My First Few Days

I've made it through four and a half days already even though I didn't have a full menu planned out and my kitchen fully stocked like I originally intended. I'm the kind of person who throws in the towel the minute things don't go as planned so that was a big deal for me.

The first day was a little rough. I was hungry and still just wanted something to chew, crunch or whatever. I got past it though. I didn't want to screw up my first day. Those urges got less and less the next couple days. I still feel uncomfortable in those times when I would eat to calm myself or just to feel better, but at least I could recognize those times for what they are and hopefully learn better ways to handle them. My ability to stay in points so far is boosting my confidence.

All the food I've prepared for myself has been delicious thus far(I have a TON of WW cookbooks to help with recipes and ideas). The tactic that has proven to be most useful though, is forcing myself to eat slowly. Taking small bites and throughly chewing, putting my food (or fork) down between bites to drink or talk to my family, that's what's been helping me to feel less deprived during and after meals. My impulse is to shove as much stuff into my mouth as I can, and so by forcing myself to eat slowly I am eating less and giving my body time to feel full.

I also got over another perfectionist issue this week. In the past I would be meticulous about weighing and measuring so that I can calculate exact point values. When I'm home and have the luxury of my food scale and measuring cups that's not so much an issue. When I go out though I would have to estimate not only how much of what I ate, but what I thought an appropriate point value would be. This issue has led to my demise in the past. If I can't be exact I can't deal with counting. I was able to resonably estimate a meal and still feel like I was being true to the program. That was a huge victory.

So I am happy so far with my progress, but I can see how this is a battle that needs to be taken one day at a time. Or rather one meal at a time!

My Weight Watchers Journey

I decided it was time to bite the bullet and seek some professional help!

I knew that I would eventually go back to Weight Watchers one day, but I needed to wait until I was mentally ready to commit to it again. My faith is strong in the program itself. Any time I have followed it in the past, the weight melted off my body rather readily. It teaches you how to eat real food in real life situations. It promotes healthy natural foods (although they do offer prepared foods for those who like that route) and activity. They even address the mental and emotional roadblocks that derail us from our success and how to stay positive.

All common sense things right. I know I should know how to do that all on my own, but there's something about the support of the other people in the meetings, and the motivation the leader provides (if you find a good meeting group which I believe I did!) and the accountability of having someone else measure my progress (I have a hard time keeping myself honest) that makes it all worth it for me.

Part of me is nervous. I am a WW veteran, having tried the program numerous times throughout my life. As I said the program itself is something I can really stand behind, it's myself that I'm less sure of. The last time I did the program was when I started almost 2 years ago. I lost 25 pounds then fell off the wagon (pretty hard I might add). I lasted only 3 months.

That was the time I joined with my mother. She kept going even after I stopped. In a little over a year's time, she lost over 120 pounds and hit her goal. She is now a lifetime memeber, still going to meetings and still keeping the weight off. Like me she had done WW numerous times throughout her life with a certain level of success each time before fizzling out. I want this to be the time where I can make it click for me and keep going the way she did. The last time I tried, I was so determined that time would be my success story. This time I want it to be, but I have the fear that it will end like all the other times did. It's disturbing me that I'm going into this with my self confidence so low, though I suppose it's good that I'm at least doing something.

My Sticker Chart

So the long weekend is over, school officially started and I am ready to get myself moving...literally.

To movitvate myself, I took a lesson from my 4 year old and made myself a sticker chart. My daughter has already taken charge of monitoring my progress and is sweet enough to share her stickers with me for days that I do well!

The goal is to do 20 minutes of activity every day for the next three weeks. Each week I sucessfully complete I will earn a reward (which I will put up on my sidebar somewhere once I figure them out!). The weeks need to be consecutive in order for me to earn the reward for weeks 2 and 3, otherwise I start the count back as week one.

I am also using the chart to monitor my first food goal. My goal for that is simply to eat breakfast every day. Something I have a very hard time with. I figure, start small and build from there.

The goals are simple and basic, yet have been too much for me to master until now. I realize that in order to reach that big picture, I need to start with baby steps and build on them once as I master each one. I chose 3 weeks as my initial starting point because I read somewhere that it takes 3 weeks of continually doing something before it starts to become habit. As each behavior becomes habitual, I can then start to add on. The chart worked like a charm for my daughter, so why not try it for me!! I need to have a place where I can physically see my progress and be accountable!

How do you all keep yourself accountable???

My Gestational Diabetes

So I think it's time to give you all a little more insight as to what I'm all about. Yes, I desperately want to get these 50 pounds off my body. However that's not my only focus. I also want to get healthy, maybe more than than I want to be thin. I am a big fan of natural health and a firm believer that we are what we eat.

During both my pregnancies I developed gestational diabetes. That's when my study into health and nutrition began. Diet alone was enough for me to keep my diabetes under control and my babies healthy. That was my first hand experience that our diets and lifestyle (they made me exercise too) have a profound effect on our health.

When I went for my first appointment at the diabetes center, I was told by the nutritionist (who ironically was a lot fatter than me) not to worry as long as I follow the diet. She told me that most people who end up needing insulin do so because they don't want to be bothered to follow the diet correctly. That was kind of alarming, so I made sure to follow the program (and I do admit it got hard at times). I even took it one step further and started doing a lot of research on diabetes and nutrition. The fat lady at the diabetes center told me about eating the right ratio of protien, carbs and fat at each meal and about eating at certain times and such, but she still propagated an unhealthy way of eating. Somehow I just didn't believe that a Sausage McMuffin was a good breakfast for someone who has made themselves sick by eating crap. Oh, they tried to give me the line that it wasn't my fault that I developed diabetes. That somewhere in my family runs this disease and that's why I have it. And so as I ate my first Sausage McMuffin on the way to work I thought, that's a bunch of BS! Even with the predisposition to the disease, I wouldn't have developed it if I had eaten a diet rich in whole natural foods and went for a freaking walk once in a while. It was my diet of refined carbs and junk food and my couch potato lifestyle that made me fat and made my body unable to metabolize the excess amounts of glucose I was pumping into it.

That was just the beginning of my nutritional crusade. After each kid was born I got on my horse to lose weight. Last year I even had a pretty sucessful bout until I fell off the wagon. We'll get to that part of the story in time. I started slacking on all this, so I really let myself slide. I see a difference in my kids too. My youngest (who's now 2) is already developing my bad eating habits and I can't get her to eat any vegetables at all. My mom says paybacks are a bitch...apparantly I was like that as a child.

Anyway, I know that taking in less calories than I burn will yield a net weight loss. That's not enough for me. I am looking for a diet (lifestyle or whatever you want to call it) that will address my body's health concerns and not only allow me to lose weight, but also improve my overall health. So come back and visit if you are at all interested in a natural way of losing weight. I will share not only my personal story, but any valuable information I learn along the way! And of course I would love to hear from anyone else who has information or experiences to share!

My Cake

I succumbed to the cake...and the sausage and peppers and the bread and the chips and dip.

My in-laws came for a visit yesterday. It was a fairly pleasant visit, yet there's always some underlying stress associated with them (could you imagine, stressful in-laws!) And I am a hard core stress eater, so not a good combo.

Looking back on my behavior I could see how I nervously shoved food in my mouth all day long. Some people have a drink to calm the nerves, I just eat. It's really terrible. It's like a compulsion and I am helpless to it.

The very worst part though is that once I get into a mode like that, I go into a tailspin. I just want more even though the stress is gone. Maybe now I'm stressed out because I ate so much and that stress is making me want to reach for more food to comfort myself. Food is my drug.

So I am frustrated today because I don't know how to break this. Maybe I should be focusing on my exercise first and once that falls into place I'll be more inclined to really focus on my diet.

How do normal people deal with stress?

My Goals

My weight at the beginning of this venture was a whopping 160.2 pounds (and I am only 5'2, ACK!). I'm only 3 days into my journey, but decided to weigh in just to see if I've made any progress. According to my scale I am down 3 pounds. That was a pleasant surprise, YAY ME!

I did it by walking, drinking lots of water and trying to watch my portions. I'm proud of my progress, but it was a very hard 3 days. Last night I wanted cake. REALLY badly. Normally sweets aren't my thing, but last night I had such a strong craving. Luckily we didn't have anything in the house and my husband was home so I didn't want to sneak out on a food run (I actually do that sometimes, it's really terrible). Anyway, I did buy myself Cracker Jacks today though. They are sweet enough to satisfy my sugar craving without adding so many calories. I think I remember a bag being only about 2 points on Weight Watchers (WW). As long as it doesn't make me crave more I'm good!

So lets see, I think I should set some goals. Ultimately I would like to get back down to the 110-115 range. That's a long way off though! So my first goal would be to lose 10% of my current weight (stole that from WW as well!) which would be 16 pounds. Once I reach that, I will make a new "mini goal".

My Introduction

Where do I even begin???

Well, I'm a short Italian chick in my early 30's with about 50 pounds to lose. A hard task considering I grew up with the mentality that whatever you ate it wasn't enough, and what I did eat was a ton of pasta, cheese and bread. I hated vegetables or anything even remotely considered "diet friendly". My family breaded and fried just about anything they could and to this day I still love fried foods and refined carbs.

I wasn't always this way though. It wasn't until I became an adult that I started packing on the pounds. My activity level became non existent and eating became sport. As life started to get more stressful, food became my comfort. I also inherited those great Italian mother genes which enable me to gain weight just by thinking about or looking at food. Not exactly the super power I dreamed about having as a kid!

And of course it doesn't help that I'm so short. 50 pounds spread across a tall person doesn't look quite as bad, but on a short person it looks more like 100 pounds because it's all condensed. It's like a mean optical illusion!

So anyway, here I am...short, fat and ready to take back my body. I will prevail in "My Big Fat Battle!"