Measuring my success

I've decided this week to really focus on measuring. I have a feeling that I'm eating more points than I'm recording, and that may explain the stall in weight loss. So it's back to the drawing board. This morning I measured my egg whites (in a carton, so measured in tablespoons), and the chex mix I'm bringing for a snack for work today. The things I can measure, I'm going to in order to make sure that I'm counting points correctly.

I'm also going to write down EVERYTHING I eat. As I've mentioned before, weekends and evenings are tough for me to record. It's pretty crazy at my house with kids, pets, hubby, chores, etc. However, I'm not going to let this be an excuse. I've seen plenty of other moms do this successfully--why not me? I started by recording the brownies I ate last night. Yes, I did have to dip into the weeklies for that treat, but that's what they're there for, right? I know for myself that I don't want to completely stop eating treats. That's one of the reasons that I can't envision Lap Band Land. What I CAN do is to be accountable for those treats, and make sure they're a part of a healthy overall diet. I think over time it will register for me what's really worth it, and what's not.

One of the other things I'm trying to develop in myself is finding entertainment in things other than food. Yesterday was a good step in that direction. It was a semi-nice day here, so we took the kids out to a very large family park. We walked around for over an hour, played on the outdoor workout equipment, at the playground, fed fish at the ponds and had a nice outdoor picnic. All in all a lovely outing. OK it did involve some food, but it was not the focus at least. I felt good that walking was not an issue--I do think the treadmill work I've been doing is strengthening me, so that's positive. Here's to a good week!

Tweaking my habits

Well, clearly, I'm eating too much of the wrong things--I'm not seeing any progress at the scale, and haven't seen any progress in some time.

On the eating side, I can tell where my weak areas are. I do fairly well in my eating during the day,when I'm at work. It's when I get home that things become more difficult. I think it's that there are too many choices, and the kitchen is always open. Since I live with my husband and three kids, I can't totally strip the house of junk. However, I'm not eating their stuff, either. I think I'm just eating too much of the good stuff. I've always disdained measuring, etc., but I think I might have to do this for a while. The only explanation I can figure out is that I'm underestimating portions, and thus the calorie count. So I need to start measuring things more closely, especially when I'm at home.

The other challenge is eating out. I work outside the home, and part of my day includes going out to lunch with work colleagues. It's an important part of building work relationships, so I don't think I can bail out of that. Usually, luckily, there are pretty healthy choices for lunch.

However, I live in a foreign country, so in general it's tough to tell what's in a given food. For most of the Korean foods I eat, I'm pretty comfortable that I have the right calorie counts down. But if I eat something different--for example, yesterday was Indian food--I feel like the calorie counts are approximate at best. This is a challenging area for me.

I guess I'm concluding that since lunch is often a wild card, dinner needs to be more structured. This is an area that I'm going to have to work on also. We have a wonderful nanny who is a great cook, but unfortunately she fries a lot of things. I'm working with her to encourage healthier choices, but it's tricky. I don't imagine I'm going to get a lot of sympathy for this problem, but there it is.

But I should also focus on how far I've come:

I don't generally eat full desserts any more. No cake, few cookies, no ice cream. Usually when it's offered by hosts, I do not partake of an entire serving-- a bit is enough. This is big for me.\

I don't eat chips anymore. In general, I've cut way back on junk food.

I rarely eat fast food anymore. Chalk this one up to living overseas. No easy access to Mcd's, and I don't have much taste for most of it anymore.

I generally eat only whole grain or "original" carbs--no highly processed carbs anymore. Also don't eat much in the fried department--again, a big change for me.

I exercise at least a couple times a week, and I feel bad if I don't do more. I used to do nothing at all.

So you can see that I have modified a lot of behaviors--just haven't seen the results yet. I'M WAITING, but not very patiently.

Yesterday went fairly well. No snacking--largely because I had a marathon dental appointment in the afternoon. Hey, maybe that can be my weight loss strategy--wiring my mouth shut (kidding!) Went out for dinner with the family, but managed to keep the points fairly low, primarily because my mouth was still sore! The scale is still not budging, but I can't do much about that. Generally, I weigh every day, but look at Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, then choose the low from one of those three days to record in my weight tracker. Weird, I realize, but I've done it consistently and feel that it takes into account the daily fluctuations I have.

Here's to a good weekend!

Mad!

I have to admit that I'm having an angry day today. It started out last night with my 8 year old son relaying to me a "YO MAMMA" comment he received from a schoolmate. You know, one of those that start Yo mamma's so fat.... I'm not sure what the rest of the comment even was, but it kind of makes me sick to my stomach. I had several thoughts--first, where does that kid live? No seriously, how should I have reacted? I told my son not to worry about it--I know I'm fat, I'm doing what I can, I know who I am--so what? To me that behavior says more about his home training than my condition. I think my son feels conflicted--he wants me to know, he wants to defend me, and probably he wants me most of all to change this aspect of myself. I'd like to tell him--join the club! I'd like to change, too, and I'm working on it. At least it motivated me to exercise last night!

All of this just raises bigger issues for me--I get very angry that the general public does not understand how hard we often work to struggle on this weight issue. People just seem to assume you're a terrible eater and lazy to boot. And it doesn't seem to matter that you have significant, ass-kicking accomplishments--cancer survival, summa cum laude, J.D., mother of three, multilingual, etc.--people seem to focus on that one failing--sigh...

For me, any lapse in vigilance on my eating and I seem to put on a couple of pounds. Today when I hopped on the scale it read 266, up from 264.4. What's up with that? I tracked yesterday, was within my points, exercised. I did indulge in one alcoholic drink and some salty chex mix (maybe one cup). But two pounds--come on. Guess I'll up my water today and hope for the best.

Sorry for this downer post, but I feel like this is the one place I can come and be honest. Everyone else seems to expect you to put on a happy face, and I'm realizing that I need to FEEL these feelings, not eat them. Thanks for listening!

Daily report

Today was a good day--managed to track my food, and even managed 20 minutes walking on the treadmill. It was very tempting to slack since DH was in bed with a cold and needed company and I needed to watch his movies...you get the picture. But I heaved myself out of the bed and got the exercise in anyhow. Progress! I do need to focus more on drinking water--I'm totally addicted to Diet Coke, and I know I'm not drinking enough water. Guess I'll have to drown myself at home tonight!

Traversing the plateau--I want to get off!

Well, as you can probably tell, I've been on a plateau since the holidays. While it's good I haven't gained, I have way too much weight to lose to be "maintaining."

So I'm really thinking about what to do to break through this plateau. When I look at my journals and think about my journey, several things are clear.

1. I don't journal consistently--weekends and evenings are tough to capture.
2. I'm not drinking enough water.
3. Portion sizes are approximate.

I guess I can see pretty quickly why this weight isn't leaping off. In the short term, here are my goals:

1. Journal not only during workdays, but also evenings and weekends.
2. Up my water intake.
3. Start measuring some "problem" foods for me--generally my carbs, natch :)

Along with this, I need to continue with the exercise. I know I need to do this to spur the weight loss, especially with the thyroid condition. I read a book called "The Thyroid Diet", and the author maintains that for those with a thyroid condition, exercise is a MUST. I have to face this reality. I have lost a large amount of weight before without exercising on WW, but that was before the thyroid issues.

The other interesting, more positive part of exercising is that it actually makes you FEEL BETTER in your daily activities. I have a vacation coming up in about a month, and I do not want to feel limited in my activities. I want to be able to swim and walk more comfortably. I don't want to freak out if I see a couple of flights of stairs. I don't want to be as squished on the plane. All these are powerful motivators if I remember to focus on them. I have lots of good opportunities for exercise in the evening, between my treadmill and the Walk Away the Pounds DVDs. Just have to do it. So as part of this blog, I'm going to track these goals--Woohoo! So let's see how I do this week.

About Me

Why another blog on weight loss? Aren't there enough already? Maybe so, but I need this one. I firmly believe that this journey is 90% mental, and most of what I need to go through to tackle my issues is in my head. Writing is a great way to sort out these thoughts--I'm too cheap for a therapist, so here I am.

So what do you need to know about me? I am a forty-something mother of three, happily married, full-time outside the home professional, who has struggled her entire life with weight issues. I also am a thyroid cancer survivor, with no thyroid function currently.

It was because of the last condition that I ran headlong into the title of this blog. My endocrinologist, having seen me lose about 8 pounds over about two months, only to gain 10 pounds over a two week vacation, suggested I might need more help than a program like WeightWatchers could provide.

She suggested either a lap band procedure or an off-label use of a diabetic drug (which I would have to inject into my own belly a couple of times a day). I have to say that I started crying in the office at the suggestion.

After the shock wore off, I realized that I really hadn't done everything I could do on my own. I never have been great at exercising, and I have a lot of issues about completely owning everything I put in my mouth. I realized that with either of the methods proposed by the endocrinologist, I would need to control my eating and exercise. Based on this, I rededicated myself to the weight loss journey.

What has worked for me so far has been doing WeightWatchers online. Since I live overseas, it's the most practical approach for me. I started the most current iteration of this journey at 278 pounds, in August, 2009. I'm currently at 264.4 pounds. You may have noticed that the weight is not coming off quickly--believe me, I've noticed this too. But here's my motto: Never give up. No matter what. I'm confident that if I keep at this I'll eventually get the results I want: a healthier, stronger body that will enable me to do the things I want in life--be a vital wife, mother, employee, hiker, etc.

Well, I think this will do for a first post.