Cara's Weightloss Journal

I found a very interesting article yesterday. It was in the February issue of Reader’s Digest. It was an interview with Gary Taubes who wrote the book Why We Get Fat—and What to Do About It last winter.

The article started by confessing that Taubes has been called “a dangerous cherry picker of data—someone who searches through decades of studies to weave together the bits he likes.” But in the past five years, top researchers, after recent compelling studies on obesity and weight loss, are now starting to take his arguments very seriously.

What Taubes has been saying lately is, basically that the theories of “calories in-calories out” and low-fat diets are just about completely backwards from what science has been proving for decades about how to lose weight.

Here’s are a few things he says…

Read more »

I’ve turned a corner in my weight loss journey.

Well, no, wait a minute… not in my weight loss journey, but in my heart.

The most I can hope from this turn, is to not do a u-turn and head back down the path I’ve been on for the past couple of years.

As many of you might know, I’ve been on Weight Watchers since May 2007. So in a couple of months, I’ll have been trying to reach my goal weight for FOUR YEARS. (yikes) I still haven’t reached goal. 

Sure, I’ve reached major milestones along my journey, all of which I’m extremely proud of, but I haven’t reached my ultimate goal weight yet.

Well, now I hope with this new turn, I can get there.

A little bit of history about my weight loss journey, for those of you who are new. Weight Watchers has taught me SO much about how to eat right. It’s taught me what foods are good for my body and bad for my body. It’s taught me that I can eat whatever I want to eat as long as I eat responsibly and watch my portions. It’s taught me proper exercise. And an all around healthy look at the way I eat.

I’ve also tried a few other diet plans along the way, though none of them I’ve stuck with for very long. Maybe even a few weeks at a time. But each time I dabbled in something different, I learned so much more about foods and how they interact with my body.

I learned a great deal from the Eat Clean Diet. Man, if you ever want to learn exactly what food does to your body, that’s the place to start. My husband tried a medical weight loss diet and I learned  a lot from his journey about carbs and sugars and protein and how they break down in your body for the good and bad.

So, all in all, I’d say I have a pretty good grasp on how to diet, or rather how to eat right and exercise to lose weight.

But here I sit, still 30 pounds from my ultimate goal (20 pounds from my Weight Watchers goal).

I was almost at my wits end when I recently stumbled across a lady who’d written a book about cravings. It started me to thinking about how throughout the 200+ blog posts and 4 years of daily eating and exercise habits, it has always come back to cravings for me. That’s always been my down fall.

My cravings are SO bad. I’m sure you can all identify with it. A real good visual is the orange fuzzy monster that Weight Watchers came out with a couple of years ago to represent the “cravings monster” who stalks us and follows us wherever we go. I can say I’ve never physically seen that monster in my path, but I have definitely felt him emotionally and mentally taunting me and teasing me and making funny faces at me ALL THE TIME. My cravings are such a real and tangible thing.

So back to this book. It’s by a lady named Lysa Terkeurst and it’s called Made to Crave.

The book is about how God made us to crave, but not necessarily to crave food but more to crave Him. Listen to this verse: “How lovely is your dwelling place, oh Lord Almighty! My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.” (Psalm 84:1-2). It says ‘my heart & flesh cry out for God’. If I had to be completely honest with myself, my heart and flesh cry out for cheese fries, juicy burgers, lasagna, cheese & bacon soup, coconut cream pie, bacon & onion mac & cheese, donuts and full fat lattes (though my list of “crying out for” foods, could continue for another paragraph or two, to be truly honest). And I’m afraid that I’ve let my cravings for food consume my craving for God.

Here’s an excerpt from her book that really sums up how I feel right now. She’s talking about her endless cycle of waking up each morning and weighing herself just hoping that the scales would be kind to her, but they never were, and so she’d step into the kitchen and each whatever yummy thing she could find for breakfast, and start the cycle of bad choices for another day only to repeat this process every morning. Anyway, here’s the excerpt:

And the cycle I’ve come to hate and feel powerless to stop continues. … But I did need to make changes. I knew it. Because this wasn’t really about the scale or what clothing size I was; it was about this battle that raged in my heart. I thought about, craved, and arranged my life too much around food. So much so, I knew it was something God was challenging me to surrender to His control. Really surrender. Surrender to the point where I’d make radical changes for the sake of my spiritual health perhaps even more than my physical health.

Part of my surrender was asking myself a really raw question.

May I ask you this same raw question? Is it possible we love and rely on food more than we love and rely on God?

That hit me like a ton of bricks.

I am a deeply spiritual person and I rely on my God and my Saviour, Jesus, for every breath I take and everything move I make. How could this be humanly possible that I could love food more than God?

But I think back over the past 4 years, heck, the past 44 years, and I can see where my life has almost always revolved around food. I schedule for it. I anticipate it. I devote serious amounts of time to food every day of my life. You might even say I’m a bit obsessive compulsive about my lovely food. 

So maybe there’s something to what she’s saying.

Well, that is where I am right now. This is the corner that I’ve turned. I have no idea what’s around the corner, but I know that I need to reexamine myself and my heart and get my priorities and my cravings set straight.

I’m only on chapter 4, but I feel like I’m on chapter one of my weight loss journey. And I feel really good about that. I really feel that if I could knock my cravings, or at least get them under control, I could beat this weight loss thing.

Well, I’ll let you know how it goes. I plan on journalling more frequently (I know, you’ve heard that before). I want to work through this new process a bit more and I’m gonna need your help to get me through it. We’ll see where I go from here. I hope it’s to a better place and a more sane reality for me. Because I just don’t know how much longer I can stay on the path I’m on continuing to not reach goal.

…

P.S. If you’re interested in the book, I can post more info about it. Just let me know.

“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!

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.

.