Weighting No More: August 2010

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Thursday, February 18, 2010

I am ready to weigh in tomorrow, and to recommit to the gym. Exercise is my missing piece right now and luckily for me the scale has been moving in a downward direction but I know that will decease if I do not commit to the gym. Must move my body to get the results I need and want.
I just finished reading about Helen, last seasons Biggest Loser, she like me had close to 120 pounds to lose and was in her late 40's, albeit I am a little younger ( smile). What an inspiration she is, granted I have no Jillian or Bob, but support is but a click away on this Weight Watchers site. I also have a two daughters who cheer me on and I want to be around for a long time to watch their lives develop and meet future husbands, grandchildren and extended families.
My father died at 42 after suffering several heart attacks, he lived in an age when technology was just expanding and he unfortunately never had the opportunities, for example Bill Clinton does. No stents at that time, just massive open heart surgeries that he was scheduled for but never lived to see the table. I may be lucky to have technology on my side should my heart fail as his did, but genetics are against me and I need to remind myself daily that I can control how I treat my body and I can change the odds against me, or I can increase the chances of repeating history, my choice. I choose me, I choose the gym, I choose life.
This was on my mind last night, I took myself out to dinner at a place where everyone knows my name. I ordered the Ribeye steak, my favorite, not the leanest though. Typically or should I say pre Weight Watchers take 99999999, I would eat bread and butter. Last night I passed. I ordered a salad with a light vinaigrette, instead of my heavy bleu cheese favorite and a baked potatoe, no butter or sour cream. I learned a long time ago lemon squeezed on my baked potatoe is very good and good for you, try it, seriously. I trimmed away the fat!! My favorite part, instead of adding a lot of salt, and savoring it, I trimmed it off and ate half my serving. My treat was a nice glass of Merlot. I did not feel deprived, I felt empowered and I still do. I can do this and tomorrow I will recommit to the gym, if Helen can do it and boy she did, than so can Jennifer.

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

I can not believe almost a month has gone by and I have not blogged. Part of my journey is to stay in touch with my feelings along the way and I need to blog to do that. Shame on me , enough though as beating myself up is never productive for me.
I am down 15 pounds, maybe more as I weigh in two days from now to see.
I feel great, seriously great!
My first physical sign that that the weight loss is helping my heath is my wheezing is almost non existent, it has really disappeared, I would say around the 10 pound mark I noticed it gone, and hold on...My blood pressure..." can we have a drum roll??!" well it was 140/80 that is a record in the last 2 years I have never been under 90 as a bottom number and averaging 170/96. No medication for it just eating better and taking off weight. Daily, I am less winded. Now before I sound overly confident I will say that I am struggling to get exercise in. I joined the gym as being from New England I should be able to exercise outside but I do not, I just hate the cold." Have I gone to the gym?" Three times since I joined a month ago, Yikes. I admit the caring fro my parents and granddaughter is part of the reason but that is not the only resistance, I am seriously out of shape and it is embarrassing. There are no gym clothes that can cover an extra 105 pounds, that is right no longer 120 as 15 are gone. I need to just buck up and do it and writing it out like this helps me really see that. Today my blog is about my biggest non scale victory.
For the last two years I wear jeans once a month maybe, instead I opt for these what I called great pants from Jjill they are from their wearever collection and have an elastic waist. I have a pair in every color, two in black, same size as they were two years ago, you see the great part about them is they grow with me. Here is my non scale victory, this weekend I went out and bought two more pairs of jeans , I was hoping a size smaller than the last time I bough jeans as I have lost 15 pounds, but nope same size 22. It horrifies me, I hate the size I hate that I let myself get that way and it makes me want to just keep my ever growing pants that I already have. I did it though and came home and packed away my favorites ( I admit good willing them is still to hard for me) I am a size 22 and until I am a size 20 I shall own that and feel the buttons if they get too tight or feel the looseness as I progress, but what I will NOT do is hide behind elastic waist-ed pants. That's my story :)

Friday, January 15, 2010

Feeling positive, I lost another 4 pounds, 11.6 so far and how?? By following the program, amazing!
Sarcastic is my nature, but seriously I just needed to get my head in the game and do what the program suggest. I am using the boards to combat mindless eating and vent my frustrations and that is helping as well.

So almost 12 pounds and I already feel healthier, amazing how that goes. No indigestion at night, as I do not eat after 7 and am not overeating. No morning headaches from too much merlot as I only save enough points for two glasses instead of my desired three! Mostly though I just feel like my self esteem has been bolstered by me not quitting after three days and I am truly one who gains self esteem as the pounds disappear.

Today is my Birthday and I will celebrate and stay on track and I thing that 46 is my year to finally conquer some food issues.

Friday, January 08, 2010

Here I am Week one officially and one week just getting ready and I am down 8 pounds, 4 the first week and than again 4 this week! I am so happy with myself and my hard work and on top of the loss I had 15 flex points left! I know I can do this, yet for the last 8 or nine attempts I could not get passed week one, I keep asking myself what is the difference and I have my answer. Many times I have heard other successful people on weight watchers or at weight loss in general say " I was just finally ready" that is exactly where I am. The question is what took me so long?! and why now.
It was not the rude comments I received on Xmas Eve as I was already getting my head in the game at that point. I honestly think it is my health scares me. I wheeze when I exert myself and can barely walk upstairs with out getting winded. Being the caregiver for my mom who is a terribly aged 78 old, whom never took the time to take care of herself and my fear that fastforward 30 years but the grace of god that will be me. I love my granddaughter and at two I struggle to keep up with her and that is not the grandmother I want to be. So whatever the reason here I am and a weigh ( lol) it goes!

The first time I ever did weight watchers I lost 64 pounds that was 20 years ago and I had this habit of the day I weighed in, I allowed myself to eat whatever I wanted, cheat day, and at 26 it worked for me, twenty years later, with my metabolism slowing to a snails pace I will not try my luck with that scenario and when I want something it will be within my points allotment or not at all. You know..the way the plan is designed!

Today I thought, I wonder how many pounds I need to lose to hear that first sweet sentence " Have you lost Weight? " I will let you know!

Thursday, January 07, 2010

Tada! I am feeling good Day 6 and going strong, I weigh in tomorrow and I am very confident that my efforts will be rewarded with a scale loss, I have had many non scale victories this week as well. I am well within my flex, I will have many left over. I feel good and have chose filling foods when the hungries appeared and said no to having wine when my points were gone for the day.

Walking is hard, and I need to get that in, I think I will look for a DVD that helps me get some AP's during the week as the gym is still not fee-sable time or financially.

More later, just wanted to be consistent :)

Tuesday, January 05, 2010

Well 4 days under my belt, and I am feeling good, I admit though yesterday was a challenge. All afternoon I was so hungry I thought I was in danger of eating my arm, for that reason I am glad I had previously purged my house of any bad foods. By 3 oclock in the afternoon I had eaten all but 7 points for the day. Good choices though, celery with salsa when the first hunger pains ( phantom I am sure) came on. I ate a dish of winter squash, ff popcorn, ff sugar free pudding, and more celery. I was trying my best to save points for the evening when I would go out with Michael my bf. We went to the Roma, a local restaurant/bar where everyone knows our name. I was so good I saddled up to the bar next to a couple we see there often, no kidding she is tiny as a mouse and has an appetite of a horse that she indulges. They were just getting ready to leave but seeing us, they decided to stay and oh yeah,,,order dessert!
I had my planned garden salad with grilled chicken and used flex for my wine.
So while I ate my salad I had the pleasure of smelling the hot fudge that was rolling of their shared brownie Sundae, and despite the fact I was tortured by it and her I made it through Day 4, and I think I can find it in my heart to still be friends with that tiny mouse of a woman.
Michael survived the evening as well, we are still walking tentatively with each other as on New Years Eve, he decided to move away the bread basket to help me abstain and he learned a not so quiet lesson that I will ask for help when I need it...the poor guy :( I think this journey may be long for him too at times.

Monday, January 04, 2010

Long before Christmas Eve of this year I had decided that Dec 26th was
the first day of my downward climb from this 260 pound weight and the
terrible place my head was in at this weight, but on Christmas Eve, the
plan got me through one of the most insensitive moments I recall.

I bake at the holidays and not just a little. I turn my kitchen into a
workshop and my friends and family are gifted tryas of holiday cookies
with all their personal favorites, I make approximately 15 cookies
trays in three days and than hand deliver them. This is not a
tradition I ever intend to give up as everyone loves them and it feels
great to give that gift. This year while delivering a tray to my ex
brother in law who runs a garage and helps my daughters and I whenever
we have car troubles and we have had our share, he without much
thought, OBVIOUSLY said something that caused me to sob all the way
home. He was hanging with his employees and behind him had boxes of
candy that had been gifted and other baked goodies. I hand him the
awaited cookie tray and instead of the usual Thank you, he had a remark
of " What are you doing, do you want me to end up looking like you!"
Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! How I escaped withought the tears flowing before I
hit the safety of my car I do not know, I heard his employees react
with a gasp and one say" That was the meanest thing I have ever heard".
I was too shocked and hurt to take the cookies back, lol and too hurt
to be angry enough to throw them at him. Anyone that has ever been
overweight or at the receiving end of a comment like that knows how
hurtful that comment was. Before I try to defend him and say he really
is a nice guy, as he is, I will say that if I were comfortable with me,
it would not have mattered. If my weight did not have a direct relation
to my self esteem no comment could have hurt me like that. I am not one
of those girls that no matter what size I am I am ok with it, I wished
I were and I admire them and hope to be one soon, but my journey of
weight loss will be rooted in my finding myself and building back my
self esteem and when I waiver and I know I will, I hope this is a
reminder to me as to why I need this journey. I got an apology from my
ex brother in law, and a glimpse of why he is most undoubtedly and ex!
what I really got though was some much needed insight to what this
weight has cost me in terms of self esteem.

I do feel better today and will walk again and tomorrow I will be back to say how it went!

So here I am Weight Watchers again and yet this feels different. The difference is I believe I can do this, my last few attempts were halfhearted and it showed. I hesitated to stay on what would be considered a day for Resolutions as I feel that sets the scene for defeat, but I did and now I am glad of it. The day after Christmas I started unofficially, doing what I called wrapping my head around the idea of Weight Watchers, you know, drinking water, measuring, gathering recipes, cleaning the house of junk foods that set me up to binge. The result if that week was a jumpstart of losing 4 pounds!
I am the mother of two lovely daughters, the grandmother of a 2 year old who is the light of my life, she lives with me as does her mom. My mother is very ill and requires my attention and care-giving skills twice a day, first thing in the morning and again at night, a twenty minute drive a town away, her husband my step-dad is in rehab following a very bad bout of pneumonia that sent him to the hospital in Christmas day. Their health issues have been the biggest motivator for me as when I am at their age I want to be the heathiest I can be.
I am like hundreds of others right now, finding myself unemployed from a sales job and looking for re-employment so if now is not the time, than when?
I live in Massachusetts, and currently looking out the window at the remnants of a three day storm that has dropped close to a foot of snow on us, with blustery winds. I will be walking despite that storm, as I did Friday night with my daughter Michelle, whom I lovingly refer to as Jillian from the biggest loser! She is 24 and lives by herself and is as fit as can be. Surprisingly both my daughters are in great shape. Size 4 and six. I will not say it is easy for them, I will say I have been a poor example and feel that I do motivate them as to how they do not want to be. Don't get me wrong they love and respect me, but they do not want to have the weight and self esteem issues that come with it. I am lucky to have their support and I intend to utilize it. I hope you find this blog interesting and funny and follow my journey as I am going to use this as my way of reaching me, the me that is buried under 120 pounds of pain, and stress, that somewhere along the way I thought eating, and drinking would make go away.