March, the oven, and almost there

It's March.  MARCH.  I am happy to say I'm over halfway to my 20 pounds... not that I'm sticking to that number, necessarily.  But I have a good 7 to go, I'd say.

I have been doing Bikram Yoga.  This is hot yoga, 90 minutes in a 105 degree room, doing a series of 26 poses.  The series is always the same.  I have to be honest, when my sister said she was doing this, it sounded awful.  The heat.  The sweat.  The routine - I mean, the SAME postures EVERY single time?  But I went and signed up for a month unlimited, because two of my friends did.  And yes, if they jumped off a bridge, I'd probably follow them because I love them and where they go, it must be fun. 

I would not say Bikram yoga is fun, but I was very surprised at how much I liked it - and, after a month unlimited, going at least 4x per week, I *still* like it.  And no class is ever the same - I thought I'd get so bored with the routine, but the truth is that after going almost daily, I still don't know all the postures and when they happen.  And some days I will nail one of them, other days I won't even be able to begin it.  But I will always sweat it out, whatever "it" is, and I will always be happy that I went to the class and hung out in the oven. 

I have gotten a lot of compliments on how I look since starting the yoga.  I don't know if it's because of the yoga, or it's just that the compliments came from people I don't see very often. I haven't really lost much more weight - well, 10 pounds since I started this blog, but I'm tall so it's not very noticeable.  I probably lost only 2 pounds this month of yoga.  Whatever it is, I'll take the compliments.  They definitely help in the Weight Loss Journey - so if you see someone out there who is smaller, call them out!  But since the Bikram has been helpful, at least mentally, I'm signed up for another month and I'm excited about that.

And now I'm off to take a nap.  I haven't been updating as regularly because I have to do it from home, and I am rarely on the computer at home.  But I'm still plugging away.  I'm losing - slowly, but losing.  It is happening, and it is difficult,  but I'm just keepin' on.   Happy March, friends!

letting go of the number

At my WW meeting today my leader said something which was very timely for me, personally.  She has said it several times, but I only just now got it. She told us to let go of the number you are trying to get to. Each time she has brought this up, I have thought to myself 'OK great, but then that means changing my goal, why would I do that?' Well today, I got it. We have to let go of the number because it is IN OUR HEAD that we can't get to THAT number. She said we need to make the number something else - pick a different number, higher, lower, whatever.

My goal number is 1XY. 1.X.Y. I'm fixated on that number, and on the number of pounds I am ABOVE that number. Why did I pick this as my number? Because it is fifty, 5-0, pounds from my starting weight. 50 is another number! Really for me to be in the healthy weight range, I just have to get down to 1AB. So I could pick THAT as my number. I just need to focus on a different number, any number other than 1XY or how many pounds away I am from 1XY.

For this week, I'm letting go of 1XY. My new number to focus on is ONE. As in, I just want to lose one pound in one week. That's it. I'm going to keep planning each day, keep tracking, and keep attending the Bikram yoga classes I have started. And I know I can lose one pound.

By the way, I was down two pounds at weigh-in today after planning, tracking, measuring and attending yoga several times this week. Guess I'd better keep all that up for one more week. :)

freaking myself out over a number

Last week I got a new weight book at Weight Watchers - they put a sticker in your book every week with your weight and the change, from both the beginning and from the previous week. Last week they put a sticker in the last slot in my book, so I have a new book starting this week.

I am so very close to the next scale 'decade' as some call it. I did NOT want a sticker in my shiny new weight book that has my current, higher scale decade in it. I am so close to being in the next 'right' one, I didn't want the current high one on record... and it wouldn't be if I could just lose a mere 1.3 pounds this week. If I did that, I'd be down in the 'right' decade and my book would have no record of me being up higher.

Well of course I have totally sabotaged myself all week and there is very little chance I'll be down in that scale decade come Thursday morning. I am completely freaking out over a number. I need to just let it go. I know I will be disappointed on Thursday, I'm disappointed NOW. I have made all sorts of excuses for why I didn't make better choices, why I couldn't work out, why I want that cookie, why why why why WHY DIDN'T I JUST SUCK IT UP AND DO WHAT I NEED TO DO TO LOSE THAT WEIGHT? HONESTLY!!!!

Le sigh...

10 pounds

I did make my goal of 10 pounds down before Christmas. YAY, ME!!!!

Then Christmas and New Year’s happened. I would love to say I MAINTAINED that loss but judging by the amount of cookies I consumed, it is very likely I did not.... BUT. Since we won’t know for sure until my meeting next week, for now we’ll just say that I DID make my goal of losing 10 pounds before the end of the year. That is a true statement.

I had a lovely Christmas and New Year’s. I drove with my DoggyLove from Colorado to Florida. Marito flew and met us there, and we all drove back together. We did this so we could spend Christmas with our family - our entire family including our dog. It was totally worth the hours in the car, I wouldn’t trade it. We had a couple good family arguments, though lately those are more like ‘animated discussions’ rather than the chair-breaking, punching-holes-in-walls sessions they used to be. And the food… OHHHHHHHH THE FOOD! It was marvelous. I definitely indulged in all things home-made.

And I learned something. The two days before I left my mom's house for the drive BACK to Colorado, I started eating furiously. I mean, I was completely unable to control myself; I just gave up and ate everything available. Looking at this now I can see I was stressed about LEAVING my family and friends - my home, really – to come back to Colorado with no ski pass and a job I hate and a smattering of friends whom I feel could take me or leave me. (And yes, all that over-eating surely undid some of my goal-making, too, which I was aware of and which was stressing me out even more.) So now I know that on the couple days before I leave my family, I am prone to stress eating. I need to come up with some way to manage this in the future.

And now here I am at the beginning of January vowing (like every other American) to lose 10 pounds this year. Although really, I want to lose the 10 pounds before St. Patrick’s Day so that I can say I was at my goal weight before I got pregnant. Which leads me to my other goal of 2013… deciding whether or not I (we) really want to attempt creating progeny... but I digress. I do have a resolution, to lose 10 pounds and be AT GOAL WEIGHT this year. I love that 10 pounds makes for GOAL WEIGHT. I'm not resolving 50 pounds, or 25, 20 or even fifteen... just 10.

Happy New Year!

see-sawing

Popping in for a quick post, which promises to be quite dull. At last week's WI, I was up 1/2 pound. I don't understand. I'm still up 5 days later! Maybe saltiness? Girl issues?

I planned my day (as I have done for the past 2 weeks). I'm not eating very much at all. I'm not hungry, though, so that's good. But I've been eating all my APs and only half my weekly allowance, which is not a lot of food. I'm... truly unhappy that the scale did not show a loss, I thought for sure I'd be down in the next decade. Right now the scale is holding steady and I'm worried that at this weigh-in on Thursday, I'm still going to be right where I am. :(

I guess all I can do is stick to my plans and drink extra water and hope the scale cooperates. Right now, it is not doing that. I'm not sure what to do. Wait and see, I supposed... will check back in on Thursday.

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.