How making the bed led to a weight loss epiphany

There's an old adage that goes, "If you keep doing what you've always done, you'll keep getting what you've always gotten."

I've always knew this to be true but never really thought about it, until now. This weekend, I would have a total of 6 days off from school and work. I had planned to maybe do a little organizing of our house and read two or three books. Basically, I wanted to be lazy for the sum total of those days. That didn't happen. The first day, I had breakfast with a dear friend and for some reason, it inspired me to not be dormant. I came home, changed the sheets, and made the bed.

That may not seem all that miraculous to you. But for me it's HUGE. Never in my life have I consistently had a made bed. I always brushed off the comments of people saying that making the bed just starts their day off right. Honestly, I'd tell myself, how could that make a difference at all? Wasn't it just hogwash? Now I know it's not.

Because I'd made the bed, it made me feel a little better about not being in our actual master bedroom, STILL after six months. I truly had gotten to the point that I was so dejected about our living situation that I really didn't care if it even looked halfway presentable. I'd gotten in the mindset of, because the house isn't done, my husband won't allow anyone to come over so what did it matter if the bed was made for just us? Let me tell you, it does. I really and truly feel better about the state of our home by completing that one little task.

It also made me think about what other barriers I might have created for myself that I didn't even realize. When I was single and doing so well on Weight Watchers, I only had meals in restaurants maybe once a week. So now that I can't fit any of the clothes in my closet and am getting frighteningly close to my start weight, one of the big things for me is; "I've gained so much weight because my husband wants to eat out all the time." Ok, let's examine this. First of all, I'm not blaming my husband, who I love, for my weight gain. Yes, ever since we started dating I have gained weight. And Yes, my husband wants to eat out almost every night, never mind that it isn't good for our pocket book OR our waist lines. But it's MY FAULT that I let it go to my waist. Eating in restaurants makes him happy. I don't really understand why, but it does. His happiness means so much to me and he gets so upset when I try to dissuade him, that I give in.Then I feel guilty about ever trying to change his mind. He works so hard and all he's asking is that I let someone else cook for and serve us, who am I to complain? So I give in, and what do I do when we go out? I eat what I WANT to eat, not what would help me stay on plan. Why? Because I don't want to go out to eat and not be satisfied. It really is a fear thing with me. I'm afraid that if I don't order the pasta or chicken strips or the potato soup and pretzels, that I'll be hungry later or I won't like the meal I ordered and it would have been a waste of money for me to have eaten something else in the first place.

Basically, I feel out of control in this area. After spending over two years of my life on plan, I know that if I were to have gone to a WW meeting and asked for help, I would have heard these suggestions:

1. Find something on plan at the restaurant to eat and/or choose a WW friendly restaurant.

2. If you've already eaten out X number of times, don't go with him.

3. Realize that the odds of you going to a restaurant when he gets home are good, and plan accordingly.

Option #1 When we go out, it's typically always my husband's choice in restaurant. That's not to say that he forces me to go to places I don't like, I DO like these places. But many times, these places are not at all WW friendly. For instance, there's a burger place that we LOVE to go to where literally everything is fried. So for our outings option #1 is almost always out.

Option #2 is not an option because my husband works often 7 days per week, 10-12 hours per day. I WANT to spend time with him. The argument could be made that if I stopped going, it would stop being pleasurable for him to go and we'd start eating at home more. But that brand of passive-aggressiveness is not for me.

Option #3: EPIPHANY ALERT: Failing to plan is planning to fail. One of my favorite leaders ALWAYS said that. I think what has been happening is that I've been just going with the flow and not taking responsibility for my eating in areas that I could control. The great thing about WW is its flexibility. If I were to start getting Activity Points during the day AND wisely use my Points for breakfast and lunch, eating out for dinner would become a non-issue. 

Effective immediately, this is my new strategy. I'll check in next Sunday and let you know how it works for me. 

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. :)

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. 

BIG changes

As some of you may have heard, Weight Watchers has tweaked the program, again. Last year when they switched from Points to Points Plus, it screwed me up BIG time. I resisted and resented it. I moped. I whined. I struggled. AND.....

I gained.

20 pounds.

This time, I'm adopting a more "go with the flow" technique for dealing with the change. (Not only that but many of the key changes, didn't even effect me.)

For those of you that don't know, the changes were minimal. No reformulating how points are calculated and minimal recalculations of what foods "cost". They also tweaked the daily points target for some members. (I was not one of the ones who had a changed target.)

I was excited to see that wine went down a point, but then right after that they stated that beer went up one. So for me, that was pretty much a wash. 

One of the really cool things about the new program is.....

NEW BOOKS!

Everyone knows how much I love new reading material! And, it came in a little bag. (which I probably won't use because I already have a fancy one that I use for my meeting stuff.)

The other totally nifty thing is....

Power Start Sessions

The power start sessions are like a little mini-meeting after the meeting to hone your skills in different areas, such as making your home/work/life atmosphere more WW friendly.

I'm really excited about these changes. I feel like now is a great time to be a WWer and I think the coming year is the year that I'll reach goal. :)

My mom is in town, so she's gonna be "forced" to tag along on Sunday. If anyone else would like to attend a meeting for free, let me know. I'd love to hang out with you!

My accomplishment this week: I've embraced the change, gracefully. :)

Since this will be posted almost in time for me to do another post (thank you stomach virus) this is what my goal for this week was:

 Stay within my points target for the week. 

I'll just say it, in four months, I've gained back 20 of the 100 pounds that I'd destroyed.
20 pounds.
Four months.
5 pounds per month.
Dang.
Often in our weight loss efforts, when times like this arise, we are told to ask ourselves, "What's not working?"
That's a loaded question and I for one think that sentence isn't working. At the risk of sounding completely spacey, that sentence is awfully negative.  And don't we have enough negativity out there? For me asking What's not working could take me all day to answer because that has always been a big  list of things.
Me Vs. Pizza= not working
TX heat Vs. my running habit= not working
Cooking Dinner Vs. 10+ hour workdays = not working
Trust me, this list could go on and on. I think the better question is "What is/was Working"

1. Tracking- In my 2+ years as a Weight watcher, I know this is the key to success.
2. 30 minutes of REAL activity per day (Sadly, sex and walking Sophie (my chihuahua) down the stairs and 10 feet to potty and check the mail, does NOT count.)
3. Having actual groceries in the house. (You know, to make MEALS out of??? Left over take-out and odd bits of stuff that with other stuff could maybe make a meal doesn't make a person very successful.)
4. Going out once a week. Eating out every meal coupled with dessert and alcohol during the week eats through the points BIG time. (pun intended)
5. Attending a Good Meeting. Never underestimate the power of a good leader and friendly supportive members.
6. Regular Goal Checkups/ Goal Setting. I keep forgetting to ask myself, "Maghan, how's it going?"

So now that I know what works, Why aren't I doing what works?
I'll answer that next time.