Boy is it hard to find pictures of me...

I started looking for before and after pictures of me. Apparently I've never been one to have or save pictures of me. Not even when I was a reasonably thin teen.

Me at age 17 napping... ( about 120lbs)

Even less likely after I gained weight....

Me at about 16 months ago, (about 240 lbs, roughly where I've been for the last couple of years)

Me at church Easter Sunday..... (about 214lbs)

Yesterday I got my hair cut. I went in thinking I wanted something different than the normal long enough to control with a pony tail. OH my. I forgot how curly my hair is when it is short. This is after it dried, I rode my bike and got helmet hair and it was brushed a few times... Yeah I did manage to brush some of the curls out of it... You should have seen it after my shower. DH says I look younger. He likes my curls. But then he's pretty supportive, loving and kind all the time, not just after I have several inches of hair cut off. DD thought my morning still wet curls were not just "curly" but "scary curly". Maybe for Halloween I'll take a picture of that. I'm thinking a blow dryer may well be my BFF till my hair grows out again. (unless I get used to it and keep it short) I couldn't decide on which picture to put for new haircut so I give you 2 to chose form which is your favorite?

April 28th 2009

April 28th 2009

Yeah, none exactly award winning beauty but I am what I am. And special Thanks to my DH who put up with a lot of rejected pictures to get a few for me to choose from. And today is his birthday too! (homemade yellow cake with strawberries and whipped cream for him and strawberries and cool whip for me.)

The question of the day...

A friend asked me this queston today "You've tried to lose weight before right - successfully once or twice in the past, less successfully in recent years. So what is different this time?"

It's a combination of many things. In the past I've wanted to lose weight for various reasons. I'm sure that they were all good reasons, but not necessarily the right reason. Not necessarily the reason that I could feel deep down.

First of all I want to be an active part of this amazing family DH and I have built. I was raised in a family that got up went to school/work came home ate watched TV slept then got up and did it again. There was nothing else. Nothing much out side the family and survival. This family DH and I have built isn't like that. We participate more in the world because we want to be a part of it. Volunteering, gardening, homeschooling, church, bike riding, even running for political office.(DH is running for school board again) etc.

Even with all this going on I was feeling very left out. Always behind, even on vacation I took pictures of DH and DD as they raced ahead and I drug myself behind. Rarely enjoying things, struggling to keep up, often sending them on ahead. Then DDstarted staying back with me. She started gaining weight. She'd rather sit home and watch TV. I don't want her to be me. I want her to live her life. I want to live mine.

That's still not all. I finally looked at who I am and I didn't like it much. Sure I'm (usually) a nice person. I try to be. But a lot of the things I want/wanted to do with my life are just not possible weighing 100 lbs more than I should. The bike tour is one of them. I'm a relatively small person. 5 foot 3 inches, small bones. I cannot go on a long bike ride and haul an extra 100 lbs up hills and keep up with my family. I can't even keep up on a short ride with small hills. Our last vacation back east, I missed several things because I just couldn't keep up with the walking in the heat. I used to be able to fool myself that I was "healthy" even if over weight and that I could do anything I wanted to do. I was lying to my self. I quit lying to my self.

The Bike ride is a tangible goal, and I think that's important too. It’s something the whole family has to work to achieve, I have to lose weight and get in shape, DD had to learn to ride a bike and get in shape, DH has to figure out how in these financially stressful times to find enough money to get the bikes etc to make the ride. He says I have the harder job here. I'm not so sure of that, it's going to be expensive.

Another big thing is DH and DD supporting me in this huge change. My WW meetings are supporting me in this. You guys are supporting me in this. Not because I’m fat and need to lose weight, But because I want and need to do this. It's a huge thing. It's going to take a lot of time and effort.

All my life I'd compromised and said good enough is good enough, even in my weight loss efforts. I'd lose a few lbs and say I feel better it's good enough. Good enough isn't good enough this time. I'd diet for a while and say I tried and I can't do it. "I tried" isn't good enough. If what I try isn't working I need to try something else. I don't remember who said, "Insanity is trying the same thing over and over and expecting to get different results."

Before when I dieted I'd say I want to lose x # of lbs but I could be happy losing less. This time I want to be in a healthy weight range. For my height and age. 135-140 is healthy. 138 is in the middle somewhere and exactly 100 lbs below where I started. 100 llbs is a good round goal number. It is a concrete number. I can celebrate mini goals but only as mini goals, as landmarks, not as an end point, not as good enough. I'm trying to make my mini goals mean something. This week I am below the lowest weight I've been since I got married 13 years ago. My next goal is only about 9 lbs away. 199. I haven't been below 200 lbs in over 25 years. After that my mini goal will be size 18 clothes. I think I was about 21 the last time I wore something that didn't come from that special store for fat women. I want to be able to go into any store and find clothes that fit me. At size 18 I'll be able to find something. After that I don't know exactly what my mini goal will be. I may just shoot for the final goal at that point.

So I guess it’s not a single thing. It’s is a bunch of things. It’s a lifetime of stuff catching up with me. It’s finally being ready, having all the supports in place and really needing to do this to be who I want to be. The moon and stars are aligned and it is working.

This weeks menu posibilities..

Tomorrow- Homemade BBQ Pork Ribs, Rice and Grilled Zucchini with the left over grilled Pineapple from a couple of days ago.

Thursday -We will be cooking for Homeplate a teen homeless program. The menu is hot dogs, potato salad fruit salad and of course cookies or brownies. I'll be bringing my own Fat Free hot dogs and go light on everything else.

Friday -Ham, Mashed potatoes,corn green salad or fruit salad.

Saturday- Maybe Pasta with tomato/eggplant sauce. (Pasta al la Norma in Italy)

Sunday -Fish, Couscous, Green Salad

Monday - Something Potato based maybe.

Tuesday is DH birthday so we will be going out where ever he wants.

Weigh in end of week 15...

Down 4.6 lbs for a total of 29.4 lbs. I not only finally made my 25 lbs, I nearly hit 30lbs! Over all it was a good week, personal best length of time on the trainer (45 min), gardening for 2 days in the sunshine, and I got in almost 9 miles riding to and from my WW meeting today.

I now officially weigh less than I did when we got married 13 years ago. I have only 9 lbs to go to hit my next goal of "anything under 200".

The weather is Sunny and warm. DD has swim lessons today so I may try to drag myself into the water, unless DH is willing to take her, then I will scrub the kitchen floor as DH has done an awesome job of cleaning while I was out riding in the sunshine today.

Spring gardening and the day before end of week 14 weigh-in

The newly arrived spring weather is AWESOME! We are in the upper 70's mid 80's this week. Yesterday we inspected the bee hive and did hours of gardening, weeding etc. Today I mowed the front yard. Later this afternoon I'm going to plant my tomato starts.

If today's scale is a predictor of tomorrow's weigh, in I'll have finally passed the down 25 lbs mark. Yippee! well maybe yippee! Tomorrow we know for sure. According to my scale I'm a tiny bit below where I was when I got married 13 years ago. Fingers crossed for tomorrow. Now we inter new territory, striking distance of being under 200 lbs. I'm going to be working really hard to make it not take as long as the last couple of lbs.

Sunshine, weight loss, and planting the garden! Life is good.

Yesterday Giving In and Penance, leftovers and random stuff

Yesterday at my CRB meeting I gave in. The boss as usual brought Donuts. I guess he figures if we can volunteer he must feed us donuts. I can honestly say NONE of us needed those donuts. Sigh. Oh well. I ate one. It was very yummy. After sitting in that meeting all day I knew that between the lack of movement a donut and lunch out (though I actually made a good choice there) I was going to have to so some penance. So after dinner ( leftover chili as DH had an evening meeting at 6:30 and I didn't get home till 5:00) I got on the trainer and rode for 45minutes. That was a new personal best for me by about 17 minutes if I remember right. I kept saying If I can do 20 minutes I can do 25... ( increase by 5 min) at about 40 minutes my rear end said forget 50 45 will do! My mind was easily convinced at that point. Maybe it was the soggy sweatshirt or the salty sweat dripping in my eyes but the rear end won with out much struggle from the mind. I counted down the last minute. I might have even made an hour if it had only been tired muscles. Maybe tonight I'll try for longer.

Breakfast this morning was an egg scrambled with a little diced ham and some grated cheese in a corn taco shell. Did you know that the taco bell brand corn taco shells are only 1 point? Much lower points than corn chips and good with black bean salsa, salsa or chili? A little bit of chili in side one, a sprinkle of cheese and some lettuce and tomato, low point high flavor goodness and you can have 3 for a reasonable lunch sized meal.

Tonight will be homemade Broccoli Beef, and Rice with Roasted winter squash on the side for the squash loving part of the family.

Tomorrow I'm hoping the weather will be good and I can plant the veggies out side. The tomato beds will need plastic covers in case of frost but the rest should be fine. I'm getting everything ready for planting today.

We are going to CA in a couple of weeks. DH will be doing a couple of bike rides and taking care of some stuff at the embassy in SF. DD#2 and I will be visiting with my family and going on a Girl Scout trip to Marine World with DD#1 (a girl scout leader) and her kids. I didn't really plan on going but DD#2 wanted some help with a very short active person... My grandson, as he wouldn't be able to go if she had to focus on him, as she is troop leader and needs to focus on the other 19 kids including DD #2. That's OK we will all have fun and Hiking Marine world and Chasing the grandson should be good for a LOT of activity points.

Some meals for this week.

Last night we had the veggie chili I talked about in a previous post.

Tonight we will have 2 versions of veggie Lasagna.

The first will have layers of thinly sliced zucchini, mushrooms and onions layered with No boil lasagna sheets and some ricotta mixed with chopped spinach.(more spinach less ricotta gives you some creaminess w/o all the extra calories) It will have 2 sauces. One a lite white sauce made with 1% milk, Parmesan cheese and a bit of flour for thickening. The other a lite tomato sauce with grated carrots, chopped celery and onions seasoned with salt pepper and basil. For simplicity you could use your favorite jar sauces. Because of the whole diet thing only a little mozzarella cheese on top.

The other (smaller one because I do not like squash!) will have roasted butternut squash, caramelized onions and a white sauce with Ricotta cheese and of course it will get a bit more Mozzarella and Parmesan cheese than my more diet friendly lasagna.

The weather is supposed to improve this week so we will also have a meal of grilled veggies, Eggplant, asparagus, red bell peppers and probably some Italian sausage for DH and DD. I'll serve it with some good crusty bread. (then park the bread on DH's side of the table!) We will also have a simple fruit salad with it.

Also planned for this week is Broccoli Beef and Rice. The sauce will be Hoisin based I'm not sure the exact recipe. It will take a bit of experimenting on my part to get it right. Last time I made this I used the recipe on the bottle for Chinese BBQ sauce and it came out pretty good if not totally authentic.

If we have a rainy day (and when in Oregon do we not this time of year?) I'm looking at making a Potato and Broccoli casserole or having a baked potato/salad bar. Which will depend on how much slicing and dicing I feel like putting in to the meal. The casserole requires very thinly sliced potatoes, onions and broccoli. The bar can be as easy as baking potatoes and steaming broccoli then setting out, sour cream (lite of course) chives grated cheese etc. You can even go to a nice store like Whole Foods and raid their salad bar for toppings and salad if you really want to make it easy.

Lunches are usually left overs or salads or some combination of the two.

Breakfast is often oatmeal, high fiber cold cereal or something eggy like scrambled eggs, fritatta, or a breakfast sandwich on a flat out flat bread. (scrambled eggs, lean ham maybe a sprinkle of Low fat cheese, Salsa if I'm in the mood for a bit of spice in the morning)

I will keep my points distributed as I usually do about 5 points for Breakfast, 7 points for Lunch and about 10 for Dinner. That leaves me 3 points for snacks or if I go a bit over at a meal. Of course I also have my Weekly Points Allowance of 35 per week if I really need them but I rarely use them and save them for special occasions. Now that I think about it why are all my special occasions falling on the day before weigh in? My birthday was on a Monday, my Anniversary was on a Monday, Easter was Sunday but that's close enough that I didn't want to eat a bunch of WPA. Can't we have a special occasion on Wednesday??? That would give me a week to work it off.

It's been a few days since posting and Its weigh in day again and "walking" challange.

I need to post a bit more regularly, because I need to think about the diet and exercise to actually do the diet and exercise! Last week I forgot to buy my new 3 month food journal, so over all I didn't journal much. I did try to keep track mentally and did OK but not great.

This week I was down 0.6 lbs. That is I lost the 0.4 I gained last week plus 0.2 more. So I'm STILL 0.2 lbs away from losing 25 lbs. I guess at least I wasn't up yet again this week.

Weight Watchers has a new 8 week walking challenge. train for 8 weeks them walk a 5K at the end of it.

I'm in NO way interested in a walking challenge. But I am going to follow their time line and do a riding challenge. This week I'm going to set a baseline on how much I ride then I'm going to increase each week. I'm not sure how much yet DH suggested 10% per week, but I'm still thinking about it. The replacement end even may be to ride to a state park stay in a cabin over night them ride back the next day. This will depend on how far to the state park and cabin availability.

Last week we had a couple of good weather days and I took the bike to the store etc. I will continue that this week by doing errands by bike on dry days, and riding on the trainer on wet days. I will get some exercise everyday.

I'm also going to do better meal planning, more veggies, salads, and whole grains. I may also do more vegetarian meals this week. We all enjoy them and they tend to be lower calorie and high fiber. Tonight I need to work on a meal plan for the week then tomorrow I can post it.

And the solution is ...

Must exercise MORE. Duh! I broke the plateau and lost 4.4 lbs the week My goal was 5 activity points a day. I lost 0.4 lbs the week I though I should cut back a bit. I gained 0.4 the week next week for a back at plateau kind of effect. So day before yesterday I rode my bike to the grocery store a couple of miles away. Yesterday I repeated. (Yeah I forgot the milk) Still only about 2 activity points. ( 11.5 min each way) So Yesterday we added going to the library (3.9 miles each way) and I got a good 8 activity points for the day. I was also wiped out and went to bed early. I guess I'll get used to it eventually. Today and tomorrow look like the weather will mean time on the trainer instead of running errands. One additional point less gas/car usage if I'm running errands on the bike.

Here's hoping it's not too little too late for this week. I want to lose something, anything this week after last weeks gain!

It's looking like the weather is going to have me working in the garden to get things planted soon. That will be a bit more activity but I wonder how you would count pulling weeds and planting?

Church, Groceries, bike bags, the Trainer and thinking about a mascot...

Last Sunday I was surprised to find the ride to church (4.4 miles) was easier than before. I wonder how much is weight loss and how much is working out on the trainer. I cut my last years time for the same ride by almost 40%.

Today I went to the grocery store on the bike. I'm guessing it's about 2 miles away. It took about 11.5 minutes each way. Not bad since it has one hill that takes a bit of work to get up. Oddly it was a lot less work than in pre-trainer times. I'm also getting the feel of a general slope over the ride. (before it was just I hate these hills) On the way to the store it was a bit harder more uphill, on the way back was much easier with only one hill to climb and most of the ride slightly down hill. I was surprised that it was easier because I was carrying groceries in my bike bags. I was also worried that they weren't very well balanced as I bought a few heavy things that had to go in one bag to keep them from crushing the eggs and bread in the other bag. Both bags were only about half full but one was much heavier. I can't say I really noticed it except when I stopped for a minute to check something and nearly tipped the bike over because I let go with out bracing it well enough. I considered taking the trailer out today even though I didn't really have enough stuff I needed to justify it. It just wasn't worth the time to stop and figure out how to attach it. It's supposed to rain tomorrow and Friday so It will probably be the weekend before I get a chance to try it out. Maybe Sunday if we ride to church again.

I do think that the trainer has a lot to do with the speed increase as DH also has significantly increased speed since he's been using it this winter. Of course he's also been doing Spinnervals DVD's while on the trainer. I'm so not ready for that.

Over all it does give me hope that I really can do this.

DD has offered me the choice of quite a few of her stuffed toys as a mascot for my bike. I'm not sure if I will chose one of those or find something else. Maybe I should have both my girls choose something. Or many be I can find something that reminds me of each of them. I'm currently thinking perhaps Eeyore(DD#1), Piglet (DD#2), Roo (Grand Daughter), and Tigger (grandson) might work well for this if I can find them all in extra small size. Kind of McDonald's prize size. Then I can take my kids (and grand Kids) with me when I ride. I've got 3 of them... I would just need Tigger to complete the set. I could just use Piglet but That wouldn't be fair to her big sister!

Ugh.

Up 0.4 lbs. So a total of 24 lbs lost. Time to rethink and figure out what I'm going to change this week.

Night before the Weekly Weight Watrchers Weigh -in...

Nope no predictions tonight on if I will make 25 lbs tomorrow (I only need to lose 0.4 lbs to do it) or will gain... I truly have no idea, I haven't weighed much this week.

How ever I won't go into depression if I don't because yesterday (and today!) the weather was lovely and the family all rode bikes to church. We've done it before and it takes about 45 minutes to get there and I usually end up swearing all the way up at least 4 hills. Not really great on the way to Church but hey I"m being honest here. Well Yesterday was special! Not only did we do the ride in 28 minutes 22.43 seconds. (yes I did time it!) But I didn't even swear on the way up those hills! The return trip took 27.45 minutes. OK there was some minor swearing on the way back, there is one hill that I really do not like just before we get home. This was after 2 weeks of riding the trainer. Now that said that darn trainer is evil. It is much harder to ride it for 28 minutes on level ground than to ride the bike outside on slightly hilly ground. Go figure.

I'm hoping for continued good weather this week as I have a LOT of garden work that needs to be done. Those darn weeds are a pain, and isn't grass supposed to grow slow? Oh well, I did Get the peas planted finally. DH installed the Bees in the Behive today.

Back tomorrow wiht end of week 12 weigh-in. Fingers crossed.

The day after april fools day...

Yesterday I rode the trainer for 23 minutes... in spurts of about 5 to 10 minutes over the course of a couple of hours. Not perfect, but better than not doing it at all. Then just as I was settling for a long winters (um spring) nap, DD asks if it's alright that her fish Cassie is hiding head down in the fish tank.... No unfortunately not an April fools joke. Poor Cassie and Poor DD. Her first pet death. It hit hard, so we stayed up very late cuddling on the couch till calmness set in and DD slept. Then I stayed up later planning for today's school assignments. Then I couldn't sleep so I stayed up even later trying to unwind. I ate some cereal and milk... breakfast at 2 am, it's going to be a while till lunch. Then I woke at 7:30 and after a struggle to really wake I finished School assignments for today. Not really conductive to being functional or on track diet wise today. Oh well I can get back on track if I have a slightly early lunch and a late snack before dinner.

Today is DD's swimming again. So we need to be ready to leave for that by 12:30. And we have quite a bit of school to get through today so I better get DD up and at it.

I predict today will be a long and stressful day.

UPDATED**** 6 points swimming today during DD's lesson.