21st Weigh In Uh-oh....Halloween

I still had a loss, but I've been dancing with the devil and need to stop.

I'm not talking about an all or nothing attitude, or that occasionally indulgences are bad. Heck, nothing on WW is bad. We just need to know the points, make a choice and write it if we bite it. So what tune have I been dancing to with the devil?  One that tells me I am too busy to track right now, that I'll enter it later.

I have a computer where I do most of my work and play in comfortable surroundings. I have an iPad. I have an iPhone. All have WW e-tools on them. There is no excuse for me not to track. Favorite foods and even meals are listed separately. I don't even have to type their names, just click and drag.

The other melody is something about Halloween candy. Mostly I can tune that out, but I recently made these Ghiradelli candy holders and have mindlessly eaten some of the leftovers that weren't needed for the project.

Link to how they were done is HERE on my other blog

A neighbor's child sold candy for a school fundraiser. While the candy isn't bad in quality, the fund raiser has greatly diminished in profit for the school since my own kids were this age. I understand supplies and manufacturing costs have risen, but three boxes of candy equalled 45 pieces that were at best two bites each (most of us would have popped the entire piece in at once) came to $29.  I ate a few of those this weekend too. 

Talk about things not being worth it! Neither price or point value!

The next fund raising child that comes to the door and is one I choose to support is going to get cash. I'll spend less money, not be tempted by candy, popcorn, pizza kits or any other food item. Also no more wrapping paper that rips when you look at it, but I digress. 

I am down .4 pounds for a total of 37. My goal this week is to track everything. It truly is not difficult and slipping back into bad habits is not the direction I want to follow.

Onward and downward!

20th Weigh In

Monday is my meeting day but we were out of town. It is cold today (Tuesday) so I gave thought about what I would wear to go weigh in. Anyone on a weight loss journey probably feels the way I do. Either never weigh in wearing jeans or always wear them. Since I began this journey wearing shorts, I wasn't about to wear jeans today. Oh, the games we play...

I am happy to say that this still hasn't been a struggle for me, but I still have my worries. Everyone was here for dinner on Thursday, an unexpected but pleasant event. They opted to get chicken from a local chain called Chicken Shack. Their food is tasty, but the only thing not fried is the cole slaw. Truthfully, I discovered months ago that having both their chicken and broasted potatoes would lead to miserable indigestion for me and I had already begun avoiding their food. Whatever the WW points would have been, and they would have been difficult to figure, they weren't going to be worth it to me. While my son went to pick up the food, I made a lean beef hamburger and green beans for myself. It wasn't a hardship to do so, and without indigestion hours later, I was very happy with my choice.

Saturday was the day for two classes an hour from home. There is a Jimmy John's (a sandwich chain with locations in most of the states) nearby that delivers to the store where these classes are held. I have low point breakfasts on class days to allow for a 14 point lunch, the Big John sandwich which is made with roast beef. I expected to be home for dinner but that changed. Dinner was much later than I anticipated and I was very hungry. Flatbread pizza was served along with an antipasto salad. It wouldn't have mattered what the point values were, I needed to eat. Make that NEEDED....I told you I was hungry!

The following day I went out of town, somewhat prepared with food from home but I fell short with veggies. I ate a stale pack of Little Debbie Nutty Bars. Eight points and they were terrible! They weren't my favorite before and stale....Yuck!  

I went to WW not feeling at all sure of what the scale would read. Imagine my relief when I was down again, another 1.9 pounds for a total of 36.6 lost!

Onward and downward!

Weigh In 19: Slippery Slopes

A story has been on network news and social media about a guy who pulled a prank while proposing to his girlfriend at the Grand Canyon. I must be extremely old fashion as I don't see a prank and proposing belonging together except in the dictionary. He pretended to slip and to lose the ring box. I don't think actually doing this at the canyon was funny at all, but the story about slippery slopes is only meant to be a lead in to today's post.

I am down another .7 today for a total of 34.7 pounds. This is good, but my past week could have become a slippery slope. I made cookies to take to my knitting group. I left some home for hubby and grandson. Hubby didn't care for the maple cookies and grandson only had one during a short visit.

I didn't polish them off in one or two days as I could have before, but I also didn't attempt to figure out the point value. If I had one at someone else's house, I wouldn't have felt guilty. One cookie or almost any other item with an unknown point value isn't going to hurt...unless this becomes a habit.

For someone else, a slippery slope in their home might be salty snacks. I could go the rest of my life without being tempted by chips, pretzels or nuts. Popcorn, especially the smell of movie theater popcorn, does nothing for me. Actually, the smell of movie popcorn is very unpleasant to me. I know full well that ice cream can be dangerous for me. If I am serving myself regular ice cream, I measure it. I try to always have some form of WW or similar low point frozen treat in the freezer.

So what happened with the cookies? I didn't Love the maple cookies but the idea of cookies is still so darned appealing. I had one or two a day until they were gone. Good thing I only left 10-12 of them home. My slippery slope isn't just the cookies per day that I didn't count, it was the attitude toward tracking that slid into danger.

I use e-Tools and have access to my WW tracker on my PC, my iPhone and iPad.  It isn't a chore to go the site and enter something unless I want to make it one. I made dinner one day last week that just wasn't turning out well. It was a crock pot recipe that even wasn't done anywhere near the expected time. I was hungry at 6:00 and ate something else for dinner but didn't track it. And I ate another cookie. The whole next day I didn't use the tracker. I tend to eat one of a few combinations for breakfast or lunch. I told myself I would enter the meals (which is how I have some saved for even faster entry) later and carried the points around in my head. Except for those dang cookies that I ate. Again.

Apparently cookies are my gateway drug to bigger things!

Seriously, I am not beating myself up for this, but am aware that this could be a problem. I can honestly say I wasn't hungry when I ate any of the cookies. I ate them because ... well .... because they ARE (were) COOKIES.

Back to tracking and staying away from slopes this week. 

Onward and downward!

18th Weigh In

The discussion today was perfectionism. Bottom line: When you insist on perfection, you achieve nothing but frustration. I think my success this time around is because I'm not aiming for perfection, only improvement.

This weekend was the first time I used the e-tool Recipe Builder. I made Italian Sausage soup just as I always made it. The recipe didn't provide a number of servings so I had to measure the total quantity to gets figure out how many points per cup. This wasn't hard and the point total was better than I had guessed. I think it is time to start cooking again, but not every day. By cooking, I mean things that both of us will enjoy eating. I could easily continue eating the simple things that have worked for me, but I might get bored after a while. Also, variety is good, not just for the taste buds but for digestion too. Hubby has been ok with fixing something for himself on the nights I am having plain chicken or a low fat hamburger on a slimwich bun. He doesn't care to eat them and doesn't expect me to fix separate meals. I do sometimes, but not always.

The loss for the week was another 1.6 for a total of 34. 

Onward and downward!

Weigh In 17, after birthday cake

I counted the birthday cake last week as best I could. My son scooped the ice cream that night and it was well over a cup but it was what it was. A day or two later I had a small piece of cake again and decided that particular cake just wasn't worth the points. Ice cream was, is and forever will be a different story. I measure that when I eat it because it would be so tempting and easy to eat way more than I should. I don't feel bad about measuring though, I feel in control.

Suzanne, my leader has advised us not to weigh in at home. I've mentioned this before and she is right. If the house scale is different from WW's, it can be disappointing. Weighing at home can lead to weighing throughout the day which isn't good. Our bodies are going to fluctuate but a gain can depress a person or even lead to chucking the plan. Not good! My husband asked me to weigh on our scale and compare to WW's because he wanted to know for his sake if ours was accurate.

Our scale is far from new but wasn't cheap when we got it. It has a digital read out and is on a hard floor, not carpeting. I weighed myself in my night shirt this morning and then after getting dressed. There was a 3 pound difference. I got off, then on again. Still 3 pounds. Did my clothes really weigh that much? Maybe. The problem was this number meant I didn't lose. Convinced my birthday week was to blame and needed to be put behind me, I left for my meeting.

I am delighted to say the house scale is off. I am down another 2.8 pounds for a total of 32.4 gone! 

Onward and downward!

16th Weigh In

Today is my birthday. Wouldn't a whopping big loss have been a nice birthday gift? Sure it would have, but wishing, even on a birthday candle, doesn't make something happen.

I am down .8 for a total that is just ounces away from 30 pounds. The six of us (two sons, daughter-in-law, grandson, hubby and I) will be going to Ruby Tuesday's for dinner. I had such a good lunch there recently that was low in point value, I want to repeat that. I may or may not have one alcoholic drink depending on how my points go before dinner.

Dessert will be back here, traditional cake and ice cream. I could forego the cake but a birthday cake seems appropriate with a 4 year old grandson who will sing to me and help me with the candle. I'll have a small piece of cake, a scoop of coffee ice cream (the real treat in my opinion), count everything and not feel compelled to eat cake tomorrow morning for breakfast. That isn't even a temptation now. My, how far I've come.

Onward and downward!

15th Weigh In

I got a charm today for recognition of 16 weeks with WW. Today was my 16th weigh in, but I look at it as 15 weeks of following program.

We had smoked sausage, the full fat variety, corn on the cob and broccoli for dinner last night. I've been very careful with Sunday night dinners because I weigh in on Monday mornings but I told myself this was silly. As long as I stay in my daily range, does it really matter unless I am eating something so laden with sodium that I will retain water?

Today was too cold to wear shorts but I did chose slacks over jeans. I fully expected to weigh the same or be up part of a pound but guess what...another 1.1 gone! A total of 28.8 are off my skeleton! A guest lecturer had told us that every pound of weight is equal to 7 pounds of stress on our joints. I haven't found that online but I have found sources saying it is equal to 4 pounds. Going with that number, that is 115.2 few pounds of pressure. At 7-1, it would be a whopping 201.6!  Maybe the ratio fluctuates with the number on the scale. I will ask the next time I see him but 115 pounds of pressure is nothing to sneeze at!

Onward and downward!