Healthy Weight!

It's a beautiful day to celebrate weighing a healthy weight again! I weighed myself this morning and I've lost another 2 lbs, which puts me at 127. And that brings my BMI to 24.8. They say a healthy BMI is 18.5-24.9, so I am finally out of the "overweight" category!! That is a wonderful thing. One more pound and I will be down to my pregnancy weight, meeting goal #1!!

Body Clutter Mission #6

1. List one baby step that will help you be more aware of what you are putting into your mouth.

I have already started doing this, but my answer is to track my calories. When I am actively counting calories, whether limiting to 1200 or 1500, I am more aware of everything that goes into my mouth. No more half regular, half diet pop. Today I was at the scrapbooking store and I reached for a Jolly Rancher candy. Before I took it, though, I thought about the fact that I had already budgeted my calories for dinner and I didn't really have any calories left over. So I didn't eat the candy. It really wouldn't have been too bad - I might have even stayed within my calorie range. But I thought about what I was going to do. When I am not counting calories, I do not think about it. So that is my baby step - I'm going to keep counting calories and recording them on SparkPeople.

2. When it comes to movement, what is a simple baby step that is doable for you today?

Walking. Tonight Stephanie and I went for a walk, even though I didn't have any cardio scheduled (I'm on a M,T,Th,F schedule for cardio). We walked for about half an hour. It wasn't much, but it was something and it was good for me. I can walk every day, whether it is on my treadmill, or around the neighborhood. I don't have to do it at the same time every day, and I can feel free to vary my routine with bike riding or aerobics. But whether or not I do anything else, I can walk every day.

3. List one baby step that will help you with your perfectionist attitude.

I will remind myself that it's okay to go over on calories. It's okay not to see the scale move each week. It's okay not to exercise every day. It's not okay to give up. If I go over on calories one day, it's okay - I've probably been under enough days to make up for it already. If not, no biggie - just pick myself up and keep at it the next day. If I don't get exercise in one day, it's fine. I'll just exercise tomorrow and it will be okay. If the scale doesn't move, I won't get discouraged. Maybe I'll lose 2 lbs next week and that will make up for the lb I thought I would lose this week. Above all, I will allow for flexibility. Moderation is an art, not a science. It is balance, not calculation. It is freedom, not a prison and I will not use it to chain myself down, but instead to help me FLY.

Weigh Day - Week 2

Today I am tired. Perhaps it's because I finally had a little crafting motivation last night and I stayed up past midnight being creative. Or maybe because I'm stressed out about a couple projects I need to finish and I haven't been sleeping as well as I should be. Whatever the case, I am tired. *yaaaaawn*

Today is weigh day. I don't have a whole lot to report since I weighed yesterday, but I was down .2 lb this morning. Still at 129. Losing 2 lbs my first week is great! And today begins another week. We're going for pizza for lunch (Wednesday is Cosmic day!) after the Children's Museum, and then to meet up with Leif's mom to return the camera she left here a couple weeks ago. I need to go to the scrapbooking store to finish up a couple class samples for the open house this weekend. And I should find time sometime today to go to Costco - we are dangerously low on milk!

For dinner I'm making Polynesian Chicken (BCMM) in the crock pot. We'll see how it turns out... I hope it's good! Most of the recipes I've tried have been. It's always hard to know what to make for dinner on pizza day, since I need to be a little more conservative with the dinner calories after splurging for lunch.

Yesterday I comforted myself with food. Deliberately. I don't remember that happening before. I was stressed out about the car seat and got very frustrated. I finally got one car seat installed using the seatbelt instead of the LATCH system (since that was absolutely no help for rear-facing installation). Once that was done I came in and decided to eat something yummy. Granted, it was an 80 calorie cup of fat free pudding, but it did the trick. It was delicious and it made me feel happy instead of stressed. It didn't put me over my calories, and it wasn't particularly bad for me. But it was comfort eating at it's finest. Or ugliest. However you want to look at it. I'm still in shock.

another one bites the dust...

Yes, I have lost another pound. 2 lbs in my first week. Woohoo!

I didn't get any exercising in yesterday, mostly because it was rainy and icky and we ended up going into town and doing a bunch of errands. We went to Cosmic for dinner and I still managed to stay within my calorie range. Yippee!

Leif has decided to track calories and try to lose some weight, too. He started yesterday. I'm proud of him for doing it, but the first two days are the worst. After that your body sort of gets used to the fact that you're not going to feed it as much and you stop being hungry all the time. He was going to ride his bike to work today, too, but it's raining again. Ick.

Body Clutter Mission #5

Do you have someone that you are angry with?

This is one assignment that will be easy for me. I do not have anyone I am angry with. When Leif and I were first married one of the lessons he taught me was forgiveness. I didn't realize that I held grudges until then. It's a lesson for which I will always be thankful. He taught me to forgive, forget, and move on. It is a choice that I have and though I don't always want to forgive, once I have forgiven I have never regretted it. Thank you, Love, for teaching me to forgive.

First pound down

I lost my first pound since I started tracking calories on Wednesday. It might just be normal weight fluctuation and I happened to weigh on a low day, but I'm going to take it as weight loss all the same! Yesterday I got two hours of light exercise in (gardening and walking - an hour each) and today we are planning on going for a bike ride.

As for my pros and cons list.... I think I've decided to switch over to SparkPeople. I'm sorry, FitDay. I still love you, really I do. I just love SparkPeople better. *sigh*

I would like to add, too, that I stayed within my 1200-1300 calorie limit yesterday, and that included two doughnuts and an ice cream cone. Not to mention lunch (pasta) and dinner (grilled chicken and baked beans). There is power in moderation and low fat ice cream.

Pros and Cons

I've been tracking my calories off and on for the past year on Fitday. I've also been an active member of Babyfit and have really enjoyed that website and being a part of that community. Babyfit has a sister site called Sparkpeople that is sort of a combination of Fitday and Babyfit. The last couple days I've been recording on both, to some degree, and trying to figure out if I want to change to Sparkpeople. So, I think it's time for a pros and cons list.

FITDAY

pros:

• familiarity - I already use the site, know how to use it, and like it.
• easy to pick up with after an absence
  

cons:

• no community accountability
• have to log in over and over and over
• no real place to keep track of water intake
  

SPARKPEOPLE

pros:

• message boards for accountability
• remembers my login info and will let me be logged in for a long period of time
• greater variety in activities listed
• can track water intake easily
  

cons:

• haven't found a message board group yet that I "fit" with. But then, I haven't searched TOO much either.
• the website seems overloaded with information and I'm still trying to sort it out.