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. 

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. 

Gigi's Cupcakes and A Loss???

Gigi's Cupcakes has arrived in Sugar Land. Wouldn't you know that I've discovered this little oasis on the week that I recommitted to WW meetings? I tried to deny the call. The little voice in my head kept saying, but MAGHAN, it's just ONE cupcake. You've got the weeklies for it... c'mon it'll be soooo good. 

I wavered. Realistically it was only ONE cupcake. And I really did have the weeklies available. I know myself well enough to know that if I DIDN'T eat a cupcake, I'd likely think about nothing but cupcakes for days until I ended up caving and eating half a dozen of the yummy morsels.

So I decided to go in. If they didn't have my favorite, I reasoned, I could just walk out. No harm in looking. (Hilariously enough, Gigi's is located right next to a Quick Weight Loss Center, they share a wall. I thought back to my QWL days and remembered how having a cupcake then would have ruined everything.) I took a deep breath and went in. The owner greeted me right away and I saw several of the above beauties. My absolute FAVORITE red velvet with cream cheese icing. 

As I tried to contain my drool, I struck up a conversation with the owner. Of course, WW came up. At the moment, GiGi's does not have nutrition information available but they are working on it. Once they have 5 more locations, the government will require it and they want to be ahead of the game. He told me that he too was Point conscious and that whenever he and his wife take some home, they split them. (By the way, they make each cupcake fresh daily, so I'm sure that happens pretty often.) He boxed up my delectable little treat like a treasured present and I went about my way.

Once I got it home, I took Sophie out and evaluated the cupcake. I decided to cut my little beauty into fourths. It was STUPENDOUS. I found myself with another fourth about to leap into my opened mouth. And....

I stopped. I put it back in the box. Those of you who know me IRL know that I LOVE sweets. So I was doing some SERIOUS self talk as I put the container in the fridge, closed the door, and drank some water. 

I was satisfied with the fourth?!? I don't think that has ever happened to me. But I was totally satisfied, to the point that I'm sure if I'd had the other fourth, I'd have been a little nauseated from the sweetness. I'm happy to report that the second fourth tasted just as good the next day. AND I shared the remaining half with Trevor. 

This week I lost 3.6 pounds and had Activity points for ALMOST every single day.

Stay within my weekly points allowance for Thanksgiving and do a 5k. 

It's like scraping my brains off the pavement

Yesterday's post begs the question, If I know what to do, how come I haven't been doing it?

That's a real stumper isn't it? Kind of like those people who ride a motorcycle at 100 miles an hour on the freeway with no helmet, they know they SHOULDN'T be doing what they're doing but they still don't change it. Often by the time something MAKES them change their ways, that something is another vehicle and then it's too late. An EMT is scraping their brains off some guy's bumper. I bet those motorcycle riders have excuses for why they don't wear helmets (it's too hot, helmet hair, etc). Let's examine some of my excuses for not doing what I should.


"I have no self control." My first time on Weight Watchers (WW) was 2003 and I lasted a week and 1 day, lack of self control was my excuse for quitting then. After having been on plan for two years, I know THAT isn't the reason.

"I don't have time to count points." Um, yeah, but I do have time to check Facebook on my iPhone 50 times a day. That excuse isn't gonna fly.

"Being on plan isn't as much fun as eating whatever I want!" It is true, counting points and planning for dates or meals in restaurants isn't as much fun as having Crusted Chicken Romano and getting a slice of 30th Anniversary Cheesecake just because I went to First Colony and they have a Cheesecake Factory. But, being able to shop for clothes in ALL the stores at First Colony is WAY more fun than Cheesecake Factory ever is. So I guess I need to choose my fun...

"I've worked all day, I'm too tired to work out." By the time I get off work, I AM exhausted. So it's true that after work, I'm too tired to work out. Maybe I should work out before work....

"I've worked all day, I'm too tired to cook." This has lead to way too many calls to Domino's lately. I think my delivery guy realizes that I have pizza addiction problem. It might be a good idea for me to pre-make my dinners. Cook a bunch the weekend before and warm 'em up during the week...

"I don't have anything to cook." Yeah, Maghan. That's cuz you haven't been to the grocery store in forever.

"I don't like my meeting" Try another.

Crap! I think I've run out of excuses and I couldn't get away with a single one of those.

In the beginning, I was so motivated. Really, extra driven. NOTHIN' and NOBODY was getting between me and my goal. I'm not sure what happened but I think I'm suffering from "misplaced motivation". I think that's where number 6 on yesterday's list will come in handy. I need to set some new goals and check in with myself periodically.

I probably also need to do less "real big picture" and more "rear-view big picture" thinking. I'll explain what I mean next time.