Great Weekend!

What a beautiful weekend in Texas! The weather was really nice and although the groundhog says it is not spring yet, my nose and eyes think otherwise. Although my allergies are acting up, I did not let that hold me back! Both yesterday and today I went to a local park and walked. Each day I walked 2 1/2 miles no problem. I had never been to that park, but I had heard it was a great place to walk. It really is perfect for my training because it has lots of inclines! I am going to start adding one lap each time I go (which is 1/2 a mile). We did not add an extra one today, because their was a strange dog in the woods and it was freaking me out. After walking today, I went bowling. I am amazed at how active I am getting to be this fast.

My last post I mentioned how hard Betty worked me out and could feel it in my stomach. Well two nights later, and I am STILL feeling it! My daughter told me she thought I looked smaller, but I don't see it yet. I know I FEEL better. I am more energetic and believing in myself more than ever. I am determined more than ever to lose at least 80 pounds this year. I could potentially lose more than that if I continue to lose at least 2 lbs per week, and I would definitely take the extra, just setting myself up for a few weeks without a loss in case I hit a plateau. I want to be realistic in setting my goal.

Tomorrow is Monday, which means Weight Watchers meeting after work. I am sooo excited my friend Holly has decided to join my journey and has signed up to go to weight watchers with me!!! Yeah!!! I am hoping that my mom decides to go tomorrow night as well. Anyone else want to join us? We will tackle the scale together one pound at a time! I really like weight watchers because they have so many recipe's online! I don't ever feel like I am on a diet. I just feel like I am choosing to put healthier foods into my body and with the FLEX points I can still eat that cheeseburger once a week, if I want it.

I stayed within my Daily Points everyday this weekend. I am leaving 17 of my 35 FLEX points not used. I am really interested to see how that plays out on the scale. I did some sort of exercise every single day this week! I accumulated 44 activity points! That is more than a days worth of points that I eat! If the scale fails me this week, I will be SHOCKED!!!

I did not finish my Biggest Loser Audition CD! I barely saw my husband all weekend and I was going to get him to help me with it. The casting team will be in Dallas next weekend. I have not decided if I am going to go or not. My daughter has her High School Bowling Team Regional Tournament on Saturday to determine who goes to the State. I really don't want to miss it. That is why I was going to try to get the CD done and sent in. Hmmmmmm! If only I could get a VIP pass, I would be more determined to figure out how to fit it all in. Anyone got any connections?

My e-mail address is Stephany_Gallaway@yahoo.com

I actually have stomach muscles!

I am writing this extremely exhausted after Betty kicked my butt at the gym tonight! I walked 30 minutes on the treadmill only going 1 mile at a Level 1 incline. I figure each time I go I will increase the incline by a level. I walked the majority of the time on a 3.2. I know not too fast, but I will work up to that. Betty was encouraging me to bump up the level and do it for a certain amount of time, then put it back down to 3.2. So the first time I put it on 4.0 for 20 seconds. Holy cow, I felt like I was almost running. I did that 3 times different times. The heart monitor was not working on the treadmill I was on, so I did not see what my heart rate got up to but I was breathing hard. LOL. And it said I burned a little over 100 calories. When I got off that thing, I had to hold on to the sides to get down. My legs felt like Jello.

Next we went and did the weight circuit trying out a lot of different machines. Then came one of the toughest to me, pretty funny actually. We went to the free weight area and got a mat and the big ball. She had me doing stuff that was killing me. Lifting my legs then lowering about an inch from the grownd without touching the ground, then lifting them back up. Not to mention she wanted me to put the ball between my legs. I was game for anything that she threw my way, I just was having a really hard time. I think I have not gotten to the point where I believe that I can actually do all of this stuff. Well I must have been doing pretty well because I can actually feel my stomach muscles!!! It's great to know they are still there under all this flubber. LOL.

Once she kicked my butt on the floor, we went and tried a new machine that she said she had never seen before. I am not sure what it is called but it is a mixture of an elliptical and the machine that looks like you are skiing. When we got on it I told Betty, "let's do this one for at least 5 minutes". Well that 5 minutes turned into, "how about 3" It was killing my knees but I suffered through that whole 3 minutes and quickly got off that sucker.

I went to my favorite new machine -- the bike with a back and a FAN! I rode it for 20 minutes, burned 140 calories, and went 3.78 miles. I started at level one and every half of a mile, I would bump the level up one. I got it up to level 6. I was keeping the RPMs in the 80s but the last two minutes I was giving it all I could and got above 100. The funny part is that by the time I come back from The Biggest Loser Resort, I am going to be looking back at these numbers and laughing. I know this, but its a start and it can only get better from here. ; ) I did a couple more machines and we headed home.

Thank You Betty for the GREAT WORKOUT! I am looking forward to the next one!

On the way home, I was starving! It was already 9 pm! I have got to figure out this whole working out right after work, but fitting in time to eat dinner BEFORE working out. I know it is not good for me to eat this late. I guess on days that I work out maybe I should eat dinner at work? I will ponder over that, if you have any suggestions, please share. Anyway, I need to go grocery shopping so I knew I did not have much at home. I called my husband to see if he had eaten dinner, which of course since I was not here to cook it for him, he hadn't. I swear, I am going to come back from my trip and he is going to be down 20 lbs from not eating while I am gone! So what did I do for dinner? I WANTED to drive thru and grab something fast, a Taco Salad sounded really good! But instead of doing that, I called Chuck and asked him to brown some ground venison and I would stop by the store and get some lettuce. So I came home and made my own taco salad. The only thing in it that cost me points was the venison, of course, and a little bit of Weight Watchers Low Fat Shredded Cheese. I had TONS of points leftover for the day, so I treated myself to a serving of Pineapple Sherbet.

I am so proud of myself. I got a GREAT workout, I have points left over for the day, and I have FLEX points left over from the week. All should be well come Monday night for weigh-in! Remember I am trying something new this week, not using all my FLEX points. Hopefully it will not backfire. Only time will tell.

Good night, I am taking a couple of tylenol and hitting the sack!

Forgot to Track today!

I am happy to announce that I have scheduled a week at The Biggest Loser Resort at Fitness Ridge in Utah!! I check into the resort on Sunday, May 16th and will be there for 7 days! I am beyond excited and now that I have officially booked it, my training must begin!!!

I have 81 days to get ready for their 7 hours a day work out schedule. Each morning they walk a 5 - 6 mile hike after you have already done a 6 am morning workout class. This hike is in mountains! Did I mention I was scared of heights? LOL I am going to put all that on the side burner and worry about that when I am there. I have seen some of the pictures people there have taken, and they are breathtaking! A lot of them mention they forget they are walking that far because the views are so beautiful.

To get prepared for this walk, I talked to my high school buddy Betty and we are going to start walking every Sunday in Waxahachie. They have some nature trails that are paved. She told me that you go one way and you walk 3 1/2 miles, and you go the other way and it is 7 1/2 miles. So I set a new goal today ---- I WILL be walking that 7 1/2 mile for at least 4 Sundays before I head to the resort. When I booked today, the gentlemen told me that a lot of the campers have problems with blisters and he recommended I go ahead and buy my shoes now and break them in real well before I get there. So if anyone knows of any good sales, please let me know. I will need some working out shoes and some hiking shoes.

Today was a pretty good day. We got everything worked out with the mortgage company and my house payment is NOT going up. I was so consumed with thoughts of going to the resort, I forgot to track all my points today. Well before I started my blog tonight, I keyed everything into Weight Watchers online, and I did pretty darn good. Without tracking my points, I only went over 1 point. That is definitely something to brag about. I don't recommend not tracking your points or calories each day, but this time I got lucky. Because I was depressed over the ordeal with the mortgage company and eating Taco Bell last night, I went to eat at a Chinese Buffet for lunch. I told my husband on the way in, "this is probably a HUGE mistake because I am so depressed I am liable to do some serious damage". God was on my side today! As I was walking in, my phone rang and I received the news that everything was worked out on the mortgage and my payment was not going up! I have gotten where I do the Mongolian stir fry. I guess because I can add all the veggies and have more control over what all goes in my stir fry. Well "usually" when I hand my plate of raw food to the cook, I tell them to go ahead and add some rice and an egg in with my food while they are cooking it. I asked if they had garlic, he said yes and I think that is all he heard because my food came to me with no rice or egg. Well I did not complain just figured he did me a favor. And now that I calculated my points, I know FOR SURE it was a favor. I would have been over my points. On this diet / lifestyle change, I have not been depriving myself of what I really want. So off my husband's plate, I had one little bite of sesame chicken, one little bite of a fried potato, and half of a crab Rangoon. Before I started this journey, I was cream cheese queen. I would eat at least 3 of those crab Rangoon. I have stopped that because they are 5 points a piece. They are good, but not that damn good.

Tonight was my bowling night. I did take the video camera to shoot some footage for my Biggest Loser video. I DID get a strike on video, which is a miracle if you have ever seen me bowl. And I found a replacement for my team! Yeah! I now have an extra day to go to the gym!!! And $60 more dollars a month to invest in my trip!! I will miss hanging out with everyone, but I can go by and visit on my way home. I definitely will not miss wasting 14 points on the pizza (2 pieces). : )

Speaking of investing in my trip, I bought my first required item on the packing list. You can tell I have not ever even considered hiking as a hobby. I bought a Camel back Hydration Backpack. It is a backpack that holds 2.0 liters of water in a backpack. Since I had never heard of it, I thought it might be hard to find, so I started looking and found tons on Ebay. Don't know how much they cost in the stores and would not even have a clue where to go buy it, but I paid $11 for mine plus $8 for shipping.

I have tons more to blog about but I better get to bed. Shoot, if I blog about everything about my trip what am I going to talk about tomorrow. LOL

Taco Hell!

This morning I woke up in a GREAT mood. I am NOT a morning person so for me to actually walk into work smiling, happy-go-lucky was not in the norm. No one said anything, I think everyone was too busy to notice. But I noticed, and I was really liking it.

I have been hungry for pizza so I decided to use some of my flex points to fill my craving. I had a salad, three slices of pizza, and one and half pieces of the cinnamon dessert. When I was eating the dessert I was thinking THIS IS GOING TO COST (points wise), and surprisingly it was only 3 points. Not that I needed anymore of it.

I got home from work, then my day started going down hill. I got a letter from my mortgage company, and without getting in a lot of details, my house payment is going up for one month over $300, then the rest of the year an extra $75. UGH!!

Then on the way to Zumba, I was talking to my mom and she basically gave me a guilt trip for going to Zumba afraid that I was not going to make it to pick up my daughter on time from church. I don't even think my mom knows what she did. My mom really wants to see me lose weight, I think she was just concerned about my daughter. Let's face it, my daughter is 16, having to hang around the church an extra 30 minutes with her friends would probably be a GOOD thing for her. So the way I look at it, it's a win win. But my head was full of negative thoughts and I still don't think I have totally recovered from that conversation.

When I started this blog, I mentioned that I am doing it because I not only want to lose the weight, I need to find out WHY I have trouble staying motivated or even got FAT in the first place. Maybe by putting everything out there, I will be able to face my issues by first realizing what the heck they are. LOL.

Zumba was a good workout! I have decided to put together an audition tape for The Biggest Loser, so I took the video camera with me to Zumba. I plan on taking it with me bowling tomorrow night as well. I figure I will just shoot my day to day activities. I wonder if they want to see people trying or just people sitting on the couch doing nothing? If you know for sure, please share.

On the way to pick up my daughter after Zumba, I was noticing that I was not feeling that hungry, so I decided that when I got home I was just going to have a turkey sandwich. Well my daughter got in the car and was "starving", so we drove thru Taco Bell to get HER something. Well at the last minute I meant to order me a "tostado", you know the flat thing with beans, lettuce, and cheese. But instead I said Chalupa and I went ahead and got me a taco. Tacos are not that many weight watchers points, but I was highly upset about the Chalupa mess-up. Well, I had a weak moment and I ate it ALL. The meal that I was not even hungry for ended up costing me 14 points. I earned 11 points doing Zumba tonight. What the Heck!!! I am so sick to my stomach! I don't know if it because of the food, or just being mad at myself for eating it!!! I am trying to fight off negative thoughts and just forgive myself and tomorrow's a NEW day!!! I have flex points that I can use! I don't need to be so hard on myself. We learn best my making mistakes!! I have been doing so good not to eat Fast Food, and I will do better the rest of the week!!!!

You know I really wish The Biggest Loser would "TAKE ME AWAY". It's hard trying to lose weight in the real world with all the day to day activities and not so positive people in your world. Is it selfish of me to want to be healthier? Is it selfish of me to want to be around to see my daughters marry, have children, and get to be a Grandmother? I think it is not!

I apologize for the gloomy post, just being "real". Tune in tomorrow for a more positive post. : )

I can touch my toes!!!

Well first of all, I need to report that I weighed-in yesterday. I had another loss! YEAH!! I lost 1.9 lbs. I have now lost 23.4 lbs!

I had planned on going to work out at 24 hour fitness tonight, but my current workout buddy bailed on me and believe it or not we had snow today here in Texas. Since 24 hour fitness is a 30 minute drive, I talked myself out of going fearing that the roads might get icy.

I DID go work out. I decided to go to a Zumba class that was only 15 minutes away. I went to the same class that I went to my first Zumba experience which was two weeks today. As I have mentioned before, Zumba is a form of aerobics. I was having a HARD time getting the rhythm tonight AND getting into it. My negative thoughts were making me feel bad for not going to 24 hour fitness as planned. So I kept focusing on that instead of taking advantage of the class to burn calories. Well I had a little "inner talk" with myself. I fought off those negative thoughts by telling myself, "Stephany, if you are NOT going to give it ALL you've got, you should have kept your butt at home!" During this little conversation going on in my head, I looked around the room and noticed I was the biggest person in the class and then I snapped into it. My negative thoughts were replaced by "I am NOT going to let these little skinny people think that I can not hang with them! I am going to keep up and show them that I may be BIG but I can do this just as well if not BETTER!".

Well the new found rhythm and attitude came just in time. A couple of songs later we were doing moves that required us to face each side of the room. Kind of like when you do the macarana and you do the steps facing the front, then left, then back of the room, then right and once again front. Well this was definitely no macarana! You had to step lung to the right, step lung to the Left, two jumping jacks, then move your hips in a circler motion while you moved to the face the next side. I was in the back of the room so no one could see me. Well, I soon became the "front of room" thanks to this little dance move. And guess what I did it!!!! I was doing the step like I had done it 100 times before and good I felt! Only thing is, I DO need to invest in a sports bra ASAP!

I am proud of myself. I was so glad I decided to go to this same class. It showed me how far I have come in these two short weeks. Two weeks ago I could not jump, much less do a jumping jack. And during the cool down / stretching at the end, you guessed I could TOUCH MY TOES, and THE FLOOR. To many of you, this may be no big deal, but to this no longer over 300 lbs female, this is huge success!

I have decided to go stay a week at The Biggest Loser Resort at Fitness Ridge in Utah. I want to go in April, because I have a lot of weight I want to lose this year, and going there I can LEARN what I need to do by professional nutritionist, and trainers. I have been fearful of going only two months after starting a workout program. I have read many blogs of people that are there or have been there and they work out 7 hours a day. I am not scared of the workouts, but I want to be able to keep up with everyone. I want to be in shape enough that I am able to do everything. I know everyone is still going to be tired at the end of the day. But I don't want to be so tired I can not function. Does that make sense?

You know people have to train for a Marathon, how do I train to get ready for this? Any suggestions? And everyone keeps talking about how many calories they ate and burned that day. How many they ate is a given, but how do they know for sure how many they burned? If anyone reads my blog that has gone to the resort, please comment. I need to book it before they are ALL BOOKED in April!

Active Week

I have had such a busy week, that I just realized I have not blogged since Wednesday. Wow! Time flies when you are not spending all your time sitting on the couch and watching TV. LOL

Tomorrow will be another weigh-in. I feel like I have had a pretty successful week. I have gotten tons of exercise this week. Last week I finished the week with 23.5 activity points leftover, this week it looks like I will have 39.5.

We have had a couple of pretty days weather wise this week. On Thursday, my cousin called and encouraged me to go for a walk after work because it was so nice outside. I have this beautiful little lake next to my house with a walkway between two parks. I would guess that the walkway is probably a quarter of a mile long. So after work, my daughter and I headed out to the walkway. The walkway is well maintained and has lights along it for people to be able to walk at night. We decided to sprint every time we got to a certain set of light poles. I am not going to lie, it was hard, but my daughter was very encouraging and I was able to make it each time we passed through them, which was four times. There was a girl that was jogging back and forth, and I told my daughter that would be awesome to be able to jog it the whole way. I set another goal! I told my daughter for her birthday, which is June 10th, we were going to jog from one end to the other. That gives me a little over three months to get in shape enough to do this.

I have been doing pretty well with my food intake as well. As you may already know, since I weigh-in on Monday nights, I have been trying to use all my flex points before Friday so hopefully the scale will be in my favor. Well, I ate alot of my flex points on Thursday for lunch, and went and ate a high calorie lunch on Friday as well. So when Friday night came, I think I had 7 daily points left, and 5.5 Flex points left. We decided to go visit my cousin and she wanted to go out to eat. This frightened me because I DID NOT want to go over my points. YES, I had the activity points to back me up if I went over, but why in the heck would I work out just to get to eat more? No way, I worked too hard! Well I remembered that someone at weight watchers was bragging about Applebee's and how they have entrees with the weight watchers points on them. So I talked my cousin into going there. It was after 7 so we were all really hungry when we were seated. Her daughter was yelling that she wanted some cheese sticks, and I thought "OH NO". But I stayed calm and ordered me the Steak & Portbello Mushroom with Roasted Potatoes and Broccoli and since they were ordering an appetizer, I ordered a house salad with a light vinaigrette. Luckily my salad came BEFORE their cheese sticks so I had NO PROBLEM refusing when they offered. And my meal, OMG it was GREAT! The steak was a little small but because of the salad I was fulfilled. Let me tell you about the broccoli. OMG, it was the best part. Instead of butter or cheese on the steamed broccoli, it had minced garlic. I could not quit bragging about it. I definitely plan on cooking some this week at home just like that.

I joined the 24 Hour Fitness today!!! My friend Angela and I worked out today. I walked a mile on the treadmill and I rode 1.5 miles on the bike. The bike was my favorite part because it had a fan on it. LOL We experimented with alot of the weight machines. We did crunches (I am feeling those), and multiple machines that worked on your legs and upper thighs. We also did the elliptical, but not for long. And the Stair Climber --- we were aiming to do it for 5 minutes. We lasted for 2. It said I made it to the 5th floor. That is an intense machine. After I got out of there, I was sweating and actually enjoyed the cool front that just came in. : ) I drank about 32 oz of water while in there working out and was still thirsty and STARVING!! I headed to the near by Sonic and although I wanted to order me a extra long chili dog, I just stuck with what I went there for, a Large Water with Lemon. I am going to have to start packing healthy snacks for the ride home, because I failed to mention that the gym is 30 minutes away. I got home and fulfilled my craving for chili dogs, but used 100% whole wheat bread, Jenny-O turkey hot dogs, and Turkey Chili topped with Weight Watchers Low Fat Shredded Cheese. After that I had a small portion of some pineapple sherbet. Therefore, I stayed within my points today, no problem. :)

Well I am DOG TIRED, so I am going to head to bed. I have not been this tired since I participated in the 5K. I hope I get a GREAT nights sleep and don't wake up hurting too much in the morning. I am proud of myself and am looking forward to my weight watchers meeting tomorrow night!!! I hope I get good results, at least two pounds loss. Fingers crossed!!

Points leftover? What?

I had a very good day today! For a change of pace, I added a sliced up banana to my oatmeal. Yeah it added a couple of points, but it was actually good. For lunch I had Mexican food, fajitas, rice, beans, with corn tortillas. My friend told me she heard at her Weight Watchers class that a girl orders her fajitas on a regular plate instead of the skillet where they just keep sizzling. I honestly don't know if it made any difference, but I tried it, they were equally as good, of course. Just in case it DID not make a difference, I still charged myself the same amount of points as I always have for that meal. The best part about the meal was, EVERYONE at my table ordered a dessert, and I didn't!!!!! I did not even feel envious the least bit while they were eating their dessert!!! I think I may have finally WOKE UP and am smelling the coffee. LOL

This evening my friend Holly and I attended another Zumba class. It was Holly's first time and since she does not get off in time to attend the class I usually attend, we went to a new location. WOW, that teacher kicked our butts. One thing I DID not like about this class was it was like a traditional dance class. If you have ever taken dance, you will know that at least one wall is ALL mirrors. Working out and looking at myself was hard to do. Another thing I did not like is there was a clock on the wall, and since she was kicking my butt, I kept looking at the clock telling myself -- WHAT? we have only been doing this 20 minutes? LOL You remember last period in school when you kept watching the clock waiting for the bell to ring. Yep, that is what it felt like. I would have rather not had a clock at all. So the whole time, my face was red, it felt like my heart was going to jump out of my chest. I ended up drinking at least 24 ounces of water during the class. And when we got done there, we went to Sonic and ordered us a Large Ice Water and I have almost drank all of that. Believe it or not, we plan on going back. I told her that instructor has given me the hardest workout, so that has to mean I burned tons of calories. : )

Every time I do a workout I always think about the contestants on The Biggest Loser. You know their workouts are longer than an hour. I would definitely take on the challenge and be on the show, but I guarantee you I would be one of the ones throwing up. LOL

I came home and ate a lite Caesar Salad and leftover Lasagna and to ease that small sweet craving I have, I ate a Grapefruit for dessert. Can you believe out of everything I ate today, I still have 8 points left that I am not going to use? This made me think -- On The Biggest Loser I remember Bob (or Jillian) get on to the contestants about not eating all their calories during the day. He told them something like "not eat all your calories, I know you can eat or you would not be overweight". Well Bob, I know the answer to this question. As an obese woman before getting on Weight Watchers, I DID not eat a whole LOT, I just only ate High Calorie meals. Let's face it, my favorite meal at a local restaurant I know now is my WHOLE days calories. Almost every meal I ate takes up my whole days calories. So if you eat two out to eat meals like that in one day -- DUH, your going to gain weight. So now that I am learning how bad my favorite items are, I am either telling those items farewell or choosing a lower calorie substitute. Now I do have my flex points and I know for sure last Friday, I used ALL of them in one meal. That was 35 points, roughly 1700 calories in one meal. Sad I know, but I full-filled that craving and STILL lost almost 5 pounds that week. So as long as I limit myself I should be successful.

This is all definitely a learn as you go, change my life, process. Before I got serious on Weight Watchers, I would drink 3 cokes a day, and a 32 ounce sweet tea (refill please) was an everyday occurrence. I now am drinking unsweet tea when I go to restaurants. I have maybe 2 diet cokes a week when I am wanting a soda. The rest of the time I am drinking water plain or adding crystal light to it. I am probably drinking 64 ounces of water a day. And I am visiting the bathroom as much as if I were 9 months pregnant. LOL

I am not by no means saying I am perfect. I still have TONS to learn and even more to LOSE!!! I am starting to believe in myself and that is really important!!!!

I hope you all have a wonderful week!!! It's almost the weekend!!! : )

I lost 4.7 pounds!!!

Wow have I been slacking. If you live in the DFW area, you can probably guess that my slack might be because of the foot of snow we got on the ground. How awesome was that? It was SOOOOO beautiful.

I have been having a pretty hard time. I am trying to stay motivated but have had some weak moments. Through all this soul searching that I am doing, I have realized that when I get depressed I want to eat. I have really realized that one of my "triggers" is financial problems. When I am having problems financially, I get depressed, depression turns to me wanting to EAT, and trying to turn food away when I WANT to FEED my depression, makes me a B****. I want to pubically apologize to my husband -- Honey I am sorry I have been hard to live with recently!!

I ended up getting tons of exercise this past week. My eating was just "OK". When you do weight watchers you also track your activity. I earned a total of 31 activity points, which is like a whole days worth of calories. Once you use all your daily and FLEX points, you can eat some of your activity points. Ideally you would not want to do that, because it would be defeating the purpose. Well as I mentioned, I was depressed and did have a few weak moments (6 girl scout cookies). I ended the week with 23.5 activity points.

I REALLY needed a Loss this week. I needed it to help me stay motivated. Well God answered my prayer, and I lost 4.7 pounds this week. I am SOOOOO excited. I have set a goal to lose 18 more pounds by the end of April. I have lost 22 so far!!! That is less than 2 lbs a week so I KNOW I CAN DO IT. Hardest part is staying motivated!!!

I am trying to recruit more friends and family into joining this journey with me. Together we can motivate each other. It can be done! This is a lifestyle change! And the best part about weight watchers, you get to use those extra points like I did tonight when you are just dieing for a Cheeseburger. : )

I plan on attending at least one Zumba class this week. I might do two. That class is a serious calorie burner.

I have been trying some of the weight watchers recipe's. I have tried three so far. I made a ZERO point vegetable soup on Saturday that was AWESOME. I have never really gotten into using a lot of spices before, but since the recipe called for spices, I purchased them and OMG, it was great! It had spinach, carrots, onion, celery, garlic, tomatoes, and other spices. I added some wheat crackers to mine to make each bowl worth 2 points. Last night I made Weight Watcher Recipe "Chicken Burritos". It was one where you threw everything in a crock pot. Once it is done, you put a 1/2 a cup on a wheat tortilla, add some 2% mexican shredded cheese and each one was 3 points. My daughter and I added a teaspoon of light sour cream making each one 4 points. They were really good! My daughter told me tonight that it was the BEST thing I ever cooked! Now that is saying a lot (I think) : )

I have been hungry for Jambalaya and Weight Watchers had a crock pot recipe for that too. I will probably put that in the crock pot tomorrow night before I go to bed. I do that because I come home at lunch and eat it with my husband who works 2nd shift. Then my daughter and I have leftovers for dinner. It has been working out well so far. Saves money not eating out!!!

Speaking of money, if anyone needs any Scentsy, everything is 10% off this month. See my link to my online store below.

Water Aerobics

Well I went to Water Aerobics last night. It was fun and I felt like I got a pretty good work out. I looked up the activity points and based on Weight Watchers you get twice as hard of a workout doing the Zumba. Zumba is cheaper and I think I enjoyed it more, so I will probably just continue doing that.

If you live near Dallas, as I do, you are probably experiencing this AWESOME snow. It is so beautiful. Roads are supposed to be getting bad so I might not get to go to Bowling tonight : (. I hope that is not the case, but I can always get my exercise at home on the wii. I have been thinking about dropping out of my bowling league, which is costing me $15 a week, and investing that money into another night of Zumba (or something). $15 a week would definitely pay for a Gym membership somewhere. I think I would get more benefit from that and not be tempted to eat pizza every Thursday night. I enjoy bowling and have made tons of friends there, so I have not decided totally yet. And it would also depend on if my team could find a replacement player.

Besides the exercise I have also started something else new this week. I have been eating the majority of my daily points during lunch. This is not something I had "planned" ahead of time, it has just ended up that way. I think it is based off me not eating out any last week. This week I have ate lunch OUT all week. Not really FAST food, but definitely high calories. Then at night, I have been eating the amount of calories I WAS eating during lunch. I am hoping that will help me with a loss this week. I am still trying to adjust to weighing in on a Monday. I have grown accustomed to eating my FLEX WW points on the weekend. I am trying to eat them during the week and I am going to do my best this weekend to stay within my DAILY points each day Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. Last week I did not use but 5 of my FLEX points out of the 35. I remember in the past when I was on weight watchers that I would lose more when I ate my FLEX points then when I didn't. I know it sounds CRAZY, but if it works it works.

So I have already MET my challenge for the week, trying 3 new exercises. I am thinking about learning to drink unsweet tea without sweet-in-low next week. Only add lemon. I get scared about those artificial sweeteners and after my 11 points for my sweet tea incident, I have DEFINITELY cut out sweet tea.

Does anyone else have any suggestions on what my next challenge could be?

1st Zumba Class

Today was odd. When I got to work this morning, I was sitting at my desk and suddenly got emotional. I really don't know what brought it on. I did not breakdown and cry but my eyes were definitely watering and I was fighting back the tears. I don't know if my hormones are messed up or if the eighth of a pound gain is bothering me. I can tell myself whatever I want, but down deep maybe it is bothering me.

I fell to temptation today. My co-workers invited me to go to lunch with them today to the Denny's FREE Grand Slam promotion they had today. I tried to do good, at least 30 minutes before we left, I pulled up Denny's nutritional information and menu. We found that you pick 4 items out of this list. I figured out the point values for each item and put together a plan on what I was going to order. It was still going to be a higher than usual lunch, but I was going to cut the calories where ever I could. Well as you may already know, when they are giving away something FREE they do NOT give you choices. Everyone got the same thing. I thought about getting up and walking next door to Whataburger, but then I would be tempted by french fries and there are enough calories in French Fries, it made my Denny's plate not so bad. So I pawned a pancake (7 points) off on one of my co-workers, and left the two sausages (5 points) totally alone. I was able to save two points by asking for Sugar Free Syrup. My meal ended up being 18 points. That is higher than if I were to eat a couple of fajitas, a little rice and beans, and about 12 chips and salsa.

After work I came home and changed into some sweat pants and a shirt, and headed to Zumba. It was A LOT of fun. I REALLY enjoyed it. I knew I would. I recognized some people that I took dance with when I was younger. I did not get all the steps down, but I just kept telling myself "it's ok, just keep moving". Well I broke a sweat, had fun and the hour flew by. There was one point when I was having so much fun that I actually started visualizing being THIN! How awesome that will be! At the end, we were doing some squats, my thighs were BURNING! I was thinking my thighs are finally not hurting from the 5K, HERE WE GO AGAIN. Well it has been a couple of hours and they are not hurting right now. : )

I better run, I am going to my first water aerobics class tomorrow night right after work and I have not seen my bathing suit since I got back from the cruise last August. This may take a while. : )

First Day at the New Weight Watchers Location

Well I started going to a new weight watchers class tonight. My at work program ended and we had to find an "out of work" meeting. Even though I did not eat out all last week, and ran a 5K yesterday, I told myself ALL day not to stress over it because it was NOT a full week. My previous meetings and weigh-ins were on Wednesday BEFORE I ate my lunch. So today I weighed in 2 days early AND in the evening. Well during the weigh-in I was UP an eighth of a pound. No big deal, I am not going to stress over this and I am DEFINITELY not going to let it get me down. I am just going to stay focused on this week and have a GREAT number next week.

As I mentioned yesterday, I have decided to make this week about doing NEW exercises.

I have made plans to go tomorrow night with a few friends to a Zumba class. I have been wanting to go to a Zumba class for along time. I took dance when I was growing up. I did ballet, tap, and jazz. I LOVED to dance. I have often thought that WHEN I get thin I am going to take up dance again. It may be something as simple as taking an adult tap class, or maybe even teaching an aerobics / Zumba class. Don't know, but I am really looking forward to tomorrow night.

On Wednesday, another friend of mine and I are planning on going to a water aerobics class. I am looking forward to this as well. Then Thursday night it will be my bowling night once again.

I am still pretty sore from the 5K yesterday. I am hurting from the thighs down. I am walking pretty funny. By the end of the week, I might not be able to walk. LOL


If anyone wants to join me for any or all of these workouts, let me know! The more the merrier!!!

Last Day of the Challenge

Wow what an AWESOME weekend!!!!

Saturday was a good day. I slept in, cleaned the house and done some laundry. At 4, my mom, my daughters, and myself went to see "Dear John". It was a good tearful moving and Channing is HOT! After that we had planned on going to my cousins house to spend the night. Usually when we go to my cousins it usually involves eating out, in most cases ordering Chinese for delivery. Well I called her and asked if we could split the cost and cook our own fajitas at her house. We choose to cook chicken fajitas and I know this is not fat free, but I used some of my Weight Watchers Flex Points. They were absolutely WONDERFUL and I did not have to feel guilty about eating out.

This morning my cousin and I went and did a 5K. It was one of the most inspirational days of my life. I met lots of GREAT people and I am more MOTIVATED than I was before. I really am starting to believe that I CAN DO THIS!!! I did FINISH the 5K and during it I did really well. Afterwards my feet hurt, but that was it. Now at 10 pm at night, I am in PAIN!!! It was all worth it though. Wonder how many calories I burned? I walked MOST of it, but did do about a dozen small sprints. I think my time was around 50 minutes. I looked it up, I came up with 5 Weight Watchers Points, which I think would be about 250 calories. My body sure does feel like more than a 250 calorie burn. : ) Since my day out did not end until 9:30 pm, I did eat out today, but I did GOOD. I am NOT going to be hard on myself. Yes, I did not go 7 days straight without eating out but alot of activities happened today that I was not prepared for. I had Subway for lunch, a 6 inch on turkey on wheat. And for dinner we went to a mexican restaurant and I ate 1 chicken enchilada, 1 taco, rice, and a little beans. I did eat a few chips, but not much. : )

My challenge for this week is going to be about exercise. I have already done one, the 5K. I am going to call around and go to at least 1 new exercise class this week, possible 2.

I start going to my new weight watchers meeting tomorrow, so I am going to start a NEW weigh in day. I will now weigh in on Mondays. Since it has not been a FULL week, I am NOT going to be hard on myself if I do not lose 2 lbs this week since I am weighing in 2 days earlier than usual.

If you want to START this journey with me, let me know! We can support each other. I am so excited about what is in store for me this year!!! Hope you decide to hop on band wagon. : )

Day 5 -- WOO HOO

Well Praise the Lord, I made it through Friday successful!

I knew Friday was going to be hard, and it definitely WAS! Every Friday is a payday for me and I ALWAYS eat out for lunch and 80% of the time the family all eats out for dinner. And today one of my co-workers, pardner in crime, tried to break me. She gave me a little guilt trip because she wanted to go out to lunch and had no one to go with and I admit for a moment I almost buckled because I am a "pleaser", but I shot right back and told her that I REALLY wanted to be successful on this challenge. So I did eat lunch at home.

My husband DID NOT cook dinner like I was hoping. We ended up eating dinner at my mom's because my step dads' truck was acting up and since Chuck is the mechanic in the family,he was asked to come and help. After we ate and the truck was fixed we stopped by the house so my daughter could change and I could pop me some 100 calorie single popcorn. We went to the movies and I treated myself to a diet coke. We enjoyed the movie. We saw the new John Travolta movie "Love in Paris" or something like that. It was weird seeing him bald but he is still SEXY as Hell. And considering my hubby is Bald, you know I was digging him. : )

Speaking of my hubby, he is on Day 6 of no snuff which I am extremely proud of him. If you have ever been around someone trying to quit using a tobacco product you can probably imagine the TENSION going on in this house. Him not dipping AND me on a diet. Lord it is a GOOD THING we are working different shifts. The only time we see each other is during my lunch hour, the other times is when one of us is half asleep. But it is now the weekend for both us, hope we stay married this weekend, NO snuff is purchased, and NO Fast Food is consumed. : ) Pray for us. LOL.

Until tomorrow ......

Day 4 --- I did AWESOME!

I am SOOOOOO Proud of myself today! If you read my blog from earlier this week, I mentioned that I was worried about Thursday night. If you missed it, on Thursday nights I bowl in the "Beer and Pizza League", which means there is Beer and Pizza ALL around me. To be successful and not eat pizza and RUIN my weekly challenge, it was going to take a plan and preparation.

As soon as I got home from work, I started looking for what I could cook for dinner FAST. I had some ground pork that stated on the front of the package that it was low in fat. Since I have been craving a hamburger, I decided to make a patties out of it. While it was cooking, I got my calculator to figure out how many points each patty would be. 12 points! I could have had regular beef for 6! If I would have been smart in the store BEFORE I bought it, I should have turned it over to see the calories and fat content. It was a lb and each 4 oz was 220 calories and 20 grams of FAT. Can you believe that? I don't know if it was KNOWING this that made it not taste too great or if it really was not good. LOL Needless to say there are more patties in my refrigerator that "I" will not be eating. I am not cutting down pork poducts, just the ground pork.

Anyway while my patty was cooking, I prepared my snacks to take with me. I popped a bag of popcorn, packed it in my purse as well as a banana. As soon as the patty was done, I put it between two whole wheat pieces of bread and headed out the door.

On the way to the bowling alley I continued my plan. I told my daughter to keep her eyes peeled on my table. When they put that pizza down on my table I wanted her to come over and grab my two slices for herself. So I get to the bowling alley and order me an Large Ice water. Pizza came,I gave my daughter my two slices and when I got hungry, I pulled out my popcorn and later my banana. I can not express enough how proud I am of myself. I would think that would have been really hard, but because I planned everything ahead of time, I was not even tempted.

I only have 3 days of my Challenge left for this week, and by FAR they are going to be the toughest. I need to come up with a plan NOW. So far I have laid out some pork chops for tomorrow night. My husband is off on Fridays so I am going to try to talk him into cooking dinner --- he can Shake and Bake them. : ) My daughter wants to go see "Dear John" tomorrow night. If we go, I plan on making my low calorie popcorn and taking it with me. I am one of those that HAS to have popcorn at the movies. : ) As for the rest of the weekend, I am probably going to have to go to the grocery store so we can make some GOOD out to eat type meals so I don't mess up. I REALLY want to be successful!!!!!

Now for next weeks challenge -- any suggestions?

DAY 3 of No Eating Out

Today was a pretty good day! I lost 2.6 pounds! This .6 over my weekly goal. I will gladly take ALL the extra. : )

Today was the last day for our Weight Watchers at work meetings. : ( We are sad that we will not be able to take the rest of our journey with our Weight Watchers instructor that we have gotten so close with. Since our weight watchers group was so small and we already knew everyone in the meeting, it was easy to talk openly about our weight issues and problem areas. We really were each other's cheerleaders and motivators.

There are four of us that will start going the local WW class next Monday night. It will be new leader and lots of new faces to learn. I guess I need to look at it positively. I will be able to meet potential Scentsy customers. Right? Because of my weight, I sometimes have issues walking up to people to share my candles with them. I have been doing it now for two years, so believe me, I have come A LONG ways from when I started.

I am hoping by blogging and losing weight I will learn to love myself again. When I was a teen-ager my church had a self esteem course. One thing I remember from that class is I need to look in the mirror everyday and tell myself how beautiful I am. I seriously try to do this, but it is hard. For instance, I got my hair colored and cut about a week ago. I went shorter than I have ever done before. When I looked in the mirror, I thought " OMG, look how fat my face looks! I think I went too short ". Since then the hair style has grown on me and I actually think it pretty cute. See that is a little of self esteem improvement, huh?

Anyway, today I was a good girl. I did not eat out. In the past on days when we held our weight watchers meeting at work during our lunch hour, I would sometimes forget my lunch so I would have to grab some fast food. Well I packed my lunch last night and as soon as I got up this morning I put it next to my purse so I would not forget it. This is the second day in a roll that I am not raiding the refrigerator in the evenings. I have discovered once everyone goes to bed and I am alone, I want to snack! I am so stoked! I am home alone and not eating any snacks. YEAH ME!!!

I want to give a little props to my husband. He is trying to quit dipping snuff after 18 years and he is on day 3. I am so proud of you Honey! Keep up the good the work!!!

DAY 2 of Weekly Challenge

Since I have waited so late in the evening to update my blog. I am going to keep it pretty short. I did not eat out any today. I did really well on my food intake. I ate lots of low calorie foods so I was able to eat a lot. For dinner we had spaghetti with wheat pasta. I filled my plate with a reasonable size of the spaghetti and A LOT of green beans. : ) Needless to say I am full and for the first night since I started my diet I have not been fighting myself away from the refrigerator.

Tomorrow is weigh in and I am hoping for a loss. I worked out on the Wii fit for 30 minutes, which unlocked a new option in the Aerobics section. It is a stepping that you can do while you watch tv. Basically if you keep the rhythm noise coming out of the remote, you will be able to get 800 steps done in the allotted time. I don't exactly remember the number I did, but I know it was in the 700's.

At 8 pm, my favorite show, The Biggest Loser came on. Because of the weigh in, I got up and did some exercises during the show especially while the contestants did their "Last Chance Workout". I felt kinda bad because my working out was BIG TIME minor compared to theirs. But I guess something is better than nothing. : )

Better head to bed! I will post my weigh in news tomorrow night.

NEW Day 1 of the Challenge

Considering it is 11 pm, I guess it is safe to say that I PASSED the challenge today and have not eaten OUT today. I know to you this may sound easy but let me tell you about my day.

This morning I had my usual breakfast, Oatmeal. For lunch, I came home and started cooking dinner and had a salad. I started dinner because on Monday's McKinsey bowls on her High School bowling team and since it starts at 6:30 pm, I wanted to make sure I would not be going to the bowling alley hungry. The bowling alley is a place that I had created bad habits eating the food from the concession stand which you know the majority is deep fried.

So I got off work and came straight home to eat dinner. After I was done I went online to Weight Watchers to log my food itake for the day. Ended up I had calculated my dinner wrong. I thought it was A LOT of points lower than the computer told me. So instead of getting upset and depressed and running to the frig to throw the day out the window, I got up, cut off my TV and turned on the Wii Fit. I did the "aerobics" section for 30 minutes until it was time to RUN out the door to the bowling alley.

As soon as I walked in the bowling alley it was like my eyes were scoping out every table to see all the junk everyone was eating. I knew with this being my first NEW day of the challenge, this night would be hard so I packed some Scentsy work to do while my daughter bowled her game. My own daughter even used some of her own money to buy herself some french fries. Do you know how hard it was not to snatch a couple from her. But I didn't!!! Yeah!!! And by the time I was through working on my Scentsy, all the food on our table was GONE!

An added brag -- All I drank was water ALL day!!! No other beverages. Only two more days til weigh in. Got to be good tomorrow!!! I am not feeling very confident about the weigh in.