7 lbs down

Yesterday I had a garage sale (and today, too) and I decided to drink water and stand during the 3 hours of the sale, just to keep from being too lazy. =D And today I'm down in weight again! Hooray! I know they say just to weigh once a week, but weighing daily is so much more encouraging for me! I can see what's happening right away instead of wondering what I did over the course of a week to lose the weight. Right now drinking water and not spending oodles of time sitting on my bum seem to be key! So today I've passed the 7 lb weight loss mark and am at 128.8! I would be STOKED to lose 10 lbs by the end of the month! That would be 1/3 of the weight I need to lose.

Of course, I'm sitting down right now as I type, so I suppose it's time to get up and move!

Rebellion...

Yesterday I rebelled. Completely. Totally. Ate whatever I wanted to. And today the scale shows it. Ugh. I did get my 2 liters of water in, and I didn't rebel until dinner, but then I had way too much to eat and I didn't care. Today I care.

So... today I've got to be better. I'm not anywhere close to my goal for Monday (somewhere in the 115 range, but I don't think it's going to happen) and I'm bummed about that, because this is where I always stall!

So if you think of it, pray for me today. I need motivation, consistency, and energy. I should throw myself into some projects (which is often difficult with Ellie around!) and just work hard to burn off some calories. There might be a trip to the splash park today, and I really should squeeze a walk in. I really wanted to go for a family bike ride this morning, but it appears that Leif went without us. I was really looking forward to it, too, but I don't have a bike of my own, so without him I can't ride the tandem. And I highly doubt he'll want to go for another ride today after he does a long ride this morning. So I'll settle for housework exercise and maybe a walk.

Water helps...

Well, I didn't eat myself out of house and home. In fact, I am still within my calorie range for the day. Drinking water this afternoon/evening helped. And I'm drinking water this evening because I'm out of calories for the day. Still, though, I'm happy not to have completely gone overboard. I'm getting so very close to my 115 stall point and I don't want to plateau here! I really want to bust past it, so I'm going to keep myself strong and stick to my calories.

And I've been doing housework most of today (catching up on the loads and loads of laundry from camping and scrubbing (hands and knees scrubbing!) the bathroom floor and doing a few loads of dishes) so that should help in the exercise department.

Tomorrow is another day and I'm hoping I can finish the laundry and dishes projects tonight so that I can tackle some basement reorganization tomorrow!

One of those days....

Do you ever have a day where you're just SO HUNGRY you want to eat everything in sight?? Well, today is one of those days for me. I've had plenty of calories, so I shouldn't be hungry, but I am. Stomach growly kind of hungry. I'm trying to distract myself by doing other things (going through receipts and recording expenses, laundry, playing outside with Ellie...) but I am SO HUNGRY!

I'm going to go drink a liter of water and see if that makes things any better.

Camping....

Back down to 118.0 today, but I didn't have enough water again yesterday. I don't know why I struggle with it so, but I do.

We're going camping for the next two nights, which means camping food. I tried not to pack anything too bad, but it's hard to measure portions, and we end up doing a lot of pasta between mac and cheese and noodles with parmesan sauce... I'm going to try to make it through the trip without eating too much, but I won't be recording either (no internet! will I survive?? LOL!) so it's just up to my internal moderator, which seems to be broken most of the time. So you can pray for me! It's supposed to be hot, and we're bringing the kayaks, so I'm hoping we get to kayak a fair bit around the lake. It's not a lot of exercise, but it is something, and it will work my abs and upper body which don't get a lot of exercise usually, so it'll be a nice change.

So... I'll be absent for a few days, and we'll see what the scale says when I return. Hopefully I will be down to at least 116.8 so I don't have as far to go to meet my Monday goal of 116.4! I just need to drink LOTS of water!

I haven't run yet today...

And I really probably should, but it just finally got cool enough to go. And now my parents are out for a walk and Leif is out mowing the lawn, so if I leave the house to run I will leave poor Ellie unattended, and I probably ought not do that, especially if she does what she did last night with getting out of bed a million times declaring she needed to go potty. So I stay home.

But I'm drinking my water.

And I stayed in my calorie range, so that's good. I even have a little extra for a snack tonight.

And I even got to have a Frappuccino today, but I was good and I got the light one with NO whipped cream. It was 130 calories and it was a nice treat!

So... it's getting dark now and I'm not sure that I'll run, but I will do some tomorrow and then Saturday is the big 5K day!!

Chugging along....

Well, I should be chugging along, come to think of it... I'm struggling with my water intake. But everything else is going well. I'm at 1200 calories (1206, actually, I think) for the day, but I might eat just a little snack before bed because my tummy is growling and I'm pretty hungry. Whatever I eat won't be over 100 calories, though, so I'll still end the day under 1300, which is good. I did end up running with Taylor today, though it was much more walking than running, and the running was pretty slow. It was good, though, and it got me out. All told we walked/ran 5 miles, so even if it wasn't a strenuous run it was still decent exercise.

I haven't had the heart to weigh myself after the other day, so we'll have to see if I can do it tomorrow. I will also need to run tomorrow, maybe with Leif in the evening. And I'm hoping to do better on my water.

Yesterday got away from me!

At least for the food tracking it did. My biggest downfall was that Eliana and I made soft pretzels, so there was some snacking. Eek. But I skipped dinner (I wasn't hungry after eating a soft pretzel in the mid afternoon, and then it was time for me to leave!) and I roughly figured out what I ate during the day before I went to bed and I think I did okay. I did NOT drink my water though, and I'm disappointed by that. Didn't exercise either. Like I said, yesterday got away from me!

But today I have been counting calories and am doing fine! We're having spinach lasagna for dinner, so that will be good. I've already entered that into Spark People so I know that I can have 200 calories of snacks yet today. Good to know! I have also been working on my water today and am over halfway done, so that is encouraging! And... I weighed this morning and I'm back down almost a lb from where I was yesterday. I'm back to 117 (.8) so at least I'm headed in the right direction.

No exercise yet today, but I'm hoping for a family walk after dinner. We'll see if the weather cooperates.

*yawn!*

I'm tired. I've been in bed most of the day (or perched on a chair in front of my space heater in the craft room, but not really doing much crafting because I feel miserable!) and I'm still tired. Tomorrow I'm supposed to take Ellie to Erika's so I get some time to run errands, but I might not even feel like driving! I'm not sure which would be worse... driving around in my miserable state, or trying to fend off the cranky toddler at home who's been cooped up for too long. I'm hoping I'll feel up to driving. Plus, I have some things I REALLY need to get done in town!

As for today, I am not sure where I sit on the water front. I tried drinking a nalgene of water, and decided that it definitely has to be carbonated or hot for me to drink it. I just couldn't choke down plain cold water, no matter how much I tried! So I went back to tea drinking this evening, and I'm on my third or so mug of it now, and I think Leif gave me some tea this morning, but it might have been yesterday. It's all sort of running together. I did have some soda, as mentioned earlier, too. As far as I can tell, because the soda I drink is calorie free, aspartame free, caffeine free, and sodium free, it's just as hydrating as water, so should be okay. The problem with soda is the additives, but this stuff is pretty minimal.

For calories, points, etc., I am good. I'm a little low on protein (in the 30-40 range instead of 50-60) but I'm not too worried about it. Everything else is where it ought to be. I ended the day at 18.7 points, which I'm counting close enough to 19 to call good. I'm not in the mood for another. 4 bowl of veggie soup tonight, and I've got 1139 calories for the day. I'm good.

Speaking of good, let me say GOODnight. =D I'm tired.

A note on starvation...

(That sounds awful, doesn't it!)

I think the reason WW would caution you to eat ALL of your points is because if you are only tracking points and not calories separately, you could very well not get enough calories in with just the points. That's what I noticed when I started calculating points. I could eat 24 points and not even have 1000 calories in. Your body doesn't go into starvation mode based on points, but based on calories. Because I'm tracking both I know I'm doing okay because I got over 1100 calories. I would actually be scared to do just the WW points for myself, because I know that I would not get enough calories in each day. Because I am still more concerned about getting an appropriate balance of calories, fat, protein, and fiber at this point than I am getting a certain number of points, I think I'm okay. If I get to 19 points in a day and am still under 1100 calories, I will eat more to get up over 1100 calories, even if it means I eat more points. The calories are just more important, especially if I'm exercising.

Thanks for the food for thought!

And I have a feeling pretty much all my calories will come from fluids today, given how much my throat hurts. I will be eating plenty of soup, and lots of hot beverages. Lots of tea again today! Yesterday I had over 3.5 liters of fluids, and I think I'll be around that today again, given that the only time my throat doesn't hurt is when I am sipping a hot beverage!

Ranting aside...

It looks like all I posted yesterday were WW rants. Sorry! I am still trying to work through all that, but we'll see where I end up opinion-wise on WW for myself. I still don't understand when you're supposed to count something as one serving and when you're supposed to count it as two. If you wait half an hour between eating your first cup of soup and your second, does it count as two individual servings? That's .8 points. If it doesn't count as individual servings, despite the break between them, it's 1.6 points. I'm just confused on that front.

But this post isn't about WW. This post is about yesterday. I felt lousy all day yesterday, and unfortunately my eating reflected that. Ate a little junk food in the afternoon, then we had Taco Time for dinner. Definitely not the way I planned for yesterday to go! I woke up with a headache and just had ZERO energy throughout the day. Didn't feel well at all. But after we got home from dinner Ellie and I hot tubbed and I felt a little better after that, so I went for a run outside. Yes, A RUN! I did the full loop around the subdivision, which is a little over 2 miles. I alternated running and walking, but ran over half of the distance. Go me! I was feeling good about it when I came home (go endorphins!) so I went down to the basement and lifted weights. I would really like to get back into my T/Th weight regimen. I'm not doing heavy weights, mind you, but even light strength training is beneficial and a necessary part of healthy living.

Today I am back on track, even though I feel like I have no energy still. I added iron to my nutrient tracker, though I don't think I'm lethargic due to an iron deficiency. Still, it can't hurt to at least make sure I'm getting enough in my diet. Despite my lack of energy, I put Ellie in the backpack and walked to Bible study today. Wow! Adding 30 lbs makes it harder to walk! But we went to Bible study even though I didn't feel like going and I'm glad we did. After Bible Study I called Taylor and we walked over there and let Ellie and Corinne play for a while. Then I put Ellie back in the pack and walked home. All told I walked about 45 minutes with Ellie in the pack, walking at a brisk (as briskly as I could!) pace.

Now she's napping and I just want to munch on stuff. But we're having Clint, Taylor, and the girls over for dinner tonight, so I need to figure out what I'm making before I munch on anything. So far (after breakfast and lunch) I'm at 350 calories, 3 g. fat, and 9 g. fiber for the day. That puts me at 5-6 points, depending on the soup count. See rant above. So I've got 13-14 left for dinner and afternoon snacks.

And today I'm trying to drink straight water, without my Fulfill added in. It's tough!

What's in a drink?

So I've been trying to pay attention to my vitamin intake to see if there's something I'm lacking and should supplement. I suspected I might need to supplement with some B vitamins (6 or 12), so I started tracking those vitamins, as well as A and E, on Spark People.

Last night as I was laying in bed I had a thought. Every day I drink my Fulfill Fitness water. I use it because it is sweetened with Splenda and it gives flavor to my water. But it's also vitamin enhanced. So what vitamins do that add to it?

The answer? Vitamins C, B6, B12, and Niacin.

Huh. So between my prenatal vitamin, my fitness water, and my cranergy juice, I'm pretty sure I don't need any supplemental vitamin B. And as long as I keep eating spinach and carrots, I shouldn't need any extra vitamin A or E either.

But I DID just notice that my fitness water isn't calorie free like I thought it was. Ack! It has 10 calories per 8 oz serving, and I drink approximately 8 servings a day. So that's 80 calories a day I haven't been accounting for. It's not too bad, especially since I stay on the low end of the spectrum for calories each day, but still. It's a shock to watch my calories so closely only to learn that for MONTHS I've been consuming almost 100 more than I thought I was.

I did check my Lipton iced tea packets, though, and they have neither calories nor aspartame, so I think I'm good there. Maybe I'll try to drink half that and half Fulfill each day.

That was a close one!

Whew! I didn't think I was going to make my 2 liters of water today! It was 9 pm and I had only had 1 so far. But then I remembered I needed to take my antibiotic, so I filled up a 1 liter Nalgene bottle and... less than an hour later it's gone! And my bladder is full! But that means I got all my water in again today, so yippee! That's 3 days in a row. They say that if you do something for 28 days in a row it becomes a habit, so only 25 left to go, LOL! I think I'll stick with one day at a time for now, though.

I ended the day with 1245 calories and 5 servings of fruits and vegetables. I even had over 25 grams of fiber, which is exciting! My ideal is to get 25-35 g of fiber a day, and I often fall short of that. So when I am within that range it's exciting! Oh the simple things that make me happy....

No exercise today, but tomorrow is my next day scheduled for it, so I will get some then. And tomorrow I will actually be at home, not at Taylor's, so it will be easier to exercise while Ellie is napping.

How do you reward yourself?

I find small rewards very helpful while I'm working on losing weight. And I find that I basically reward myself for three things:

1. Staying under 1300 calories.

When I been conservative with calories and end the day with less than 1200, I will treat myself to a snack or dessert that I wouldn't normally get, like ice cream. I try to pick the treat that will take me to 12oo calories and send me over the least. My treat should never take me past 1300, but it still keeps me from feeling like I'm depriving myself, while keeping my calories low.

2. Drinking 2 liters of water.

One of the rules I have unofficially set for myself is "No soda until I've had 2 liters of water." I obviously cheat on this one more often than some of the other rules, but I am getting better, and it makes soda more of a treat when I have had water all day and have been looking forward to that cool carbonated beverage.

3. Exercising.

Usually I don't reward myself for exercising. It is often enough of a reward by itself. But when it has been especially difficult to motivate myself to do the exercise and I do it, then I like to reward myself with something little. Something I can use as motivation to start exercising or to keep exercising for the allotted time. Last night it was a hot bath. I told myself that if I stepped for 30 minutes I would soak in a nice hot bath and read. I also did Satin Hands for my hands and feet, and that is always a treat. I end the day feeling calm and relaxed.

So those are ways I reward myself for meeting daily goals. One is food related (which I know you aren't supposed to do while "dieting", but I really see these as lifelong changes, not a diet.) but motivates me to eat ENOUGH calories in a day, which I tend not to do if I am watching what I eat.

Dandelion Root Tea: Day 1

Weight: 121

Today was weigh day, so I figured I might as well start the dandelion tea regimen and see how it goes. Supposedly by next Wednesday I should be down to 116. That would be great! That would put me where I was back in September, before the holiday weight. Woohoo!

So today I went to Town and Country and got some Dandelion Root Tea (marketed as PMS tea, LOL!) and some 100% unsweetened cranberry juice (that stuff is expensive!) and made up a batch of the drink. I wouldn't go so far as to say that it tastes good, but it could be much worse. I drank 2 liters of it this afternoon.

I figure if nothing else I drank 2 liters of water. Actually, I drank more than that today because I'd already had some of my water for the day when I started drinking the weight loss drink (WLD). So it should still be good for me, even if it doesn't do wonders. But I am, of course, hoping it will do wonders. =D

On the calorie front, I kept myself to 1300 calories. Woohoo! One day at a time, and today was good.

Challenge Change

A bit ago I joined a 4 week challenge and aimed to lose 8 lbs in that time.

Then I plateaued.

It seemed like I plateaued just as the challenge started, then I got discouraged and frustrated. So I'm opting out. I'm still trying to get 30 min cardio in daily, plus drink all my water (10 cups daily), but I'm not focusing on how much weight I'm losing. The weight will come off eventually. I just need to keep eating right, drinking water, and exercising.

But I joined another challenge group. This is the July challenge group and is different from the other. Basically, it's a point system. You get 1 point for each minute of exercise you do, plus 1 bonus point for each cup of water you drink.

So far for July I'm up to 237 points.

I don't know what that means yet, but it has kept me drinking my water. Tomorrow we're hiking Ousel Falls, so I'll get some exercise in, too. Today it was a bit scarce, with just a walk after dinner. But tomorrow is 4th of July, so we'll hike and then watch the fireworks up at Big Sky. It should be a good day.