It wasn't the end of the world, but it was...

The four horsemen didn't appear. Fire did not rain from the heavens. The world as we know it did not end. However it was the apocalypse of my re-fatting denial. It was this guy that made everything come crashing down: 

I had gone to the allergist in an effort to control my cat allergies so I could breathe for Christmas festivities. (No such luck, though I will be going back for treatments which have an 80% effective rate.) But I digress. 

In the nearly two years that I have been with my now husband, I have put on a whopping. 67 pounds. That's 268 sticks of butter, a little over 8 gallons of milk, a whole lotta weight. 

Talk about a wake up call. At the rate I'm going, it'll be no time before I completely gain back everything that I lost. It's time to get back to basics. First things first. Calculate points for what I'm eating. 

Starting with these little guys. Surprisingly, they weren't as bad as I thought at 5P+ each. Most of the Points come from the cream cheese icing. I'm hesitant to use reduced fat items in it because I think that it makes them incredibly tasty and satisfying, but my next post will detail any changes I do make to them. 

My next agenda item is to drink water like it's my job. Whenever I am doing my best, I drink about 80 ounces of water per day. To be brutally honest, I don't even remember when I last drank that much water. Starting today, I did.

Starting Wednesday, I will be attending one meeting per month at my old WW location in Bellville where I really feel a kinship with everyone and know they will help keep me on the straight and narrow. I'll attend meetings here in Sugar Land on the other weeks due to the financial strain multiple hour long trips would cause us. 

My husband and I have also committed to only eating out once per week. Over the past year or so, we've become increasingly dependent on eating in restaurants, sometimes several times per day and that HAS to stop. 

I'll also be posting here weekly, so feel free to stop by and chat. :)

The more things change, the more they stay the same

 Staying Up... In a Down World by Zig Ziggler was a total snooze. I couldn't get into it and ended up not even finishing it. I decided reading that particular motivational tome was not going to help me get back my mojo.

Left @ 210 pounds July 2012
Right @ 283 pounds January 2009

I started thinking about what helped in the past and came up with three ways to reclaim my lost enthusiasm.

1) The Weight Watcher's Message Boards! I remember when I was feeling my most revved about losing weight was when I visited these boards every day. Today I went there and within minutes I was feeling a little better about my journey. Turns out that I'm not the only one who has backslid after having made such strides at mass reduction.

2) Tracking. Earlier this year I had purchased a little notebook to use as a tracker. While I liked the journaling aspect of this particular style of tracking, I struggled with actually using it. I'd end up only doing it once a day which doesn't really do much good. I wanted the ease of tracking like I had with the Weight Watcher app but since I am following Momentum instead of PointsPlus, that tool is no longer available to me. So I ended up downloading a really cool app called MyNetDiary.  It has all of the spiffy things I liked about the WW app (integrated bar-code tracking, anyone?) and other things that I love like the ability to enter activity calories burned. AND a detailed daily nutrition readout:

 The only thing I haven't figured out is how I will make this go with Momentum points values which I find easier than the native calorie calculations. I just downloaded it today but so far I really think it's cool AND it was FREE!

3) Face to face meetings with like minded people. I used to attend WW meetings every week without fail. Since I am no longer doing PointsPlus and I needed to save money once I became a full time student, I haven't been to a meeting since March (I think...). I have not yet figured out a way to replicate this past motivator. I tried the weight loss buddy website but didn't get any replies. I was thinking of going to the message boards and seeing if anyone wanted to do meetings via Skype but just asking out of the clear blue seems kinda creepy to me. I guess I'll have to ponder on this a while longer. Any suggestions anyone?

Never give up

It's been a while since I wrote a blog post and for that I apologize.
Here lately, I have had a lot on my plate. Being a full time student and new home owner is tough business ESPECIALLY when you add two ruptured discs to the equation.
Today I decided to start reading some motivational books and see if that helps me get my weight loss mojo back. (It seems like nothing else has helped, so maybe this will do the trick.)
School starts back the last week in August, so my plan is to read one motivational book per week until then.

This week's book is: Staying Up... In a Down World by Zig Ziggler

I just downloaded it and I'll be ready to read in the morning.

What helps you when you need a little extra motivation?

Personal Training

I've been anxiously anticipating my meeting with Eric S., the trainer at my 24 hour fitness location. I tried to make a list of fitness related goals to accomplish. I came up with exactly one during the whole week I was wracking my brain.

I want to be able to kip up without looking like an idiot or hurting myself.

So with that in mind, I went into my fitness assessment/session today. I was mostly anxious because I knew I'd be having my fatness tested. It felt a lot like that moment in Jemima J by Jane Green 

when Jemima lugged herself out of bed, early to have dreaded the fatness testing. The trainer took lots of measurements and pinched her fat roll with some pincers.  

It started out pretty typical. Eric asked me questions about my prior fitness history, how I hurt my ankle, and what I wanted to accomplish. I gave him my one goal and tried to quickly add some others. "But," I told him, "It has to be fun or I won't do it." (I seriously think I'd already said fun like 789 times during our initial conversation, so I'm pretty sure he got it.)

We left the interview room and went into the "back room" where all the torturous fatness testing goes on. I stepped on the scale and did my best not to look. (Remember, I'm NOT focusing on THAT number anymore.) Then I braced myself for the pincer/caliper test that... NEVER CAME! Instead we used a tape measure and  THIS THING 

I really wish I'd have had my body fat tested when I very first started WW, it probably would have really depressed me but might be interesting to know. For the record, right now my body fat is at 43%. ALMOST HALF OF MY BODY WEIGHT IS FAT! Isn't that like the saddest thing, ever???

This is a copy of the chart they use:

According to Eric, the Average category is actually misleading because it's the one you want to be in. He said my goal for body fat percentage should be 25%. And that he could get me there in about 8 months. 

Then we went for the fun part, exercise. I was going to post a picture of the machine I used, but I can't find it  online. I did a set of squat/rows, then this crab walk squat row thingie (it seemed complicated at the time but was actually pretty fun), then a belly down exercise ball 5 pound weight thingie, some planks, and then squats against the exercise ball against the wall with a medicine ball in my hands. Crazy stuff, but you know, I was laughing and he did a really good job at motivating me. He kept the number of reps in the realm of something I thought was difficult but still do-able. 

Now the only trick is coming up with the money to do it on a regular basis. 

Focusing on goal changes

This year I've decided to focus on my activity instead of my weight loss. It seems like I've become so focused on the number on the scale that I am getting incredibly frustrated.
Since I joined 24 Hour Fitness, I have made exercise related goals. Specifically: burn 3500 calories per week and attend at least 3 fitness classes.
I'm happy to say that I've consistently exceeded those weekly goals.

This week on Tuesday, I'm meeting with a personal trainer. We'll see how that goes and I'll post about it then.