My sky (and profile) are full of stars!

If anyone is wondering, no I haven't given up or given in ;)  Just had a busy few weeks and have been using my downtime to play an MMORPG game as a nice distraction.

  In weight-loss news, things are rocking for me!

Isn't it pretty???  Total, I've lost 29lbs on the nose so far.  And this week is when I do my measurements again, so I'm excited to see what they show.  I'm just 6lbs away from my 10% goal, and will then have lost 10% of my starting body weight.  That's just so amazing to me... 10% of me... GONE!  10% is a very subjective reference, though it may not seem so on its face.  10% of $1.00 is a dime.  Not too impressive. But if you're buying a million dollar home and the seller offers you a 10% discount?  That's a whole 'nother house you could buy as a summer place.

Take a minute and look at yourself in the mirror.  Imagine that 10% of your body were gone.  In emergency medicine, we learn about the Rule of Nines, relating to burn percentage in adults.  If your entire left arm is burned, we say "9% of the body is burned."  The palm is another 1%.  So is the groin, actually.  So... imagine your arm gone, and your groin.  Yeah, ok, not the greatest imagery - but putting it into perspective, that's 10% of your body.  I'm 6lbs away from having lost that much of my body weight.  To me, this is just mind boggling.

I'm trying to lose 51.432% of my starting body weight. total.  Using the Rule of Nines again - both legs (18% each), an arm (9%), half of the other arm and the groin.  Now obviously, I'm pretty attached to my various limbs and my girly-bits, and fortunately, weight-loss doesn't cost you any part of your body but the fat that's actually padding all the pertinent bits... but I think the imagery is still useful in being able to visualize something relating to your actual body to understand just how much is going away.

I know the popular suggestion is to go to the store and find a few cuts of meat to add up to the total... but I can't "relate" to meat in my grocery store.  For one, I'm a hypocritical carnivore.  I know where that lovely roast in my fridge came from, I just don't want to think about it mooing.  Plus, have you ever actually SEEN the fat inside a human body?  Please believe me when I tell you, it doesn't look like the fat you trimmed off your pork chops the other day.  You don't want the mental image in your head when you're looking at something you're going to want to eat later... well, unless you're trying some sort of negative reinforcement therapy I guess,  Me, I already have a screwed up enough relationship with food, I don't need to be thinking of it - and my body fat - at the same time.

Another reason I can't relate is because I can visualize that stack of meat as being part of me.  But I have no problem relating my arm as being mine, or my leg, or my oh-so-important girly-bits.  To motivate myself, to understand just what an incredible thing I'm doing, I need for it to relate to ME.  There's few things more personal than girly-bits. LOL

Speaking of the girly-bits, here's one of those things that might actually be useful for someone to know but it seems like no one ever discusses.  You lose weight there, too.  Yup, it's true.  I've always had a semi-poofy groin area.  If you ever look at a porno or a porn magazine, the women always seem to have very small, thin vaginal lips and such.  I've never been like that, my lips have always been poofy on their own... and as I gained weight, they got more poofy.  My pubic area has also always been a bit more full than most women's, and that increased as I gained weight as well. Losing the weight I have has caused a NOTICEABLE difference.  I'm never going to lose the poof completely, that's just how I'm built, but funnily enough it was the first place I noticed a real physical difference when I began losing weight.

When I weigh myself on Thursday, I'm not expecting a loss this week.  It's not that I've been overdoing it in terms of eating this last week, but I know I didn't make the best choices I could - especially in getting in my fruits and veggies.  My body responds really well to fruits and veggies, and I could feel the difference when they were just sort of an incidental part of my diet instead of a main staple.  Halloween wasn't an issue for us... I had some 100 calorie packs on hand if we got ToT'ers (we didn't), so there wasn't any candy laying around tempting me.  But because we had such a busy week, we did a lot of eating on the fly - and the stuff you get when you eat out is just never as good as what can be cooked at home.

Last night, however, I made garlic lime pork chops I found on Gina's website.  As with everything else I've made from her site, they were amazing.  We tossed them on the grill and OMG I have never had such a juicy pork chop in my life.  Served it with a side of garlic & herb rice, and a nice spinach salad.  I'm so glad there are leftovers... that's going to be my lunch in a few hours. We will DEFINITELY be making these again soon.  Hubby and I live in Michigan, but we grill all winter long.  One of the most expensive things we own is our gas grill.  We didn't skimp when we bought it, and we use it A LOT, even through the winter.  So these pork chops will be a regular part of our diet now.

It's funny, I've always shied away from grilled or broiled pork chops.  I had it in my head that I didn't like them prepared that way.  Actually, I was pretty much a Shake & Bake only kind of girl when it came to pork chops.  This recipe changed my mind, and now I'm eager to try some other grilled/broiled pork chop recipes. I was willing to give these a try specifically BECAUSE they were on Gina's site, and I've yet to make anything from there I don't love... I'm so glad I did, it's opened up an entire new option for me in food.

Tonight is the herb crusted eye of round roast again.  This gets made a lot because the leftovers are so good.  She uses a rib eye roast, but I like the cost/fat savings of using the eye of round.  We'll have hot crash potatoes as a side, some green beans & mushrooms, and maybe a salad.  I got the most fantastic organic baby spinach this week and I'm trying to make sure none of it goes to waste.  Raw spinach is definitely on my "top 10 favorite foods of all times" list.  All the other leafy greens completely pale (hahahaha) in comparison to me.

I'm going to be trying some of the various chili and stew recipes I've found in the coming weeks.  I make an awesome turkey chili, but I need to sit down some day and actually figure out the points for it.  If it's WW friendly, I'll post my recipe - but since I usually add maple syrup and/or honey, I have to really add it up.  I've made that chili for over 20 years, and I don't ever measure anything... so I'm going to have to make a batch and take some exact measurements while I do.  At least now I know enough about WW to be able to figure out how to make it more point-friendly if need be... but the truth is, even if I can't, I'd still keep making it and just budget my points carefully when I'm going to eat it.

So I guess that's my update.  I don't know how many entries I'll be making in the next few weeks... but I do want to try and make time to blog and to post on the 100lbs to lose community again.  If I can break away from killing charr and hunting down gargoyles and casting spells, I will. *grins*

5% Gone!!

That's five PERCENT, not five POUNDS!  In other words, I've now lost over 5% of my original weight.  5% of 350lbs is 17.5lbs.  I've actually lost 20.6 total, since starting Weight Watchers on September 2nd.  Next big goal is 10%, and I'll hit that when I've lost 35lbs... so less than 15lbs from now.

I find the little acknowledgment of these mini-goals to really help keep me motivated.  I mean, I'm thrilled with every loss obviously - right now, each pound lost is making a major difference in how I feel, so I'm celebrating them all.  But having small increments to aim for, to acknowledge, to cheer over - well, it makes the whole process a lot less daunting.  If I focus on the fact that I set 170lbs as my goal, meaning I want to lose 180lbs total... that's just too big, too much to conceptualize.  It's like trying to wrap your mind around a vigintillion - the mind just boggles.

Let's put this into perspective.  I went on a Google hunt:

This is 180lbs of food.

This is 180lbs of cocaine - lovely, huh?







And this is the very lovely model, Lizzi Miller - she weighs 180lbs.  So, I have to lose one of her.

She's 5'11.  I'm 5'10.  So if I'm really lucky (aka if I work really hard), I'll physically be about the same size/measurements as her when I'm done.  Since she is absolutely gorgeous and has a beautiful body, I can certainly live with that!

So ok, it's easy to visualize how much 180lbs is, by itself.  Now imagine being me, and realizing that the weight of those cans of food, of that cocaine, of that beautiful woman - is the EXTRA I am carrying around on my body.  On ONE skeleton.  ONE set of muscles.  ONE body.  So I'm working towards there being less than half of me from when I started. I'm already 20.6lbs on my way, so 159.4 to go.  Or put another way, I have to repeat what I've already done 8 more times.

I can do that.

I dropped another point this week as well - 37 points worth of food each day.  I find that something to celebrate as well.  I still have days where I think, "how am I going to eat all this food?  I'm just not that hungry!"  But I've found ways to incorporate in more of my points without adding to the quantity of food I'm consuming, and that's helping me a lot.  My BMI has gone from 50, at 350lbs to 47, at 329lbs.  That's an improvement as well - certainly nothing to sneeze at.  My BMI at 170lbs will be 24.  Another thing I had more than half to lose, and which is now LESS than half.  23 points to go.  Much better than the original 26.  So again, something I have to do about 8 more times.

I can do that, too.

Little milestones help with motivation, they help keep me interested, they help keep me feeling as if I'm making progress.  I still worry about my ability to maintain this path I'm on.  I worry that I'll allow something to interfere - internal or external.  I've got the holidays coming up, but they don't worry me.  It isn't so much that I'm convinced of my own superior ability to stay "on plan" during holiday meals, it's that I am not worried about going OFF plan a couple of days.  If I eat too much on Thanksgiving, that doesn't derail my journey, it doesn't stop me.  Whatever weight I've lost by then, I won't put it all back on from a single meal.

I'm also lucky I guess - while my stomach capacity is somewhat increased because I'm eating regularly, it's still not that big.  So my ability to overeat is limited, physically, by the fact that I've spent so many years only eating once a day.  There's only so much damage you can do when your stomach won't accommodate huge portions of food.  Zeb and I will probably be at home for both Thanksgiving and Christmas, which means I have full control over what foods we eat those days.  I'm not going to be baking big batches of cookies or making pies.  And while we'll probably do turkey & trimmings for Thanksgiving, Christmas is as likely to be the herb roasted eye of round, as anything.

I worry more about the hubby being laid off again, and what that does to our grocery budget, so what I've been trying to do is to keep a budget in mind when planning my meals and such.  I know I'm spending more on groceries than I used to - but then again, we're not eating out every day, or in his case, several times a day.  There are things I buy right now for convenience, that I could buy more cheaply - applesauce is a good example.  I know I pay more for the little cups than I would for a jar.  We buy some of those 100 calorie packs, but it would be more cost effective to buy a regular bag and divide it up myself.  The convenience packs and such have helped teach me that I CAN eat well and in reasonable portions, and to understand what foods I really like, what are important parts of my meal plan, what I can do without.  Now I need to focus on making it all cost less - but I believe I can handle that as well.

Making it through these last 5 weeks on plan has done a lot for my confidence in general.  So much more than Atkins ever did - though granted, we didn't "do" Atkins for very long.  I think it might be because there's just nothing restrictive about Weight Watchers, and I'm learning that I can eat very well - even in terms of taste, or outright indulgence - and it isn't "bad."  There is NOTHING about my current eating habits that I have any reason to feel guilty about.  I'm making positive choices every few hours, every single day.  For my headspace, this is making an enormous difference.  I constantly feel like I'm accomplishing something, even if it is "just" making healthy choices.

To me, Weight Watchers is a miracle.

Random Bits of Life Stuff...

I don't have anything in particular to blog about, but I absolutely don't want to get OUT of the habit of updating my site, so I'm just going to kind of take a random ramble through various things.

First, I've added another star to my repertoire - another "additional 5lbs" star.  Total weight loss as of September 30th, 16.4lbs.  I even got a little warning notice!

I was pretty pleased to have that pop up on my screen.  From a programming perspective, I found it amusing - the algorithm doesn't take into consideration the initial "big losses" most of us experience the first few weeks on plan, especially those of us in the 300lbs+ category.

I know my weight loss will slow down as my body adjusts to my healthier eating habits, and I know I will even have weeks where I gain or don't lose at all.  I'm fine with that, and right now just still feeling good that I've lost enough that the system warned me. LOL

I also did my new measurements this weekend.  Once I finish this post, I'll go update them individually on the My Stats page.  The quick summary is that I lost a total of 8.5" off my body, but somehow gained 1" on one of my thighs.  I think hubby messed up with the measuring tape last month maybe. LOL  I have not yet found myself fitting into a smaller size, but here's the thing - I think the largest pair of jeans I own are a size 26 - two identical pair.  I do not think I actually WORE a size 26, I think I just was lucky enough to find a few pair that had enough stretch in them that I could wear them.  Most of my jeans are 24s or 22s, and I don't fit into any of them.  But the two pair of 26 are definitely fitting better, without question - obviously fitting better.

I also have no real way to gauge when it comes to shirt sizes.  I own a lot of 4x and 5x tops.  I only wear loose, flowing tops.  So I suspect it will be quite some time before I've lost enough weight to really notice that my shirts are truly too big for me.  I've not yet figured out how I'm going to determine that.  Mostly, I just don't plan to worry about it until I have to.  I will continue to take my measurements monthly, and periodically try on smaller pairs of jeans that I own and simply go from there.

We went out for dinner twice this week - kind of unusual since we've been on plan.  One night we went to Applebee's.  We got their asiago steak with red potatoes and broccoli.  The potatoes were excellent, the steak was decent, the broccoli was horrible.  I love broccoli - I ate two bites of it.  I don't think we'll be going back there for dinner for a while.  Last night we decided to "treat" ourselves and go to Red Lobster.  Because of our breakfast and lunch choices, we had a LOT of points available to us for dinner and we used them.  Seafood stuffed mushrooms, salad (no croutons, balsamic dressing), steak and lobster with drawn butter, mashed potatoes (lower in points than the baked w/sour cream and butter) and asparagus.

Oh my goodness... it was a FANTASTIC meal!  I used only the tiniest bit of the drawn butter - it was the highest point item (10 if I'd used the whole serving!!!) of what I ate.  I only had two of the mushroom caps, but ate the entire lobster tail (was liberal with the lemon juice) and almost all of the steak.  Definitely ate every bite of the taters and the asparagus.  Most of the salad (iceberg lettuce, tomatoes, carrot).  It was a truly wonderful meal.  Probably the best I've ever had at Red Lobster - I'm usually not a huge fan of theirs, but hubby really wanted to go there.  I was so impressed.  We'll definitely go back the next time we've got the points and the willingness to spend $80 on dinner. LOL

I think I'm going to write up a page about the whole, "I can't eat all of my points" phenomenon.  I know it frustrates a lot of the ladies on the 100+ WW group I hang out on, and I understand why they find it frustrating when someone shows up and posts that.  But I also understand what the newbies are going through in that regard.  I see the same comment posted again and again, "you didn't get fat by not eating, so stop acting like you can't eat all your points," and while there is some truth to that, it is not true for everyone.

I got fat by not eating, and by making poor choices when I DID eat.  When I was on the department, it didn't matter what I ate or when - I was working out 6 days a week, chasing after three small children, working part time at a private ambulance company.  No matter what I did or did not put into my body, I couldn't have gained weight if I tried.  I had less than 10% body fat.  I could bench press over 300lbs, leg press over 1000lbs.

When I got injured and left the department, my body had no idea how to cope. Neither did I.  I gained 100lbs in the first 12 months.  I was mostly eating a peanut butter sandwich, a thing of Ramen noodles and a glass of milk.  Once a day.  That was it, and it started a pattern.  My stomach (the actual organ) shrank as my belly grew.  I drove the hubby and the BF crazy.  We'd go out to eat and I'd pick at my food, eating only a few bites.  I was rarely hungry "for" anything, and when it came time to pick something to eat, I couldn't make a decision.  Nor did it help either of their waistlines that whatever I didn't finish, they usually would.  I wonder how many pounds those two are carrying around just from polishing off my food.  *insert guilt here*  Add to that, when I'd go visit the BF, we'd eat three meals a day - unlike at home.  Hubby would go to work, I wouldn't eat while he was gone.  He'd come home, we'd have dinner.  He'd finish what I didn't eat. But visiting the BF, we were together for breakfast, lunch and dinner.  He'd want to eat all three meals, and I was with him.  So he'd have his three meals, and often half of mine.  If hubby was along, at least they were dividing it up between them.  Nice of me to be handing so much extra food to them, huh?  Not.

Suffice it to say, the concept of eating 40pts worth of food was terribly daunting, and I thought, impossible.  I've learned how to adapt, and my body is thanking me for it.  So I definitely understand where the other newbies are coming from, and I think I can help.  I'll work on getting that page up tomorrow since I need to go to bed soon.

I forgot to take progress pictures when we did the measurements today.  Hubby says we'll do them tomorrow.  I'm not sure when I'll upload them to the site - but I doubt it will be for a few months.  I want to be able to SEE some progress in the pictures before I start sharing them.  I'm just not ready for that yet.  But I will be, of that I have no doubt.

I do know that I FEEL progress.  I truly am amazed by what a difference those 16lbs have made in how I feel, physically.  It's such a drastic improvement.  For me, with my back and my fibromyalgia, it's something of a miracle.  I know that I need to get started with some sort of more formalized exercise plan, whether that be getting into the YMCA and swimming, signing up for water aerobics, getting serious about walking, getting the Wii fit setup.  Right now, I'm still so happy about being able to take care of things around my house, I'm sort of basking in that.  I've also got a little fear about the whole thing - I am afraid of pushing myself into a fibro flare by overdoing it.  It's so easy to overdo it when you finally feel some lessening of the pain, but it's a trap, and one I have learned to be leery of.

So I am trying to prioritize.  Right now, my house desperately needed my attention.  I'm starting there.  Given how sedentary I was before starting Weight Watchers, this represents activity for me.  The tracker even allows me to earn one activity point for every 10 minutes of housework I do because of my weight and previous activity level.  I am starting there.  I have various projects around the house I intend to finish in the coming days/weeks to bring my house back "up to snuff" by my standards.  Then I'll start worrying about adding in additional activity - pushing myself with walking further, getting into the classes at the YMCA, etc.  If I don't ease into this, I'll wind up in bed for a month.  That is probably the biggest potential for derailment of my weight loss efforts that I have, so I am doing what I can to keep it from becoming an issue.

It's actually hard to remind myself to sit down and rest - I want to keep going.  I'm so eager to get into that pool at the Y, I can taste it.  But that way lies the potential for sabotage, so I am trying to proceed at a reasonable pace rather than rushing in.

Patience has never been one of my virtues.

Emotional Eating... Part Two

I've been giving the whole "emotional eating" thing quite a bit of thought.  So far on my journey, I've lost 13.8 pounds.  I even got another star this week - which is still damn exciting.  I've also had a pretty stressful few days, so if I was ever going to emotionally overeat, this would be the time.

So what happened when the stress hit?  What I expected - my first reaction was to start ignoring my hunger signals and stop eating.  I think if I hadn't done my weight check on Thursday, I probably would have allowed things to spiral and actually begun skipping meals again.  Instead, that 4.2lb loss this week helped remind me that I'm doing something good for me, doing something right for me, and doing it well - and that I don't want to lose the progress I've made.

I made myself eat.  I stayed on plan.  I even went out for dinner with my hubby Friday night and made sure that had the points to splurge even after eating a filling breakfast and lunch.  I even dipped a little bit into my weekly points to do it - which strangely enough is a bit of a victory for me.

I still have not managed to understand my adversarial relationship with food.  I don't know where it comes from, I don't know what started it, I don't understand the reasons behind it.  I believe it is one of those things I will eventually need to figure out if I am to keep the weight off once I reach goal.

Emotional Eating...

This is something I posted in response to a thread on my (totally awesome) 100+ board on the Weight Watcher's site.  I'm copying it here because it's something I need to think on, explore... and putting it on my blog makes me accountable... it will force me to look at it, to think about it.

I find this really interesting.  A few days ago I read a post about "emotional eating," and I thought to myself, "I don't do that."  

And I don't - not in the way I was thinking about it.  I don't go grab the ice cream or chips or whatever because I'm sad or depressed.  I don't "binge" eat.  I won't polish off a package of Oreos in one sitting because I had a bad day at work.

But reading your post... that has me thinking.  I am VERY picky about my food.  It has to be right, or I won't eat it.  I think my emotions control HOW I eat - as in, I will ignore my hunger signals all day, eat once (and not well), and then get wrapped up in something so I can ignore the hunger signals again.  

I don't have a healthy relationship with food - but for me, instead of it being a comfort or a pleasure, it's something I am almost "angry" about.  Angry that I "MUST" put food in my mouth to survive.  Angry that I "MUST" eat or my blood sugar drops (I'm hypoglycemic, so yeah, not eating is REALLY not good).  Angry that I "MUST" acknowledge signals from my body.  

So I try to ignore it, until it is right in my face, and then to prove I don't care, I eat whatever is at hand... whatever is easy.

Hubby and I have always loved cooking together, but we stopped - the more my back hurt, the less I wanted to do, and so I would eat only when he got home from work, and usually it was take-out. We loved cooking together, but I would often pick at whatever we'd cooked.  Almost resenting the "now it's time to eat it" part.

We're back to cooking together, enjoying that together, and I am STARTING to enjoy eating what I cook.  Bit by bit.  

But I think part of me still resents the need to eat, and I need to figure out why.

Thank you for helping me look at this.

The Meal I Have Trouble With...

My hubby and I really enjoy cooking together, and I love the process of finding recipes, planning the meal, shopping for the ingredients and then making it all come together into something tasty for us to share.  I'm a pretty good cook, as is Zeb, so we really do end up making some fabulous dinners together.

Breakfast is pretty simple, too.  I'm good with a couple of whole grain blueberry waffles, an orange, some apple juice, a yogurt or some cottage cheese, a bowl of cereal with fruit in it, a nice english muffin or some scrambled egg whites with a bit of spinach and feta.  Any combination of some of these things is going to make me pretty happy at breakfast time.  On weekends, we'll sometimes plan something a little more elaborate... and if there's a restaurant meal we're likely to save our WPs for, it'd be a hearty breakfast out at our favorite diner.  Breakfast is easy.

Lunch... lunch is the bane of my existence.  Let me explain a few things about my general eating issues... and let me say up front that "get over it" is a great deal more involved than it might seem on the surface.

1. I do not eat leftovers of 99% of the foods out there.  There are some (rare) exceptions, things that really do taste good (or better) the second or third day... my turkey chili, Zeb's honey mustard ham, the spinach/turkey/ricotta lasagna I made the other night, SOME stews and soups - and that's about it.
   
2. "Lunch time" is usually when I am most immersed in whatever I am doing - working on programming something, a cleaning project, a craft project, a conference call, repairing a database, whatever.
   
3. I've mentioned I have a circadian rhythm sleep disorder - two of them, actually.  Not only does my sleep schedule move around the clock, putting me in bed about 2 hours later each day than I went the day before... but I also have delayed sleep phase syndrome.  I am at my peak in the middle of the night.  My core temperature drops during the day.  This is the opposite of most people.  But because of the first sleep disorder, I am sometimes sleeping through my peak, and awake when my internal clock says it should be sleeping (but can't).  So when I am awake during the day, I have a VERY hard time working up enough energy to get up and fix something to eat... I will often put it off for hours and then find that Zeb is walking in the door looking for dinner.

There are things I really like for lunch... tuna or chicken salad, for example.  Even a nice spinach salad, maybe with some grilled chicken on it.  Sometimes a sandwich.  The problem is, if I make these things ahead of time, I will generally talk myself out of eating them when lunch rolls around.  I convince myself that the food has "gone bad," and I just don't feel like making something else.  It is "too much work."

Tonight, (it is currently 5:11am - middle of MY day) I made a really delicious BLT wrap.  Toasted up a La Tortilla Low-Carb/High-Fiber tortilla, threw a few pieces of bacon in the oven, sliced up some tomato, washed a few pieces of spinach.  Spread Hellmann's light mayo on the tortilla, laid out the other stuff, wrapped it all up and had a really yummy meal.  7.5 points - I only had regular bacon in the house and I used  4 slices since I could "afford" the points today.  It was quite tasty and filling, and I got in a serving of veggies AND whole grain.  

Unfortunately, it's something I am unlikely to eat on a day-awake day - because I won't want to do the prep work.

So yeah, I really struggle with lunch.  I have not (yet) found a solution to my dilemma... but I will eventually. 

Lose For Good!

I realize I don't exactly have an impressive audience yet (though "I" am impressed with them LOL), but today is a really important day in the Weight Watchers world... it's Lose-a-Palooza day, and that means it is time to Lose For Good!

Weight Watchers is donating up to $60,000 for every mention of "Lose For Good" made today on Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare or blogs... and I want to make sure to support that effort!  Weight Watchers is doing so much to help me change my life, I want to do what I can to help change the life of another.  The money will be donated to Share Our Strength and Action Against Hunger.

It's so easy to help... won't you please join in the effort to fight hunger?

"Isn't the Food Supposed to Suck?"

That was my husband's comment tonight, in reference to our dinner.  It was followed a few minutes later by, "I think there was something wrong with this lasagna... it evaporated off of my plate... you better check the pan."  Yup, that's my Zeb... funny guy.

Tonight, we had the Spinach Lasagna Rolls I found on Gina's SkinnyTaste WW's Recipe website.  Admittedly, I doctored them a bit... I added ground turkey I'd browned with some chopped onion and Herbes De Provence seasoning.  I used low fat ricotta, and then only half the container.  I used only about 2/3rds of the spinach the recipe called for, and I used (*gasp*) jarred spaghetti sauce (Classico Four Cheese).  There was enough filling to make 12 rolls, and with the changes I made, it left each roll at 4 points each.

I am NOT a big eater, despite being a fat ass, so one roll was plenty.  We also made garlic crescent rolls (Pillsbury Reduced Fat) which are great - get the regular (reduced fat) crescent rolls, lay them out, give 'em a spritz with your butter spray (we use I Can't Believe It's Not Butter) and sift a little garlic powder on them.  Roll them up, spritz the outside, add a little more powder, and bake.

Fantastic, filling, and 6 points per serving total.  I admit it, I did have two crescent rolls, so mine was 8 points. Zeb had two of the lasagna rolls AND two crescent rolls... 12 points.  He can afford it - he's a guy, he gets more points, he's more active.

Bastard.  *laughing hard*

I also took my very first foodie blog picture!  Yay me!  Too bad I didn't think of taking it BEFORE we'd already snagged our lasagna rolls, but oh well!

Not nearly as "pretty" as Gina's picture on her blog... but O.M.G.-so-tasty!!!  Zeb and I can heat these up for lunch.  Supposedly they'll even freeze well, but I have a feeling they aren't going to last long enough to be frozen.


Tomorrow I'll heat one of these up for lunch, make a small spinach salad to go with it.

Losing weight is supposed to be painful.  You're supposed to be left feeling deprived constantly.  You're not supposed to be eating well AND eating tasty.

Isn't that the prevailing myth?

Isn't that what everyone says?

I'll tell you a secret:  "Everyone" lies.

These... were... fabulous!

Look! A Star!!

See my new pretty?  That's my reward for having lost my first 5lbs on Weight Watchers!  Actually, I lost 7.4lbs this past week, which means I'm only 2.6lbs away from getting a 10lb star.  I am a little pathetically happy about this deal. *grins*

My eleventh day on Weight Watchers is coming to a close and I've got to say, I am truly and genuinely ENJOYING this. So is the hubby, strangely enough.  We'd gotten into a lot of bad habits when it came to food, and in the process, we'd stopped doing something we love - cooking together.

We're a really good team.  Zebby and I fit together like puzzle pieces.  We have a rhythm to our life together, like two instruments in an orchestra that harmonize perfectly.  One of the many activities we've enjoyed sharing in the last nearly 11 years has been cooking.  There's something really kind of beautiful about the way we flow together in a kitchen.

Unfortunately, two things have been taking away from that... the first, is that I put on nearly 50 additional pounds in about 14 months.  That played into the second - my fibromyalgia getting really out of control.  When you spend the majority of your time in pain, the last thing you want to do is get up and "do" something.  Because of this, I was in the kitchen less.  I was also sending him to the store to do most of the grocery shopping.  End result:  we'd stopped cooking together.  We were eating out or getting take out more often than not.  And since I would rarely eat unless he was here to prepare something for me, I would make really BAD food choices when I did finally eat.  That's how you put on a huge amount of weight in a very short time.

I said when I started this blog that I did not want to reveal how much I weigh.  I'm realizing how silly that is.  I weigh what I weigh... and while I am "lucky" to be tall (5'10"), and "lucky" to have a TRULY large bone structure (elbow breadth is 3 1/2", wrist is 8"), which means my poundage doesn't look "as bad" on me as it would on someone with a smaller frame... I'm kidding myself if I think people don't realize how damn fat I really am.  Of course they do... whether I "look" like I weigh less than I "actually" weigh or not, I STILL LOOK FAT!!!

I am also really PROUD of what I am doing right now - so why shouldn't I share that?

So - here's my stats... and I'm going to put them somewhere more obvious so that if someone DOES end up here looking for some inspiration or something, they've got all the facts:

Age: 39 years, 4 months
Height: 5'10"
Starting Weight: 350lbs @ start of WW on September 2nd 2010
Measurements as of September 2nd 2010:

• Elbow breadth:  3 1/2"
• Wrist:  8"
• Neck:  19 1/2"
• Bust:  56 3/4"
• Waist:  58 1/2"
• Hips:  58"
• Right Arm:  19"
• Left Arm:  18"
• Right Thigh:  33"
• Left Thigh:  34"
• Blouse Size:  30/32 or 5xl - a bit baggy, but mentally, I need that
• Pants Size:  28 or 3xl/4xl - ends up fitting the waist but loose in the legs  (a note on my clothing sizes:  Probably NOT a good idea to use them for comparison... I have no fashion sense, no "quality clothing concepts" - if the pants zip and the top is over-sized, I'll wear it.  Beyond that, I have ZERO knowledge about sizing or style.)

Current Weight:  342.6lbs on September 9th, 2010

I plan on only doing measurements once a month, rather than weekly, because I just don't expect to see those numbers changing much from week to week.

One of the things I do to keep myself motivated is to hunt up sites of women who have lost similar amounts on  Weight Watchers.  I find them mostly through the WW's discussion forums, and will spend hours paging through "Before" and "After" pictures looking for someone who started out "like me" and who has ended up where I want to be.  I am hoping to eventually be one of those women who has a site other women haunt... and I am hoping to be able to keep up with providing the information I am always looking for when I view the sites others have made.

I'm very lucky... my husband is 100% on board with me doing this.  I think in some ways, he feels that my weight is somehow "his fault."  When Zeb and I first met, I was still on the fire department.  He LOVES big women, and felt I was too skinny. LOL  So in some ways, he has encouraged me to gain weight over the years, or at least not in any way complained or rejected me while it was happening.  He still finds me incredibly sexy - no, I don't see it either - but HE does... and in the past, my comments about wanting to lose weight have met with a bit of whining on his part.  This time, he is totally on board.

I'm also really fortunate to have a BF cheering me on as well.  He has been tolerantly listening to me blather on about my menu plan, my food choices, Weight Watchers in general.  Really, what guy wants to listen to that sort of thing?  But he does... he knows how unhappy I've been as the weight has poured on, and he knows that I've struggled with Zeb's resistance to my plans to lose weight in the past.  He's also watched me make "BIG PLANS!!!" before, and has seen me let them fall by the wayside.  A few days ago I told him in an email that I am really hoping this time will be different, that I actually believe I can stick with this.  He responded by saying, "You’ve stuck with more aggravating things in your life for lots longer  :::  smirk :::"

He means him. LOL

But he's right.  I have stuck with much more aggravating things in my life for much longer... the weight itself being one of them.

I think it also helps that I know that the people who love me genuinely love me, whether I am fat or thin or somewhere in between.  I have a strong support system.  I have people in my life who will be totally honest with me.  People who truly WANT me around for a very long time.  That helps tremendously.  I can't imagine trying to do this without them, without their love.

I may be doing this for me, but it is more enjoyable and do-able because of them.

Those Foods You Don't Want to Give Up...

We all have them... favorite treats, choice noms, the stuff we're just sure we can't live without.  I've got a bunch of them, and I'm carrying them around with me everywhere I go - in my breasts, waist, hips, thighs, etc.

One thing that attracts me to Weight Watchers is the fact that you don't really have to "give up" everything, you just have to exercise some self-control, and you have to recognize that to have that Twix bar now, you're going to end up being hungry later because you've already spent the points.  Is it worth it?  Sometimes...

The funny thing is, I actually like fruits and vegetables.  I love a really well-made salad, I enjoy the heck out of things like oranges and apples.  I love the taste, texture and crunch of a really good bell pepper.  The problem I've had, in part, with my diet choices has been my teeth.  I have a genetic disorder which has plagued every woman in my birth family who has borne children.  We pop out a rug rat or two, and suddenly our teeth become weak and begin to break.  You'd think this would only happen when eating something hard... try a turkey sandwich.  I lost TWO that way.  It didn't help matters that we seemed to be without dental insurance repeatedly, or that just as we'd start on a "plan" for fixing my teeth, hubby would be laid off and we'd have to start again with a new employer, a new dental plan, a new dentist.

Fat foods = soft.  Healthy foods = crunchy.  Not always of course, and certainly there are exceptions - but try building a food plan of healthy foods when eating salad is a major challenge, not just because of the crunch, but because a) pieces get stuck where they shouldn't or b) you're dealing with varying temperatures within a single salad.  Ever try biting a piece of cold tomato with a broken tooth?  PAIN PAIN PAIN PAIN PAIN!!!

Fortunately, I had all the really bad teeth pulled.  Unfortunately, no sooner was that done we lost our insurance... so I don't yet have my "new" teeth.  It is, however, a lot easier to eat healthy (and crunchy) foods when your mouth isn't full of broken pieces, when you're not afraid every bite is going to cause another break, when you're not wincing with every bite because the temperature of the food is causing the nerves in your mouth to scream.

So I am reconnecting with my love affair for salads, fruits, veggies in general - and loving it.

I'm also wanting to make sure that I don't "miss" anything too badly.  One of my weaknesses - fruit dipped in this stuff:

Definitely a fat food!

Let's take a look at the pertinent values (for WW) shall we?
Serving Size:  2 Tablespoons
Calories:  70
Fat Grams: 3g
Fiber:  0g
=  2 Weight Watcher Points

TWO points for TWO Tablespoons.  What's that?  Enough to dip three strawberries into???

Tonight I decided to have one of the yummy Gala apples I picked up today... and I realized I had a Weight Watchers Vanilla yogurt in my fridge.  I like bananas in vanilla yogurt, so I figured I'd try dipping the apples in the WW yogurt... if it didn't mix well, no harm, I'd eat them separately.

NOT a fat food!

A 6oz serving of WW yogurt is 1 point.  One point.  For SIX ounces.  Imagine my surprise when I realized it tastes exactly like the T. Marzetti fruit dip. EXACTLY like it.  And at 6oz, there was plenty enough to dip every thin slice of my apple, with a few tablespoons left over to nom straight off the spoon.




Do you have any idea how AWESOME that was???

Zeb and I both love cheese.  Zeb loves blue cheese.  You can imagine that snacking on cheese is probably something we'd miss deeply... and honestly, if not for soaking up info from Hungry-Girl almost religiously, I'd have pretty much written off cheese and crackers completely, assuming that we either shouldn't eat it, or we'd be stuck with rubbery, dry, tasteless fat free cheese (is that really even ACTUALLY cheese??).  Thanks to H-G however, I learned about this stuff:

Happy cows = happy noms!

And oh my, you have no idea how incredible this stuff is.  One wedge is one point.  When you first open the package and pull out a wedge, you think to yourself, "what is that?  Enough cheese for one cracker?  Pshaw."  Seriously, it's what I thought.

Now remember, I'm also having a love affair with Kashi brand products.  I've yet to taste anything from them that I don't like... had their Southwest Style Chicken entree earlier today, as a matter of fact.  Yummy!  In particular, I am obsessed with their TLC 7-grain crackers right now.

Crackerlicious!

Fifteen of the little buggers, for 2 points.  And two wedges of Laughing Cow garlic & herb light ends up being a very generous slathering of cheese on each cracker.  Four points total.  Throw in an orange for a point, 1/2 c of Horizon low-fat cottage cheese for 2 points, and you've got a really nice little (and filling!) lunch for 7 points.

Suffice it to say, Zeb and I are both thrilled to find that we're able to nom all sorts of tasty alternatives to the really fattening stuff we've usually been drawn to.  I love that we can eat these things without having to stress over how many points it's going to "cost" us towards our total food consumption for the day.

Another thing I love about WW, and about the Tracker I have access to through my Online program - I can adjust portion sizes as needed, and the points recalibrate to reflect the new portion size.  So while 15 crackers and 2 wedges of cheese is what it takes to fill me today, to keep my body from thinking it is starving (and thus force it to hold ONTO fat) and to make sure I'm not craving food constantly... in a few months, when my points allotment has decreased exponentially (you lose one point for every 10 lbs you go down), I can switch to having 7 crackers and 1 wedge - what would be considered 1/2 a serving, and my points debit automatically adjust to reflect that.

As it is, I'm struggling to consume my alloted points.  For as fat as I am, my actual stomach is oddly small.  I fill up quickly.  I'm trying to make sure there isn't a huge disparity between how many points I'm alloted, and how many I actually consume... otherwise my body won't be convinced it is being fed.  But I'll rest easier when my allotment drops a few points and I don't feel quite so much like I'm eating more than I "should."

Oh yeah, one more nommy deliciousness... I found a recipe in my H-G cookbook for an Outside-In Cheeseburger.  I'm not comfortable posting the recipe... but suffice it to say it is a burger, with the cheese on the INSIDE.  In my case, that's Laughing Cow garlic and herb light.  In Zeb's, it's their light blue cheese.  Oh...my...!!!!  We skipped the buns and condiments, just served the burgers up with a small fresh spinach side salad with Paul Newman's Light Raspberry & Walnut dressing. HEAVEN!!!!  Absolute HEAVEN!!!  We made them using lean (90/10) ground beef from Trader Joe's.  We're going to try them again in a few days using ground turkey instead, just to see how they turn out.

I can't wait.  And I LOVE being excited about food again, without having to feel guilty!

How I Nom...

I'm a "meat and potatoes" kind of gal.  I was born and raised in the Midwest.  My "comfort foods" lean towards thick, hearty, hot and fattening... so I have a hard time conceptualizing making - let alone eating - so many of the Points-friendly dishes I find in cookbooks or online.  I also have a major aversion to fish... and to be honest, I'm just a very picky eater in general.  All of this has made me think that going on Weight Watchers, let alone any other "diet" plan, was going to be a massive struggle of epic proportions.

Zeb... aka the hubby... and I have been gradually introducing ourselves to Weight Watchers for the last month.  By gradually I mean it's gone something like this... tentatively walking into the room, glancing around, spotting our intended target and then circling it... watching its habits, eying it suspiciously, sniffing the air, checking out its shoes... asking a few other people, "hey, do you know WW?  Are they ok?  Trustworthy?  Plotting to take over the universe?"  It has been a process... but this week, we officially walked up, shook hands and introduced ourselves.

And you know what?  WW is much less scary than we'd thought. LOL

I'm a total geek, so anything that feeds into that is a good thing.  WW is definitely geeky, at least in their Online program.  Plugging in my Points, looking up foods, adjusting portion sizes, all in a friendly little GUI with happy little smiley faces that appear when you've eaten your whole grains for the day?  Yup, almost gives me mini-geekgasms.  I've got this whole weird synergy going on with my Tracker... it's a rush when I get to tell it what I've eaten.  I spend way more time intimately connected to that Tracker than is probably healthy, but for right now, it's stirring up excitement and keeping me interested... and more importantly, on track.

I'm also finding that I can eat all sorts of things I assumed I'd have to do without... things I like... things that fit in with "how" I eat and what I'm comfortable with.  I like "snacking" as opposed to sitting down to three set meals a day... and if I'm honest with myself, while the HABIT has been to eat those big meat & potato type meals, it isn't how I LIKE to eat.  It's just how I was raised to think of food and of mealtimes.  Unfortunately, that thought process has led me to where I am today... and that hasn't been working for me so well.

Weight Watchers, by tracking Points, is actually encouraging me to eat the way I actually, physically want to.  It's ok to not plan some big involved meal.  It's ok to nom my way through the day.  It's ok to fill myself up comfortably every two hours instead of stuffing myself every six.  For someone as big as I am, I have a relatively small stomach.  Trying to eat an entire steak and a baked potato?  It's an effort.  I always did it anyway.  I ended up feeling bloated and uncomfortable at the end.  I didn't eat until I was full, I ate until I was done. 

It doesn't have to be that way.  Instead, I'm doing things like waking up and having a bowl of Kashi Strawberry Fields cereal with a banana cut up into it.  Nomming an orange an hour later, with a couple of Spaan meringue cookies (14 of the little suckers is only 2 points - and you don't have to eat them all at once!).  Grabbing a string cheese and some low-fat cottage cheese a few hours after that.  A small salad.  Kashi 7-grain crackers with two wedges of Laughing Cow garlic & herb lite cheese.  A Kashi entree for dinner (yes, I'm having a love affair with Kashi), or a Trader Joe's chicken burrito, or some Trader Joe's mandarin chicken and some brown rice.  I'm eating when I am hungry and only eating enough to keep me from feeling hungry for about 2 hours.

In so doing, I'm staying on plan.  I'm able to stick within my Points.  And most importantly, I'm not feeling as if I am "dieting" at all.

This is working for me - and that's what counts!

Garlic Knots... Mmmmm...

In my endless search and obsession for new recipes I can eat on WW, I found these. An entire batch (12-13 knots) is 12.5 points. So an individual serving is about 1 point if you make 13. That makes these an AWESOME addition to a meal. I'm anxious to pair these up with a yummy Chicken Parm recipe I found in my Hungry Girl recipe book!

Definitely pay that site a visit, or two, or six.  There are a lot more outstanding recipes there, and I love that WW makes it easy to figure out the points.  

Hello world!

My name is Rae... and damn if I don't need to lose some weight.  I'm starting this blog initially just for myself... writing in it will help keep me motivated and involved (I hope).  I know that most of these blogs start off with "I weigh ###lbs, and I want to weigh ###lbs."  But me, I'm a chicken, and I am not ready to tell you how much I weigh.  Denial is not just a river in Egypt. *chuckling*

What I will tell you is my goal weight:  170lbs. Might sound like a lot, but when you consider that I am 5'10" tall, and really do have a rather large bone structure (as well as muscular calves that I swear could crush walnuts), 170lbs is a rather ideal weight for me.  I used to be a firefighter, and that was my normal weight, so that's what I'm shooting for.  Will I make it?  We're gonna find out, aren't we? LOL

I'll also tell you that I've got a long way to go to get there. I expect to be on this journey for the next year or so.  Perhaps longer.  Unlikely shorter.  I'm not going to follow some fad "lose it fast" diet.  I've chosen Weight Watchers... because of all the methods I've looked at, WW seems the most sustainable to me - and let's face it, they have a rather excellent proven track record.

In terms of exercise, I'm limited.  I have a few bad discs in my back, and the weight is making them worse.  Eventually I have to have surgery... but I am hoping that I can be a lot thinner before I have that done.  I also have fibromyalgia... which really sucks all on its own, but when you ALSO actually have a painful injury like screwed up discs, it's just that much worse.  Walking is painful.  Standing at the sink washing dishes is painful. Swimming is not, but I do not have easy access to a pool.  So for now, my exercise method of choice is riding a stationary recumbent bike in my living room.  For me, this is ideal - I can sit on the darn thing for hours at a time if I need to, reading a book or dinking online, and pedal my little heart out as much as I can before taking a break before pedaling some more.

I'll discuss my medical issues more in a future post... for now, I just wanted to get something started.  If Blogger or Google happens to lead someone here, that's great... Hi!  If not, that's ok too... this is for me... anyone else is just along for the ride. ;-)