Simply Filling Technique

So I'm trying something new.  Since Tom will be away quite a bit in the next month, my life is going to get very busy.

Weight watchers offers you two options for tracking.  Track everything you eat, using daily points, weekly points and Activity points.  This means measuring out everything you eat and keeping within the daily points target.  The other option is Simply Filling Technique.  You eat power foods until you're satisfied and track all non power foods using your weekly points and whatever activity points you earn.

Power foods are foods that are low in fat.  Chicken breast, other lean meats, most veggies and fruit, fat free dairy, low fat/high fiber grains etc...  I looked back in my tracker and most days I eat mostly power foods anyways.  Some days I only eat a few points of non power food foods.

I think this'll be easier, and the fact that I'll need to use activity points to get more points will help me get in more activity!

I won't be posting my tracker anymore. It's just way too difficult to try to do from my iPad. I will try to at least discuss what I ate during e day, especially if it were. Cheat meal :). Today I ate well, even went out for a quick lunch with my hubby and the kids after he got home from being away all weekend.  I had a fruit bowl and half a cup of cottage cheese. I did eat the lunch I brought to work too, tuna salad made with heluva good dip over salad. Dinner was a roast chicken from the super store, rice and salad.

My treats for today were a drink To, poured for me tonight and a butterscotch pudding :)

Weigh in is tomorrow, I'll be down, not sure how much though. I'll be happy with whatever it is. My legs are still really sore from the 30ds and my weight is up a bit from the water I'm retaining from that, but I'm not worried. I've been pretty good :) it'll come off eventually.

30 days of pain???

Yup. I started Jillian Michaels' 30 Day Shred yesterday.  I'm hurting so bad I can't even sit on the toilet comfortably, lol!  Even though I was sore, I still got my butt out of bed to do it again today!  And I plan to do it tomorrow too!  Yup I'm nuts. But I know I'll get results from it, it's quick, it's right in the next room, i dont have to get dressed and it only cost me $5.

I had a weird weekend food wise. I was good all day Saturday then had 3 slices of bread with dinner, then today I ate we'll up until after lunch when I had 3 timbits (donut holes for my American friends). Then I was seriously exhausted and too sore to cook, so I actually ordered in a pizza for me and the girls.  I had 3 slices of the small pizza. With a salad. With doing the 30ds and the over an hour walk (pushing both girls in the stroller) I know I had lots of activity points to cover most of it, but I really don't want to make a habit of it!

Yesterday I did something I was really dreading doing. I tried on my sisters knee high boots. My sister has skinny legs and they did up!!!

I have a picture but I can't get it on here!  Stupid.

Well it's bedtime, my poor body needs some downtime :)

(Really having issues posting pictures from my iPad!)

Goal weight?

I've been pondering today, well for a while now.  Weight watchers wants us to pick a goal weight. They recommend choosing a weight inside your healthy BMI range. For me at 5 feet 4 inches, that range is between 117 and 146.

 I've been all over the place with what I want my goal to be.  Lose half my weight to be 125 lbs, 135 lbs because it sounded small, then I talked to a personal trainer who was smoking hot and weighed 165 lbs, so I chose that, then I figured it sounded cool to lose 100 lbs and get that 100 pound medal, 145 lbs is just within the 100 lbs lost and the BMI range.  So that's been my goal for a while.

I hate that weight watchers makes you choose a goal.  I love the program and plan to go to meetings for the rat of my life.  I get so much out of them. But I really want to lose this "gotta get to goal" mentality!  I've lost 84 pounds!  I've already won!  If I'm healthy, eating well, staying active, living life, isn't that where my goal should be?  The number really shouldn't matter. 

The past few weeks I've been staring at that 145 lbs like its so far away. I feel great in my body these days. I feel comfortable in my size 10's and M/L's. I'm confident, I feel healthy, I can do everything, move without pain, run up the stairs, around the block, with my kids. As far as I'm concerned, I'm at goal!  So why the hell do I need to struggle to lose another 23.4 pounds to reach a goal that I'm going to probably take 2 years to get to, then struggle to stay at.

I'm wondering if that weight is unrealistic for me.  I've been comfortable being in the 160s for a while now, my legs and arms are skinny, my collarbones stick out and my butt is so boney it hurts to sit on anything hard!  I do still have a great deal of extra skin. My family doctor said a couple of months ago that that skin weighs more than I think it does.

I'm thinking of asking my doctor what she thinks my goal weight should be.

I don't want to meet my goal weight because I want to start cheating more, I don't want to give up.  I just think my body is choosing a healthy weight.  If I choose a weight goal, I can still lose beyond that if my body so chooses.  I just think it might be coming time to close the weight loss doors and open the maintenance one. Live my life on plan and whatever my weight ends up being, that's what it'll be.

My husband suggested I pick a goal date instead of a goal weight. Follow program in the weight loss portion, then when I hit my goal date, whatever my weight is on that day, is my goal weight.  He thinks my goal date should be early summer.  That way I have the summer to maintain and will hit lifetime around labour day. He might have something there!

I'm sure I'll hem and haw over this for the next few months. In the end though, I'll be at goal weight no matter what the number is :)

Your thoughts on the matter are appreciated!  Love you all!

Highs and lows

Today was a weird day.  I woke up with the same headache I went to bed with (for the record, that headache prevented me from eating the pudding I'd tracked, saving me 3 points) choked down my breakfast after sleeping in and went to work. Thankfully I didn't have a busy day and could pay attention to what my body was telling me. I had a dizzy spell around 10:30, didn't feel like having my snack, my headache was making me nauseous.  I took my blood sugar because I was curious if my dizziness was related to my blood sugar (remember I'm a Nurse Diabetic Educator) and yes it was!  My blood sugar was low!  So I choked down my yogurt and tested again a few minutes later and it had come up.  After lunch I felt crappy again and checked my sugar and it was even lower!  I didn't have an afternoon snack packed (very unlike me actually) so I had to have whatever was on hand.  A couple of store brand chocolate chip cookies. It brought it up a bit, but now my curiosity is peaked and I'll be monitoring my sugars for a while.  I have checked my sugars here and there, and they've been low/normal, but the fact that I have dizzy spells that my doctor can't figure out the reason for, I think it's worth the second look!

I didn't get any activity in today with feeling gross, but I intend to really start ramping it up over the weekend once the weather gets better.  It looks like the forecast is going to catch up with the season here!  Check out this forecast!  Above freezing and sunny all week!

Here's my day in food :)

On the ball...mostly

I felt pretty good all day about starting over.  I really want to just do this and get it over and done. I'm done with stressing over small losses and how long its going to take to lose the last 20 or so pounds. So I spent today on plan!

One of the girls I work with brought these in, yes that's golden grahams, chocolate chips and peanut butter in those babies!  Right up my alley!  I decided I didn't need it though because I had a plan to make my hubby's favourite dessert, my banana cake. So I decided to save my points for that.

I ate we'll all day, didn't get the walk in at lunch that I wanted to do, there was a flash blizzard!  I made the banana cake when I got home, and the whole house smells awesome!  But when it came down to it, I didn't feel like using 7 or more points on a teeny piece of  (awesome if I do say myself) cake, that would only taste like more, so I had an apple and a pudding instead :). I might bring a piece to work tomorrow for my snack though!  I did sneak some chocolate chips though!

Now I'm going to relax and have some sleepy cuddles with Tom before he's gone all weekend doing overnight observer shifts in an ambulance!  I'm going to miss him!

PointsPlus™ Tracker entries

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Morning
12  nut(s) almonds	2
1  large fresh apple(s)	0
2  oatmeal with brown sugar and cinnamon	8
Subtotal	10
Midday
3  oz cooked ham, sliced, cubed, or shredded	4
3  oz cooked baby potatoes	2
2  serving(s) heluva good dip	3
1  serving(s) cheese string	2
1  large banana(s)	0
Subtotal	11
Evening
2  slice(s) bread	4
1  Tbsp Miracle whip calorie wise dressing	1
3  oz cooked ham, sliced, cubed, or shredded	4
2  cup(s) uncooked cauliflower	0
Subtotal	9
Anytime
1  serving(s) dark chocolate chips	2
1  serving(s) pudding	3
1  medium fresh apple(s)	0
Subtotal	5
Food PointsPlus values total used	35
Food PointsPlus values remaining	0
Exercise

Apologies

I'm still here I promise!  I'm sorry I haven't been blogging a lot in the past 2 weeks.  Life is busy with Tom coming close to finals and needing to study more, I end up alone with kiddies!  I think I'm finally over my cold/sinus infection, the exhaustion that followed and the side effects of the antibiotics, but I have to admit, I got out of the habit of blogging through all of that.

I'm ready to get back into the swing of things.  My diet control has been lax, not blogging, and my weightless is stalled.  So as of today I'm back!  I'm going to start logging my food on here again, It might be a day late, or two days at a time, but it was really helping me before and I think I should start again.

A bit of a disclaimer though, with the chaos that is life these days, I likely be too tired to post some days.  I'll do my best though!

So weigh in was tonight and I was up 0.2 lbs.  I'm pretty happy with that, I had a food filled weekend and ended my week with a 31 point deficit!

Even with the bad weekend, Tom and I are continuing the Tuesday tradition of chips, dip and chocolate.  We both find planning in a good treat helps us be more on plan the rest of the week.  It's working so far!  Well, except for this past weekend :)

Here's my food log, I figured out how to do it on my ipad!  I'm learning slowly but surely!

Weigh in day

Weigh in was tonight. I ended up going alone, my co worker weighed in at an earlier meeting, my sister Becky, a teacher, is away on March break vacation and little sister Annie, also on March break, forgot it was Tuesday :). So I sat in my "Sheldon spot" all by myself.

It turned out ok, I participated as I always do (I'm sure I look like a know it all keener, but no one seems to treat me like that!). I was actually approached by a couple of newer members for help after the meeting!  I really like sharing tips and tricks.  I feel I've been successful at weight watchers and I'd like to share what I've learned!  After all, this was my 74th weigh in!

I had another successful week, down 0.4 lbs!  For a total loss of 84.2 lbs.  Not as much as I was hoping, and still haven't lost all of the gain from 2 weeks ago, but I'm still recovering from ding sick and still experiencing side effects from the antibiotics, so I'm not surprised.

Well, onward and downward!  I'm exhausted and have to get the kids up early tomorrow :(

Nite!

I'm back!

I really intended on still blogging, but my cold turned into a bad sinus infection and this is really the first time I'm able!  Each night I'd just fall into bed and not get to even read a blog, let alone write one!  Not that my throbbing face was conducive to seeing straight!

Well I'm still losing.  On Tuesday I was down 0.6 lbs!  Not quite making up the gain from the week before, but my body does weird things when I'm sick. Namely retain water!  I'm hoping for a good solid loss this week even though I haven't gotten in much activity besides a couple of walks.

The weather is nice here at the moment and should be staying fairly mild, so I'm going to finally start a running regimen!  (You hear that body???  No funny business!!!). I'm wondering if I can actually do the couch to 5k now. I tried last summer but found I didn't have the stamina at 200 pounds. I can run for almost a mile, but then my lungs give out.  Maybe if I try the interval approach with c25k, I'll work up to being able to run longer after the 8 weeks.  I was trying to just run until I couldn't, but then I couldn't finish the 30 mins walking because I'd need to go home and get my puffers then cough like crazy for an hour afterwards (yes my doctor knows, and she insists I can run, and should!).  Maybe the intervals will give me the break my body needs in between runs and work up to running a longer distance.   I don't have a 5k race goal at the moment to train for, the one I wanted to run is around the same time that I'll be having surgery.  So I just want to continue to work on my stamina.

Today Tom and I used our winnings from A fundraiser we were at in December.  We took the kids to my mother-in-laws and drove out to Burlington to use our gift certificates to The Purple Heather Gastro Pub. It's a pub, but with a reinvented menu, everything is gourmet ish. They have all of the typical English pub foods, but with a neat spin on them.  To be honest, I was a little Leary of the menu and what I'd be able to have, but the worry was needless.  I ordered a near zero point meal, right off the menu!

Roasted spaghetti squash with sautéed vegetables in tomato sauce. 

It was really all veggies, the tomato sauce was crushed tomatoes and spices, I counted a tbsp of oil, just in case, but even with that it wasn't very many points.  It was seriously really good!  and you could tell that there is a very good chef working here because the blend of spices was unique, a little different, but very well done and delicious!  Because this was such a low point meal, I shared a buffalo chicken flatbread as an appie, and a omgitwassogood brownie for dessert. I would seriously recommend this restaurant to anyone and we will certainly go there again!

We then went on to Hamilton,parked the car and walked around downtown until it was time for the hockey game!  It was such a beautiful day!  

Here's the token Tom and Eva shot :)

The hockey game was pretty good!  It was two AHL farm teams of rivals to our Maple Leafs, so we just enjoyed watching some good hockey and time together. We walked during each intermission to work off our drink and popcorn :). I earned a whopping 8 activity minutes with all of the walking I did!  

All in all it was a really good day!  A successful one for a date on weight watchers!

Weekend away

Despite being sick, hubby and I packed up the kids and headed to Niagara Falls Friday morning!  We tried out a new hotel, a cheaper one, trying to save a few bucks and it worked out nicely!  We stayed at Country inn.  They have an indoor pool, fitness room, free wifi and offered a free full breakfast.

We had a great time!  The hotel was nice, quiet for the most part (there was a room across the hall whose occupants were rowdy and kept yelling out in the hall, but it cleared out after we called the front desk). The kids had a great time in the pool, I took advantage of pulling them around the pool and got some exercise in there :).

We walked to dinner carrying the kids, more exercise, I ate well, a cannelloni, a small salmon fillet, lots of vegetables and salad, plus a glass of wine and a piece of chocolate mousse cake :)

Breakfast was pretty good for a free one, hubby had waffles (make your own in a waffle iron), the girls had cereal and a bagel, plus some fruit, I had my usual!

Oatmeal with brown sugar and cinnamon, 2 plain eggs and a banana!

We took the girls to the Butterfly conservatory too!  Lara was so excited, she kept talking about butterflies the whole day leading up to us going!  Zaryah thought she was excited, never having seen a butterfly, she just did whatever Lara did :). Once in the conservatory though, she decided they weren't for her.  I've never seen a toddler master the "duck and cover" like she did!  She really didn't like them flying around her! 

On the left you can see her recoiling from the butterfly, on the right she's getting up close and personal with a king cobra!

Usually when I travel, no matter how short or long the trip is, I gain.  Today when I stepped on the scale I was pleasantly surprised, I weighed 0.1 pounds under when I weighed myself on Friday!  

If I can keep it down, I'll be set for a good loss on Tuesday!