If the Towel Fits....

Last year at this time I was a newcomer to the gym, and I knew the best way to cajole myself to get there was by rewarding myself with a steam bath. My weight when I joined d the gym was about 235 down, 26 from my starting weight of 261. I knew that I had lost the first 25 pounds on my journey with minimal to no exercise but would have to step it up to get some more weight off.
The steam bath presented a pretty daunting challenge to me at 235 pounds and that was getting naked at the gym. For some that may be no problem, I am not that girl,even when I reach my goal weight of 140 pounds you will never see me standing by the lockers, taking of my bra and getting changed for the showers. Nope, not, Nada, no weigh in H E double hockey sticks... ok I am sure you get it!
In my own home, I can parade around and be comfy in front of DBF, but that took a weight loss of 50 ish pounds and still it is a work in progress.
So last year at this time I began the hunt for the perfect towel. You could have found me at Bed Bath and Beyond, trying on towels,fully clothed wrapping them around my chest, under my arms and checking to see the coverage. After many attempts I found the perfect towel and bought two. The towel shopping was the easiest part, as even today when I work out and than retreat to the locker room twice a week for my much deserved steam bath I than play the how to keep the curtain in the changing stall shut to undress and than dress, do they make the curtains 4 inches short on either side on purpose or is this a figment of my imaginations??!! Still not sure on that.
Despite the fear of being totally exposed at the gym for all other women to see, I do it and I so enjoy those steambaths. My two lavender towels for gym use only are officially going to experience a new phenomenon, they are joining the population of all the bathroom towels as I am pleased to announce that all towels offically cover the goods and that my friends is my Non Scale victory of the week!! With that declaration I am now officially Dub Sundays my weigh in day as Non Scale Victory day, the reason being is, my victories that keep me on this journey, are more about these wins, rather than the number on the scale and far more frequent I might add, and this journey is about my health and how I feel rather than if my body lost another pound, and Weigh ins are just one measure and they can be fickle but what I know for sure is that the non scale victories tell the story of the success in my head :)

You Look Great, Now Eat

I am hearing a lot lately how great I look, and that is a good thing, I have learned to say a gracious, " Thank you."
What comes next is the hard part and that is the food pushers. The people that I love and care about who suddenly are acutely aware of the fact that I am eating less and far more selectively. I call it choosing my points wisely. I think my mom is on the top of the food pusher list.
I check in on her just about daily and she being almost eighty has a sweet tooth that she tends to daily and can afford too, she needs the weight gain. She constantly wants me to indulge with her and will say, you can splurge once in awhile, or you look great just the way you are now, you do not need to lose anymore. She and the other food pushers, can come with a variety of different reasons why I should throw all caution to the wind and Eat with them!
As hard as it is to not eat with them, I am choosing not too, like I said I am choosing my points wisely and that type of eating is what helped bring the scale to 120 pounds over where I should be.
I have 60 more pounds to lose and I have been spending a lot of time, exercising and cooking healthy meals, learning what role sodium plays in my weight, and no where in this plan to lose 60 more pounds, is there room for mindless eating, or eating to please others.
I am looking for some helpful ways for me to keep the food pushers at bay, any ideas? any quote that works for you?
I am looking for something that "Says what I mean but does not say it meanly."
I saw that quote somewhere and I love it, I believe it is from a twelve step program but it is exactly what I need.

Here's To Arthur

I am still reeling from yesterdays stressful day, but here.
I have a lot on my plate this morning, waiting for a call from the hospital or my friend to see how the night went, she is back at the hospital after suffering a Heart Attack two weeks ago, and my awaiting a call from my mechanic on my car.
Last night I did watch the Biggest Loser, and it was a good distraction, this season unlike the last few seems to be a lot less game play and more love and concern for the fellow contestants and I like that. At the same time though there is always some game play and the biggest and unhealthiest contestant Arthur started it a few weeks ago and unfortunately last night he was voted off and that same instinct to game play, was in my opinion what sent him home last night.
The game play aside, it was sad to see him go and sadder to see the emotion from Jillian and Bob and the contestants. At weigh in it was like, they all thought him going home was the end of his journey and I could see how they might think that as he was the Biggest and unhealthiest contestant ever and he got that way at home, what they did not realize was in the weeks that Arthur was there " He Got it" and it was never more evident than in the last 5 minutes of the show they showed him now and he looks great and is using every tool given to him on the Ranch.
Two thoughts on Jillains crying and really being broken up about Arthur going home, first one is she really has a big heart and a soft spot for the suffering of people with such weight issues, and despite her hard demeanor at times, lies this marshmallow that just wants to save the world, and it is refreshing, second thought, I know she is leaving to pursue a family, wondering if some pregnancy hormonal tears were flowing as well!
Bob, was struggling with Arthur leaving as well and all the contestants and it seemed like they, like myself and probably many of us thought, this was it, there is no way he can finish this at home, "Guess what?" he is doing it!! He had been given the right tools and he had/has the motivation and was apparently ready, and that is what we all need to succeed.
Arthur you are inspiring, as inspiring as my fellow online weight watchers. We too are ready and have been given the tools and have the motivation. We also have Bobs and Jillians amongst us with big overflowing hearts that want to share our wisdom along the way to help each other and push each other to success and to be the healthiest and best we can be! In many ways we are all on that Biggest Loser Ranch, minus the gameplay ( Thank Goodness)!
Thanks for being my Bob and Jillian! Hope I can be yours!

Walking the Walk

This post tonight is raw, as I am raw emotion.
The day started with dropping my car of to the garage, a very scary venture as some of you may remember I am still unemployed, I begin my new found job in mid March, a job that is significantly less money but significantly more pleasure and what is available. My well intentioned older brother picked me up from the garage and gave me a lecture about how I may need to move from the place I love so much, to cut back on my finances as I heat with oil and it has almost buried me this winter. I have beautiful gardens here that I put in and I love this home. I reminded myself that his suggestions were just that and I am in charge of me.
Fast forward and the garage has called back and I am looking at least $800.00 worth of work and it is rising and the car will be there until at least tomorrow afternoon. Chinese food and the french fries I gave up for a New Year's resolution sure sound good right now.
Luckily I have no car, as I may be tempted, but than the no car keeps me from the gym, and I could use a long workout,
All these feelings happened and I decided to take a long hot bath, with the new Bath Bombs I got in celebration of my 60 pounds of weight lost and the bath helped a lot, until my phone rang and hour ago.
My best friend who suffered a heart attack two weeks ago, called to ask me to bring her to the hospital as her blood pressure was high, and she felt tightness and I have no car. I gave her the advice that she needed to take and that is call 911, and she did and I sit here right now, I was updated by her daughter, she is in the ER and they are running tests and they have already contacted her cardiologist, she will keep me updated. Again I want to eat, and I keep telling myself what I truly have learned and fully believe " Nothing I eat can make this feel better."
I have eaten all my points for the day and as tempted as I am in to feed my emotions I will not, and I will instead, think positive thoughts for my friend, read blogs, my past posts, your posts, anything to cement the new behaviors and remind myself that I started this joureny for my health, to fend off the very same heart issues that are scaring me for my best friend, and just be raw with emotion.
One thing I know for sure, the bills may pile up, I will pay them, the car is just a car, unemployed is unfortunate but it did and does not define me, and at the end of the day it is about you, your family and friends." I'm just sayin."

Cheat Day has left the building....

Went out to dinner with the DBF last night and used 20 of my Weeklies. I would like to lay all the blame at his feet but really, I will own it as I need at some time to really discuss with him the changes I want to make in our choices of restaurants but also realize there are times he just wants junk, beer, sports and me, not necessarily in that order. Last night was one of those times.
We went to a pub and yes they had salads, but they looked as nutritionally sound as the appetizer plates we went with, Mozzarella sticks, potato skins, chicken quesidilla and chicken fingers, added to chicken sliders, and a beer or two to cheer on the team with.
Here is the thing with sports though, if it is not Baseball, preferably The Red Sox, or the Super Bowl, preferably with the Patriots, you have lost me into my own thoughts, with a cute smile and nod in his direction when he seems particularly happy with the game, whatever it may be.
Last night on the heels of hitting 60 pounds gone, and now looking in the window at Onderland, I was thinking about past weight loss's, reaching the goal ( have done that twice) and the subsequent gain back of all and a little more for good measure.
One thing I always did on those other attempts is something I refuse to do now. I had what I called a "Cheat Day" my cheat day typically fell on the day I weighed in, and if that was in the morning I would eat whatever I wanted all day long and into the night until the following day. In the interest of full disclosure, I picked my weight watchers meetings in the morning with this in mind. My food intake would be off the charts, sleeves of cookies, bags of chips, the unit of measure was never 2 or 3 of this, it was usually the form the product was bought in, and of course the Drive thru anything. When I reached my Weight loss goal and I can honestly say I hardly ever stayed at goal and never made Lifetime, the cheat days would start to string together...... and that would be the end of that.
Last night, had it fallen in my past weight loss attempts would have been a perfect night for Cheat Day... but here is the thing, this journey is the rest of my life, and there is no room for Cheat Day in the rest of my life. I can eat whatever I want, but I must count it, own it, acknowledge it, and enjoy it! Enjoy it?
" Enjoy It" is essential I added it in, as I can tell you when I eat just to eat, I hardly remember how much I ate and if I even liked it... that is my emotional eating and mindless eating all wrapped up together. Keeping that in mind while eating last night, I really did not indulge that much, as I do not enjoy the sliders, or the chicken fingers so I skipped them. The cheese sticks,yup, enjoyed them, the skins and the quesidilla, yup...the beer pretty much, but not a lot as was pretty full, another thing that keeps the out of control eating to a minimum. Eating when I am full, not enjoyable.
When we were winding down, DBF said, " Aren't you going to eat anymore?" and " You did not finish your beer; is it ok? " and the answer was " I ate what I wanted and I am full, and the beer is great, but filling, and like I said I am full."
I am not always completely familiar with these new behaviors but I sure do like where they are bringing me! So this week we shall have the talk about what restaurants really do not work for me, and I will start it like this, " You know how you keep telling me how good I look, and how proud you are with me, well here is what I need to do for me, and for us......

What a Feeling!! 60 Pounds Gone, and a gym rat?

Two things, I reached my mini goal of 50 Ap's this week, 50 yes 50, I amazed myself and now I know it can be done, I will try again this week and the next and the next, you get it I am sure! Now, drum-roll please.......I hit 60 pounds lost! I am so very happy and excited, this week I lost three pounds, and I think it is no coincidence that it is on the same week I earned 50 Ap's. It reminds me if I want different results than I need to do things differently. I hardly think my activity was lacking but I did ask a few fellow Weight Watchers who were at goal or close what they did for activity, and it did make my routine look like it needed some tweaking, so I tweaked it! I added about 20 more Ap's a week than I was doing.
Another thing I have done that I think added to a great week of weight loss is I have taken a really good look at my sodium intake and reduced it and in two weeks I have lost 5 pounds, and that is no coincidence either.
Back to the Ap's and all this exercise, I feel good, really good. No seasonal depression symptoms this week, despite that fact that it is snowing again and the 3 inches predicted looks to be at 5 right now and still coming down. Feeling positive about the next 60 pounds, I am at my half way point and it took me a little over a year, different from the thoughts I had last year of hitting 100 pounds lost in a year,but I am more than ok with that . I dare say I am in danger of becoming a gym rat, I am hearing myself talk about two workouts in one day if that is what it takes, I have exercised twice this month with each of my daughters and have thought how nice it was and wished that we had done that earlier but am grateful we are now.
I am shy of saying " I love the gym" but I am getting there and I really am in heavy " Like : with it!
I am a believer in rewards for weight loss goals achieved and non food, of course. I have been thinking long and hard about what to do for 60 and I came up with it, being a very girly girl, soaking in the bathtub is my favorite relaxation technique and add any kind of bubble bath and let;s just say I am there! Years ago while visiting my daughter at College in Boston I found the best bath and soap store and they sold something called a " Bath Bomb" they had rows and rows of them and the smell of the bombs and soaps they created, came out the door. Walking buy just called me in.
That store called Lush has expanded and is in a lot of the malls now and I visited yesterday( as I admittedly peeked on the scale and knew I hit 60 Gone) I bought $60.00 worth of bath bombs for myself, a dollar given to the budget for them for every pound! Woo Hoo!! That is nine baths coming my way,,,,, nine opportunities to soak in a tub reminding myself that I did this and I can do the next 60 as well! Next up Onderland! Onderland is two pounds away and my mini goal for this week, is again 50Ap's, my reward for Onderland is swirling around my head..............

Last Chance Workout 2/26

Here I sit the day before my weigh in and the day before the end of my mini goal or reaching 50 Ap's for the week. I have 18 to go! 18!! ok, it can be done.
Yesterday I earned 12 but I had the help of Mother Nature she threw me some heavy wet snow that needed to be cleared from my driveway before I could even think about the gym. Today we have snow coming and it will be after my bedtime, and I am not THAT committed to get up in the wee hours and shovel what can be shoveled at a reasonable hour.
So hear is the plan, two trips to the gym, the first with my daughter this morning, my younger daughter who has decided to join the gym and I have a partner a couple times a week! Yay, more on that this week. This first work out will be on the treadmill, an hour walk that typically provides me with 8-9 APs.
Workout two will be by myself on the elliptical and hopefully for an hour which again is 8-9 points and that will bring my mini goal for the week to a close, and hopefully do what I call " Set the Precedent"
" Set the Precedent " for me is a game a play in my head at the gym, When I work out for an hour one day at a certain pace, or level, and succeed doing that three times in a row, than I accept no less, I can not just come in and say, " Oh I feel like doing less today" ( unless I am under the weather, not just tired but tired with physical reasons) I mentally commit myself to at the minimum maintain that new level and at the maximum add more! If I meet my mini goal this week, and if I do not, I will have the same mini goal for the next two weeks as what I am really looking for is the 50Ap's a week to be my Precedent for the rest of the journey and beyond , knowing that there is no beyond as this is what I want the rest of my life to look like, me taking better care of me, starting with my health!
Gotta Go, I hear Jillian in my head " Come on, Today is your Last Chance Workout!!!!

My Mini Goals Than and Now. 2/25

Early in the week I decide my mini goal for the week would be to earn 50Ap's. and to do that I NEED to earn 27 in the next two days. It feels like it should be less, as I am sore from the 23 I have already earned, but I will do it!
I like these mini goals and it took me a year into my weight loss journey to realize my mini goals should be something I have control over.
I wanted to revisit the mini goals I used to set ,as as much as I like to blog, I equally like reading blogs, and lately the ones that really jump out at me , and make me want to share some of my hard learned lessons, are about weight loss goals, IE: " My Goal is to lose 2 pounds this week."
Scale goals can make go crazy in 0 to 30 seconds! I have seen it happen with me too many times to count. Finally I have wrapped my head around the fact that I have little control over the scale on a weekly basis, I can however control the end result and the weight , reach my goal and maintain the weight loss, but I can not give it a date or a time schedule. I have been so tormented by this that I had actually named my inanimate object ( the scale ) to be able to conquer the hold it held and sometimes still holds over me, his name is Roland. My body and many of ours release the weight at its own schedule and I find this especially true for women, surprise, surprise. Now inches are different, if you are on program and eating well, exercising well and the scale is not budging, it can always be noticed in inches, or the way your clothes fit, and that is great!!
So after beating my head against the wall too many times I finally got through my head that a mini goal for me, has to be something I can control and reach, it may be a hard reach, ( 27 AP's in two days , as I lost two workouts somewhere along my week) but attainable) Sometimes my mini goals is that of what I choose to not eat too much off, Popcorn and Merlot comes to mind, not in that order though...
My mini goal this week was attainable when I set it, in my head it was with 5-6 workouts , but as the week progressed, a sister had a surgery and that day at the gym dissolved, and a granddaughter needed her " Mimi" and I came to the call, leaving me with two day deadline to get in the Ap's and reach my mini goal, stay tuned!!