Another week bites the dust

First day back at work for the week. Tonight wasn't that bad of a night at work It was nice, the last several nights have not been as kind. This week will be super busy and I don't really want to think of how busy it will be, but I can only take it one night at a time. So the picture above is of what I have been eating for breakfast this last week. It is a carb check bagel with WW cream cheese and SF blackberry jam. The drink on the right is green tea. The drink on the left is a pineapple smoothie made with yogurt, pineapple, flax seeds, and water. The whole breakfast is like 5-6 points. It is really filling. Too bad I am out of bagels, so tomorrow I will be back to oatmeal.

Yesterday was my weigh in day and I was so happy. I was down 2.6 pounds. It was nice to see the scale move again as I had stayed the exact same last week. I am getting so close to my goal for before our anniversary trip to Kansas City.

Time for some honesty. Lately I have been really worried about gaining the weight back. There was this lady at WW yesterday that said she had lost 100lb and then gained it and then some back. The thought of it really scares me. I know that this is a complete lifestyle change, and I am in it. But, the thought of going back to where I was petrifies me. I have heard that it is easier to lose weight than it is to maintain it. I am thinking about this now because I know that I will be at goal weight sometime, maybe even this year and then what. It all boils down to taking it one day at a time, or one meal at a time. Whatever it takes. It is a lifestyle change, one that I have complete determination and support for.

Trust me, it is not will power!

Yeah it is Thursday! Does not mean only one more day of work for me. It just means I get to come home to lots of good shows on the DVR. I can not wait to watch the Office. It is another cold, freezing cold day here. At least the sun is out. That helps.

I have talked to quite a few people lately that say, "I do not know how you did it, you must have the best will power ever." Here is the most honest thing that I am ever going to say. It is not will power! If you open up a box of cereal or a bag of peanut butter cups and I do not have a eating plan for the day I will eat the items above without thought. But, if I have a plan I can allow myself some of the food if I feel it will fit into my plan. More than likely I will turn it down because I have everything planned that I will eat for the entire day. By having this relationship with food allows me to truly be free. I know that for most people this will not work. They may feel like this is too constraining. For me though this allows me to spend my time without thinking about food. I do not have to spend hours thinking about when I will eat next, what I will eat next. Now I know around what time I will eat and what I will eat. This allows me to say if I am full then that is all right, I do not have to finish everything on my plate. On the other hand if I am hungry then I can eat my snack if I am truly hungry. More likely I will wait until my normal snack time, because I know that the food will be there waiting for me.

Here is another honest thing, I am not perfect. More often than not this works for me, but there are days where I eat more or less. My mantra is that no one is perfect. I will take each day at a time and if the day is very difficult I will take it one hour at a time. The truth is you can not live more than one hour at a time anyways, so why rush it?

Food for the day: carb check bagel, cream cheese, and SF jam
Lunch: chicken stir fry pictured above. Instead of rice I used quinoa as the grain. (Same veggie blend from Whole Foods as last time) It was actually really good. I think that it is more of a texture thing rather than a taste thing.
Snack: new clif bar and cheese
Dinner: more stir fry, yogurt, and a cookie
Snack: orange

I am off to work. This is my mid-week hump. Wishing that it was the last day for me, oh well. Hopefully it will not be as cold when I leave work tonight. I can hope!

More food I love!

Let's be honest shall we? I love food. I love trying new flavors and textures. So, here are two new things that I ate today. The popcorn is amazing! It is caramel apple and it tastes so rich like an apple just dripping with chewy caramel. They are full sized bags and if I figured it out correctly, if you eat the whole bag it is 5 points. I hate figuring out caloric findings on popcorn. They set it up like if you would make 2Tb and the nutritional information is different pre and post popped. It is very confusing, but either way it is very delicious!

The other fun thing I ate today was this nectar bar. The flavor is lemon, vanilla, and cashew. This nectar bar is my favorite one that I have tried thus far. It had such a good texture and the flavors just exploded. I would pick this bar over just about any dessert on about any day. I love this Clif bars. One thing that I like so much about these bars is that they are made with less than five ingredients. So often, bars have millions of ingredients, lots of which I don't even know what they are. Good work Cliff bar makers!

The day was a long one and work was even longer. Very busy tonight and I am exhausted. I did not cook anything today. I ate leftover chicken fajitas and a frozen pizza for meals today. I think I am going to make stir fry tomorrow. It is so cold here. When I left work my dashboard said that it was -9 degrees out. I think that when it is this cold everyone should be able to stay home under a blanket. That is a deal I think everyone can agree on!

Before and After

Those of you who are reading my blog may be wondering what 100lb lost really looks like. Well look no further. The three photos above all are of me. The top picture is of me on the night of my bachelorette party. The second is from our wedding rehearsal dinner. The third is a candid photo from last night. The top two photos are from just under three years ago. We got married the last weekend in February.

So that is what 100lb weight loss looks like on me. I am 5'9 and am 26 years old now. I have a ways to go, but I am well on my way.

Now you know why I was so anxious to get my hair cut off. I was so ready for a change and I am glad that I did it.

This morning I got up and had a bowl of oatmeal and a large glass of water. For lunch it will be leftover chicken fajitas and an orange. Afternoon snack is going to be a Kashi bar and a cheese stick. Finally, for dinner it will be the leftover pork chops, veggies, and Bulgar wheat.

To work out today I did the yoga DVD, but I tried the level two. It was a good session which mainly focused on the core. I am a bit sore, but am glad that I tried the next level to see what it was all about.

The next big goal is in 7 lb. Who knows how long that it will take to get there. My goal is to be there by the end of February. We are going to do something for our anniversary and being at my next mini goal weight would be great.

Rewards

As previously posted Mondays are my weigh in days. No big news today. I stayed the exact same. I did not gain or lose even one ounce. I was hoping that there would be some progress, but alas there was none. I have to say that I would much rather have a no loss week than a gain week. Back at it for another week.

Food run down...breakfast was after weigh in and was a turkey sandwich on an English muffin. I also had a cheese stick and a apple. I went to a movie this afternoon and had a popcorn there, no butter. For dinner we made chicken fajitas and had a mint skinny cow ice cream for dessert.

As I posted last week about hitting my goal of 100 lb loss I rewarded myself today. I got my hair cut and colored. I also bought some nice shampoo, conditioner, and hair styling product for myself. I have not rewarded myself like that for a very long time. I thought about what I wanted to do for a reward and I was certain that I did not want for it to revolve around food. I had also been tossing back and for the idea about how short to cut my hair. I have been thinking about cutting it very short for a long time. When I was sitting there in the chair while my hair color was developing I thought about the length and how much I wanted a change. Then I just decided to do it. I have heard that when a woman is ready for a change she is ready for a hair cut. And it was so. I really have to say that I like the way it turned out. It will be so much easier to take care of and also for at work.

The other reward for the day was doing the Biggest Loser boot camp DVD. I did the beginner, but it really does get your heart pumping. It mixes cardio along with resistance training for a great overall work out. Kevin was nice enough to prep dinner and get it going while I was working out with Bob in the living room. It was a bit weird him making dinner while I was working out, but both things turned out splendidly well.

Goal for the week is to work out at least five days for 30 minutes. I will probably just rotate the two Biggest Loser DVD's for awhile. I could be going to the gym, but it is freezing outside. We will see how it goes.

Bump on a log

Today I was really not feeling well so I laid on the couch and watched some built up DVR shows that had been calling my name. Kevin went down to Lincoln for his last birthday celebration with his mom among others. I felt bad for not going, but I feel like I got caught up on some much needed relaxation. Because I did not have to leave early I was able to enjoy a nice oatmeal breakfast. It is nice when I can enjoy the oats with a cup of hot tea. This morning I think it was orange spice. I have been drinking a lot of hot tea lately trying to flush out the system due to this cold. I also had some coconut chai and some sweet pomegranate. I have been keeping the tea kettle busy that is for sure.

For lunch I had some vegetable soup with some added veggies, an English muffin with peanut butter and jam, and finally a yogurt. I wasn't able to finish it all. I think that the cold has all of my systems off. Either way it was a good lunch. Not pizza at Old Chicago that Kevin had, but it was good enough.

We went grocery shopping when Kevin got back from Lincoln and I was able to get a lot of great items. On our way home I had a blueberry tangerine water which I have to say was the best thing that I have had in a long time. I also had the Odwalla bar pictured above. This bar far exceeds the super protein bar of the other day. The bar has a point value of 4, but I enjoyed each and every one of those. We talked that it was like a fruity oatmeal cookie. The berries were bursting with flavor. This is a bar that I would eat again for sure.

We made dinner tonight. It was good to get back on the cooking routine. I love when we are home together to make dinner. We had some cranberries in the fridge and I just so happened to find the perfect recipe. This one was from Good Housekeeping. We made cranberry balsamic pork chops with bulgar wheat. It was so easy to make this recipe, from pantry to table in less than 30 minutes. You just cook the bulgar wheat while you are browning the pork chops. Then when the chops are done you take them out of the pan and make the sauce. After dinner we finished the rest of Kevin's birthday cake.

All in all it was a great day! It was too bad that I was sick and could not enjoy the last of the birthday festivities. Tomorrow is WW weigh in. We shall see what the past week was like. I think that it has pretty much stayed the same, but their scale is the end all be all.

Bob will kick your butt!

Yeah! You can see that I now own the other Biggest Loser workout DVD. Yes, I am a member of a gym. I just hate when it is cold outside. Having a DVD at home means that I have no excuse to do even a 20 minute little workout. I have not tried this one as Kevin just purchased it for me when I was at work. I have done the yoga video twice and I have to say that I really like it. Anything that makes your body feel stronger is worthwhile.

Yesterday, after I took Kevin out for lunch for his birthday I went to Whole Foods to buy some more Clif nectar bars. I love going there. I can just spend hours looking at all of the different products. I was hungry after eating lunch and knew it would be a long time till dinner so I ate this Odawalla protein bar. I have to say it was only ok. It was a point value of 4. It was good because of the protein, but it left a lot to be desired. I think that it would have made a big difference if there were some cranberry or raisin chunks in it. Not my favorite. Oh well it is one snack, moving on.

Today for breakfast I had an English muffin with a Tb of peanut butter and some SF jam. I also enjoyed some apple spice tea.

For lunch we went to Mimi's with Kevin's dad. It was a nightmare trying to find something healthyish to have. Luckily I had done my research in advance and already knew what I was going to get. I had the cup of french onion soup, with a request for less cheese topping. I also had the Asian chopped chicken salad with dressing on the side. This came with a muffin which I did not eat because I looked it up and for a points value of 11 I just don't think that it is worth it.

Snack was a laughing cow Swiss cheese and half a kashi bar.

Dinner, ah dinner. I wish that I could say that I made something that was delicious. I did not. I had a frozen dinner that was garlic stir fry chicken, veggie mix, and a yogurt. Nothing fantastic, but it got the job done.

My biggest let down of the day? I was going to reward myself for drinking lots of tea and water with buying a cherry coke zero at work. I pushed the button and what drops down? A coke zero. Yuck! I really dislike those! I had set my hopes high. I guess they replaced the cherry coke zero with just coke zero.

edit-Kevin tells me that I wrote about this said 11pt muffin in an earlier post. Guess what 11 points is way too much for a stupid pumpkin spice muffin no matter what month it is!