June 27, 2007 Thursday

After some fluctuations, I am down to 173.2! I am so happy. That is a definite breakthrough. I have gotten down to 175 several times, but breaking the 175 mark is a big accomplishment. I think my body likes to plateau there.

Great things about losing the first 7-12 lbs:

• My clothes fit looser. I love having a good reason to buy new clothes!
• I think my legs look a little bit better.
• I have more energy.
• I have established a habit of exercizing daily and I actually look forward to exercizing to the point that I will go out of my way to exercize in odd places and at odd times-like at 7:30 at night or while visiting another city for the weekend.
• My clothes are loose! It's not that they are too big now, but the fit is different.
• My clothes are more comfortable to wear. I can wear a 12-14 now comfortably.
• I looked at the back of my upper leg in short shorts and in my swimming suit and it looked alright.
• I bought a swimming suit for the first time in over 10 years!
• I can run! It doesn't hurt, it feels kind of good!
• I can do crunches without them hurtng me either. In fact, it takes more for me to even feel it!

My next big goal is to break 160. I hope to be there by the time I finish my Healthy Ways weight loss class at Kaiser. They don not want us to set a goal of more than 2lbs per week, which should put me at 157. I was having such difficulties being consistent, especially after getting some results, that I decided to sign up myself and my DH for an 8 week class and maybe also take some diet medication called Phentermine. I really have not decided if I will take the meds, but I have committed to myself that if I don't lose the weight and stay committed, I will do whatever it does take, including but not limited to meds. 160 would be a break through. I think I got down pretty cost to there while preggo with my 3rd baby. I lost weight cause I couldn't eat heavy foods or large portions because of nausea. I think I may have been close to 160 shortly after I had my 2nd baby.

My personal, private goal is to loose as much as possible in the next 8 weeks while I have the support of the class and the meds and after that, my focus will be maintenance. I actually think that I can get pretty close to my target weight by the end of the class if I stop eating wrong on the weekends.

My big challenge is eating right on the weekends and with my family.
Also, my other challenge is cooking daily to make sure that there is healthy food available. If I don't cook, my DH will. The fact of the matter is he is a better cook and used to cook 95% of the families meals. In order for me to assure that my family has access to healthy food, I have to cook the food.

Saturday June 16

I am at a dreaded weekend again. Last weekend, I totallly went off my healthy eating plan. But I have been doing so good, lately. Maybe on weekends, I will try to work a maintenace plan.

I walked for approx 35+ mins with weights this am with both of my sons and my husband.

I returned and ate lunch-leftovers from last night's dinner:
Stir-fried vegetables-green beans, corn, sweet potatoes, water chestnuts, snow peas, carrots about 1/4 to 1/2 cup
Catfish with olive oil-about 2 oz

We plan to go to HomeTown Buffet, one of our favorite family places ina minute as well as go to the movies, so I will report back.
The Goal: Eat According to a maintenance plan.

ps I can fit into 2 pairs of capris that I haven't been able to wear since I bought them cause they were too small!

Friday June 15 Recap

My sister brought up the point that I will need to think about maintenance, since losing weight fast causes many people to return to their original weight when they are "off of their diet. Now, I think of my current lifestyle as lifestyle changes, not dieting stuff I am doing to loose weight. So, when I exercise daily, I know that I will still have to do the same to maintain, or else, my calories will have to remain quite low.
I would guess my current caloric intake is around 500-900. I exercise 30 mins some days, but for 1 hour and 30 minutes on most days.
When I maintain, I will still never be able to eat like I used to, but I will be able to eat a little bit more and I will probably want to exercise 3-5 times per week for 30 mins.

A good friend of mine mentioned yesterday that she thinks I will be so satisfied with the way I look once I reach my target that I will be motivated to maintain the weight.

I told her that I plan to get rid of my big clothes and buy small clothes and I think that that will help me to realize when I get off track.

I think I should have that as part of my milestone/goal marker, to actually get rid of my big clothes. I started out between a size 14 and a 16 and hope to be at a size 8. I hope that is the size I will be no bigger than when my weight reaches 130. About 9 years ago, I weighed 135 and was a size 7, so I allowed for some body differences because I'm older and have had 2 more kids.

Before, when I dieted, when I got hungry I wouldn't feel motivated to lose weight. The weight was really never that important to me. But I am committed. I visualize myself being in Fat Camp. My own, at home Fat Camp.

I had success at Olive Garden yesterday! I stayed on track.
Yesterday Meal and Exercise Recap:
I woke up really late (10am) due to staying up until 4am to design a website, so the times are funky.

Lunch 12:20 (my breakfast): orange, which I shared with my toddler
2: lunch: 1/2 home made subway sandwhich-sourdough- I couldn't find wheat and I heard that the enzymes in sourdough are healthy.
Turkey
Light Green salad on the sandwich

2:30 Egg whites and turkey in a light and dk green salad-approx 3/4 cup total with lemon pepper and squeezed lemon

Veggie (carrots, bell pepper, celery) stix and the rest of my salad-about 3/4 cup

4pm 30 mins of bicycle riding

Dinner Olive Garden around 9:30
appetizer: mocha with 1/2 cookie and whip cream
Meal: 1 bowl minestrone soup
Broocoli and aaprox 2 oz chicken
I ordered a kids meal of chicken and broccoli and spaghetti for my son. I ate his broccoli and no more than 2 oz chicken

After dinner: 1/2 breadstick

Weight Loss Progress

I am a 27 year old mom of 3:

Date Weight Body Fat
June 1 185 41.2%
June 5 181 41.8%
June 7 178.8
June 8 177.8 40.9%
June 9 179.2 40.9%
June 11 178.8 40.7%
June 12 177.2 41%
June 13 176.8
June 14 175.4
June 15 175.4 40.7%
I went back up to 177.something and hovered there until Sunday June 24
June 27 173.0 (Time 9:01am) (:
June 28 173.0 (6am)
June 29 171.8 8am
June 30 169.4 (8am) 40.7% Woo hoo!!!!
July 4th 169.0
July 18 167.something
July 24 166.6 5:30am 39.something bodyfat

August 2 162.4 35.8% body fat night time (night time body fat % is lower; weight on scale is higher)

August 3 3am morning 160.2
August 3 7am 160.0

August 16h 8pm 158.6 33.something body fat

September 9 10:52pm 160lbs 34.something % body fat

November 21 8:26am 149.0 34.0% bodyfat

My Husband is a 39 year old Dad to 3:
June 5 253.2 27%
June 13 248

My Daughter is 12 year old:
June 1 130
June 5 124.4 29.5%
June 11 123 27%
June 14 120lbs

Thursday June 14th

I want to blog, but I need to get to work, so I'm going to try to be quick. I woke up this morning and my weight is down to 175.something.!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I am so excited.

I know that yesterday, I skipped breakfast and ate a piece of fruit instead. So today, I haven't eaten breakfast, but have had water with squeezed lemon.

My son and I took a walk for about 35 minutes. I have been incorporating a 3 20 second sessions of cardio everytime I excercize since last week, so I did incorporate running/jogging for about 20 seconds 3 times. I was surprised that it was only 35 minutes long, but figure, that is fine for maintenance.

Today's Food/Excercize log:

In bed, I did some leg lifts. approx 4-5 sets of 15 reps per leg.

Breakfast:
dk green lettuce with egg whites and garlic powder (sounds gross, but the lettuce tastes like spinach. My toddler loves it) I cook this in the microwave with a lid so the veggies can steam.

water with lemon

I Power-walked for 35 mins with my baby in stroller.
-I walk so fast I sweat. I added arm movements today. I also had 3 20 second cardio intervals.

Lunch:
1/2 burrito (see yesterday's recipe)
dk green lettuce

30mins bicycle riding with 2 sons (1 on baby carrier and 1 on his own bike next to me)

Dinner:
I have to admit, I ate too much. I can feel the food in my stomach. Darn. It was the change in routine. I usually cannot eat until late, but it was so hot and I was so busy today that we pushed dinner up earlier, and it was hard for me to quit eating.

I didn't have time to cook dinner and still eat at a reasonable manner. Plus, with the higher cost of fresh produce and food with less preservatives, I have to use things up, so I used leftovers and made a smorgasbord/buffet salad, we had:

leftover enchilada and taco meat, which I mixed,
corn tortillas in olive oil-1 per family member except myself.

Beef Barley vegetable soup

I set out a big bowl of dk green salad
I set out little bowls of:
egg whites
egg yolks
diced salmon
salad mix: it has bacos, soy nuts, sunflower seeds, and some other stuff
pitcher of lemon water

My 2 youngest children made their own
yogurt from organic plain yogurt, berries and honey.

All of my kids ate salad and a taco, except my youngest didn't get a taco, cause my husband ate 2. My daughter ate some of the barley soup.

I ate Approx 3/4 - 1 cup beef barley vegetable soup
2 servings dk green lettuce with egg whites
lemon water

1 cup Green tea with honey

My goal is to get out there and exercise one more time tonight for 30mins to an hour. It is 7:30 now and still quite warm outside. It was misery riding today in the 99 degree sun. Oh well, that's just a part of exercise. You can't let the weather stop you.

June 13th Wednesday recap

June 14, 2007

I am so excited at my weight loss and energy. This is amazing to me. 2 days ago, I added an extra exercise session to my daily routine. In the morning I took at power walk around my neighborhood, in a different area than usually. I took my baby with me.

Lessons I’ve learned are:
You can’t be perfect, you just have to get out there and move. For example, I don’t worry about matching, looking cute or even wearing exercise clothes. I just make sure I’m wearing something that is comfortable to move in. I also don’t even worry about my hair being too cute. If I didn’t let go of looking cute, I’d never find the time to exercise with 3 kids, a dog, a husband, a business and volunteer work. I believe that once my exercise routines are a habit, I’ll be able to work into my routine looking cute while exercising, but for now, it is best for me to make sure I exercise at all costs.

Another thing, I feel so good when I exercise. My mind is clearer, I’m more focused, and I feel excited about accomplishing tasks. I also feel very thankful towards God when I exercise because I get to marvel in the beauty of all of the trees and flowers and animals that he has created. I also get to be thankful that I live in a nice neighborhood and that it is a safe area to walk around.

Yesterday, I had a busy day, so I didn’t get to eat much: Here is my day:
8am Worked in my home office
During this time, I fed my baby a mini bagel from Trader Joes with small amount of cream cheese and real fruit spread; I was too busy to stop to eat. I did grab a banana to bring with me as well as broccoli in a little zip lock, an orange and a couple of bottles of water to take with me on the field trip. I certainly didn’t want to end up at Taco Bell starving. Plus, I only packed $10 for me and my 2 kids to eat. (I knew the field trip was going to be to Taco Bell and I was very anxious to see what I could do to make healthy choices while surrounded by high calorie, low nutrition foods. I assumed I would eat a bean burrito. And try very hard to limit myself to just one. My eldest is about to graduate 6th grade in a few weeks and my middle child is going to have several end of the year celebrations, so I will be at several school functions with foods like pizza, ice cream, etc.)

9am at my kids’ school by name to chaperone a walking field trip-this was my morning walk.

10am shared a banana with my 2 year ld. I ate most of it.

11am Taco Bell
I ate the broccoli first, before I ordered my food.
I also drank ice water from Taco Bell
I looked up bean burrito calories on the Taco Bell guide and was shocked: it was around 340 calories for 1 burrito. So, I ordered pintos and cheese and a taco. I think each item had around 150. But an amazing thing happened, when I was halfway done with the beans, I felt full. I ate them very slowly and drank lots of water with it. But I couldn’t believe it. To make sure I didn’t eat my son’s burrito-since he has a tendency not to finish food, and I have a tendency to take bites of their foods, I ordered it with onions, I hate Taco Bells onions. And I gave away my taco to one of the kids. I figured, if I’m not hungry, I shouldn’t eat it.

Worked in home office
1:15pm I finished the beans
Worked in home office
2pm I did feel kind of tired/hungry, so I had some green tea with honey
5:45pm I ate a whole orange-man, it tasted good. Food tastes better when you eat to live, rather than living to eat.
Went on bike ride with my 3 kids and my friends’ child. I wanted to see if we could bike to my new favorite fresh food grocery store-Trader Joes, and we could. I also looked to make sure that they had bike racks. The ride there and back was probably at least an hour worth of exercise time.
I have been trying to find ways to incorporate exercise into things I need to do.
8pm Dinner
HM Burritos
HM crock pot pinto beans
carne asada-I only used a small portion of meat, about ½ to 1/3 lbs so there was less meat than beans. I put the meat in the crock pot about halfway through the cooking time. The meat was from Trader Jo’s.
Green Salsa from Trader Jo’s-about ½ bottle in the crock pot
Into the crock pot, I also added:
-A few cloves of garlic,
-1 whole onion
-1 whole bell pepper
Whole wheat tortillas-from Trader Jo’s
I encouraged everyone in the family to add their choice of veggies to their burrito. I used an iceberg romaine salad mixture. It comes prepackaged and is called “Greener selection. My daughter used dark green salad which we also buy prepackaged.
When I was halfway finished with my burrito, I felt full. It was mentally hard not to finish it, because, well I don’t know why. I think because it is a habit to finish food and stuff myself and it tasted good. But I gave the rest to my middle son, who loves to eat and was probably going to get seconds anyway.

Tuesday June 12, 2007

I am feeling much more motivated to stay on track because of some successes:

My 12 year old daughter, who didn't have any weight to loose in order to be within the healthy range for her height, has lost 7lbs. When our health plan began around the 1st, she weighed 130, she is now down to 123lbs. (She's 5 foot 2). She was already pretty active in school and sports, even though she is not on an actively competing team right now, the weight has melted off with the new eating plan. She doesn't even exercise with me most days. She has also lost 2% points of body fat.

Since June 1st, I've lost 8 lbs.

My progress has been as follows:

June 1
185 lbs

June 5
181 lbs
41.2%
Largest upper arm: 13
Largest Bust: 44.5
Under bust: 35
Smallest Waist: 38
Waist-Just above navel: 39 ½
Widest Hips (both): 45
Widest This (1): 28 ¼
Widest Calf: 15 ½

June 7
178.8 lbs
41.8%

June 8
177.8 lbs
40.9%

June 9
179.2 lbs
40.9

June 11
178.8
40.7%

June 12
177.2
42%

Sometimes, even when I don't cheat, the scale doesn't show a loss like it should. My scale is supposed to be able to measure body fat, so it was really discouraging to read that gain on Friday 6/9/07. But if I take the gain as it was, and go from there, I am still losing.

Once I get to 174, I will be smaller than I've ever been in 8 years,(excluding my last pregnancy when I lost weight.) I can't wait!

Slow and steady wins the race!

Monday 6-11-07 9:53am

After a weekend in which I didn't do much to keep up my new healthy lifestyle, I am back on track for today, Monday.

I am back at work (at home) on my regular schedule. I've been taking it easy at work. But today is a regular day that will have me in and out of the house with things to complete by certain deadlines.

Breakfast:
3/4 cup oatmeal

• w/1 tbsp NF powder milk
• w/ 1/2 tsp brown sugar

1/2 cup pureed cantaloupe
Water

Planned lunch:

Salad

• Barilla Plus Noodles (high in fiber and protein w/o the whole wheat color or taste-which is normally too weird for me i n noodles. These actually taste good)
• Soy Beans
• some other veggie or fruit
• probably an oriental glaze of some sort

I found it crucial that I plan my lunch ahead of time-this prevents me from grabbing something quick and unhealthy.

Today will also be my first day being out and about without packing a lot of food. I will pack a light (approx 100 calorie snack), but that's it. I also plan to return by lunch time. But since I might not be, I should prep it now, I realize. When I push lunch out too late, it is very tempting for me to eat the wrong foods.

I have noticed that when I am running errands, it is soooo easy to stop and eat fast food. But it's expensive and not healthy, so this will be a test. (:

I meant to take a walk this morning, but didn't. That is something I am aiming to add to my daily routine, but in order for that to happen, I've got to get up on time and not be behind in my work.

Edited to finish recording my meal plan:

Snack (while out and about in my car around town):

• about 7 plums

Lunch
Salad:

• barrilla plus noodles-1 oz uncooked 100 cal
• soy beans -cooked-approx 1/2 c
• dark green salad leaves approx 25 cal
• oriental glaze sauce from Trader Joes's approx 2 tsp max 50 cal

Dinner:

• 2 homemade enchiladas (around 5:30pm)

I felt bad about eating those, but at least I did eat them at dinner time, and they were home-made with lots a veggies and a little less cheese than unusual. The chicken was also lean.

I rode my bike with my kids and one of my friends kids for about an hour after dinner.

I also did 10 sets of 10 crunches and was able to lift myself much farther with less pain than ever before.

After exercise, 2nd dinner, or the rest of dinner:

• homemade (HM) whole wheat (WW) and splenda corn bread 1/2 slice
• HM Pinto beans 1/3 cup

I was feeling really bad about falling off the diet wagon, so to speak, this weekend and about eating 2 enchiladas instead of something lower in calories, but the scale keeps showing a lower weight.

Weight Loss Day 6

Weight Loss Blog

Day 6 June 9, 2007

Today is official day 6 of my most recent decision to lose weight. It is my first Saturday, which I expected weekends to be difficult with all of our activities. But this was a great first weekend to begin and this should be easier. My DH is out of town, so no temptation from him, I woke up with great intentions.

But we were rushing to get my DD to one of her activities. Since I dropped off a few of the kids, another parent offered to bring my DD home for me-after she finished her work out. “So that’s how she does it”, I thought to myself. This particular mom is so cute, she always has her makeup on and her hair looks good and is always dressed nicely. BTW: She’s 5-10 years older than me. Ouch. I’m not jealous, it just makes me more critical of myself. What would my mother say? But I refuse to get jealous. I love my life and appreciate everything I’ve been blessed with.

But, I do want to lose weight. This morning the scale said a really high number. Well, it’s still lower than my starting weight, but it is higher than yesterday. I knew better than to get on it today. (Everyday is not good) I know I excercized longer and harder yesterday than I usually do and I only ate an extra ¼ cup of beans and rice and 1 or 2 extra bowls of mostly vegetable soup, so I have no reason to beat myself up about the apparent gain. I still consumed an amount of calories within my goal range.

But as I sit here at my computer, trying to get a CD Rom to play unsuccessfully, I have begun to feel hungry. But I’m pretty sure it’s not hunger, but boredom. I have found out by observing my habits and tendencies that I have developed an association with eating while on the computer.

Since I work at home on the computer for a few hours each day, this is not OK. I have made a commitment to myself not to eat at the computer-just water and veggie stix. But I drank a V8 before I started blogging. And I hate to say it, but I almost ate a cookie. Thankfully, I sent all of them with my daughter this morning, so there was only 2 cookie pieces about 1 inch square each for me to eat. Then I began to warm up the soup. It is mostly broth-a tiny but of spinach noodles and celery, carrots and spinach. But since it is 10am and part of my goal is to eat at meal times only. It is especially difficult for me to do this when I’m working.


When I’m working, it is tempting for me to eat all day long. I allow myself breakfast and Lunch at 12noon. I can have water and veggie stix in between and part of breakfast, since I usually don’t finish it, but no meals.

The fact of the matter is that soup, even light soup, is a meal, not a snack. Aughhh! This is so hard for me. I think I am addicted to food-either mentally or physically. This is the blog of a mad woman.

This is so hard for me. I will have to pray and beg. But I know that God has given us power and authority over things like this, actually over all things and that this problem is already beneath my feet.

I spend a lot of time thinking about what caused me to become overweight. I used to say that I’m not sure what I was doing wrong. I was never the type to eat a whole carton of ice cream or to eat donuts all day everyday. But maybe it was small things like eating food all day. And I have finally realized that my portion sizes were too big.

An example of this I learned this week was this week when I prepared salmon for my family. At Costco they carry salmon frozen in individual little bags. They defrost in minutes and it is easy to cook a little or a lot. We usually cook 1 per person. But this week, since we’re all eating healthier, I wanted to make sure I was only preparing just enough: 3 oz each for me and the kids and 5 oz for DH.

Well, in the past, I thought I was doing good if I limited myself to just 1 of the individual salmon filets. Well, this week I found out that each filet is 7oz, which means each filet was more than 2 servings!! See, the whole way we have been viewing food has to have been wrong.

You know what is a trip? I really am not hungry. I don’t have hunger pains. I don’t remember having them yesterday either. The hard part for me is that food is a part of my life. Food is too much a large part of my life. We revolve everything around food. Food is entertainment-when we want to go somewhere fun-we go out to eat. When we want to celebrate all of us and my husband’s family go out to eat, too. I just need to establish a habit of eating at the correct times and continuing to excercize as I have committed myself to. I feel so relieved, I’ve made it to 11am. Just 1 more hour to lunch. Is that normal? Is it sane? You don’t realize how much your life revolves around food until you try to limit it. A lot of my mental battle with not eating so much reminds me of the things people go through with a drug addiction.

I bought a great scale by Tanita-it was recommended to me on another weight loss blog.

Since we were rushing, today I ate:

Breakfast bar-12% daily fiber, 14% daily protein = 130 calories.

Water

Small can of V8 = 30 calories

The tiny pieces of cookie don't count, do they? (: = 20-30 calories

Here are my stats:

The week of June 1, I weighed 185.

Date
Weight
Body Fat %
Measurements
June 1
185 lbs


June 5
181 lbs
41.2%
Largest upper arm: 13

Largest Bust: 44.5

Under bust: 35

Smallest Waist: 38

Waist-Just above navel: 39 ½

Widest Hips (both): 45

Widest This (1): 28 ¼

Widest Calf: 15 ½





June 7
178.8 lbs
*after nursing 28 month old lost .4 lb
41.8%

June 8
177.8 lbs
40.9%

June 9
179.2 lbs
40.9%