G's Weigh-In: 152.8

W00t! It's been a good week here at 140s HQ. I'm within spitting distance of that fabled weight "decade" - albeit a big ol' horky spit weighing 3 pounds or so. Heh.

The plan

Ok, I'm back. For a day anyway. I've been hovering around 143.6 all week. No exercise at all, diet has not been a focus. This morning I got back on the wagon with the "B" workout from Turbulence Training 2k6. That workout is hard even when I haven't just taken a week off. I'm glad to be pulling out of the tailspin.

Tomorrow we're going to Chicago for a short family trip. We'll be visiting the Museum of Science and Industry, Millennium Park, and the Shedd Aquarium. We'll be staying in a hotel with a waterpark. We're planning to stop at Green Zebra tomorrow for brunch so we'll start out with good food. After that I imagine we'll be around a lot of "kid friendly" food like hot dogs and pizza. That just isn't worth it so I'll bring low point snacks like string cheese and almonds. I'm planning to work out at the hotel gym at least twice, I'm actually really looking forward to exercising somewhere other than our basement.

Next weekend is Vancouver. We're celebrating our 10-year anniversary by taking a trip with just the two of us for the first time since becoming parents. We're going to eat at every good restaurant we can find, screw points. We may do the four-hour bike tour of the city one day and go to the indoor climbing gym another day. Or, we may just sleep in, get massages, and order room service.

I'll do an official weigh-in again next Tuesday and go from there.

G's Weigh-In: 154.8

The WW Website says it all:

The Post Formerly Titled "Hiatus"

I've been half-assed this week.

It started on the weekend when I didn't get enough sleep, and had several early mornings in a row. The past three days at work I've been snacking on peanut M&Ms without counting them at all. Just now I realized that I'm not actually hungry - I had a healthy, satisfying lunch - I'm just tired. And tired leads to snacky (for me, anyway).

For inspiration I perused the WW boards this afternoon. Someone had written: "sometimes a cookie is just a cookie - it's not a free pass to eat for the rest of the day."

It's a tough lesson to learn. I'm expecting a gain this week, but I'm not going on hiatus from the blog or from eating properly and counting POINTS, because when I eat healthier I feel healthier, and that's important.

Turns Out, People DO Care What I Had For Lunch

Since I first mentioned it way back when, I've been bringing my lunch to work religiously. I've probably missed twice in the last month. And for the sake of convenience, it's usually the same thing: a veggie burger, English muffin, and maybe a slice of cheese. The English muffin and the cheese are snacks we already have at the office, so really I just throw a box of burgers in the freezer on Monday for the week. And on days we have salad or steamed veggies or fruit as part of lunch, I load up on those too.

No big deal, right? Nobody will even notice!

WRONG. Here are two representative conversations I've had in the past month:

Co-Worker 1: You brought your lunch.
G: Yes.
CW1: You know, we have a delicious lunch brought in every day.
G: Yes.
CW1: And I'll never get tired of reminding you that.
G: OK.

Co-Worker 2: It's salmon today! Salmon is healthy, right?
G: That does look good, but I brought a turkey burger.
CW2 [on seeing my plate loaded up with salad]: Oh, you caved.

Another friend at work has also started bringing her lunch, and last week someone asked her, "Didn't you used to eat like a normal person?" Guys, she was eating chickpea salad, not goat testicles! What's up with people?

Healthy

I just realized I'm not medically overweight anymore, my BMI hit normal at 147 pounds. I have my annual physical next Tuesday, I've had that physical in mind for while now. At last year's physical I talked to my doctor about my plan to lose weight and told her I was starting Weight Watchers. She said she'd found Weight Watchers or just counting calories with something like fitday to be the most effective approaches. Since I'd had gestational diabetes when I was pregnant she scheduled me for a blood test. When she called me a few weeks later I immediately thought my blood sugar was elevated. Instead she told me about the abnormal cells that were the beginning of last year's medical scare. Then a week later she called again to tell me that also, my blood sugar was elevated.

My body reacts to being moderately overweight like I'm really, really obese. I know I was in denial about how much weight I gained, but over and over I've had doctors look at me and say "this shouldn't be happening". PCOS, gestational diabetes, endometrial hyperplasia. I have issues with insulin resistance and I have issues with too much estrogen. This creates a feedback loop where it's easier to gain weight and that makes me have more insulin resistance and more estrogen. I think trying to limit carbohydrates and using a progesterone supplement have helped a lot.

I'll do another blood test at the physical next week and which will hopefully come back normal. Then I need to keep reminding myself that being overweight is just not an option for me.

Update: My fasting blood sugar was 100, right on the borderline between normal and prediabetes. I guess maybe I really should shoot for 128 as my goal weight.

G's Weigh-In: 153.8

Déjà vu. I'm not sure exactly how I got back here but I'll take it.

That's 240 POINTS

Michael Phelps eats 12,000 calories per day:

Phelps lends a new spin to the phrase "Breakfast of Champions" by starting off his day by eating three fried-egg sandwiches loaded with cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, fried onions and mayonnaise.

He follows that up with two cups of coffee, a five-egg omelet, a bowl of grits, three slices of French toast topped with powdered sugar and three chocolate-chip pancakes.

At lunch, Phelps gobbles up a pound of enriched pasta and two large ham and cheese sandwiches slathered with mayo on white bread - capping off the meal by chugging about 1,000 calories worth of energy drinks.

For dinner, Phelps really loads up on the carbs - what he needs to give him plenty of energy for his five-hours-a-day, six-days-a-week regimen - with a pound of pasta and an entire pizza.

He washes all that down with another 1,000 calories worth of energy drinks.

Deflated

I was always, happily, a B cup. Then I got pregnant and holy crap! I bought C cup nursing bras and had to exchange them all for D cups. I figured once I stopped nursing they would just deflate. Apparently if you gain enough weight that doesn't happen. Until four years later when you finally lose the weight. I took my measurements earlier this year to buy a swimsuit online and discovered I'm now an A cup. Things are not what they were. Things are not where they were, either. It's enough to make me go eat some funnel cake.

I seriously need new bras. We'll be taking a trip to Chicago in a few weeks and I've decided I'm going to Nordstrom's to take this advice.

Update: The staff at Nordstrom's was awesome, as advertised. Apparently like just about everyone I was wearing a band size that was too big (I was wearing 38 or 36 when it should have been 34 or 32). Since the cup size is relative to the band size that went back up to a C.

Thinking Differently

Back in February I spent a long weekend in Puerto Rico with my special friend and another couple (who are, it should be noted, both naturally very skinny). When we stopped at the grocery store for snacks we inevitably ended up with a bag of Cheetos, and in both cases polished off the bag that same night.

This past weekend in Oregon, we made some healthier decisions. On Saturday morning, we shared breakfast: Eggs Benedict with fresh crab meat (and the sauce on the side). At a picnic in the afternoon, I ate a single slice of pizza, and chose the veggie option. Then we stopped at Safeway to buy snacks before dinner, and bought blueberries, veggies, and beef jerky (which is surprisingly project-friendly). At dinner on Saturday night, we shared a sandwich, and had a side salad instead of fries. We weren't perfect and we didn't even attempt to count POINTS, but I'm hoping that these choices will be evident when I weigh in on Friday.

G's Weigh-In: 155

Yeah, up 1.2 last week - my heart wasn't in it. And that was just on Friday, not through a weekend in Oregon that included an Indian wedding and possibly multiple Tequila Sunrises. I'm just sayin'.

Back in the saddle today, as they say.

C's weigh in: 143

As WW says, I'm "feeling a little neutral" about a whole week of work for .4 pounds. I may not hit my mini-goal in time for Vancouver.

However, I decided I'm completely satisfied with this:

Title Nine

I'm developing a bit of a Title Nine problem. It started out gradually. A tank top here. A pair of yoga pants there. Then I got on their email mailing list and now it's just out of control. I keep telling myself it's for a good cause, I need positive rewards to keep myself exercising. But, I work out in our basement and I go to yoga once/week. How good do I really have to look?

That's Better.

Before:
After:
(It's times like this that it pays to live so close to the gym, and be doing WW, AND have the accountability of the 140s blog. Yay!)

Ugh.

I guess it had to happen - I've been pretty serious about following WW and Turbulence Training for four weeks now, and today I was frustrated with all of it. First, I forgot to bring my veggie burger for lunch, so I ate some of the catered lunch. Just a little, and I estimated POINTS and all that, but I still ended up higher for lunch than I usually do.

I went to Ikea after work and as I passed the cafeteria and the grocery area on the way out I was pissed off that I couldn't stop for Swedish Meatballs or a cinnamon roll or even a lousy frozen yogurt.

I ended up 6 POINTS over for the day (and no, I didn't have any weekly POINTS left because, yeah, Saturday's baby shower included a lot of wine and ice cream and conveniently forgetting to count things like pistachios and Pringles). And I didn't work out today because it just didn't fit into my schedule, although I'm considering hitting the gym now for at least a 30 minute run just to even things out a little.

The rest of the week doesn't look much better. Friday I'll be at a work BBQ, and in Oregon on the weekend for a wedding. I'll pack healthy snacks and and eat vegetables and all that, but sometimes I just wish I didn't have such a propensity for weight gain and I didn't have to *think* so much about it. You know?

Freakin' B&J!

B&J = Ben and Jerry = Half Baked ice cream bar = what I ate last night while walking home from the Y-Man's place.

The thing I don't usually manage is to count POINTS when I'm eating such a thing. It usually means I'm off the rails and POINTS are the furthest thing from my mind - which has an interesting psychology of its own... That's a rabbithole we won't go down right now! My nugget of wisdom:

One of the biggest behaviours to master on the way to the 140s is getting back on track quickly! (ie same day or at the latest - next morning!) Sometimes I've had trouble with this in the past. For instance - Crap! I ate B&J! Guess I'll binge until Monday morning! Not this time though. The weekend was not perfect but I'm getting back on that horse and riding my way to the land of 140s!

xo

d

C's Weigh-In: 143.4

I'm very happy with this. 3.4 more pounds to lose before Vancouver.

POINTS Quiz!

How many POINTS am I consuming (or about to consume) in this photo?

Arm Envy

So I didn't click the link to discover my Happy Weight. I think it was because I anticipated complications measuring my wrist given my unwillingness to get off the couch on this balmy Friday evening on the right side of the long weekend.

On goals - hmmmm.

WW Goal:
I set my WW goal at 153. This way I can get under there for 6 weeks and become a Lifer. I never bothered with Liferhood in the past but for some reason it sounds good to me now - Going, but not paying. Yes.

140s Goal:
I can't remember getting as low as 145 so this is probably the right place to start. It is right around my theoretical 10% goal for WW and if I did measure my wrist I'm sure it would be my Happy Weight, give or take a pound. This would put me around Size 8 as well. I like 8. It is out of the double digits. Similar to G, 6 just seems unreal for now.

Squishyness Goal:
Because I used to be over 200 lbs, I seem to have a squishyness problem. I climb at the gym and have pretty good upper body strength, yet there is still some flab and (ewww!) excess skin. I also have this on my tummy and the top part of my butt / lower part of my back. It seems like while exercising more lately is causing me to get smaller (I can feel it in my clothes too!) it is accentuating the squishyness. I think my skin can't keep up. So somehow (over time) my goal is for the squishyness to go away. I think it can but it just happens gradually.

I am about ready (for real!) to quit my job. This could bode very well for the 140s and squishyness goals. AND for my participation on the blog!!!

xo

d

Happy Weight

I just had way too much fun figuring out how to measure my wrist at work. Fun with office supplies!

Wrist - 5.5". Height - 5'4.5". It thinks my happy weight is 128.5.

My rough goal is 135 pounds, my plan is to get into the 130's and then find a personal trainer to measure my body fat percentage. I think the 21-24% body fat range should be my goal.

When I started this back in February I was a size 16, now the size 10 clothes are getting loose. I'm guessing 10 more pounds would put me a least into a size 8, maybe a 6. I bought a bunch of size 12 clothes several months ago that now literally fall off, so I'm holding out for a while before I go on another clothes buying spree.

I'm planning to exercise 6 mornings/week for the rest of my life, alternating weight training with cardio. I think my "happy weight" is going to be whatever I can maintain at that level of exercise while eating good food. I'm trying to learn to hold out for the truly good food instead of eating kid birthday cake and work pizza and whatever else is in in front of me. I'm trying to pay attention to portion control. It's easier for me to go to extremes than to find moderation, I'm scared of maintenance.

G's Weigh-In: 153.8

Oh hell yes.