Weight Watchers Weigh in #6

After Meeting Update-
Start weight - 250 lbs
Current weight - 241.8
Weekly loss- 1
Loss to date- 8.2

This last week has been pretty good food wise although I only tracked about 20% of the time. The fact that I have removed my scale from my place made me a little bit nervous about weighing in this morning. I was down 1 lb and I feel a bit like I have dodged a bullet so I am really going to get back on the tracking bandwagon this week so that I don't have to be worried before next week's weigh in. As long as I track and stay within my points, I will have no fear of the scale. The plan is good, executing the plan is a bit more difficult.

In other BIG news, my trainer has discovered some flaws in the way that I walk, having flat feet is wreaking havoc on my posture, my enitre body is out of sync and this is what continues to cause the pain in my lower back. Get this, he said he was trying to figure out why I have pain in my lower back when my body is now so strong.... MY BODY and SO STRONG being used in the same sentance just blows my mind......

Finally I have to go out to a law firm we work closely with in my job and I realized I have nothing to wear. I really dress quite casually at my job and have just made due with my old clothes. I am currently wearing size 22 dress pants and tops that are just way too big, and I really feel like a slob and a horrible representation of our department if I show up like this next week. I asked my fashionista friend to take me out shopping yesterday and I picked up a beautiful dark grey sweater jacket in an extra large and I tried it on with a pair of dress pants I had previously bought which are a size 16. I was in the change room and I almost broke down in tears looking at myself in the mirror. I liked the way I looked and I was proud of my curvy figure. To actually like the person who was staring (and smiling) back at me was probably the best feeling I have had in a while.

Onward and Downward.

personal training session today

was kickboxing. My first kickboxing session since I watched the fights on the weekend and proclaimed to my trainer that I want to step into the ring. It may seem a bit strange but I felt the need to work extra hard today, sort of to prove to my trainer that I am willing to put in the work to get to where I can actually fight in a ring. Oh boy, and work I did. I was exhausted by the time I was done..... sweat was dripping from my ponytail in the end and my shirt was drenched, but I worked really, really hard and I think did a solid job.

I just read back over my last few posts and realize I must seem a bit obsessed with this whole kickboxing thing and all I have to say is...... yup I certainly am!!!! lol

A plan is forming

I wrote about my night of being inspired by kickboxing and to be honest, have not thought of much else since. That athlete who resides deep with me is beginning to push its way out.... I can feel it... my internal dialogue is no longer screaming that I can't do it, my mind is now automatically telling me,"you got this - they are doing it, you can do it too"

Now I realize that this is still quite a ways off and it is going to take a lot of hard work on my part to get from where I am now, to getting into a ring and kick boxing but you know what, I never in a million years thought that I would be where I am today in comparison to where I was 2 years ago.

So this morning when my trainer met me at the gym, I told him I have made a decision, I want to kick box in a tournament..... then I followed it up with "now don't tell me I can't do it, even if you think I'm too old, or not skilled enough, just let me try and work towards it anyway" I guess there is still a little bit of the old me who doubts my abilities and has limitations on what I can do. My trainer, is on board with this. I have decided that I want to work towards losing 40lbs by January, which will take me to around 200lbs, and then I will join the hard core gym where I can train to fight.

I am super excited about this. I keep thinking about the day I joined the gym just under 2 years ago and telling my trainer that my goal was to do a try a tri..... he got excited about that goal and made it possible for me to get there..... and I have faith that he will be able to get me to this new goal as well.

Onward and downward

kick boxing inspiration

Just home from watching the Kick boxing tournement and WOW, I am super inspired. There were about 10 fights on the card and about 3 of them were woman. In two of those fights the women were actually a lot bigger than I ever expected, in fact one woman was around the 200lb mark. They were awesome to watch and when I saw how the crowd was cheering them on..... I was in awe.... I want to be out there fighting. OMG I can't even believe that I said that but I do, I want to be in a kickboxing match.

Weight Watchers Weigh in #5

After Meeting Update-
Start weight - 250 lbs
Current weight - 242.8
Weekly loss- 3.6
Loss to date- 7.2

First weigh in sans daily weigh in and I was down 3.6. I will take it... Struggling a bit today as I am having some back pain, trying to tough it out. Went out for dinner last night and stuck with a pint of richards white and an order of chicken quesadilla which was not too bad on points, but then we decided to hit up demitres for dessert. Ummm yeah, coffee with milk, brownie cheesecake (I only ate 1/4 of it) and a bite of my friends strawberry crepe.

Tonight I am off to see a Kickboxing match.... try and learn some technique and be inspired.

Scale Update

The correct way to weigh yourself:


I can't believe I was doing it wrong all these years.

Now I have attempted to lose weight many, times, and I have changed things up many times however the one thing that I have never done for any length of time is weigh in ONLY 1 time per week. As previously posted I tucked my scale away into the trunk of my car, and while I am struggling with not weighing in 2 or 3 times a day, I found that I am being extra careful in following the program. Since I don't have the scale to tell me that I have a few pounds to play with, or telling me that I haven't lost anything, I can only rely on my abilty to follow plan..... and follow the plan is what I have done.

There was a woman at weight watchers on Saturday who has been at goal for 6 years and she said her secret is that she always writes in her food journal.... still, 6 years later she has not missed a day. She said on a previous attempt at losing, she would write in her journal Monday to Friday and then not write on the weekends. She said that she always lost a lot slower back then and was not nearly as sucessful. She was describing me - the 5 day a week weight watcher.

Over the next two weeks I am going to focus on being a full time weight watcher and once a week weigher inner (lol). I figure it can't hurt and anything that makes me more sucessful is definitely worth a try.

Day 4

Without my scale.... I was tempted to pull it out of my trunk this morning and weigh in on the concrete floor in the parking garage, then talked myself out of it- lol It is hard - and I mean really hard, to not weigh in, but, I think I am learning from this experience. Will write more later.... off to work.

Overcoming Failure: Its what you do next that matters

Weigh in number 4 was not kind to me. I was up 3.4 lbs. Now I know I did not eat an extra 10,000 calories over the last week so there are non food contributing factors..... my monthly "gift" being one of them. Now I started jumping on the scale yesterday morning and have stood on it about a million times since then. I know that these gains are going to happen and they will even themselves out, hopefully by next week. I also know that historically, these gains are what deflates my motivation, and basically causes me to jump off the wagon and stuff my face, even though this weeks gain is just a fluctuation due to something out of my control, by going completely off track that weight gain becomes a reality at next weeks weigh in.

In an effort to make this weight loss experience sucessful, I thought about what I could do to make this program work for me and more specifically change my behaviour when I have small gains, which I know IS going to happen again.

Number 1, is rather than give in, I gave myself a PEP talk all the way home from my meeting, reminding myself of all the wonderful things I have accomplished so far and all reason why I need to stay on track. This is merely a tiny blip on the radar and it really doesn't matter in the whole scheme of things.... what does matter though is how I rebound from this - what I do next.

Number 2, and I have spoken about this recently, is my scale. I am basing my sucess on the what the scale says and manipulating my plan based on the number on the scale. This morning I packed my scale up and threw it in the trunk of my car. I am going to focus my effort on my weight loss plan and exercise plan and refuse to let that darn scale mess with my mind! As much as I hate to admit it, getting rid of my scale is one of the hardest things I have done on this journey, but it is imperative that I learn to trust myself and base my sucess on how well I follow the program and NOT on what the scale says. By focusing on working the program, the scale will have no option but to comply!

I have just put on a crock pot with Osso Buco style stew (sp) as well as a smaller crock pot filled with Steel cut oats. I have been relying on processed food far too much in the last few weeks so I want to get back to basics, planning and cooking my meals for the week.

Onward and downward.

Hitting the trails....

So I have had a fantastic Labour Day weekend. Saturday night I went to see the Lost Boys, wow, they are a great bar band, they played lots of different kinds of music and there were a few people from the audience that came up to sing with them.. We asked them if they could play a song, and they told us that they could play it but one of us would have to sing..... ahhhhh a new though is forming..... bucket list item #12. Take singing lessons and then sing in front of an audience. I already know the song will be "What's going on" by 4 Non Blondes. Funny story from the bar.... a 29 yr old guy tried to pick me up- he
asked how hold I was and I asked how old he thought I was - he said 33, so I told him I was 44 and he said..... well your still hot as hell.....lololo, my friend and I laughed all the way home at that remark!

Yesterday I spent the entire day at family's place where they hold their annual horseshoe tournement... lots of food lots of drinks and lots and lots of fun......

Today I went out and met a friend of mine for some mountain biking...... some turned into lots as we rode the trails for 2 hours..... lots of hills, some I was able to ride up, some I had to push my bike up. By the end, my shirt was drenched and my body was tired but I have never felt better! I am going to take my camera out here one of these days to try and capture the beauty out there. We went to a different park today. I went to this park years ago (when I smoked, and didn't work out) and literally I was exhausted and couldn't go on after only 10 minutes.... The funny part is I never even made it into the hills, that was all on flat terrain. Today I was so proud of how far I have come.

The bonus is that in the 2 hours I burned over 700 calories..... Yay

Weight watchers- weigh in #3

So today was weigh in day. Last night I grabbed a bag of pretzels from the store (hot buffalo wing flavor-yum) of course I ate the entire bag and then counted that they cost me 22 points. The good news is that I I had the flex points to cover them, but the bad news is they were full of sodium so this morning I was feeling quite bloated. I still managed to lose 0.4 lbs which I was quite happy with. This week I am going to see if I can work my flex points in earlier in the week and see how that goes.

So yesterday at the gym I was doing weights. First was lots of dead lifts - where you bend over at the waist and pull the barbell up as you straighten up. I did some other weight exercise as well and then we moved on to an exercise which is so hard for me..... Basically I was holding a 25lb dumbbell in each hand and had to swing it up in front of me to shoulder height, then push them upwards beside my ears until my arms were straight over my head. My trainer challenged me, he picked up two 45lb dumbbells and I challenged him to do this with me. If I failed to do it I would have to do a half mile on the treadmill in under 7 mins..... So I managed to do 20 reps, even after I said it was impossible for me to do so. Challenges are good!

Tonight I am out with some friends. We are heading out to see a band play at a little pub. Every hear of the group called the Spoons from the 80's? There are a couple of band members in this band called the lost boys. Tomorrow I am heading out to a horseshoe tournement and on Monday I am going mountain biking.... It is going to be a busy weekend but I am excited about it.