year's day. Of course then was the build up to rejoining WW. I had lofty goals last year like cardio 3 days a week and strength 2 days a week and so on. The goals will be framed a little differently this year.

This morning I got the new Yoga Journal and there is a very interesting article about goals and how to approach them. So I'll post goals tomorrow as this has caused a few aha moments for me.

I'll be making dinner with my fabulous friend K tonight. No matter where you are this evening I hope you have fun and stay safe.

Hugs!!!!!


What a great night

So I got my wires crossed and we went somewhere completely different for dinner last night. However first the plan was to meet at The Ship and Anchor for a cocktail. At first I was just going to take the bus to K's house and we'd go over together. The bus I tried to catch was going out of service so plan B, I took a cab and picked up K. It was cold last night.

It turned out being just her and me but it was nice to just chill for a minute. I had a pint of guiness as I find beer makes me feel fuller.

We then headed to dinner at Brava Bistro, which just happens to be next to my old high school. The food was fabulous. We started with a cheese plate that four of us shared. I then had their Lebanese Chopped Salad that was absolutely amazing. What I enjoyed about this restaurant is the servings weren't huge it was just the right size.

I'm definitely the biggest girl out of the four of us and I noticed that I alone grabbed a piece (well two pieces) of the dark rye bread at the table that was a bit of a note to self. My plan of eating lower throughout the day may not have been the best plan as I was pretty darn hungry by the time I headed out.

We were missing our 5th member and quite frankly getting a bit worried but alas he arrived after accidentally having a super long nap. Which immediately made me think why didn't I have a nap.

We did have dessert and I had the creme brulee it was also delicious and very shallow so not super overwhelming. I had their Hard Lemonade but then stuck to just water. 

This morning my home scale showed the exact same weight it did yesterday morning so now we'll see what the WW scales have to say at 11:45 today.

I can say I'm rather happy I don't have a morning weigh in today as the radio said it's -30 with windchill out there and should be getting warmer throughout the day so by the time the New Year's party people head out it might be -13. 

I will be back with the results of today's weigh in and my reflections on my 2010 and plans for 2011.

In the meantime, stay warm and hugs!

Thursday, December 30, 2010

One day until weigh in - post Christmas Foodapalooza

I've made a concentrated effort on getting my head back in the game this week. I'd say I had a rough start to the week with Christmas leftovers (egg nog, chocolate, cookies) but as the week progressed it got better. I'm not expecting a loss tomorrow and that's o.k. This week was about stopping the holiday food train and activity wise I've been awesome.

The scale hadn't budged much until this morning which is good I'm headed in the right direction again.

Today it was 25 minutes on the stair climbler and 45min on the treadmill. I walked to and from the gym again in fresh snow for 40min in total and then I hit the mat for 57min of yoga. I do the Namaste TV dvds created by Kate Potter. Back in the day I'd catch snippits of the tv show and then got the dvds. As it's been awhile since I had a consistent yoga practice I'm starting with the season one dvds. Normally I do the warm up and main body of two episdodes and the savasana of the 2nd episode. Today I did 3 episodes back to back. She did a retreat in Calgary a few months back but my schedule conflicted. I might make one of 2011 goals to go to one of her retreats again. I've been once before and it was great I was a total yoga newbie and didn't feel out of place at all.

Tonight there's a friend's birthday dinner at first I was really iffy on it as I weigh in tomorrow. I then remembered I weigh in a noon tomorrow so my plan is to make wise choices and drink a lot of water. I'm focusing on a lower point day to give me some wiggle room. We're going here for dinner.
It looks like New Year's plans are back on but still being determined.

Breakfast this morning was toast with Wild Blueberry and Raspberry with champagne jam from the Prince Edward Island Preserves Company. I got a box of 3 different types as my secret santa present this year. It works out to 1pt per teaspoon and it's fabulous. It felt a little decadent to have champagne for breakfast. I had a glass of skim milk with that.

My post workout snack was skim milk with one tablespoon of Nesquick (1/3 reduced sugar) chocolate syrup.

Lunch was a smoothie this time with spinach, almond milk, banana and some of Europe's Best Anti-oxidant berry mix that I picked up today. It's got strawberries, blackberries, cherries and blueberries. Now if I get peckish before dinner it will be a tomato salad.

Alright my friends hope you had a great New Year's Eve Eve.

Hugs!!

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Trying something new at the gym

First of all, huge thanks to Eve for letting me know where I read that time capsule idea. It was Lyn who posted it so please check it out if you haven't already.

This morning I made myself my smoothie (spinach, banana, frozen blueberries and one tablespoon of PB), lately it's been my after gym drink but today I had it for breakfast.

I then headed out into the -20 snowy day and walked to the gym. When I got to the sidewalk I realized I forgot my bus tickets as I thought I might take the bus home. I headed out again and realized I forgot my watch and then I finally got on my way.

I decided last night to not do my traditional treadmill. Today I did 20min on the rower, 20 min on the bike and 20min on the elliptical (which is huge for me as I despise the elliptical) and then walked home for a total of 40min of walking. It went really well. The 20min was perfect as it kept me interested. I did 40min of yoga last night and I'll do that again today.

I do love walking but if I rely only on the treadmill for winter I'll get bored out of my skull as sometimes it feels like a hamster wheel.

Later on I met my fabulous friend C for coffee. I adore her and I'm so ridiculously proud of her. I met her when she just started University and was working for me at The Body Shop. Now she's pursuing her PhD and I'm so pleased she likes to stay in touch with me (as I could easily be ancient history in her world) as I always enjoy our visits.

Food wise was pretty good yesterday day until I got the munchies in the evening. My weakness as these Tamarind Almonds I bought at Costco. This morning I tossed them.

At the beginning of the week I updated all the food I added to e-tools so they had all the nutritional info to be translated into pointsplus.

All week I've been tracking on e-tools as I'm finding it easier as I'm having to look everything up as I get used to the new point system and this way I'm saving it in to my favourites at the same time. I'm using the activity tracker as well. I'll post my week in review and fess up to the battle I've had this week in getting on plan. I have been getting a lot of activity though.

A bit of a challenge for tomorrow as my friend's birthday is taking place at 8pm at a wine bistro. I have weigh in the next day so I might just stick to water/ soda water and focus on enjoying the company as opposed to jeopardizing weigh in with any munchies or alcohol. We're all messaging back and forth and I told them my focus is on getting to goal this year so that means changing my habits not there's.

It's looking like I'll be on my own this New Year's Eve which is completely o.k with me. I've lost the interest in going out and dealing with drunk people and no cabs. I far prefer just hanging with friends at home sort of thing. I think it might be a good night to write my time capsule post for my thoughts on the past and coming year.

I hope you enjoyed your Wednesday!

Hugs!!

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Shaking off Christmas

Yesterday's food was better than the day before but hardly on plan - damn you chocolate. I did get in an hour walk though.

This morning my friend K messaged me that she was on her way to the gym and should she pick me up. I was already planning on going but at that exact moment I was still in my pajamas. I got dressed in record time and grabbed stuff. Earlier I had checked the gym's website and saw there was a yoga class at 10:45 so I took my mat with me. We get there and there's a sign at the desk saying no classes from Dec 27 -31. Funny the website didn't say that. Bah!

I walked on the treadmill varying my incline for 60min and then I walked home (17min) as K left to meet her friend for shopping. Yoga will happen at home then later this afternoon.

It's been a bit like trying to stop a runaway train with getting the eating on track. I've blown through all my weekly points and I'm in the hole but activity gets me out of the hole. By weigh in on Friday I will be sorted. The good thing is I've tracked everything so that's a bit of a victory. I'm kind of looking forward to Friday's meeting as it's not my normal leader but she's subbed before and she's funny.

Yesterday while reading my blog reader someone posted a great idea on their blog of writing a time capsule. She posted hers which was a letter to herself for a year from now. I forgot where I found it so if you read this blog or know which blog I'm talking about please post a comment and so I can give credit for the idea and can post a link to the person. I love this idea and I will do this too plus post it.

I might leave that for another day this week.

I hope you're having a great Tuesday.

Hugs!!

Monday, December 27, 2010

Enough - Time to get focused

I had a lot of fun yesterday as my friend K and I braved the malls. The only things either of us bought were not on sale. I had to go to the Apple store to pick up a new pair of headphones and a protective film for my phone. I also picked up an adorable purple plaid case. The good part was paid for with a gift card I got.

Then K and I headed down to Costco, where there are no sales. She picked up a super nice new tv that was cheaper there then all the sales at electronic stores. Shows it just works to shop around a bit.

OMG eating was totally not on the plan (lunch at Joey's and pizza for dinner) and in a way was a good bye to the holidays. I tracked it all though as there's no point in acting like it never happened. For the rest of the week till weigh in on Friday the focus is on activity (cardio focuses) and staying on track.

The 31st will pretty much be a year since I rejoined WW on Jan 2,2010. Right this minute I'd finish the year with a minimum of 20lbs lost for the year. I can't help but feel a little disappointed with myself. This past year when I was on - I was on and when I was off - I was in a different time zone. I should be proud that I had progress this year, maybe not goal but it's still progress.

While at Dad's I read The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People - my workplace offers courses in it but I can't coordinate myself to go to a 3 day workshop so I bought the book. I did find it interesting and one thing that particular struck me was Circle of Influence vs Circle of Concern. In other words focus on the things I can control as opposed to getting stressed about the things I can't control. I need to focus on taking a proactive mindset as opposed to self defeat.

I realize to make goal I need to reshift my thinking a bit and I need to focus more on me. Now this will seem a bit odd as I'm an only child, single with no kids. You'd think there'd be a whole lot of focus on me anyway. What I'm referring to is focus on healthy me. Make getting healthy a priority. I'm really good at making work a priority so now I need manage my time a bit better so I get the workouts in and I focus on eating well. I know it's easy to say but I had a few aha moments when I thought about what took my focus away. The focusing on healthy also means including my brain. I didn't really challenge myself last year and I want to expand my learning. I don't mean formal classes as that would propably be a bit difficult being at site 4 days a week but that doesn't mean I can't pick up a book. There's loads of time to read while waiting for planes.

This has nothing to do with New Year's Resolutions but more my anniversary on WW. I do think a new year is a kind of restart in a sense.

Any day now the onslaught of weight loss commercials will begin. Heck the new season of Biggest Loser starts on Jan 4. I'm intrigued about the addition of two trainers. Village on a Diet starts on Jan 3 about the town of Taylor BC and there goal to lose weight as a collective. A&E will have a show called Heavy starting mid Jan and even MTV has joined the ranks with I Used To Be Fat starting Dec 30. It's sad but true - weight loss is a multi billion dollar industry.

After my walk the other day I also hit the yoga mat for 44min. No workouts yesterday but I do consider walking around the mall and avoiding the throngs of people a wee workout. Today the weather is again nice so I think I'll go for a walk outside.

I hope you enjoyed your Boxing Day yesterday and have a great Monday. I might be back later to report back on the workout details.

Saturday, December 25, 2010

Christmas in my neighbourhood

I always find Christmas rather anti-climatic. Mine is pretty much over at this point and now it's on to regular life. I did have the option of going to a friend's sister house later on but I've decided to just be a home body today.

Dad went home this morning with 4 bags of cat food that I got the cats (the wild cats that live on Dad's property who are now effectively our cats) or who I now collectively call "my babies".

The two kittens who I met in the summer are now full grown. Spook and Fred might be bigger but their personalities are pretty much intact. Fred was friendly as ever and purring away. He's the only one that will let you pet him. Spook was his distant self as per usual. Mama Meow (the mom) was her dignified self. The two new kittens are pretty funny. There's Dusty and Max. My Dad took pitty on Dusty as I guess he was on the scrawny side so he's allowed to eat inside the house (just inside the door) on occasion after all he's competing against 4 adult cats and one kitten for food. One day I thought he was going to make a run for the living room so I picked him up. There was a pathetic meow and the four sets of mini claws were imbedded in my hand. Not as friendly as the other two. Papa Meow is still around and takes off the moment he sees you. I quite often saw him eating with the family.

My Dad feeds this menagerie and will complain they're eating him out of house and home, hence the four large bags of cat food that I sent him home with. It was pretty funny on the day we left as we set some food out and covered it with the "cat house" (an upside down orange box with a hole cut as a door). At first we just had the box on the porch with no food under it. OMG endless entertainment for the cats. They were in it, on top of it and even playing a version of hide and go seek. One kitten was inside and the other one was on top of the box poking his paw in the holes as the one inside poked him back.

I'd had to share the cat tale but on my week at my Dad's I did do a lot of thinking which will turn into mulitple blog posts I'm sure but I want to collect my thoughts before I start typing.

After Dad left I was feeling a little blah and getting a little too comfortable with a box of Ferrero Rocher so I decided to take myself for a walk as the weather was nice (0 degrees). It wasn't a speedy walk as I had to look at where I was going for hidden ice but I did have my iphone with me so I took some pictures of things that got my attention.


I thought this was kind of cool, made out of pine cones and branches on the foot of the lawn.


These neighbours go all out. Their whole lawn is covered in decorations but I particulary liked the polar bears and igloo on the right. They also do amazing halloween decorations.
I love it when people decorate their outside trees, it's so pretty and a hint of surprise.


These blow up decorations are all over my neighbourhood but normally it's Santa and dancing penguins sort of thing. I don't think I've ever seen one of the nativity before.

Now I leave you for today with the wreath I have on my door. Until tomorrow...Hugs!!!! Oh yeah, the walk was 1:09/ 7.63km/ 384 calories burned.


 


Thursday, December 23, 2010

Merry Christmas and a wee bored

I love my Dad, but I miss the comforts of my house. Mostly my DVDs, books, pvr and video on demand.

For a week I've slept, ate, read and watched the cats. Oh and watched a lot of local tv. We're not a chatty family.

Heading home tomorrow and wondering what my cell bill will be like as I've played with my iPhone a lot. Like downloading an app to help me blog.

WW Canada launched an app for pointsplus, it's free on iTunes but you need to have etools or be online member to make use of it. It talks directly to my etools. It's kind of cool and has some neat features. I'll write more when I have my laptop and an Internet connection.

I also wanted to wish all of you a wonderful, safe and healthy Christmas.

Hugs!!!!

Friday, December 17, 2010

Down 2.4

Not too bad after my first week on PointsPlus and that was 99% food as workouts were difficult.

Alright I'm heading out and I'll be back in a week. Kind of happy next weigh in isn't until Dec. 31 as it will give me a week after Dad's to really really focus and see what I can end 2010 with.

I hope you all have a wonderful and safe Christmas.

Hugs!!

Crazy week and my version of the amazing race

Today is pretty much a pit stop for me. Yesterday my flight which was supposed to leave at 5pm left at 6:30pm thanks to flow control in Calgary. Did I mention we were waiting since 4:30pm? We got there and people waiting for the Edmonton flight told us our flight was delayed till 7pm. Kind of lucky we could take of half an hour early. My got to cab guy wasn't there even thougth I texted beforehand and he texted back "ok". I can't blame him really flight delays are complicated and when we landed he wasn't available but luckily there was an abundance of cabs last night. Quite a few people had there own amazing race experience as they had connecting flights at the International Airport and had to boot it.

Got home at 8:15pm ish ran next door to pick up my mail and pet the dog. Today, well this afternoon I'll be on a greyhound bus to my Dad's house. It's about 6:45am right now and I've done a load of laundry, baked the whipped shortbread cookies and set aside what I need to pack for Dad's.

I need a nap.

Weigh in today is at 11:45am which sort of throws off my routine but I don't want to miss this week.

Workout was pilates on Monday and then I had stupid long days on Tuesday and Wednesday (meeting that went till 8pm) and then head home on Thursday. I did track diligently and the scale I have in the camp room said I was down about 3lbs. I weighed myself when I got home yesterday but thus far today I have not stepped on the scale.

I need to stop off at Walmart before I head out of town and I'm going to do that before weigh in as I pretty much need to weigh and run and then head to the bus station.

Speaking of Amazing Race I (and 2 others) won the bettting pool at work. The three of us picked Nat and Kat. I won $65 well really $45 as the entry was $20.

It's been a crazy week trying to wrap everything up as I'm off for the two weeks and it was down to the wire yesterday but I got what I wanted done. Now it's out of my hands.

No blogging for the next week as I'll have no internet access but I'll be back in the big city for a week before I need to fly out again.

I will stop by again before I head out to update my weight tracker and report on what happened this week.

Hugs!!!

Monday, December 13, 2010

Being prepared

I made sure to bring my 3 month tracker and my pointsplus calculator to camp with me this week and it's been handy so far.

I can preplan my food based on pointsplus but when you actually look at it later in the day you might not want it. For example today there was soft chicken tacos for 6 ppt, yet when I got it it was not so appealing to me. I wound up with a may lower lunch than originally planned.

After work it was 50min of pilates. Oh boy do I need to work on my flexibility. I got a foot cramp and my IT band was not happy. This was never an issue when I did yoga regularly. I need to get my practice going again.

Dinner was pretty low pps too so I compensated by having pudding and jello at dinner. I had to hit the minimum points for the day afterall.

Stepped on the scale this morning and it was lower than yesterday so I'm heading in the right direction.

Tomorrow is a total gong show as I have a bizillion meetings and some former co-workers are coming for a visit. It will a really late day tomorrow so food must be completely on point. K and I are planning to workout tomorrow but it probably won't be until 8:30pm by the time we get to the gym.

I'm getting the feeling I have too much to do with 3 days left in my week before I'm off for two weeks.

Hope you all had a super fabulous Monday.

Hugs!!!

Sunday, December 12, 2010

Trying to be little miss organized

I'm rushed for time and it just sort of hit me today. I head to work tomorrow will be back home on Thursday and then on Friday I'm on the bus to my dad's for a week.

I'm taking care of all the household chores today plus a whack of laundry as Dad will be coming back with me so I'm washing bed sheets.

Yesterday I took care of the Christmas shopping. I do online or gift cards. It's easy and everyone gets something they like.

I'm trying to sort out my weigh ins as the holidays aren't helping. I'll weigh in on Friday at 11:30am as I don't need to be at the bus station till 1pm. It will be a weigh in and run. The following Saturday is Christmas Day so no weigh in. I'll have to miss that week as there are no weigh in options at Dad's. Having a week off between the weigh ins might not be so bad as I'll be at home so I can hit the gym do mitigate any damage done at Dad's. Then I'll have to weigh at 11:30am on New Year's eve as my normal meeting falls on New Year's day. Then finally it will return to the regular Saturday. The thing that bugs me is the next few meetings will talk more about PointsPlus. I'll have to rely on you bloggers with recaps of your meetings to stay on top of things.

Diligently tracking today and boy is this bringing back memories of first joining WW. I have to look everything up before I eat it. It's a little time consuming but in the end hopefully worth it.

Stepped on the scale this morning and it was lower than yesterday so now I just keep that going. I'm so happy I have a scale in my camp room so I can stay consistent.

Hope your Sunday was great.

Hugs!!

Saturday, December 11, 2010

Day one on PointsPlus

I took Carol's advice and arrived at my meeting early. I'm usually early but paid extra attention today.  I paid the registration fee as opposed to surrendering 3 coupons after first making sure the coupons didn't expire. I immediatley got the calculator, dining out companion, complete food companion and 3 month tracker as well. WW made some money off of me today. I figured it would be busy so why wait.

Oh boy was it busy. There were more people there than usual and the lining up to get the new book and then lining up to weigh in did take a bit longer. I was up as expected by 6.6lbs. So that's just over 2lbs per week, too bad it didn't go in the other direction. I don't feel bad as I explained yesterday I was expecting this.

I got the weigh in person I like the least. Today she was super frazzled and immediately appeared stressed. What drives me a little nuts about her is that she sucks at math and always makes a mistake yet right next to her is a calculator. I also don't like how she judges. She is always condenscending when you have a gain. I could be .2 or my 6.6 makes no difference and that drives me bananas. The whole point of WW is to find support and encouragement.

I sat down and the woman across from me was frazzled. She explained she doesn't like change. The woman behind her was excited about now getting 29 pts as opposed to 18pts. Many didn't quite understand that you get more points because point values have changed. When our leader said fruit counted as zero the woman next to me said "that's trouble". My immediate thought was "Really? Did you gain your weight on fruit? Have you binged on fruit?" My guess would be no. Of course everyone deals with change differently. I've already told you all that I'm excited.

I enjoy the new 3 month tracker as it as a bit more room to write. Apparently there will be an Iphone App but not until January or February. I did find a new app today from Calgary Transit that allows you to look up your stop number and find out when the next bus is coming. Yeah CT - you've entered the current century.

I'm game on now as I embrace this new program and I've tracked my whole day. I walked loads today and earned 6AP. I guess the 100 calories burned doesn't equal 1AP anymore so I'll be using the E-Tool tracker to tabulate that for now.

Saw Burlesque tonight with my friend K. I loved it and already downloaded the soundtrack off of Itunes. Good workout music me thinks. She and I might hit the gym tomorrow. I noticed I didn't cough or sneeze while walking today so that's a good sign.

Alright my friends I hope you all had a fabulous Saturday.

Hugs!!!

Friday, December 10, 2010

A Restart - again

I strongly believe in restarts where you stop looking at the past or thinking of the would of, could of and should of. A restart to me is a chance to start fresh, start the count at the beginning and shake the cobwebs out of my brain.

I updated my weigh ins to start tomorrow (plus that list was getting awfully long). I've missed two weigh ins and probably gained 7lbs. I'm not kidding. It was a combination of stress, emotional eating and throwing caution to the wind that put me here. My change in schedule and the change in jobs had a lot to do with it. It's nothing like the schedule I had before where the challenge really is squeeking in workouts. Add in the cookies and chocolate of the season and it's a recipe for disaster. Which means I need to really really focus on the food and water. I talked a bit about that yesterday.

Not feeling well for the past week didn't help either. Today I decided to really take the day off. It's the first Friday on my 4 day on/ 3 day off schedule that I've had acually off. I focused on rest and shaking off this cold. I've stayed in pajamas all day.

I hear you get a new weigh in book with the new PointsPlus program so that's adding to the restart. This new progam could not come at a better time. I needed something fresh and love WW.

I'm really really looking forward to tomorrow's meeting.

I hope all of you aren't fighting a cold and had a fabulous Friday.

Hugs!!!

Thursday, December 09, 2010

Moving on

I got up this morning and made two batches of my famous whipped shortbread cookies and then packed them up in cookie tins to take to work.

One tin went to my new group and one went to my old group. I was meeting up with the old group to go to a casual Christmas get together and secret santa exchange. I got to see their new floor. I'm kind of happy I never had to move to my spot as it kind of sucks. I'll take my office with no windows at site over that.

It was super fabulous to see them all. They're a big group of fantastic people. I do miss them. Where I am now is way more quiet and I miss the craziness. It sort of hit me today that we're all moving on. They will go on without me and I will go on without them. It felt strange.

I scored a set of 3 jars of jam from PEI (Prince Edward Island) at the secret santa. Can't wait to try those.

I've lost my ability to talk, well I can talk but sound awful. I feel fine but obviously I need to take it easy. I think the cold fx I was taking stopped the worst of it but it's not completely done. Tomorrow I'll head over to Walmart in search of something to addres this cold to kill it for good.

I'm sort of dreading weighing in on Saturday but I'm ready to face the music.

I read a good quote in Elle Canada today from Sherri Ziffer Lester - Hollywood life coach:

"Transform New Year's resolutions in to New Year's reflections. Find a quiet space and ask: what do I want for my life".

A part of me is disappointed that I didn't hit goal this year but I need to realize this is not a race or a competition it's my life.

Hope you had a great Thursday.

Hugs!!

"

Wednesday, December 08, 2010

Steep learning curve

Sorry for the silence. I've been working serious long days averaging around 13 hours and by the time I get back to my camp room I'm zonked and my only focus is bed.

Add in feeling under the weather since Monday and it's a recipe for just being tired. I didn't feel right on Monday and then the sore throat started yesterday. So far just minor other symptoms so I'm hoping to nip it in the bud.

Of course the one thing I didn't bring with me was cold meds. I'll bring those next week and have them on hand just in case.

So thanks to feeling icky workouts were non existent. Eating has been o.k. You eat some interesting combination of food at site. Yesterday's dinner was a chicken quesadilla (skinny) with cabbage/ carrot veggie side. I've never combined cabbage with mexican before.

I definitley haven't undone the damage I did over the past few weeks but I'm facing the scale on Saturday as I'm excited about the new plan.

I did attempt it on E-Tools but when Oatmeal came in as 4pts I took a bit of a step back. I need to go to the meeting as opposed to guessing my way into this plan. I'm happy that skim milk finally counts lower than the other milks.

For the past two days I've made a bit of a chef salad for lunch by grabbing lettuce or spinach, tomato, cucumber, egg and a bit of cheese and then chopping it all up.

I'm realizing I need to follow the plate rule at site. Half veggies, 1/4 protein, 1/4 grain/starch. Even when you ask for a little bit you tend to get a big spoonful. I need to learn that leaving food on the plate is not a bad thing and I don't need to treat myself as a garbage disposal. That completely goes against how I was raised. However in this situation I am not the person putting the food on the plate it's the person dishing it out.

Now the next few weeks get a little goofy with one more week at work and then two weeks off. I can't remember the last time I took two weeks in a row off - how sad is that. One week at Dad's and the one week home. I'll obviously be making weigh loss a New Year's goal once again but that's o.k. The week off at home will help me get really really organized.

Tomorrow is my old group's Christmas get together and I'm looking forward to that.

Till tomorrow...

Hugs!!!

Sunday, December 05, 2010

Now that's better

I spent the majority of the day yesterday cleaning my house and then I prepped for the Christmas Party.

I got loads of compliments at the party and a lot of people didn't recognize me at first glance. That did fantastic things for my self esteem I tell ya. I didn't take any pictures but others did so if I come across one I'll definitely post. Got home just after midnight and slept till 8am today.

Today I once again walked to the mall and back as I needed milk and I wanted to buy a scale to take to site. The scale fits into my computer bag where the lap top would normally go which is awesome because I like to keep it carry on only so I can zip off the plane into the warm bus and not have to wait outside for the luggage.

Had oatmeal with walnuts and brown sugar for breakfast. Lunch was two poached eggs and plain toast.

Not sure what to do for supper.

I'm curious how the new WW plan impacts the pre-packaged WW food as it has the old points on the pack. I really do hope Canadian e-tools is updated tomorrow so I can see if the frozen WW lasagna is still 6pts or if it's jumped up.

After I got home from the mall I dug out a path from my back door to my back gate as the snow was pretty deep. I took out all my recycling which was collecing and that took 4 trips back and forth. I then vaccumed and put up all my Christmas decorations including the tree. The decorating process involved multiple trips up and down stairs with boxes.

I know I spend 40% of week somewhere else but I will be home for a week between Christmas and New Years so I can still enjoy it.

Still yet to do is pack up my computer bag with some more odds and ends for my camp office/room.

At site I've been doing the same program as my friend K which is crossfit workouts combined with Mari Windor pilates. I've done crossfit before when I trained with trainer. I didn't find it did a lot for me all by itself as I definitely to add in Cardio as well. I've had really good success for the past few months just with walking.

I'm thrilled to find out that fruit is now 0pts as I'll make a conscious effort to make that my snack and not the cookies and pastries in the camp kitchen.

A wee random today but that's all I got. I hope you all had a fabulous weekend.

Hugs!!!

Saturday, December 04, 2010

Eeyore has left the building

I've been doing a lot of self reflection since I posted yesterday. I had a few light bulbs.
  • I've been on vacation (from the plan that is) for the past two weeks not just last week. Obviously the lesson has not completely gelled and I can easily slip into bad behaviours if I'm not careful. So the blessing part is realizing that now and not a few weeks or months from now.
  • The damage can be undone. I didn't become overweight overnight and I'm not going to hit goal overnight. I need to learn the lessons at my speed. I've proven to myself that I can be successful so there's no reason why I can't continue to be as long as I believe in myself.
  • The PointsPlus plan launches in Canada on Monday. Now I won't be weighing in till Saturday (or thinking about Friday as I'm now off that day). However I realized it should launch on e-tools so I could start following the new plan on Monday for a fresh start.
  • There are other indications when I'm feeling off. I look around my house and it's a mess. This is reflective of my lazy behaviour with the plan as well. So when I finish this post I'm going to clean and then prep for tonight's Christmas party.
It doesn't help me if I'm not honest with myself and own up to my behaviour.

So for today and tomorrow I will follow the old WW plan and just focus on meal by meal and workout by workout. I got some stickers to take to site to put on my calendar there to track activity. I'm bringing up the rest of my desk stuff this week which included my chain of coloured paperclips that represent one pound lost per paperclip. Positive reinforcement sort of thing.

I can do this and I will do this.

Hugs!!!

Friday, December 03, 2010

Bit of a back slide

Yesterday I stepped on the scale after not stepping on it since I left for site and the number that looked back at me shocked me and not in a good way.

I then thought back to my week plan wise and realized I totally sabotaged myself. Mind you I was adapting to a completely foreign environment.

My water intake was crap, the food was irratic like eating a healthy breakfast but then being so busy that when I had the opportunity to eat again my diligence wasn't exactly there.

I did do a few killer workouts but not enough to mitigate the damage.

I now don't want to go to weigh in tomorrow. I don't want to register this week's behaviour. I'd rather refocus myself and weigh in with the launch of the new program. I'm disappointed with myself.

Yes I know going to weigh in would still be fine and yada yada yada. I'm had the angle/ devil talk with myself over and over.

This weight loss thing is a personal battle that you can share with others. I'm sharing that I'm embarrased to weigh in tomorrow. I don't want the number I saw to be written in my weigh in book. I am not giving up and I'm not walking away I just want a hall pass. I said I'd share the good, the bad and the ugly of my journey. Today I'm looking at the ugly but that's o.k. Sometime you have to face down the ugly.

On the good new front I found a dress for the Christmas party today and it's fabulous to the extent that 4 sales people ran over to tell me how fabulous I looked. One woman told me I had quite the hour glass figure. That was a major boost to the ego that's for sure.

Bare with me guys, this funk will pass and I'll be back to my "I can do anything I put my mind on" philosophy.

Hugs!!!

Wednesday, December 01, 2010

What day is it?

Hello my friends,
I have been swamped the last 3 days and had a hard time remembering what day it was today. This week has been nothing but meetings.

My two days at site have flown by and I realize now how much I need to learn for my new job and how I must really pass the old one on to someone else.

Today was a day full of meetings. I never had a lunch hour it was more scavenge for leftovers from the catering provided at each meeting as due to the crazy schedule I was practically late for all of them.

I'm adjusting to sharing a bathroom with another person. Last night they went to the bathroom at 3:30am and the bathroom is about 4.5 feet from my bed. I was dog tired as my friend K and I did a serious workout.

I was 20min of Crossfit and then 20 min of pilates. I was sore today. Tonight due to not eating dinner till 8pm we just did pilates. K will be a good influence on me as she's pretty focused.

Tomorrow I head home but do need to work for most of the morning on Friday so I won't get to experience 3 days off this week.

I look forward to catching up on your blogs when I get home.

Hugs!!!!