Cara's Weightloss Journal

Weigh in this morning was a bit encouraging but a bit discouraging too. Mainly because of what I THOUGHT I’d weigh in at. Boy, doesn’t the mind play tricks on you about your weight loss? The further I go down this weight loss journey, the more I am convinced it’s 95% mental and 5% physical.

So I told you already that I lost a pound on Thanksgiving day, right? And yesterday (Friday) I was even better (food- and exercise-wise) than I was on Thursday. I ate a healthy breakfast (home made fried potatoes, a slice of whole grain bread with light butter and a sliced apple = 6pts). Then a sensible lunch (Steak N Shake southwestern hot dog (chipotle sauce and pico de gallo), cottage cheese & pineapple ring, and veggie soup = 13 pts) and a half a piece of pecan pie (5 pts). Then I went running last night for almost an hour = 3.75 miles. All in all, a pretty great day, right??

Then why did I gain 1.8 pounds between Friday morning and Saturday morning??!!

How could I lose a whole pound on Thanksgiving, but gain it back plus another 8/10ths the next day by eating better and exercising more?

Very frustrating.

So when it was all said and done, my official weigh in at Weight Watchers was down 1.2 pounds from last week.

This is when I have to make it all come into perspective. I have to look at the big picture.

My body is going to fluctuate from day to day. And sometimes, for no reason whatsoever. This I have to keep remembering. This is why most weight loss programs tell you to NEVER weigh yourself on a daily basis. Most will call for a weigh in once a month. But at the most frequent is once a week. But never more than once a week or heaven forbid once a day.

So I have to take those 1.2 pounds and be proud of it. Heck, it wasn’t too long ago that I would have jumped up and down and screamed for losing 1.2 pounds in one week.

So I’m inching my way closer back down to that ominous 100 lb loss mark. I only have 1.8 pounds to go to get back down to my 100 pounds lost. So, it might take me another 2 (or more) weeks to do it. I can’t rush it. I can’t obsess over it. That will do me no good whatsoever. In fact, if I think back to one year ago, that’s what started me on my spiral out of control. I obsessed over it too much.

Take a deep breath. Be patient. And be happy with your great loss, Cara!

On a slightly different subject, I’ve started reading a new book that’s, so far, really great. It’s called “Dr. Colbert’s “I Can Do This” Diet“. It hasn’t been released yet (supposed to be in January), but I’ve received an advanced copy from the publisher (with the hopes that I’ll review it on my blog). Its an extremely thorough book, let me tell you. It’s not light reading, for sure. But its amazing. I’m learning SO much about weight loss and how our bodies respond to different types of plans and foods, etc. Here’s what the publisher says about the book: “you’ll discover the top five reasons why diets fail; explore weight-loss fundamentals; overcome roadblocks including insulin resistance, neurotransmitter imbalance, and hormonal imbalance; and design a program catered to your needs.” To me, it seems like an intellectual approach to weight loss. I’ll keep you posted on how it goes.

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One year ago, I completely fell off the wagon…

I remember the day like it was yesterday.

In July of last year (2008), I started a goal of losing 18 pounds in 18 weeks so by Thanksgiving (of last year) I would have arrived at 100 pounds lost. I just went back and re-read that goal-setting blog and I sounded so full of hope and optimism. It was, after all, only “1 pound a week”.

But there I sat, at the Thanksgiving table, a year ago, stuffing my face ’til I couldn’t move.

I ate all the chocolates that were laying around the house (my mother-in-law makes these yummy treats where she puts a pecan halves on top of a Rollos on top of little pretzel twists, melts them in the oven and when they’re cooled, they’re yummy little turtle-like delights).

And for the meal, I had double portions of absolutely everything. I remember seeing my mother-in-law sitting across the table from me eating her Thanksgiving meal on a smaller plate (she had lost 50 lbs on Weight Watchers just earlier that year). I laughed inside to myself. Fooey on that! I’m eating a full plat of yumminess and I didn’t care if I gained 10 pounds. I even had extra helpings of pie. And of course I took all the casserole left overs home and ate them again when we got home and for days after that, too. And, yes, I did gain 10 pounds before the week was over.

I remember, months later, looking back at that meal remembering that that moment was the beginning of my self-sabotage. I didn’t know it at the time, but I panicked at the thought of actually reaching my momentous goal. Read this old post to see what I’m talking about.

But this year… completely different. I feel like a completely different person. Mentally, physically and spiritually. I’m in such a better space, now.

I started off the day by going for a run. I woke up around 6:30, before daylight, and was so anxious to get out there and run. I sat there starring outside waiting for daylight. I finally headed out at about 10 ’til 7 and man was it chilly out there. Of course, no one else was either on the roads or on the sidewalks. A quite and confident run to start the day off right.

I got back in time to throw the sticky buns in the oven to bake real quick. Mind you, these were the real thing. My daughter had assembled them the night before (she came over and helped make the casseroles with me) and asked me to bake them for her before we headed over for Thanksgiving dinner.

We headed out to hubby’s parent’s house around 9. While the turkey was finishing, we watched home videos. We watched my almost 21-year-old’s first birthday party. First of all, I loved seeing her so young and precious. Brought back some great memories. But most of all, I noticed that I am much thinner now than I was then. It was so awesome to see myself 20 years ago and know that I’m skinnier now than I was then. I was probably 210-220 pounds in those videos. Now, 165!!

Most people will look at themselves 20 years ago and say “man I looked so good back then, I wish I was that skinny again”. Not me, I was so happy to see how far I’ve come since those days.

Then dinner time. I ate my thanksgiving meal on that smaller plate. I had half and quarter portions of everything. Though there wasn’t much empty space on my little plate, I had maybe 3-4 bites of everything. Instead of 1-2 cups of everything, like last year.

At the end of the meal, I sat there completely satisfied. Not stuffed. Not miserable. Completely satisfied. Then about an hour after dinner, once everyone else’s stomachs started calming down, we had pie. I had half a piece of pumpkin pie and a half a piece of pecan pie (my deceased grandmother’s recipe—my cousin made the pie and shipped it to me).

I wasn’t really all that hungry for the rest of the day. I had a Chobani greek yogurt around 7:30 and that’s about all I needed for the day.

I hate to be so boastful, folks, but I’m so darn proud of myself. I’m beaming.

Oh, and the best part…

I weighed myself this morning and I actually lost a pound yesterday!

Who loses one pound on Thanksgiving while still thoroughly enjoying everything the day has to offer?!!

What a great day!

How was your day?

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I thought today would be a great day to stop and give thanks…

Thanks for my new body.

I’m a hundred pounds lighter than I was 2 years ago and I feel a thousand pounds lighter. In my body, in my spirit and in my soul. My life is changed.

Sure, there are the physical changes. I mean, its so darn wonderful to look down and be able to see my lap. I absolutely LOVE being able to cross my legs. Or even cross my arms in front of me without having to have them press my boobs down. (I’m not crazy about all the flaps of skin that are hanging from me, but hey, those are my trophy flaps, right?)

Then there’s the activity part. I’m so much more active now. I used to be a couch potato. Now I just love getting up and doing whatever I need or want to do. Because I know I won’t get tired. I used to sweat when I went shopping. Now, I can shop all day and never break a sweat. I love being able to skip up the 3 flights of stairs at work, multiple times a day and not get winded at all. Heck, I ran 6 miles on Sunday, 4 miles on Monday and 2 miles this morning. 12 MILES in one week!!?? Whodathunk!

I’ve had to get all my rings resized and I think I need to get them resized again because one of them keeps flipping over to where the diamond part falls around to the palm side of my hand whenever I type. I have a little silver chain bracelet that I paid like $5 for, but I don’t want to replace it, so I just moved the clasp up to hook into one of the chains, so that there’s a strip of chain dangling about an inch long after the clasp. An inch of chain that used to encase my fat wrists. And I’m now down to a size 12 (maybe even a 10, but I haven’t been shopping in quite a while). When I started this journey over 2 years ago, I was a SIZE 26/28 and they were too tight on me!!

I love the way I feel about myself. I feel so worth it, now. I feel like before, when I was fat, I was hiding from the world and I wasn’t worth anyone noticing me or giving me any kind of credit for anything. And I had to fight for any ounce of respect from my peers. Now… Now, I hold my head high. I am worth it. I am so much more confident in my choices, my actions and my conversations. The weird part was that I always was worth it, I just didn’t know it because of all the embarrassment and unworthiness that I felt when I was fat.

Now, I can call my self thin. I even go so far, sometimes, to say I’m skinny. Although, according to most BMI and weight charts, I still need to lose another 10 pounds before I’ll be “healthy”. But in my heart and soul, I AM SKINNY!

I love this new me. And I’m SO thankful for her. I’m proud to be in the skin I’m in, now.

And I’m SO thankful for my family at Weight Watchers and of course my real family, too—including my absolutely amazing husband. And I’m SO thankful for all of you out there reading my blog. And this is something I want each and every one of you to own. Even if you’ve never commented on one of my blog posts before, you still read my blog. And that is SUCH great encouragement to me to keep going and keep losing. You know what would make me SO happy. If I could get each of you to just post “your welcome” on this blog post. You don’t have to say anything more, I’d just like to send this little piece of thanks out to each one of you and I want you to know that you’ve changed my life and the way you can own this appreciation is to take it in and just say a simple “you’re welcome, Cara”. It would make me so happy. It would really make my Thanksgiving PERFECT!

So, what do you say?

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I did something yesterday morning that really proved a point. To myself. You remember a few weeks ago when I went all out and ate a fattening ribeye with onion rings and a loaded baked potato and then paid for it majorly by almost throwing up afterward? (Blog post: “One huge moment of humiliation…“) Well, along those same lines, I splurged a little just after Weight Watchers yesterday morning and something weird happened. Something that’s never happened before.

OK, first of all, I have to say, what sane person goes directly from Weight Watchers to the McDonald’s drive in??!!! I mean, really! Didn’t anything that happened over the previous half hour stick in my head at all???!! Seriously?!

I don’t know why I did it. I could say because I was out of cereal at home. But then I had other things I could fix. I could have fixed an absolutely yummy roasted chicken and onion egg white omelet (I had one just the other morning and it was to DIE for!). Or I could have made 1 point pancakes. Or oatmeal. Etc., etc. But that was my excuse. So I called hubby and asked him if he wanted anything (love his heart, but he’s my partner in crime).

So I got a sausage and cheese biscuit with a hashbrown. I like to put the hashbrown in the sandwich and eat it all together. I took my first bite and OH MAN was it heavenly. “Mmmmmm,” I said out loud. It’s been a couple of years since I’ve eaten at McDonalds and longer than that since I’ve had a sausage biscuit, which, by the way, used to be my most favoritist breakfast on the planet (when I was fat).

My second bite was just as good as the 1st. Oh, Man!

Then I turned to hubby and said “A little greasy, huh?”. He agreed. My fingers were covered in grease, or I guess butter from the biscuit. I was thoroughly enjoying it, though.

I made it half way through the sandwich and I had to stop and take a drink of water. My stomach started flipping around a little bit. The water helped, though, so I kept at it.

So I’m at about three quarters of the way through the breakfast sandwich, now, and my stomach really starts tossing and turning. Its the weirdest thing. I’ve never had the sensation of thoroughly enjoying the taste of something while simultaneously having feelings of “tossing my cookies”. But, darn it!, I was determined to finish it.

I tried thinking of other things and drinking lots of water. But with each bite I took, I kept getting sicker and sicker. What the heck!?

I finally got down to where I had 2 bites left and I stopped and took a breath. Took a drink. And took one more bite. Then it happened. I had a gag reflex while that 2nd to last bite was in my mouth.

What!? Mind you, I was still thoroughly enjoying each and every bite. Each bite I took tasted far better than the bite before it. Seriously!

I stopped. Looked at that last bite. Took a huge swallow to get the food that was in my mouth down. Then I looked at that last bite one more time. I couldn’t do it. I honestly think that if I ate that last bite, I would have hurled right then and there. It was that bad.

I threw that last piece down on the greasy wrapper, which then rolled off the paper and down onto the floor. I had to bend over and pick it up, which was even worse on my stomach. The extra pressure on my stomach did nothing to stop the gag reflexes from coming. But I picked up that last piece, shoved it into the wrapper, balled the wrapper up and ran to the trash can to throw it away. I grabbed some more water. Didn’t help much. So I grabbed the Tums. I stood there over the sink chewing the tums hoping my food would stay down long enough for the Tums to make it down. I never wanted food to stay down so bad in my life. I kept imagining that greasy food coming back out and it was a horrible thought.

I took deep breath after deep breath and tried to calm myself down.

That worked. The Tums made it down. The horrible feelings passed. The food stayed down.

Why the heck did I do that to myself? I mean, a logical person would have stopped eating the minute they started feeling queasy, right? But then a sane person wouldn’t have stopped by McDonalds after a WW meeting either, would they?

I just wanted that food so bad.

I think for the most part, I’m able to keep my food cravings under control. But every once in a while it gets the better of me. And yesterday morning, it sure got the better of me.

For the rest of the day, I did fine. I ate sensible and on plan. And the good part is I only gained a half a pound from that morning fiasco.

I’m hoping with my good behavior today and my extra running that I did this morning that tomorrow morning I’ll be back at the weight I was yesterday morning (during weigh in).

Oh, and some great news (to follow that fiasco). I ran 6 miles this morning. Non stop. No over exerting. Piece of cake! That’s a 10K. I just ran it around my neighborhood. My heart rate was still a little high for the first few miles (between 165 and 175) but after the 3rd mile, it started edging its way down. By mile 4, I was down to 160. By mile 5, I was down to 150. And by the time I finished the 6th mile, I was hovering around 143. Saweet!!

But the best part was that during the entire run, from my first step to the last, I was so calm and comfortable. Though my heart was running a race, the rest of my body wasn’t. I ran with my mouth closed for I’d say 90% of the run just because I didn’t need to breath through my mouth. Breathing through my nose was more than enough air for me. I couldn’t believe it. And I can’t wait to go running again.

I think I might be turning into a runner after all.

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Josie!!!

Just so you know this was fair, I went to Random.org and typed in everyone’s name who commented as well as each facebook entry and twitter entry (so if you tweeted and commented, you got multiple entries) and then randomized the list 4 times and then asked them to pick a number at random from the list and Josie’s name was chosen.

So, Josie, just email me your shipping info and I’ll get the bowls out to you right away. My email address is carashow at gmail dot com.

Congratulations!!

I wish I could send each and every one of you a set of these bowls. They’re truly great. If you want to put them on your Christmas wish list, here’s the website address: http://shopmeasureupbowl.com/

Also, congratulations to all of you who entered. I’m so proud of how your eating habits have changed to more healthier selections. Listen to all of the wonderful eating habits we all have now…

Rochelle said…

Portion control is half the battle I think!

Lauri said…

I never dreamed of eating cauliflower. Just wasn’t going to do it. Then I told Steve about a recipe I had read, so he steamed some cauliflower then pureed it in the blender adding salt, pepper, and butter (or substitute, if you have something you use instead of butter), and it was like eating mashed potatoes. He tried it another time without the blender, just using the potato masher, and it didn’t work for me….wrong consistency. But through a blender, great.

Shelley said…

The thing that I never thought I would eat is plain yogurt. And I’ll admit it took me a few tries to like it – I add some fresh fruit and it’s good – who knew?!? Fage 0% plain is my go-to food.

Georgia Mist said…

Veggies: Never thought I’d come to love them! Quick recipe: 1 zucchini (small), julienned, 1 yellow squash (small), julienned, 1 yellow onion, julienned. 1 clove garlic, diced. Saute in 1 tsp. olive oil until tender, serve over brown rice!

screwdestiny said…

I did a diet for, oh, a couple weeks (ha!), and pretty much the only breakfast-y proteins I could eat were eggs or cottage cheese. I used to HATE cottage cheese. It made me gag. The texture was just so nasty, and the flavor definitely left something to be desired as well. But I was not going to eat eggs seven days a week for breakfast. I need variety, man. Plus, I’ve always known that cottage cheese is like a perfect protein and it’s so good for you and blah blah blah. So I bought myself some cottage cheese and some strawberries and blueberries, and forced myself to eat it. The first few times it did activate my gag reflex about half the time whilst eating it. But I knew it was good for me so I kept at it. And you know what? I kind of, sort of enjoy it now. Only with fruit, gotta have the fruit, but I really don’t mind it.

jinxxxygirl said…

I don’t think i eat something now that i would have avoided 2 years ago. Its just now i make it a point to eat somethings. Like fruit and veggies . I never would have gone out of my way to ‘make sure’ i ate some but now i do. And fried foods i never worried about it before now i avoid them like the plague they are.

Stacie said…

The one thing I never used to eat is two-fold: squash and zucchini. I never really knew what to do with it – but there is so much! Now I get it every time I go shopping!

Diane, Fit to the Finish said…

Portion control is such an important part of weight management. One new thing I’ve learned to like is Greek yogurt. I can’t do it plain though.

Josie said…

The one food I had so far that I had never tried before and thought I would absolutely hate is grilled tilapia. I tried it and LOVED it and now I want more of it. There are a lot of foods left that I want to try but was always afraid to…kale, almonds, salmon. I’ll face my fears one by one till they’re gone.

Leisa said…

I just started my blog http://fifteenfavefoods.wordpress.com to answer that very question. What I would have never eaten before: Broiled broccoli! Now it is one of my 15 favorite foods. If you find just 15 healthy fave foods, weight loss is almost automatic.

HD@Losing Weight-Healthy Heart said…

The one thing I never would have tried is flax seed. Now, I add ground flax to my oatmeal every morning, and I can’t live without it!

spunkysuzi said…

I actually eat a lot more veggies now and recently i’ve been eating them with no dip :) That is huge for me!

Paula Rodriguez said…

I am totally crazy about acorn squash, spaghetti squash and butternut squash… Who knew they were so tasty. Oh, and I’m lovin lentils as well.

Mzchef said…

benefiber powder… great to add to water or yogurt! It fills you up!

Tina said…

I JUST two days ago tried a baked sweet potato. YUM!!! Before this I had only been introduced to them in their slimy can form…BLECH.

Once Upon A Dieter said…

I never used to eat okra, but I discovered they were fabulous sauteed with tomatoes. Also kale. It looked too weird to me. :)

ScrapBook Blessings said…

This is easy for me. Broccoli!!!! I didn’t know what I was missing before. I also replaced ground beef with ground turkey. I had to make beef one day for church and my husband wanted to know what that smell was in the house. The grease was just awful, lol.

Georgia Mist said…

Zucchini, Cauliflower, and squash are the veggies I would NEVER have eaten a year ago. Now, I eat them as often as possible. I like to put them in a foil, bake about 15 minutes and serve them over brown rice!

♥ Kenz ♥ said…

I eat so many things now that I wouldn’t have eaten before…like…spaghetti squash, baby spinach, eggplant, scallops and fish. I’ve always known that fish was a good choice, but my answer was “i don’t like it.” And the same goes for mushrooms for several months ago, I decided I would will myself to like those things…and it totally worked.

Shelley said…

For me, there are two things I would NEVER eat before and turned my nose up at. Spinach and sweet potatoes. Now, I love both…and eat them as often as I can. I add spinach to my daily salad for some variety and some extra iron punch to my diet. And baked sweet potato fries are a great treat. Mmmm….mmmm….good!

wanabskne said…

Growing up my parents never introduced us to any kind of fish dish (not even frozen fish sticks). When I married my husband his family was used to eating fish on a regular basis. As a result of married life and branching out cuisine-wise due to healthy dieting, I have now come to truly enjoy fish. It has become a food that I look forward to eating rather than a food that I am uncertain about. It is now my goal to pass this knowledge and experience on to my parents in hopes that they too will begin to eat healthier meals.