zilki

I finally did it . . . I put the candy bowl away where I can no longer see it every time I walk through my house.

I resisted the urge to go the bagel place and get a 1200 calorie luch with the girls at work and decided to go home instead where I had leftovers that would be much better for me.  But when I got done eating at home and doing some of my free weight lifting I had to leave though the kitchen and put the dog away.  And the whole time I was in the kitchen my candy dish (meant for guests, but I take a piece now and then) was staring me in the face.  I had the huge urge to just grab a piece . . . and I actually resisted it.  But not only did I resist it, but I grabbed the entire dish and put it in the back of one of my cabinents where I couldn’t see it.  I am far less likly to indulge if it isn’t in front of me all the time.

One little victory for today!

It is killing me . . . my challenge with my family my weigh in date has changed and instead of doing it every Sunday we are going to be weighing in on Thursday.  Don’t ask me why, I still don’t get it.  But that means that I didn’t weigh in this past Sunday, well I did that for two reasons; 1. I was at my parent’s house and didn’t know how their scale compared to mine, and 2. because I was going to weigh in on Thursday and report with the rest of the family.  Granted this doesn’t keep me from getting on the scale in the mornings to check anyway . . . and I think that my scale must be broken or something cause I was down 4 lbs this morning from the last time I weighed in.  I am dying to officially weigh in and update my weight tracker.  Who loses 4 lbs over the holidays?  Crazy, but exciting!

Also, as much as I love and miss my family I am loving being back home at my house.  I am back to my routine and getting in the workouts that I was dying to do.  So here’s to a great new year full of bug changes for me.

I’m back at work today after spending the last week home with my family in Idaho.  And when I walk in this morning there are goodie baskets and fudge in the kitchen and chocolate cookies waiting for me on my desk.

And to make it worse I was running late this morning and didn’t have time to eat breakfast.  So I dug around in my desk and found something better for me than cholocate, but I still can’t seem to get away from it.  Everywhere I go in the office there is candy staring me down tempting me to take some.

I keep filling up my water bottle and plan to go home for lunch and I am leaving early today so I hope that will help.  But man alive . . . save me from all this chocolate!!

Today I sat down with other members of my family and we worked a little more on how we wanted to set up our family weight loss challenge.  My mom pulled out her weight watchers stuff, we weighed in (I didn’t gain anything over the holidays VERY EXCITING!!) and set preliminary goals and came up with rewards, etc.  And my job was to set up a blog for everyone in my family to use to work together on this.  I really hope to pull some of what I learn from all of you through this site and bring them to my family to try to help them as well as myself.

Anyway . . . one of my biggest issues with my weight loss attempts is that as much as I can work out all day I have never been able to be one to count calories or really track what I eat or make the changes to my diet that would really help me.  So for the past two days I have been learning all that I can from my mom about her experiences with weight watchers and the points system that they have and how she uses it to track what she eats and make sure that she eats the right things in the right proportions.

This prompted me to do something I never thought I would do.  I got a food scale so that I can weigh and better know how much of what I am eating and help me to find the right portion sizes and keep in line with how much I should be eating.

Our challenge officially starts on Thursday, the first of the year to give us enough time to purge our pantries and refill them with the things that we should be eating.  I fly back to my home tomorrow so I can get started and get all  my tools put together.

I am really excited about doing this with all of my family!

So I am home with my family this week to celebrate the holiday and I spent today with my mom and two of my sisters.  I come from a family where most of us have struggled with our weight our whole lives so it seems to come up in conversation once in a while about what diet mom and dad are on this time.  Well my mom has been doing weight watchers for quite a while and lost over 50 lbs, but now has gained some of it back, but still she is an inspiration to me to see the way that she sticks to things.

Anyway . . . we were talking today about putting together a weight loss goal and challenge for our family with weigh ins and advice colums and blogs every week.  In the course of this conversation I gleaned a piece of advice from my  mom that I thought would really help me.

What she told me is that when she first started on her weight loss journey (cause that is what it is) she made a list of all the reasons that she wanted to lose weight.  Everything from fitting better in clothes, to being able to cross her legs easier again, to not wanting to get diabeties (which runs in our family), and many many others.  Her list got very long.  But in the beginning when things were hard she had that list out in front of her where she saw it everyday.  Before she took a bite of something she didn’t need she would see that list an remind herself why she was working so hard.

The reason this was such good advice to me is because when you have 80 lbs to lose like me , or whereever you are at, it is daunting and it seems almost impossible and forever far away.  And that piece of candy that is staring you down will give you so much more pleasure than the effects of not eating it will because you won’t see them for a very long time.   So her advice was to  make that list, keep in handy, and refer to it often.  If that means it is right by the handle on your fridge then great.

So my task for when I get home and as I prepare for this challenge with my family is to sit down and write out that list.  Try to determine why it is that I want to lose this weight, what is it that I want to accomplish, and someday start crossing some of those reasons off the list cause I can do them again.

I am excited that I am headed home tonight to spend the holidays with my family back home in Boise, but I have to admit that I am a little apprehensive.  It will be harder to work out and there is always tons of good food that is not so good for me.  But I have tried to prepare myself by packing my workout DVD’s and work out clothes and a skirt that is a little tight on me that I will have to fit into on Sunday so I can’t eat too much.  I will do my best to keep logging on, you guys are such good motivation . . . here goes nothin!

Despite serious cramps that hindered working out and some not so good cravings and some binging it looks like I am still gonna come out with a loss this week.  I don’t usually weigh in till Sunday, but I got on the scale this morning because I was afraid of what I would see if I waited until Sunday and to my surprise I was still down a little bit.  So TOM is hopefully going away today and so with any luck I get my workout in this afternoon and I can officially be a loser this week!

So I am two weeks into changing my lifestyle . . . I have seen some weight loss and felt the sore muscles which is awesome, but I have noticed a few other changes in the last couple days that have me pretty excited.

First, I love food, it is one of the great things about being alive and I have struggled with eating too much all my life; hence my current weight problem.  Well . . . all of the sudden after a couple weeks of limiting portions and cutting back on my snacking smaller portions are filling me up faster.  For example this morning I had a bagel with cream cheese and I had trouble finishing the thing cause it really filled me up.  Never have I felt full after eating a bagel!  This is awesome!!

Second, I find myself bouncing around more.  Yesterday I spent more time jumping around and playing with my dog.  I had all this extra energy even after working out for and hour and a half.  It was awesome!!

I gotta keep this up cause I am lovin this!!

I have been weighing in on Sunday mornings to keep things consistent and this last Sunday when I weighed in I had only lost one pound.  I had spent the last two week working out really hard and paying close attention to what I ate and all I had to show for it was two pounds.  I figured it was ok and I would keep working . . . so out of curiosity I got on the scale this morning and to my shock I was down another three pounds!  I had to update my weight tracker . . . amazing how that re energizes you and give you the motivation to keep going.

So last nights party was full of really good food.  I ate the dinner (which was fabulous), but kept it all in moderation.  But my real success for the night was not just that I avoided the appatizers, but that I avoided the huge desert table.  I had to stay on the opposite side of the room becasue it seriously had everything that you could ever want on it.  But, I knew if I got close I would indulge.  But I would concider that a success.  Sadly, this is my second week and once again I have only lost 1 lb.  But with how sore my muscles are I think that I am building muscle so I guess I can deal with the only one pound loss.