Onederland Bust!!! 36.8lbs out of here!

8:50am

Ok, I really only have a few minutes but I wanted to already start on this entry.

Who busted into Onederland this am??? ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

K, as you can tell I am sticking happy. I lost 3.9lbs to get there too! This is after working hard for a month and being stuck! The biggest change I made this week was, per my personal coach Nicolle
I tried to eat all of my exercise points. Before I was just maybe adding a couple extra on the days I did a hard exercise and my general goal was not to use any of the extra weekly or earned activity points. Well, because of my month plateau Nicolle wanted to see what my body would do if I added or took away some points. Luckily we tried to add some first. I guess my body wanted that extra fuel! Opps, got to go! My mother-in-law is here to pick us up for the apple orchard.


3:01pm

Phew, what a day! Still slightly walking on air here.  Aww Onederland!  If you have not figured it out it is when you get out of the 200lb mark into the 100s.  I have not been under 200lbs sense before I was pregnant with our daughter Cora, so at least 3.5 years!  Before that though, I was in the 100s for about 9 years. 

Looking back it is crazy how fast the weight piled on and most of it was after I gave birth!  At the very start of weight watchers I was 239lbs, but even right then as I was typing the "239" I accidently typed and had to erase 133...because 200s does not feel right, does not seem familiar.  I know on a blog a ways back (or maybe even then) when I am blatantly putting my weight out there I accidently wrote a 1 instead of a 2 a few times (which was nicely pointed out by a good friend on here and then corrected).  Yeah, I wish I was 123lbs or whatever I put.  I also know I accidently mixed up the 1 with the 2 when entering my weight on weight watchers.  LOL I got an automatic message saying job on the weight loss but to make sure I was doing it at a safe rate.  I guess 100lbs a week is probably not safe.

So, I am not sure exactly why getting into the 100s is a big deal.  Onederland is a thing though!  I first heard about it when I was trying to lose weight at 160lbs still.  I had to ask about Onederland and was told and it made sense.  I did not know how great it would feel though.   Being in the 100s feel good though.  It is easier to type...nicer to say 199 instead of 201 even.   Such a small difference.

Here is what I do know though.  I am officially starting to fit into the L category and not needing the XL or XXL clothes!   At the beginning of this summer I bought these short skirts from Walmart at XL.  There is no way that the Ls would fit me then.  Well, the same skirts went on clearance and there was a pattern I like only at a L.  I decided to buy it though I didn't know/think it would fit.  I was thinking it would fit sometimes again.  I tried it on and it fit like a gem!  WHOHOOO!  You know that this means, this week I am also breaking into my old tub of clothes! I have 3 or 4 tubs of clothes downstairs with M and Ls that I put away about 2 years ago.  There was a time when I wondered if I should just get rid of them but that was like admitting failure (but we have all been there).  I am glad that I held on.  I know that I won't be hanging on to these larger clothes when it is time.  Hello Goodwill! 

So, today went well and we had a fun day at the Apple Orchard, though I will say I had some close calls with a donut.   They were handing out free samples of apple cider donuts there (yumm! If you have not had them just picture heaven) and I opted not to have any samples.  Weight watchers if not about saying no and that isn't what I am about.  Just not then.  I knew if I started I would have a hard time stopping. I also knew we were going out for lunch and I wasn’t sure what the options would be.  So, I said no to the samples though bought a package for home (because again it was not a no, just not now).  Lunch went well too, I made a good choice with a grilled chicken sandwich and substituted a salad. The sandwich was very good but the chicken was pretty large, 6 oz. I should have split it in half, but I didn’t. I ate it, counted it and I moved on. 

I got home and carried the 3 bushels of apples into our dining room (we are canning this weekend)and then carried one of the packages of Apple Cider Donuts to the counter. I almost broke into the package right then. Now, I know I could have a donut, but for some reason at that frame of mind I am pretty sure I would not have stopped at one. I was kind of thinking, “well, I deserve this.  No one is looking."  I ate one of the fresh honey crisp apples (that helped hit the spot) and logged my lunch and then played around with my points for the rest of the day to see if I could sneak in a donut without going over. I made it work! Then I drank a full glass of water, took out one donut and put away the rest, and sat down and enjoyed every single bite.  No guilt and I do not have any inclination of going after any more.  I was originally going to wait for my husband and have one with him later but that will probably be late tonight and I don't like eating sweets that late. 

Now….a little more about the rest of my week. As I mentioned before I upped my daily points each day this past week to include most of my activity points.  It made my consummation points look huge.  

Now, I knew that my weight was dropping this week because we snuck a peek on Friday morning. Nicolle suggested I check and see how my body was reacting with just a few days with my new goals.   I was 201 (had been 203lbs) I was elated with that and at least thought we were on the right track increasing my points. I was kind of hopeful but trying not to set myself getting too excited about gettings into the 100s. I had already hit another personal goal that week on Friday, at 201lbs I officially weighed less than my husband! A.K.A the bearded man...

Here is an even better one.. LOL!  Forgot he grew his beard this much. 

 Ok, he shaved his beard sense then.  I guess it is warmer for during the winter... oh goodie, winter is coming again.  Here is a better one. 

 Alright, that is enough for now.  I am going to post the bearded picture on facebook and ask if anyone knows who this is now lol

I like to Move It! Personal goal achieved! Started drinking Organo and had a great mid-week weigh in.

I like to Move it Move it!

Just checking in! It is Sunday morning and I have really have been having a great week. I have stuck to my goal range each day and really got some kick butt exercises in! A few things I want to point out.

I hit a big non-scale goal this week! On Wednesday evening my husband weighed himself and then I weighed myself, and for the first time in years I weigh less than my husband! His response is he needs to start skipping the snacks. Lol, always a competition.

Additionally, I had my check-in with my weight watcher’s personal coach Nicolle this past Friday and I had great news to report! We had made a change for this week about what my daily point goal would be. Before this, I had been trying to eat basically just my minimum personal point goal and adding a few extra if I had a hard exercise that day. I would also try not to eat any of my extra weekly points. Sense Tuesday I have been eating all of my earned exercise points to see if that would make a difference in the movement of my weight. I have been at a standstill for about two months. Well, this changeup did make a difference! On Friday morning I weighed myself and I was down 2.1lbs from Tuesday morning! I am at 201.0! I am SOOOO close to getting under the 200lb mark! It has been over 3 years sense I have been there! So, I guess my body has been wanting some of those extra calories/points.  Almost to Onederland! 

Also, on Friday I mentioned to Nicolle that sense starting to eat larger extra snacks in between my meals I have not been having these ‘tired’ crashes. For the past few months around 2 or 3:00pm I would get hit with suck sleepiness I would want to lie down and take a nap with my daughter (and this is the prime time to usually get a hard workout in while my little one is sleeping). She told me that was my body telling me I needed more fuel! I hope this change continues to increase my energy during the afternoon.

The last change I made this week that might be making a difference is I have been trying a coffee drink called Organo.  

 

On Wednesday afternoon at my chiropractors office I had asked about the coffee drink he was drinking (it smelled amazing) and he told me about this drink instant coffee mix called Organo. It is made with a type of mushroom named Ganoderma Lucidum. He has been drinking it for about six months and loves the stuff and recently started selling it at the office. They gave me a sample and I really enjoyed the taste. Ok, this was a bit more expensive than I would have liked but I just thought to try it out. I paid about $30.00 for the entire box of 30 (shhh don’t tell my husband). I actually saw on Amazon they sold them for half that price though. Hmmm.

Here is the general information about Ganderma Lucidum that I got from http://www.organocoffeecompany.com/benefits-of-ganoderma/



　

This is what I know. I used to have 3 cups of coffee a day (2 in the morning and 1 in the afternoon) and I have not found myself yet feeling the need for a 3^rd cup of coffee. I tend to have one up of regular coffee with a little bit of creamer with my breakfast and then I make second cup with Organo and drink it black still that morning. I enjoy the very strong taste! I have noticed I have plenty of energy through the rest of the day and I have been sleeping well. I know that my Chiropractor is up to 2 or 3 cups of this stuff a day and I can’t imagine getting to that amount for a variety of reasons. I will say for a few days my anxiety was up there a bit but there were other occurrences surrounding that. I did have a nice drop in my weight over a period of 3 days after starting this. I don’t know if that was because of this drink or increasing the amount of calories. I kind of wish I would have started this maybe a week after just so I know what made the difference.

So, I do enjoy the drink and I am planning on continuing with one cup a day. I am not selling the stuff and probably will just buy it off Amazon after this. I know there is a whole money making business with this and I am not interested in that.    I just like the taste and if I am getting some of these benefits from the mushroom, more power to me! 

So, things are going well and I am looking forward to my Tuesday morning weigh in.  I really think I will stay strong all weekend.  I am optimisitic that I might even be in Onederland on Tuesday.   I will be happy with any loss though above .4 ounces.  :) 

　

A loss is a loss I hear... .3 ounces down. 32.9lbs down

This is why I got a personal coach…

I had a very good week, consistently the whole week through. It has been over 10 days now that I have stuck to my daily point allotment goal (only on days that I exercised did I add a few points).  I exercised four out of the seven days this week (so meet that goal too) and meet 10,000 steps 5 out of 7 days!

I was hopeful for a good weight loss, not just because of this but also it being my time of the month during last week’s weigh in. I was sure I was carrying some water weight last week. I was hoping to finally break out of the 200s this week. It would have meant a 3lbs + weight loss but it seemed kind of possible.


So, that didn’t happen.   

.3 ounces. Ok, I am happy with a loss but I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a bit disappointed. I was not ready to turn in the towel or anything but was really wondering if I was on the right track?   I went over my food log and made sure there wasn’t anything I was forgetting. I really did enter everything; from the oil I used in the pan with the eggs to the creamer I put into my coffee.  







Was I eating too much still? I did not touch any of my weekly points and used only 1/3^rd of the 30 points I earned.  It seems like many on this plan get to eat their 49 or at least some.   Maybe I wasn’t eating enough? That seemed too good to be true. Thought maybe I just needed to continue with what I was doing and give the current formula more time. It is just frustrating to see this…

Had I already reached a plateau? 

Another thing I need to mention I did was weigh myself repeatedly this week. I usually try to just weigh once a week but the beginning of the week when my AF was over I checked my weight and saw it hadn’t changed. Then I checked again last Friday and saw I was a few ounces heavier! Ummm what? I did manage to stay away the last few days because I knew I was discouraging myself.  

So, this afternoon I waited anxiously and a bit dejectedly for Nicolle’s phone call. After our conversation I feel much better and feel like I have a plan again. We tried to look back and see what I was doing the week of my last good weight loss. We also looked over my previous weeks. She agreed with me that something didn't seem right.  She said we need to change things up until we find something that will continue healthy weigh loss. 

It was a reassurance to not continue doing the same thing for another week, though I would have if she suggested it. My previous goal was to not eat any of my weekly points and eat anything over 4 per day of my activity points When we looked back on my week one thing we realized is for two days I had earned close to 8-10 activity points but had only added 2 points to my daily goal.   Opps!  She said that should not have changed my results that much because it was not long-term. 

She suggested we go one of two ways. One was to not use any of my activity points and just stick with my daily goal. The other was to use all or most of my attained activity points. We try one first and if that doesn’t work then try the other next week.

As you can imagine, I was really hoping for the later but tried to keep an open mind as we talked about the pros and cons of both. I am pretty sure it was her that suggested we try eating my activity points first and see if that makes much of a difference. Looking back at this week that will mean adding 4 to 10 points to each of my days! She wanted me to be sure to add good carbs and protein and not icecream :) 

This is what I am going to try.

1.  To continue to preplan my meals (now doing about two days in advance because the whole week seemed to change so much towards the end of the week).

2.  Work out 4 out of 7 days still.

3.  Weigh in only once or twice a week (tehehe)

4.  Not eat weekly points and eat all or most of accumulated activity points each day. 

So, this is why I got a personal coach! I am not sure what I have tried if I had not had her to turn to for advice on what to do. I think I might have tried to continue doing what I was doing to really see if it wasn’t working with the intention of switching things up in a week but probably getting discouraged and falling off the wagon again.  What I had been doing had seemed to work for 30 something pounds in the past, but I had changed...I am more active.

I am feeling more optimistic now with a game plan in mind now. We have another chat on Friday afternoon. I agreed to not weigh myself again until Friday but to not expect a huge change but will hopefully see a small movement though.  

　

　

　

　

What is in a name??? 32.6lbs down!

Ok, so today I spent a LOT of time thinking about my blog. It really was (and maybe still is a bit) quite a mess and the name while it worked at the time I created it just does not fit anymore. The original name of this blog was “My Made to Crave.” Then I added “with Weight Watchers.” The name seemed long and there really are only a handful of posts where I talk specifically about the Made to Crave series. 

As mentioned in another blog entry I have a motivation wall. If you have not read my blog about it you can here….

http://tessabelievedshecould.blogspot.com/2015/07/she-believed-she-could-so-she-did-my.html

Above everything on my motivation wall are the words, “She Believed She Could So She Did!“

When thinking about a good blog name these words kept coming back to me and it just seemed fitting. So, after some adjustments to the settings, a different theme, and a new blog name…. here ya go! This took me WAY too long lol



Well, on Tuesday morning this past week I weighed not too optimistically. For various reasons I knew I would not have a loss this week and I was afraid and probably deserved a few pound gain.

So, only 2 ounces. It wasn’t a huge surprise for a variety of reasons… one being it is my lovely TOM which always seems to add a pound or too. 

Also, this was my week….

As you can see I had a few days there that were very high points. I didn’t even track on these days and had to go back and guess. The rest of the week went great! I stuck to my daily goal plan (and added a few extra points to accommodate exercise). Last week I meet my goal of exercising four days and earned a nice chunk of activity points, 31! I did this by walking one day, I did the elliptical machine the next, and then I did Turbo Jam! I also made my 10,000 step goal for fitbit most of last week.

I am not exactly sure what happened on Saturday…weekends are my weakness. Saturday just started out kind of bad…I made eggs and then loaded it up with cheese! Right after we went to a parade in town and I managed to stay away from the candy. Then as a surprise my husband showed up and we all got to go the fair. I didn’t get anything bad at the fair (not even any cheese curds this time) but I had a 20 point sand which at Dairy Queen…opps! I had not realized how bad it was until later. Sunday I couldn’t quite get back into the swing of things. As we do every Sunday we went to Duncan Donuts before church, but instead of just getting a coffee I enjoyed 3 munchkins with my family. If I would have stopped there I would have been ok, but that afternoon we went out for lunch with our brother-in-law, to a pizza buffet… Then we ended up going to my sister-in-laws for supper which was chili, so that wasn’t too bad. It was the cheddar biscuits that I had two of that got me in trouble (think Red Lobster Biscuits).

Luckily, I held it together on Monday until I could speak to my personal coach Nicolle. 



She really helped me put things into perspective, to be prepared for a possible bad weigh in the next day, and we decided we needed to work on my weekends a little more. She was very motivating and while I can’t say I would not have gotten back on track with her, it sure helped a LOT! I had made another appointment on Tuesday so we could talk again and make sure I was on track and talk about what my weigh in actually was…which of course was not as bad as I thought it would be!

So, per Nicolle, here are my goals for this week and the nice message she sent me!

 

My goal this week about logging my exercise manually was because we aren’t real sure how accurate the fit bit synch is. I did do this for the first few days but I have not done it sense. I do plan on going through and logging things and then comparing the two (maybe will be in my next blog!).  So, I did not make all of my goals, number 4 I think will always be on my 'plan.'


After our conversations here is the message she sent me and the goals for this week. 

　

　
Thanks for reading! 

Camping and booze and Doritos, Oh My! -32.8lbs

This past weekend we went camping some good friends of mine. Now, I had worked hard the entire week before to prepare for this. I had what I felt were realistic expectations for this. I knew that I would not stay completely on plan while on this trip but I also did not want eat or drink to the point of feeling sick. Overall, I was pretty proud with how I did. I enjoyed the meals, stuck with healthy snacks, and stuck to two drinks for myself along with a few sips of some of their concoctions. 

Now, these friends are completely aware of my strive for health with Weight Watchers. Both girls actually have had some weight issues themselves in the past, so they understand first hand the struggle. I wasn’t sure if there would be some drink and food pushing though, especially as the alcohol went down. This is, sadly, only a yearly or twice a year gathering with this great group of friends (we all wish it were more). They were all extremely supportive though! I can’t say I was surprised but will say I was relieved because I do tend to give in to peer pressure especially by those I trust.

Well, I did track everything including the extra sips and handful of treats! The main day of camping, Sunday, went pretty well! I did about as good as I had hoped to! I usually get 31 points a day and I had about 62 after figuring in the drinks, yummy steak and banana boat. The next day, Monday, did not go quite as planned. We had all planned on leaving sometime around or after lunch but ended up hanging out at someone’s house until 3:00pm. I had a pretty high point breakfast and lunch time came around and people started pulling out the chips and snacks. I grabbed out the extremely large bag of carrots I had along and started snacking on those to fill me up. Sitting there playing games with friends my resolve crumbled, not because of hunger, or peer pressure…more like convenience. I probably ate 1/3^rd bag of Doritos. Maybe to some that doesn’t seem like that bad, but I am not even a huge fan of them. The bad choices continued after that. For supper I had some grilled chicken picked out as my dish but when I heard the Chinese dish with friend rice special they had going I caved for that. Later that evening we went to my father-in-law birthday party and I had a piece of cake. So, that day I had another 60 point day and I guess the frustrating thing is it didn’t need to me.

The next morning was Tuesday, the day of my weight in. I almost considered skipping it and trying Wednesday but I knew that was just the beginning of a vicious cycle. I mentally prepared myself for a gain of 2 to 5lbs for the past couple of days. I tentatively stepped on the scale and low and behold, a .2 ounces loss!

What??? WOW! I did not deserve that. I had worked hard towards the beginning of the week but after especially such a large loss the previous week I thought I would have a gained after that weekend. So, that was a pretty welcoming surprise and really helped me continue the week on a good note. That was just yesterday and sense I had prolonged my entire week and so far have stayed with my food goal. We went for a long walk yesterday and overshot my step goal by 2000 yesterday! I am excited to see what this next Tuesday has in store for me. Maybe I will break out of the 200s.

Nice BIG loss this week! :) Finally! 32.2lbs lost

Well, I had my weight in and…drum roll please…I am down 7lbs this week!

Ok, so I was kind of hoping a nice chunk of weight would come off because of my over indulgence the two weeks before (excess water weight), the fresh 5lbs I put on the few weeks before, and changing my weigh-in time from evening to mornings, but still I was pretty thrilled! That puts me right back on target of 32.2lbs lost! Exactly where I was towards the end of July, before all of this overindulgence and lack of exercise started.

 I am feeling good! I am back on track and even more so, I’m still rocking this!


I have had my second session with my one-on-one personal coach Nicolle

I checked with her and she doesn’t seem to mind that I am sharing specifics about this. Actually to quote she said, “Sure! Make me famous!” Yeah, I won’t quite be doing that but I know I have a few readers.

Today I had two 15 minutes sessions scheduled…but I goofed up. I made one at 11:00 and the other at 11:30. I meant to get the 11:15 time slot. It just seemed kind of silly to have her call back so I went ahead and canceled the later one. I was actually hoping to see if I could grab another one before or after but found we can’t make appointments the same day. I guess that makes sense.

So Nicolle called me about 11:07am. Lol I guess I am not the only one who keeps her over. They really should give these coaches like 5 minutes in between calls to wrap things up and then call the next instead back to back. It is not a big deal to me though.  I hope she was able to use my old time slot to catch up on her calls. 

We had a nice talk. We talked about my success for this weigh in and about how if I keep things on track this week I should see a loss this next Tuesday too, though I should be warned that after a big loss our bodies sometimes likes to try to maintain. She told me I should be ok as long as I stick to my 31 points a day and keep eating the activity points if I go over 4.

It was about here that I said to her, “so, it probably wouldn’t be very helpful if I ate 11 points of chocolate covered popcorn last night and went over my daily points by like 8.” Without a beat she reassured me saying that Weight Watchers is meant to go weekly and not daily.    I told her I tracked it and moved on.

Yesterday I went to Rural Route 1 Popcorn with my daughter and mother-in-law. Very dangerous place! I came home with two .5lb bags of chocolate covered popcorn (though one is already almost gone per my husbands bag) and also two 1lb bags of powdered popcorn. I really had planned out to eat 4 points work of the chocolate popcorn last night and I thought I did, but I messed up. I thought the serving was 3 ounces for 4 points. Now I am looking back I am like duh, there is no way! It was actually 30 grams for 4 points…a bit different lol! My 4 point evening snack turned into 11 points. So, I went over by quite a bit.

I did some good things about this. I double checked and found my error. I logged it and moved on. Actually, when I entered it, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was. I really enjoyed just checking in with Nicolle. She told me I could look on Friday and see if I could make a double appointment for a longer session if I would like (which I did almost right after). This conversation was just a quick check in, I had a few general questions, and Nicolle gave some much needed encouragement.

Also, and I did not even mention this to Nicolle, but last night I ended up doing something that I have not done in a l o n g time! At 9:45pm at night I went for a walk! Ok, those that really know me are like, what??? I am kind of a scardy cat! I used to enjoy night walks though when I was in college, though I usually had a friend with me. I did have a friend with me last night too…our doggy JoJo.

Scary, isn’t she???? LOL She really is pretty protective and if push came to shove she would try to protect me if something happened. A few summers ago when I was out walking someone’s Pit-bull/mix (bigger than JoJo by a good 15lbs!) got loose and came running at us. The dog probably wouldn’t have hurt us, but came running and I had just enough time to let out a high-pitched movie worthy scream before JoJo had this dog pinned to the grass.  I was pretty impressed.   The owner came running and apologized profusely. The dog had bolted out the door before she could grab him. A few of the neighbors looked out too to make sure things were ok.

So, I felt kind of safe with JoJo with me. We also live in the country and I was walking mostly on a private road with no cars.  I was more worried about tripping but I didn’t even do that.

So, I went for this 20 minute fast-paced walk at almost 10:00pm at night because I was on a bit of a sugar high, I felt guilty about going over in points, and my anxiety rearing it's ugly head…but this walk was just the ticket! It gave me some time to clear my head and to do something I have not done for a long time! A good old walk and talk! If someone would have happened to come across me (though the likelihood of that was pretty slim in the middle of the corn field) they would probably have thought I was crazy or sleep walking, but I had a good heart to heart with our Lord Almighty!

There is something about speaking out loud in prayer. I do not do it as often as I would like or should, but I took this opportunity to really release some anxieties, plead some prayers, and above all thank Him for so much! Just walking out there in the dark with my furry companion, breathing in some humid night air (I could have showered when I got back), and just some time on my own with God is just what I needed. I also took some time to do something I even do even less, to just listen.

I plan on doing another blog this week, probably tomorrow or Thursday, and I plan on finally revisiting my Made to Crave series! It has been a few months but after a short review and some reapplication I plan on moving on!

Thanks for reading!