Cara's Weightloss Journal

“Still haven’t reached goal.”

I think that’s going to be my epitaph.

–

I started on Weight Watchers’ new PointePlus plan last week. I started on Monday but my meeting wasn’t until Saturday, so I was only half informed, but I gave it a try anyway.

I broke even–no loss, no gain.

I didn’t eat all of my daily points. They say that’ll effect your weight loss, or rather your lack thereof. So this week, I’m making it an effort to each all 29 points (or rather PointsPluses–just sounds so weird saying that like that).

So far, so good.

Saturday, we went to Disney and all we did all day long was ride the rides. There are only really 3 rides (adult rides, that is) in the park, so we spent the whole day hopping between those three rides–Thunder Mountain (the train), Spalsh Mountain (the water flume ride) and Space Mountain (the jerkiest most violent roller coaster one could ever go on).

We’d stand for about an hour then ride for 5 minutes–all… day… long.

Had a blast, though!

The best part was the activity points I got to rack up. Because I was on my feet for 12 hours straight (not counting the hour interspersed throughout the day when I was actually sitting on the rides), I racked up 40 activity points!

Woo hoo!

That really helped, because I didn’t hold back while at the park. I had fried shrimp with a few fries then a hot fudge sundae and a huge bucket of popcorn.

Then Sunday wasn’t much better.

But today I was back to my regular eating. Spent 29 points on my food today. I have 22 activity points left. I don’t think I’ll need them. Besides, I do plan on racking up a few more (hopefully several more) activity points this week. I want to start doing spin class again. It’s so hard to get to, though, because it starts at 6pm and I get off work at 5:30 so I have to RUN straight from work to the gym and still have time to get changed before all the bikes are taken.

I have to say, though, that I’m not crazy about eating 29 points each day. I mean, heck, when I first started Weight Watchers almost 4 years ago, I was 100 pounds heavier and I had 34 points a day. It just seems like a huge step backwards for me. But I realize that the food carries more points than it used to with the old Points system. It still feels like I’m eating too much, though.

But being as I broke even last week, and did not each all 29 points each day, I’m trying to eat the 29 points each day and hopefully lose this week.

Sounds like such a weird strategy. But I’m willing to try ANYTHING at this point.

I just want to reach goal.

…in this lifetime!

Today is casual Friday at work.

I LOVE casual Fridays!!

For a number of reasons that are work related, but one of my top five is getting to wear jeans. I HATE wearing professional clothes to work. The type of work I do, I don’t interact with customers—EVER. So casual clothes would do me just fine all week long. But alas, I have my beloved casual day but once a week.

The coolest thing right now, though, is that even though I’m still up 3 pounds since before vacation, I feel PERFECT in my jeans!! They’re not snug—AT ALL. They fit me like the jeans fairy made them especially for me.

I thought I’d share something with you I made this past week that I REALLY like. I got the recipe from a southern magazine but then tweaked it a bit to my liking.

Of course the major change was taking out the cream cheese and substituting plain Chobani Greek Yogurt. It added a ton of protein to the dish, less fat, and I think added a bit more flavor to it overall.

I don’t know if you guys have ever had Polenta, I hadn’t. For me, it tasted kinda like a grits or cream of wheat type of dish. It’s definitely a breakfast item.

The recipe was called Creamy Pumpkin Polenta but I changed it to:

CHO-Pumpkin Polenta

Here’s how to make it:

• Boil 5 1/2 cups water with a tsp of kosher salt then add 1 1/3 cups corn meal. Stir until the mixture is nice and thick and creamy. About 10-15 minutes.

• Remove from heat and add one 6-oz container of vanilla Chobani Greek Yogurt (or you could use plain), 1 cup of pureed (or canned) pumpkin and 1 tsp nutmeg. Stir until well blended.

That’s it!

Super easy to make and very, very yummy!! I totally look forward to eating it every morning. The recipe says it makes 6 servings of 3/4 cup each, but mine made seven 1-cup servings. Weight Watcher’s points(R) value = 3 pts per cup. The recipe said it was 190 calories, but I’ll bet it was less than that once I took out the cream cheese and substituted the Chobani.

This is a great breakfast. Tons of protein. Tons of fiber. Loads of flavor. And something different than your morning oatmeal.

Let me know if you try it. I’m curious how you like it.

Okay, so it’s been a MONTH since my last post. I’m a total blogging dead-beat!

A lot has happened since then, but then again, not so much. Since then, I’ve lost a total of 5.2 lbs. But if you remember, I had just come back from vacation where I’d gained about 8.2 lbs (officially, according to Weight Watchers–unofficially I gained 12 lbs on my scales at home because there was a no-weigh-in pass that I took the week I got back).

I still have 3 more pounds to lose to be back to the weight I was before vacation–before the week of Sept 18-26.

Okay, now that I got that outa the way. I have to say that I am as determined as ever to lose these last few pounds to make it to goal. Right now, I’m at 164.8.

If you remember last time, I’d resolved to change my goal weight to 160 rather than Weight Watcher’s goal of 155 (the heaviest I can weigh (according to their charts) for my age and height). Well, I have to admit something to you. I secretly want to make it all the way down to 155.

I can’t help it. It’s something I still want.

I haven’t gone to the doctor yet to ask him to write me a note saying that 160 is a healthy weight for me (which I’m SURE he’d do in a heart beat). But I really DO want to make it to 155.

I know I had made up my mind to not be defined by a number but be instead be defined by how I feel in my skin and in my clothes. And don’t get me wrong, I still do want that. In fact, I want that SO badly. But I still cant get that figure outa my head–155.

It haunts me still.

This is why…

It’s 10 pounds less than where I am right now.

Well…

Over the past 4 weeks, I’ve lost 6.6 lbs.

Pause for dramatic effect…

That tells me that I’m doing this right and I CAN lose the weight. It’s all in my head. Sure, there’s metabolism and eating the right foods (low sodium, low sugar, low fat, high fiber, high protein, low carbs, etc., etc., etc.). But more importantly is my mental ability to will myself to lose weight.

I swear, for the past 4 years, it’s been more about the battles I’ve had in my head than the battles in the numbers and on the scales. Sure, those are the outward evidences of it all. But the internal–both mental and emotional–has been my real struggle.

So, yea, I do want to feel good in my skin and be proud of my body. And I am. But I do still want to get down to 155.

I know it’s a total contradiction and I don’t know what to do with it.

Maybe that’s why I haven’t blogged in so long. I feel like I’m stuck in the middle of the road with a fork in front of me asking me to decide which road to take and I just keep digging at the ground in between the two paths so I can take both of them.

The thing is, sooner or later, I’m gonna have to choose… and I just don’t know how.

.

Well, I am officially on a new path in my weight loss journey.

I’ve completely stopped weighing myself in the mornings and I feel so good. Liberated, actually. The only weigh-in for me is going to be on Saturday mornings at Weight Watchers and I may or may not look at the results. We’ll see.

This past Saturday, I had my first weigh in since vacation. Now, mind you, vacation was Sept 18-26. I weighed in the Friday before I left (17th) and while I was up there, I weighed in on the following Monday (20th), just 2 days into my trip. By then, I’d only gained 1 full pound. I thought that was pretty good considering I’d already eaten a ton of peanut butter fudge and I actually had fried chicken one day. But then it dawned on me that I didn’t have to weigh-in for another week and a half (Oct 2nd) and, in fact, I’d have a full week of being back home and back on plan before I had to weigh in to get any extra pounds from vacation off.

Well, that plan backfired.

When I got home, I stepped on the scales at home and I’d gained… gulp… wait for it… 12.6 pounds.

Yikes, is an understatement.

But I still had a full 5 days before weigh in so I figured I could probably get a few of those pounds off, and actually I did. By Saturday morning, I was only up 5 pounds (I’d lost 7 pounds that week) since before vacation.

But you know what I did. I took a no weigh in pass. I figured that would give me one more week to get back down to within a few pounds of where I was before I left.

Well, that didn’t work either. I actually gained 3 more pounds last week. So my official weigh in for this past Saturday was a whopping gain of 8.2 pounds (since before vacation).

Ouch!

I know, my new plan is to not think about the pounds, but the thing that stings the most is that I’ve now fallen down to below my 100 pound loss mark. I’m now down to only having lost 95 pounds. I actually cried a little bit while I was sitting in Weight Watchers looking at that number.

But I dried my tears and put my head up and remembered my new journey. My new journey doesn’t care about those numbers any more. My new journey cares about how I feel. So how do I feel?

Well, my jeans are getting a big snug. My beautiful skinny jeans are telling me I’m not skinny. It’s only 8 pounds, but evidently 8 pounds does make a difference.

So I’m gonna call the doctor tomorrow and make an appointment (or whatever I have to do) to get the note from him saying that 160 is my healthy weight instead of 155. And my first goal is to not get down to 160 pounds, my first goal is to get my jeans fitting me again. My poochey tummy is sticking over my jeans a little too much for comfort.

I feel so much better about this new plan. I truly feel liberated. I just hope I’m doing the right thing.

.

I think I’m going through a MAJOR shift in my weigh loss journey right now. No, I know I am. I haven’t been posting for a while, but I’ve still been on plan and forging forward in my struggles to lose the last 5-10 pounds. And I think I’m moving in a new and distinct direction right now.

As you probably know, I’ve been struggling with trying to get to goal for over 3 1/2 years, now. And I’ve struggled for the past year to lose a measly 5 pounds. I’ve even gotten down to where I was about 3 1/2 pounds from goal, only to shoot back up a couple of pounds and find myself, yet again, 5 pounds away from goal.

My ultimate goal was to make it to 145 lbs. But I set my Weight Watchers goal at 155 because that was the most I could weigh, for my height and age, and be at goal according to their standards.

The thing of it is, I’m not entirely certain I’ll ever make it to 155.

I mean, I am the QUEEN of positive self talk. And when I set my mind to do something, not much stands in my way. I do it. And I’m a stickler for rules and doing things the right way. All of these things combined makes a good plan for success. But still, I can’t quite succeed. I just can’t quite make it to goal. And at some point, I need to ask myself if “goal” should be my realistic goal.

I took a much needed vacation a couple of weeks ago, from Sept 18-26. My husband and I drove up to West Virginia and spent a blissful week with my mom. Even he thought it was heaven (truly). We even found a cabin up there on her mountain that’s for sale that he wants to buy (pie in the sky right now, though, we’re in no financial condition to move to another state and buy a house right now, but it was a beautiful dream… someday maybe).

The week before we drove up there David and I had a good talk about my weigh loss efforts. He’s so good at helping me talk through things and keep things into perspective. Some of my last posts, in fact, were talking about how I have been obsessing over my weight loss efforts to the point of it becoming borderline OCD. And during our drive up to W.Va. (which, by the way, was the best long drive I’ve ever been on in my life), I think I was able to come to terms with it all…

I still struggled with it some, but what I was talking through doing was switching my focus away from the pounds and focus more on how I feel, physically as well as emotionally. Most importantly, how does my body feel. How do my clothes fit. What is my self image. How confident do I feel. Those types of things.

And just over this past week, I think I’ve made a definite decision to change my weight loss journey. I now want to focus solely on how I feel and not what I weigh. And I think I feel really great about that decision.

Which brings me back to Weight Watchers… As many of you know, I have not missed one Weight Watchers meeting since I started in May 2007. I have attended a meeting once a week since May 12, 2007. I’ve even received 3 certificates from my leader for perfect attendance. And that’s something I’m wholeheartedly proud of.

I don’t want to quit Weight Watchers. I’ve learned so much on WW. I’ve come so far. There’s no way I could have done any of this without WW… and of course, this blog and you guys (and my husband’s support).

So I think what I’m going to do is make an appointment with my doctor and ask him if 160 would be a healthy weight for me to maintain and just make that my goal. I’ve weighed ABOUT 160 pounds for the last year and a half (give or take 2 or 3 pounds). So I’m sure he will agree that it’s a healthy weight for me.

And then I’ll ask him to write a note saying that 160 is a healthy weight for me and take it to Weight Watchers and have them adjust my official WW goal.

That way, I can reach goal and get this monkey off my back.

I tell you, it’s been one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever had to make in my life. I keep telling myself that if I go to the doctor and change my weight goal with Weight Watchers, I’ll be cheating. And I won’t REALLY have reached goal. Like I took some sort of lame short cut to the finish line.

And I hate those thoughts.

But I know I just can’t keep going like this forever.

The fact is, I feel good in the skin I’m in right now. My clothes fit me perfectly. I truly FEEL skinny. I look healthy. I don’t look fat. Truth be told I’m only 5-10 pounds overweight according to most of the weight charts in America right now. So I just need to keep focused on these thoughts and away from the “shortcut” thoughts.

On a side note, while I was on vacation, I ate whatever I wanted to. I told myself before I went up there that I was going to do that, but just be sure to eat small portions. But that was out the window when I walked through the door and my mom made me my grandmother’s recipe of peanut butter fudge–my all time favorite thing in the world!

So needless to say, I gain about 12 pounds while I was up there. Yikes, huh?!

I’m okay with it, though. I’ve been able to get about 7 of those pounds off. I’ll have the rest off in no time. Even if it takes me a few months. I really do feel good about it all.

I truly feel happy in the skin I’m in.

.