Progress Report Tuesday

It’s Tuesday, right? I did wake up this morning wondering what day it was. Then wanted to cry when I realized it was only Tuesday. Seems like a long week already! Geez.

Either way, it’s time for Progress Report Tuesday! The results this week, a loss of 1 pound! Not quite sure how that happened. Wait. Scratch that. I do know how. I don’t think we went out to eat once in the past week. Hmm…what a difference cooking one’s own dinner makes! Oh, and more than one meal this weekend consisted entirely of popcorn. And while I did not track any points again this week, I still kept my afternoon snacks and dinners low to no carb. I’m telling you, it works!! I mean, how else could I lose a whole pound, not tracking my points, writing down what I ate, OR doing any exercise??

Yes, workout class was cancelled both Tuesday and Thursday and lazy me didn’t do anything else instead. It was a busy week this past week. With no good shows on TV, we were actually doing things in the evenings. Working in the yard, cleaning the house, cooking.

That’s like last night, I felt like I had such a productive evening! Having watched no TV, I updated our budget spreadsheet for the month of May (which took a long time, actually), I played on Twitter a bit, posted some recipes to my blog here, cooked dinner, washed, dried, and put away all the dirty dishes from all my cooking Sunday and last night. By 10:30pm, I was exhausted! I could barely keep my eyes open long enough to get ready for bed!

Alright, I've been working at my weight loss for just over 2 months now. My total loss so far has been 9.6 pounds! That's crazy! A lot of my work pants are actually getting really loose. And these are pants I've had for years! Some since I first started working 3 years ago. Was I really that much bigger 3 years ago when they fit when I bought them? Man, doesn't seem like it. I do think I'm a lot more fit and toned now though than I used to be. So I think I'm weighing more than I used to but I'm still smaller since I've gotten more muscle. Such a great feeling. I always told myself I wanted to be in super great shape before I ever got pregnant and it looks like I've finally made it! Just about. There's still a few jigglies that I'd like to trim down still. But CardioSalsa starts next week! Woohoo! Can't wait!

Progress Report Tuesday

It's Tuesday again. Though it feels like Monday since it's the first day back to work this week. Thank goodness for holidays, right?!

Okay, so the progress this week? Loss of .2 pounds. That is pretty good given the fact that I quit tracking my points this week. I still did pretty well with the no carbs after 3pm. We had fish and corn Tuesday night, steak and squash Wednesday. Thursday was bunco and I did NOT follow the rules. Friday we went out for Mexican. Who can pass up chips and queso?? Saturday we did pretty good. Ate at my mother in laws house and she made jerk chicken with rice and squash. It was yummy. Sunday we did good with steak and beets. Yesterday we went to the beach all day. I snacked on pretzels, goldfish, and cherries at the beach and then we had cheeseburgers and corn for late lunch. Then I had a few cookies the rest of the day...never ate a real dinner. Just wasn't hungry. <-- Really starting to realize when I'm actually hungry and when I just feel like eating. Great progress!

Either way, I'm doing really well in proportioning my food and watching more closely what and how much I eat. Good job me! :o)

I got compliments from my mother and sister in laws about how great I was looking and how tan I had gotten. That made me feel good. All my effort is starting to show! Woo hoo! Now I'm really looking forward to vacation in 44 days because I'm feeling SOOOO much better about myself!

I'm actually a little sore today from running around at the beach with the dogs yesterday. We were in and out of the water...running through the sand. They had a great time!! Need to start rollerblading more.

Progress Report Tuesday

I’m not sure how I managed to do it, but I had a loss of 3.4 pounds this week. Now, granted, 2.2 of those were what I had gained the last week, but I really wasn’t expecting to lose much more than that and I lost another 1.2 on top of it! Crazy. I hardly counted points at all this past week. I did for like breakfast/lunch/snacks, but I never added up dinners. We had leftover fajitas for dinner every night and I never tried to figure out how many points it was. Even as early as yesterday morning I still hadn’t even lost the entire 2.2 pounds I had gained. But I don’t think I ate very much yesterday so I guess that’s why it so much less this morning. I had a late brunch of a lean pocket about 11am, then only had 2 graham crackers with peanut butter for a snack at about 4:30pm (no lunch) then we had a light dinner of pork chops with tomatoes and squash and then I had a small cup of ice cream. All before 8pm. And didn’t go to sleep until about 11pm. So yeah, I guess that would make up for it. I didn’t realize until just now how little I ate yesterday. Hmm. And I wasn’t ever too hungry either. Must have been living off my fat stores. :o)

I’m not sure how much longer I’ll be actually tracking my points. Seems like I can only make it about a month before I start to slide on the tracking. But like I said before, I’m really starting to see what I can and cannot eat on my own. I basically eat the same breakfast/lunch/snack every day during the week so it’s really just dinners that I need to be careful of. And as long as I plan it all out at the beginning of the week, I do pretty well with that. It’s only when I don’t plan that we run into trouble.

I decided this morning that my goal was to fit into a particular pair of jeans that I own. I haven’t tried them on in a few weeks. Last time I tried, I could get them on, but I could barely move in them! So my goal would be to be able to wear them comfortably. I’ll try again in a couple more weeks and see where I am.

Our cardio/abs/strength training class ended last week and our new cardio salsa class doesn’t start for a few more weeks. Our instructor, however, has agreed to meet with us at the park to keep up the class until the next session starts. I’m so happy about that! I love the classes with this instructor. She’s awesome! So no down time between classes! And it’ll be nice to be outside for a bit in the evenings. We had a small cold front come through (surprisingly, this late in the year) and it’s been beautiful weather so far this week.

Only 51 more days until vacation!! That’s definitely enough motivation to keep it up, keep it up, keep it up!!

Progress Report Tuesday

Oh, what a sad, sad weigh-in day today. GAIN of 2.2 pounds! Agh! Back to where I was almost three weeks ago! Bad Julie. Bad bad bad. I knew it was going to be a bad week, being “that time” and all…giving in to more sweets cravings and what not. But geez. This is awful. I have A LOT of work to do this week to make up for it. Too bad we still have fajitas and dump cake leftover from Sunday. We’ll be working on that for a few days to get it all eaten.

I SO need to go rollerblading. I meant to go last night, but never did. I just wasn’t feeling like exercising. I’ve been exhausted this week so far! This morning I could barely drag myself out of bed and to top it off, I didn’t even know what day it was!! I thought it was Monday again! I seriously had to ask John what day it was. I am completely out of it. And that was after getting a good 7-7.5 hours of sleep. Granted, I didn’t sleep particularly well. I tossed and turned a lot. Kept waking myself up…had all these weird dreams. I hate nights like that. Definitely need to go to bed early tonight. Eat when I get home, go to workout class, tan after class, take a shower when I get home and go straight to bed. (So what if it’ll only be like 9pm?)

For a second week in a row I didn’t count my points all weekend long. So I have no idea how many I had this week. Obviously too many. Only got in my two workout classes for exercise last week. Unless you count a whole day of shopping as exercise. :o) Haha…I thought not!
Well, at least today is a new day and a new opportunity to do better. I will not give in to my failure! I will only use it as a tool to push myself to keep it up, keep it up, keep it up!!

Progress Report Tuesday

Tuesday again. Which means another weigh-in for me this morning. This week’s results? Loss of .4 pounds. Not too bad considering I haven’t kept track of my points since Friday morning!! AND it’s “that time” coming up and the progesterone pills make me retain water like a sponge! So overall, I’m pretty happy with the results. Though the water retention is still making me feel like a COW! Ugh. Why do I have to be so hormonally challenged??

Since I have not kept track of points for the past 4 days, I have no idea what my total ended up at for the week. Probably way over since we went out to dinner a few times and went to a crawfish boil on Saturday all day. I did, however, watch my portion sizes MUCH better. When we went to Texas Roadhouse on Friday, I only ate like 3 bites of my actual meal since I had already had most of a salad and two rolls. So I took the rest home and John and I actually split the rest of the leftovers for dinner on Saturday after we got home from the crawfish boil. Good job, right?? And I’ve been trying to eat slower so that I can register earlier that I’m full. It’s working out quite well.

My exercise has definitely not been up to my own standards lately. I went to class on Tuesday and Thursday, but that was really the extent of exercise last week. John and I did buy rollerblades on Sunday and we rollerbladed to Matt and Bailey’s (about a 15min. roundtrip). And we plan to rollerblade fairly often…hopefully with the dogs once we get used to it again so they don’t knock us down so easily!

Sorry for the lack of posts the past few days. I’ve been completely out of it lately. Can’t even think of anything to write! I did (semi) make a menu for this week, but I didn’t know how well we’d stick to it since John will be schmoozing it up at OTC a few days this week and won’t be home for dinner. So I didn’t post my Menu Plan Monday. But if you are interested, on the menu for the week, we have: taco salad, chicken stir fry (no rice), some kind of chicken casserole (just throwing together chicken, cream of mushroom, broccoli and cheese), and steak with zucchini. Anywho…maybe I’ll get my brain back sometime this week and I can figure out something interesting to write about!

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Progress Report Tuesday

Wow, is it already Tuesday? Another week has gone by? Where have I been?

Status for this week? Down another 2 pounds! In four weeks I have lost 6.8 pounds. Good for me! I hardly got in ANY exercise though this last week. Our class was cancelled on Tuesday, but I did walk the dogs a bit. I didn’t work out on Wednesday as I had dinner over at Val’s and then watched Twilight after I got home. We had class on Thursday. Bailey came over Friday and we watched Twilight again…and it was raining again, so couldn’t even walk the dogs. Saturday I just did some cleaning around the house to get ready for my husband to come home. We laid on the couch ALL day long on Sunday. And then it rained again yesterday so there was no exercise to be had then either. (Plus I was too engrossed in my book). So my loss in poundage this past week comes pretty much only from my diet.

I know I ate WAY less this past week. For once, I finally stayed within my total allotted points for the week. My max is 210 and I ended the week using 173. I have a feeling this week will be pretty similar. I just started my 10-day cycle of progesterone which kind of messes with me. All day yesterday I was hungry when it was time to eat, but I just didn’t feel like eating. Food was grossing me out. I didn’t finish my shake for breakfast. My cheerios were stale so I didn’t eat much of them. I only ate half my leftover casserole for lunch. But I did finish my yogurt snack and all my steak and broccoli for dinner. *sigh* Another 8 days to endure this.

Not sure what the dinner menu will be this week. I see steak quesadillas and hamburger helper in my future though. :o) Hopefully that will get us through the rest of the week!

As it is now, I really don’t know where my goal is. Weight-wise, I was thinking another 5 pounds, but I know I’ve been gaining muscle, so I don’t know that I quite need another 5 pounds. Body-wise, I’m starting to look (in my opinion) really good. I’m happy with me right now. A few places here and there I still want to trim a bit, so I’ll keep it up just a bit longer before I start trying to maintain. I got here a lot sooner than I was expecting. Now I have to maintain for a lot longer! I just hope I can. Willpower…all I need to keep it up, keep it up, keep it up!

Progress Report Tuesday

It’s Tuesday again so it’s time for another progress report! My “official” weigh-in this morning (as official as my bathroom scale can get) showed a loss of…wait for it…2.4 lbs!! That’s the same amount in 1 week as the first two weeks put together! Wow! I think it might be hard to keep up with though. I didn’t eat much yesterday (as I didn’t feel real good last night) so that might have played a role in the big loss number. But I will try my absolute hardest to still show another loss next Tuesday.

My exercise was minimal last week. Walked the dogs Monday, workout class Tuesday, nothing Wednesday (I don’t think…), short dog walk Thursday after Bunco, nothing Friday-Sunday and then I didn’t feel good last night so I did not walk the dogs like I had originally planned. I did a lot of cleaning last week though, does that count?

Diet-wise, I was over my total max points again for the week (crazy I still lost again…). My max was 213.5 including my activity points and I ended the week with 220. So not too bad, a little better than last week, I think. But I think I’m starting to really see what I can and cannot get away with eating. I have cut out a lot of carbs, I think. Besides the remaining bit of Easter candy I have, though it’s all dark chocolate or sugar free chocolate, so it’s a little bit better. Like I mentioned before, I’m trying to not eat carbs after 3pm, which I’ve been doing pretty well. I’m definitely eating A LOT fewer than I was. We’d have some type of carb for dinner every night and carbs were my main snacks at work. Now dinners are more proteins and veggies and snacks are more yogurt, fruit, veggies, and beef jerky. I REALLY REALLY REALLY think I am losing weight like I am because I’m eating fewer carbs. I am definitely noticing a difference. I’ve suffered from hypoglycemia my entire life and now that I’m not eating so many simple sugars, I haven’t had an issue with it in weeks, and I’ve even been going longer between meals. Crazy what effects a simple little change can bring on! :o)

Now that I’m actually losing weight and I’ve been taking this weight training class for a couple months now, I am really starting to see changes in my appearance. Some of my clothes are starting to fit better (though not ALL). I’m starting to get my confidence back. It’s really a great feeling! But it sure is motivation to keep it up, keep it up, keep it up!!

Progress Report Tuesday!

It’s Tuesday again, which means another week of WeightWatchers has gone by. Weigh-in this morning showed a loss of .2 pounds! Yay! Why is it so exciting that I only lost .2 lbs, you ask? Seeing as I did not count any points at all Friday through Sunday and have been eating (in moderation) Easter candy since Sunday, I’d say that’s pretty darn good!

As for working out, I did not go to class Tuesday, I did a workout at home Wednesday, class Thursday, walked around the outlet mall for about 5 hours on Friday, ran around chasing the dogs at the beach for a bit Saturday, nothing Sunday, and last night did my physical challenge on MFC and took the dogs on a ½ hour walk. Not too bad.

Overall, I’d say it’s working out well so far. I am definitely feeling A LOT better about myself these days, which is always important. J

Keep it up, keep it up, keep it up!

Progress Report

Alright, this past week’s official progress report. I am quite happy to say I lost 2.2lbs! Now, as they may seem like quite a lot, it really only brought me back down to where I was about 2 weeks ago. So, while I am quite happy with this week’s progress, I know I still have a lot of work to do. I ended up using 222 points, 12 over my absolute maximum allowable. I also had 3 days of structured exercise plus the entire weekend where we spent TONS of time outside doing yardwork.

Unfortunately this week is not starting off too great. I will be missing workout class tonight since we’re going out to eat for my dad’s birthday. We’re going to a seafood restaurant so hopefully I can get a fairly healthy meal…grilled fish or shrimp with lots of veggies would be ideal. So I MUST workout tomorrow, class Thursday, and hopefully another workout Friday. Saturday we’ll be at the beach, so I hope to get in some running around with the dogs.

If I lose any weight this week it will be VERY exciting. The weight I am today I haven’t been at since probably December, so losing any more will get me back to where I was around September-ish and that will make me happy!

Keep it up, keep it up, keep it up!!

Progress Report

Today is the day I was supposed to write my progress report on my weight loss/exercising. Well, I decided this morning that I did not want to do it on Fridays after all. Since I started actually tracking my points on Tuesday, my weigh in day will be Tuesday mornings, so I should probably do my progress report on Tuesdays. Besides, my week thus far has not been stellar in the very least. I need to double check my book when I get home, but I’m pretty sure I get 18-25 points per day with a “flex” stash of 35 points for the week. Does that sound right? So in one week I could have up to 210 total points to work with. Granted, having ALL 210 probably won’t get you much progress (at least not fast progress). Since Tuesday, I have already had 108.5. From now until Monday night, I can only have another 101.5 to stay within my budget. That should be pretty doable. I have, at least, done very well with working out this week, so that’s helped since I’ve earned myself some Activity points.

Okay, so there’s a mid-week progress report. I hope to have good news come Tuesday! I must now get back to work…break over!

I know of one.

I have chosen one of the weekly posts I am going to start doing. I will start doing a weekly progress report on my staying on track with my point counting and exercising. Not that anybody is holding me accountable for my progress, but maybe if I know I’ll have to spill everything about what I’ve done in the past week it will be better motivation to do better! I’ve been struggling with a pesky few pounds for years, but in the past year it’s crept up to a pesky 10lbs. Not that I am at all overweight, or fat, I know that, but I’m just not happy with where I am and I have yet to be diligent enough to do something really productive about it. But since starting our workout class this semester and starting to see actual results, I have new motivation. (Like a Caribbean vacation isn’t motivation enough!) I know I can get down to where I want to be, it’s just a matter of making it happen and sticking to the plan until I am happy. I don’t know, however, on which day I will report my progress. I’ll probably end up doing Fridays…that will be a good break from work on a Friday afternoon. J Then I don’t have to worry about if I’m too busy on a weekend to post…and I can’t post Monday since it’s the start of the week. Okie dokie…Fridays it is. Stay tuned for this week’s report tomorrow, then!