13 to go for GOAL! And a recipe I can't wait to try...

Well, I am down 1.2 pounds over the past 2 weeks. YAY! I could not BE more excited about this week's Weight Watchers weigh-in. I expected to be down, but from here I have THIRTEEN POUNDS LEFT until I am at GOAL WEIGHT!

I found a recipe I am just dying to try out - Cranberry Walnut Pie. It is a crustless cake-like pie and it sounds amazing. I got the recipe from another blog I really like, CanYouStayForDinner. Here is the link to the pie recipe:
http://www.canyoustayfordinner.com/2010/09/16/cranberry-walnut-pie/
I'm gonna write it again... Cranberry Walnut Pie. SERIOUSLY!?! I am going to make an adapted version of it this weekend, with a little less sugar, and egg beaters and applesauce instead of the eggs and butter. I will let you know how it turns out - I really can't wait to make this!

For those of you who like to bake, I have found that substituting egg beaters for eggs and unsweetened applesauce for oil or butter in a recipe yields really great tasting results with far fewer calories. Sometimes, the substituted version of the recipe is even better than the original. I use straight measurements to substitute, i.e. 1/2 cup oil becomes 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce. 1 egg = 1/4 cup egg beaters. Pumpkin pie, chocolate cake from scratch, breads, muffins, boxed cake mixes all do very well with these substitutions. I have yet to find something that doesn't really work with it, but I'm not sure cookies would work as well. The cakes, breads and pies are great with it, though!

And so I now leave you with this - there are 33 days left in this year. There will probably be a lot of baking in those 33 days. Substitute! And at the end of these 33 days, I will be (at least) 3 pounds lighter and make my mini-goal. Did I mention I only have 13 more pounds to lose until I am at GOAL? ;) YAY!

35 days until New Year's, Thanksgiving and STRESS

For whatever reason, I miscounted before and I have 35 days from TODAY until it is New Year's Day 2013. My goal is to be 5 pounds lighter by then. Five pounds in six weeks is no easy feat. But I want to be there.

This past weekend was Thanksgiving and I did not keep up my CBL (Carb Back-loading) eating. And I felt AWFUL. I did get a fair amount of activity, including the 4-mile Mile High Turkey Trot and also a 27-mile bike ride, but that ride was followed by consuming margaritas, which led to, well, not the best night. And that led to not the best day as I tried to recover. (But I did *thoroughly enjoy* those challah french toast slices that aided in my recovery! :) All I can say about CBL is that I feel better both physically and mentally when I eat that way. I'm going carb-free until Friday to sort of detox myself from Thanksgiving and be back on CBL.

As for losing these five pounds by New Year's, I'm giving myself the license to eat whatever I want on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and New Year's Eve. Otherwise, it's CBL and tracking and working out regularly. Those five pounds WILL be off come New Year's Day - or by my Weight Watcher weigh-in on January 3rd!

One other thing I want to address. I was very stressed out last week. I had an incident at work with a friend/co-worker that left us, well, no longer friends. It was very disappointing and I was very upset about it. I do believe that the stress contributed to me being lackadaisical about my eating all weekend, and that I went further from my CBL plan than I would have had all that not been going on. (I see this now, in hindsight.) One positive takeaway is that I did not talk negatively to myself over my poor eating choices. I just let it be, and chalked it up to my mood and the stress and moved on, finally climbing back on the wagon Monday. So perhaps I am improving how I treat myself.

And with that, I'm working on being five pounds lighter by New Year's. I will just do it.

fifteen to go, and GOALS

Since I last posted, I've lost just one more pound. I will take it. The current weight-loss slowness is attributable entirely to ME. I had a work conference in Florida (yes, ANOTHER trip to Florida), FIL went into the hospital, managing work has been very difficult with the departure of my boss and now my IT support guy... and I allowed all these things to get in the way of my goal. And that sort of leads me to this:

When I started this blog, my goal was to lose twenty pounds by the end of this year. It is *unlikely* that I will lose the remaining fifteen pounds before the end of the year, given that there are only six weeks to go. (However, if I keep this relatively low-carb CBL thing going, that may be a reality!) Sometimes we have to revise our goals.

I can't get to the original twenty pounds I wanted to have lost by New Year's, but I will still get to twenty pounds. Just because I don't reach the goal in my original timeline doesn't mean I can't reach it at all. But by the end of the year, I can certainly get myself to ten pounds gone. After I reach that stepping-stone goal, I will continue working toward accomplishing the big goal by losing the final ten pounds.

My new stepping-stone goal of losing five (more) pounds in six weeks is completely realistic. I just have to stay on track for those six weeks - thirty-six days of staying on track. I am going to come here, EVERY DAY, and post my on-track status.

Today is DAY ONE of THIRTY SIX DAYS on track.

Gain Lessons

I am up 1.8 pounds this week according to the Weight Watchers [and my own bathroom] scale. I could attribute the gain to the thick socks and heavy sweater I was wearing, but really I expected that the scale would be up. So, what did I learn this week?

I learned that no matter what Weight Watchers says about having those "extra" weekly points [calories] available, I should not use more than 20 of them if I want to see real losses on the scale. Basically, I ate more calories this week than I should have. I think my points level [calorie level] should be at the LOW end of the recommended spectrum if I want to lose weight.

I also learned that I do have to track fruit points and not eat it for "free." If you are a Weight Watcher, fruit does not count against your daily food intake. However, it still has calories, and it USED to count in Weight Watchers. I abuse this "free fruit" concept. I will factor fruit in to my daily food intake from now on - fruit will still be consumed, but it will be tracked with a points value, not as a freebie.

Two weeks ago I used only 15 weekly points and had no fruit - that week I lost two pounds. This past week I ate fruit without tracking it (free) and used all my weekly points [calories], and I GAINED. Lesson learned, now going to put it in to practice!

16 pounds to go.

the birthday goal

According to my bathroom scale - which means without clothes - I missed it by .2 pounds! I came very close. If you go by my weight on the Weight Watchers scale, I missed it by 2 entire pounds.

HOWEVER... this means I did lose 5 pounds!

Our trip to Florida involved SEVERAL fruity drinks, quite a bit of fried food, and lots of other snacky things we don't normally eat. We barely worked out. By the time we went to the wedding, I had a canker sore from all the margaritas and was on to dirty martinis. Talk about doing some damage!

On our flight back to Colorado, we decided we'd do a detox where we had ZERO carbs for 10 days. It totally worked. I lost the vacation weight and then some. DH did it with me to be supportive, but of course he ended up losing weight. I think he leaned out (if that is even possible) but he certainly doesn't need to be losing any weight. He's back on the carbs full-tilt, as of today.

Because the detox left me feeling so good, I'm sticking to the modified version of the program for the next month. The program is called Carb Back-loading, or CBL. I know people who have had fantastic results, so I'm trying it. It really is easy for me to do and I am surprised. Basically it is hold off on breakfast as long as you can, then when you do eat during the day, make it very very low carb. Work out in the afternoon, and after your workout you can add carbs in, so long as you keep your calories in check. This is to be paired with pretty intensive weight training and is not well suited to endurance sports (running often or far, spinning, cycling, rowing, etc). The idea is to sort of regulate your insulin, spiking it after a workout to trigger muscle growth while inhibiting fat storage.

I'll let you know how it goes. I have completed 2 weeks on this, the first 10 days were no carb, the last 4 days have been carbs only after the afternoon workouts. I have had NO cravings and am not hungry, ever. It's honestly quite amazing. Apparently once you start adding the carbs back in, you will gain back some of the initial weight lost, so I suppose we will see Thursday where the scale really lands. But overall, it's great. I did go through a moderately uncomfortable couple of days in the middle of the 10-day prep (no carb) phase, but that passed and I have felt really good ever since. As my dad would say... "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

14 pounds to go. Yay, me.

on body image and utter ridiculousness

Last weekend I attended a wedding in the Florida Keys. It was really wonderful, the entire weekend was fantastic except for one little segment.

Here are 2 photos (which I really like) that were taken of me while at the wedding:

These pictures were taken JUST before I had a pretty good meltdown over how badly I believe I look these days. The meltdown could have been sparked by the effects of either the drinks I'd had or a residual jellyfish sting reaction... but some of it is, well, definitely attributed to unexplainable self-loathing.

DH's response: I don't even want to acknowledge this ridiculousness, so I'm not saying anything.

I get his reaction, I really do - NOW. That day, I did not understand his reaction - but four days and two fantastic photos later, I have no explanation or justification for the absurdity of the garbage that was coming out of my mouth. But, the garbage was coming out of my mouth and I never want that to happen again. I'm not perfect, I will never BE perfect and that's OK. (After all, only God is perfect.) But I am working on improving myself, and that is wonderful.

My little episode lasted only fifteen minutes, but it was a brutal fifteen minutes and a blemish on what was, otherwise, a spectacular vacation. I have since talked with DH about my issue with myself and this particular incident. He was great. He agreed to help me make the "U-turn" in my thought pattern if I even start going down that road. I have decided to make a conscious effort to stop any negative self-talk - in my head and especially out loud.

This is... NOT an easy thing to deal with and it is NOT a change which will not happen overnight, but I'm happy we talked about it and that I can see how ridiculous it is. My goal is to work toward being able to recognize that I'm being ridiculous and do the U-turn myself as those thoughts are happening. At least I'm aware of The Crazy, so I think that is a step in the right direction.

I feel like as I lose weight, my image of myself has become worse, and I want to stop that trend. I think this is important to acknowledge because it really is one of the tougher things to deal with on a weight loss journey. I know many others go through it, too.

I'm working on it!

one month 'til my birthday...

I'm not into posting more than once on a given day, BUT I noticed that today is exactly ONE MONTH from my birthday!

BIRTHDAY GOAL: 7 pounds to put me down in the next scale decade. :) A difficult goal, yes... but also a doable one.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnddddd GO!