I like…chicken flautas, chips and queso, chocolate, ice cream, cake, pizza, … and sadly that’s what I’ve been eating for the last 10 weeks. I got extremely lackadaisical when it came to my eating. If I thought about it, I ate it. What, no veggie today? Who cares! Pizza for dinner! That’s got green peppers and onions, right? Bound to be the 6 daily servings I need.
Sadly, my carelessness and poor eating choices have gotten me into trouble. I weighed myself a few days ago at the gym and was so very disappointed to find out I weighed 12 lbs more than when I got pregnant. Two more lbs than 8 weeks ago. The initial deal I made with myself was to eat whatever for 2 weeks and give into the grief – eat, eat ,and eat. Well, 2 weeks turned into 3 weeks which turned into 4 weeks. Now that I’m on week 10 I’m ready to tackle this issue.
I have always been a physically fit person so this is not where I want to be right now. I have a few motivating factors although the biggest one is not fitting into my clothes.
So I’ve taken steps. For the past week I’ve altered my eating to be much more aware and conscious of it. Here are my rules: 1. drink more water, 2. eat bread (tortillas, sandwich bread, buns, biscuits, pretzels) only once a day, 3. exercise when I can (three times this week), & 4. nothing to eat after dinner.
I wanted to give myself some leeway since going cold turkey on most foods would lead straight to cheating. For example, for Mother’s Day we ate at a Mexican restaurant where I ate chips and enchiladas (my only bread for the day). The following day I ate ice cream when Andrew’s team celebrated a baseball win (I did not have dessert for 5 days leading up to this).
I’m posting this after one week and here’s my progress….
I have lost 1.9 pounds so far. While I would have liked to see a 12 pound loss (um, probably not) I’m happy with the progress.
Since I initially weighed in with my shoes on, I thought about giving myself a boost of confidence for the weigh in by only wearing my bra and underwear. I finally nixed that idea since the scale is located in the middle of the weight room. Could be just a tad awkward for the other gym members.
Perhaps my tennis shoes really weigh 8 lbs & I haven’t dug myself quite as big of a hole as I think:)
Do you have any goals you’re working on?
I think eating is a substitute for so much in life and though I claim no other addiction, I believe that food is something I have used my whole life to assuage pain from issues that could and should be handled better in other ways. I think one of the big connections is between celebration and food…let’s celebrate our anniversary, let’s celebrate a Saints win, and after all it is Friday and that is reason enough to celebrate..I have tried to recognize the places where this happens, eat a good breakfast, and pack a lunch for work that is modest. I avoid the sweets that teachers are inundated with at work…..pretty commendable since Teacher appreciation was last week….Going cold turkey is hard but it starts at the grocery store..if it does not live at your house, it will not get eaten. Even if my husband drives to the gas station at night to get a candy bar, it is better than me having goodies staring me in the face. This year at my school, I have seen two real success stories of weigh-loss-teachers in their forties…53 pounds and looking 10 yrs. younger…40 pounds and the same. They used weightwatchers online and this summer I am thinking of doing the same thing…Exercise for me is the hard part but I will say this…every decade of your life, your metabolism slows and you are doing the right thing with recognizing the problem now…..and taking action. Look at how your kids never stop moving….that is the key.
No kidding, Ms. Pat. Look at how YOUR kids NEVER stop moving! 🙂
I had to cut back on calorie consumption a bit after the last trip down to NOLA. Cutting back on the breads is definitely the main way for me to (relatively) quickly get back where I want to be. (She says having just polished off a croissant from a pack just bought at the store because it had “all butter” written on it.)
Hmmmm, as far as goals go, I’ve been trying to improve my sight reading skills on the piano now for about 15 years. I haven’t made much progress. I should probably start taking lessons again so that I’m accountable to someone. But hey – the learning to snowboard thing counts, right? 🙂
Way to go taking control of your eating. It’s amazing how easy the pounds pack on and how hard they are to get off!
As far as goals, I have a weight one but the one I really want to share is my goal to read 52 books this year – 1 per week. I haven’t exactly stuck to the 1 per week but I am reading so much more than I have in my adult life and I’m pretty proud of that! Like exercise, it just takes time set aside to accomplish my reading goal!
Amanda, Jen: Have to comment on all this “book stuff”…I worked sooooo hard with the two of you to not lose interest in reading when you were teens…and it does my heart good to know that it eventually bore fruit…..I have loved books my whole life…
Way to go!! 1.9 is awesome. Ryan and I tried surfing today as our workout, super hard! You would love it, works every part of your body.
Tripping down memory lane for some ideas to help on food consumption, I thought about one that when I practiced judiciously really did help. The biggest thing is to get over the initial embarrassment in the restaurant…Since food is such a big part of life in New Orleans and we go out to eat a lot, managing restaurant desires is hard. One thing I did was when my entree came, I would immediately ask the waitress for a “to go box”….I divided my entree in half and half went home…once it was out of my sight, it was fine and I still was able to “clean my plate”. (one could bring your own container from home, also)..Second–dressings in restaurants–all will do on the side but that is not enough–two tablespoons is a serving and actually measuring it at home and in the restaurant helps–after awhile you do not miss the greens soaked but actually enjoy the greens…..Third, I agree with Jen–water, water, water or any other liquid that is low cal…at the end of a workday, I am usually more thirsty than hungry….
Great start Jen! Pat, sounds like you have already been listening to Weight Watchers. Those are all suggestions for eating out. I’ve been on WW since Sept 09 and have lost 62lbs. In January, I was put on Prednizone (sp?) for severe asthma and gained about 8 lbs. It also threw my thyroid WAY out of wack! So now I am once again motivated to aiming to my final goal! Can’t wait, I’m so close. I would love to share recipes with anyone that we love.
YES…your shoes do weigh 8lbs! It’s true or must be because I have the same problem when I weigh myself. Good luck on your working out. I too am trying to keep the ol bod up to date.. very tough as I do like my glass of nice yummy wine after a long day with the crazies!!!! Of course with the yummy wine comes the yummy snacks..grrr. Not sure why I can’t just have bod of babe without all the crazy working out. Keep me posted on how it is going. We could be work out buds…I will send you my update daily you send me yours 😉